Meyer Levin - Compulsion

“Huh, he’ll probably spend the night chasing tramps with Artie,” Max remarked. “That’s how a genius prepares. Me, I had to bone.”

“Even a genius can trip up some time; look at the tortoise and the hare,” said the Pater. “And how would a genius like to spend the summer preparing for Harvard instead of touring Europe?”

“Try and stop me. I’ve got the ticket!” Judd said, and all at once like a hand coming down on him was the thought that he really might be stopped in the two weeks before sailing. Should he try to get an earlier boat, leave immediately after tomorrow’s exam…? He’d go up and glance at his notes. He had them typed up, a complete set, from the session a few weeks ago with Milt Lewis and the fellows. What if a cop stepped in right now to make the arrest? Are these your glasses ? What if the old man were told his Junior had achieved the greatest crime in the world? Could he ever understand such a conception? Could he comprehend that there was as much greatness on one side as on the other? Indeed, more. For the crime had to be created against the grain, à rebours , and law was with the grain.

His father was passing the pickles, remarking that he had stopped at the delicatessen for them himself. The staff forgot such things since Mama Dear had passed away. “Now Italy -” the old man was saying. “It might be advisable to avoid Italy in these unsettled times.” Judd let him talk.

“Oh, Italy isn’t so bad since that fellow Mussolini took charge,” his brother declared. “The country is under control.”

“You never can trust the Italians,” said his father. “Even here in Chicago, all the bootleggers are Italians. With their law amongst themselves, their killings, they give the city a bad reputation.”

“Sure, only the Jews are perfect,” Judd found himself snapping.

“At least we Jews are law-abiding, and engaged in respectable businesses and professions,” his father said.

“All the Italians gave us is Dante and Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo and Raphael,” said Judd, “Cellini and Aretino.”

“Maybe they were a fine people once, but today they are only gangsters.”

Max cut in. “I hear this Mussolini is a real leader, bringing back the glory that was Rome – a kind of superman.” Max wore a smile, to show he was for once trying to use his kid brother’s intellectual language.

In Judd’s mind, the word superman was echoing. The sullen, angry, god-furious figure of Artie, getting out of the car. If Artie were through with him now, because of the glasses… If Artie turned to Willie… The fear came over Judd – Artie leaving him alone. Like last time, before New Year’s Eve. The trouble hadn’t been his fault then either. Artie had been ready to blame him, and go off with Willie and some girls for New Year’s Eve, the one night, the most important night. Only Judd’s letter had kept him. A letter saying everything, analysing everything, explaining. Now, too, Judd would write a letter. In his mind, Judd began to form the words, showing clearly why the spectacles had to be counted as a shared mistake. Just as the entire experience was shared. If Artie started chumming with Willie… Christ, he couldn’t! They were bound together now, like when kids take an oath in blood…

Instantly, the blood image welled up, the pulsing spurt, sickening. It was himself, a child. He’d be sick…

Just then the phone rang. The maid came to say it was for Junior. Judd’s heart bounded. It was Artie, he was sure. He hurried out of the dining-room.

When Artie got home from the frat, he noticed quite an assembly still in the dining-room, and remembered that Mumsie had wanted to show him off to one of her chums visiting from the East.

“Arthur!” There was the usual loving reproach in his mother’s voice, but relief, too, that he had appeared at last. She was looking wan tonight, a bit over-ethereal in her greenish dress. The New York woman had bangs and horse-teeth; she was from far back, from that Catholic school of Mumsie ’s. The brothers were present, too – James, and even Lewis, complete with his recent bride. Full show.

“Arthur, dear, I was beginning to get frightened,” his mother said.

“Now who would kidnap me?” He laughed.

His father said, “It isn’t exactly anything to joke about.”

Artie dropped his lip to look contrite. “I know,” he said solemnly, and even felt a touch of sorrow. “Poor Paulie. Just the other day I took him on for a game, on the court. You know, for a kid his age he was real good – real strong arm muscles, had quite a smash. He must have put up a real fight with those fiends. I even asked him about buying a racket like his for Billy. Where’s Billy? Upstairs? How’s he taking it?”

“I tried to keep him distracted,” his mother said, drawing in her breath sharply. “But it was such an upsetting day I gave him his dinner upstairs. I’m taking Billy to Charlevoix first thing in the morning. I’m getting him away from here; there’s no telling what kind of madman is loose!”

At her words, Artie felt alive, glittery. On the table, they had their dessert: fresh strawberries. Mumsie hadn’t touched hers. “Hanging is too good for a fiend like that!” she was saying, her eyes fiery with indignation. “I don’t believe in capital punishment, but in a case like this, if they catch him, I think he ought to be tarred and feathered and then strung from a lamp-post! Oh!” She shuddered at her own words. Artie reached for her dish and helped himself. “Artie!” But her little sigh admitted her adoration for her incorrigible Artie, admitted that she had ordered the early strawberries especially for him. “At least sit down! Did you have any dinner?”

“I ate at the house. I’m sorry,” he apologized to Horse-teeth. “I guess I was upset and excited about this case.” He told all about his frat brother, the reporter who had identified the body.

“Poor Mrs. Kessler, she’s prostrate, I read,” Lewis’ bride put in.

Horse-teeth remarked that it was the war, the destruction that had taken place in the war. Life meant nothing any more.

“Sure, after all that mass killing, human life becomes only an abstraction,” Artie pronounced, feeling Jocko would have enjoyed this, and diving into a second dish that Clarice had set before him.

“What do you know about mass killing?” Lewis, the war veteran, demanded of Artie. “You were just a kid.” Big hero.

“That’s exactly when the effect is strongest,” Artie replied, glittering at the guest. Bet she’d wet her pants before he was through. “What did we play?” he demanded rhetorically. “Kill the Huns! Mow them down! We even had a scoreboard at school, how many Huns were killed! Hey! I forgot to tell you – I’ve got the inside news! They arrested a teacher! Steger! It isn’t in the papers yet. Sid Silver told me.” He gazed around, reaping their reactions. “You better watch out for Billy, Mums. That school is full of perverts.”

“Kiddo! Watch it,” his older brother Lewis sniffed, while his father looked pained. James, however, gave him a funny, keen look.

His father reminded Artie that it was unfair to come to hasty conclusions merely because a teacher was being questioned. It could have been any stupid brute.

“Oh, no! Take the ransom letter in the paper,” Artie exclaimed. “That’s no illiterate crook! That’s the letter of an educated man, also of someone who can type. Say, they ought to check every typewriter in that school!”

And in that instant, Artie saw the goddam portable still sitting in Judd’s room. Gobbling a last spoonful of strawberries, he leaped up.

“Date?” his mother asked.

“Yah. Just remembered.”

“Mary?” his mother asked. “Or would it be violating the etiquette of our flaming youth for a mother to ask?”