You Play the Black & the Red Comes Up Up (3 page)

And that's the way I came to California, going down that road toward Los Angeles and suddenly not feeling tired any more but as if I were dr
unk and walking on air and feel
ing I would soon get Dickie back or I'd tear the whole town apart and throw it in the ocean. That's the way I felt.

TOUGH TO TAKE

When the woman told me Lois wasn't there I stood on
the doorstep, and all of a sudden I felt so bad I like to sit on the step and cry.
I knew she was telling the truth somehow, but I wanted her to be lying.

"Well, let me come in, will you?" I said. "I'm Lois's husband and I've just got in from Oklahoma, and I want her to come back and get in gear with me again. She ought on account of we've both got a right to the kid."

"It won't do you any good to come in, because they're not here. They've gone away."

"Well, where've they gone away to?"

"They've gone to San Diego to stay with some friends."

"Whereabouts in San Diego?"

"I'll see if I can find the address," she said.

She went away, and after a long time she came back again to the little peephole like they have in all doors of California houses.

"It's 137 3/4 Las Olas Drive," she said. "They're staying with some friends of Phyllis's. But don't tell them I told you the address, because I don't want no trouble. I don't say but what Lois is wrong, but I don't want to get mixed up in it."

"Okay," I said. "I won't make any trouble."

Then she shut the trap door and I went down the street and sat under a date-palm on the curb and I like to have died I was so low. I'd counted so much on seeing Dickie that I'd lasted out, and now I felt I couldn't last out any more. I felt so bad that finally I had to talk to myself like I used to in the ring when I was taking it. So I said:

"Come on, be a man and get up on your feet! Just because you didn't get it your own way, don't sit on your can! Get on your feet!"

I went on that way, calling myself everything I could think of until I got so sore I could get up again. But I couldn't think and I couldn't feel my feet when I started walking, so then I knew I had to get something to eat.

I went to a drive-in hamburger stand, but I found my money was gone. I'd had about a dollar fifty left and it was gone. I guess that was how Big John had got back at me. He'd had someone lift it while I was asleep. Some of those hoboes are so clever they c
an pinch your socks without tak
ing your shoes off, and you never know it.

So I didn't get anything to eat and I started off down the pike toward the shore, hardly knowing what I was doing; but by God I was determined to get to San Diego somehow and get Dickie back.

It was down on Route 101 that goes along the shore that I first met Quentin Genter. By that time it was dark and I wasn't even bothering to thumb the cars any more, because very few people will stop after dark anyhow, and I looked so much like a bum that nobody had even slowed down all afternoon.

So I didn't even thumb this car and it went down the pike a way; but then it came back in reverse and this bird told me to hop in. I hadn't even asked him for a lift.

The fellow driving looked somewhere around forty or fifty. You couldn't tell. He had a white beret cap and white flannel trousers and a blue coat with big pearl buttons, and he had bare feet and sandals. He told me he was Quentin Genter, the movie director.

"Don't tell me you've never heard of me," he said.

"Well, I don't live round here," I said.

Then he laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. It wasn't kidding. I could tell he was really tickled.

I sized him up as a funny bird. He didn't seem to mind me being lousy dirty, or anything, and he kept looking at me and laughing like he was very pleased with me. He had a funny laugh. His mouth would laugh, only his eyes stayed like they were—very sober. His eyes were blue but sort of white right in the center.

He asked me where I was going, and I told him San Diego.

"Oh, that's a pity," he s
aid. "I wish you were going far
ther
. I'm going to Caliente. I need a little excitement. I wish I had someone to go down with me."

"I couldn't, mister. Look at these clothes."

"Oh, I've got lots of clothes back there in the suitcase," he told me. "More than I ever need. I have more of everything than I'll ever need more clothes, more money, more brains, more genius, more friends, more sweethearts. I'll pay all the bills."

"I can't, mister. I've got to go to San Diego."

"What for?"

"To find my wife. She left me. She's in San Diego."

"Oh, don't worry about that. There are lots of wives."

"Yeah, but she has my kid. He's a swell kid."

"A little boy, hey? Of course, then, you're right. What did she leave you for?"

"I don't know. She said I was cruel."

"And were you?"

"I don't think so. Only once I slapped her over the fanny—it was a joke, like, as I was passing. We were in the restaurant. I slapped her and she slipped and cut her forehead on the edge of the stove. But it was an accident."

"All women should be slapped on the fannies," he said.

He seemed to get a big bang out of that.

He stepped on the gas suddenly, and we went sky- hooting along. I hated to see a car treated like that. It was a swell car. I can't stand seeing machines treated rough, but I didn't say anything. After a while he slowed down again. He began asking me about getting to California by freight. He was very educated and polite and interested. I guess being hungry made me shoot off my mouth plenty. I was telling him everything I knew and giving my right name. All of a sudden he stopped the car. He got a bottle of whisky out of his bag and made me take a shot. Then we drove to a restaurant and I had a steak and French fried and coffee. Then, back in the car, we had another drink. I began to get so's I didn't know what I was doing. He didn't drink. He just kept pouring it into me. We got to San Diego and I kept saying, "Remember, 137
³
/4 Las Olas Drive." That's the one thing I kept holding onto in my mind. He said he'd drive me there, and somehow he did find it. I said I was taking him out of his way but he said he wanted to see me get there.

He waited at the curb while I knocked at the door. It was a little bungalow, and the door had one of those little trapdoor peepholes. Someone looked through it and saw me. It was Phyllis, Lois's cousin. She didn't say anything. She just ran back inside. I kept knocking but no one would come to the door. I felt sick.

It was tough to take, after that trip over the mountains and everything, and going hungry. It was double-tough. I guess I went haywire, because I started to kick the door in. That got some action. A sailor opened the little trap and said:

"What the hell do you think you're doing there?"

I said, "I'm kicking this goddam door in and after I do that I'm going to kick you in, too. Open up. Come on, open up!”

I got to shouting, I was so tired and so mad, and the movie director was honking his horn and yelling, "Bravo! Bravo!"

Then Phyllis came back and looked through the peephole. I told her I'd stop if she'd tell Lois to come to the door. She went back in and I waited. They didn't do anything. I knew they were stalling for time. I kicked the door again, but I couldn't break it. Then I went round the back. They had all the lights off, and I tried a kitchen window.

It was while I was at the back that I heard the police car screaming, and I knew they'd stalled for time while the police got there.

I heard the movie director shouting. His voice was funny, like he was yelling in a whisper.

He was saying, "He's a huge brute, officer. He's over six feet tall, and he's fully armed. He has a Tommy gun."

And then I heard Lois's voice. She shouted:

"He's round the back, officer. Arrest him. He deserted from the Marines three years ago. He's a deserter."

I heard them coming and I ran down the back and downhill over the fields. I was feeling bad, getting so near Lois and then her pulling that dirty trick and telling about me deserting. I had only done it because she kept after me and kept saying she wouldn't marry me unless I'd take off the uniform and go over the hill. And now she was using that against me.

I kept thinking,
That's the way things go,
and all the time running down the hill. I kept running till I hit the pike. Then I went north, going along the ditches and hitting up into the hills until I was clear of San Diego. I knew that town was too hot.

What with everything I felt pretty low. I don't think I'd ever felt quite as bad before, I kept on going up and never stopping, until behind me I could see San Diego lying down below with the street lights pretty and glimmering like beads and the lights of the battle-wagons lying out in the harbor with their blinkers going. I waited up there and hopped a truck into San Pedro. Then I kept on going out of that town, too, and walked till nearly morning. I was just about out on my feet and I don't know what I did after that.

TEN BUCKS FOR A STUNT

W
hen I woke up I was in the middle of a field and some Japanese truck farmers were looking at me, the women little and bandylegged with their skirts kited up to their knees, and the sun just beginning to get warm through the mist.

There was nothing to do but move on somewhere. I was so hungry I could hardly feel it any more. I was in terrible shape. I hadn't shaved in a week, and I'd washed only once. I didn't know where I should head for, so I just kept on going north feeling so miserable I wanted to die.

Middle of the afternoon I sat down on the sands in a little town and watched the kids in bathing. It got late, and I knew I'd have to figure out some way
to eat. I wasn't hun
gry any more, but I was feeling daffy, so I knew I ought to eat.

As I sat there a fellow came and sat down on the beach. I watched him. He took off his pants and shirt. He had a bathing-suit underneath. He lay on the sand, getting a tan. He lay on his face peeking at the women sitting on the sand with the kids. I could see him looking through his hands sideways, pretending he wasn't. But I knew he was.

I went over and hit him up for a dime for some coffee, but I truly didn't care whether he said yes, no, or kiss my neck. I didn't care about it any more. He said he had no change, so I went back and lay down. After a while he came over and asked me if I wanted to make some money.

"On what?" I asked.

He looked at me a long time.

"Would you do anything for money?" he asked.

"Pretty near anything," I said. I didn't care.

"There's ten bucks in it for you if you'll go through with a stunt."

"What kind of a stunt?" "A holdup."

"A holdup?" I said. "What do you think, I'm nuts?"

"Well, this isn't really a holdup," he said.

"I get it. It isn't a holdup but it is."

"That's right. I'll tell you how it is."

He had a long story about how he was a messenger for some gambling-houses. They had them on the shore front there—roulette wheels going full blast and wide open, only they had some trick to the law that proved it wasn't real gambling. But it was gambling just the same.

"So what," I said.

"So this. Round one-thirty in the morning I take the money up to the night deposit at the bank. What I've got to have is a fake holdup where someone can maybe see it. I've got it all figured. You stop me, see, and take the bag. Then you run. I'll give you lots of chance to get a good start. Then I'll yell."

"And what do you get out of it if I get the money?"

"I've got that figured out. I'll show you a garden where I want you to throw the money. It's in an old empty house. Then I'll pick it up later, after the noise quiets down."

I began to think of all the flaws in it.

"What if the police or somebody find it before you do?"

"Then no one is hurt. They'll think the holdup man got scared and ditched it. It'll help out my story."

"That's so. But how do you know I won't double-cross you and keep right on going with the money?"

"Because," he said, "I'll have a gun and if I see you go past the yard without ditching the bag, I'll let you have it."

"Stout feller," I said. "But say, if you have a gun how come they won't ask you why you didn't use it anyhow?"

"I got that figured out. Because as I pass the yard I'll throw my gun in there, and then I'll say later you had a gun and got me unawares and took mine from me as you were holding me up."

He seemed to have everything figured out. He sat there in the sun, waiting.

"Well, what do you say?" he said.

I told him I had to think about it. He seemed to have it worked out to perfection. I was trying to figure out where the catch was.

"Look," I said. "How come they let you carry so much money?"

"Don't ask so many questions," he said. "Will you or won't you?"

I kept thinking somehow he wasn't on the level with me, but I couldn't find out why. And I was crazy for something to eat.

"Okay," I said finally. "I don't give a damn what happens to me anyhow. Give me the ten so's I can get a square meal. Like I am now I couldn't run a block if fifty cops were after me."

He didn't want to do that but he couldn't see any way round it, so he gave me the ten, and then he pulled on his pants and shirt and told me to follow him, only walking a hundred feet behind. When he got to the comer where I was to hold him up, he'd light a cigarette; and when he got to the place where I was to throw the bag, he'd throw the cigarette there. That was the signal we fixed up. But he said I was to be sure not to speak to him in town, in case anyone should see us.

When it came time for the holdup, I wished I'd never had anything to do with it. But I'd taken the guy's ten and I'd had a meal. The meal was what made me feel okay and not wanting to pull anything like this—but I had to play square. He'd paid for the meal.

So I stood on the corner, and first I'd say I wasn't going to go through with it, and then I'd decide I might as well. And finally I decided I'd see. If any cops or anything showed, I'd push off and leave the town. But if it was all quiet, I'd go through with it.

And then, right on the dot of 1:30, he showed up, coming up the hill from the shore front. The town was all quiet. Way down on the comer there were a couple of guys in a car trying to pick up two girls. I could see them by the street light. The girls were kidding and giving the Johns a stall. It was perfect. They were just close enough to see the holdup, but not close enough to worry us.

I watched him coming up the hill toward me, swinging the bag and looking innocent. I stood back in the doorway and then I couldn't see him, but I could hear his feet, clear in the night. Then, right when he was by the doorway, I stepped out. I said, "Stick 'em up!" but I was laughing. I poked my finger out like a gun, and stuck it in his side. I was laughing, but he looked so scared you'd thought it was a real holdup.

"Okay, you zombie," I said. "Let's have it."

But he didn't offer to give me the bag. He seemed like he was struck slap-happy by what was happening. So I said, "Come on, you're standing on your foot," and then I grabbed the bag and lit down the street. I hadn't gone quite as far as I figured he ought to have let me get before he yelled:

"Holdup! Holdup! Police! Police!" He yelled it plenty loud once he got started.

I could just hear my own footsteps tearing down the street, and my breath coming. I wanted to get rid of the bag.

And then I heard the police car come roaring round the comer.

It was just my luck, anyhow. No police had showed up all night, and now they'd come just at the wrong time. They started the siren, and I could hear the whistles going.

Then someone cut loose with a gun and the bullets went skipping past. I looked back, and there, not twenty feet behind me was the guy who'd faked the holdup. He had his gun out, and he was firing at me. That was the kind he was. Now the police were wise, he was trying to bump me off.

And that's the thing I hadn't figured out: that he'd know if I were caught I might spil
l the whole story. But he'd fig
ured it. I hadn't, but he had. He'd figured that if anything did go wrong, he'd still have the gun and he could croak me, so I couldn't tell the police he'd faked the holdup with me. He'd figured that out, but I hadn't. And there he was
tr
ying to knock me off.

All I could think was:
You d
irty bastard! Oh, you dirty bas
tard!
But I didn't say it; I was just thinking it, and keeping on running like my lungs would catch on fire. And then I heard a noise, spilling, behind me; someone falling, and a gun clattering. I looked round, and there was the guy I'd held up, rolling on the pavement.

I ran on, right past the yard. I didn't throw the bag in. I kept thinking,
All right you dirty bastard. You city-slicked me. So I'll city-slick you.

So I didn't throw the bag in the yard. I turned up a side street. I could hear the police car siren. I kept on running and slung the bag up into an acacia tree. A few doors up I saw a beer joint open. I went right in. I couldn't have run any farther or I'd have keeled over. I was out on my feet, but I managed somehow to walk over to a woman sitting in a booth. She was alone but there were two glasses and a pitcher of beer on the table. I walked right over and sat down opposite her.

"Hello, big boy," she said.

She was boiled. You could tell that right away. She kept blowing upward past her nose onto her forehead to keep her hair back. I sat there, hurting inside my lungs and my belly. I couldn't speak.

"It's just a little bit hot in here," she said.

She was plenty drunk.

I sat there trying not to pant. I took a big breath and drank what beer there was left. I drank it but it only made me shorter-winded.

"Oh, you drank Pat's beer," she said.

I knew I'd have to do something. I was listening for the cops outside.

"Who's Pat?" I said.

"She's my girl friend," she said. She giggled like a kid. "Her kidneys is no good. But 'at's all right, big boy. You're my boy friend, ain't you?"

"Sure," I said.

I was listening for the police. I could hear the car siren and then the cops shouting on the street, and somebody yelling, "He went in there!"

I poured another glass of beer from the pitcher, and lifted it to hide my face. Out of the comer of my eye, I saw the cops come in. They came tearing in, three cops in khaki uniforms, with their guns ready.

I didn't make a move, because I knew if I tried it my knees would cave in on me.

They made a dash right for the back of the hall. I had to get up and look round the booth. Everyone else was standing and looking. It would have looked funny if I hadn't. All of a sudden I saw a fellow in the back of the room light out and go head-first through the window. The cops went after him.

Right off I figured I'd better get moving; only just then the other woman showed up. Anyhow, I couldn't have walked a block, the way I felt.

This other woman was the same kilter as the first— plumpish and about thirty-five and they'd both decided to be blondes. They were both slopped to the gills. I figured I would be safer there than out on the street alone.

"This is my girl friend, Pat," the first one said. "Pat, this is my old boy friend. We used to know each other back in Chicago—think of that."

They were both drunk as a ringtailed filly. Neither one knew what it was all about, and since no one else seemed to have seen me come in I figured I was just as safe with them as anywhere else. So I just kept them talking.

They were both from Camden, New Jersey. They told me they'd lived in the same apartment house, and they'd become friends. Their husbands had become friends, too. Now both the men had gone to Reno to get divorces. The husbands had sent the girls on to the Coast for a vacation while they got the divorces. It all seemed fixed up nice and friendly.

We stayed there, drinking beer, until they were both rolling. They began to argue.

"This is my boy friend. He's
my
boy friend," the first kept saying. "He's going to take me home."

"Where'm I gonna sleep?" Pat asked. She couldn't keep her eyes straight.

"You call up the Walt Whitman and order a suite," the other kept saying.

They were both so drunk they didn't know what they were doing, so we blew. They had a Buick outside, a swell new Buick. They were too drunk to drive, so I got the keys away from them and they told me how to take them home. They'd keep saying, "Now round the next corner—no. No, that's wrong. Go back two blocks, then round the corner." I'll tell you, if I hadn't been so dead on my feet, it would have been funny.

We finally got to the place down on the beach front. I had to lug them up somehow to the apartment.

"Look, we'll both sleep in Pat's bed, and you stay in my bed," the first one said.

I said I'd beat it, but they both started yelling. So I figured anyhow I didn't want to be out on the streets that night— me with my clothes like a bum's—the same working clothes I'd walked off the shift in back at the zinc smelter—and my week's growth of beard, and feeling like I'd pass out if I walked one more step.

So I stayed there.

That's how come I took up with Mamie Block—it was on account of that guy and the holdup and ducking the cops. That's how I took up with her.