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THE SCAPEGOAT
By RICHARD MAPLES
_Who would not have pity for a poor, helpless victim? Nobody--except another poor victim!_
Illustrated by WEISS
The old guy didn't have a chance. All he could do was shield his headwith limp arms and moan, while this other fellow--a young, huskysix-footer--gave him a vicious, cold-blooded beating.
"Hey, there!" I yelled indignantly. "Cut it out!"
But the kid kept belting away, as if he were methodically working out ona fifty-pound training bag. Finally, the old man sagged to the pavement.Then this hoodlum began to kick him.
I'm not a hero. I'm a newspaper man whose job it is to look at thingsobjectively. But I know right from wrong.
My one punch caught the young bruiser back of the ear and spilled him onthe ground. He lay there for a moment, then rolled over. Even by thestreet light, it was easy to see his eyes were glassy.
It gave me lots of satisfaction. I'm not a big man--just compact--but Itake care of myself. I don't drink or smoke and I exercise regularly.The result is I can handle myself in the clinches.
The kid sat up and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. I could seenow that he was a college boy. The red sweater with the terryclothborder and the white pants with a shortened left leg were a deadgiveaway.
"Listen here," I said roughly, "you nuts? Beating up an old man!"
He appeared to be desperately searching for an explanation--something tosay. Then, abruptly, without having uttered a sound, he reeled away andshambled hurriedly down the street.
My first inclination was to give chase. But the old man groaned and Iturned to help him. That was when I had it--a virtual brain storm.
This whole episode, I could see, was a perfect answer to the damnablecriticisms leveled at my series on juvenile delinquency. More than that,it was an absolute vindication!
* * * * *
Barely an hour ago, I'd had to sit at a meeting and take it on the chinfrom twenty of the town's leading lights who designated themselves TheCommittee for the Protection of Youth. The outfit was, of course,politically inspired. It had obviously been started by the Mayor and hisgang as a means of torpedoing Jones, the publisher of my paper. Jones,you see, had become politically ambitious himself.
Since I was the star on Jones' team, they piled on me. Some of the nicerthings said about my articles were that they constituted filthymuckraking, were a pattern of irresponsible lies, and were designedprincipally to smear the incumbent politicos. The children of the town,they cried, were being sacrificed to ruthless ambition.
It wouldn't have been so bad if Jones had stuck by me. But he cut andran. Discretion, he had whispered to me from behind a pudgy hand, wasthe better part of valor. Then he told them he would discontinue thearticles.
Now I had first-hand proof of a particularly brutal bit of delinquency.A cruel assault on a poor, helpless old man! Furthermore, I was the heroof the incident!
Bending down to see how seriously the old man had been hurt, I asked,"What happened, Pop? Was he trying to rob you or something?" He didn'tanswer.
I looked around for help, but the street was deserted. The best thing, Idecided, was to take him home. There Nan, my wife, could patch him upwhile I found out what had happened. I bent down again and pulled him tohis feet. He staggered. I put one steadying hand on his shoulder andgripped his wrist with the other. My spine went cold.
It was his flesh. Not so much that it felt like rubber--but the chill.Here we were in the middle of a heat wave, the thermometer nudgingninety, and the old guy's wrist is like an icicle!
For a second, it threw me. Then I thought of shock. That might explainit. And Nan, having been a nurse, would be the one to know.
I started the old man walking. "See if you can make it to my house," Iurged. "It's just around the corner."
Nan switched on the porch light when she heard us on the steps. Openingthe door, she drew back with a little shriek. The old man was prettygruesome-looking at that. But it wasn't just his blood-covered face andmatted white beard.
There was something spiderish about him. He was angular, and dark, andskeletal. His eyes, deep-set and brooding, seemed to crouch under hisshaggy, jutting brows.
"Take it easy, honey," I said. "The old guy just needs some patchingup."
* * * * *
She recovered quickly and helped him into the house. After we'd easedhim into the easy chair by the fireplace in the living room, she turnedto me, worried. "Were you in an accident?"
I gave her the story and she looked at me sharply, but didn't speak. Shewent into the bedroom and came back with blankets and medicine bottles.Tucking the blankets around the old man's legs, she said, "But I don'tunderstand why you were walking. You went to the meeting in Jones' car.Why didn't he bring you back?"
I didn't answer. The old man had closed his eyes and his breathing wasbecoming very shallow. "Look at him," I said. "Is he all right?"
"He's sleeping. Why don't you answer my question?"
"Jones didn't bring me home because I had words with him and walked awayin a huff."
"Over the meeting?"
"Partly." I explained about the meeting and how Jones had back-trackedwhen the going got rough. "After all, it was his idea to buildcirculation with sensational articles and to use them to attack thepresent administration. But when there's a showdown, he acts like ascared rabbit. And that's what I told him."
"I'm glad," Nan said, her face brightening. "What did he say to that?"
"He gave me a lot of bull about it being a mistake to pick on people'schildren and how we should stick to old standbys like red-lightdistricts and dope trafficking."
Nan slapped the iodine on the table. "Some nerve! What did you tellhim?"
"I told him he was jerking the rug from under me and that I'd be damnedif I'd write a bunch of warmed-over tripe. Then I walked away."
"You finally quit!"
Until then, I don't think I'd ever realized just how much Nan hated mywork. Of course, off and on, we'd really had some knock-down drag-outs,but I'd never considered them serious. Oh, we often talked about mygoing into teaching physical ed. It had been my intention ever sincecollege. Some day I'd actually do it.
I shook my head. "No, honey, I didn't quit."
"But you're going to?"
I shrugged in a gesture of helplessness. "How can I? An unprovokedattack against a poor old man is dynamite. It puts me in the driver'sseat. I can write an article that will make every mealy-mouthedhypocrite who spoke against me tonight eat his words."
* * * * *
The fire in her eyes died. "It's always something," she said wearily."Year after year, you've come up with one reason or another to stay inthe rotten business. And what does it amount to? Mud-slinging! I'mbeginning to think you like it!"
She'd never come out so bluntly and, deep down, I felt my resentmentpressing like the sharp edge of a coiled spring. Originally, gettinginto the newspaper game had been a sort of fluke. Majoring in physicaled at college, I often covered the various sports events for the campuspaper. One day, a big-time scandal broke, involving gamblers and one ofthe teams, and I found myself in a perfect spot to do an exclusive for acity paper. My stuff was run verbatim under a by-line and afterwardpicked up by the wire services.
Later, with a trick knee keeping me out of the war, I managed to talkmyself into a job with the newspaper that had run my expose. I wasgoaded by a feeling that I ought to be doing something bigger thanteaching children how to play games.
From the very start, I discovered I had a peculiar t
alent. If I foundmyself anywhere near a skeleton in a closet, I could plainly hear itsrattle. Before long, my reputation was firmly established.
Nan, whom I'd met at college, knew of my ambition to teach and beganplanning toward that end as soon as we married. She started what shecalled a quitting fund. This was to stake a move to a small town whereher uncle was principal of the high school. He was supposed to help meget a foothold in the new career.
But then Tommy was born and there were bills to pay. After that therewere other reasons, like car payments. By the end of the war, theteaching plans were no longer discussed, and Nan and I had drawn so farapart that even the bickering between us had ceased.
Finally, when Tommy was about ten, she suddenly let me