J. Powers - The Stories of J.F. Powers

“Shut up!” Clyde says and he says it like he mean it.

“Listen to what Mr Bullen got to say,” Old Ivy says.

“This is the way I seed it,” Clyde says. “This ain’t no open-and-shut case of rape — leastways not yet it ain’t. Now the law—”

Skeeter cuts in and says, “Well, Clyde, I’ll see you the first of the week.” He acts like he is going to leave.

“Come back here,” Clyde says. “You ain’t going to tell no mob nothing till I got this Bailey boy locked up safe in the county jail waiting judgment.”

“O.K., Clyde,” Skeeter says. “That’s different. I thought you was going to let him get away.”

“Hell, no!” Clyde says. “We got to see justice did, ain’t we?”

“Sure do, Clyde,” Skeeter says.

Ace says, “He’ll be nice and safe in jail in case we got to take up anything with him.”

I knowed what they mean and so do Old Ivy. He says, “Better let him go right now, Mr Bullen. Let him run for it. This other way they just going to bust in the jailhouse and take him out and hang him to a tree.”

“The way I seed it,” Clyde says, “this case has got to be handled according to the law. I don’t want this boy’s blood on my hands. If he ain’t to blame, I mean.”

“That’s just what he ain’t, Mr Bullen,” Old Ivy says. “But it ain’t going to do no good to put him in that old jailhouse.”

“We’ll see about that,” Clyde says.

“Oh, sure. Hell, yes!” Skeeter says. “We don’t want to go and take the law in our own hands. That ain’t our way, huh, Ace?”

“Cut it out,” Clyde says.

“Maybe Miss Beck feel all right in the morning, son, and it going to be all right for you,” Old Ivy says to Sleep. The old coon is crying.

So we takes Sleep in Clyde’s car to the county jail. We makes him get down on the floor so’s we can put our feet on him and guard him better. He starts to act up once on the way, but Skeeter persuades him with the fungo bat in the right place, conk , and he is pretty quiet then.

Right after we get him behind bars it happens.

Like I say, Clyde is acting mighty peculiar all night, but now he blows his top for real. That’s what he does all right — plumb blows it. It is all over in a second. He swings three times — one, two, three — and Skeeter and Ace is out cold as Christmas, and I am holding this fat eye. Beats me! And I don’t mind telling you I laid down quick with Skeeter and Ace, like I was out, till Clyde went away. Now you figure it out.

But I ain’t preferring no charges on Clyde. Not me, that’s his best friend, even if he did give me this eye, and Skeeter ain’t, that needs Bullen’s for his business, or Ace.

What happens to who? To the jig that said he pulled Clara out of the river?

You know that big old slippery elm by the Crossing? That’s the one. But that ain’t how I got the eye.

UNEMPLOYED AND ELDERLY Mr Newman sensed there were others, some of them, just as anxious as he was to be put on. But he was the oldest person in the room. He approached the information girl, and for all his show of business, almost brusqueness, he radiated timidity. The man in front of him asked the girl a question, which was also Mr Newman’s.

“Are they doing any hiring today?”

The girl gave the man an application, a dead smile, and told him to take a seat after he had filled the application out.

An answer, in any event, ready on her lips, she regarded Mr Newman. Mr Newman thought of reaching for an application and saying, “Yes, I’ll take a seat,” making a kind of joke out of the coincidence — the fellow before him looking for a job, too — only he could see from the others who had already taken seats it was no coincidence. They all had that superior look of people out of work.

“Got an application there for a retired millionaire?” Mr Newman said, attempting jauntiness. That way it would be easier for her to refuse him. Perhaps it was part of her job to weed out applicants clearly too old to be of any use to the company. Mr Newman had a real horror of butting in where he wasn’t wanted.

The girl laughed, making Mr Newman feel like a regular devil, and handed him an application. The smile she gave him was alive and it hinted that things were already on a personal basis between him and her and the company.

“You’ll find a pen at the desk,” she said.

Mr Newman’s bony old hand clawed at his coat pocket and unsnapped a large ancient fountain pen. “I carry my own! See?” In shy triumph he held up the fountain pen, which was orange. He unscrewed it, put it together, and fingered it as though he were actually writing.

But the girl was doing her dead smile at the next one.

Mr Newman went over to the desk. The application questioned him: Single? Married? Children of your own? Parents living? Living with parents? Salary (expect)? Salary (would take)? Mr Newman made ready with his fountain pen and in the ensuing minutes he did not lie about his age, his abilities, or past earnings. The salary he expected was modest. He was especially careful about making blots with his pen, which sometimes flowed too freely. He had noted before he started that the application was one of those which calls for the information to be printed. This he had done. Under “DO NOT WRITE BELOW THIS LINE” he had not written.

Mr Newman read the application over and rose to take it to the information girl. She pointed to a bench. Hesitating for a moment, Mr Newman seemed bent on giving it to her. He sat down. He got up. His face distraught, he walked unsteadily over to the girl.

Before she could possibly hear him, he started to stammer, “I wonder… maybe it will make a difference,” his voice both appealing for her mercy and saying it was out of the question — indeed he did not desire it — that she should take a personal interest in him. Then he got control, except for his eyes, which, without really knowing it, were searching the girl’s face for the live smile, like the first time.

“I used green ink,” he said limply.

“Let’s see.” The girl took the application, gave both sides a darting scrutiny, looking for mistakes.

“Will it make any difference? If it does and I could have another application, I could—” Mr Newman had his orange fountain pen out again, as though to match the green on its tip with the ink on the application and thus fully account for what had come about.

“Oh no, I think that’ll be all right,” the girl said, finally getting the idea. “We’re not that fussy.” Mr Newman, however, still appeared worried. “No, that’s fine — and neat, too,” the girl said. “Mr Newman .” She had spoken his name and there was her live smile. Mr Newman blushed, then smiled a little himself. With perspiring fingers he put the fountain pen together and snapped it in his pocket.

The girl returned the application. Mr Newman, lingering on, longed to confide in her, to tell her something of himself — why, for instance, he always used green ink; how famous and familiar a few years ago the initials “C. N.” in green had been at the old place. Like his friend Jack P. Ferguson (died a few years back, it was in the papers) and the telegram. “Telegram” Ferguson, he was called, because he was always too busy to write. Green ink and telegrams, the heraldry of business. He wanted to tell her of the old days — the time he met Elbert Hubbard and Charley Schwab at a banquet.

Then on this side of the old days he saw a busy girl, busy being busy, who could never understand.

“I thank you,” he said, going quickly back to his place on the bench to wait. He sat there rereading his application. Under “DO NOT WRITE BELOW THIS LINE” were some curious symbols. He guessed at their significance: CLN (Clean?); DSPN (Disposition?); PRSNLTY (Personality, no doubt about that one); PSE (Poise?); FCW (?); LYL (Loyal?); PSBLE LDR (Possible Leader); NTC (?). His fingers were damp with perspiration, and for fear he would present an untidy application, he laid it on his lap and held his hands open at his sides, letting them get cool and dry in case he had to shake hands with the interviewer.