Nelson Algren - The New Black Mask Quarterly (№ 1)

I felt that it was the very least I could do for her, although quite a few others had obviously done as much. I doubt that they had fought for it either, since it simply wasn’t the sort of thing for which men do battle. Frankly, if it had been tendered as inspiration for the launching of a thousand ships (or even a toy canoe), not a one would have hoisted anchor.

Ah, well. Who am I to kid around about poor Connie and her over-stretched snatch? Or to kid about anyone, for that matter? It is one of Fate’s saddest pranks to imbue the least sexually appetizing of us with the hugest sexual appetitites. To atone for that joke, I feel, is the obligation of all who are better endowed. And in keeping that obligation I have had many sorrier screws than Connie. I have received little gratitude for my efforts. On the contrary, I invariably wind up with a worse fucking than the fucking I got. For it is also one of Fate’s jokes to dower superiority complexes on girls with the worst fornicating furniture. And they seem to feel justified in figuratively giving you something as bad as they have given you literally.

Of course Connie’s father discovered us in coitus before the week was out. And, of course, I agreed to do the “right thing” by his little girl, which characteristically was the easiest tiling for me to do. Or so it seemed at the time. I may struggle a bit, but I almost always do the easiest thing. Or what seems to be and never is.

At the time I was born, promising was the word for Rainstar prospects. Thus I was placed on the path of least resistance early in life, and I remained on it despite my growing awareness that promise was not synonymous with delivery. I had gathered too much speed to get off, and I could find no better path to be on anyway. I’m sure you’ve seen people like me.

If I stumbled over an occasional rock I might curse and kick out at it. But only briefly, and not very often at all. I was so unused to having my course unimpeded that normally I fell apart when it was. It was the only recourse for a man made defenseless by breeding and habit.

Both Connie and her father were provoked to find that my prosperousness was exactly one hundred percent more apparent than real. They whined that I had deceived them, maintaining that since I was nothing but a well-dressed personable bum, I should have said so. Which, to me, seemed unreasonable. After all, why do your utmost not to look like a bum if you are going to announce that you are one?

Obviously, there were basic philosophical differences between me and the Bannermans. But they finally seemed resigned to me, if not to my way of thinking. In fact, I was given their rather grim assurance that I would come around to their viewpoint eventually and be much the better man for it. Meanwhile, Mr. Bannerman would not only provide me with a job, but would give Connie and me $100,000 life insurance policies as a wedding present.

I felt that it was money wasted since Connie, like all noxious growths, had a built-in resistance to scourge, and I had grown skilled in the art of self-preservation, having devoted a lifetime to it. However, it was Mr. Bannerman’s money, and I doubted that it would amount to much, since he was in the insurance business as well as real estate.

So he wrote the policies on Connie and me, with each of us the beneficiary of the other. Connie’s policy was approved. Mine was rejected. Not on grounds of health, my father-in-law advised me. My health was excellent for a man wholly unaddicted to healthful hard work.

The reason for my rejection was not spelled out to Mr. Bannerman, but he had a pretty good idea as to its nature, and so did I. It was a matter of character. A man with a decidedly truncated work history — me that is — who played around whenever he had the money for playing around — again me — was apt to come to an early end, and possibly a bad one. Or so statistics indicated. And the insurance company was not betting a potential $100,000 — $200,000, double indemnity — on my longevity when their own statistics branded me a no-no.

With unusual generosity, Mr. Bannerman conceded that there were probably a great many decadent bums in the world, and that I was no worse than the worst of them. The best course for me was to reapply for the policy, after I had “proved myself” with a few years of steady and diligent employment.

To this end, he hired me as a commission salesman. It proved nothing except what I already knew — that I was no more qualified to sell than I apparently was for any other gainful occupation.

I continued to be nagged by Papa and Daughter Bannerman, but was given up on after a few weeks. Grimly allowed to “play around” with my typewriter while they — “other people” — worked for a living. Neither would hear of a divorce, nor the suggestion that I get the hell out of their lives. I was to “come to my senses” and “be a man” — or do something. Surely, I could do something!

Well, though, the fact was I couldn’t do something. The something that I could do did not count as something with them. And they were keeping the score.

Thus matters stood at the time of the accident which left me unscathed but almost killed Connie. I, an unemployed bum living on my father-in-law’s bounty, was driving the car when the accident happened. And while I carried no insurance, my wife was heavily insured in my favor.

“Dig this character.” Albert, the maitre d’, jerked a thumb at me, addressing the circle on onlooking diners. “These hums are getting fancier every day, but this one takes the brass ring. What did you say your name was, bum?”

“Rainstar.”

A reassuring hand dropped on my shoulder. “He said it was, and I say it is. Any other questions?”

“Oh — certainly not, sir! A stupid mistake on my part, sir, and I’m sure that —”

“Come on, Britt. Let’s get out of here.”

We stood waiting for the elevator, Albert and I and my friend, whoever he was. Albert was begging, seeming almost on the point of tears.

“... a terrible mistake, believe me, gentlemen! I can’t think how I could have been guilty of it. I recall Mr. Rainstar perfectly now. Everything was exactly as he says, but—”

“But it slipped your mind. You completely forgot.”

“Exactly!”

“So you treated me like any other deadbeat. You were just following orders.”

“Then you do understand, sir?”

“I understand,” I said.

We took the elevator up to the street, my friend and I. I accompanied him to his car, trying to remember who he was, knowing that I had had far more than a passing acquaintance with him at one time. At last, as we passed under a streetlight, it came to me.

“Mr. Claggett, Jeff Claggett!” I wrung his hand. “How could I ever have forgotten?”

“Oh, well, it’s been a long time.” He grinned deprecatingly. “You’re looking good, Britt.”

“Not exactly a barometer of my true condition,” I said. “But how about you? Still with the university?”

“Police Department, detective sergeant.” He nodded toward the lighted window of a nearby restaurant. “Let’s have some coffee and a talk.”

He was in his early sixties, a graying, square-shouldered man with startlingly blue eyes. He had been chief of campus security when my father was on the university faculty. “I left shortly after your dad did,” he said. “The coldblooded way they dumped him was a little more than I could stomach.”

“It wasn’t very nice,” I admitted. “But what else could they do, Jeff? You know how he was drinking there at the last. You were always having to bring him home.”

“I wish I could have done more. I would have drunk more than he did, if I’d had his problems.”