Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“You have to at least give him the chance.”

“You’re only doing this because of me, aren’t you?”

“Kitty, I don’t give a damn about your brother, and I’m not pretending to.”

“If anyone ever found out you told, wouldn’t you get in a lot of trouble?”

“More than a lot.”

Holden watched as the voices stopped and the bodies came together.

1959 October 05 Monday 23:29

“I don’t know why I told you all that,” Tussy said, sliding off the hood of the Buick to stand next to Dett. “Some date, huh?”

“This wasn’t a date.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, a tincture of misgiving in her voice.

“I mean, a date, it’s like you… it’s just something to do,” Dett told her, struggling to express himself. “You go out on dates a lot, don’t you? But they don’t mean anything.”

“I don’t go out on dates a lot, for your information. But you’re right: they don’t mean much.”

“This does,” he said, gravely.

“This?”

“Being with you. To me, I mean.”

“You don’t even know me, Walker. For all you know, I could be-”

“Pure.”

“What?”

“That’s what you are,” Dett said. “Pure. A pure person. I knew it the minute I saw you.”

“I thought I heard every line there was,” Tussy said, chuckling hollowly, longing for him to say something to banish her skepticism.

“It’s not a line. I know you think… I don’t even think you do think it is,” Dett said. “You know, just like I knew.”

“That you’re a pure person?”

“I’m not. I’m nothing like that. I never was; I never will be.”

“You mean, like the church says, about sin? I already told you I was divorced. You know what they say about-”

“There’s no church. Not for me, there isn’t. A turned-around collar doesn’t make you a good person, no more than wearing a black robe makes you an honest one. I wasn’t talking about that. You say I don’t know anything about you. Well, I’m saying that I do. What I said is true. And so are you. True. I know this. And what I said about you knowing me? I only meant, you know I’m not lying now.”

“I thought ‘pure’ meant you were a virgin.”

“ ‘Pure’ is your heart, not your… I don’t know how to say what I want to, Tussy. You know what? I’ve been all over. Not just in America. All over. And the world, it’s rotten. Like, if you could look all the way into the center of the earth, it would be this… ugly, evil thing.”

“There’s bad people and there’s good people,” Tussy said, in a schoolmarm’s tone. “I found that out for myself, like I just told you about. Just because you had some bad experiences, that doesn’t mean the whole world’s-”

“No, no,” Dett said. “Can I…?” He reached out his hand. Tussy took it, as trusting as a child.

Dett felt her hand, small and work-roughened, pulsing faintly, like a heart at peace.

“I wasn’t talking about people,” he finally said. “Not… individuals. I meant the world. The people who run it.”

“Like kings and presidents?”

“Not them. Well, maybe them, but even that’s not what I mean. I mean the people who run them.”

“I don’t understand. Nobody runs the president of America. And nobody runs an evil man like… like Hitler was, right?”

“No.”

“No, I’m right? Or no, I’m wrong?” she said, looking up at him.

“No, you’re wrong. But you’re right about people. Most people, anyway. They’re sheep. They go wherever they’re herded.”

“Walker?”

“What?”

“You’re not some kind of… religious man, are you?”

“I already told you-”

“When I was nineteen,” she said, suddenly, “I got married. He was twenty-five, just back from the war. He had been wounded in Italy. He was a hero, people said. He was a very handsome man, especially in his uniform. That’s what he was wearing when I met him. In the diner. I thought he was the man I had been waiting for.”

“But he wasn’t…” Dett said, fearful she would stop talking, desperate beyond his own understanding to hear the end-to know what had gone wrong.

“Joey didn’t have any trouble getting work. The war was still going on-this was right after VE Day-but everyone knew we would win by then. The plants were running double shifts. And, with him being a veteran and all…

“We got married in the church. And then we came back ho-to my house. For a little while, it was good.”

“And then…?”

“It started… I don’t know exactly what started it. So many things happened at once. Joey didn’t like Fireball-which was a dirty trick, because when we were going out he said he did-and he… drank a lot. I thought that was because he hated his job. He wasn’t a war hero at the plant. He was always coming home in a temper because the foreman had chewed him out or some supervisor didn’t like the way he did something.”

“You said there was plenty of work…”

“There was. Joey would quit one job and get another, but it was always the same story. And even with him hating his jobs, he was always after me to quit mine.”

“Why didn’t you want to quit your job?”

“I did. You think being a waitress is a wonderful career? I always wanted a baby, ever since I was a little girl. I thought it would be so wonderful, to be a mom like mine was. Help my husband, be a family, together. But I knew if I quit my job I couldn’t make the payments on my house.”

“But when you got married, wasn’t it his job to-?”

“No!” she said, hotly. “I mean, it would have been, maybe, if I did what he wanted. Sell the house, and move into an apartment. Then Joey would have paid the rent, sure. But I wouldn’t sell my house. So he moved in there, with me.”

“What’s wrong with that? I mean, couldn’t he just as easily pay the mortgage? It would be cheaper than renting an apartment, especially right after the war.”

“He wanted to do that, too. After I put his name on the deed.”

“You did that?”

“I was going to,” Tussy said, almost apologetically. “But I was… I don’t know, nervous about it, kind of. So I went to see a lawyer. Mr. Gendell, he has an office right over the bank where I have my account. Everyone says he’s the best lawyer in town. He even does some things for Mr. Beaumont, that’s how important he is.

“But he turned out to be the nicest man you ever met, except for those horrible cigars he smoked. The air in his office, it was just blue. I was a little scared of him. He’s very big and he talks very loud. I wanted to know how much it would cost for him to explain the law to me. About mortgages and deeds and things. And he said I should just tell him what I wanted to know, and he’d figure out what it would cost. That scared me even more, but I went ahead and did it.

“Mr. Gendell listened to everything I told him. And then he said, ‘Young woman, if you put your husband’s name on that deed, you will never be able to get it off.’

“I asked him why I would even want to get it off. And he said, ‘Things happen.’ That’s just what he said, ‘Things happen.’ He said the house would be half Joey’s. And Joey was the man. So, if he wanted to sell it, for example, well, he could just do it. Mr. Gendell didn’t say anything about divorce, but he asked me how long I’d known Joey before we got married, and stuff like that, so I understood what he was really saying.

“He gave me a real lecture. Not like a scolding, but like I always imagined college would be, if I had ever went. He told me about the Married Women’s Property Act, and how hard it had been for women to get the vote, and how the courts treated women when they got divorced, and… Well, anyway, when he was done with me, that was the end of me putting Joey’s name on the deed to the house.”