Some Came Running (139 page)

But the Old Man was a different thing, entirely. He was liable to take it into his head when he was half drunk that it was his granddaughter that was getting married and, by God, he was going to go, and then show up at the church in his overalls and old mackinaw and that wornout railroader’s cap. The older he got, the more crotchety, and just plain mean, he became. So it was delegated to Frank to talk to him and fix it some way so he would not come. He had tried to talk to him as kindly as he could without actually coming right out and asking him not to come. But that was not, of course, the way to try to talk to him; and he should have known it. The pension home where he lived was just across the street north on North Main Street the cross street from the end of the business district, so that Frank did not actually have to drive up and park in front of it conspicuously. Frank did not like Mrs Rugel who ran the pension home, and with whom the Old Man had been having a “love affair” for the past three or four years; and he did not want to go to her place. So what he did was park in front of the business houses at the end of the business district and wait; until the Old Man came out of Mrs Rugel’s along in the middle of the morning. When he did come out, and started toward town, Frank opened the right-side door of the Cadillac and leaned over and called to him.

“Hey! Get in. I want to talk to you.”

Whereupon the Old Man, instead of doing as he was told, naturally, merely put his scrawny fists on his hips and stood and grinned at him evilly. “Well, hello, boy!” he said.

Frank waited patiently, still holding the door open, and finally the old devil came hopping over to the car. He stood in front of the door for a while without saying anything, still grinning maliciously, and then finally he got in.

“Well, how have you been?” Frank said. “Been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

The Old Man grinned. “Scared I’ll come to yore girl’s weddin and fox it up for you, ’ey?” he said.

Frank was rather taken aback. “Well, that
is
one of the things I wanted to talk to you about,” he said awkwardly. “Along with finding out how you’ve been, and all.”

“Cut the crap,” the Old Man said, and then cackled maliciously. “How much is it worth to you if I don’t?”

“How much?” Frank said, taken still further aback. “What do you mean how much?”

“What do you think I mean? How much money. You think I mean eggs?”

“Well, how much do you want?” Frank said.

“I ain’t made up my mind exacly yet,” the Old Man grinned. “Make me an offer.”

“Well, I don’t know what you have in mind,” Frank said. He still had not recovered from the suddenness with which they had got to the subject of money. “You want me to buy you a couple bottles of whiskey?”

The Old Man cackled. “I want a lot more than that!”

“Well, just what do you want?” Frank said, a little irritably.

Obviously enjoying himself, the Old Man leaned back and opened up his frayed mackinaw. “Sure is a nice car you got here, boy,” he grinned. “How much she cost you?”

“Great God!” Frank exclaimed. “Don’t tell me you want my car now!”

“No,” the Old Man grinned. “No, I don’t want yore damned car. But I’ll tell you what I do want.”

“Okay. Damn it, tell me,” Frank said. “And we’ll discuss it.”

The Old Man leaned back in the seat, grinning, and thought awhile. “Well, I want two things,” Frank’s father said finally. “First, I want fifty dollars. In cash. Right now. No, seventy-five dollars.” He peered at Frank beadily.

Frank stared back at him, saying nothing.

“And the other thing I want,” Old Man Herschmidt said, “is somethin I been thinkin about fer some time now. I want a trip to Wisconsin.”

“To Wisconsin!” Frank said. “What the hell for?”

“Fer fishin,” the Old Man grinned. “I want to go up to Wisconsin fishin. Once more before I die. To a place I used to go to up there. Yes, sir; that’s what I want.” He slipped his mackinaw lapels back and hooked his thumbs through his overalls bib. “I figure,” he said happily, “it’ll cost you three, four hundred dollars. To do it up real right. Well, what do you say?”

“Fishing! Well, for Christ’s sake!” Frank said. Then quite suddenly, he was angry. “Hell, you don’t have to trade me out like I’m a tightwad. If you’d have just come to me and asked me, I’d have been glad to finance you for a fishing trip to Wisconsin.”

“Like hell, you would,” the Old Man said.

“The hell, I wouldn’t!” Frank said angrily. “What do you think I am?”

“I know what you are,” the Old Man said.

“You do, hunh? It’s your damned layin around drunk all the time and embarrassin the family that I don’t like. I’d be glad to finance you to go on a fishing trip.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” the Old Man said. “You’d have told me to go screw. Anyways, I wouldn’t never have asked you, you son of a bitch. But this way I got somethin you want, and yore willin to pay for her. Even-steven.”

“Okay, it’s a deal,” Frank said, struggling to keep from blowing up. He reached in his coat and pulled out his wallet and slid out a fifty and three twenties from a thick sheaf of cash.

“Small bills, please,” the Old Man said. “I ain’t got yore credit nor reputation.”

“All right,” Frank said irritably, and exchanged the large bills for tens and fives. “Now how soon can you leave for Wisconsin?”

“Not now,” the Old Man said, and shook his birdlike head. “Late June, or July or August’s, the time to go. But I want you to deposit four hundred dollars in a savins account for me. I’ll pick the book up myself. Soon’s I got that book in my possession, I’ll see to it that I don’t show up at yore girl’s weddin.”

“Four hundred dollars is a lot of money for a fishing trip,” Frank said.

“Four hundred’s my price. Take it or leave it,” the Old Man said, and grinned at him evilly. “If I’m a-goin on this fishin trip, I ain’t goin cheap.”

“All right, like I said, it’s a deal,” Frank said. “But how do I know you won’t go back on me? What guarantee have I got?”

“Heh-heh,” the Old Man said. “I reckon you’ll just have to take my word for it, you son of a bitch.”

“All right,” Frank said irritably; “but, by God, you better not try and show up at the wedding and ruin it. We’re plannin on havin a big wedding for Dawnie.”

“Yair. I’ve heared about it,” his father grinned.

“Okay. You just remember that,” Frank said, to which the Old Man merely grinned. “Do you want a personal check for the four hundred? I can write you out a check right now.”

The Old Man looked at him slyly for a moment, then nodded. “All right; I’ll take a check. But you just better not try and stop payment on it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Frank said. He got his checkbook out, and wrote off the check, his hand trembling a little with anger.

“All right,” Old Man Herschmidt said. “Just you don’t try and stop payment on it. Because I’ll take it right up there today and that weddin is still two weeks off.” He accepted the check and folded it and stuck it down in his overalls bib pocket. Then suddenly, he cackled. “Now, I’ll tell you somethin, boy! I wouldn’t have give a damn whether I went to yore damned weddin or not. Hell, I ain’t seen that girl of your’n more’n three times, I don’t reckon. What would I give a damn whether I went to her weddin or not?”

He slapped Frank on the knee and cackled as if he had just put over a big fox of a deal, and opened the door of the Cadillac and got out. He opened his mouth and peered down wisely at Frank inside the car. Slowly, the open mouth grinned, and he shut the door and walked away. “Goodby, boy!” he called back, and cackled smugly.

Frank sat in the seat, irritated and edgy, and cursed under his breath as his father walked away. As it turned out, it was to be the last time that Frank was ever to see him, because in July of that year—on the Fourth of July it was—he was to die without ever having got to make his fishing trip to Wisconsin. He would die in the night in his room at Mrs Rugel’s of a stroke brought on by drinking all day (and probably several days before that; and God knew how many years before
that
) in celebration of the Glorious Fourth. Frank would, of course, give him a nice funeral. A funeral to which, however, very few people would come, except for Mrs Rugel and Frank and Agnes. His wife, of course, would not come. The four hundred dollars would still be in the bank, and would be very helpful in paying the funeral expenses. But, of course, Frank did not know any of all this then, as he sat in the car. And if he had known, he wouldn’t have cared. He had been hoping the old son of a bitch would die for fifteen years now. Anyway, he did not come to the wedding.

The one other thing Frank had anything to do with, concerning the wedding, which was getting Edith Barclay and her grandmother seated “within the ribbons,” had been his own idea. His sole suggestion, actually—except to add the Greek’s name in along with Clark Hibbard’s father-in-law and mother-in-law. When he told Agnes, he put it all on Old Janie, just to be careful. It would, he thought, be a nice gesture to have Old Janie sit inside the ribbons, since she had been working for them so long. And especially since she so obviously had not been in good health lately. And, of course, if they asked Edith, which they would have to do, he said, since he was asking everybody else who worked at the store, they ought to have her sit with Janie.

He did not really know what made him do it, but it elated him to think of his mistress sitting among the honored guests at his daughter’s wedding. It was the kind of thing the Anton Wernzes, grandfather, father, and son, or those old oil magnates who had founded the Country Club, might have done. Or Clark’s father-in-law; or the Greek, if he had ever married. They were all pretty sophisticated people. Being wealthy like those people made you sophisticated. Anyway, he felt he owed it to Edith, after all she had been to him. But, of course, he could not tell any of this to Agnes. And indeed, had to be damned cautious in even approaching her with it. Agnes could smell a “clandestine affair” about four times as far away as she could see one. And in fact—up until the last year, at least; when they had got back together—had accused him of having affairs with lots more women than he had had.

It was really amazing, when you thought of it, that she had never yet tumbled to Edith. Frank himself could only attribute it to Edith herself, and the extreme caution she always insisted upon.

When he approached Agnes with the idea, she had looked up from the lists she was working on that evening, chewed on her eraser a moment, and then said that she thought it would be a fine idea. Poor old Janie had been going downhill rapidly the last couple of months.

For a moment, Frank thought she might have guessed—even from this tiny bit of evidence. An old habit pattern, probably. Then she smiled at him, and he knew everything was all right.

When he told Edith about it later, she was angry and did not think he should have done it, but underneath he could see she was pleased just the same. Pleased that he thought enough of her to take that kind of a chance for her. However, she still thought it was a silly thing to have done. But finally, he convinced her that he had really put it across, and that Agnes suspected nothing.

The truth was, Frank did not need Agnes to tell him how badly Old Janie had been going downhill the last couple of months. He knew a lot more about it than Agnes did; because he got it from Edith. It was, in fact, about all Edith could talk about anymore when they were together. Agnes had told him that Janie was practically worthless around the house anymore. She still came every Friday, and Agnes would never have said anything about it to her, but it was little more than a token gesture anymore; Agnes herself, together with little Walter’s help, was doing almost all the real housework now on the days Jane wasn’t there. He and Agnes both knew by now that Janie had quit all her other jobs in order to keep on working for them; and he agreed with Agnes that they could not say anything to her. Hell, she had been with them ever since the first year they were married. And yet, Agnes said, whenever she tried to talk to her about her health, Janie only changed the subject, or else grinned and said she was dieting.

But he learned a lot more about her from Edith. Jane was just about as worthless at her own house as she was at his. She made a kind of token gesture of cleaning it up, but if any real cleaning was ever done it was Edith who did it. Janie would fix supper for herself and John in the evening, and not do too good of a job at doing that, and the rest of the time she just lay around the house, weak, always worn out. She seemed to eat almost nothing anymore, Edith said. It was no wonder she lost so much weight. And yet she refused to go to any doctor, and just as stubbornly maintained there wasn’t anything wrong with her, and said she was just dieting to lose weight. Edith could not understand it.

“I don’t know what to do,” Edith would say to him. “I’ll say something about her health, and she’ll just look at me with that old gravelly grin and say there’s nothing wrong with her.”

She did not even go out any more at nights to Smitty’s, Edith said; and Edith, who had once been embarrassed by her always sitting there in the corner booth with the old men and had wished something would happen to make her stop doing it, now wished only that she could see her sitting there again, because it would mean she was feeling all right again. Once, Edith told him, she had got Doc Cost to come out to the house and take her by surprise to look her over; but Jane had refused to be examined. She had allowed him to peer down her throat and thump her chest, but she would not go out to his hospital. Doc Cost had tried to josh her into coming in with him then, but she had refused. She had agreed she might come in some time later and let him look her over, but then she had never gone. Doc had told Edith privately that she ought to get her down there and let him examine her. But Edith could not get her to go. Jane did not even drink beer anymore, or only a bottle now and then. It was frightening, she would say, to see this woman who had once been so big and strong as a bull, looking so fragile and thin that the first strong wind might blow her completely away. Sometimes Frank got almost more than he could take, about Jane. It seemed sometimes that that was the only thing he heard from Edith anymore. And anyway, he did not like to talk about sick people and death. It disturbed him, because it made him think about himself dying someday, and also because it made him feel so helpless because he couldn’t do anything for.