“I’m lousy and you know it,” Orrie said. “But anyway my father would probably have thought tennis did not really qualify as a manly sport.”
Paul shrugged. “Well, it’s too late now to worry about that.”
“But I guess I always will.” Orrie had not been in any kind of communication with his father for four years. You would think a man might have found time, in spite of combat, which could not have been incessant, to send a card to his only son or at least ask about him in a letter. More than once he had made this point to Ellie, who of course though equally neglected stanchly defended her dad: “They keep them busy in the Army. There’s a war to win.” If he continued to make his point, she would run off in tears, and then he felt awful, not changing his mind about his father but regretting he had made his sister weep. He knew there were lots of people who fought with their sisters, but he was not one of them.
Paul, sprawling on the bed, took some crumpled bills from his pocket. Then he scattered them, hopped up, and gestured. “Take what you need. If it’s not enough, I’ll go cash a check.”
“Just enough for the bus ticket and maybe a little extra to buy a shirt,” said Orrie. “The only white one I own is too dirty to wear to a funeral.”
Paul winced at him. “You don’t have a dark suit, do you? Let me stake you to one. If you give Hymie a tip, he’ll do cuffs et cetera in an hour or so.” Paul was always going to the local tailor to get things altered. His serious wardrobe was custom-made, but sports stuff, sweatshirts and gym shorts, were acquired at the university co-op, and if there was one thing he couldn’t bear it was ill-fitting clothes.
“No, thanks,” said Orrie. “You’ve done enough.” He chose a few bills from those strewn on the bed.
“When’s the bus?”
“Six. Gets in at two A.M. after stopping all over the place.”
“That’s lousy,” Paul said. “It’s only a couple hundred miles, isn’t it?” He punched one hand into the other. “Listen, I’m going to rent a car and drive you down.”
Orrie protested. “Don’t be crazy.”
“The guy who owns the Sunoco’s got that Ford he kept in fine shape throughout the war. Good rubber on it, and of course he’s got access to plenty of gas. I’ve rented it for dates, as you know.” Paul sometimes took a girl to the nearest city. Having a car was against the university rules for a student, and gas rationing was still in effect. Orrie did not know whether hiring an automobile was also taboo. Paul could not have cared less. Keeping a coed out after the weekend curfew of midnight was illegal too, and yet he did it regularly. Thus far the girls if caught had as regularly taken exclusive blame and all the punishment: confinement to the dormitory every night for two weeks for every hour or portion thereof they were late in returning. Paul could get away with such stuff with the most attractive women on campus, whereas Orrie had yet to find a desirable girl who would so much as meet his eye.
“Jesus, Paul, you don’t want to go to this funeral.” To satisfy his conscience Orrie could assume he was thinking of his friend, but the fact was he would be embarrassed to have Paul meet his family.
“No,” Paul said. “You shouldn’t have to do this all by yourself. We’re all stuck with our families, but at least we can choose our friends.” It was unprecedented for Paul to play the philosopher, a role in which Orrie was, it seemed, cast by nature. But Orrie could at least reflect that it had been Paul who chose him as friend, not the reverse, and therefore Paul was speaking narrowly (as nonphilosophers usually did on the rare occasions when they appeared to be addressing universal issues) of himself. Which however did not mean he was being any less the friend: perhaps that is what friends are, persons whose selfish interests are complementary with one’s own.
The fact was that Paul’s companionship on this journey might mean much more to Orrie than it ever had thus far at college, for it would at least provide some distraction from his emotional predicament. Orrie did not know what he should feel with regard to his father’s death. He had not seen or heard from the man in four years: the four years, furthermore, in which he himself had gone from child to adult and now taken the first step in the process of leaving home forever. It could be said without too much exaggeration that he had long since lost his male parent, that this recent event was anticlimactic, that though he might never have formulated it in conscious thought, he had never expected to see his father again anyway.
But being honest with oneself means nothing to one’s guilt-making apparatus. If anything, the latter is stimulated to produce in higher intensity and greater volume. He had never really liked his father. He had joined his mother in thinking less of the man for failing in business. He had resented his father’s abandoning his mother to the repulsive Uncle Erie—and yet of course the person in question was his father, the only one he would ever have, and now he was suddenly dead and in an awful, nonheroic way, and Orrie knew it was vile not to feel more grief of the good clean straightforward kind of the conventional man who has lost his dad. He could remember how Billy Creedy had sobbed, one day in high school, when telling of his father’s death in a car crash, and some of the guys said privately, Yeah, it’s a tough thing but crying is for girls, and Orrie defended Creedy, who wasn’t even that close a friend. Yet now he himself not only could not weep: he would have been ashamed had he done so—and paradoxically it was because of this failure that he felt guilt. Could he have produced teárs, his conscience might have been appeased, but his pride would have been mortally wounded: he would have been a better son but a lesser man.
“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he told Paul now. “You don’t have to actually go to the funeral itself. I can’t be sure how long I’ll have to stay. Don’t think you’ll be responsible for the return trip.” He took the money from his pocket, removed one of the bills, and thrust it at Paul. “I don’t need this if you’re renting that car.”
Paul fended off the money. “You might need it for other things.”
Orrie did remember something. “That’s right. I guess I ought to buy some flowers of my own. I’m supposed to be grown up now. I don’t want to be included with Erie.”
“Who?”
“My uncle. He’ll order an enormous wreath and put all our names on it with his own. He did that when my grandma died…. He’s not really my uncle. He’s my father’s cousin, but pretty much the same age, so we were always supposed to call him uncle.”
Paul made a face. “I’ve got an uncle I can’t stand. He’s just like my father.”
“Erie is nothing like my father,” said Orrie. He closed his old suitcase after throwing in the second pair of socks and swung it off the bed. “Any time you’re ready, then —?”
Paul sauntered to the door. “I’m traveling light. I hate to pack. If I need anything, I’ll buy it on the way.”
“There’s still some cash on your bed.”
“God,” Paul jokingly complained, “money’s all you think about.” He lackadaisically snatched up the crumpled notes.
“That’s because I don’t ever have any.” Suddenly he had an insight. His father had never had enough money. He had heard that often enough as a boy, when it had meant little, but now, all at once, he understood that lack of money had ruined his father’s civilian life, so the man had gone off to war, where no money was needed, then died immediately on his return from the Army, back to where money ruled. In the interim, in a milieu where courage and honor and selflessness were the operative values, and commerce was nothing, he had excelled.
“I’m a communist,” he bitterly told Paul.
“What does that mean?” Paul asked, grinning. “You want to shoot my old man? Great!”
Orrie felt better now that he had discovered a way in which to think positively about his own father. “No,” he said. “I haven’t got anything personal against anybody. It’s just that my dad had some rough times. But he measured up when it counted.” Fortunately Paul was ahead of him, going out the door, for at long last there were tea
rs in Orrie’s eyes.
3
In all his years on the force, Howard Gross, first a patrolman and finally chief of police, had drawn his weapon but once in the line of duty: to kill a rabid dog. In his experience there had seldom been a local crime worthy of the name. Typical of the police work done by his three-man department (two of them part-time) was the current slow roll, in the cruiser, past the schoolyard. Mrs. Bly, a middle-aged widow with nothing better to do, had phoned in the information that two male adults were lurking there, probably with the intent of indecently accosting little girls. Gross expected it to be the usual false alarm, but as she had had one success in spotting a weakminded man who had exposed himself (though for the purpose of urinating rather than exhibitionism), the chief felt obliged to act on her call.
He saw them now, but they were not exactly adults. Both had crewcuts and the taller wore dirty white-buck, college-boy shoes. In their teens, they were very likely waiting for a younger brother or sister. He was about to increase his speed when the shorter boy turned to display a profile. It was Esther Mencken’s son, Orrie, come back from college for his father’s funeral.
Gross stopped the police car at the curb. Ordinarily he would have called the lad to the passenger’s window, but in respect to Orrie’s dead father, he got out and walked up to the edge of the schoolyard, where the boys stood against the high wire fence that enclosed the playground.
He cleared his throat at Orrie’s back, and when the young man turned to face him, Gross said, “I’m real sorry about what happened.”
“Yeah. It’s too bad.” Orrie was a nice-looking boy, if short in stature. Gross could remember feeling like a pervert when, as a senior of eighteen, he first noticed that Esther, a girl who lived on the next block up from his, was getting breasts at eleven or twelve years of age, and he made reference to it at confession, but very hurriedly so that old Father Phelan, always on the verge of napping anyway, would allow him to include it in the general category of impure thoughts, and anyway Esther was a Protestant. Gross and his wife had had seven children. Orrie now referred to the son nearest his own age.
“How’s Frank?”
“My Frank?” asked the chief. “He’s still overseas. Italy. That’s right: you played ball against St. Iggie’s.”
Orrie shook his head. “I was on the debating team, in the all-county competition. Frank was with the team from St. Ignatius. We never faced one another. Both teams lost in the earliest rounds. But I got to know him to talk to anyway, while we were waiting around to go on.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Gross who, bored by debating, had forgotten about his son’s participation in anything but baseball. He glanced at the tall boy who stood nearby. “Say, Orrie, could I talk to you in private for a minute?”
They walked to the police car, which Gross leaned against with the other hip than that which carried the pistol. “Listen,” he said in a lowered voice, “do you know Joe Becker? He was a friend of your dad’s.”
“I know who he is.”
The chief adjusted his cap. “He’s okay. He’s a good man. He’s got a nice business over on the West Side…. Maybe he had one too many. I don’t know.” Gross scraped his lower lip with his upper teeth. “Thing is, he’s doing a lot of wild talk. I wouldn’t put any stock in it, if you happen to hear it.”
Orrie frowned. “I don’t have any idea of what you mean.” Over the lad’s shoulder, Gross could see that high school was letting out for the afternoon: young people were emerging from the arched main doorway of the building.
“Yeah.” The chief rubbed his nose with his thumb. “I guess you come to pick up your sister, right?… This talk, there’s nothing to it, believe me. Your dad passed away as a result of an awful accident. Your mom and E.G. tried to save his life with all their power. But it was just too late. He had taken in too much water.”
“That’s what she told me on the phone,” said Orrie. “Why would anybody say anything else?”
Gross sighed heavily. “You know how people are when they get a few drinks under their belt.”
Orrie was still frowning. “You mean that according to Mr. Becker something is wrong with that story? But how would he know?”
“Exactly!” The chief was relieved. “You put your finger right on it. He wasn’t there. He just had a few drinks with one of the fellows on the lifesaving squad. It seems your sister had something to say. You know how loose talk starts! I want to stop it in its tracks. It does not do anybody any good at all.” The first elements in the stream of students had almost reached them. Gross patted Orrie’s shoulder. “You calm Sis down. That’s the way to help the situation. You’re a man now. You got to help your womenfolk.” He was well aware of the irony here: E.G. would be boss of that house, as he had been for some years. But the boy needed encouragement. Gross went further.
“You need a pal any time, you come to me.” He smiled. “You’re welcome any time. Come over and eat a meal with us, soon, why don’t you?” The chief did not include the taller boy in the invitation, having no idea of who he was and anyway thinking he looked too polished to be from around this area, the way he wore a white sweater tied around his neck on such a warm afternoon.
The Mencken girl was approaching. Not wishing to encounter her, Gross told Orrie, “You remember what I said, son,” got into the cruiser, and was pulling away by the time the girl reached her brother. According to Becker it was this skinny kid who had started the stuff about murder, had acted hysterical when Terwillen tried to comfort her.
“But,” Becker had shouted, “who would say something like that about their mother unless there was something to it?”
“Joe, I’m going to have to ask you to keep your voice down. You oughtn’t yell like that at me. You’re in a police station.”
“Howie, I’m asking you a question.” Becker had lowered the volume but the indignation remained.
“All right,” Gross said wearily. “I don’t have to tell you that the Mencken females, all of them, spell trouble. That’s a woman’s specialty, as you and I know, but they take it to the limit.”
Becker shrugged. “Not this little girl. She’s an A student. Did you ever look at her? She’s not the type to run around with boys.”
“Just give her a while,” said the chief. “She had the same mother as the other one. If that Gena got as far as Hollywood, she’s walking the streets: you know that.” He looked fraternally at Becker. “Now, come on, Joe, let’s step over to the house and get a cup of coffee from the little lady. I’m supposed to be off duty at this hour.” He had been listening to the radio when Becker called him away to hear this cock-and-bull story. That pair were a lot of things—what with Esther’s low morals and E.G.’s known source of income coming from rent-gouging the trash who lived in the ramshackle houses he owned along the river—but they were hardly murderers.
Glancing at Ellie now as he pulled the cruiser away from the curb, Gross remembered he had been exaggerating when he projected for her the kind of shenanigans typical of her mother and sister: there was absolutely no means by which this woebegone kid could turn into a sexpot in the foreseeable future.
4
“Hi,” Orrie said to his sister. He thought briefly about hugging her, but that kind of thing was not done by local people with their relatives, unless the huggers were grandparents and aunts and uncles of a certain age, with a musty odor, and those being embraced were under age twelve.
“Hi,” said Ellie. She looked awful, especially about the eyes. “Have you been home yet?”
Other kids were passing them, and two guys said hi to Orrie. He answered Ellie’s question. “Naw, we just got here.” He pointed to Paul, who was still over against the fence. “That’s a friend of mine named Paul Leeds. He rented a car, but it broke down twice. We had to stay overnight in a tourist cabin. He’s a swell guy, lent me money too.”
Ellie showed no interest in hearing about Paul. She stared at her brother. “Don’t go home. If you’ve got some money, let’s go aw
ay.”
“What’s got into you?” Orrie asked, and then was sorry he had done so, for he realized that grief had probably warped her way of looking at things. She had always been a lot closer to their father than he, even though the man had been no more attentive to her. To all appearances he had ignored them both for four years. “That accident was a lousy thing,” he said gently. “There’s not much else to be said.”
“Except it wasn’t an accident.” Behind those smudged lenses, Ellie’s eyes were bright with ferocity.
Not until now did Orrie understand Chief Gross’s cryptic suggestion that he calm his sister down. “If it wasn’t an accident, then what was it?”
“They murdered him.”
Orrie grasped her shoulders and moved her so that her back was towards Paul, in order to have more privacy for this matter, though as yet he could not really take it seriously. “Jesus, Ellie, I know you don’t like Erie, and neither do I, but—”
“I’m talking about Mother too.”
“Listen here, I know you’re feeling a lot of sorrow about Dad. But you can’t just take it out on the rest of the world.” He had a protective impulse, and with a forefinger he pushed the glasses back up her nose.
“I didn’t know they were killing him,” Ellie said in her plaintive voice. “Maybe I could have stopped them. When I think of that, I wish I were dead.”
As everybody knew, females were inclined to emotional excess, not to mention that adolescent girls went through an unpleasant process by which they got their monthlies, as opposed to boys, for whom acquiring pubic hair and a deeper voice was a tremendous improvement. Orrie could feel sorry for women when he thought about their lot in life: in this turn of mind he had been influenced by his mother, who, particularly when he was younger, used to tell him her troubles, a practice that seemed to stop when “Uncle” Erie; became a fixture. He detested Erie but he loved his mother despite his resentment towards her. Nothing in this complex of feelings could cope with what Ellie was charging. Yet she was the best sister in the world, and he was obliged at least to make her believe he was taking her seriously.