The Redhunter (4 page)

They played five-card stud, betting nickels and dimes, and every now and then a quarter. The house limit was a quarter. But
often a night’s gambling would lose (or gain) the player a dollar; on two memorable occasions, four dollars. Joe played with
desperate zeal. Billy and Jerry and Moe learned that they would need to call Joe’s bluff every now and then or else lose to
him, hand after hand. Joe would always stay, and always raise.

The day of the upset was Thanksgiving Eve. Joe had accumulated very nearly ten dollars by intensive wood chopping in the hard
Wisconsin cold for his father’s winter supply. He arrived at Billy’s with Thanksgiving presents—he was always bringing presents,
especially after he had walked home the winner. For Jerry he brought the newest model of a Whizz—the rubber ball attached
to the center of a paddle by a long elastic string. Joe was eager to demonstrate his skill with it and managed eleven hits
before the ball eluded the paddle. For Billy he brought a box of ten jacks and, again, set out to show him how to bounce the
ball on the floor and quickly snatch up a jack. Billy showed prowess, capturing six of the ten jacks before missing the ball.
The two boys were engrossed with their toys. Joe enjoyed the pleasure they were taking, but now Moe came in, and he wanted
to play cards. That meant getting out of the warm house and walking through the cold to the barn. There was the usual recitation
of the house rules: five-cent limit, three-raise maximum.

It was after ten, and they had been playing for two hours. Now it was cold. They sat under the kerosene lamp on individual
hay bales grouped around twin hay bales that were covered by a blanket. Jerry and Billy’s father, Mr. Garvey, had set down
his rule in mid-September, before the chill set in. His rule was that just ten pieces of coal could be used by the boys to
keep warm. Mr. Garvey thought that rule a good idea from two points of view. There was the husbandry—coal was not to be treated
as though it grew from the ground. And then too, putting a limit on the coal the boys could burn was a way of limiting the
time they would stay up nights.

“What would happen,” Joe asked, burying his hands in the pockets
of his jacket to shield against the night’s cold, “if we just, well, stuck a few more pieces in the stove? I mean,” he asked
Jerry, “your dad wouldn’t notice. He doesn’t
count
how many pieces are in that vat, does he?”

Joe thought his idea very funny, and without waiting for an answer, got up from his seat, walked over to the coal bin, and,
in the voice of an auctioneer, counted out, “
Five thousand four hundred and eighty-seven coal pieces here, five thousand four hundred and eighty-eight, five thousand four
hundred and eighty—who took number five thousand four hundred and eighty-nine!
Jerry! Billy! I’m going to whip your ass!”

Billy, freckled and chubby, wearing a winter jacket and a scarf, thought this funny too, as did Jerry, red haired and rangy,
with traces of a beard. He rubbed his fingers together to keep warm. Moe, his wool cap pulled down to his ears, said nothing,
his eyes fixed on the corner of the blanket and Joe’s collection of silver after hours of successful poker—He must have
five dollars
in quarters and nickels, Moe reckoned.

Joe stood there by the coal bin with the grave countenance of an auctioneer deliberating over a critical bid. Joe was waiting
for Jerry, the senior Garvey, to say, What the hell! Go ahead! Take a few forbidden pieces of coal!

But Jerry gave no such signal. Instead he said, “Cut it out, Joe. My dad trusts Billy and me. Let’s call it a night. It’s
late. And,” he shivered ostentatiously, “it’s cold.”

Joe paused. “Tell you what, Jerry. Suppose I
buy
some coal from your dad? How much is one piece worth? A penny? Two pennies? Hell, let’s say
three
pennies! Five pieces, fifteen cents.” He reached down to the corner where his stakes were sequestered, plucked out a dime
and a nickel, and placed the coins in Jerry’s corner. He then turned, opened the bin, and scooped up coals in the cups of
both hands.

He was reaching down to put them in the stove when Jerry landed his fist on his chest, knocking him down. Joe got up, the
smile gone. He lowered his head and, fists flying, tore into Jerry, two years older, fifteen pounds heavier. Jerry, who boxed
at school, returned the blows lustily and with precision, and in moments Joe McCarthy was on the floor, his mouth bleeding.
The blanket had been ripped away, the coins strewn about the hay-packed floor among the bales
that served as chairs. Moe began collecting the silver pieces, frenzied, determined. Jerry leaned down, picked up the blanket,
spread it out, and reconstituted the table. He turned to Moe.

“Put it all back on the table. We’ll figure out who had what.”

Joe, silent, looked on. In a few moments Jerry, his hand full of silver coins, approached him.

“I figure this is yours.”

Joe did not extend his hand. Jerry reached to one side and dumped the money in Joe’s pocket.

“Okay, that’s it. Good night, Moe. Good night, Joe. And thanks for the Whizz ball. Come on, Billy.” Jerry reached over and
turned the kerosene light knob down. The light flickered out gradually on the four boys dressed for winter, one of them with
a bloodstain over his chin, but the faltering light caught also the bright smile on Joe’s face.

The next day was a holiday, and Tim McCarthy forbade work on holidays and holy days. Joe was gone when his parents and brothers
woke at seven, but he was back in time for the Thanksgiving turkey, happy and talkative.

Where had he been? his mother asked.

Down to the school, he said.

But the school was closed.

Yes, but he wanted to track down Mr. Agnelli. The football coach.

“He teaches boxing too, you know. I wanted to get him to teach me.”

“How’re you going to do that,” Steve wanted to know. “Now that you’ve pulled out of school?”

“Oh,” said Joe happily, “no problem. We made a deal.”

Joe worked very long days, adding twenty hours for his uncle to his father’s fifty-hour ration, but now, at seventeen, he
was staying awake in bed at night. He had to do more, it was that simple, he concluded after several weeks, and one night
he got the idea, and after making some notes on the inside cover of a magazine, he slept long and well. The next day he informed
his father that he, Joe, was going into business “on my own,” needing only permission to use a corner of his father’s sixty-four-acre
farm. He didn’t say what it was he intended to do. But he did open his wallet to his father, and with some ceremony counted
out the sixty-five dollars he had saved. Altering his habits, he had studiously sequestered the money he earned from his uncle
as a farmhand. He kept it separate from the money he earned from his father. This he spent on cards and on the steady drizzle
of little gifts he was always giving to family and friends.

“That’s what they call capital,” he said. “Just wait, Dad.”

Joe McCarthy, a year and a half later, was by community standards a prosperous chicken farmer. He owned two thousand laying
hens and ten thousand broilers. He would rise before dawn and tend his chickens, coming home at dark heavy with chicken offal,
showering before dinner, and talking about his future as a chicken farmer—“The sky’s the limit!” he told his mother buoyantly.

In late summer he bought the second-hand Chevrolet. He refitted
it for his own uses and spent long days on the road selling cases of eggs, carefully memorizing the names of all his customers,
some of whom, attracted to the energetic young man, were cheered by his ambition. Many would hold back on buying eggs from
the local store, waiting to see Joe McCarthy come by in his converted old Chevy. They gave as their reason for doing so, when
talking to members of the family, that it was a good thing in America to encourage youthful enterprise. Actually, they were
buying their eggs from Joe McCarthy because they liked him, liked his cheerfulness and affability and the hint of a flirt
when the buyer was the lady of the house.

In December he drove in his Chevy to pick up Jerry. They embarked on a considerable adventure, a drive to Chicago, where Jerry
hoped to go to college. They would share a room at the hotel, saving on expenses. The 175 miles was an exciting trip. They
were now in the Windy City, which would be the home of the World’s Fair of 1939, an exuberant act of defiance of the terrible
Depression. The great drive by the shore of Lake Michigan still gave off its old splendor. Both young men wanted to take Chicago
on, Jerry to examine the University of Chicago, and Joe to cultivate prospective clients and attend festivities at the biannual
twenty-four-hour convention of chicken farmers.

The day was full with speeches and meetings and seminars and an exchange of trade information. At the closing reception he
spotted the name of Richie O’Neill, a seigneurial figure at age twenty-five with his hundred-thousand-broiler enterprise,
a major player in southern Wisconsin.

Joe introduced himself, pointing to his mislettered name tag. “They got it wrong, Mr. O’Neill—”

“Richie.”

“Richie. They got it wrong; it’s
McCarthy,
one
t
.”

Richie asked the routine questions about the business enterprise of the chicken farmer he was talking to. They ate dinner
with two of Richie’s friends, and after the evening lecture (on the need for federal price supports), Richie asked if Joe
played poker. Joe whooped his delight at the thought of a game, and five of them went to Richie’s hotel room, bringing in
extra chairs to play their cards on the bed.

Richie ordained that there would be no house limit. Joe was startled when Richie, opening with two kings, put down a five-dollar
bill.
Joe, a single ace showing in his four up cards, saw him and raised five dollars. Gene, Benton, and Chuck dropped out. Richie
raised Joe back. Joe paused for a moment, and then raised Richie ten dollars. Richie looked up at Joe, apparently unconcerned.
The others froze on the scene, an opening-hand drama. Richie folded. Joe took the money, buried his cards—no one would know
whether he had another ace as his down card.

It was Gene’s deal. A half hour later Richie thought he had drawn the profile of young McCarthy, poker player. An hour later
Joe lost seventy-five dollars on a single hand.

Gene said he was quitting, but Benton and Chuck and Richie said they were good for more. Benton volunteered to go find some
beer. Richie looked up at Joe.

“You want to quit?”

“Hell, no! But I got to go get some stuff from my room. Be right back.”

He prayed Jerry would be back from his tour of the university campus. He was there, sitting in the armchair, reading the next
day’s
Chicago Tribune.

“Jerry, can you let me have a loan?”

“How much?”

“Two hundred dollars.”

Jerry laughed. “Forget it, Joe. How much you lose?”

“Four big ones.”

Jerry paled. “Did you have it on you?”

“Hell, yes; they play for cash.”

“My advice: Cut your losses—you are a
dumb … stupid …
” He stopped. Joe must be suffering enough.

Still standing by the corner of the double bed they shared, Joe persisted. “I got to get back there, Jerry. You like my car,
I know. And you’ll need one in Chicago. It’s yours for two hundred dollars.”

Jerry reacted quickly. He bit his lip. “Okay. But I didn’t bring two hundred dollars in cash with me. I can give you fifty
in cash and a hundred fifty in a check.”

“Done!”

Joe reached for the telephone and dialed Richie’s room.

“Richie? Joe here. Got hung up for a minute, but don’t give me up. Will be with you in no time.”

He pulled out his wallet and the registration form for the car, read it hastily, signed his own name as seller, and said to
Jerry, “You fill in the rest.”

He picked up the cash and the check, opened the door, then turned around, a broad smile on his face. “Jerry?”

“Yuh.”

“I’ll buy the car back from you tomorrow for two hundred fifty!” He slammed the door shut.

In the dining room the conventioneers were arriving for breakfast, downing their coffee and eggs and cereal, exchanging business
cards, and walking off to their cars or buses, or to the railroad station. Joe sat alone, reading the paper. He looked up
at the figure who had sat down opposite. It was Richie.

“How’d you get here, Joe? Bus, or somebody give you a ride?”

“Oh,” Joe answered cheerfully, “I came down with a buddy. But he’s going on south, so I’ll be taking the bus home.”

“Why don’t you let me give you a ride? I go right by your place on the way to the farm.”

“Well, that would be just fine. When you want to leave, Richie?”

“In an hour. See you outside.”

Richie drove a splendid half-ton, the rear of it equipped as a bedroom/study, complete with toilet and sink and radio and
portable library and chicken catalogs. He displayed it to Joe with some pride. “Got all the facilities of a trailer, right,
Joe?”