End of the Tiger (3 page)

“That’s a nice-looking mockup. And it is going to make a lot of vehicles look old before their time. The way I see it, we’re in a period of artificially accelerated obsolescence. The honesty has gone out of the American product. The great God is turnover. So all you manufacturers are straining a gut to make a product that wears out, or breaks, or doesn’t last or, like your car, goes out of style. It’s the old game of rooking the consumer. You have your hand in his pocket, and we have our hand in yours.”

He remembered his little speech vividly, and it shocked him. Maybe it was true. But that had not been the time or place to state it, not at this festive meeting, where
everybody congratulated each other on what a fine new sparkling product they would be selling. He felt his cheeks grow hot as he remembered his own words. What a thing to say in front of Driscoll! The most abject apologies were going to be in order.

He could not remember the reaction of the man from Detroit, or Driscoll’s immediate reaction. He had no further memories of being at the table. The next episode was back at the bar, a glass in his hand, Hunter beside him speaking so earnestly you could almost see the tears in his eyes. “Good Lord, Had! What did you say? What did you do? I’ve never seen him so upset.”

“Tell him to go do something unspeakable. I just gave them a few clear words of ultimate truth. And now I intend to put some sparkle in that little combo.”

“Leave the music alone. Go home, please. Just go home, Had.”

There was another gap, and then he was arguing with the drummer. The man was curiously disinclined to give up the drums. A waiter gripped his arm.

“What’s your trouble?” Hadley asked him angrily. “I just want to teach this clown how to stay on top of the beat.”

“A gentleman wants to see you, sir. He is by the cloakroom. He asked me to bring you out.”

Then he was by the cloakroom. Driscoll was there. He stood close to Hadley. “Don’t open your mouth, Purvis. Just listen carefully to me while I try to get something through your drunken skull. Can you understand what I’m saying?”

“Certainly I can—”

“Shut up! You may have lost the whole shooting match for us. That speech of yours. He told me he wasn’t aware of the fact that I hired Commies. He said that criticisms of the American way of life make him physically ill. Know what I’m going back in and tell him?”

“No.”

“That I got you out here and fired you and sent you home. Get this straight. It’s an attempt to save the contract. Even if it weren’t, I’d still fire you, and I’d do it in person. I thought I would dread it. I’ve known you a long time. I find out, Purvis, that I’m actually enjoying it.
It’s such a damn relief to get rid of you. Don’t open your mouth. I wouldn’t take you back if you worked for free. Don’t come back. Don’t come in tomorrow. I’ll have a girl pack your personal stuff. I’ll have it sent to you by messenger along with your check. You’ll get both tomorrow before noon. You’re a clever man, Purvis, but the town is full of clever men who can hold liquor. Goodbye.”

Driscoll turned on his heel and went back into the big room. Hadley remembered that the shock had penetrated the haze of liquor. He remembered that he had stood there, and he had been able to see two men setting up a projector, and all he could think about was how he would tell Sarah and what she would probably say.

And, without transition, he was in the Times Square area on his way home. The sidewalk would tilt unexpectedly, and each time he would take a lurching step to regain his balance. The glare of the lights hurt his eyes. His heart pounded. He felt short of breath.

He stopped and looked in the window of a men’s shop that was still open. The sign on the door said Open Until Midnight. He looked at his watch. It was a little after eleven. He had imagined it to be much later. Suddenly it became imperative to him to prove both to himself and to a stranger that he was not at all drunk. If he could prove that, then he would know that Driscoll had fired him not for drinking, but for his opinions. And would anyone want to keep a job where he was not permitted to have opinions?

He gathered all his forces and looked intently into the shop window. He looked at a necktie. It was a gray wool tie with a tiny figure embroidered in dark red. The little embroidered things were shaped like commas. He decided that he liked it very much. The ties in that corner of the window were priced at three-fifty. He measured his stability, cleared his throat, and went into the shop.

“Good evening, sir.”

“Good evening. I’d like that tie in the window, the gray one on the left with the dark red pattern.”

“Would you please show me which one, sir?”

“Of course.” Hadley pointed it out. The man took a duplicate off a rack.

“Would you like this in a box, or shall I put it in a bag?”

“A bag is all right.”

“It’s a very handsome tie.”

He gave the man a five-dollar bill. The man brought him his change. “Thank you, sir. Good night.”

“Good night.” He walked out steadily, carrying the bag. No one could have done it better. A very orderly purchase. If he ever needed proof of his condition, the clerk would remember him. “Yes, I remember the gentleman. He came in shortly before closing time. He bought a gray tie. Sober? Perhaps he’d had a drink or two. But he was as sober as a judge.”

And somewhere between the shop and home all memory ceased. There was a vague something about a quarrel with Sarah, but it was not at all clear. Perhaps because the homecoming scene had become too frequent for them.

He dried himself vigorously on a harsh towel and went into the bedroom. When he thought of the lost job, he felt quick panic. Another one wouldn’t be easy to find. One just as good might be impossible. It was a profession that fed on gossip.

Maybe it was a good thing. It would force a change on them. Maybe a new city, a new way of life. Maybe they could regain something that they had lost in the last year or so. But he knew he whistled in the dark. He was afraid. This was the worst of all mornings-after.

Yet even that realization was diffused by the peculiar aroma of unreality that clung to all his hangover mornings. Dreams were always vivid, so vivid that they became confused with reality. With care, he studied the texture of the memory of Driscoll’s face and found therein a lessening of his hope that it could have been dreamed.

He went into his bedroom and took fresh underwear from the drawer. He found himself thinking about the purchase of the necktie again. It seemed strange that the purchase should have such retroactive importance. The clothing he had worn was where he had dropped it beside his bed. He picked it up. He emptied the pockets of the suit. There was a skein of dried vomit on the lapel of the suit. He could not remember having been ill. There was a triangular tear in the left knee of the
trousers, and he noticed for the first time an abrasion on his bare knee. He could not remember having fallen. The necktie was not in the suit pocket. He began to wonder whether he had dreamed about the necktie. In the back of his mind was a ghost image of some other dream about a necktie.

He decided that he would go to the office. He did not see what else he could do. If his memory of what Driscoll had said was accurate, maybe by now Driscoll would have relented. When he went to select a necktie after he had shaved carefully, he looked for the new one on the rack. It was not there. As he was tying the one he had selected he noticed a wadded piece of paper on the floor beside his wastebasket. He picked it up, spread it open, read the name of the shop on it, and knew that the purchase of the tie had been real.

By the time he was completely dressed, it still was not eight o’clock. He felt unwell, though the sharpness of the headache was dulled. His hands were shaky. His legs felt empty and weak.

It was time to face Sarah. He knew that he had seen her the previous evening. Probably she had been in bed, had heard him come in, had gotten up as was her custom and, no doubt, there had been a scene. He hoped he had not told her of losing the job. Yet, if it had been a dream, he could not have told her. If he had told her, it would be proof that it had not been a dream. He went through the bathroom into her bedroom, moving quietly. Her bed had been slept in, turned back where she had gotten out.

He went down the short hall to the small kitchen. Sarah was not there. He began to wonder about her. Surely the quarrel could not have been so bad that she had dressed and left. He measured coffee into the top of the percolator and put it over a low gas flame. He mixed frozen juice and drank a large glass. The apartment seemed uncannily quiet. He poured another glass, drank half of it, and walked up the hallway to the living room.

Stopping in the doorway, he saw the necktie, recognized the small pattern. He stood there, glass in hand,
and looked at the tie. It was tightly knotted. And above the knot, resting on the arm of the chair, was the still, unspeakable face of Sarah, a face the shiny hue of fresh eggplant.

I walked down the length of the curved concrete pier at Acapulco, passing the charter boats getting ready to take off across the sparkling blue morning water after the sail and the marlin.

Pedro Martinez, skipper of the shabby-looking Orizaba, was standing on the pier coiling a line. I have gone out many times with Pedro during the season for the past five years. Other craft are prettier, but Pedro’s equipment is good, and he knows where the fish can be found. Pedro did not look happy. Not at all.

Lew Wolta sat in one of the two stern fishing chairs half under the canopy. He looked up at me, waved the half-empty bottle of beer in his big hand, and said, “What the hell kept you, Thompson?”

I had met Wolta the afternoon before. He and his friend, Jimmy Gerran, had stepped up to Pedro to sew him up for the next day at the same time I did. We had joined forces. I knew that Wolta had wanted the Orizaba because he had seen the four flags flying and the hard, lean, black bodies of the two sails on the tiny deck forward of the cabin.

When we had gone across the street to seal the bargain over a beer, I had begun to regret my quick decision. Wolta was a tall, hard, heavy-shouldered man in his late thirties with a huge voice, white teeth gleaming in a constant grin, and washed-out eyes that never smiled at all. He kept up a running chatter, most of which seemed designed to inflict hurt on the younger, frailer Jimmy Gerran, a quiet lad with a humble manner.

Over the beer, Wolta said, “Yeah, I ran into Jimmy up in Taxco, and it was pretty obvious that he needed somebody to get him out of his daze. Hell, I’ve never been in this gook country before, but I’ve got a nose for fun. Leave Jimmy alone and he’d spend all his time walking around the streets.”

At that he had slapped Gerran roughly on the shoulder.
“Tomorrow we hook a sail, boy, and it’ll make a man out of you.”

Pedro stepped down onto the fantail, and I handed him my lunch and equipment. Pedro said, in quick, slurred Spanish, “This man talks to me, Señor Thompson, as if I were his gardener.”

“What did he say?” Wolta asked suspiciously.

“He said that he thinks we’ll have a good day.”

“That’s fine!” Wolta said, his eyes still holding a glint of mistrust. “How’d you learn this language?”

“I live here,” I said shortly. “Where’s Gerran?”

“I sent Jimmy after cigarettes. Hope he can find his way back to the boat. Here he comes now.”

Jimmy gave me a shy smile and said good morning as he climbed down into the boat. Pedro’s two hands were aboard—his engineer and his sailor. The sailor went forward and got the anchor line. The marine engine chuckled deeply as Pedro moved ahead away from the dock. We were about fifth or sixth away from the dock.

Wolta examined the heavy boat rods curiously. He fingered the gimbal set into the front of the chair. He said, “You set the rod butt in this thing, eh? Universal joint.”

Jimmy said, “I’ve never done this before. What happens, Mr. Thompson?”

“You sit and hold the rod. Your bait, a fish about eight inches long with the hook sewed into it, will ride the surface about fifty feet astern. See, the sailor’s dropping the bamboo outriggers now. The line will run taut from your bait to a heavy clothespin at the tip of the outrigger. Then there’ll be twenty or so feet of slack between the clothespin and the tip of your rod. The sail’ll come up and whack the fish with his bill. That’s to kill it. It’ll knock the line out of the clothespin, and the fish will lie dead on the water while we keep moving. Then the sail’ll grab it. As soon as the slack is all gone, hold tight and hit him three or four times. Not hard. Like this.” I took the rod and showed him.

“How will I know if he’s hooked?” Jimmy asked.

Wolta roared. “He’ll rise up and talk to you, boy. He’ll come up and tell you all about it.”

Jimmy flushed. He said, “Thanks, Mr. Thompson.”

I was assembling my equipment. For sail I use a five-foot, five-ounce tip, 4/0 star drag reel carrying five hundred yards of 6-thread, 18-pound test line. Wolta looked on curiously. He said, “That’s a lot lighter outfit than these, Thompson.” I nodded. The boat rods carry 32-thread line, 14/0 drag reels. Wolta said, “That rod won’t fit in the gimbal, will it?”

“No,” I said shortly.

Wolta frowned. “What the hell! If you can use that stuff, why should we fish with rope and crowbars?”

I said, “If you never fished for sail before and if you hooked one with this equipment, you’d have a thousand to one chance of bringing him in. He’d break your line or your tip every time.”

Wolta gave me that grin. “I guess you know what you’re talking about,” he said.

The bait was all sewed. It was taken off the ice, and Pedro helped rig the lines. As soon as we rounded the headlands, the bait went out. I said, “You two fish. As soon as you’ve hooked one, the other man reels in. Fast. I’ll take the place of whoever hooks the first one.”

“Hooks or catches,” Wolta said suspiciously.

I looked him squarely in the eyes. “Hooks!” I said.

“Okay, okay,” he mumbled, turning away. I had learned something interesting about Lew Wolta.

The first half hour was dull. Pedro headed straight out, and the shore line began to recede; the dusty brown hills began to appear behind the green hills that encircle Acapulco. The swell was heavy. I watched both Jimmy and Wolta and saw with relief that neither of them seemed conscious of the movement of the boat. A seasick man aboard spoils my pleasure in the day, as I know how badly he wants to return to the stability of the land.