Chapter Twenty-Two

He did not take the bicycle but walked down the street. The moon was up now and the trees were dark against it, and he passed the frame houses with their narrow yards, light coming from the shuttered windows; the unpaved alleys, with their double rows of houses; Conch town, where all was starched, well-shuttered, virtue, failure, grits and boiled grunts, under-nourishment, prejudice, righteousness, inter-breeding and the comforts of religion; the open-doored, lighted Cuban bolito houses, shacks whose only romance was their names; The Red House, Chicha’s, the pressed stone church; its steeples sharp, ugly triangles against the moonlight; the big grounds and the long, black-domed bulk of the convent, handsome in the moonlight; a filling station and a sandwich place, bright-lighted beside a vacant lot where a miniature golf course had been taken out; past the brightly lit main street with the three drug stores, the music store, the five Jew stores, three poolrooms, two barbershops, five beer joints, three ice cream parlors, the five poor and the one good restaurant, two magazine and paper places, four second-hand joints (one of which made keys), a photographer’s, an office building with four dentists’ offices upstairs, the big dime store, a hotel on the corner with taxis opposite; and across, behind the hotel, to the street that led to jungle town, the big unpainted frame house with lights and the girls in the doorway, the mechanical piano going, and a sailor sitting in the street; and then on back, past the back of the brick courthouse with its clock luminous at half-past ten, past the whitewashed jail building shining in the moonlight, to the embowered entrance of the Lilac Time where motor cars filled the alley.

The Lilac Time was brightly lighted and full of people, and as Richard Gordon went in he saw the gambling room was crowded, the wheel turning and the little ball clicking brittle against metal partitions set in the bowl, the wheel turning slowly, the ball whirring, then clicking jumpily until it settled and there was only the turning of the wheel and the rattling of chips. At the bar, the proprietor who was serving with two bartenders, said “‘Allo, ‘Allo. Mist’ Gordon. What you have?”

“I don’t know,” said Richard Gordon.

“You don’t look good. Whatsa matter ? You don’t feel good?”

“No.”

“I fix you something just fine. Fix you up hokay. You ever try a Spanish absinthe, ojen?”

“Go ahead,” said Gordon.

“You drink him you feel good. Want to fight anybody in a house,” said the proprietor. “Make Mistah Gordon a ojen special.”

Standing at the bar, Richard Gordon drank three ojen specials but he felt no better; the opaque, sweetish, cold, licorice-tasting drink did not make him feel any different.

“Give me something else,” he said to the bartender.

“Whatsa matter? You no like a ojen special?” the proprietor asked. “You no feel good?”

“No.”

“You got be careful what you drink after him.”

“Give me a straight whiskey.”

The whiskey warmed his tongue and the back of his throat, but it did not change his ideas any, and suddenly, looking at himself in the mirror behind the bar, he knew that drinking was never going to do any good to him now. Whatever he had now he had, and it was from now on, and if he drank himself unconscious when he woke up it would be there.

A tall, very thin young man with a sparse stubble of blonde beard on his chin who was standing next to him at the bar said, “Aren’t you Richard Gordon?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Herbert Spellman. We met at a party in Brooklyn one time I believe.”

“Maybe,” said Richard Gordon. “Why not?”

“I liked your last book very much,” said Spellman. “I liked them all.”

“I’m glad,” said Richard Gordon. “Have a drink?”

“Have one with me,” said Spellman. “Have you tried this ojen?”

“It’s not doing me any good.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Feeling low.”

“Wouldn’t try another?”

“No. I’ll have whiskey.”

“You know, it’s something to me to meet you,” Spellman said. “I don’t suppose you remember me at that party.”

“No. But maybe it was a good party. You’re not supposed to remember a good party, are you?”

“I guess not,” said Spellman. “It was at Margaret Van Brunt’s. Do you remember?” he asked hopefully.

“I’m trying to.”

“I was the one set fire to the place,” Spellman said.

“No,” said Gordon.

“Yes,” said Spellman, happily. “That was me. That was the greatest party I was ever on.”

“What are you doing now?” Gordon asked.

“Not much,” said Spellman. “I get around a little. I’m taking it sort of easy now. Are you writing a new book?”

“Yes. About half done.”

“That’s great,” said Spellman. “What’s it about?”

“A strike in a textile plant.”

“That’s marvellous,” said Spellman. “You know I’m a sucker for anything on the social conflict.”

“What?”

“I love it,” said Spellman. “I go for it above anything else. You’re absolutely the best of the lot. Listen, has it got a beautiful Jewish agitator in it?”

“Why?” asked Richard Gordon, suspiciously.

“It’s a part for Sylvia Sidney. I’m in love with her. Want to see her picture?”

“I’ve seen it,” said Richard Gordon.

“Let’s have a drink,” said Spellman, happily. “Think of meeting you down here. You know, I’m a lucky fellow. Really lucky.”

“Why?” asked Richard Gordon.

“I’m crazy,” said Spellman. “Gee, it’s wonderful. It’s just like being in love only it always comes out right.”

Richard Gordon edged away a little.

“Don’t be that way,” said Spellman. “I’m not violent. That’s is, I’m almost never violent. Come on, let’s have a drink.”

“Have you been crazy long?”

“I think always,” said Spellman. “I tell you it’s the only way to be happy in times like these. What do I care what Douglas Aircraft does? What do I care what A. T. and T. does? They can’t touch me. I just pick up one of your books or I take a drink, or I look at Sylvia’s picture, and I’m happy. I’m like a bird. I’m better than a bird. I’m a—” he seemed to hesitate and hunt for a word, then hurried on. “I’m a lovely little stork,” he blurted out and blushed. He looked at Richard Gordon fixedly, his lips working, and a large blonde young man detached himself from a group down the bar and coming toward him put a hand on his arm.

“Come on, Harold,” he said. “We’d better be getting home.”

Spellman looked at Richard Gordon wildly. “He sneered at a stork,” he said. “He stepped away from a stork. A stork that wheels in circling flight—”

“Come on, Harold,” said the big young man. Spellman put out his hand to Richard Gordon.

“No offence,” he said. “You’re a good writer. Keep right on with it. Remember I’m always happy. Don’t let them confuse you. See you soon.”

With the large young man’s arm over his shoulder the two of them moved out through the crowd to the door. Spellman looked back and winked at Richard Gordon.

“Nice fella,” the proprietor said. He tapped his head. “Very well educate. Studies too much I guess. Likes to break glasses. He don’t mean no harm. Pay for everything he break.”

“Does he come in here much?”

“In the evening. What he say he was? A swan?”

“A stork.”

“Other night was a horse. With wings. Like a horse on a white horse bottle only with pair a wings. Nice fella all right. Plenty money. Gets a funny ideas. Family keep him down here now with his man- ager. He told me he like your books, Mr. Gordon. What you have to drink? On the house.”

“A whiskey,” said Richard Gordon. He saw the sheriff coming toward him. The sheriff was an extremely tall, rather cadaverous and very friendly man. Richard Gordon had seen him that afternoon at the Bradleys’ party and talked with him about the bank robbery.

“Say,” said the sheriff, “if you’re not doing anything come along with me a little later. The coast guard’s towing in Harry Morgan’s boat. A tanker signalled it up off Matacumbe. They’ve got the whole outfit.”

“My God,” said Richard Gordon. “They’ve got them all?”

“They’re all dead except one man, the message said.”

“You don’t know who it is?”

“No, they didn’t say. God knows what happened.”

“Have they got the money?”

“Nobody knows. But it must be aboard if they didn’t get to Cuba with it.”

“When will they be in?”

“Oh, it will be two or three hours yet.”

“Where will they bring the boat?”

“Into the Navy Yard, I suppose. Where the coast guard ties up.”

“Where’ll I see you to go down there?”

“I’ll drop in here for you.”

“Here or down at Freddy’s. I can’t stick it here much longer.”

“It’s pretty tough in at Freddy’s tonight. It’s full of those Vets from up on the Keys. They always raise the devil.”

“I’ll go down there and look at it,” Richard Gordon said. “I’m feeling kind of low.”

“Well, keep out of trouble,” the sheriff said. “I’ll pick you up there in a couple of hours. Want a lift down there?”

“Thanks.”

They went out through the crowd and Richard Gordon got in beside the sheriff in his car.

“What do you suppose happened in Morgan’s boat?” he asked.

“God knows,” the sheriff said. “It sounds pretty grizzly.”

“Didn’t they have any other information?”

“Not a thing,” said the sheriff. “Now look at that, will you?”

They were opposite the brightly lighted open front of Freddy’s place and it was jammed to the sidewalk. Men in dungarees, some bareheaded, others in caps, old service hats and in cardboard helmets, crowded the bar three deep, and the loud-speaking nickle-in-the-slot phonograph was playing “Isle of Capri.” As they pulled up a man came hurtling out of the open door, another man on top of him. They fell and rolled on the sidewalk, and the man on top, holding the other’s hair in both hands, banged his head up and down on the cement, making a sickening noise. No one at the bar was paying any attention.

The sheriff got out of the car and grabbed the man on top by the shoulder.

“Cut it out,” he said. “Get up there.”

The man straightened up and looked at the sheriff. “For Christ sake, can’t you mind your own business?”

The other man, blood in his hair, blood oozing from one ear, and more of it trickling down his freckled face, squared off at the sheriff.

“Leave my buddy alone,” he said thickly. “What’s the matter? Don’t you think I can take it?”

“You can take it, Joey,” the man who had been hammering him said. “Listen,” to the sheriff, “could you let me take a buck?”

“No,” said the sheriff.

“Go to hell then.” He turned to Richard Gordon.

“What about it, pal?”

“I’ll buy you a drink,” said Gordon.

“Come on,” said the Vet, and took hold of Gordon’s arm.

“I’ll be by later,” the sheriff said.

“Good. I’ll be waiting for you.”

As they edged in toward the end of the bar, the red-headed, freckle-faced man with the bloody ear and face, gripped Gordon by the arm.

“My old buddy,” he said.

“He’s all right,” the other Vet said. “He can take it.”

“I can take it, see?” the bloody-faced one said. “That’s where I got it on them.”

“But you can’t hand it out,” someone said. “Cut out the shoving.”

“Let us in,” the bloody-faced one said. “Let in me and my old buddy.” He whispered into Richard Gordon’s ear, “I don’t have to hand it out. I can take it, see?”

“Listen,” the other Vet said as they finally reached the beer-wet bar, “You ought to have seen him at noon at the commissary at Camp Five. I had him down and I was hitting him on the head with a bottle. Just like playing on a drum. I bet I hit him fifty times.”

“More,” said the bloody-faced one.

“It didn’t make no impression on him.”

“I can take it,” said the other. He whispered in Richard Gordon’s ear, “It’s a secret.”

Richard Gordon handed over two of the three beers the white-jacketed, big-bellied nigger bartender drew and pushed toward him.

“What’s a secret?” he asked.

“Me,” said the bloody-faced one. “My secret.”

“He’s got a secret,” the other Vet said. “He isn’t lying.”

“Want to hear it?” the bloody-faced one said in Richard Gordon’s ear.

Gordon nodded. “It don’t hurt.”

The other nodded. “Tell him the worst of it.”

The red-headed one put his bloody lips almost to Gordon’s ear.

“Sometimes it feels good,” he said. “How do you feel about that?”

At Gordon’s elbow was a tall, thin man with a scar that ran from one corner of his eye down over his chin. He looked down at the red-headed one and grinned.

“First it was an art,” he said. “Then it became a pleasure. If things made me sick you’d make me sick, Red.”

“You make sick easy,” the first Vet said. “What outfit were you in?”

“It wouldn’t mean anything to you, punch drunk,” the tall man said.

“Have a drink?” Richard Gordon asked the tall man.

“Thanks,” the other said. “I’m drinking.”

“Don’t forget us,” said one of the two men Gordon had come in with.

“Three more beers,” said Richard Gordon, and the Negro drew them and pushed them over. There was not elbow room to lift them in the crowd and Gordon was pressed against the tall man.

“You off a ship?” asked the tall man.

“No, staying here. You down from the Keys?”

“We came in tonight from Tortugas,” the tall man said. “We raised enough hell so they couldn’t keep us there.”

“He’s a red,” the first Vet said.

“So would you be if you had any brains,” the tall man said. “They sent a bunch of us there to get rid of us but we raised too much hell for them.” He grinned at Richard Gordon.

“Nail that guy,” somebody yelled, and Richard Gordon saw a fist hit a face that showed close to him. The man who was hit was pulled away from the bar by two others. In the clear, one man hit him again, hard, in the face, and the other hit him in the body. He went down on the cement floor and covered his head with his arms and one of the men kicked him in the small of the back. All this time he had not made a sound. One of the men jerked him to his feet and pushed him up against the wall.

“Cool the son-of-a-bitch,” he said, and as the man sprawled, white faced against the wall, the second man set himself, knees slightly bent, and then swung up at him with a right fist that came from down near the cement floor and landed on the side of the white-faced man’s jaw. He fell forward on his knees and then rolled slowly over, his head in a little pool of blood. The two men left him there and came back to the bar.

“Boy, you can hit,” said one.

“That son-of-a-bitch comes in to town and puts all his pay in the postal savings and then hangs around here picking up drinks off the bar,” the other said. “That’s the second time I cooled him.”

“You cooled him this time.”

“When I hit him just then I felt his jaw go just like a bag of marbles,” the other said happily. The man lay against the wall and nobody paid any attention to him.

“Listen, if you landed on me like that it wouldn’t make no impression,” the red-headed Vet said.

“Shut up, slappy,” said the cooler. “You’ve got the old rale.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You punchies make me sick,” the cooler said.

“Why should I bust my hands on you?”

“That’s just what you’d do, bust your hands,” the red-headed one said. “Listen, pal,” to Richard Gordon, “How’s to have another?”

“Aren’t they fine boys?” said the tall man. “War is a purifying and ennobling force. The question is whether only people like ourselves here are fitted to be soldiers or whether the different services have formed us.”

“I don’t know,” said Richard Gordon.

“I would like to bet you that not three men in this room were drafted,” the tall man said. “These are the elite. The very top cream of the scum. What Wellington won at Waterloo with. Well, Mr. Hoover ran us out of Anticosti flats and Mr. Roosevelt has shipped us down here to get rid of us. They’ve run the camp in a way to invite an epidemic, but the poor bastards won’t die. They shipped a few of us to Tortugas but that’s healthy now. Besides, we wouldn’t stand for it. So they’ve brought us back. What’s the next move? They’ve got to get rid of us. You can see that, can’t you?”

“‘Why?”

“Because we are the desperate ones,” the man said. “The ones with nothing to lose. We are the completely brutalized ones. We’re worse than the stuff the original Spartacus worked with. But it’s tough to try to do anything with because we have been beaten so far that the only solace is booze and the only pride is in being able to take it. But we’re not all like that. There are some of us that are going to hand it out.”

“Are there many Communists in the camp?”

“Only about forty,” the tall man said.

“Out of two thousand. It takes discipline and abnegation to be a Communist; a rummy can’t be a Communist.”

“Don’t listen to him,” the red-headed Vet said. “He’s just a goddamn radical.”

“Listen,” the other Vet who was drinking beer with Richard Gordon said, “let me tell you about in the Navy. Let me tell you, you goddamn radical.”

“Don’t listen to him,” the red-headed one said. “When the fleet’s in New York and you go ashore there in the evening up under Riverside Drive there’s old guys with long beards come down and you can piss in their beards for a dollar. What do you think about that?”

“I’ll buy you a drink,” said the tall man, “and you forget that one. I don’t like to hear that one.”

“I don’t forget anything,” the red-headed one said. “What’s the matter with you, pal?”

“Is that true about the beards?” Richard Gordon asked. He felt a little sick.

“I swear to God and my mother,” the red-headed one said. “Hell, that ain’t nothing.”

Up the bar a Vet was arguing with Freddy about the payment of a drink.

“That’s what you had,” said Freddy.

Richard Gordon watched the Vet’s face. He was very drunk, his eyes were bloodshot and he was looking for trouble.

“You’re a goddamn liar,” he said to Freddy.

“Eighty-five cents,” Freddy said to him.

“Watch this,” said the red-headed Vet.

Freddy spread his hands on the bar. He was watching the Vet.

“You’re a goddamn liar,” said the Vet, and picked up a beer glass to throw it. As his hand closed on it, Freddy’s right hand swung in a half circle over the bar and cracked a big saltcellar covered with a bar towel alongside the Vet’s head.

“Was it neat?” said the red-headed Vet. “Was it pretty?”

“You ought to see him tap them with that sawed-off billiard cue,” the other said.

Two Vets standing next to where the saltcellar man had slipped down, looked at Freddy angrily. “What’s the idea of cooling him?”

“Take it easy,” said Freddy. “This one is on the house. Hey, Wallace,” he said. “Put that fellow over against the wall.”

“Was it pretty?” the red-headed Vet asked Richard Gordon. “Wasn’t that sweet?”

A heavy-set young fellow had dragged the salt-cellared man out through the crowd. He pulled him to his feet and the man looked at him vacantly. “Run along,” he said to him. “Get yourself some air.”

Over against the wall the man who had been cooled sat with his head in his hands. The heavy-set young man went over to him.

“You run along, too,” he said to him. “You just get in trouble here.”

“My jaw’s broken,” the cooled one said thickly. Blood was running out of his mouth and down over his chin.

“You’re lucky you aren’t killed, that wallop he hit you,” the thick-set young man said. “You run along now.”

“My jaw’s broke,” the other said dully. “They broke my jaw.”

“You better run along,” the young man said. “You just get in trouble here.”

He helped the jaw-broken man to his feet and he staggered unsteadily out to the street.

“I’ve seen a dozen laying against the wall over there on a big night,” the red-headed Vet said. “One morning I seen that big boogie there mopping it up with a bucket. Didn’t I see you mop it up with a bucket?” he asked the big Negro bartender.

“Yes, sir,” said the bartender. “Plenty of times. Yes, sir. But you never seen me fight nobody.”

“Didn’t I tell you?” said the red-headed Vet. “With a bucket.”

“This looks like a big night coming on,” the other Vet said. “What do you say, pal?” to Richard Gordon. “O.K. we have another one?”

Richard Gordon could feel himself getting drunk. His face, reflected in the mirror behind the bar, was beginning to look strange to him.

“What’s your name?” he asked the tall Communist.

“Jacks,” the tall man said. “Nelson Jacks.” “Where were you before you came here?”

“Oh, around,” the man said. “Mexico, Cuba, South America, .and around.”

“I envy you,” said Richard Gordon.

“Why envy me? Why don’t you get to work?”

“I’ve written three books,” Richard Gordon said. “I’m writing one now about Gastonia.”

“Good,” said the tall man. “That’s fine. What did you say your name was?”

“Richard Gordon.”

“Oh,” said the tall man. “What do you mean, ‘oh’?”

“Nothing,” said the tall man.

“Did you ever read the books?” Richard Gordon asked.

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you like them?”

“No,” said the tall man.

“Why?”

“I don’t like to say.”

“Go ahead.”

“I thought they were shit,” the tall man said and turned away.

“I guess this is my night,” said Richard Gordon. “This is my big night. What did you say you’d have?” he asked the red-headed Vet. “I’ve got two dollars left.”

“One beer,” said the red-headed man. “Listen, you’re my pal. I think your books are fine. To hell with that radical bastard.”

“You haven’t got a book with you?” asked the other Vet. “Pal, I’d like to read one. Did you ever write for Western Stories, or War Aces? I could read that War Aces every day.

“Who is that tall bird?” asked Richard Gordon.

“I tell you he’s just a radical bastard,” said the second Vet. “The camp’s full of them. We’d run them out, but I tell you half the time most of the guys in camp can’t remember.”

“Can’t remember what?” asked the red-headed one.

“Can’t remember anything,” said the other.

“You see me?” asked the red-headed one.

“Yes,” said Richard Gordon.

“Would you guess I got the finest little wife in the world?”

“Why not?”

“Well, I have,” said the red-headed one. “And that girl is nuts about me. She’s like a slave. ‘Give me another cup of coffee,’ I say to her. ‘O.K., Pop,’ she says. And I get it. Anything else the same way. She’s carried away with me. If I got a whim, it’s her law.”

“Only where is she?” asked the other Vet.

“That’s it,” said the red-headed one. “That’s it, pal. Where is she?”

“He don’t know where she is,” the second Vet said.

“Not only that,” said the red-headed one. “I don’t know where I saw her last.”

“He don’t even know what country she’s in,”

“But listen, buddy,” said the red-headed one. “Wherever she is, that little girl is faithful.”

“That’s God’s truth,” said the other Vet. “You can stake your life on that.”

“Sometimes,” said the red-headed one, “I think that she is maybe Ginger Rogers and that she has gone into the moving pictures.”

“Why not?” said the other.

“Then again, I just see her waiting there quietly where I live.”

“Keeping the home fires burning,” said the other.

“That’s it,” said the red-headed one. “She’s the finest little woman in the world.”

“Listen,” said the other, “my old mother is O.K., too.”

“That’s right.”

“She’s dead,” said the second Vet. “Let’s not talk about her.”

“Aren’t you married, pal?” the red-headed Vet asked Richard Gordon.

“Sure,” he said. Down the bar, about four men away, he could see the red face, the blue eyes and sandy, beer-dewed mustache of Professor MacWalsey. Professor MacWalsey was looking straight ahead of him and as Richard Gordon watched he finished his glass of beer and, raising his lower lip, removed the foam from his mustache. Richard Gordon noticed how bright blue his eyes were.

As Richard Gordon watched him he felt a sick feeling in his chest. And he knew for the first time how a man feels when he looks at the man his wife is leaving him for.

“What’s the matter, pal?” asked the red-headed Vet.

“Nothing.”

“You don’t feel good. I can tell you feel bad.”

“No,” said Richard Gordon.

“You look like you seen a ghost.”

“You see that fellow down there with a mustache?” asked Richard Gordon.

“Him?”

“Yes.”

“What about him?” asked the second Vet.

“Nothing,” said Richard Gordon. “Goddamn it.

Nothing.”

“Is he a bother to you? We can cool him. The three of us can jump him and you can put the boots to him.”

“No,” said Richard Gordon. “It wouldn’t do any good.”

“We’ll get him when he goes outside,” the red- headed Vet said. “I don’t like the look of him. The son-of-a-bitch looks like a scab to me.”

“I hate him,” said Richard Gordon. “He’s ruined my life.”

“We’ll give him the works,” said the second Vet.

“The yellow rat. Listen Red, get a hold of a couple of bottles. We’ll beat him to death. Listen, when did he do it, pal? O.K. we have another one?”

“We’ve got a dollar and seventy cents,” Richard Gordon said.

“Maybe we better get a pint then,” the red- headed Vet said. “My teeth are floating now.”

“No,” said the other. “This beer is good for you. This is draft beer. Stick with the beer. Let’s go and beat this guy up and come back drink some more beer.”

“No. Leave him alone.”

“No, pal. Not us. You said that rat ruined your wife.”

“My life. Not my wife.”

“Jese! Pardon me. I’m sorry, pal.”

“He defaulted and ruined the bank,” the other Vet said. “I’ll bet there’s a reward for him. By God, I seen a picture of him at the post office today.”

“What were you doing at the post office?” asked the other suspiciously.

“Can’t I get a letter?”

“What’s the matter with getting letters at camp?”

“Do you think I went to the postal savings?”

“What were you doing in the post office?”

“I just stopped by.”

“Take that,” said his pal and swung on him as well as he could in the crowd.

“There goes those two cell mates,” said somebody. Holding and punching, kneeing and butting, the two were pushed out of the door.

“Let ’em fight on the sidewalk,” the wide-shouldered young man said. “Those bastards fight three’ or four times a night.”

“They’re a couple of punchies,” another Vet said. “Red could fight once but he’s got the old rale.”

“They’ve both got it.”

“Red got it fighting a fellow in the ring,” a short chunky Vet said. “This fellow had the old rale and he was all broke out on the shoulders and back. Every time they’d go into a clinch he’d rub his shoulder under Red’s nose or across his puss.”

“Oh, nuts. What did he put his face there for?”

“That was the way Red carried his head when he was in close. Down, like this. And this fellow was just roughing him.”

“Oh, nuts. That story is all bull. Nobody ever got the old rale from anybody in a fight.”

“That’s what you think. Listen, Red was as clean a living kid as you ever saw. I knew him. He was in my outfit. He was a good little fighter, too. I mean good. He was married, too, to a nice girl. I mean nice. And this Benny Sampson gave him that old rale just as sure as I’m standing here.”

“Then sit down,” said another Vet. “How did Poochy get it?”

“He got it in Shanghai.” “Where did you get yours?” “I ain’t got it.”

“Where did Suds get it?”

“Off a girl in Brest, coming home.”

“That’s all you guys ever talk about. The old rale. What difference does the old rale make?”

“None, the way we are now,” one Vet said. “You’re just as happy with it.”

“Poochy’s happier. He don’t know where he is.”

“What’s the old rale?” Professor MacWalsey asked the man next to him at the bar. The man told him.

“I wonder what the derivation is,” Professor MacWalsey said.

“I don’t know,” said the man. “I’ve always heard it called the old rale since my first enlistment. Some call it ral. But usually they call it the old rale.”

“I’d like to know,” said Professor MacWalsey.

“Most of those terms are old English words.”

“Why do they call it the old rale?” the Vet next to Professor MacWalsey asked another.

“I don’t know.”

Nobody seemed to know but all enjoyed the atmosphere of serious philological discussion.

Richard Gordon was next to Professor MacWalsey at the bar now. When Red and Poochy had started fighting he had been pushed down there and he had not resisted the move.

“Hello,” Professor MacWalsey said to him. “Do you want a drink?”

“Not with you,” said Richard Gordon.

“I suppose you’re right,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Did you ever see anything like this?”

“No,” said Richard Gordon.

“It’s very strange,” said Professor MacWalsey. “They’re amazing. I always come here nights.”

“Don’t you ever get in trouble?”

“No. Why should I?”

“Drunken fights.”

“I never seem to have any trouble.”

“A couple of friends of mine wanted to beat you up a couple of minutes ago.”

“Yes.”

“I wish I would have let them.”

“I don’t think it would make much difference,” said Professor MacWalsey in the odd way of speaking he had. “If I annoy you by being here I can go.”

“No,” said Richard Gordon. “I sort of like to be near you.”

“Yes,” said Professor MacWalsey.

“Have you ever been married?” asked Richard Gordon.

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“My wife died during the influenza epidemic in 1918.”

“Why do you want to marry again now?”

“I think I’d be better at it now. I think perhaps I’d be a better husband now.”

“So you picked my wife.”

“Yes,” said Professor MacWalsey.

“Damn you,” said Richard Gordon, and hit him in the face.

Someone grabbed his arm. He jerked it loose and someone hit him crashingly behind the ear. He could see Professor MacWalsey, before him, still at the bar, his face red, blinking his eyes. He was reaching for another beer to replace the one Gordon had spilled, and Richard Gordon drew back his arm to hit him again. As he did so, something exploded again behind his ear and all the lights flared up, wheeled round, and then went out.

Then he was standing in the doorway of Freddy’s place. His head was ringing, and the crowded room was unsteady and wheeling slightly, and he felt sick to his stomach. He could see the crowd looking at him. The big-shouldered young man was standing by him. “Listen,” he was saying, “you don’t want to start any trouble in here. There’s enough fights in here with those rummies.”

“Who hit me?” asked Richard Gordon.

“I hit you,” said the wide young man. “That fellow’s a regular customer here. You want to take it easy. You don’t want to go to fight in here.”

Standing unsteadily Richard Gordon saw Professor MacWalsey coming toward him away from the crowd at the bar. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want anybody to slug you. I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do.”

“Goddamn you,” said Richard Gordon, and started toward him. It was the last thing he remembered doing for the wide young man set himself, dropped his shoulders slightly, and clipped him again, and he went down, this time, on the cement floor on his face. The wide young man turned to Professor MacWalsey. “That’s all right, Doc,” he said, hospitably. “He won’t annoy you now. What’s the matter with him anyway?”

“I’ve got to take him home,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Will he be all right?”

“Sure.”

“Help me to get him in a taxi,” said Professor MacWalsey. They carried Richard Gordon out between them and with the driver helping, put him in the old model T taxi.

“You’re sure he’ll be all right?” asked Professor MacWalsey.

“Just pull on his ears good when you want to bring him to. Put some water on him. Look out he don’t want to fight when he comes to. Don’t let him grab you, Doc.”

“No,” said Professor MacWalsey.

Richard Gordon’s head lay back at an odd angle in the back of the taxi and he made a heavy, rasping noise when he breathed. Professor MacWalsey put his arm under his head and held it so it did not bump against the seat.

“Where are we going?” asked the taxi driver. “Out on the other end of town,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Past the Park. Down the street from the place where they sell mullets.”

“That’s the Rocky Road,” the driver said.

“Yes,” said Professor MacWalsey.

As they passed the first coffee shop up the street, Professor MacWalsey told the driver to stop. He wanted to go in and get some cigarettes. He laid Richard Gordon’s head down carefully on the seat and went into the coffee shop. When he came out to get back into the taxi, Richard Gordon was gone.

“Where did he go?” he asked the driver.

“That’s him up the street,” the driver said.

“Catch up with him.”

As the taxi pulled up even with him, Professor MacWalsey got out and went up to Richard Gordon who was lurching along the sidewalk.

“Come on, Gordon,” he said. “We’re going home.” Richard Gordon looked at him.

“We?” he said, swaying.

“I want you to go home in this taxi.”

“You go to hell.”

“I wish you’d come,” Professor MacWalsey said. “I want you to get home safely.”

“Where’s your gang?” said Richard Gordon.

“What gang?”

“Your gang that beat me up.”

“That was the bouncer. I didn’t know he was going to hit you.”

“You lie,” said Richard Gordon. He swung at the red-faced man in front of him and missed him. He slipped forward onto his knees and got up slowly. His knees were scraped raw from the sidewalk, but he did not know it.

“Come on and fight,” he said brokenly.

“I don’t fight,” said Professor MacWalsey. “If you’ll get into the taxi I’ll leave you.”

“Go to hell,” said Richard Gordon and started down the street.

“Leave him go,” said the taxi driver. “He’s all right now.”

“Do you think he’ll be all right?”

“Hell,” the taxi driver said. “He’s perfect.”

“I’m worried about’ him,” Professor MacWalsey said.

“You can’t get him in without fighting him,” the taxi driver said. “Let him go. He’s fine. Is he your brother?”

“In a way,” said Professor MacWalsey.

He watched Richard Gordon lurching down the street until he was out of sight in the shadow from the big trees whose branches dipped down to grow into the ground like roots. What he was thinking as he watched him, was not pleasant. It is a mortal sin, he thought, a grave and deadly sin and a great cruelty, and while technically one’s religion may permit the ultimate result, I cannot pardon myself. On the other hand, a surgeon cannot desist while operating for fear of hurting the patient. But why must all the operations in life be performed without an anesthetic? If I had been a better man I would have let him beat me up. It would have been better for him. The poor stupid man. The poor homeless man. I ought to stay with him, but I know that is too much for him to bear. I am ashamed and disgusted with myself and I hate what I have done. It all may turn out badly too. But I must not think about that. I will now return to the anesthetic I have used for seventeen years and will not need much longer. Although it is probably a vice now for which I only invent excuses. Though at least it is a vice for which I am suited. But I wish I could help that poor man whom I am wronging.

“Drive me back to Freddy’s,” he said.