Now and on Earth (6 page)

"You sit there," she said. "Don't move. I'll be right back."

She went back into the bedroom, and then I heard the front door close. And through the dinette window I saw her hurrying down the sidewalk, her fur coat over her nightdress.

She was back in a minute-not more than three, anyway-with a pint of whisky. I took a stiff drink before I told her that she shouldn't have bought it.

"It was my money," she said. "I'd been saving it to take to church. It's been so long since I took anything- anything like that-Jimmie. And you're supposed to, and I hated to go any more without doing it. And- and-"

"Honey," I said. "Oh, for Christ's sake…

I guess I had forgotten how much Roberta did and does love me. I guess I have wanted to forget. You cannot fight a person who loves you, and I have had to fight.

But, now. Well, I know what the Church means to Roberta, and I knew that in her own mind she had damned herself a little by diverting that dollar from its original destination. That dollar-the seven cents she had chiseled from Mom was probably part of it. I remembered all over again.

I was going to school at the University of Nebraska, and Lois, my partner in so many nights of love, had been married a month. And I was, to put it politely, on the make. I met Roberta at a school mixer (they were not exclusively for students). I rubbed her and felt her, and she didn't seem to mind. So the next night I took her for a ride; and the night after that I took her to another dance. It was still all right. I could go as far as I liked.

Well, I had observed the best fraternity traditions. I'd shown her a good time. I hadn't got her drunk or told her she'd have to walk or ride. It was just a case of two people wanting something they knew would be good. Or so I thought.

We went up to my room.

I said, "Don't you want to take your dress off? It might get wrinkled."

She took off her dress and lay down again.

I said, "How about those other things? Can I help you?"

She said, "Does it hurt very much?"

I didn't get it for a minute. "You're not sewed into them, are you?"

"You know what I mean," she said. "I don't mind, but if it's going to hurt I want to know. So I won't holler."

"Look," I said, "are you a-haven't you ever done this before?"

"I certainly have not!"

"Well-well, what the hell are you doing here then?"

"Why you know. I love you."

"Well, look, honey," I said. "I appreciate it, and all that, but-but I don't want it that bad. You'll love some other guy later on, and-"

"No, I won't. Now, show me how."

"But-but, baby," I said. "I won't let you do this." And she said, calmly, "You may as well. I'll never love anyone but you. No one will ever have me but you."

I was never any good at arguments.

Two months later when Jo was conceived, we got married. I didn't have to marry her; she made that very clear. But she also made it clear that wherever I was, there she was going to be, forever and always. I thought it might be inconvenient to have her and children around without a marriage license. So-

But, as I was saying, there is one thing I am sure of. Roberta loves me. She loves me so much that she doesn't give a whoop whether I go to heaven or hell if she can go along. She would, in fact, prefer hell. I would need her there. I might not-I might see someone I liked better-in the other place.

That is Roberta. I didn't mind so much that Saturday night.

We moved in to the lounge, and she took a nip or two from the bottle so that the whisky on my breath wouldn't bother her. And then we sat and talked about everything under the sun. I said I was going to get ahold of myself, and be different, and she said I didn't need to be different. However or whatever I was, she'd love. She said she was the one that was going to be different-"! know I'm hateful and cross and mean, Jimmie, but it seems like I just can't help it. I'm always sorry afterwards, but I can't help it at the time. But I'm going to be different from now on; really, I am."

That's the way the evening ended. Not quite, but we've covered the other matter.

There was an armistice all day Sunday.

I almost felt good Monday morning. Mom fixed my breakfast, and I actually ate some.

"You still want me to get the typewriter, Jimmie?" she said.

"Sure. I'm going to sit down tonight and beat the holy hell out of it."

Gross picked me up in a new Ford just as I'd crossed Pacific.

"You see, that really wasn't my car the other night," he said. "This is my car. I mean it's the one my wife's folks bought for her."

"It's a nice car," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "I already heard plenty about how nice it is. I wish I could tell 'em to take it and ram it."

"In-laws are funny people," I said.

"They ain't to me. I don't know what to do sometimes. I thought, maybe, if I could get a little clerical experience I might get some kind of civil service job. That would be nice and dignified, and it would pay pretty good."

I kept him talking about himself. I knew, if I didn't, the conversation would turn to my private affairs.

When he left college, he said, he'd played pro football for two years. Then he'd begun to lose his speed, and they'd canned him, and he'd joined the army. They discharged him after eleven months because of a permanently disabled ankle… He received a seven-dollar compensation check from the Government every month. He'd gone from the army into aircraft work. He didn't say so, but it was apparent that he was fit for nothing but manual labor.

We walked into the plant together. Moon was at the desk examining the books.

"I see you haven't straightened these out yet, Gross," he said ominously.

"I'm making headway," Gross protested. "The things are crazy, Moon. And you know how it is-half the time I don't know when stuff is brought in or taken out of here."

"Dilly," said Moon, "do you think you can handle these books?"

"Why-" I began. "Why, I-"

"I think you can," Moon said. "Gross, show Dilly the ropes. When you get through, you can start dusting the racks."

It was the day Mike had been released under 50,000-dollar bond on a criminal syndicalism charge, and he undoubtedly had many things on his mind. But he stopped to inquire into my troubles, regardless.

"I don't think a change of scenery is going to help you, Dill," he said. "But-but if you've just got to go some place, how about the West Coast? Our attorney borrowed a car from his brother at San Diego when he was out there on vacation, and he's got to send it back. If you want to take it, your transportation won't cost you anything."

It sounded pretty good. If I got out there on a limb, sort of, maybe the foundation would extend my fellowship. Or maybe I could connect with one of the Hollywood studios. I went home.

"Well," said Roberta, "where's your uniform? I thought you'd be on the way to Fort Sill, by now. They didn't turn you down because you had a wife and three children, did they?"

"Jimmie was probably afraid they'd make him sleep on the ground," said Mom. "I never saw such a boy always to be afraid he'd get an ant or a little worm on him or something."

"You ought to join the Foreign Legion, Jimmie," said Frankie. "You could get some good material for stories."

I said, "Get my things packed. I'm going to California."

"Ho-hum," said Roberta. "Can you folks eat macaroni and cheese for lunch?"

"I'm going in a car. Mike Stone's lawyer is going to give me his car to go in."

Roberta came alive then. So!-I'd been chasing around with those filthy Reds again. Well, she hoped they'd send me over the road with the rest of the crowd; it'd serve me right.

"Jimmie, you mustn't have anything to do with them," Mom said. "We've already got about all the trouble we can stand."

Frankie said, "I always liked Mike. What's the deal? Maybe I'll go along. I'm getting doggoned tired of cashiering for fifteen a week and getting docked for shortages I don't make."

"I'm going by myself," I said. "As soon as I get settled and see how things are, I'll send for the rest of you. Roberta, when my check comes, wire me forty and keep the rest."

"You're not going any place but to jail," said Roberta. "I warn you, James Dillon: If you even look like you're going to-"

"I don't know, Roberta," said Mom. "It might be all right. There's really nothing I've got to stay here for, and Frankie ought to get away from Chick. I don't see how she stands him slobbering and sulking around all the time."

"Oh, Chick's all right, Mom," said Frankie. "He just doesn't know quite how to take you people. And he gets blue and disgusted because he doesn't have a better job."

"If he goes, I'm not," said Mom. "The reason he doesn't get anywhere is because no one likes him. He's just a big sulking calf."

"No one's going but me," I said.

"Don't be such a pig, Jimmie," said Frankie.

"You wouldn't want us to stay here, just barely getting by, if we could do well out there, would you?" asked Mom.

"I've been trying to think what I could wear," said Roberta. "I guess my green slack suit would be the best."

"Now, look here!" I said. "You folks just can't get up and tear off like this. It's absolutely crazy!"

"Well, of course if you don't want us-" said Mom. "He's always trying to get away from me, Mom," said Roberta. "Ever since we got married. He's not going to, though."

Well-we came to California.

I felt pretty sorry for Chick. Chick is an expert mechanic on pin-ball machines and other gambling devices; it's probably the only thing he's any good at. Since they were outlawed in the Southwest, he's had to work at anything he could get at about a fourth of what he used to make. There really wasn't room for him in the car, and we did promise we'd look out for him. But, after we got here, we were so busy looking out for ourselves that we couldn't be bothered a great deal. He wrote Frankie a rather nasty letter, then one to the family in general. So now none of us knows quite what to do. Frankie wants to see him, I'm sure. But Mom and Roberta are so angry still that seeing him would mean not seeing them. So-

I don't know why the family is so damned casual about some things and so intense about others.

I couldn't get an extension on my fellowship; they were afraid that the war would so change things that any material I gathered would have no value. Or so they said. I wrote to a couple of Hollywood writers I'd corresponded with. They didn't reply. (And I didn't blame them.) Fawcetts was willing to give me a try at studio gush and gossip, but the Hays office wouldn't accredit me. There were too many writers only half-living in Hollywood already.

In the end, I went out to the aircraft factory, hoping they wouldn't hire me and wondering what I'd do if they didn't. And that's about all.

It's hard to say how I feel about the place. I'd like to be disinterested, but I can't and hold my job. And, as jobs go, it's no worse than any would be that I
had
to hold. It's just something to endure, something to live through, numb yet painfully aware of what is going on around me. It's like-well, I'll try to give you an example.

Three months after Mack was born a doctor acquaintance of mine performed a vasectomy on me. It was around Christmas, and the only payment he exacted was ten fingers out of a quart of rye; in advance, yes. I think he must have served an apprenticeship at cutting out baseball covers, because I was going around in a sling for weeks afterward. But what I started to say was-to strike a parallel with my job-it drove me nuts without actually hurting at all. I was so shot full of local that he could have trimmed out my appendix without hurting me. But that snipping and slicing finally got me so bad that I raised up and whanged the hell out of him, and he had to sit on my chest to finish.

On the day I took over Gross's job, Moon remembered his promise to show me around. We went down to the Drop-hammer Department, first, and watched the manifolds and other castings being pounded out. They are as large as a small room, some of these hammers, and when they are dropped the concrete floor shakes for hundreds of feet around. The men are the huskiest I've seen, and you can see just about all of them because they're practically naked. Their bodies, and particularly their arms, are covered with scars from the splattering metal and from cleaning out the hot pots.

I didn't think that was as it should be. There are very few things with which I can't find something wrong. I suggested to Moon that it would be better if they bundled themselves against the heat and other hazards of their work as cooks do.

He replied, "These men have been working this way a long time and they probably know what's best."

We only looked through the door of the Plannishing Department, and that was enough to give me a headache for the rest of the morning. Here the castings are run back and forth through a series of rapidly moving hammers until they are beaten smooth; and the noise is too frightful to describe. It has no cadence; you can't accustom yourself to it. Every one of the hundreds of thousands of blows of the hammers rips right through you.

Through a side door leading into the yard, I noticed several men wandering idly around, massaging their ears and heads, smoking but not talking.

"Some of the plannishing boys," said Moon. "They get a rest period every half-hour or so. Have to have it or they'd go nuts."

"I suppose they get pretty good money," I said.

"Not so much. They're here because they can't get out of it. At least, most of them are. They're put in here, not knowing what plannishing means, and pretty soon they begin to build up seniority so they hang on, hoping they'll get a break and be transferred to some other department. If the company gives you a transfer, you know, you don't lose your seniority. But if you demand it, they can start you in in a new department at a beginner's rate. That's pretty hard to take. When you've been in a department four months, you draw twelve and a half cents an hour above the minimum-a dollar a day more. A man with a family is going to do a lot of thinking before he gives that up."

"But most of these fellows are just kids," I said. "They're not old enough to have families. I should think-"

Moon gave me one of his solemn looks which, some way, have the effect of making me feel even more the idiot than I am.

"Ever hear of the draft act, Dilly?"

"Yes. Of course, I have."

"Well, where do you think these young fellows would be if the company didn't want to have them deferred?"

Well…

I didn't have any suggestions that time.

We went out to the carpenter shop where the wing spars are made, and then we came back inside and started up the sheet-metal forming line. It's called a line, but it's actually four, each about fifty yards long. Each line consists of possibly a hundred benches and workmen; practically every operation is done with handtools. At the beginning of the "line" is a metal-crimping machine, from which the parts come in rough form. From this they go from bench to bench, each man doing his particular little task, until the last bench is reached. There, the move- boys pick them up and trundle them off to the paint and dope shops.

That is as far as I got. In fact, I didn't get quite that far; I progressed only far enough to reach certain conclusions. Midway in an explanation of one of the processes, Moon abruptly excused himself and hurried off. And in something less than five minutes a company guard had me by the elbow and asked me what I was doing.