Little Men, Big World Page 12

“What did I say? He is a Polack, ain’t he? That’s the last report I heard, but after talking to Milli, or trying to talk to her, I ain’t sure she knows.”

  “Go ’way,” said Arky. “It’s too hot to talk even.”

  There was a long silence, then Zand spoke. “Will you please tell me what women see in babies? All they do is eat, cry, and fill their pants. What’s so cunning about that?”

  Arky turned to stare at him. “What’s so what"?”

  “Cunning,” said Zand. “She says it all the time. Lola, I mean. Thaddeus is so ‘cunning.’”

  “His name’s Orv. Never mind that Thaddeus stuff.”

  “Why don’t you go all the way and call him Orval Wanty? You can’t call him Orval Sienkiewicz.”

  “Why don’t you mind your own goddamn business?” There was a pause and Zand sat sighing. Finally he spoke. “I still say ‘cunning’ don’t mean cute. We been arguing about it all day. It means ... well, cunning. Like a guy is ... well, he’s shrewd or conniving. Ain’t that right, Arky?”

  “I don’t know. Come to think of it, seems to me when I was a boy I used to hear my old lady refer to a baby as ‘cunning’ or maybe even a little pig sometimes.”

  “My God!” cried Zand, hastily. “Don’t tell Lola that or I’ll never hear the last of it.”

  “I don’t tell Lola nothing,” said Arky disdainfully.

  There was a long silence and both men wiped their faces repeatedly. Zand spoke at last. “Lola says you’re going to get the kid baptized. Is that on the square?”

  “Anna wants to; but I figure it’s too complicated. I don’t know what you have to go through—records and stuff, I mean. Someday I’ll ask the Officer. He’s got six or seven kids.”

  “Eight, I think,” said Zand. “But he’s got a television set now so maybe he’ll slack off.”

  Arky laughed curtly then threw his cigar away. “How was business today?”

  “Way up, like every place. I don’t know where these cheap jerks around here get all the money they bet. They can’t steal that much.”

  “Money’s loose right now. At least for gambling. The Front’s roaring. The take was up ten G’s last week.”

  “All them conventions, brother! I hear they had to get a traffic cop to route the girls in the lobby of the Regent Hotel. They were trampling the guests.”

  Arky laughed again, then he got up. “Might take a walk. I don’t know. This heat…”

  “Look,” said Zand, seriously. “Don’t take no walks. If you want to go someplace I’ll drive you.” Arky turned and stared at him. “Well, it figures, don’t it? You got cops guarding the Mover. If there was trouble, you’d be the first guy shot. Ain’t you got sense enough to know that?”

  Arky considered then sat down again. “Yeah. If they’d happen to blast me, the Mover’d be in a hell of a spot.”

  “The Mover? How about yourself?”

  Arky took out another cigar, bit off the end, and lit up. “I don’t worry about myself.”

  “Only crazy people don’t worry about themselves.”

  “I mean,” said Arky, “I figure it’s my job to look after him. He looked after me once, and how! Straightened me out when I needed it.”

  Zand smothered a question and veiled a quick eager look of curiosity. He’d often wondered about Arky and the Mover. No use to ask, however. If Arky wanted to tell him, he would; if not, a third degree wouldn’t help. “Yeah,” he said, “a guy feels like looking after them that look after him. Like us.” Arky glanced at Zand. “How do you mean?”

  “You know how I mean. I was in with a bad bunch when I went to work for you—and practically starving to boot. I was a cinch for the Walls. Now look. I’m doing fine, thanks to you.”

  “I didn’t do nothing,” said Arky uncomfortably. “You went to work for me and you made good. I could turn this joint over to you tomorrow and blow. And nobody’d know the difference.”

  “Did anybody ask you to cut me in? But you did.”

  “You had it coming. Now shut up.”

  There was a pause. “All the same,” said Zand. “Don’t go taking any walks. You look after the Mover and I’ll look after you.”

  Arky sat smoking in silence for a long time, staring off into space, and then finally he began to talk, not looking at Zand or even seeming to acknowledge his presence. “You figure a young fellow, maybe about twenty. He’s had a bellyful of farm and fighting with his brothers about whose turn it is to do what. Also he’s had a touch of gambling and cheap dames, running away with a carnival once when he was sixteen. So with maybe twenty bucks in his pocket, he hits for the big town. Don’t know a soul. The way he talks makes everybody laugh, and they kid him. That’s okay but it can get mighty tiresome. What can he work at? You don’t pitch manure on the Front. But you can swing a pick in a ditch. So that’s what he does for a while. Then he gets to playing the horses and the numbers, and hanging around with a lot of cheap tramps, male and female. Maybe the guy’s just no good. That may be the explanation. I wouldn’t argue with you about it.

  “Anyway, one night he gets into one of them things in a bar. A bunch of guys been kidding him about going back to the Ozarks. That’s okay. But a couple of ’em are telling him to go back to the Ozarks in broken English. That ain’t so okay, and it begins to make him sore. He drinks too much; so does everybody, and pretty soon the swinging starts. Three guys jump him. He has one down, then two; but he can’t keep ’em all down long enough to do him any good. Finally he goes down himself and somebody kicks him in the face and breaks his nose. After that he don’t remember much. ... All the same one guy’s dead, and everybody’s saying the young guy used a chair on him. More than likely he did.

  “Well, this young guy’s got no money and no friends. They throw him in the can and get him a lawyer for free, a jerk who’s so dumb he’d get a man sent up for a year for double parking. He tells the young guy to plead guilty to manslaughter, waive trial, and throw himself on the mercy of the court. The young guy don’t know it, but he could have been sent up for ten years with the wrong judge. But the young guy’s luck has finally turned. He gets the right judge. And he don’t serve a day. Looking over the case, the judge won’t accept the plea, and declares that the lawyer is incompetent and should be subjected to re-examination by the Bar Association. Turns out he’s a stinking lush. Later, the case was dismissed.”

  Arky turned and looked at Zand. “Understand what I’m talking about?”

  “I think so,” said Zand solemnly.

  Arky nodded, then relapsed into silence.

  It was almost midnight. Arky and Zand had all the windows open in the bookie room, a cool breeze was beginning to blow up from the river, and the mercury had started to fall. They were playing gin rummy for small stakes and complaining about the heat. But now, feeling the breeze, they looked up at each other and grinned.

  “Ah!” sighed Arky. “That’s something like it! May be able to sleep tonight after all.”

  Zand nodded slowly, then he studied his hand for a moment and went down with ten, but lost. Just as Arky was dealing the cards the screaming started. They both jumped up, appalled. It seemed to be coming from Arky’s apartment upstairs.

  Arky jerked a gun out of the desk, banged back the door, and took the stairs at three bounds, followed by Zand, who had also grabbed up a gun.

  The apartment door was locked; Arky tried to kick it open but it was too stout for him; and he was forced to unlock it as the screaming and yelling continued.

  He ran back through the dark hallway, followed by Zand. The noise seemed to be coming from the spare bedroom. Arky slammed back the door, then stopped stock-still and stared. Zand, behind him, dropped his gun with a clatter.

  Anna was beating Milli with her fists, and the girl was screaming, pleading, terrified, trying to get away. Arky looked on for a moment a little appalled by Anna’s violence, and her red, contorted face. Finally he stepped in and broke it up, shoving Anna so hard that she fell backward across the bed
. Milli tried to duck out the door, but Zand got in her path and pushed her back, then shut the door behind him.

  “What the hell is all this?” shouted Arky. “You want the cops to come?”

  “That sly little bitch,” cried Anna. “No wonder Thad beat her. He didn’t beat her enough.”

  Anna was sitting up now, glaring at Milli, who cringed away and stood looking about her helplessly, as if she felt that now finally the end had come.

  “What did she do?” Arky demanded impatiently.

  “She tried to run off with Orv. I was taking a nap and by the grace of God I woke up in time. And besides—she had stole money out of my purse, after all I’ve done for her.”

  “I need money ... for ... to ... to get there,” wailed the girl. “Anna ... she give me lots of money. I didn’t think ... wrong.”

  “You didn’t think wrong!” screamed Anna. “No, you didn’t think wrong, trying to take Orv with you when it says in that letter right there if you brought the baby he’d give it to an orphanage to raise.”

  Milli screamed out a long explanation in Polish.

  Arky yelled for silence, and when he didn’t get it he picked up a newspaper from the table, calmly folded it, and slapped Milli across the face with it, then Anna. There was a sudden dead appalled silence.

  “I’m tired of this goddamn screaming,” said Arky. “Now talk quiet or I’ll take care of both of you.”

  “She’s been getting letters from that meathead she’s married to,” said Anna, after a pause. “Now he’s got some kind of piddling job and he wants her to come back to him. You should read the letters. He’d spell cat with a k.”

  “How do you spell it?” asked Zand.

  Arky began to snicker, but Anna burst into tears and, turning sideways, fell over and buried her face in the coverlet. Milli began to wail in sympathy, big tears running down her fat, babyish face.

  “Oh, Jesus,” said Arky in disgust, then he went over to Anna and shook her gently. “Look, Anna. Sit up now. Behave yourself. Don’t act like that silly kid. After all she’s only sixteen, she can’t talk good—maybe you don’t know what’s going on in her mind.”

  Anna sat up and looked at Milli indignantly. “I know what’s going on in her mind all right. The same thing that got her in all this trouble in the first place.”

  “That’s natural,” said Arky. “That’s the way girls are. She didn’t invent it.”

  “That’s right,” cried Anna, “stick up for her!”

  “You better shut up, Arky,” said Zand in a low voice. “Anyway, that’s not what I’m talking about,” cried Anna. “She can sleep with who she pleases when she pleases, but she’s not going to take that baby away.”

  “It’s hers, Anna,” said Arky. “She’s its mother.”

  “She couldn’t be a mother to a litter of puppies,” cried Anna. “Look at her—the silly fool. Chuck’s going to put the baby in an orphanage, and she’s all for it.”

  “Please ... no,” said Milli. “I don’t like ... bodder.” Anna stared at Milli in surprise, then she asked her a question in Polish. Milli went into a long explanation, also in Polish. Arky looked on in irritation. Finally, Anna gave a loud cry, got up from the bed, rushed across the room, took Milli in her arms and began to kiss her; then they both burst into tears.

  Arky and Zand looked at each other in stunned silence. “She just didn’t want to bother us with the baby, the poor little dear,” cried Anna. “We can have him, Arky. We can have him. Oh, God, Milli, I’m so sorry, dear.”

  Milli grinned rather weakly and looked timidly from Zand to Arky.

  “Well,” said Arky, “seems to me you could have settled that in the first place without all this screaming and carrying on.”

  “I did ... not ... understand,” said Milli, smiling shyly at Arky.

  Anna hurried over, struck by a sudden thought, and grabbed Arky’s arm. “It’s all right, isn’t it, Arky? I mean, he can stay. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Will it keep you quiet for a while?” asked Arky.

  “Yes,” said Anna. “I’ll be quiet. You won’t hear a sound out of me from now on.”

  Slowly things got back to normal. Anna took down one of her own suitcases and helped Milli repack her things. Arky gave Milli fifty dollars so she would have some money of her own, and Zand insisted on driving Milli clear across town to Steelton, better known as Polishtown, where Chuck Sienkiewicz had found a job and a room.

  “It’s getting late,” said Zand. “No sixteen-year-old girl ought to be out running to hell and gone at this time of night.” At a look from Arky, he added: “I’ll take Lola along. She’s always yacking she never gets out of the district.”

  Two a.m. Tugs moaning on the river, towing coal-barges downstream toward the faraway Mississippi. Juke boxes playing in the bars along Pier Street, four or five different tunes fighting with each other in the stillness of the night. Faint wail of police sirens beyond the river.

  The city going about its night business as usual. Three hours till dawn at least: plenty of time for love, thievery, another couple of drinks, or even murder.

  But in Arky’s apartment two a.m. only meant one thing now: Orv’s feeding time. He was a greedy baby, a heavy eater, and although he was nearly three months old, he showed no signs yet of skipping the dead-hour feed.

  Anna, looking remarkably plump, blond, and happy in her blue bathrobe, had Orv on her lap, feeding him. Arky sat with his legs crossed, looking on.

  “Sure is fat and sassy,” said Arky.

  “Sure is,” said Anna, imitating Arky’s accent, then laughing lightly. There was a pause, then Anna went on. “I’m certainly glad to have Milli out of the house. She was beginning to get on my nerves. I hope I wasn’t such an empty-headed fool when I was sixteen, but I’m afraid I was.”

  “I know I was,” said Arky. “I run off with a carnival, got mixed up with a belly-dancer old enough to be my mother, and got a package. Wasn’t easy to cure in those days.”

  “You ought to be ashamed to talk like that in front of Orv.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Probably be running off himself when he’s sixteen. A guy’s got to learn.”

  Anna thought this over for a minute, then she said: “In sixteen years I’ll be fifty-one. Not so old I can’t look after him.”

  “I’ll be fifty-six,” said Arky. “Pretty old. However, we’re a tough lot. Had a grandfather could do a good day’s work when he was eighty. Got married again when he was seventy-five.”

  “What for?” cried Anna, laughing loudly.

  “You don’t know us Wantys,” said Arky.

  10

  DOWNY, sitting comfortably in a booth at the Regent rathskeller, eating Polish sausage and hot potato-salad and drinking beer, wanted to have a quiet literary discussion with Reisman, who apparently had found time during his somewhat busy life to read practically everything, but Reisman seemed morose and preoccupied as he ate his potato soup and glared enviously at the highly spiced, aromatic sausage on Downy’s plate.

  Finally he sighed and said: “Want to make an advantageous swap? Your stomach for my brains and experience.”

  “I’d do it in a minute if it were possible,” said Downy.

  “That’s what you think now. But you’ll learn.” Reisman pushed the soup away and took out a cigarette. “What about Dorsey? Is he okay—or the silly schnook he seems like?”

  “I don’t think he’s very bright,” said Downy. “But nobody wants that 17th Ward beat, and he put in for it.”

  “How would you like to go back for a couple of months?”

  Downy choked on his food. “Look, Ben. I’m just getting a foothold in sports. The boss is even beginning to notice that I’m in the department. If I went back now…”

  “I’ll fix it. You won’t lose a thing by it. I already talked to Mush Head, who tried to get me to go to his psychiatrist, but finally gave in. If you yell at him long enough he usually gives in just to get some peace of mind.”

&nbs
p; Downy tried not to show his disappointment, but he shuddered inwardly at the thought of going back to the 17th with those appalling young girls who tried to pull you up alleys, those crop-headed, insolent young hoodlums—the dirt, the stench, the hopeless wrecks of humanity begging with trembling hands for “just a dime, son. Look at me shake! I need one bad, son. You got a kind face, son. You don’t want me to go on shaking like this, do you?” The dirty old women at the curb markets, pawing over the food; the poor filthy devils of kids, running around with nobody to look after them. What was the sense of it? Why did these people go on? What did it mean?

  Young Downy, one of the fortunate ones, had always lived well. His father, a business executive, had sent him to a military school and later to the state university, though Downy had wanted to go to Princeton, outraging his father, a graduate of State. The fraternities had competed hotly for Downy: he was considered a catch. After some indecision, he went Beta, again outraging his father, who was a Deke. His father always referred to the Betas as cake-eaters, dating himself, and making his son feel a little sorry for him. Nevertheless, the Betas had the highest rating in the university, socially at least, and were considered the crème de la crème and therefore hated and envied.

  In other words, Downy, though he considered himself an average American, had been top-rung all his life, sheltered, looked after, pampered. And even after he graduated from the College of Journalism, the process went on. He wasn’t forced to go running around, looking for a job. His father spoke to someone, the somebody spoke to the son of the Journal's owner, the son spoke to Mush Head, and Downy was in.

  Mush Head was very much taken with Downy, and introduced him to his daughter. Unfortunately, Mush Head’s daughter was an intellectual who wore glasses and made fun of the handsome and correct young reporter. Mush Head moaned about it and told his wife: “Joan will marry some goddamn silly writer or one of those painters, who needs a bath—I can actually smell them—that she’s always dragging to the house. Commies to a man!”

  In spite of his daughter’s disapproval of Downy, Mush Head kept an eye on the boy for the future. He came of a good family, he was a damned decent kid, and he tried hard. Too many bums in the newspaper business. Mush Head was always thinking and talking about “building for the future.” In fact some of the office cynics called him Old Building-for-the-Future Hanneman. Downy was tapped—as usual.