Hard Rain Falling (22 page)

“You will, hey?”

“Sure. And, go to school, too. I mean, if you can work it.”

The counselor fussed with his papers. “We’ll see,” he said. Jack went back to isolation, expecting to feel justified and triumphant, but all he really felt was disgusted with himself. He was acting like a child. He was in isolation for another week, and then transferred to Billy Lancing’s cell and told that his schedule would be work in the kitchen from 4:30 A.M. to noon, with yard break, and then school in the afternoon. He could not understand it. Billy’s schedule was the same, except that he spent his afternoons teaching elementary arithmetic. “Ah’m a fuckin mathmatical
genius
, baby,” he told Jack with a delighted grin.

Jack spent his mornings mopping the dining hall, feeding one of the gigantic steam clippers, scouring pots and pans, all the KP duties of a newcomer to any kitchen, and in the morning break on the yard stood by himself in the sun. He ate early chow with the kitchen workers and then went on pass to the classroom and spent the afternoon in the oddly nostalgic atmosphere of learning. It was, in fact, the slowest part of the day. Their teacher was a convict, sent up for the usual white-collar crime of bad checks, a thin, egocentric man whose instruction moved painfully slowly, as slowly as if not more slowly than the dim comprehension of the dullest student, most of whom were much older than Jack. The young ones were nearly all fuckoffs from the factories and not even vaguely interested in grammar or English literature or California history. Jack was always glad when the day ended and he could go back to his cell. He brought his books with him and it was much easier just reading the books than studying them. And Billy was there, too, with another installment of his autobiography. Not that Billy wasn’t interested in Jack’s past or that he wanted to monopolize the conversation; just that Jack was not really talking yet. He was still trying to absorb the sights and sounds of the prison; it was his new home, and he expected it to be, almost wanted it to be, his home for the rest of his life. Because to think any other way was to hope, and he hoped he had given up hope.

Evenings were the best part of the day. After the bustle, the noise, the omnipresent danger and the constant sense of enforcement, being at home in a two-man cell was almost restful, even though there was always a threshold of noise that never lessened throughout the night, and even though there was another man sharing the semi-privacy. It was Jack’s luck that the other man was someone he could like and someone he could listen to with interest.

It was clear, of course, that Billy wasn’t talking just to hear himself, or to tell Jack about his adventures. By recapitulating the past Billy was in a sense getting out of the present, getting back into the world outside, as if by the magic of speech and memory he could for a few hours free himself from the cell, and as far as Jack was concerned, it worked. It not only drew Billy out, it took Jack with him, by the very simple fact that Jack could not think about Billy and think about himself at the same time. So, for a few hours each evening, the two of them wandered around the northern parts of the United States, living, reliving, the life of a small-time gambler. Those things Jack thought he would miss most, the colors and tastes of life on the outside, came back to him as he tried to picture the things Billy talked about, and often afterward he would lie on his bunk and wonder with some inner excitement if he wasn’t developing a hidden resource in his imagination; if there weren’t, after all, ways of beating the joint without actually leaving.

But he knew better. When the excitement went away, he was left with the sour knowledge that Billy was trying not so much to escape via his memory, as to find out, in fact, why the harmless, lonely life he lived had led him straight to prison. Not the specific crime; he knew what that was, but the things that changed him into a man who would commit such a crime. He had written a phony check and been caught for it; that was his crime. But what he wanted to know was, how did it happen that a wise fellow like himself had done such a stupid thing. He never did find out, but he told some good stories.

“Man, I tell you the queerest thing ever happened to me was up in Idaho. I’ll
never
figure that cat out if I live a thousand years. I was in this all-night joint; I come about a hundred miles to get in this crap game in this guy’s garage, you know, and man, I spent a
good
half-hour losin every penny I had, an so I cut out an went for this all-night poolhall an was just sittin there out of the weather watchin some old white cats playin billiards an wonderin where in
hell
I was gonna get some
food
. Man, you can say what you want about this joint, but you get three squares and a flop, and when you
aint
got em, they’re
somethin!
I thought of everythin. Hock my stick? What stick! My magical Willie Hoppe Special? What a joke! I bought that son of a bitch about a month after I left Seattle, you know I just
had
to have one, an then some cocksucker in Walnut Creek, man, took and busted it over his knee when I wiped him out in snooker. I got another one later; left it at Whitehead’s when I got busted at last. Sell my ass? Sho, I read about cats doin that, you know, they get busted an sit around the bus depot cussin like hell, an then some cute guy comes along an gives em half a million to cop their joint; well, shit, I thought about it, but I didn’t want to, and man, I didn’t even know
how!
I thought about bustin into a house an stealin the family fur coats, but shit, I’m too chickenshit for that kind of action, and anyway, what the hell do you do with a fur coat? I didn’t know any fences. You hear a lot of shit about that. Man, every big-city poolhall’s got about fifteen guys always hangin around tryin to sell you a watch or a radio or somethin, but you never see these guys with any bread, do you? Hell, no!

“Anyhow, I’m sittin there in this poolhall and in comes the guy; it must of been two in the mornin, dressed in this business suit, nice-lookin guy, maybe fifty, looked like an
executive
, you know? He sits down and watches this billiard game, too. There wasn’t nothin else happenin in the joint; one old guy in back cleanin off the tables, the houseman asleep back of the candy counter, you know; and then this executive comes up to me an wants to know if I want to play rotation for two dollars or somethin.
Rotation!
Well, shit. Maybe he’s a queer, I think, and now’s my big chance to sell my ass; but then, you know, maybe not. I says to myself, Billy, you been an honest man all your goddam life, and now you’re
broke!
Play on your guts, Billy, and take that man’s two dollars, and if you lose, let him try to find two dollars worth of your hide. I don’t know who that cat was or what he thought an never did find out, but he sure wanted to play. So I did it, I got up an played him rotation, half scared he’d find out I was broke, half scared he’d beat me; but hell, he handled a cue like it was a deadly snake, and man, he couldn’t hit his ass with a six-by-eight.

“We played, and I kind of kept it down an beat him by about ten points, man that game took twenty minutes, and he pulls out this wallet and opens it up, and you can see me kind of leanin over to look inside while I’m rackin the balls, and he pulls up two singles, bran new lookin, an throws em on the green and wants to play for
four!
Well, I says to myself, you got money for breakfast. You could throw it in right now, because your dream came true; or you can play on your guts
again
an get hustled into jail. Maybe the cat’s a cop or somethin. But screw it, I played him an beat him out of the four, still wonderin if the cat ain’t a hustler I just never met, waitin for him to throw me the okey-doke, but he doubles the bet another time or two and still can’t hit a lick, and finally I think to myself, Billy, this john don’t know the way home, and I cut loose myself and wrapped him up. Man, we started playin for fifty dollars a game, and I’d break and run every ball off that table sometimes, and he’d just be polite and say `Nice shootin, you got talent,’ or somethin, an give me the money and I’d rack the balls again an let him break and he’d go
zong!
and miscue or bounce the cue ball halfway across the room, and I’d shoot my sixty-one points, and out would come that wallet! I thought it would never end. I thought I was still sittin there having a dream. Finally the cat says, `Thank you for the games, I seem to be broke, could you pay my share of the time?’—lookin anxious like he was violatin the
rules;
pay his share?
I had two thousand fuckin dollars!
”

Billy’s laugh was easy, but his eyes glinted with remembrance of his riches. “Two grand.” He looked at Jack. “Did I run back to that crap game, even before I ate breakfast? Is a bullfrog green?”

“Oh, don’t tell me,” Jack said. “You didn’t lose it?” He felt almost sick at the thought. He could almost feel the thick wads of money slipping out of his own pocket.

“Lose it? Lose it? Are you out of your mind? Don’t you know anything about luck? I come into that crap game like a madwoman flingin shit, an won another nine hundred before everybody fled. Man, I just got out of there and
trod
on Idaho lookin for somebody I couldn’t beat.” He laughed again. “Lose it?
Hell
no! You think this story’s hard to believe; listen to this: Man, I took that money an thought an thought what to do with it, and I ended up goin to
college!
” His eyes were bright, almost feverish. “Ain’t that a
bitch?
”

“Man, do you have any idea how many niggers there is in night school? They’re
scared
, baby, they quit high school just like I did an go out an face that tough Cholly world and stand around on street corners an
sneer
, an when they get home they got no money an they wasted all that good sneerin; and up jumps the
Army
, an they hear their old man yellin around about
automation
, and it just scares the shit out of em. Night school! That’s the scene! Man, they’re so fuckin dumb, the most of them, they get all worked up and come to these classes, an then act just like they was back in high school, layin around payin no attention an thinkin the teacher’s got it out for em cause they’re black. Most of em. I made it through night school in a year, man, flyin low, spendin my days in Hollywood shootin pool, and I was gonna register at UCLA but this old dream of mine caught hold of me somewhere, and I went home to Seattle. I wanted to go to the University of Washington, right there in Seattle, and live near my folks, all that shit, you know; and man, I got there an my family was
gone
, every last one. I don’t know where the hell they went. I should have wrote. Anyway, I went to the University, got a
conditional
acceptance, signed up for a bunch of wild-ass courses like French, biology, history, English composition, you know. Moved into a dorm, bought me some
sweaters
, dig; went to football games, all that shit, studied like hell, but man, how
cold!
What did I care?

“I didn’t want to go to college; that was a bunch of shit. It was okay for some of them guys; hell, they was gonna end up runnin the country, you know? College is okay for them an for the cats who want to find some nice safe hole and crawl in it, but that wasn’t
me
. I know, because I wasn’t there three months before I had me a poker game goin in my room, an I was pushin benny at final time; taught them college athletes how to play nine-ball at the rec hall an was just
rollin
in money. Sure I studied. All the goddam time I’d be up all night hittin the books, but it didn’t make any difference; the only courses I got anywhere with were biology and algebra; the rest were Cs and Ds, an you know
me
, daddy, I got to be up in the top or I don’t play. So, shit. After a while, I felt like an asshole. You know, the worse thing in the whole fuckin world is to wake up in the middle of the night, when you’re helpless, man, an think to yourself, Billy, you’re a phony. You went to college because your heart ached, an now your heart aches
still!
What’s the matter, you sick? You lonely?

“I wasn’t the only one. There was cats all over that college wakin up scared. Some of em did it for
fun
, you know, sittin around drinkin coffee an talkin about
life;
with this now there aint no God so what the hell we gonna
do
time; some of these cats would come an bang on my door and come in an want to talk about niggers, what a hard lot they got, an want to score for some benny or make me take them down to a colored whorehouse, and laugh and yell an get drunk and have a high old time, but they was just as upset as I was, an we all knew it; we was all scared of the Army an life an all that shit; an what we really wanted most of all was to get
comfortable
, you know?

“It wasn’t money, I found that out in a hurry. Money, man, I could get money. I
had
money. That’s how goddam dumb I was then. I thought me an my brains and my good right arm could get me all the money I wanted. You know? The big problem was I guess I was just
empty
most of the time. When I first got out of the house, run off to Portland, that’s when I met you, an had a bed of my own, I thought that was the best goddam thing in the world; a bed you could spread out in, a room that was
quiet
. You know that feeling? But, shit, it got old, not that I ever wanted to go back to the housing project an live like a hog; but I was just plain empty. A long time before I went to college I thought, well, fuck the niggers, I aint gonna worry about that. I don’t want no troubles I aint made for myself, I aint gonna join no black club; that’s just lookin for protection cause you’re scared. I wasn’t scared, I told myself, cause I had my brains an my right arm, an that made me different; I was unique, like Willie Mays. Because you know all that keeps the niggers apart an down is the lack of money; and I could get all the money I wanted. And if any white cat wants to call me nigger an spit in my face, I figured I could take that. It happens, you know. Some cat in some backhole poolhall says somethin about the
smell
, or somethin. He says, `Man, what’s that awful
smell?
’—meanin
me
, an I come back at him real quick, `I guess that must be the smell of
big money;
I guess you aint ever smelled a fifty-dollar bill,’ an haul out my wad and ask the man, `Do you want to take some of this home and get a good sniff at it?’—and some of them dumb fuckin crackers’d get so mad they’d play me, and I’d take
their
money home an smell it, and it smelled
good
.