Reinhart in Love (57 page)

“And then I destroy everything with a massive failure of judgment,” he answered. “I realize, Carlo, that your most ferocious criticism of me has been too sympathetic. Any resentment I have shown against you is sheer bravado. You have given me every opportunity to display the—uh—stuff that I am made of and—”

“Oh for Christ's sake,” said Reinhart.

Splendor blushed after his fashion, which was necessarily mystical: a shadow moved across his eyes.

“Do you or do you not want to hear about the disaster?” he asked with sudden asperity.

“Then get it over with!” bawled Reinhart, as the Gigantic hurled them around a corner and wallowed for half a block on its soft suspension.

Splendor sneered faintly and gestured with his thumb like a gas-station attendant indicating the direction of the men's toilet. “It would be superfluous now. We are there.”

Reinhart saw they had indeed reached the West Side, the recent corner having been that of the drugstore and the next being, so said the signpost, an ingress into Mohawk Street. He took it to the left, then had to brake sharply to avoid precipitating them into a horde of dark-skinned people that filled the roadway.

Splendor leaped out of the vehicle before the crowd could surround it. “Make way here for the duly appointed officials,” he pompously proclaimed, becoming grim of aspect, and raised his right arm like a baton.

Reinhart left the wheel leering hysterically in every direction at once, still in ignorance but determined to reveal neither that nor the peculiar despair which it caused him to suffer. But he moved slowly and a number of Negro children reached the door of the car before he emerged from it. They stared at him with paralytic curiosity. “Excuse me,” he said, for to his mind a child deserved quite as much courtesy as an adult.

“Tell them,” said Splendor, beyond the hood, “that—Oh, I shall.” He strode back to the children.

“I will personally,” he addressed that assemblage of round black eyes, “put in jail for twenty years that boy or girl who
touches
this car; and I will know who does it even though my back is turned, because of a secret electric eye which takes a picture of whoever approaches this automobile and sends it to the police.” Reinhart would have liked to see him wink, and a kid or two jeer, but all played it so straight that there was no telling who hoaxed whom, and Reinhart had no faith that his hubcaps would still be there when he returned.

“Now, Carlo,” said Splendor with no change of tone, “try to keep control of yourself. What is, is. And what will be, will be.”

At their approach the crowd broke like water before a boat. Splendor marched on austerely, but Reinhart nodded and smiled at as many individuals as he could pick out. He loathed and feared masses of humanity and always tried to reduce them to their components. Thus he would have plunged into the yawning pit had not his authoritative friend seized him.

Nevertheless he stayed very calm, and asked: “Isn't it rather larger than necessary for a sewer trench?” What he saw was an excavation probably fifty feet deep; the street had disappeared altogether from curb to curb and then some: indeed, taking the sidewalk and several houses with it to the east. As to longitude, the gulf extended to the next comer. But he recognized the neighborhood: up ahead on the left lay the Mainwaring house, with now but half a front yard, and beyond it the alley, now debouching into the crevasse. He sensed some alterations closer to the left hand, but cautiously forbore from examining them more thoroughly until Splendor stated his case.

That person leaned over and looked into the pit, as if he were seeing it for the first time.

“Yes,” he said, “that would be putting it conservatively.”

“Now the way I understand it,” said Reinhart, “is that this friend of the Maker's, operating the machine, grew too zealous and before he could be restrained had scooped out all this earth…. By the way, where is all the earth?”

Splendor moved back from the edge of the hole, which was ever crumbling with little wisps of dust. “There you are,” he said. “We no more than pierced the crust, when suddenly the whole block sank. It must have been undermined by a subterranean creek.”

“Is that water down there?” Reinhart asked. “So muddy it's hard to tell.”

“Yes,” said Splendor, “and it is apparently rising.”

“The power shovel, I suppose, is beyond recovery. Did the Maker's friend survive?”

“That type of individual is nimble as a goat, Carlo. He leaped from the cab as it was in the act of falling. As to the machine itself, you can still see the boom there on the right. I believe it is slowly going under.”

“Yes, the water has certainly risen just since we've been standing here,” Reinhart observed. “I can see it is water now and not simply mud.”

“Yes, I believe we inadvertently severed a water main.”

Reinhart put the tip of his little finger in his nose, not picking it but rather feeling for a hair that tickled.

“No subterranean creek, then?”

“Well, there
could
be one, in addition,” said Splendor, taking up another notch in his trenchcoat buckle, the belt now so tight that he appeared to be cut in half. “But I believe that the immediate source of the flow is the main that burst when we used the dynamite.”

“That could easily happen if you're not careful,” Reinhart admitted. “Along with the gas mains, too, I should imagine. The latter probably accounts for the strange odor I have smelled since we left the car. You had better warn these people not to light cigarettes near the excavation.” He looked back at the crowd, who were keeping their distance, but seemed not in the least apprehensive; in fact, here and there were broad grins, and almost universal was an air of sanguine anticipation.

“Well, morale is good,” he observed and, as he did so, noticed for the first time a large signboard mounted between the sidewalk and the right-hand curb, very near the precipice. This board read:

Hon. Bob J. Gibbon,
Mayor

Hon. C. Roy Gibbon, Ch. of
Police

Hon. Claude Humbold,
Sponsor

Mr. Splendor G. Mainwaring,
Sanitary Engineer

Col. Carlo Rinehart (Ret.)
President

Perhaps because of his proximity to so many Negroes, Reinhart had fallen into a strange mood: about the general situation, now that he had a fairly definitive view of it, he had lost all concern. We will also one day die, but who finds it possible seriously to worry about it? On the other hand, he was fascinated by such particularities as his name and grade.

“‘Reinhart' is misspelled,” he told Splendor, but never said a word about being listed last. “Also that o should be a
p
, in the rank. I was a corporal, not a colonel, but I would be obliged to you if the whole line were repainted, leaving out any reference to my being an ex-serviceman, which is not apropos.”

“To emphasize that you were a Veteran was the idea,” said Splendor. “You know the publicity value of the term these days. ‘Veteran Robs Candy Store,' ‘Veteran Bites Dog,' and so on, in the headlines. They used to do the same thing with the designation ‘Negro,' although not so much nowadays in reference to the sort of incident that any human being might engage in.”

“Well, that's the point here,” Reinhart said. “It rather embarrasses me to be labeled that way…. You say dynamite? How did that come about?”

“About four feet below the surface we encountered solid rock,” Splendor explained. “This person who is a friend of the individual that calls himself the Maker, claimed to have been in demolition work in the Army and undertook to ‘loosen up the dig,' as I believe he put it.”

“You just had some dynamite lying around?”

Splendor shrugged. “For all I know of those gentry, I wouldn't be surprised if they kept a stock on hand for the detonation of bank vaults. They are very bad men, Carlo, but one must use what he is given, or progress becomes impossible.”

Reinhart breathed in slowly, so as not to absorb too much of the illuminating gas that he now could see bubbling candidly up through the murky waters.

“You really have a vision of aspiration and expanse, haven't you?” he asked. “I don't think I ever quite realized that before, Splendor. You really are an opportunist, in love with the possibilities of life—and that necessarily involves the occasional meanness I have observed in you. My friend, you have out-Reinharted Reinhart—you are all I ever wanted to be, and twice as vivid. Whether or not that is because you are a Negro is beside the point.”

“Why?” said Splendor, not defiant but authentically curious.

“Why, because that is something nobody can do anything about.”

Splendor looked dubious for quite a long time, not seeing the hand Reinhart extended towards him. When it did come to his attention, he seized it ebulliently as if it were a reward for his ingenuity and daring. But in fact Reinhart was bidding him goodbye.

“There's no doubt in my mind that you'll make it,” said the president. “Certainly I can do nothing more for you—or ever have done, for that matter. The debt is all the other way. By demonstrating your freedom from limitations, you have shown me a prisoner of mine.” He had begun sincerely enough, for he did admire Splendor, but as he continued to praise him he grew ever more false. There was a reason for this: the other Negroes were coming out of their initial shyness and moving near the two executives, and Reinhart yielded to an impulse to play to the crowd.

Splendor finally understood, and when he did, dropped Reinhart's hand in resentment.

“You're walking out on me? You're showing the white feather?”

“Of course,” said Reinhart. “I have been trying to make clear to you that you no longer need me.”

Splendor caught his head in his hands. “I have never been more astonished in all my life.” He turned and stared dumbly into the pit. “What am I supposed to do about all this water, not to mention the escaping gas?”

Reinhart chuckled. “Splendor, in modern society there are agencies to take care of these incidentals. You simply call the gas company and then call the water company.”

The crowd let him limp through to the car, which had stayed sound and in full possession of its accessories.

So long as he was in Splendor's presence he had kept the faith, but now that the Gigantic caused the West Side rapidly to dwindle in the rear-vision mirror, Reinhart had to admit this latest debacle left him with no stomach for more. Outwitted, beaten up, and now he was liable for what might be the subsidence of the whole Negro district. It seemed always to be true of him that he was unsuccessful and responsible at the same time: unfair combination; Splendor for example invariably failed but could not be held responsible; Claude had responsibilities but succeeded. Civilian life was shit.

In his despair he had, without even thinking about it, strong-armed the Gigantic onto the state highway that left town by the northwest—the same route he and Gen had followed a half year before to go get married. This was another way of reminding himself that for a grown man to fail in business was also to fail in love, which the longer you are married gets farther and farther from the simple idea of lips on lips, or even penis in vagina, while still comprehending those. There are things like authority and who has it, and money likewise, and respect; and moral emasculation, rather more deadly than the physical version. No, he could not face Gen now, and her very condition made it worse: he would now actually be under an obligation to crack up when she was in labor—the world imposed upon the failure a definitive script giving him both dialogue and movements until further notice: bent back, sick eyes, apologetic noises interspersed with a sort of plaintive venom. Into what kind of trauma was born an infant through whose misty first vision moved a hung-over, defeated dad?

That is to say, as Reinhart tooled briskly along the concrete he was seriously considering knocking himself off, doing the so-called Dutch act, though he was well aware that it was no longer popular as a means of reclaiming honor, just as honor itself was no longer conspicuously in vogue, although more of it may be around than one suspects, sub-terraneously or at least in B movies, or perhaps disguised as something else more fashionable. He had at any rate to rely on Gen's understanding when she got the news: greater love hath no man than to lay his life down for his self-respect. His son would then start off with an enormous advantage: “Poor devil, lost his father before he was born; no wonder he turned out delinquent.” Or: “Splendid fellow, made out wonderfully though having no dad to guide him.” Similar gains if the child were a girl—which he did not go into now because thinking of the male Samaritans who would aid a daughter might weaken his resolution to do the right thing by her: namely, remove himself.

And as to Genevieve, a dear person who deserved far better than he had ever delivered, she would prosper so marvelously as a widow that he wished awfully he could be around to see it. His Veteran's insurance came to ten thousand simoleons, rather more than he could bring on the hoof. Her twenty-year-old behind draped in black, and ten grand to boot. He believed she loved him as is and would miss him truly, but she was hardly the sort to mourn forever, or to become what you might call unhinged even temporarily. He had always cherished her common sense, for obvious reasons. Yes, he just wished he could be around to see it.

“There you are,” said Reinhart to Reinhart, “you no sooner get an idea than you also think of the fake corresponding to it, and the latter is always vastly more attractive to you than the former. What you are planning at this moment is not a genuine suicide, any more than you looked forward to the digging of a genuine sewer, or wanted to be genuine friends with a genuine Negro. You certainly have an enormous distaste for reality.” So Reinhart berated himself aloud, even as he made a U-turn and headed south towards the Ohio River.