No Promises in the Wind (3 page)

Joey looked scared. Petted as he'd always been, he still hadn't wholly escaped Dad's mean moods that year. “Are you going to tell on me, Josh?” he asked.

I shook my head. “There's enough trouble in our house without adding to it. Just don't do it again. Just don't
ever
do a thing like this again.”

Even in what I felt was justifiable anger, my words struck something inside me. “A thing like this” meant feeding a starving animal, and I was making Joey feel that he had committed a crime in being compassionate. Once I had been as eager as he was to feed every stray animal that came near us. It was strange what poverty and fear of hunger could do to a sense of decency.

I guess my voice softened a little. “Come on, Joey, let's go inside. I won't say anything about this.”

We went inside to desolation. Mom was lifting boiled potatoes from the pan to a serving dish which she placed upon the table. Nothing else was there except glasses of milk at Kitty's place and at Joey's and mine. There was a cup of coffee at Dad's place, nothing at Mom's. Dad stood in front of the chair where Kitty was sitting, his face dark and forbidding. Kitty was crying.

“I tried, Daddy,” she was saying. “I tried so hard. I wanted that job more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. I was so scared that I just went to pieces. I couldn't remember my shorthand, and my hands shook so that I couldn't do the typing test. You've got to believe me, Daddy, I tried—”

“Well, you didn't try hard enough, my girl, and get that into your head right now. Your mother and I have spent good money putting you through high school, giving you a chance to learn this stuff so you could make a living. You'll go down to the Loop tomorrow and you'll try about a hundred times harder than you tried today or you needn't—”

He stopped himself suddenly and sat down at the table, looking as desperate as I'd ever seen him. Kitty sobbed. It was awful.

I had never known Dad to be mean to Kitty. She was the child of his Elzbieta, the young wife who had died in Poland when Kitty was born. Mom had told me many times about the frightened little girl Kitty had been when Dad sent for her to come to this country and to a new mother. I guess Dad and Mom had worked hard in those days to bolster Kitty's confidence with love and understanding.

“You must understand, Josh,” Mom had told me once when I thought Kitty had been treated with more consideration than I had. “You must understand that Dad is terribly proud of you. You're a son, and Dad is a man who wants sons. But sometimes he's afraid of showing all he feels for you—he'll lean over backward to show his girl-child that he's just as proud of her. He'll even go so far that it seems he's setting her up above you, but it's not so. You'll have to understand this thing in Dad's nature.”

That night as Kitty cried I wondered if Dad was capable of loving anyone.

It was only a few minutes until he turned on me. “And where have
you
been until nearly dark?” he demanded. “Why is it you don't get home after school to help your mother?”

“I was practicing,” I answered shortly, expecting this admission to bring more wrath down on me, but Mom quickly interrupted. “I gave him permission to stay after school, Stefan; he needed to practice for the assembly program next week.”

He didn't say anything after that; he just sat huddled in his chair, staring at the plate in front of him.

We were all silent for a long time. Joey kept his eyes lowered and ate very slowly. I felt pretty sure that he understood why I had chosen to say nothing to Dad about the nickel's worth of milk that had gone to a hungry cat.

Then I did something that called forth more wrath than Joey's gift to the cat would have done. It was thoughtless, of course, but I was always hungry, and many times at the supper table I had asked the same question: “Are there any more potatoes, Mom?”

Dad turned on me as if I had struck him. “No, there aren't any more potatoes, and if you haven't had enough, that is just too damned bad. Do you think your paltry little job gives you special privileges to eat when everyone else at the table is hungry, too? Do you realize that your mother ironed all day to buy the food set before us, that
she
never asks for second helpings?”

Mom tried to stop him. She said, “Stefan, Stefan, has it come to this? Are we watching what one another swallows?”

He got up then and stalked outside. Kitty ran up to her room, and Joey went outside to sit on the steps. Mom and I sat alone at the table. She didn't cry—I guess she was long past crying. She just sat there without speaking, and I sat looking at her and wondering.

She had always been so pretty, so young, until the past two years. Now she looked old, although actually she was only thirty-six. I wondered how she could stand up in the face of all these troubles. I had my life at school, my music. Mom no longer had the music she loved—just an ironing board all day and a husband who made life miserable for his family when he came home at night.

“A great guy, Mom, a real great guy. Someone I must always look up to—is that what you're going to tell me?”

“Do you know what he's been through today, Josh? He's stood in line from seven-thirty this morning until five tonight to get into a factory over on Western Avenue. He didn't have a bite to eat at noon, and only coffee and bread this morning—”

“That's all you've had too, isn't it?”

She ignored that. “He was fourth in line when they closed the window at the employment office. Can't you understand what that does to a man, Josh? Dad has always been able to feed us well, to clothe us and give us a good home. Now he's at bay. He's cornered and desperate.”

“All of which gives him a right to hate Kitty and me.”

“Josh, he doesn't hate either of you. He's always been tender with Kitty, and underneath his rough ways, he's so proud of you. If only you could understand how proud he's been ...”

I was almost as angry with her as I was with him. “Do you know any more nice little stories, Mom? Do you know any more pretty speeches to make me love my dear old dad?” I got up and walked around the table to stand directly in front of her. “Listen to me, Mom. You heard the way he talked to us. You know that I can't make a move without having him bellow at me. And yet, in your book, he's still someone I must be patient with, someone I must love and honor—is that right?”

She looked at me steadily as I glared down at her. “When a woman sides with her children against her husband, a marriage and a family are all in ruins, Josh. Your father is crazed with fear and terror. I'll stand by him no matter what his son says about him.”

“Then I don't think there's any place here for me. I'd better get out on my own. Isn't that right, Mom?”

I had never seen such suffering in her face as I saw then, but there was a hardness inside me that made me callous to that suffering. I repeated my question: “It's time I got out, isn't it, Mom?”

She nodded; at least it seemed she did. It was an almost imperceptible movement. “You're forcing me, Josh; you're driving me to say a thing that kills me. But I guess you're right. There's nothing here for you, no food, no jobs. And you and your father—it's better that you be apart before there's a sharper tragedy than we've yet known. I guess you're right. You're a strong boy; you're bright. Maybe you can find something better than what we have here.”

She had said it. If I wanted to wallow in self-pity, I could say that both my father and mother had rejected me, had turned me out on my own. The world of that depression year lay ahead of me. If I licked it, fine; if I didn't, there wouldn't be anyone who cared.

But I wasn't nearly so desolate as I tried to convince myself that I should be. Actually I was suddenly filled with excitement, with an eagerness to get away, to break all the ties of home and to leave Chicago behind me forever. Plans began growing in my mind as I ran down the front steps past Joey and into the street. I could hardly wait. I was breathless when I reached the drugstore and sat down on the curb in front to wait for Howie.

Howie
was a little late in joining me. He'd spent a half hour rummaging through a pile of crates which some grocery company had dumped on a vacant lot; it had been a half hour well spent, though, for he'd beaten the rats to an orange, only half decayed. He cut out the bad part with his pocketknife and divided what was left between us, smiling his big smile, full of pleasure that he was able to give me a treat. I wondered if Joey's cat had been as grateful for her pan of milk as I was for that bite of orange.

After a minute I told Howie of my plans. “I can't take it any longer,” I told him. “I'm hittin' the roads, and I hope I never see Chicago again. Or my dad. Or”—bitterness rolled up like a fist and pounded inside me—“or my mother either,” I added. “She's all for the old man. Well, I'll clear out. They can't be any happier to get rid of me than I am to be through with them.”

Howie shrugged. I suppose my family difficulties seemed rather bland to him. Then he answered as casually as if I'd suggested walking around the block. “Well, I guess I'll be goin' with you, Josh.”

“But what about your mother?”

Howie's eyes could get icy. “Are you tryin' to be funny?” he asked.

“No. I just want to be sure that someone isn't going to set the cops on the trail of two runaways.”

“Well, be at ease.”

We were silent for a minute. Then I said, “We can make it, can't we, Howie?”

He came out of his icy mood into a gay enthusiasm as if he'd done a mental handspring. “Of course we can make it. You know, in a way we're a couple of the luckiest guys around here because we've got something that people want. No matter how hard times are, people still want music. And we've got it, Josh. We're a notch or two above just ‘pretty good,' and you know it. Well find some place—a speakeasy, a restaurant, a dance hall—some place where people will pay to hear the kind of music we make.”

I felt excitement growing in me. “We'll head for the smaller towns, Howie. Chicago's too big and ugly—Chi—cago's too close to my old man. We'll head for the smaller towns that maybe aren't hit so hard.”

“Right. The smaller towns. West. Maybe south and west where the winters won't be so long. Lord, I've been wantin' to see the West all my days. We'll pick us out an empty boxcar—”

We were feverish with our plans. We talked excitedly, interrupting one another with new ideas. Nothing seemed impossible during that hour when Howie and I sat on the curb and made our plans.

Then there was suddenly a distraction. I had paid no attention to the shadowy figure of a boy approaching until he stopped and stood before us. It was my brother.

“What are you doing here, Joey?” I asked gruffly.

“I'm going with you, Josh,” he said as quietly as Howie had spoken an hour before.

“How do you know I'm going anywhere?”

“I know you're going to leave home—I heard you tell Mom. And you listen to me, Josh. I'm going with you.”

“And you listen to me, Joey. You're going to do nothing of the sort. You're too young. You couldn't keep up with guys our age—you've got sense enough to know that.”

“Howie, make him let me go with you.” Joey turned away from me. His voice pled with Howie. I think I knew at that minute what the decision would be.

Joey knew what he was doing when he turned to Howie. This was his friend, and he knew it. They had often sat on the school steps during late afternoons in summer when no one was around, and Howie had shown Joey how to pick out a few chords on the banjo. Sometimes he'd ask Joey to sing and he'd make his banjo sing too, and their faces would be all shined up with delight. Howie was kinder to Joey than I was, more patient, more respectful of Joey as an individual.

He looked at me when Joey made his plea. “Why can't he go with us, Josh?”

“He just can't. He wouldn't be able to keep up with us. He'd be a nuisance, and you know it. We've made our plans, Howie, and I think they'll work. But not if we have to have a kid along.”

“He can sing,” Howie said as if to himself. “He's got a good, clear voice, a little off-pitch now and then, but nice. Lots of people will pay to hear a little kid sing who wouldn't notice older ones. Joey just might do all right for himself.”

“I've told you, Howie, he can't go. I won't let him. And that's final.”

“Maybe you and me could go it alone, Joey. Let old Josh stay here and boss people around if that's what he likes to do. You and me might get ourselves a lot of loose change if we practiced a little and got into the right spot.” He grinned at Joey, and my brother grinned back in triumph. For a minute I was furious with both of them, but even in that minute it struck me that if some artist could paint those two faces, both of them thin from too scanty meals during the past two years, but both of them bright with laughter—if some artist could have caught them at that minute, he could have made a picture that was really something.

So it was settled, and late that night Joey and I crawled out of our room with an old cardboard suitcase full of clothing, the remnants of a tattered blanket, and all the matches I could find. Matches, I felt, were very important. I had read a story somewhere of an expedition that appeared to be all set, everything packed and ready. Then it smashed, all because one little item had been forgotten. No matches. I hunted around and collected every one I could find.

I was too excited to think about how grave a step we were taking. If I thought of Mom and Dad at all, it was with anger which I sought to fan in order to keep up my courage. Nothing mattered except getting away.