Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

“All right,” Mike said. “I’ll take you to the movies.”

The next day Mike went into town, dressed in his neat black broadcloth suit and his black soft hat and his high brown shoes. He came back to the farm like a businessman in the movies, busily, preoccupied, sober, but satisfied.

“Well?” Dolores asked him, in the kitchen.

He kissed her briskly, kissed Rosa, sat down, took his shoes off, rubbed his feet luxuriously, said paternally to his son who was reading Esquire near the window, “That’s right, Anthony, study.”

“Well?” asked Dolores.

“I saw Dominic in town,” Mike said, watching his toes wiggling. “They’re having another baby.”

“Well,” asked Dolores. “The case? The action?”

“All right,” Mike said. “What is there for dinner?”

“Veal,” Dolores said. “What do you mean ‘all right’?”

“I’ve spoken to Judge Collins. He is filling out the necessary papers for me and he will write me a letter when I am to appear in court. Rosa, have you been a good girl?”

Dolores threw up her hands. “Lawyers. We’ll throw away a fortune on lawyers. Good money after bad. We could put in an electric pump with the money.”

“Lawyers will cost us nothing.” Mike stuffed his pipe elaborately. “I have different plans. Myself. I will take care of the case myself.” He lit up, puffed deliberately.

Dolores sat down across the table from him, spoke slowly, carefully. “Remember, Mike,” she said. “This is in English. They conduct the court in English.”

“I know,” said Mike. “I am right. Justice is on my side. Why should I pay a lawyer fifty, seventy-five dollars to collect my own money? There is one time you need lawyers—when you are wrong. I am not wrong. I will be my own lawyer.”

“What do you know about the law?” Dolores challenged him.

“I know Victor owes me three hundred dollars.” Mike puffed three times, quickly, on his pipe. “That’s all I need to know.”

“You can hardly speak English, you can’t even read or write, nobody will be able to understand you. They’ll all laugh at you, Mike.”

“Nobody will laugh at me. I can speak English fine.”

“When did you learn?” Dolores asked. “Today?”

“Dolores!” Mike shouted. “I tell you my English is all right.”

“Say Thursday,” Dolores said.

“I don’t want to say it,” Mike said, banging the table. “I have no interest in saying it.”

“Aha,” Dolores crowed. “See? He wants to be a lawyer in an American court, he can’t even say Thursday.”

“I can,” Mike said. “Keep quiet, Dolores.”

“Say Thursday.” Dolores put her head to one side, spoke coquettishly, slyly, like a girl asking her lover to say he loved her.

“Stirday,” Mike said, as he always said. “There!”

Dolores laughed, waving her hand. “And he wants to conduct a law case! Holy Mother! They will laugh at you!”

“Let them laugh!” Mike shouted. “I will conduct the case! Now I want to eat dinner! Anthony!” he yelled. “Throw away that trash and come to the table.”

On the day of the trial, Mike shaved closely, dressed carefully in his black suit, put his black hat squarely on his head, and with Dolores seated grimly beside him drove early into town in the 1933 family Dodge.

Dolores said nothing all the way into town. Only after the car was parked and they were entering the courthouse, Mike’s shoes clattering bravely on the legal marble, did Dolores speak. “Behave yourself,” she said. Then she pinched his arm. Mike smiled at her, braced his yoke-like shoulders, took off his hat. His rough gray hair sprang up like steel wool when his hat was off, and Mike ran his hand through it as he opened the door to the courtroom. There was a proud, important smile on his face as he sat down next to his wife in the first row and patiently waited for his case to be called.

When Victor came, Mike glared at him, but Victor, after a quick look, riveted his attention on the American flag behind the Judge’s head.

“See,” Mike whispered to Dolores. “I have him frightened. He doesn’t dare look at me. Here he will have to tell the truth.”

“Sssh!” hissed Dolores. “This is a court of law.”

“Michael Pilato,” the clerk called, “versus Victor Fraschi.”

“Me!” Mike said loudly, standing up.

“Sssh,” said Dolores.

Mike put his hat in Dolores’ lap, moved lightly to the little gate that separated the spectators from the principals in the proceedings. Politely, with a deep ironic smile, he held the gate open for Victor and his lawyer. Victor passed through without looking up.

“Who’s representing you, Mr. Pilato?” the Judge asked when they were all seated. “Where’s your lawyer?”

Mike stood up and spoke in a clear voice. “I represent myself. I am my lawyer.”

“You ought to have a lawyer,” the Judge said.

“I do not need a lawyer,” Mike said loudly. “I am not trying to cheat anybody.” There were about forty people in the courtroom and they all laughed. Mike turned and looked at them, puzzled. “What did I say?”

The Judge rapped with his gavel and the case was opened. Victor took the stand, while Mike stared, coldly accusing, at him. Victor’s lawyer, a young man in a blue pinstripe suit and a starched tan shirt, questioned him. Yes, Victor said, he had paid each month. No, there were no receipts, Mr. Pilato could neither read nor write and they had dispensed with all formalities of that kind. No, he did not understand on what Mr. Pilato based his claim. Mike looked incredulously at Victor, lying under solemn oath, risking Hell for three hundred dollars.

Victor’s lawyer stepped down and waved to Mike gracefully. “Your witness.”

Mike walked dazedly past the lawyer and up to the witness stand, round, neat, his bull neck, deep red-brown and wrinkled, over his pure white collar, his large scrubbed hands politely but awkwardly held at his sides. He stood in front of Victor, leaning over a little toward him, his face close to Victor’s.

“Victor,” he said, his voice ringing through the courtroom, “tell the truth, did you pay me the money?”

“Yes,” said Victor.

Mike leaned closer to him. “Look in my eye, Victor,” Mike said, his voice clear and patient, “and answer me. Did you pay me the money?”

Victor lifted his head and looked unflinchingly into Mike’s eyes. “I paid you the money.”

Mike leaned even closer. His forehead almost touched Victor’s now. “Look me straight in the eye, Victor.”

Victor looked bravely into Mike’s eyes, less than a foot away now.

“Now, Victor,” Mike said, his eyes narrowed, cold, the light in them small and flashing and gray, “DID YOU PAY ME THE MONEY?”

Victor breathed deeply. “Yes,” he said.

Mike took half a step back, almost staggering, as though he had been hit. He stared incredulously into the perjurer’s eyes, as a man might stare at a son who has just admitted he has killed his mother, beyond pity, beyond understanding, outside all the known usage of human life. Mike’s face worked harshly as the tides of anger and despair and vengeance rolled up in him.

“You’re a goddam liar, Victor!” Mike shouted terribly. He leapt down from the witness platform, seized a heavy oak armchair, raised it murderously above Victor’s head.

“Mike, oh, Mike!” Dolores’ wail floated above the noise of the courtroom.

“Tell the truth, Victor!” Mike shouted, his face brick red, his teeth white behind his curled lips, almost senseless with rage, for the first time in his life threatening a fellow-creature with violence. “Tell it fast!”

He stood, the figure of Justice, armed with the chair, the veins pulsing in his huge wrists, the chair quivering high above Victor’s head in his huge gnarled hands, his tremendous arms tight and bulging in their broadcloth sleeves. “Immediately, Victor!”