THESE were the last days before April, and April was the name of spring, awakening.
The kids hadn’t said a word in dissent at the meeting. Holy God, McMann spotted. Tough. The word leaked out. They considered the fact of Duffy and McMann wiped out in so short a space, right after one another. Who was left? That’s what counted. The clubhouse counted. Bill and Spat were buddies. So what? The kids didn’t give a damn about the killings. They were the results of some godly battle out of their understanding. What they wanted was leaders. And dough. It looked like they were set for bigger things. The clubhouse was going to open on the dot. Jobs were scheduled soon after. Bill was smart. Didn’t even McMann usta call him brain guy? And Spat was a good muscle if there ever was. O.K.
Ray and Schneck were sorry about McMann because Spat mightn’t like them much. But Spat wasn’t the big cheese. You could see it with both eyes shut. Bill was the gink to heel. Bill said every guy was due for a break. Ray and Schneck listened at the meeting, and once Bill looked at them, talking to them the most, even with the words meant for the crowd. Ray and Schneck said that meant somepun. It was oke. If things didn’t work out so hot, they could quit. Not a thing was lost.
Everybody felt fine when the meeting was over. It had gone off the nuts. Everybody had a hunch there’d be tons of easy kale. Hell, and they’d hardly noticed that Bill. He usta be quiet with McMann around. But them quiet guys. Hell. They noticed him plenty. He was O.K. Any guy to fix Duffy and McMann was some guy, hadda be O.K.
The meeting was over and the last days of March like the final waters of a flood tide carried all the torrents in its wild course.
Busy with plans, the clubhouse, Bill was always aware of that heart of his ticking out the story, recapitulant, all the long story since he’d lost his job and become a brain guy. Tick tock, telling the story of McMann and the robberies, the murders, tick tock the past, April first, the club, telling the tales of March and April and May, all the months to come as if time had no hold on his heart. Greater than time it told the story of the days to come, ticked the prophecies in a strange dour tongue. What would it be? A fool to worry about the future. If McMann had foreseen his murder, if he’d foreseen blood on his hands…. Hell with the future. Hanrahan might clip him, or Spat, or Ray, or some new leader led at the moment. Or he might be lucky and make dough. A decent sum, three thousand, say, enough to quit on, go west, south, anywhere. The clubhouse was prepared. He ate and slept with Madge….
He wasn’t surprised Joe looked sick. His world was in crisis, and Joe was part of it. He, Bill, was the world, and when he was stricken, all felt the impact. Joe glanced up from slicing the grapefruit. “I’m in trouble, Bill. I got Cathy in trouble. She says her mother’s getting wise. She wants to run away. She don’t want to hurt them.”
Bill laughed. “We spread hope and goodwill wherever we go.” And he smiled sadly at the clean seducer before him, his brother Joe. He himself was the seducer above all, not Joe. “How long’s it been going on? My eyes’ve been shut.”
“It’s done. What shall I do?”
Bill was sorry for the Gebhardts, sighing, sympathy cold in his heart. All he could do was act the outer shell, nodding his head. “Why don’t you marry her? She’s a good kid. She might do you some good.”
“That’s a joke. You saying that.” He stared at Bill as Bill remembered he used to stare at McMann.
“Why not?” McMann was in him now. The tempters never died, passing from body to body. McMann lived. “Want to ruin her life? If you don’t give her a break she’ll hit the gutter. How the hell do you think they keep up the whore supply in town?”
“I was thinking of living with her — that is, if you don’t mind. You see, I love her.”
“Why not marry her, Joe?”
“Who the hell wants to marry?” he said bitterly. “I’m your real brother, Bill.”
Bill’s heart thumped miserably, the shell of sympathy radiating inwards, warming the core of his heart. A sadness spoke to him. No use kidding himself. He’d ruined his brother, murdered a life. “I’m not arguing. I’m not keeping you and any mistress. You marry the kid. You love her. Marry her and I’ll help you out until you get a job.”
“I want a job. I’m sick hanging around this damn town living on you. Get me any job.” He laughed suddenly. “Where you work.”
“Where I work?”
“I’m being polite.”
Maybe Spat could get Joe a route, have Joe collect numbers. That was respectable, almost. “I’ll see what I’ll do. Will you marry her?”
“We’ll see,” said Joe, grinning like his brother so that they looked like a mirrored reflection of each other.
Bill laughed softly. “It beats me why you asked me for advice when you’re so set.” And that was over, passing into the swirl of those last days, and there was this to be done and that to be done, their lives floating chips on the river of his purpose. He was the river and held all of them, floating himself on time’s huger torrent. Every day it was nearer April.
Life was grand. Life was elegant. It goes on. That was the swell thing about it. It never sits down on its pants to ask: Who am I? What am I doing? It just goes on, and I’m a hunk of life. I’m not Bill. I’m not a guy, I’m just a miscellaneous blind hunk of life, and what the hell if I am? When I get five thousand I’ll quit and become Bill again, not a hunk of life. But now I’m a blind hunk, and one harvest’s in for good or bad, and on Fool’s Day I’ll be planting another harvest, and here’s hoping it nets me big dough.