Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man

He shared one conception with Axel Jordache. The German people, he believed, had a streak of childishness in them, which drove them into waging war. ‘Play a band and they march. What’s so attractive about it?’ he said. ‘Clumping around in the rain with a sergeant yelling at you, sleeping in the mud instead of a nice, warm bed with your wife, being shot at by people you don’t know, and then, if you’re lucky, winding up in an old uniform without a pot to piss in. It’s all right for a big industrialist, the Krupps, making cannons and battleships, but for the small man -‘ He shrugged. ‘Stalingrad. Who needs it?’ With all his Germanness, he had kept clear of all German-American movements. He liked where he was and what he was and he was not to be lured into any associations that might compromise him. ‘I got nothing against anybody,’ was one of the foundations of his policy. ‘Not against the Poles, or the French, or the English, or the Jews or anybody. Not even the Russians. Anybody who wants can come in and buy a car or ten gallons of gas from me and if he pays in good American money, he’s my friend.’

Thomas lived placidly enough in Uncle Harold’s house, observing the rules, going his own way, occasionally annoyed at his uncle’s reluctance to see him sitting down for a few minutes

during the working day, but by and large more grateful than not for the sanctuary that was being offered him. It was only temporary. Sooner or later, he knew he was going to break away. But there was no hurry.

He was just about to dig into the bag for the second sandwich when he saw the twins’ 1938 Chevy approaching. It curved in towards the filling station and Tom saw that there ,was only one of the twins in it. He didn’t know which one it was, Ethel or Edna. He had laid them both, as had most of the boys in town, but he couldn’t tell them apart.

The Chevy stopped, gurgling and creaking. The twins’ parents were loaded with money, but they said the old Chevy was good enough for two sixteen-year-old girls who had never earned a cent in their lives.

‘Hi, twin,’ Tom said, to be on the safe side.

‘Hi, Tom.’ The twins were nice looking girls, well tanned, with straight, brown hair and plump tight little asses. They had skin that always looked as if they had just come out of a mountain spring. If you didn’t know that they had laid every boy in town, you’d be pleased to be seen with them anywhere.

‘Tell me my name,’ the twin said.

‘Aw, come on,’ Tom said.

*If you don’t tell me my name,’ the twin said, ‘I’ll buy my gas somewhere else.’

‘Go ahead,’ Tom said. ‘It’s my uncle’s money.’

‘I was going to invite you to a party,’ the twin said. ‘We’re cooking some hot dogs down at the lake tonight and we have three cases of beer. I won’t invite you if you don’t tell me my

name.’

Tom grinned at her, stalling for time. He looked into the open Chevy. The twin was going swimming. She had a white bathing suit on the seat beside her. ‘I was only kidding you, Ethel,’ he said. Ethel had a white bathing suit and Edna had a blue one. ‘I knew it was you all the time.’ ‘Give me three gallons,’ Ethel said. ‘For guessing right.’ ‘I wasn’t guessing,’ he said, taking down the hose. ‘You’re printed on my memory.’

‘I bet,’ Ethel said. She looked around at the garage and wrinkled her nose. This is a dumb old place to work. I bet a fellow like you could get something a lot better if he looked around. At least in an office.’

He had told her he was nineteen years old and graduated from-high school when he had first met her. She had come over to talk to him after he had spent fifteen minutes one Saturday

afternoon down at the lake, showing off on the diving board. ‘I like it here,’ he said. ‘I’m an outdoor man.’

‘Don’t I know,’ she said, chuckling. They had screwed out in the woods on a blanket that she kept in the rumble seat of the car. He had screwed her sister Edna in the same place on the same blanket, although on different nights. The twins had an easygoing family spirit of share and share alike. The twins did a lot towards making Tom willing to stay in Elysium and work in his uncle’s garage. He didn’t know what he was going to do in the winter, though, when the woods were covered in snow.

He put the cap back on the tank and racked up the hose. Ethel gave him a dollar bill, but. no ration coupons. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘where’s the tickets?’

‘Surprise, surprise,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m all out’

‘You got to have ‘em.’

She pouted. ‘After everything you and I are to each other, Do you think Antony asked Cleopatra for ration tickets?’

‘She didn’t have to buy gas from him,’ Tom said.

‘What’s the difference?’ Ethel asked. ‘My old man buys the coupons from your uncle. In one pocket and out the other. There’s a war on.’

‘It’s over.’

‘Only just.’

‘Okay,’ Tom said. ‘Just because you’re beautiful.’ . ‘Do you think I’m prettier than Edna?’ she asked.

‘One hundred per cent’

‘I’ll tell her you said that.’

‘What for?’ Tom said. “There’s no sense in making people unhappy.’ He didn’t relish the idea of cutting his harem down by half by an unnecessary exchange of information.

Ethel peered into the empty garage. ‘Do you think people ever do it in a garage?’

‘Save it for tonight, Cleopatra,’ Tom said.

She giggled. ‘It’s nice to try everything once. Do you have the key?’

‘Ill get it sometime.’ Now he knew what to do in the winter.

‘Why don’t you leave this dump and come on down to the lake with me? I know a place we can go skinny bathing.’ She wriggled desirably on the cracked leather of the front seat. It was funny how two girls in the same family could be such hot numbers. Tom wondered what their father and mother thought when they started out to church with their daughters on Sunday morning.

‘I’m a working man,’ Tom said. ‘I’m essential to industry. That’s why I’m not in the Army.’

‘I wish you were a captain,’ Ethel said. ‘I’d love to undress a captain. One brass button after another. I’d unbuckle your sword.’

‘Get out of here,’ Tom said, ‘before my uncle comes back and asks me if I collected your ration tickets.’

‘Where should I meet you tonight?’ she asked, starting the motor.

‘In front of the Library. Eight-thirty okay?’ ‘Eight-thirty, Lover Boy,’ she said. ‘I’ll lay out in the sun and think about you all afternoon and pant’ She waved and went off.

Tom sat down in the shade on the broken chair. He wondered if his sister, Gretchen, talked like that to Theodore Boy-Ian.

He reached into the lunch bag and took out the second sandwich and unwrapped it. There was a piece of paper, folded in two, on the sandwich. He opened up the paper. There was writing on it in pencil. ‘I love you,’ in careful, schoolgirlish script. Tom squinted at the message. He recognised the handwriting. Clothilde wrote out the list of things she had to phone for in the market everyday and the list was always in the same place on a shelf in the kitchen.

, Tom whistled softly. He read aloud. ‘I love you.’ He had just passed his sixteenth birthday but his voice was still adolescently high. A twenty-five-year-old woman to whom he’d hardly ever spoken more than two words. He folded the paper carefully and put it in his pocket and stared out at the traffic sweeping along the road towards Cleveland for a long time before he began eating the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, soaked in mayonnaise.

He knew he wasn’t going out to the lake tonight, for any old weeny roast.

The River Five played a chorus of ‘Your Time Is My Time’, and Rudolph took a solo on the trumpet, putting everything he had into it, because Julie was in the room tonight, sitting alone at a table, watching and listening to him. The River Five was the name of Rudolph’s band, himself on the trumpet, Kessler on the bass, Westerman On the saxophone, Dailey on the