Роберт Уоррен - All the king's men

And he swung the double-barrel round to cover Tiny, who stood at the hearthrug before him and seemed to be melting the tallow down faster than even the log fire on the bricks would have warranted.

"Look," he said to me, "this bastard tried to trick me, tried to smuggle that Gummy Larson in here to talk to me, gets him all the way up here from Duboisville and thinks I'll be polite. But the hell I was polite." He swung to Tiny again. "Was I, was I polite?"

Tiny did not manage to utter a sound.

"Was I, God damn it?" the Boss demanded.

"No," Tiny said, as from the bottom of a deep well.

"I was not," the Boss said. "I didn't get across that doorsill." He pointed at the closed door beyond me. "I told him if I ever wanted to see him I'd send for him, and to get the hell out. But you–" and he snapped out a forefinger at Tiny–"you–"

"I thought–"

"You thought you'd trick me–trick me into buying him. Well, I'm not buying him. I'm going to bust him. I've bought too many sons-of-bitches already. Bust 'em and they'll stay busted, but buy 'em and you can't tell how long they'll stay bought. I bought too many already. I made a mistake not busting you. But I figured you'd stay bought. You're scared not to."

"Now, Boss," Tiny said, "now, Boss, that ain't fair, you know how all us boys feel about you. And all. It ain't being scared, it's–"

"You damned well better be scared," the Boss said, and his voice was suddenly sweet and low. Like a mother whispering to her child in the crib.

But there was new sweat on Tiny.

"Now get out!" the Boss said in a more positive tone.

I looked at the door after it had been closed upon the retreating form, and said, "You certainly do woo your constituency."

"Christ," he said, and sank back on the leather of the couch and shoved some of the blueprints aside. He reached up and tried to unbutton his collar, fumbled, got impatient and snapped off the button and jerked the tie loose. He twisted his heavy head a little from side to side, as though the collar had been choking him.

"Christ," he said, almost pettishly, "can't he understand I don't want him messing round with this thing? And he shoved at the blue prints again.

"What do you expect?" I asked. There's six million dollars involved. Did you ever see the flies stay away from the churn at churning time?"

"He better stay away from this churn."

"He's just being logical. Obviously, Larson is ready to sell out MacMurfee. For a contract. He is a competent builder. He–"

He lunged up to a sitting position, stared at me and demanded, "Are you in on this?"

"It is nothing to me," I said, and shrugged. "You can build it with your bare hands for all of me. I merely said that, given his premises, Tiny is logical."

"Can't you understand?" he demanded, searching my face. "Damn it, can't you understand either?"

"I understand what I understand."

"Can't you understand?" he demanded, and heaved up from the couch, and the instant he was on his feet, from the slight sway of his posture, I knew he had been drinking. He stepped to me and seized my lapel, and shook me a little, fixing his eyes upon my face–now close to him, I could see that they were bloodshot–and saying, "Can't you understand either? I'm building that place, the best in the country, the best in the world, and a bugger like Tiny is not going to mess with it, and I'm going to call it the Willie Stark Hospital and it will be there a long time after I'm dead and gone and you are dead and gone and all those sons-of-bitches are dead and gone, and nobody, no matter he hasn't got a dime, can go there–"

"And will vote for you," I said.

"I'll be dead," he said, "and you'll be dead, and I don't care whether he votes for me or not, he can go there and–"

"And bless your name," I said.

"Damn it!" he shook me hard, crumpling my lapel in his big hand, "you stand there grinning like that–get that grin off your face–get it off or I'll–"

"Listen," I said, "I'm not any of your scum, and I'm still grinning when I please."

"Jack–hell, Jack–you know I don't mean that–it's just you stand there and grin. Damn it, can't you understand? Can't you?" He held the lapel and thrust the big face at me, his eyes gouging into mine, saying, "Can't you? Can't you see I'm not going to let those bastars muck with it? The Willie Stark Hospital? Can't you see? And I'm going to get me the damned best man there is to run it. Yes, sir! The best there is. Yes, sir, up in New York they told me to get him, he was the man. And, Jack, you–"

"Yeah?" I asked.

"You're going to get him."

I disengaged myself from the grasp on my lapel, straightened it, and dropped into a chair. "Get who?" I asked.

"Dr, Stanton," he said "Dr. Adam Stanton."

I almost bounced right out of the chair. The ash off my cigarette fell down my shirt front. "How long have you been having these symptoms?" I asked. "You been seeing any pink elephants?"

"You get Stanton," he said.

"You are hearing voices," I said.

"You get him," he repeated dourly.

"Boss," I said, "Adam is an old pal of mine. I know him like a brother. And I know he hates your guts."

"I'm not asking anybody to love me. Not even you."

"We all love you," I mimicked Tiny, "you know how all us boys feel."

"Get him," he said.

I stood up, stretched, yawned, moved toward the door. "I am leaving," I declared. "Tomorrow, when you are in possession of your faculties, I'll hear what you've got to say."

And I shut the door behind me

Tomorrow, when he was in full possession of his faculties, I heard what he had to say, and it was: "Get Stanton."

So I went to the shabby little monastic apartment where the grand piano glittered like a sneer in the midst of near-squalor and the books and paper piled on chairs and the old coffee cup with dried dregs inside which the colored girl had forgotten to pick up, and where the friend of my youth received me as though he were not a Success and I were not a Failure (both spelled with capital letters), laid his hand on my shoulder, pronounced my name, looked at me from the ice-water-blue, abstract eyes which were a reproach to all uncertain, twisted, and clouded things and were as unwavering as conscience. But the smile on his face, unsealing almost tentatively the firm suture of the mouth, put a warmth in you, a shy warmth like that you discover with surprise in the winter sunshine in late February. That smile was his apology for being what he was, for looking at you the way he did, for seeing what he saw. It did not so much forgive you, and the world, as ask forgiveness for himself for the crime of looking straight at whatever was before him, which might be you. But he didn't smile often. He smiled at me not because I was what I was but because I was the Friend of His Youth.

The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he does not really see you. He sees in his mind a face which does not exist any more, speaks a name–Spike, Bud, Snip, Red, Rusty, Jack, Dave–which belongs to that now nonexistent face but which by some inane and doddering confusion of the universe is for the moment attached to a not too happily met and boring stranger. But he humors the drooling, doddering confusion of the universe and continues to address politely that dull stranger by the name which properly belongs to the boy face and to the time when the boy voice called thinly across the late afternoon water or murmured by a campfire at night or in the middle of a crowded street said, "Gee, listen to this–'On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble; His forest fleece the Wrekin heaved–' " the Friend of Your Youth is your friend because he does not see you any more.

And perhaps he never saw you. What he saw was simply part of the furniture of the wonderful opening world. Friendship was something he suddenly discovered and had to give away as a recognition of and payment for the breathlessly opening world which momently divulged itself like a moonflower. It didn't matter a damn to whom he gave it, for the fact of giving was what mattered, and if you happened to be handy you were automatically endowed with all the appropriate attributes of a friend and forever after your reality is irrelevant. The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he hasn't the slightest concern with calculating his interest or your virtue. He doesn't give a damn, for the moment, about Getting Ahead or Needs Must Admiring the Best, the two official criteria in adult friendships, and when the boring stranger appears, he puts out his hand and smiles (not really seeing your face) and speaks your name (which doesn't really belong to your face), saying, "Well, Jack, damned glad you came, come on in, boy!"