Some Came Running (120 page)

“Well, I never thought,” Gwen said helplessly.

“And then, when I finishing up the work, what you think comes walkin in? That Ginnie Moorehead from the brassiere factory. She’s the worst whore in Parkman! Just comes walkin in and sits right down as nice as you please! No, sir, Miss Gwen; I not working for any people like that.”

“Well, you’ve met Dave over here before. I always thought you liked him.”

“I never knew the kind of people he run around with. Why there ain’t a decent respectable person in Parkman who will even talk to those people. If that Dave’s a writer, he’s shore a immoral one.”

And Gwen, thinking of her lover warmly, had to grin. “Most writers are, Shardine.”

“Well, that’s fine,” Shardine said, setting her jaw. “But I ain’t a writer. I’m a respectable married woman. And I mean to stay that way. Those people are trash and bums and gamblers and just plain immoral. The ony thing I will have to do with people like that is to pray for them. But I shore won’t work for them.”

“Well, you certainly don’t have to, Shardine,” Gwen said, “if you don’t want to. I had no idea you’d feel like that.”

“Well, that’s how I feel,” Shardine said. “I love you, Miss Gwen. And I love your father and I loved your mother. You’re a fine lady and a sweet girl. If you want to associate with that kind of trash, that’s your business. But I ain’t just about to.”

And that was the end of it. Gwen, working hard to conceal her grin, assured her that she certainly didn’t have to work there if she didn’t want to.

And as she watched her leave, Shardine’s back still stiff with righteous outrage, she could not help but laugh a little. What made her laugh was thinking about her own lurid if mythical reputation. Shardine must know about that, too; everybody else did. Gag at a gnat and swallow a camel. But then, of course, she was “Miss Gwen”: Mister Bob and Miss Nelle’s girl.

This, of course, was what she could not tell Dave, when she told him the story. In the first place, she couldn’t talk about her reputation with Dave at all; certainly, she could not tell him the truth. And in the second place, she was too delicately aware of how it might upset him if she pretended that the reputation was the truth. He was walking a very thin, finely balanced line as it was, on account of her, she knew. He was having a hard enough time swallowing her foibles and stipulations without reminding him of all the lovers she was supposed to have had. But he was making a valiant effort, that she knew too. And someday, she thought warmly— Someday— But it wouldn’t do to tell him any of that now.

Dave, when she told him the story, was as righteously indignant as Shardine had been. The fact that he could detect the laughter which Gwen was trying so hard to hide did not help his outrage any, either.

“What the hell?” he said savagely. “Who the hell is that damned bitch to pass judgment on my morals? You think I liked having her in the house? She jittered around all day like she thought any minute somebody was going to throw her down and rape her. I got no work done at all, for her jittering around. I want a damned cleaning woman who does her work and don’t make me aware of her personality all the time.”

“So does everyone else in the world,” Gwen grinned. “In the East, they may have servants like that. Not in the great independent Middle West.”

“If you ask me,” Dave said, “the reason she’s so damned teed off is that nobody
did
throw her down and rape her.”

Gwen laughed, a rippling little trill that she choked off immediately. “That’s the history of all cleaning ladies, isn’t it?” she said. “For that matter, it’s the history of all
women,
isn’t it?”

“Yeah? What the hell are you laughing at,” Dave said. “I’m laughing because you look and sound just exactly as righteously outraged as Shardine did when she came in to tell me she wouldn’t go back.”

That stopped him. And he tried to recover his equanimity. He had to grin. “You’re pretty damned smart, aren’t you?”

“No smarter than I should be,” Gwen said. “I can assure you.”

“Well, it isn’t the woman I’m mad at. It’s the principle of the thing. It’s the damned dumb moralists like her who are ruining the damned world.”

“Don’t start philosophizing to me,” Gwen smiled. “I’ve heard it all before. You were just plain mad.”

Dave could only shake his head, dismayed that she did not understand.

Finally, after another week of muss without a cleaning lady, he and ’Bama held a desperate conference and decided upon an equally desperate decision. They hired Dewey Cole’s mother. In addition to being a member in good standing of the Church of Christ, Saved, Mrs “Possum” Cole (whose name was Vona) was the biggest gossip in Parkman. A tiny roly-poly woman, she was not half the cleaner that either Shardine Jones or Old Janie were, but she was more than willing to work for them just so that—along with her money—she could carry away any choice gleanings of gossip she might be able to uncover there in that obviously fertile field. Also, she loved to talk. It soon became apparent that in her eyes, at least, her son Dewey could do nothing wrong. She was positive that Dewey did not drink at all; if at times he appeared to be dizzy, it was because of his headaches he had had ever since he was a small boy. Besides, no son of hers could ever be a drunkard. She never mentioned Raymond, and to all intents and purposes as she went merrily about her work, she was not in the least disturbed because he was dead. Dewey—naturally—flatly refused to come to the house on the days his mom was there which was Tuesday; he had no use for her at all, and would only look disgusted whenever she was mentioned. Doris Fredric, also, never appeared at the house when Vona came, at her own suggestion. The sum result, then, was that every week Tuesday became a big ordeal. Monday night, Dave and ’Bama—and whoever else was there—would go carefully through the house searching for and removing any evidences that might in any way be construed by Vona as remainders from some previous orgy (lipsticked cigarette butts, for instance), and all liquor bottles would be locked up in their cabinet. Stray bobby pins were another hard-to-locate item; they never seemed to find them all. Vona did, though; and always laid them carefully on the countertop in the bathroom in a neat, little, very conspicuous pile. It was nervewracking. It got so finally that almost as soon as one Tuesday was over and the sigh of relief heaved, the next Tuesday had already begun to hang ominously over their heads. All just to get the damned house cleaned. Dave was forced once again to chalk up another item in that steadily growing list of bad luck that had begun to dog them: One of them had been
not
having the house cleaned. Now
having
the house cleaned was another.

God! he wondered. Was it going to keep going on like this indefinitely? Hell, percentages alone would make it change some time, wouldn’t they? Or would they? Percentages hadn’t made the
good
luck change, had they? Also—as the eagerly interested ’Bama kept him informed—they were still continuing to lose more at poker, and their percentages were still spiraling down.

He could not free himself of this inexplicable sense of an impending portentous Doom with a capital D hanging over them, of something out of tune somewhere. But what
could
it be?

It was probably all this: this brooding over their Fate—that made him blow up and viciously insult the ubiquitous Ginnie Moorehead one night. She had been hanging around more and more, making herself more and more at home, not unlike an overly affectionate dog who in the excess of his affection keeps getting underfoot and tripping you up while getting stepped on himself. In this instance, Ginnie got stepped on good. It happened one evening just a few days after his story “The Confederate” had come out in mid-February and made its appearance at the local newsstand.

Dave had not known just exactly what to expect from Parkman when his story should appear on the stands. (Maybe it’ll win the Ig Nobel Prize, he told himself laughing.) Both the drugstores as well as the newsstand-bus station sold a few books along with their myriad newspapers and magazines and comicbooks, so a few copies of NLL’s
New American Writing
ought to filter down to Parkman. Even so, he did not delude himself with the illusion that there would be a big night of public fireworks, or that the town would vote him in as Man of the Year. He had been through all that long ago out in Hollywood when his first novel came out. He did not haunt the newsstand looking for it; he would not give them that much pleasure. The lady-editor at NLL sent him four gratis copies of the little volume, which he looked over, showed off at the house, then filed away and forgot about. The truth was, “The Confederate” no longer really interested him at all now that all the work with it was done.

But still, he had thought there would perhaps be some little comment on it by someone or other. What in fact happened was nothing.
Absolutely
nothing. A few of the denizens from Smitty’s approached him smiling shamefacedly and told him they had read it and enjoyed it, especially that knife fight scene. About three weeks later, he learned from ’Bama, who was as always still the same old loyal proud partisan whenever it came to Dave’s writing, and who had discussed it with the man at the newsstand, that, in fact, he as well as the drugstores had sold an unusually large number of copies and had had to reorder three or four times. Nevertheless, when Dave himself was uptown or shopping somewhere, not a single one of the respectable citizenry of Parkman ever mentioned it to him. Except for one, that is: Two days after the anthology first appeared at the newsstand, his brother Frank called him up at the house in a fury of choked outrage, and asked him secretively to meet him out near the college on a side street. He would be driving his new Cadillac, he said.

“Park your car and get in,” Frank said coldly, when he had driven out there and pulled up beside the pale blue Cadillac which sparkled like a jewel. “Bring your keys,” he commanded. “I want to talk to you.”

“Okay, what is it?” Dave said after he had slipped into the seat beside his brother. He had no idea what could be the matter. He did not even know the anthology had appeared in town as yet. “Why all the secrecy?”

Frank did not bother to answer but slid the Cadillac in gear and moved smoothly off. The car had that fresh-leather, brand-new smell. Frank did not say anything for several moments, his face set like a block of stone.

“What the hell are you tryin to do to me?” he growled finally. “Why are you always tryin to hurt me?”

“First maybe you’d better tell me what I’ve done?” Dave said.

“This!” Frank snarled. “As if you didn’t know.” He pulled a copy of the NLL anthology out of his topcoat pocket and dropped it on the seat.

“Oh, the story,” Dave said, pleased. “Have you read it?”

“Read it? Hell no, I haven’t read it! What the hell would I want to read it for? I ain’t interested in Confederates.”

“I thought maybe you might want to read it because I wrote it.”

“I don’t need to read it. All I needed to do was read the damned name you stuck on it!”

“Oh. The ‘Herschmidt.’ Sure.” If Dave had ever once thought of what effect his name change might have on Frank, he had forgotten it long ago.

“Yas, the ‘Herschmidt,’ sure!” Frank said, “damn you. If you wanted to make a laughingstock out of me in this town, you’ve sure as hell succeeded.” He looked down at the book, then snatched it back up and stuck it back in his pocket. “These damned things are everywhere in town. Both the drugstores and the newsstand are selling them.”

“Well, to
hell
with you!” Dave said, “so what about it?” As he spoke Frank’s face jerked sideways at him, almost as if he were expecting to be hit. “Don’t worry,” Dave snorted; “I ain’t going to hit you.”

“You damn right you’re not,” Frank said. “If you did, I’d have you in jail so damned quick it would make your damned head swim.”

“Yes, I bet you would, too,” Dave said. Rage was building up in him to a pressure that equaled Frank’s. The pompous son of a bitch: He didn’t even
read
the damned story!

“You’re damned right I would,” Frank said. They were now at the college grounds. It was cold and patches of snow still lay on the ground and no one was in evidence outdoors. Inside, electric lights burned in all the rooms. Taking a deep quivering breath, Frank turned in onto the curving blacktop road that wound across the grounds.

“Aren’t you afraid somebody might look out a window and see you with me?” Dave said sarcastically.

“They couldn’t see us from that far away,” Frank said, as if he had already considered it. “All my life, I’ve been tryin to live that damned name down in this town. First the Old Man and then you. Right now everybody in this stinkin town is laughin up their sleeve at me.”

“Look. Let’s get something straight. I don’t give a damn about you. I used the name because it’s my legal name. I’m not ashamed of having it.”

“No!” Frank said explosively. “No, it isn’t your legal name, either. When I changed our name to Hirsh, you were my ward. Legally. That changed your name to Hirsh, too. Legally. Legally, your name is Hirsh, not Herschmidt.”

“Legal or not, it was the name I was born with,” Dave said, “and like I said I ain’t ashamed of it—like you are. Maybe I better go up to the county judge and get my name changed back.”

Frank did not say anything for a moment. “Yes, why don’t you?” he said thinly; “you could make it a lot worse by doin that than it already is. That’s what you ought to do.”

“Maybe I’ll just do that,” Dave said coldly.

“Why don’t you?” Frank continued to drive them on around the curving roads of the campus. “What did you want to do that to me for?” he said finally. It sounded almost pleading.

“I—” Dave said and stopped. Inwardly he blanched at ever attempting to explain to someone like Frank the value he had felt it would be to him as a writer to change his writing name. “I did it because my other two novels were published under the name of Hirsh and they were both poor. I wanted a different name, that’s all.”

“Then why didn’t you pick Jones? or Smith? or Epstein? Why did you have to pick
Herschmidt?”