The Folded Leaf (24 page)

She barely nodded to Lymie. “The old English madrigal,” she wrote, “was an amatory poem to be sung by three or more voices.” The musical implications, Professor Severance had once said, were not to be lost sight of. Fortunately, she hadn’t lost sight of them.

It was some time before Sally discovered the large question mark on Lymie’s blotter. She shook her silver fountain pen, which had become clogged, and wrote “Hope” on the edge of her own blotter. Lymie had to wait until they emerged from the room where the examination was being held, for further enlightenment.

“The weirdest thing,” Sally exclaimed as she closed the door behind her. “Hope had an exam in botany this morning, and she wasn’t prepared for it—I was over at the house for supper last night, but I’ve been living at home. She told me she was going to tell Mrs. Sisson that she had appendicitis, and spend the morning in bed. And this noon I met Bernice Crawford and she said that Mrs. Sisson had called Dr. Rogers—you know that bald-headed little man with the goatee, the one that’s always pinching people. Girls, I mean. I don’t think he pinches boys. But anyway, he rushed Hope off to the hospital and took her appendix out before lunch. That’s why I was late. I went to see her. She was still under the anesthetic, but they said she
was coming along all right. Only there was nothing wrong with her, and she can’t afford an operation. My God, Lymie, the things people get themselves into!”

“Maybe she really did have appendicitis,” Lymie said.

“In a pig’s ear!”

The door opened and Lymie moved to one side, so that two girls could get past.

“What are you looking so bedraggled about?” Sally asked.

“Who, me?” Lymie asked. “I feel fine.”

“You don’t look it. Maybe you’d better have your appendix out too.”

“I can’t,” Lymie said. “I forgot to join the Hospital Association.”

“Well then, you’d better not,” Sally said.

He brought out the note and said, “Would you mind giving this to Spud?”

“Won’t you be seeing him at the gym?”

Lymie hesitated and then shook his head. “Not this afternoon,” he said. “I’ve got some work to do. I have to study for an hour exam.”

“You aren’t sore at each other?”

“No,” Lymie said.

She sighed and put the envelope in her pocket. “I won’t be seeing him until after supper probably. Do you know, Lymie, when I first knew you, you were different from the way you are now.”

“In what way?”

“Well,” she said slowly, “for one thing, you didn’t tell lies.”

L
ymie went up to the dorm early that night, knowing that if Spud were coming it would have been before this, because pledges were not allowed out of the fraternity house on a week night after seven-thirty. He was hoping that he could fall asleep immediately and not know when Amsler came, but he turned and turned in the cold bed, without making a place for himself, and after awhile, he heard steps on the stairs. The door swung open and Howard and Geraghty came in.

“It’s the whining,” Geraghty said, as the door swung shut behind him. “If it wasn’t for the whining I wouldn’t care so much one way or the other. But this always wanting to know where you’ve been and who you were with and why you didn’t call her up. It’s enough to drive a guy nuts.”

A bed creaked and Howard said, “Jesus, it’s cold!”

“Somebody must have told her about Louise,” Geraghty said mournfully. “She didn’t say so but I’m pretty sure that’s what must have happened.”

Howard yawned. “Go to sleep,” he said.

So Geraghty had a new girl, Lymie thought. And he hadn’t got the old one in trouble after all, in spite of Reinhart’s prophecies. Or maybe because of them. But why should Geraghty get tired of a girl who was so pretty and loving? Did he just want a change? And what would happen when Geraghty got tired of his new girl?

Lymie was not really interested in Geraghty or Geraghty’s girls; he pulled the other pillow around to his back and waited. In a few minutes the door swung open again. It was Steve Rush this time. Freeman came shortly afterward. Then Pownell
marched in, and Reinhart after him. Their beds creaked, and there was a soft rustling of covers as they settled down under the weight of coats and comforters. The wind tore at the corners of the house as if it had some personal spite against it and against all the people lying awake and asleep under the mansard roof. A floor board contracted. Lymie thought of Hope over in the university hospital. He heard the chimes in the Law Building strike midnight and wondered where Amsler was.

Lymie was hanging on the edge of sleep when he heard a step on the stairs, and it was something that he had imagined so many times the last few weeks that he didn’t believe in it; not until the door swung wide open and the step (which couldn’t be anyone else’s) came nearer and nearer. Lymie waited. He felt the covers being raised, and then the bed sinking down on the other side, exactly as he had imagined it. Then, lifted on a great wave of unbelieving happiness, he turned suddenly and found Spud there beside him.

Spud was in his underwear and he was shivering. “My God, it’s cold,” he said. He pushed the pillow aside, and dug his chin in Lymie’s shoulder.

Anybody else in the world, Lymie thought, anybody but Spud would have said something, would at least have explained that he was sorry. But Spud hated explanations and besides there was no need for them. It was enough that Spud was here, whether for good or just for this once; that it was Spud’s arm he felt now across his chest.

Lymie lay back on the wave of happiness and was supported by it. The bed had grown warm all around him. Spud’s breathing deepened and became slower. His chest rose and fell more quietly, rose and fell in the breathing of sleep. Lymie, stretched
out beside him, wished that it were possible to die, with this fullness in his heart for which there were no words and couldn’t ever be. All that he had ever wanted, he had now. All that was lost had come back to him, just because he had been patient.

He heard Amsler come in and go to his own bed. Then, managing to keep Spud’s warm foot against his, Lymie turned and lay on his back, so that Spud’s arm would go farther around him. He made no effort to go to sleep, and sleep when it came to him was sudden. One minute he was wide awake thinking, and the next he was lying unconscious, on his back, as if he had been felled by a heavy blow.

T
hough it came from human throats the roar was animal Certain voices rose above it screaming

Come on, colored boy
but the two fighters exchanging blow for blow didn’t hear. Except when the referee came between them saying

Break it up, break it up
they were alone, under the smoky white light from the reflectors. They were in a world of silence and one of them was tired.

Upper cut, Francis
… Old Man
Upper cut
…
the head
…
up
… up

He’s tired too, Rudy

The head, not down there
…
up
…
up
…
throw it in his face

Oooh, that dirty nigger

The ice cream man moved in a world of noise, looking for upraised hands, for the quick turn of a head. At that moment all heads were turned away from him, all eyes were on the ring. The crowd moaned and moaned again as the white boy sank from the ropes to the canvas. In the back of the balcony a baby started crying. The referee waved the Negro to a neutral corner. On the count of seven the white boy rose to his knees. At the count of nine he was on his feet again but groggy.

Finish him off, Francis

Not there… up
…
up… atsa baby
… a
little higher and he’s through

Come on, Francis
…
bring it up… up
…
that’s it
…
cute
…
more

Good-by, Rudy

What hit him

Fall down, Rudy, you’re through

Stop the fight

Come on, Francis
…
finish up fast

In the belly

That’s it
…
downstairs, Rudy

He don’t know where it came from
…
he still don’t know

In the belly, Francis

It’s all yours, Francis

The fight was not, as it turned out, all Francis’s. At the end of the third round, the fighters broke apart. The Negro went on dancing until the decision was announced. Then the handlers stepped through the ropes, bringing robes and towels. Rudy’s handlers congratulated him. There were several voices from the balcony assuring Francis that he had been robbed, but nothing was done about it. He and the white boy faded into the darkness, into the thick fog of cigar smoke, and two other fighters took their places.

The announcer moved up to the microphone.

Ladies and
…
gentlemen… this contest three rounds

One of the fighters was towheaded, with very white skin. His weight was distributed in chunks over his body, giving a look of boxlike squareness to his back and shoulders, his thighs, and the calves of his rather short legs.

From
Chicago’s West Side
…
wearing black trunks … weighing one-forty-seven
…
Larry Brannigan Junior

At the first sound of applause the towheaded fighter doubled up, as if from a stomach cramp, and with one arm held out stiffly he wheeled around backward in a complete circle—the favorite accepting homage from his admirers.

From
the University of
…
wearing purple trunks
…
weighing a hundred forty-six and three quarters pounds
…
Spud Latham

Again applause. Spud raised his glove to his father, who was watching from the door to the dressing rooms. Mr. Latham saw the gesture, but didn’t realize that it was for him. The past four nights, taking on all comers, Spud had wiped out his father’s failures, one after another. Mr. Latham was no longer the same man.

The two fighters, their seconds, and the referee stood in the center of the ring under the glaring white light. The referee was heavy-set and had bushy black eyebrows. He was wearing gray trousers, a white shirt, a black bow tie, a black leather belt, and boxing shoes. His face suggested no particular nationality. Neither Brannigan nor Spud heard his instructions. They were sizing each other up. There was a cut over Spud’s left eye which had three clamps in it. This caught Brannigan’s fancy and he smiled. Hit properly, the clamps could be driven straight into Spud’s head. The referee looked at the cut before he checked their hands and wrappings.

In his corner, waiting for the fight to begin, Spud suddenly
felt limp. His handlers were hovering over him, telling him to feel Brannigan out in the first round. Spud nodded, wondering what they would say if he leaned forward now and confessed to them that he didn’t have any stomach. His knees were moving all by themselves, and his hands, inside all of that tape, felt soft as putty. The whistle blew. He got up and scraped the soles of his shoes in the resin box. Then he stood with his gloves on the ropes, waiting. The rubber mouthpiece was forced between his lips. It was wet and it tasted wonderful. At the sound of the bell he swung around and saw Brannigan coming toward him fast. Spud crouched and let Brannigan have one—a left hook that caught him under the heart. The crowd moaned. Brannigan missed a wild left swing and took a left and right to the jaw. They went into a clinch and the referee separated them.

Atta boy, Brannigan, give it to him
…
open up that eye

Lefty Latham

Keep punching that eye

There
…
that hit him

That’s all right… Junior’s taking it easy
…
he’s not getting excited

Jab it… keep your left hand up, Latham, lead with your left hand, not the right … the left hand
…
keep the left hand in his face

Look out for your chin, dear friend

Go way from that

Keep your head, Junior
…
take it easy… three rounds

Ooh

That hit him
…
that’s the only one that hit him

What a headache

What happened
…
what happened

Come on, Latham
…
let’s go

Keep that left hand out there
…
left in his face will knock him out

He needs more than a left
…
he needs a left and a right for that boy

What happened
…
nothing happened
…
don’t worry, Brannigan

He’s a murderer

Hit him, with a wet glove
… a
good one
… a
wet one

Spud backed Brannigan against the ropes and slugged him twice before the referee, for what reason it was not clear, came between them. There were boos and hisses from the crowd.

Go
on
…
get out

Go
way from there

He had no right to stop him
…
they were both on their feet

Right
…
right
…
so what

So he should leave him alone
…
the fellow was on the ropes

Maybe the referee has got bets on him

Use the left hand

Off the ropes, Junior

All of a sudden the referee they got him from Halsted Street

Keep away from those ropes, you fool

Shut up

Why should I shut up? I paid my admission
…
didn’t I?
…
The guy had the fight in the first round and the referee steps between them

Keep it in his face, Latham
…
the left

Eh, Brannigan
…
what happened?