Short Stories: Five Decades (19 page)

“He …” Mike started loudly. Then he stopped, spoke in a low, reasonable voice. “So. To be frank with you, he didn’t pay. That’s the truth.”

“What did I tell you?” Dolores said as Mike winced. “I repeat the words. ‘Do not permit him onto your land. He travels with bad men; it will turn out badly. I warn you!’ Did I tell you?”

“You told me,” Mike said wearily.

“We will never see that money again,” Dolores said, smoothing Rosa’s hair. “I have kissed it good-bye.”

“Please,” said Mike. “Return to the kitchen. I am hungry for dinner. I have made plans already to recover the money.”

Dolores eyed him suspiciously. “Be careful, Mike,” she said. “His friends are gangsters and he plays poker every Saturday night with men who carry guns in their pockets.”

“I am going to the law,” Mike said. “I’m going to sue Victor for the three hundred dollars.”

Dolores started to laugh. She pushed Rosa away and stood up and laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Mike asked angrily. “I tell you I’m going to sue a man for money he owes me, you find it funny! Tell me the joke.”

Dolores stopped laughing. “Have you got any papers? No! You trust him, he trusts you, no papers. Without papers you’re lost in a court. You’ll make a fool of yourself. They’ll charge you for the lawyers. Please, Mike, go back to your farming.”

Mike’s face set sternly, his wrinkles harsh in his face with the gray stubble he never managed completely to shave. “I want my dinner, Dolores,” he said coldly, and Dolores discreetly moved into the kitchen, saying, “It is not my business, my love; truly, I merely offer advice.”

Mike walked back and forth in the parlor, limping, rolling a little from side to side, his eyes on the floor, his hands plunged into the pockets of his denims like holstered weapons, his mouth pursed with thought and determination. After a while he stopped and looked at Rosa, who prepared to weep once more.

“Rosa, baby,” he said, sitting down and taking her gently on his lap. “Forgive me.”

Rosa snuggled to him. They sat that way in the dimly lit parlor.

“Poppa,” Rosa said finally.

“Yes,” Mike said.

“Will you take me to the movies tonight, Poppa?”

“All right,” Mike said. “I’ll take you to the movies.”

The next day Mike went into town, dressed in his neat black broadcloth suit and his black soft hat and his high brown shoes. He came back to the farm like a businessman in the movies, busily, preoccupied, sober, but satisfied.

“Well?” Dolores asked him, in the kitchen.

He kissed her briskly, kissed Rosa, sat down, took his shoes off, rubbed his feet luxuriously, said paternally to his son who was reading
Esquire
near the window, “That’s right, Anthony, study.”

“Well?” asked Dolores.

“I saw Dominic in town,” Mike said, watching his toes wiggling. “They’re having another baby.”

“Well,” asked Dolores. “The case? The action?”

“All right,” Mike said. “What is there for dinner?”

“Veal,” Dolores said. “What do you mean ‘all right’?”

“I’ve spoken to Judge Collins. He is filling out the necessary papers for me and he will write me a letter when I am to appear in court. Rosa, have you been a good girl?”

Dolores threw up her hands. “Lawyers. We’ll throw away a fortune on lawyers. Good money after bad. We could put in an electric pump with the money.”

“Lawyers will cost us nothing.” Mike stuffed his pipe elaborately. “I have different plans. Myself. I will take care of the case myself.” He lit up, puffed deliberately.

Dolores sat down across the table from him, spoke slowly, carefully. “Remember, Mike,” she said. “This is in English. They conduct the court in English.”

“I know,” said Mike. “I am right. Justice is on my side. Why should I pay a lawyer fifty, seventy-five dollars to collect my own money? There is one time you need lawyers—when you are wrong. I am not wrong. I will be my own lawyer.”

“What do you know about the law?” Dolores challenged him.

“I know Victor owes me three hundred dollars.” Mike puffed three times, quickly, on his pipe. “That’s all I need to know.”

“You can hardly speak English, you can’t even read or write, nobody will be able to understand you. They’ll all laugh at you, Mike.”

“Nobody will laugh at me. I can speak English fine.”

“When did you learn?” Dolores asked. “Today?”

“Dolores!” Mike shouted. “I tell you my English is all right.”

“Say Thursday,” Dolores said.

“I don’t want to say it,” Mike said, banging the table. “I have no interest in saying it.”

“Aha,” Dolores crowed. “See? He wants to be a lawyer in an American court, he can’t even say Thursday.”

“I can,” Mike said. “Keep quiet, Dolores.”

“Say Thursday.” Dolores put her head to one side, spoke coquettishly, slyly, like a girl asking her lover to say he loved her.

“Stirday,” Mike said, as he always said. “There!”

Dolores laughed, waving her hand. “And he wants to conduct a law case! Holy Mother! They will laugh at you!”

“Let them laugh!” Mike shouted. “I will conduct the case! Now I want to eat dinner! Anthony!” he yelled. “Throw away that trash and come to the table.”

On the day of the trial, Mike shaved closely, dressed carefully in his black suit, put his black hat squarely on his head, and with Dolores seated grimly beside him drove early into town in the 1933 family Dodge.

Dolores said nothing all the way into town. Only after the car was parked and they were entering the courthouse, Mike’s shoes clattering bravely on the legal marble, did Dolores speak. “Behave yourself,” she said. Then she pinched his arm. Mike smiled at her, braced his yoke-like shoulders, took off his hat. His rough gray hair sprang up like steel wool when his hat was off, and Mike ran his hand through it as he opened the door to the courtroom. There was a proud, important smile on his face as he sat down next to his wife in the first row and patiently waited for his case to be called.

When Victor came, Mike glared at him, but Victor, after a quick look, riveted his attention on the American flag behind the Judge’s head.

“See,” Mike whispered to Dolores. “I have him frightened. He doesn’t dare look at me. Here he will have to tell the truth.”

“Sssh!” hissed Dolores. “This is a court of law.”

“Michael Pilato,” the clerk called, “versus Victor Fraschi.”

“Me!” Mike said loudly, standing up.

“Sssh,” said Dolores.

Mike put his hat in Dolores’ lap, moved lightly to the little gate that separated the spectators from the principals in the proceedings. Politely, with a deep ironic smile, he held the gate open for Victor and his lawyer. Victor passed through without looking up.

“Who’s representing you, Mr. Pilato?” the Judge asked when they were all seated. “Where’s your lawyer?”

Mike stood up and spoke in a clear voice. “I represent myself. I am my lawyer.”

“You ought to have a lawyer,” the Judge said.

“I do not need a lawyer,” Mike said loudly. “I am not trying to cheat anybody.” There were about forty people in the courtroom and they all laughed. Mike turned and looked at them, puzzled. “What did I say?”

The Judge rapped with his gavel and the case was opened. Victor took the stand, while Mike stared, coldly accusing, at him. Victor’s lawyer, a young man in a blue pinstripe suit and a starched tan shirt, questioned him. Yes, Victor said, he had paid each month. No, there were no receipts, Mr. Pilato could neither read nor write and they had dispensed with all formalities of that kind. No, he did not understand on what Mr. Pilato based his claim. Mike looked incredulously at Victor, lying under solemn oath, risking Hell for three hundred dollars.

Victor’s lawyer stepped down and waved to Mike gracefully. “Your witness.”

Mike walked dazedly past the lawyer and up to the witness stand, round, neat, his bull neck, deep red-brown and wrinkled, over his pure white collar, his large scrubbed hands politely but awkwardly held at his sides. He stood in front of Victor, leaning over a little toward him, his face close to Victor’s.

“Victor,” he said, his voice ringing through the courtroom, “tell the truth, did you pay me the money?”

“Yes,” said Victor.

Mike leaned closer to him. “Look in my eye, Victor,” Mike said, his voice clear and patient, “and answer me. Did you pay me the money?”

Victor lifted his head and looked unflinchingly into Mike’s eyes. “I paid you the money.”

Mike leaned even closer. His forehead almost touched Victor’s now. “Look me
straight
in the eye, Victor.”

Victor looked bravely into Mike’s eyes, less than a foot away now.

“Now, Victor,” Mike said, his eyes narrowed, cold, the light in them small and flashing and gray, “
DID YOU PAY ME THE MONEY
?”

Victor breathed deeply. “Yes,” he said.

Mike took half a step back, almost staggering, as though he had been hit. He stared incredulously into the perjurer’s eyes, as a man might stare at a son who has just admitted he has killed his mother, beyond pity, beyond understanding, outside all the known usage of human life. Mike’s face worked harshly as the tides of anger and despair and vengeance rolled up in him.

“You’re a goddam liar, Victor!” Mike shouted terribly. He leapt down from the witness platform, seized a heavy oak armchair, raised it murderously above Victor’s head.

“Mike, oh, Mike!” Dolores’ wail floated above the noise of the courtroom.

“Tell the truth, Victor!” Mike shouted, his face brick red, his teeth white behind his curled lips, almost senseless with rage, for the first time in his life threatening a fellow-creature with violence. “Tell it fast!”

He stood, the figure of Justice, armed with the chair, the veins pulsing in his huge wrists, the chair quivering high above Victor’s head in his huge gnarled hands, his tremendous arms tight and bulging in their broadcloth sleeves. “Immediately, Victor!”

“Pilato!” shouted the Judge. “Put that chair down!”

Victor sat stonily, his eyes lifted in dumb horror to the chair above his head.

“Pilato,” the Judge shouted, “you can be sent to jail for this!” He banged sternly but helplessly on his desk. “Remember, this is a court of law!”

“Victor?” Mike asked, unmoved, unmoving. “Victor? Immediately, please.”

“No,” Victor screamed, cringing in his seat, his hands now held in feeble defense before his eyes. “I didn’t pay! I didn’t!”

“Pilato,” screamed the Judge, “this is not evidence!”

“You were lying?” Mike said inexorably, the chair still held, ax-like, above him.

“Mike, oh, Mike,” wailed Dolores.

“It was not my idea,” Victor babbled. “As God is my judge, I didn’t think it up. Alfred Lotti, he suggested it, and Johnny Nolan. I am under the influence of corrupt men. Mike, for the love of God, please don’t kill me, Mike, it would never have occurred to me myself, forgive me, forgive me …”

“Guiness!” the Judge called to the court policeman. “Are you going to stand there and let this go on? Why don’t you do something?”

“I can shoot him,” Guiness said. “Do you want me to shoot the plaintiff?”

“Shut up,” the Judge said.

Guiness shrugged and turned his head toward the witness stand, smiling a little.

“You were lying?” Mike asked, his voice low, patient.

“I was lying,” Victor cried.

Slowly, with magnificent calm, Mike put the chair down neatly in its place. With a wide smile he turned to the Judge. “There,” he said.

“Do you know any good reason,” the Judge shouted, “why I shouldn’t have you locked up?”

Victor was crying with relief on the witness stand, wiping the tears away with his sleeve.

“There is no possible excuse,” the Judge said, “for me to admit this confession as evidence. We are a court of law in the State of Illinois, in the United States. We are not conducting the Spanish Inquisition, Mr. Pilato.”

“Huh?” Mike asked, cocking his head.

“There are certain rules,” the Judge went on, quickly, his voice high, “which it is customary to observe. It is not the usual thing, Mr. Pilato,” he said harshly, “to arrive at evidence by bodily threatening to brain witnesses with a chair.”

“He wouldn’t tell the truth,” Mike said simply.

“At the very least, Mr. Pilato,” the Judge said, “you should get thirty days.”

“Oh, Mike,” wept Dolores.

“Mr. Fraschi,” the Judge said, “I promise you that you will be protected. That nobody will harm you.”

“I did it,” sobbed Victor, his hands shaking uncontrollably in a mixture of fear, repentance, religion, joy at delivery from death. “I did it. I will not tell a lie. I’m a weak man and influenced by loafers. I owe him three hundred dollars. Forgive me, Mike, forgive me …”

“He will not harm you,” the Judge said patiently. “I guarantee it. You can tell the truth without any danger. Do you owe Mr. Pilato three hundred dollars?”

“I owe Mr. Pilato three hundred dollars,” Victor said, swallowing four times in a row.

The young lawyer put three sheets of paper into his briefcase and snapped the lock.

The Judge sighed and wiped his brow with a handkerchief as he looked at Mike. “I don’t approve of the way you conducted this trial, Mr. Pilato,” he said. “It is only because you’re a working man who has many duties to attend to on his land that I don’t take you and put you away for a month to teach you more respect for the processes of law.”

“Yes, sir,” Mike said faintly.

“Hereafter,” the Judge said, “kindly engage an attorney when you appear before me in this court.”

“Yes, sir,” Mike said.

“Mr. Pilato,” the Judge said, “it is up to you to decide when and how he is to pay you.”

Mike turned and walked back to Victor. Victor shrank into his chair. “Tomorrow morning, Victor,” Mike said, waving his finger under Victor’s nose, “at eighty-thirty o’clock, I am coming into your store. The money will be there.”

“Yes,” said Victor.

“Is that all right?” Mike asked the Judge.

“Yes,” said the Judge.

Mike strode over to the young lawyer. “And you,” he said, standing with his hands on his hips in front of the young man with the pinstripe suit. “Mr. Lawyer. You knew he didn’t pay me. A boy with an education. You should be ashamed of yourself.” He turned to the Judge, smiled broadly, bowed. “Thank you,” he said. “Good morning.” Then, triumphantly, smiling broadly, rolling like a sea captain as he walked, he went through the little gate. Dolores was waiting with his hat. He took the hat, put Dolores’ arm through his, marched down the aisle, nodding, beaming to the spectators. Someone applauded and by the time he and Dolores got to the door all the spectators were applauding.