Some Came Running (126 page)

“But it’s rather eerie at times, when one is aware of this theory, to watch how people strain to make others love them, when they may be binding themselves to those very people for untold generations. It’s almost terrifying.” He laid the books down on the countertop beside the doorway down to the landing and turned around and smiled. “Perhaps if they knew what it is they may be doing, they wouldn’t all be so anxious to be loved.” He started back toward Dave. “Anyway I, personally, am convinced you and Gwen have that type of a Karmic attachment; and a very powerful one.”

Dave merely stood, dully, feeling the fire warm on the backs of his legs, and casting his eyes about the room. He did not know how long he could stand it, being here, but he knew it would not be for very long. Bob came on down toward him, still talking, his kind eyes crinkled anxiously, and Dave realized for the first time that it was his own new poem Bob was talking to him about. It was the first time, to Dave’s knowledge, at least, that he had ever known of Bob discussing his new poem with anyone; and the result was to make the tears want to come back in his eyes again: Old Bob—trying to help—without helping.

“So you can see the astonishing symbolism, dear Dave,” Bob was saying. “Which is why, of course, I call it ‘The King Is Helpless.’”

Dave could not resist a sad, sardonic snort of laughter at that one. It certainly fit in his case anyway.

“I just happened to be sitting at the chess board and noticed it,” Bob said. “I’m about convinced that it is a definite evolutionary development—with a definite evolutionary purpose—namely, to make the men more
sensitive.
Women almost completely dominate today in our Western civilization. But it must, like everything, do at least equally as much good as bad. And while it may be bad for all the fat, domineering middle-aged bridge-playing wives and widows, it may be their lives are all sacrifices in an
inverse
way. At any rate, it’s certainly good for the insensitiveness and pompousness of the men. And I’m convinced it’s going to spread over the entire world before it’s done.” He stopped in front of Dave and smiled, and then reached out his hand and laid it on Dave’s shoulder. “We just happen to live in a time when the race is becoming totally dominated by the females, dear Dave.”

“You’re not,” Dave said thickly. “You’re not dominated.”

“I’m not in love with anyone,” Bob said.

“I have to go,” Dave said, blinking his eyes quickly, “I have to get out of here. I have to.”

“Of course,” Bob smiled.

But Dave was already moving. At the cellar door, he looked down vaguely at the books and picked them up.

“It didn’t any of it help me any,” he said from the landing. “Nothing helped me.” His eyes scanned the room once quickly, hungrily, and Dave ran outside. Bob was still standing before the fire. He waved. “You didn’t help me,” Dave said to himself.

And it was true. None of anything Bob had said or done, had helped him in the slightest. And when he got home the books did not help him any, either. Dewey and Hubie were having themselves a rowdy ball in the kitchen with their two girls. ’Bama was gone somewhere. Wally Dennis and Rosalie and Ginnie Moorehead were all sitting up with them, although it was still only mid-afternoon. He mixed himself a quick pitcher of martinis and took it and the books upstairs to his bedroom with him, and when Ginnie Moorehead tried to follow him he told her from the stairs to get the hell out. Ginnie merely smiled at him sadly and returned to the kitchen. He really oughtn’t to treat her so nasty, Dave reflected. But at the present he just didn’t give a damn. And besides, there were the books: He wanted to get into them.

But the books did not help him. In his bedroom, he locked the door and sat down with them and the pitcher and began poring through them, looking for something that would give him an inkling, a hope, some little awareness of what it was that was happening to him.

How could they make these incredible outlandish statements about reincarnation and Hierarchies and all that stuff? They acted like they
knew!
How the hell could they
know?
Who the hell were
they,
to just declare they knew? He read on, skipping here and there, finding nothing really factual, nothing that helped him, until finally he was only reading words. Just words. He closed the books and put them on the bed table, and then just sat, staring out the window at the gray, dismal, dirty winter day. Downstairs he could hear them laughing and talking, and the phrase
No help anywhere
kept going through his mind over and over. Most of all, he had to get back to work and
No help anywhere.

In the end, it was only anger that helped him. Just pure outraged hate-filled anger. Anger at the world and everything in it. Anger at Wally Dennis for being so smugly self-satisfied, and anger at Rosalie for sleeping with Wally when she had once slept with him. Anger at Dewey and Hubie for getting as drunk as often as he himself was, and anger at Lois and Martha for sitting like two toads. Anger at ’Bama for studying him and sympathizing with him. Anger at Ginnie Moorehead for being so dumb. Anger at Doris Fredric for being a whore when she was so rich. But most of all, anger at Bob and Gwen French, for treating him like they had, for taking his affection and abusing it like they had and then dropping him. He had never hated so many people with so much pure black hatred in his life, and he sat back in it and savored it. It got him sobered up and, finally, after two weeks of laying drunk and not writing a line, it got him back to work. Furiously, with iron bullheaded-German resolve, he read through everything he had finished up to date and made notes on how to continue and determinedly set to work again, pure hate exuding from his pores and dripping down to form a greasy slippery invisible carpet over the floor. The truth was—except for ’Bama, of course—the only one who really cared about him at all was poor damned, dumb Ginnie Moorehead, the town whore. There was a laugh for you! He punched the typewriter savagely. It was not the kind of cool, calm writing he had done before. This was hard and fast and slashing, ripped out page after page, in an ecstasy of savage excitement. Every now and then the slow sick feeling in the pit of his stomach would creep back into him, but always the black anger came to his defense and saved him.

And then, just as he was beginning to hit his stride, ’Bama had to go and get himself shot.

Actually, it was not the shooting itself so much as the aftereffects of it, which caused the bad trouble. And the aftereffects, of course, Dave did not know of, at the time. The first he heard of any of it at all, for that matter, was when ’Bama called him long distance from St Vincent’s Catholic Hospital in Indianapolis at six o’clock in the morning. He had been away for several days, and Dave had not heard from him; but that in itself was nothing unusual, since he had taken some money and gone over to Indianapolis to play the horses.

“What the hell are you doing in a
Catholic hospital?”
Dave wanted to know.

“Anhhhh,” ’Bama’s voice came back over the phone. “These damn fools. When the damn cops asked me what my religion was, I was teed off anyway; so I told ’em I was a Greek Orthodox. And I guess they figured a Catholic hospital was as near as they could come in Indianapolis.” He muttered some low oaths under his breath.

Dave could not help but laugh. “All right; that explains the Catholic,” he said. “But what are you doing in a hospital?”

“I got shot,” ’Bama said pleasantly.

“Shot! Who shot you?”

“Some damned second-story man tried to hold me up.”

“And he shot you?!”

“We shot each other,” ’Bama said. “Yeah, he shot me; after I shot him first.” There was a dry pause. “I guess it made him mad. Hell, I had more’n two thousand bucks on me. I wasn’t goin to just give it to him.”

“You must have won,” Dave said.

“Won?” ’Bama said innocently. “Won what? That was my last fall’s corn crop money I was bringin over here to invest.”

“Oh,” Dave said. “Sure. Well, you want me to come over there?”

“Yes. I wish you would. I know yore back at work, and I hate to disturb that. But these damn fools won’t let me out of here. They say I ain’t fit to drive. I want you to come over and pick me up. Christ! this is worse’n bein back in the damned Army!”

“Sure, I’ll come get you. Where did he shoot you?”

“In the hip,” ’Bama said. “It ain’t nothin serious. But these bums won’t let me out of the stinking joint.”

“Will they let you out if I come get you?”

“You damned right. If they don’t, I’ll walk out in this nightgown.” He paused again. “As a matter of fact, I think they’ll be damn glad to see me go. Now, look. You get Dewey or somebody to come with you and drive your car back. Then you can drive me back in the Packard.”

“Okay,” Dave said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Well, just don’t take your damn time, that’s all,” ’Bama said. “I’m so sick of this place that I’m actually startin to teach these nuns to play poker.” Again there was that dry pause. “It wouldn’t be so bad, but I’m afraid they’ll take me. Ain’t that right, Sister?” he said to someone beside him.

Dave laughed again. “Okay,” he said, “I’m on my way,” and hung up happily. Only ’Bama seemed to be able to do that to him anymore: Make him laugh and for a moment at least, feel happy. Then he thought of Gwen again and got that sick feeling in his stomach. For a moment, there at the very first of the call, he had had a flash of panic until he had heard the obvious healthiness of ’Bama’s voice. My God! what he would do without the omnipotent, very nearly omniscient ’Bama he didn’t know.

When he got there, he got the whole story off of ’Bama. Dave had rounded Dewey up down at Ciro’s and Hubie, who was with him, wanted to go too, so they all went. He released them with the Plymouth outside the hospital before he even went in. “Now don’t get drunk,” he cautioned them, “for God’s sake. Be careful.” Dewey stared at him coldly from behind the wheel. “Don’t worry about me,” he grinned. “I won’t hurt your damn cheap car. You just get ’Bama out of this cheap firetrap. We need somebody around who can make money.” He took off in a grinding clash of gears.

St Vincent’s Hospital was a big pile out on Fall Creek Boulevard. Inside, a Catholic sister took him up in an elevator and then down a long gleaming hall to where ’Bama had seen fit to hire himself a private room. “Here you are,” the sister said, smiling at him sweetly. “Now, you mustn’t stay long, you know.” She left him.

Inside, after he had knocked and another sweet woman’s voice told him to come in, he found ’Bama sitting up in the bed in one of those flimsy short-sleeved ridiculous-looking hospital nightgowns, and he had his hat on. The pearl gray Stetson, slanted low over his eyes, rode there on his head as much a part of him as his face or his hands. Beside the bed in a chair sat a bright-eyed laughing-faced Catholic sister of an indeterminate age.

“Well, so you finally got here,” ’Bama said. “What the hell took you so long?”

“How’re you feeling?” Dave countered.

“I’m feeling fine. Did you bring my clothes?”

“Was I supposed to?” Dave said.

“Shore you were!” ’Bama cried. He turned and winked at the sister, whom he had obviously enchanted. “You expect me to expose my bare bottom to the elements in this rag?”

“As you can see,” the sister said, trying not to grin, “Mr Dillert has made a singularly uncooperative patient.”

“You bet yore life,” ’Bama said. “And I aim to keep right on bein one until I get out of here. It’s like bein in jail or in the Army.

“They got my clothes,” he grinned at Dave, “but they didn’t get my hat. The sister here’s been tryin to talk me out of it ever since I met her.”

“Well, you must admit, it’s rather unusual to wear your hat in bed,” the sister said. Suddenly, she giggled. “What I can’t figure out is how you manage to sleep in it without mussing it up.”

“Someday I’ll tell you,” ’Bama said. He grinned at Dave. But underneath his laughter, there was a drawn look around his eyes. “And while the sister’s been tryin to talk me out of my hat, I’ve been teaching her how to deal second top card and first and second bottom card.”

“Please, Mr Dillert,” the sister said; “not teaching me. Showing me.”

“Well, you gals play bridge, don’t you?” ’Bama said. “Second bottom card would come in mighty handy at bridge. You could win everybody else’s allowance.”

“I must admit, the gambler’s manual dexterity does fascinate me,” the sister smiled, looking childlike. “What was that one where you make them go up and down?” She moved her hands like an accordion.

“The gambler’s ladder,” ’Bama said. He reached over to the table and picked up a deck of poker cards, and riffled the cards out in a long line and brought them back together. “Here,” he said. “Want to try it again?”

“No, thank you,” the sister said, looking at Dave embarrassedly.

“Well,” ’Bama said, “then how about you gettin my clothes? My friend’s here to drive me home.”

“Mr Dillert, you know I can’t do that,” the sister said, repressing another grin. “Not unless Doctor approves it first.”

“Then go and get ‘Doctor,’” ’Bama said.

“He’s making his rounds now,” the sister said.

“Then get some other doctor,” ’Bama said. “Because I’m leavin here in fifteen minutes. Doctor or no doctor. Bare bottom or no bare bottom.” Then suddenly, he grinned at her and winked. “And I might just take you with me, too.”

The sister, who obviously did not believe this, either, nevertheless looked a little flustered and suppressed another grin. “Can’t you wait till he finishes rounds?”

“No,” ’Bama said. “I can’t.” He made as if to get up out of bed.

The sister got up hastily. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go and see what I can do. Now you know you’re not supposed to get out of bed.”

“I’ll wait fifteen minutes,” ’Bama said with finality. “And as for gettin out of bed, I’ll be out of this place in less than an hour, so how can gettin out of bed hurt me?”

“Will you see that he stays in bed?” the sister said to Dave.

“He can’t keep me in bed any more than you can,” ’Bama said, “I told her,” he said to Dave, “I never was no bedpan and duck man. In the Army, they could court-martial me for it, but they can’t do it here.”