Some Came Running (113 page)

“As a matter of fact, everything’s all over,” ’Bama said. “We were just going home.”

“Afraid that’s impossible,” Sherm Ruedy said, looking at the battered brothers. He took a few steps out into the center of the arena, then over to the bloodstain by the wall, then came back. He also did not miss Dave’s vomit stain.

All of them had watched him make his tour, and when Dave’s gaze hit the bloodstain, turning black now, he retched, automatically, and turned away.

“What’s the matter with you, Dave?” Sherm said. “Drunk?”

“No,” Dave said. “Just an upset stomach, Sherm.”

“Are you sure?”

“Blood on snow makes him sick,” ’Bama said. “The war, you know. He was in the Battle of the Bulge.”

Once again, the police chief turned his head to look at ’Bama as though he might be being made fun of. He had not been in the war; and in fact, had become police chief only just about then. “You were in the Battle of the Bulge, too, weren’t you, ’Bama?” he said.

“Yes,” ’Bama said. “But I was in a tank. He wasn’t.”

Sherm turned his head back to look at the others. “You two boys better get your coats,” he said. “Afraid I’ll have to take you down.”

“Has there been a complaint made, Sherm?” ’Bama said pleasantly.

“There’s been a law broken,” Sherm countered, turning his head to look at ’Bama. “There’s a law against fist fighting. Disorderly conduct. There’s a law against drunkenness, too, ’Bama.”

“That’s true,” ’Bama said. “But we’re not any of us drunk. And the fight’s all over. Like I said. You don’t suppose you might give us a break, Sherm?”

“Afraid not,” Sherm said, and then slowly nodded his head. “But I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you other three boys a break. But I’m afraid Dewey and Raymond will have to come down with me. I’ll have to take them to the doctor and get them patched up anyway.”

“Okay,” ’Bama smiled; “Yore the boss, Sherm. We could fix them up just as easy at home, though.”

“Afraid not,” Sherm said.

’Bama shrugged. “Like I said, Sherm, yore the boss. Raymond can’t see very good, and his jacket’s here. Is it all right if Hubie goes in and gets Dewey’s coat for him?”

“I guess so,” the police chief said.

Hubie turned and took off without a word. “Haven’t seen you around lately, Sherm,” ’Bama said while they waited. “I understand you just got back from that new FBI school for police, in Washington?”

“That’s right,” Sherm said levelly.

“Pretty good school?” ’Bama said. “Teach you quite a bit?”

“A good bit,” Sherm said.

“Any judo?”’

“Some.”

“Must be a pretty good school,” ’Bama said pleasantly. “Criminals ain’t got much of a chance anymore, to get away with anything, have they?”

“Not much,” Sherm said.

“And a good thing, too,” ’Bama said. “Us respectable citizens need all the protection we can get from law inforcement officers. They
should
be trained.”

Behind him, Hubie came up with Dewey’s old Army mackinaw. “Here’s your coat, Dewey,” he said.

“You boys both ready?” Sherm said.

“I guess so,” Dewey said with a happy laugh. “Raymond, it looks like we’re goin back to jail for another good night’s sleep again.” He flung his arm around his brother.

“I just hope they give me my same old cell back,” Raymond said with his loud guffaw.

They went ahead of Sherm to the car and climbed in the backseat.

“I’m taking you up to the doctor’s first,” Sherm said in through the window. “Though I hate to wake him up for the likes of you.” They all knew who he meant. The doctor was a new man who had come to town from the East with a lot of money and bought out one of the five local “sanitariums”—privately owned hospitals—and was now making a lot more off the better class of people with his really exquisite bedside manner. Sherm Ruedy took all his own and his family’s, as well as all his city police business, there.

“’Bama,” he said, turning back after he had closed the door on them, “how are you boys making out with that house of yours?” He leaned his gloved hand against the top of the car a moment.

“Just fine, Sherm,” ’Bama said. “Just fine. Why?”

“I just wanted to tell you,” Sherm said slowly “that you better be careful about what goes on down there. I’ve got my eye out on it.”

“Has somebody made a complaint?” ’Bama said.

“No. If anybody had, I’d have been down there.”

“Well, you come down when you get a complaint, will you, Sherm?” ’Bama said pleasantly.

“You bet I will,” the police chief said. He stared at the tall Southerner for a moment, as if waiting for his warning to sink in, then he took his gloved hand down off the car and went around to the other side and got in.

“See you guys tomorrow after court,” Dewey called.

After they had gone, ’Bama began to curse, savagely. “Well, we better get on home,” he said after a minute. “You want to come on down to the house with us, Hubie?”

“I might as well,” Hubie drawled. “I ain’t very sleepy now anyway.”

They all got in ’Bama’s Packard and started home. Dave, who had kept himself back out of all of it, found he had in him somewhat the same feeling Hubie must have been referring to. There had been—all during the time that Sherm Ruedy had been present—an uncomfortable, deadly, tension in each of them. As soon as he was gone, so was that tension; but its flavor lingered on. It was the same thing with Dave whenever he met Sherm on the street, as he frequently did. He would be walking one way and Sherm the other, and they would look at each other and that tension would pass between them. Sherm would nod at him, gravely, and say “Hello, Dave;” and he would nod at Sherm, and say “Hello, Sherm;” and that would be all there was to it. There wasn’t anything you could put your finger on. He could understand why poor old Ginnie so hated and feared him. He hated and feared him himself. And the stark raw hatred that had passed between Sherm and ’Bama so pleasantly on the one side, and so gravely on the other, was actually a livid living flame of a thing. Once again Dave thought that he would not ever want to have ’Bama mad at him.

“You know, he doesn’t do anything,” he said out loud in the car; “anything wrong, I mean. You know?”

“He never does,” ’Bama said. “He never crosses the line. He makes it his code.”

“I mean, he could have took them down and thrown them in without actually
having
to take them to the doctor,” Dave said.

“Oh, he would never do that,” ’Bama said. “He’s always scrupulously fair. He leans over backwards to be scrupulously fair.”

“We use to have a good police chief in this town,” Hubie said. “Old Max Thompson. Remember him, ’Bama? He kept me from gettin sent to reform school once for stealing cartons of cigarettes. Got the guy to drop the complaint, if I’d promise to pay it all back out of my paper route.” He laughed. “Took me a year.” He sighed: “But Old Max got a better job as a trouble shooter with some big company in Chicago. And then we got Sherm.”

“I don’t know what it is,” Dave said. “You get the feeling that he’s set himself up as a sort of overseer of everybody’s
morals
—private, as well as public. Not just their
acts,
you see; but their
thoughts.
Their
morals.”

’Bama turned to look at him with a sort of wondering thoughtfulness. “By God, I think you’ve hit it. He’s not only gonna make them
do
good; he’s gonna make them
be
good. Make them
think
good. I never been able to quite say it before. But that’s it.”

He did not say anything for a moment. “I never been quite able to say it before,” he said half to himself.

And then he suddenly broke out into furious tirade. “And all the time drivin that fat, funny, little oddball daughter of his to school every morning in the police car; and every afternoon drives back out and picks her up again. That funny, ugly, fat daughter of his.”

“It’s her glands,” Hubie said, “made her like that.”

’Bama raged on, as if he had not even heard. “Him and that new doctor are always gettin together. And he’s got this old buddy of his from the Dark Bend, that he’s always goin everywhere with. Always together, when he’s off duty. Guy never does anything; doesn’t work; never earns any money; just runs around with Sherm.” He was raging. “And that oddball of a wife of Sherm’s, and that oddball fat daughter. And that odd duck of a mother of his who goes around preachin at meetings down in the Dark Bend.”

“Look, what the hell’s eatin you all of a sudden?” Hubie said.

“Nothing!” ’Bama said savagely. “Not a damn thing. Here’s this whole bunch of crazy people from down there in the Bend. Here’s this guy who is going to stick up for law and order to the point of insanity, just so he can make himself like himself a little better.

“Why should anything be eatin me? You slob! Sure, Sherm believes in ‘Law and Order.’ He’s afraid
not
to. Because that way he can keep one half of his mind totally divorced from the other half. You think Sherm would have kept you out of reform school when you were a kid like Max Thompson did? Hah! he’d have made damn sure you
went
. And you would probably be some petty safe artist somewheres in Chicago or Hammond, today, from what you learned there. Is it any wonder we got juvenile delinquents? Sure we got ’em. They’re not fools enough to believe the mishmash of crap we try to feed them about justice and ‘Law and Order.’” He raged on.

“But you don’t know Sherm’s that bad,” Dave said.

“I don’t, hunh?” ’Bama said furiously. “And let me tell you something. Yore an ass. You like to believe the best in people. You got a streak of sentimentality a yard wide in you, Dave, and someday it’s goin to get you into a situation you won’t be able to bull yore way out of, and yore liable to get yore head tore clean off of you, because of yore sentimentality.”

Dave, feeling both flustered and embarrassed, and a little chill of the possibility of truth in this sudden attack, said nothing.

“Oh, lots of people know about Sherm, Dave,” Hubie said easily. “What the hell you gettin so worked up for?” he said to the tall man.

’Bama took a deep breath and snorted it out explosively. “I’ll tell you why,” he said more calmly. “Because it’s all a lie, that’s why. Here, we got a guy who (like Dave said) is attempting to set himself up as a policeman of everybody’s morals. And yet this guy himself is a sadist—and yet nobody does a damn thing about it. Now, I say that’s a damning comment on our whole American civilization. Dave here’s always talkin and talkin about Rome, and the decadence of Rome. Well, how much more decadent can you get than this? That we set up this character to administer our laws to us, and all the time the guy himself is a real sadist, and gets his kicks that way.

“And you think the people in this town don’t know about that? Hell, you talk about the decadence of Rome! Anytime you got laws—a moral code—that people give lip service to in public and ignore and break in private, you got decadence. Rome!”

“Hell, I agree with you,” Dave said.

“Rome, Schmome!” Hubie said. “The whole world’s like that.”

“Well, if you want to know one reason why I’m a gambler and why I sneer at our so-called ‘American society’ and ain’t got any use for it,” ’Bama said, “right there’s a good one for you to remember: Sherm Ruedy. One, I may add, of many.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” he said. “While we’re on the subject. You want to know why there’s so many neurotics and ‘juvenile delinquents’ and sadists in this country today? It’s the simple fact we don’t give our children
physical
affection like we use to: Holdin them, and pattin them, and rubbin them. And do you know
why
we don’t? It’s because in the kind of society we live in where sex is the most important thing in the back of everybody’s mind we’re
ashamed
to. There’s a certain sexual pleasure in it, for both parties, and we’re embarrassed and afraid of that. Afraid of what the neighbors might think. Afraid maybe our kids will turn into some kind of sexual oddball. Well, by God, none of my kids will ever turn into neurotics! If they want to come up and put their arms around me, I let them; and if they want to sit on my lap and run their hands up and down my chest, I let them! and I run my hands up and down their chest, too. Just like my daddy done to me; and my grandaddy done to him. Ruth carts them kids around on her hip all the time till they’re old enough to walk; and if after that they come and rub against her, she don’t push them off and look ashamed. When kids are little they need that kind of touch. They get something out of it. A confidence. They get a certain
physical
reassurance. And they don’t turn into Sherm Ruedys.

“You can give a kid all the damned ‘love’ and ‘mental affection’ you want to; but unless you give them that
physical
affection, it don’t do them a damn bit of good. You can baby them, and spoil them, and let them have their damned way all the time, and all the rest of that crap; and it won’t do them a damned bit of good if you don’t give them
physical
affection. In fact, it’ll do more harm. I make them mind me, but I give them physical affection. If more people would forget their own goddam sexual fears and worries, we’d have a whole lot less trouble with the kids. I hold that Sherm Ruedy’s crazy preachin mother is responsible for Sherm.

“Hell,” he said seriously, “the guy’s actually crazy. Look at what he does with all the parkin meters. Hell, last fall when Clark Hibbard was campaigning here (and he had one of the state highway’s men drivin him; a guy I know; that’s how I come to hear about it) Clark and this state man were parked uptown on the street, both of them sittin in their car, waitin for Clark to get ready to make a speech; and Sherm comes over to them and gives them a parking ticket; right there, by God! Their meter had run out. And they were both in the car with the motor runnin. So the highway’s man takes the ticket down to the city hall and he says to the clerk: ‘Look, do I really have to pay this ticket Sherm Ruedy gave me?’ and the clerk says to him: ‘Well, sir, I’ll tell you. The other day I just happened to be lookin out the window, and I saw Sherm go right up to his own car, the police car, and give himself a ticket; the meter had run out, and he came in here and he paid me the fifty cents.’ So the state man said: ‘Well, I guess I better pay it then, hadn’t I?’