Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

“I’m overlooking the language.” Sweeney took a step back and spoke dispassionately, like a debater. “But I’d like to hear your solution. Since you’re so clear on the subject.”

“I don’t want to overlook the language,” Di Calco said hotly.

“Let him talk.” Sweeney waved his hand majestically. “Let’s hear everybody’s point of view. Let the Dutchman talk.”

“Well …” Lubbock started.

“Don’t be insulting,” the bartender said. “It’s late and I’m ready to close up the bar anyway, so don’t insult the patrons.”

Lubbock rinsed his mouth with beer, let it slide slowly down his throat. “Don’t yuh ever clean the pipes?” he asked the bartender. “Yuh know, that’s the most important thing about beer—the pipes.”

“He’s got a comment on everything!” Di Calco said angrily. “This country’s full of them!”

“They are dividing up the world,” Lubbock said. “I got eighty-five cents to my name. No matter which way they finish dividing, I’ll be lucky to still have eighty-five cents when it’s all over.”

“That’s not the way to approach the problem,” said Sweeney. “Your eighty-five cents.”

“Will I get Greece?” Lubbock pointed his huge finger threateningly at Sweeney. “Will Di Calco get China?”

“Who wants China?” Di Calco asked triumphantly.

“We get one thing,” Lubbock said soberly. “You and me and Sweeney and Buffalo Bill …”

“Please,” said the bartender.

“We get trouble. The workingman gets trouble.” Lubbock sighed and looked sadly up at the ceiling, and the other men silently drank their beer. “Military strategists agree,” Lubbock said, his tongue going proudly over the phrase, “that it takes four men to attack a position defended by one man.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Sweeney demanded.

“This war is going to be fought in Europe, in Africa, in Asia,” Lubbock chanted. “It is not going to be fought in William Cody’s Bar.”

“Sorry I can’t oblige you,” the bartender said sarcastically.

“I’ve studied the situation,” Lubbock said, “and I’ve decided that there’s going to be four times as many Americans killed as anybody else. It stands to reason. They’re not going to attack us here, are they? We’re going to take the offensive. Four to one!” He banged the bar with savage certainty. “Us four poor dumb yokels’ll get it just to put one lousy Dutchman out of the way. Military strategy guarantees!”

“Don’t yell so loud,” the bartender said nervously. “The people upstairs don’t like me.”

“The worst thing is,” Lubbock shouted, glaring wildly around him, “the worst thing is I look around and I see the world full of poor dumb stupid bastards like Sweeney and Di Calco and William Cody!”

“The language,” Di Calco snarled. “Watch the language.”

“Hitler has to be beaten!” Sweeney yelled. “That’s a fundamental fact.”

“Hitler has to be beaten!” Lubbock’s voice sank to a significant, harsh whisper. “Why does Hitler have to be beaten? Because poor ignorant bastards like you put him there in the first place and left him there in the second place and went out to shoot him down in the third place and in the meantime just drank yer beer and argued in bars!”

“Don’t accuse me,” said Sweeney. “I didn’t put Hitler any place.”

“Sweeneys all over the world!” Lubbock shouted. “And now I got to get shot for it. I got to sit in tents in the wintertime!” Suddenly he grabbed Sweeney by the collar with one hand. “Say …” Sweeney gasped. Lubbock’s other hand shot out, grasped Di Calco by his collar. Lubbock drew the two men close to his face and stared with terrible loathing at them. “I would like to mash yer stupid thick heads,” he whispered.

“Now, lissen,” Di Calco gasped.

“Boys,” said the bartender, reaching for the sawed-off baseball bat he kept under the counter.

“If I get shot it’s your fault!” Lubbock shook the two men fiercely. “I oughta kill yuh. I feel like killin’ every dumb slob walkin’ the streets …”

Di Calco reached back for a beer bottle and Sweeney grabbed the big hand at his throat and the bartender lifted the sawed-off baseball bat. The door swung open and a girl stepped through it and looked blankly at them.

“Go right ahead,” she said, the expression on her face not surprised or worried or amused. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

“Boys …” the bartender said and put the baseball bat away. Lubbock gave Sweeney and Di Calco a last little push and released them and turned back to his beer.

“People like you,” Sweeney murmured, outraged, “people like you they ought to commit to asylums.”

Di Calco straightened his tie and tried to smile gallantly through his rage at the girl, who was still standing by the open door, hatless, her dirty blonde hair falling straight down to her shoulders. She was a thin girl, with the bones showing plainly in her face, and her hands skinny and rough coming out of the sleeves of the light old gray coat she was wearing. Her face was very tired, as though she had been working too long, too many nights.

“Would you like to close the door, Miss?” the bartender asked. “It’s getting awfully cold.”

The girl wearily closed the door and stood against it for a moment, wearily surveying the four men.

“I need some help,” she said.

“Now, Miss …” the bartender started.

“Oh, shut up!” she snapped at him. Her voice was flat and worn. “I’m not bumming anything. My sister’s just had a kid and she’s laying in a stinking little hospital and she was bleeding all day and they gave her two transfusions and that’s all they got and they just told me maybe she’s dyin’. I been walkin’ past this saloon for the last half hour watchin’ you four guys talkin’, gettin’ up nerve to come in. She needs blood. Any you guys got some blood you don’t need?” The girl smiled a little.

The men carefully avoided looking at each other.

“We’re busted,” the girl said, her tone as flat as ever. “The kid came out seven months and her husband’s a sailor; he’s on his way to Portugal and there’s nobody in this whole goddamned, freezin’ town I can turn to.” She shrugged. “My blood’s the wrong type.” She took a step nearer the bar. “She’s only nineteen years old, my sister. She had to go marry a sailor …” Lubbock turned and looked at her.

“All right,” Lubbock said. “I’ll go with yuh.”

“Me, too,” said Di Calco.

Sweeney opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “I hate hospitals,” he said. “But I’ll come along.”

Lubbock turned and looked slowly at the bartender.

“It’s late anyway,” the bartender said, nervously drying the bar with a towel. “I might as well come along, just in case.… My type blood might … Yes.” He nodded vigorously, and started taking off his apron.

Lubbock reached over the bar and brought up a bottle of rye and a glass and silently poured it and pushed it in front of the girl. The girl took it without smiling and drained it in one gulp.

They all sat in the dreary hospital clinic room with the old dead light of the hospital on them and all the weary sorrowful smells of the hospital swelling around them. They sat without talking, waiting for the interne to come and tell them which one of them had the right type of blood for the transfusion. Lubbock sat with his hands between his knees, occasionally glancing sharply at Sweeney and Di Calco and Cody, all of them nervously squirming on their benches. Only the girl walked slowly back and forth down the middle of the room, smoking a cigarette, the smoke curling slowly over her lank, blonde hair.