Sometimes a Great Notion (59 page)

And that’s what puts me onto what’s happening: women don’t come out in a pack like this to a bar unless there’s going to be a good band, or a raffle, or unless there’s a sure fight. Especially a fight. Nothing like the possibility of a little scuffle to bring out the ladies. Squeakers and squealers, squallers and squawkers, I’ve seen every high-heeled and red-sweatered one of them at some time or another boring in on some drunk Dempsey in a hard hat who’s just punched down her daddy, swarming all over the poor guy
twice
as murderous as daddy did. Just like at the rassling match. You ever notice the first three rows at ringside at the armory are always filled with nothing but red mouths like gouged screams, hollering to
strangle
that dirty villain up there, kick his
head
off?

(Something even more edifying than humiliation WATCH OUT! more pointed than a word-whipping! Hank, Joe Ben, everyone in the bar seemed to be awaiting the arrival of the lion I was to be thrown to RUN WHILE THERE IS TIME!)

If I was a rassler I bet I’d have some real nasty dreams about those first three rows. Matter of fact I’m liable to have some real nasty dreams about this bevy of sweeties right here before the night’s over.

I order me another drink, this time whisky, Johnny Walker. Why is it, I wonder, I always buy good liquor if I’m expecting a fuss. Usually it’s beer beer beer, one after the other, nice and mellow and slow.

(MAKE A BREAK FOR IT!)

Maybe it’s because beer
is
slow; and that I need something faster than that.

(RUN! RUN, YOU FOOL! CAN’T YOU SMELL THE CROWD’S BLOODLUST?)

Bay-
bee
, but she is fierce in here tonight! Did all these high-spirited coons come down just to watch somebody stomp the shit out of me? Why, it makes a man humble and a little proud, it does for a fact.

(But just as I was about to bolt for the door NOW, FOOL Hank succeeded in once more shattering my certainty . . .)

I lean over to Joby, who is still puzzled by our reception. “You figure it out yet?”

“What?
This?
Me? No, by golly, I sure ain’t.”

“Well, I just bet you that new spinnin’ reel of yours against my old one that we can expect a visit from Biggy Newton before the night’s out.”

“Oh,” Joe says.
“Oh!
”

(. . . by telling Joe Ben that the crowd was not lusting for my blood, after all, but for
his
. . .)

Les Gibbons pops up beside us with strawberry preserves all over his mouth. I wonder who he got to tote him across so he could make it in. He shakes hands all around and orders a beer.

(. . . and making it clear that the awaited lion was the sworn challenger I had so often heard mentioned: the illustrious Biggy Newton.)

“Hank,” Lee asks me, “what precisely is your relationship to this illustrious Mr. Bignewton?”

“It’s a little hard to say, bub . . . precisely.”

Les pushes in. “Big he says that when Hank—”

“Les,” Joe says, “nobody ask you”—which shuts him up. Joby never has cared a whole lot for Gibbons, but lately he’s been a damn little wildcat on him.

“You might say,” I tell Lee, “that our relationship is one of these things where this here town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

(So I was once more without benefit of any logical reason for my presence in the bar—puzzled and perturbed, and at my wit’s end to find an explanation for my apparently pointless paranoia.)

A lot of people standing around whoop and laugh at this. But Les is very serious. He turns to Lee and says, “Big, he says that your brother here took advantage. In a motorcycle race.”

“That ain’t it,” Joe Ben says. “Big is mad, Lee, purely because he says that Hank violated a girl friend of his three or four years back. Which is a ball-face
lie
in my estimation, because this girl had long before that been violated.”

“Will you listen to
this
, Lee. By god, Joe, where do you get off tryin’ to discredit some of my prime trophies? Unless”—I give Lee a wink—“unless perchance you got some first-hand facts as to who copped little Judy-girl’s cherry?”

Joe turns red as a beet, and, with his face, that’s a sight to see. I always rib him about Judy because she used to be so hot for him in high school before he got cut up.

Everybody laughs some more at what I say to Joe.

I start seriously trying to explain to Lee Biggy Newton’s real and deepdown reason for hounding me, when, right in the middle of my third whisky and what I consider a pretty goddam honest and eloquent explanation, in stalks old Big hisself.

(It was some minutes before the key to solving this puzzle presented itself.)

Ray and Rod finish off a song.

(It walked into the bar, the key did . . .)

It hushes down a little in the bar, but not much.

(. . . or, more accurately, it stalked in—like a Kodiak bear someone had succeeded in partially shaving and getting into a dirty sweat shirt . . .)

Every one of them in the whole bar knows that Big’s walked in, and that here comes the whole reason for getting out in the weather tonight with the old lady’s teapot change for beer, and every one of them knows every other one of them knows it. But do you think they’d ever let on to the guy standing next to them that they got anything on their mind tonight but a glass of beer and maybe a game of checkers? Got any but the noblest intentions? Not a word of it, not a word.

The music starts back up.

 

I order me another shot. Four’s just about right.

Evenwrite comes in, looking constipated; there’s another man with him in a suit and a clean-shaved, intelligent face, like he thinks he’s going to be entertained by a string quartet.

Big turkeys around the floor awhile like he always does. Playing the game, too. Never letting on I’m on his mind. In fact, the only guy in the whole place saying anything about what’s in the air is that guy mocking me from the mirror there behind the bottles—
sucker.
He wants another whisky, but I know better. Four’s enough, I tell him. Four’s just right.

I look at Big and he’s black and grimy from construction work and big sure enough. A huge round-shouldered hulk of a kid, built a lot like Andy is built, only bigger than Andy. Six three or so, thick eyebrows powdered with road dust, heavy beard, greasy black arm hairs every place but the palms of his hands. Slow-looking
But not so much as he used to look
stomping around in his corks
Watch out for those; he put those on; he don’t wear corks on road work
and tin pants and a hard hat
Mistake there, Big ol’ boy; I ain’t going to conk you but I might jostle that topper down over your eyes just a bit
and one of Teddy’s rum-soaked crooks sticking out of his teeth.

(This prehistoric biped in a sweat shirt made a preliminary circle of the ring before he confronted Hank. Hank went on drinking after the entrance of this challenger—a prehistoric biped and an extremely proficient-looking pugilist.)
Yeah; four good shots is just about right.
(Brother Hank didn’t look in the beast’s direction, or openly watch him make his lumbering preliminary circle around the arena.) Pretty soon ol’ Big he ambles his way over to us. . . . (And even after he had walked over to us and made his challenge, Hank pretended to be surprised by his presence.) “Hey, by gosh! Biggy Newton! What ya say, Big, babes? I didn’t see you come in. . . .”
Hell, I seen every dirty inch of his ninety-board-foot body
. . . and we talk it over a little like a couple high-school kids. (They greeted each other with sweet smiles and salutations, as friendly as rabied wolves.) “Haven’t seen you in some time, Big; how’s it hanging down Reedsport way?”
I wonder . . . does the kid see?
(Then, just before the eruption of the actual fight, I noticed Hank glance in my direction.) “Ah, not too bad, Big, how about you? How’s your daddy?”
Does he see, I wonder, how Big outweighs me a good thirty or forty pounds?
(Hank had just the barest suggestion of a smile on his face, and a look in his green eyes that asked again the question: You want to see how the woods folks deal with their hassles?)

“Yeah, you’re lookin’ right in the pink, Biggy.”

(And it then became quite obvious to me: Hank wanted me to witness first-hand the wrath to come should I continue my advances toward his wife. SEE? I TOLD YOU. RUN WHILE THERE IS TIME! My paranoia was exonerated.)

I sip my drink and shoot the bull with Biggy, like we’re enjoying the best of relations. “You been around Harvey’s cycle shop much lately, Big?” Big ain’t a bad old boy.
You see, Lee?
In fact, it comes right down to it, I think a lot more of him than three-fourths these other niggers in here. “I been tied down pretty tight of late, Biggy, maybe you heard . . . no chance to go cycling.”
You see, Lee? You see? He’s a damn sight bigger’n that punk trying to mess you up in the surf this afternoon . . .
“Yeah, pretty tied down, Big. But I’m glad to see you, I sure am.” Hm. That goddam crazy feeling again: some galoot about to knock my brains out, and I feel like I want to play patty-cake with him. “Had a lotta cats to kill, Big, lotta logs to cut.” . . .
But you see, Lee? I ain’t running out to sea from him, I don’t give a shit how big he is: he can whip my ass but he can’t run me out to sea!”
“Ah, now, Big, don’t be like that. . . .” That crazy feeling; I got to keep telling myself he’s just
waiting
to kick my frigging teeth down my throat or I’m liable to throw my arm around his shoulders like he was my best buddy. “You know how ol’ Floyd likes to blow things up; I ain’t keeping you out of work. As a matter of fact I hear they’re jumping up and down for men out at WP. I hear there was a bunch of fellows walked out on a strike or something like that, y’know?”
Look
here, Lee; you think I’m gonna let him run me, I don’t care how the fuck big he is?
Even he’s my best buddy, you think I care I break his grubby neck? Ain’t he looking to break mine? “So you could get mill work if you was a mind to, Big.” But ain’t they all
Look here, Lee
looking to break mine? “Course, if you’re partial to swinging a pick . . .” So you think I care I scuff a few noses
Look here, Lee, he can whip me but he can’t run me!
while I’m defending my own? Even my best buddy? “You don’t say so, Big. My, but that’s a shame. . . .” I have to keep telling myself
And if he don’t run me he don’t ever really whip me, do you see?
You think I give a shit I blind I kill the dumb bastards? Any the dumb bastards, best buddies or no? I owe it to them not to give a shit
do you see?
They all come out all hope to see me get my neck broke get killed! “. . . if that’s how you feel about it, Big, ol’ buddy, then I’m ready any time you are.”

(I watched as Hank stood, strangely peaceful, and let the challenger deliver the first blow. It was almost his undoing. He was spun completely around and into the bar; his head struck the wood with a thick sound and he fell to his knee RUN FOOL! WATCH OUT! and the Bignewton was on him before he could rise . . .)
You see, Lee?
All every one dirty whining sniveling pricks vicious red-sweater cunts grubby faces far back I can remember blame me
Me, Lee, do you see?
(this time hitting him high on the cheekbone and rolling him face forward on the floor) assholes who couldn’t pour piss outa a boot is my fault—
Oh Christ, Lee, do you see?
(and from this position he twisted his head toward me WATCH OUT! WATCH OUT! seemingly to make certain of my presence) all yelling stomp him stomp the hardnosed motherfucker—
Oh Christ, Lee!
(He looked at me from the floor, his head twisting back, asking the question now with one green eye WATCH OUT RUN! the other blinded with blood . . .) all yelling kill him because I won’t run the sonsabitches
Lee! you bastard!
(. . . and, before I could think—because of the noise, the beer I’d drunk, perhaps because I wanted him beaten further—WATCH OUT, HANK! I heard myself shouting encouragement right along with Joe Ben GET UP, HANK, GET UP GET UP GET UP!) sonsabitches you think I care
please
let me hate them
Lee you see I can
(and, as though he had been waiting for my signal, he rose GET UP trailing blood HANK HANK and an awesome war cry . . .) YOU you think I care hate
I please
them!
owe them not run
(. . . to prove himself HANK YES HANK HANK! every bit as primitive . . .)
please
hate!
care do you?
them sonsabitches! (as the prehistoric biped) THEM NOW
do you?
CARE
please
KILL THEM! (and even
more
proficient YES HANK YES a pugilist!) let me
do you
THEM kill NOW NOW NOW . . . !

 

The lightning has left, leaving in its wake a spasmodic black mist that darts fitfully from hilltop to valley and back again. The old boltcutter walks mournfully up the path from his garage to his cabin; he doesn’t even bother bringing along the case of wine . . .

Lee rides home in the back of the jeep while Joe Ben drives silently. They have left the pick-up at Joe’s house with Jan. The erratic rain whips at them and Lee holds his face out in the wind left over from Halloween, hoping his mind will be blown clear of the beer and whisky he drank after the fight. He sits in the back of the jeep on one side of Hank, supporting him when he lists toward the floor. Hank hasn’t spoken since they left the bar, and though his eyes are closed, it is difficult to know for certain if he has passed out completely because, in the flickering little dashlight that is fixed openly to the front of a jeep’s dashboard, his face appears to be animated—alternately going blank, then smiling at some humorous memory. Lee studies the obscure expression, wondering, Is it an actual conscious smile, or just a swelling of the lips? . . . It was hard to be sure, considering the condition of the rest of brother Hank’s face—it was like trying to read a letter after recovering it from a muddy bootprint.