That Was Then, This Is Now

  "Kid, have I ever given you a dirty deal?" I said, winking at Mark.

  "No," M&M said, and went back to his magazine. I never could figure that kid out. I liked him though, partly because he was Cathy's brother, partly because he was a good kid, and partly because he had lived to a nice old age in our neighborhood--for a sucker.

  Mark had given him back his peace symbol. It hung around his neck on the rawhide string, and M&M kept twisting it absent-mindedly. I wondered if his father still gave him a bad time because of his hair.

  We decided to hit Charlie's place first. Charlie grinned and waved at us when we came in, so I figured he was over his bad mood about being drafted.

  "Guess what?" he said, just like a kid. It was the first time I'd ever seen him act like a kid. "They're not goin' to take me."

  "How come?" Mark asked, plopping down at the bar. "Bad knee from playing football?"

  Charlie shook his head. "Naw, because of my police record."

  "You got a record?" I said. "I didn't know that. What'dya do?"

  "When I was twelve years old I cut a guy's throat. You in here to play pool?"

  I still don't know if Charlie was telling the truth or just kidding us, sort of telling us that it was none of our business what his police record was for. Either was possible.

  "Yeah, we're here to play pool. Any possibilities?"

  Charlie nodded toward the poolroom. "There's a couple of guys in there. I watched them a little; you can take them."

  "Good enough," I said, sliding off the stool.

  "Hey, wait a minute," Charlie said. We turned. "Would it do any good to tell you to be careful?"

  "Nope," said Mark bluntly.

  Charlie kind of laughed and sighed at the same time. "I didn't think so."

  We played pool until twelve o'clock that night. The two guys we played against were tough characters, out-of-towners from Texas. At first we played partners, me and Mark losing by a couple of balls. Then Mark started his routine about wanting to go home--"Come on, Bryon, you lost all the money you can spare"--while I played the eager kid--"I know I can win the next game." Then we played singles. I played the better of the two, a weather-beaten guy in his twenties who looked like an ex-con; for all I know he was. I don't know where else he could have picked up his lingo, because he used the worst language I've ever heard, and I've heard plenty.

  I was careful not to win at first, and then, when I did start winning, I only made it by a few balls so it'd look like an accident. But once I started winning I didn't quit. By midnight I had twenty-five dollars and fifty cents.

  "You're a darn good pool player," Dirty Dave said--he'd told us that was his name--or words to that effect. His friend, who had been standing around drinking beer for the last three hours, mumbled something about being "too good for his own good," but Dirty Dave shut him up.

  "Closing time," Charlie said. He didn't have any other customers but us by that time; he had been watching the game for the last hour and a half.

  "We're leavin'." Mark was sitting on the table of a booth and drinking a beer. I don't know where he got it, and from the surprised look Charlie gave him, Charlie didn't know where he got it either.

  "See ya 'round, kids," the Texans said as they sauntered out. I was busy counting my money and Mark was stretching his legs.

  "So the hustler strikes again," Charlie said. "How much did ya get?"

  "Enough. Can I borrow your car again some time?"

  "I guess so, just as long as you buy gas. Come on, beat it. I got some work to do. Next time you sneak a beer, Golden Boy, you're going to get stomped on."

  "I didn't sneak nothing. I simply walked over and drew a beer. I can't help it if you didn't see it. I left a quarter on the cash register."

  "You are good at bein' invisible, man, because anybody gets within ten feet of that cash register, I know it."

  "You're gettin' blind in your old age," Mark said, apparently not caring if he got stomped on or not. I gave him a warning look, and he obediently shut up. I wasn't taking any chances--we left as soon as we could.

  We didn't get far. Two dark shapes stepped out of the alley next to Charlie's and a voice drawled, "Step right into the alley, kiddies."

  I froze, because the voice was Dirty Dave's. I thought about making a run for it, but the voice said, "I gotta gun," so I decided not to. I still didn't move. Mark suddenly said, "We don't want to see the alley, we seen it before," and he sounded like he was trying not to laugh.

  "We're gonna give you a lesson on why not to hustle pool. Just step into the alley. Now."

  I glanced at Mark over my shoulder. He shrugged, like he was saying "What else can we do?" So we walked past the Texans into the alley. I was beginning to shake. I was having visions of my thumbs being chopped off or my arms being broken--things like that happen to hustlers. When we reached the dead end of the alley, we turned and faced the Texans--the one guy was holding a gun on us while Dirty Dave was putting on some brass knuckles. I could just picture what my face was going to look like when he got through with me. I suddenly remembered Mark, who hadn't done anything but get me started. "Let Mark go," I said, and my voice was steady. I was surprised--I thought it would be shaking as bad as I was. "He didn't do nothin'."

  Mark said quietly, "I'm not goin' anywhere," and Dave said, "You'd better believe it. You were settin' him up, and when I get through with hustler here, I'm goin' to give you a lesson too."

  "Brass knuckles, guns, or whatever," Mark said in a voice I couldn't even recognize as Mark's, "you'll know you been in a fight if you tangle with me."

  "I'm really scared, kid," he said. My eyes were used to the dim light by now; I could see past the Texans into the street. I was praying for a police car, something I never thought I'd ever do. Dave took a step toward me. I backed up against the alley wall. I was afraid that if I moved to grab up something to fight with, the other guy would shoot me.

  Just at that moment somebody stepped into the other end of the alley and a voice said, "Drop the gun and freeze--I got a sawed-off shotgun here and I'd hate to scatter dirt all over this nice clean alley."

  It was Charlie. I never thought I'd be so glad to see anyone.

  "Bryon, Mark, come on out of there."

  We couldn't resist smirking a little as we walked past the Texans. Even in the dark I could see the anger contorting their faces. It should have warned me, but it didn't.

  "Thanks, Charlie," Mark said as we reached him. "You're a real pal."

  "I hope you two learned something from this," Charlie began, but before we knew what was happening one of the Texans made a dive for the gun and fired at us. Charlie slammed both of us to the ground, but in an instant Mark freed himself, grabbed up the shotgun Charlie had dropped, and fired back at the Texans, who were scrambling over the alley wall. It all happened so quickly that I was trying to figure out what I was doing on the ground with my ears ringing from the blast before I realized what had taken place.

  Mark was swearing and in the dim light he didn't even look like Mark. He looked perfectly capable of murder; his only regret was that he had missed. I didn't have any similar regrets; if he had missed, well, so had they. You can't feel too bad when you could have been dead but aren't.

  "You can get off me now, Charlie," I said. Charlie didn't move. I rolled out from under him. "Hey, man, come on," I said. Then, in the white, sickly light from the street lights I saw that there was a neat, perfect hole above Charlie's left eye. He was dead.

  *

  I wouldn't talk about what had happened to anyone but Cathy and Mark. The next few weeks it seemed as if I was moving in slow motion while other people were speeded up. Mom came home from the hospital and I flunked chemistry and Angela got married to some creep friend of her brother's. I called Cathy every day. Mark was the one who explained everything to the police. The police were very impressed with Charlie's having saved our lives and all that. They were local cops who had known and liked him anyway. They told us we could have his car.
I took it because I figured he would have given it to us if he had had the time.

  I guess I was acting pretty strange during those weeks because one day Mark said, "Lookit, man, Charlie knew what kind of people came into his bar--why do you think he kept a shotgun handy? He knew those cowboys had a gun, he knew what kind of a chance he was taking."

  "He told us to be careful," I said. I couldn't get it out of my mind, Charlie's warning us about hustling. "He didn't have to try to get us off the hook. Mark--can't you see? This ain't some story, some TV show, bang! you're dead, big deal. This is the real thing. Charlie is dead! He was all set for life, he wasn't gonna get drafted, he had his business, he was all set, and then we blew it for him."

  "We didn't blow nothing, Bryon. Things happen, that's all there is to it."

  "Not things like that," I said.

  Mark didn't understand and Cathy did. I started spending more and more time with Cathy. Since I had the car, we went for a lot of drives and got a lot of Cokes together. We were always talking to each other about the way we felt--I tried telling her how I felt about Charlie, about how shook the whole thing had me. She told me about herself, about how she wanted to go to college more than anything, about how she worried about M&M, and about life in a big family, something I wasn't familiar with. She was so smart, yet she didn't know a lot of things. She was one of the few really innocent chicks I had ever run into. But I could talk to her about anything, talk to her better than I could anyone, even Mark.

  After a few weeks we'd drive by the park and make out for a little while. It was different for me though, because I had quit thinking only about myself, quit pushing for all I could get.

  *

  Mark was acting strange these days, too. He would stare at me for long periods of time when he thought I wasn't watching, like he was trying to find the old Bryon in this stranger, like he was trying to figure out who I was. One night he even almost lost his temper with me when I told him I was going goofing around with Cathy instead of with him. It was as if he felt something slipping and was trying to hang on. I couldn't help him; I was trying to hang on myself.

  He even acted like he was jealous of Cathy. In all the years I'd known him, in all the years I'd gone with different girls, he had never acted like that.

  I was changing and he wasn't.

  6

  The Texans were finally caught and tried. I had to go to the trial to testify. Mark did too. He watched me closely at first--I guess he couldn't forget that by the time the police had showed up at Charlie's I had been hysterical. He didn't have to worry. I went through the whole trial calm, collected, numb, and empty. I felt like a tape recorder playing back something it had impersonally recorded. The Texans were sentenced to life after a trial that didn't last as long as I thought it would, I guess because there wasn't any defense. I didn't feel glad, or vengeful, or anything. I really hadn't much cared whether or not they even caught those guys. Charlie was dead, nothing was going to change that.

  I tried to figure out what made me so shook up about it. I knew people died, although I still can't see me doin' it. My father had died, so I knew that people close to you died the same as strangers did. I guess I just couldn't see standing there--alive, talking, thinking, breathing, being--one second, and dead the next. It really bothered me. Death by violence isn't the same as dying any other way, accident or disease or old age. It just ain't the same.

  That winter Mark and me were kind of celebrities because of our involvement in the trial. We were invited to Soc parties and we were stared at in the halls and even the teachers treated us differently. I just put up with it. Mark kind of enjoyed it. He felt bad about Charlie being dead though, enough to shut up people who tried to get him to talk about it.

  Mark and me used to go down to the bar and just sit on the curb across the street and stare at the boarded-up windows. Just sit and stare and not say anything. It's funny how you don't think about people until after they're dead. Or gone.

  *

  Mom had to stay in bed for a month, so we were really getting hard up for money. I got to thinking about what Charlie had said when I asked him for a job. I decided I needed a haircut, clean clothes, and a really big change in attitude. I've told you that I don't like authority. This gives people the impression that I'm a smart-aleck kid. I'll admit I'm pretty mouthy. I got to thinking, Who's going to hire a mouthy kid who acts like he already knows it all?

  "Even if you do know it all," Mark said one evening while we were sitting on the porch, "you don't have to let them know it."

  "Very good idea." I grinned at him. We were getting along better lately--he had given up trying to keep us together the same as we used to be. I know now this must have been a struggle. Branching off from Mark couldn't affect me so much--I was all wrapped up in Cathy. He was on his own. I didn't know how he spent his time when I was with Cathy, and I didn't bother to find out.

  "When you go so far as to get a haircut and iron a shirt, I know you're serious. We're really hard up, ain't we, Bryon?"

  "Yep. Or hasn't the shortage of food bugged you at all?"

  "I don't eat like some people. I'm goin' to start bringin' in some money. You wait and see, buddy, I ain't gonna sponge forever."

  This was the first time in all the years that he had lived with us that Mark ever said anything about being dependent on us.

  I looked at him quickly, and I wanted to say: "What do you mean, sponge? We love you and we want you here, and Mark, you're my brother and you've got a right to whatever I've got."

  I didn't. I said, "Don't be a ding-a-ling." Now I wish I had told him how much he meant to us, to me and Mom, how he made us seem more like a family. But I never have been able to say things like that, to tell people I loved them, unless it was some nitwit chick I couldn't care less about. So I just gave him a punch on the shoulder. He grinned at me, but absently, like he was thinking of something else.

  That night Cathy and I went for a drive. I wanted to tell her about my new approach to getting a job, but before I could she said suddenly, "I think M&M is smoking marijuana." She sounded worried.

  I was puzzled. "So what?"

  She gave me an incredulous look. "So what? Have you smoked it?"

  "Yeah," I said. "You haven't?"

  "No!"

  "It ain't much. I'd rather have beer any day. I think a lot of these kids just dig it because it's in, it's against the law, and it's supposed to be cool. Me, I think it's O.K., but it sure ain't worth five years in a state prison."

  "You won't smoke it any more?" It was a request, not an order, so I answered, "I said I wasn't nuts about it."

  Cathy still seemed concerned. "Did you like it? Did it make you want to try stronger stuff?"

  "Like acid? Nope, I can't say that it did. But maybe it affects some people like that. At least that's what I read in the magazines."

  Cathy sat back with a sigh. "But it's different with you, Bryon. You're smart enough to enjoy yourself without artificial stimulants."

  I didn't say anything to this, as I never turn down compliments. She continued, "But M&M, he's so trusting. If he's running around with people who give him grass, he'll take it. If someone handed him LSD and said, 'This is groovy,' he'd say O.K. and take it. I worry because, well, because before M&M always seemed so happy at home; he never seemed to need anything else. But lately he's gotten so much grief for his hair and some of his ideas. I wish Daddy would leave him alone. M&M isn't happy at home now, so he goes other places, I don't know where. I don't even know his friends any more."

  "You love him a lot, don't you?" I said, vaguely jealous, feeling a mild form of whatever it was that Mark felt about Cathy.

  "Sure, don't you?" Cathy said, amazed at the possibility that someone might not love simple, brilliant, trusting M&M.

  "Yeah," I said, because at that moment I loved anything that Cathy loved, because I loved her. I did. I thought it was corny--love is always corny to anyone not experiencing it himself, and even now to me it was corny
. But I couldn't help it. I thought about all the times I had said "I love you" to girls I didn't love--to some I didn't even like--and it had been so easy. And now I couldn't even look at her for fear she could tell somehow. It was really weird.

  "I think you'd be a good influence on him," Cathy was saying, and I realized I hadn't heard a thing she'd been saying. "I know what," she continued. "Let's pick up him and Mark and go get a Coke over on the Ribbon."

  "O.K.," I said. The last thing I wanted just then was to be alone with her; I could easily say something really dumb.

  We picked up Mark pretty quick--he was walking home from Terry Jones's house. We had to hunt and hunt for M&M, but we finally found him in the bowling alley.

  The Ribbon was a two-mile stretch of hot dog and hamburger stands, drive-ins, and supermarkets over on the West Side, close to where the Socs lived. At night the parking lots were filled with kids sitting on their cars and waving, watching, and yelling at other kids driving by. You could drive up and down the street looking at people, or park your car and look at people. The cops sometimes came along and told everyone to get back into their cars, but the cops were mostly guys who had been patrolling the Ribbon for a long time. The kids had worn them down by being pleasantly smart-aleck and smilingly uncooperative, so unless the kids were openly smoking grass or fighting, the cops were content to sit on the cars with them and yell rude things to chicks driving by.

  It was a great place to go to pick up chicks. If you followed a carload of them around for a while, they might pull over and exchange phone numbers with you. Everyone in town went there to see who was going with who and who had what car. If you found someone you wanted to drive around with, you parked your car and left it while you goofed around with maybe a dozen different people in one night. Just the driving up and down was a blast. There had been all kinds of editorials in the paper about it because a lot of pushers took advantage of the filled parking lots, and quite a bit of grass and money exchanged hands there, but mostly it was harmless. Fights down on the Ribbon had really died off in the last year. It had gotten pretty safe, except for drag racing, which caused a wreck or two a week.