Some Came Running (30 page)

D
AVE AND
’B
AMA DID NOT
get back from Indianapolis for five days. When they did get back, Dave found that Frank had been out of town the whole five days, gone to Chicago for a jewelry show Agnes said, and was expected back tomorrow, or before. Dave need not have worried about Frank and his promise to see him at all. But he had worried about it, and felt guilty, all the time he was gone. Apparently, Frank still had a stronger hold over him than he thought.

When they did come back to Parkman, they were driving two cars. Because Dave had bought one. They had talked about it on the way over, and ’Bama had promised to help him find one, a good buy. Bein without a car today ’Bama maintained was about like bein without feet a hundred years ago. But when they got over there and got settled in at the Claypool Hotel, the whole party turned into such a bout of drinking fornicating and nightclubbing that there never seemed to be enough time left over to do anything about the car. Twice ’Bama ran him out to used car places he knew, but they were both so liquored up that the whole project seemed not only unreal and a waste of valuable time but positively unnatural, a withdrawal from reality: It was unimportant, what the hell did he need a car for, ’Bama had one, didn’t he? They wound up buying the car in Terre Haute on the way home.

Shortly after every noon—which was the time they all got out of bed and ordered breakfast—’Bama would ask Dave if he had to be back for anything special, and Dave would remember Frank and his promise to see him and say no, and they would stay another day. It went on like that for the whole five days. The two girls evidently knew beforehand what kind of a party to expect from ’Bama, which was why they had come. In the end, it was ’Bama himself who, as though he had finally fulfilled some particular need of his own, suddenly called the halt and sneeringly said it was time to get back to the unpleasant prospect of living.

And it was like that, too, Dave thought. For five days, nothing of the world they knew existed, none of their responsibilities or embroilments or entanglements, but especially: no close personal relations with people. They lived in a hotel; they spent money; they were waited on. As long as you spent money, people would do anything for you, wait on you, cater to you, carry you around on a chip, and not intrude on you. It was a vacation from life.

’Bama was apparently almost as well known in Indianapolis as he was in Parkman. His checks were cashed at the Claypool without credit cards or questions. All the desk clerks knew him. So did the bellboys and bartenders. And when they sat in the bar, they actually seemed as much a part of it as did all the partying oil company executives and out-of-town businessmen who surrounded them. He had cards for all the private supper clubs and after-hours joints both in, and outside of, town, and every night they went to a different one and after closing wound up at a different after-hours place where they sat and drank and were overcharged until six o’clock in the morning. Dave danced, with both girls. ’Bama did not dance. Some of the places had gambling, and if they did, ’Bama gambled. Otherwise he just sat. And drank. And paid, for everything. The girls had a wonderful time and even Rosalie, in her brusque way, became almost pleasant.

And through all of this, ’Bama remained as coarse and openly small-townish as he had always been, as he was the first time Dave saw him in Ciro’s in Parkman, as hickish as his country suits. These suits themselves he bought at L Strauss where they were specially tailored to his specifications, much to the distress of the salesperson, and paid a hundred dollars each for. And he ordered another new one while he was in town and took Dave there to shop for civilian clothes. He also took him to his bookmaker’s.

Every afternoon (morning it was, to them) after they had eaten breakfast (washing it down with whiskey), the first of the large amount they would be consuming the rest of the day, ’Bama would give the girls some money (ten, fifteen, twenty) and send them out (to shop, he sneered, or go to a show) and then, fixing himself a fresh drink, he would begin his day.

He drank a lot, a tremendous amount. He never drank anything but bourbon and plain water. Except for some beer now and then. And he kept a bottle and a water carafe on the bed table beside him where he could reach it during the night. But yet he never seemed to get drunk.

Holding the fresh drink, he would first sit on the edge of the bed in his underwear with his hat on and call the valet to check on the progress of his suit, which he always sent out to be sponged and pressed first thing, even before ordering breakfast.

Then he would take the drink, which he may or may not have added whiskey to in the meantime, into the bathroom to shave and shower, wearing nothing but his underwear and his hat. Coming out still holding the glass, usually empty, he would first replenish it and set it carefully on the table, then fresh socks and his shoes, fresh underwear for the undershirt of which, to get it on, he had to remove his hat momentarily, and finally a clean white shirt (he had immediately bought accessories and shirts the day they arrived) and his tie, and like that he would remain, moving around leisurely with his drink, a man who lived in hotels so much he felt more at home there than he would in a house, until the valet’s man arrived with his suit.

The girls, of course, would be gone by then. The first day, Dave went with them. They went out and had drinks, then lunch, at the Canary Cottage on the Circle, then more drinks, then to a show, then more drinks. They talked a great deal, mostly about themselves. They got back just in time to go out for drinks and dinner. Dave could not have been more bored. The second day he elected to stay with ’Bama, and the girls went out alone, and ’Bama grinned at him sympathetically. They were nice girls, in their way, he said, but he just couldn’t stand only so much of them in any one day. That was the day that ’Bama, muttering something about not wanting to ruin his civilian reputation by being seen out with no soldier, took him, still in uniform, to L Strauss’s and after ordering his own suit, left him there alone.

So it was that that afternoon (morning), Dave was treated to the spectacle of watching, from the other bedroom of the two-bedroom corner suite, ’Bama’s morning (afternoon) ritual, which never seemed to vary a penny’s worth and which he was to see so many times—especially after they leased the house—that it would remain deeply impressed on his brain as if stamped with metal forever after.

What the two girls did those afternoons (mornings), ’Bama neither knew nor asked. He apparently did not care. They were always back at the hotel in time to go out to some private club for dinner. ’Bama apparently did not even care whether they came back or not. And Dave found he did not care, either. Rosalie had made herself more or less amenable in the bed with him, but while sufficiently active, it seemed to him to be pretty much mechanical, as if she were in this way conscientiously paying her way on the party. He appreciated her honestness, but it did not help him any to know that she would have come along just the same, if ’Bama’s stablemate had been Gargantua himself. He knew one thing for sure. If he ever went on any more brawls with ’Bama, Rosalie Sansome would not be his partner. If he was hungry for love, Rosalie was not for him. Rosalie admired nobody but herself.

It was on the third afternoon that, dressed now in a flamboyant and Hollywood-cut gray-and-blue-tweed sport jacket and flannel slacks, ’Bama took him up to his bookmaker’s. The unseasonable snow had melted off and it was a brisk sunshiny day, and wearing almost identical gabardine topcoats they walked over to the Circle and north on Meridian to one of the newer high-powered office buildings and took the elevator to the eighth floor. In a combination investment house and loan office, which took up a full quarter of the eighth floor, ’Bama sneered hello to two girls working behind the counter and went on through a rugged-looking door into the next room where one entire wall was covered with a lined blackboard and a number of people moved about, and as far as Dave could tell the door was not locked and there was no system of checking or identification.

Once inside, Dave was at first afraid they had blundered into some exclusive private men’s club. He had patronized a few people who made book himself, out on the West Coast. Invariably, they either ran dingy little cigar stores or poolrooms, or else operated behind locked doors on the top floor of some foul tenement. Here, the carpeting was thick. Roomy chairs and ashtray stands and cocktail tables were scattered around facing the blackboard wall. Lithograph prints of famous horses decorated the other walls. Several expensively dressed (L Strauss? he wondered) older men sat in chairs holding drinks which were served to them by a Negro man in a white coat. Three young men, excellently dressed in ultra conservative (L Strauss, too?) business suits, walked up and down, holding sheaves of cards and pencils. Now and then, one of the seated men would quietly tell them something and they would write it down. Another conservatively dressed man stood by the blackboard holding an eraser and a piece of chalk. Occasionally, he would erase something and write something else in its place. Very little of the blackboard was in use. Dave knew enough to know this was because the main winter racing season in the South had not started yet. The feeling of the whole establishment was really that of a rich stock broker’s office, rather than an illegal bookmaker’s. And behind the counter on their left where a few desks stood, still another conservatively dressed man sat beside a teletype ticker machine under a glass dome, completing the picture.

’Bama checked his topcoat with a girl behind the counter just inside the door, and Dave did likewise. She gave them checks and hung the coats on an open rack that ran back along the desks. ’Bama took a copy of the Racing Form and a red and a green sheet from stacks on the counter and, still wearing his hat, sat down. He ordered whiskey and plain water from the Negro man, pushed his hat back to his widow’s peak, and began to study the form and the blackboard. Dave took copies too and sat down beside him, wondering idiotically if he was going to buy Tel & Tel today.

And yet, in spite of the conservative respectability and businesslike air of the place, there was also a subdued note of secrecy that, for him, made it very exciting. Why was it always so much more fun to do something if it was against the law?

’Bama made some calculations on the margin of his form, then studied the blackboard, then made some more calculations, then simply sat, studying them and looking back and forth to the blackboard. Dave just sat, holding his Racing Form awkwardly like a man holding a rifle who has never shot one before. One of the young men came by, with his stack of cards and pencil, murmuring that it was almost post time, in a moment no more bets would be taken. Mr Dillert? ’Bama looked up at him a long moment as if expecting to find an answer there, during which the young man waited, and then gave him a bet. Then he laid down his form and picked up his drink. The man at the ticker tape left it and put a set of earphones on his head that made him look like an Air Force copilot, announced that they were off and began in absolute monotone to name the changing positions of the horses as they ran, staring at the wall before him blankly. The men in the chairs sipped their drinks and listened silently. Dave listened, too, feeling a tremendous excitement building up in him. When it was over, the young man with the cards came over and gave ’Bama a chit, which the tall Southerner shoved in his pocket. Then he picked up his form again.

They stayed there the rest of the afternoon, listening to that bored monotone, evaluating one race after another, and when they left, Dave left a confirmed horse player.

In addition, he had been treated to a display of ’Bama at work, and could feel nothing but unqualified admiration. Mostly, it was patience—the like of which he had never seen before and would not have believed the jitterish ’Bama capable of, but which he was to see many times again whether it was with cards, dice or horses. ’Bama worked every race, studying his form and the blackboard, making some kind of private calculations, then revising them, then re-revising them. He did all this with every race. But he placed only one other bet. It was on the next to last race. Again, the young man brought him a chit, which he stuffed in his pocket. When they went to leave, ’Bama presented the chits at the counter and received in exchange a stack of bills the size and denominations of which made it appear to Dave that he had made enough money to more than pay for the whole trip. They got back to the hotel just in time to meet the girls, have drinks, and go out to dinner—and the usual evening.

The next day, they were back. That was the fourth day of the trip. They went back the fifth day, too, and it was late that night—or rather, early the next morning, because it was after five a.m.—that they started home. ’Bama had told them that morning (afternoon) that unpleasant as it might be, it nevertheless looked like they were all going to have to start living again. Neither of the girls nor Dave felt like arguing with him, since he was paying the bills. So they had packed all the newly acquired purchases, including Dave’s new clothes packed in his two new bags, loaded them in the Packard and checked out of the hotel, and then gone about the rest of the day just as usual—which was why they were leaving at five in the morning.

It was sad, in a way, Dave thought. Sitting beside ’Bama in the front seat—they had put the two girls in the backseat; both were asleep already—he felt let down and worn out and half sick. And beside him ’Bama looked even more frail and sallow—with even bigger purple circles under those gambler’s eyes—than he had looked at Smitty’s before they started. Here they had been living for five days like a very great percentage of the American people dreamed of living, and look at them. The best dinner places, the best nightclubs, the best orchestras to dance to, the best gambling joints, after-hours places galore, the finest bookmaker’s, shopping sprees, almost unlimited money to spend. And after only five days of it, they all looked more dead than alive, and were about ready for collapse. The thought depressed him exceedingly, and his bowels had not moved for two days.