Whom Gods Destroy (2 page)

Albert Smothers nodded heavily. “You can't tell about airplanes, I guess, but we forgot that you might be flyin'. It's a sad thing, though—a sad thing that you couldn't get here in time. Your Pa's put away, boy. They put him away real nice.”

That left me stunned for a minute. The telegram said Friday, and today was—I counted the days in my mind, and, by God it
was
Friday!

“But how?” I said. “I mean there were things to be taken care of. How could they go on and have the funeral if there wasn't anybody here?”

I knew one thing: Albert and May Lou hadn't taken care of the funeral expenses. And about that time a thought hit me and I must have lost my head for a minute. I reached out and grabbed the front of Albert's shirt.

“The county didn't do it, did they?” My voice rasped like a saw on a bone, even in my own ears. “I've never taken charity, and, by God, I'm not going to start now!”

Albert shook his head quickly. I think I was twisting his collar too tightly to let him talk.

“Then how did he get buried? I know he didn't have any money of his own.”

May Lou stopped bawling and got a hold on herself. “Roy, we didn't even know you was comin',” she managed. “We didn't even know if you had the money to come.” Then she brightened a little. “You look like you're doin' right well, though.”

I had held myself in about as long as I could stand it, “Goddamnit, can't I get a simple question answered? Who buried the old man?”

“Why, the Women's Christian Aid Society.”

I felt myself growing cold all over.

“A lady came around yesterday,” she blubbered on. “A real nice lady. She said she understood how it was and all, and said the Women's Aid Society was to help people like that, good God-fearin' people, when we was in trouble.” Then she began to whine. “Roy, we didn't know you was doing so good. You never wrote to your Pa. You never let us know. But we knew you wouldn't want the county to put him away—and Albert and me, we didn't have the money.”

“So the 'nice lady' came around,” I said bitterly, “and I you let her Women's Christian Aid Society do it! Just like the old man was a pauper.”

“Well, he didn't have any money....”

“I'll pay them back!” I was almost yelling by this time. “I'll give them back every damn cent. Get out! God, you make me sick, both of you! Just get out and leave me alone!”

They got out. I paced up and down the floor like a wild man until I heard the old Buick pull away, then I went out of the house and across the street to the salvage shop.

There was a pay phone and I had a hell of a time finding a coin. My hands shook so much that it must have taken two or three minutes to get the change and find the number in the directory.

“Hello?”

“Is this the headquarters for the Women's Christian Aid Society?”

“Yes, it is, sir. May I help you?”

“You took care of the funeral expenses for a G. A. Foley today. I want to know what those expenses came to.”

“Oh, yes. Mrs. Keating took care of that personally.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Lola Keating, our president.”

I sucked my stomach in as though I had been gut-shot. “Mr. Keating wouldn't be the county attorney, would he?”

“Why, yes, he is. Just a moment, sir, and I'll get the information...”

I hung up. If anybody had spoken to me at that moment I would have killed him.

2

THIS IS THE WAY it begins. This is how it is when you're young and your name is Roy Foley and you live on Burk Street.

To begin with, you don't remember much about your old lady because she died when you were six. Your old man is a cobbler when he's not drunk- He works in shoe repair shops putting half soles and rubber heels on shoes for people like us who can't afford to buy another pair. Sometimes he comes home at night, sometimes he doesn't.

At first you don't realize that anything is wrong. You roll hoops and fish for mud-cats and play on-and-over with the rest of the kids on Burk Street, and you figure that's the way things are. It's not a big town, still you don't see much of it except Burk Street until you start going to school. There's a law or something that says all kids have to go to school, and that's when it begins to come to you that everybody isn't the same.

The kids on Cedar Street, for instance. They go barefoot two or three days out of the summer just for the hell of it. Not like you, from June to September. You begin to understand that some kids don't have to worry about wearing out shoe leather, because their parents are lawyers or doctors or something and they've got plenty of money and live in big white-painted houses on Cedar Street. But it's not a big town, and you all go to the same school.

It doesn't take you long to find out that most of the Cedar Street gang are pretty snotty. So you get into fights with them and usually beat hell out of them because you're pretty good at that kind of thing. You've got a vague idea that the thing can be settled as simply as that. If you just beat hell out of a few of them they'll come to believe you're as good as they are.

It doesn't work that way. It takes you quite a while to see that you're not getting anywhere, but finally you see that fighting isn't the answer. So you start studying; long hard hours.

The teachers say you've got a good brain, better than any brain in the room, maybe. You don't know just why it's so important to make these snotty Cedar Streeters see that you're somebody, but it is. You lie awake at nights and it gnaws at you and you ask yourself, Why is it so important? I'm smarter than any of them, I can whip any of them. But I'm not
one
of them.

In your second year of high school you think you've found the answer. You go out for football. You're big and tough and fast and you've got a head on your shoulders. You're a natural quarterback. You get your picture in the paper and write-ups and State University sends scouts down to watch you do your stuff. But what really gets you is the yelling from the sidelines. You hear them yelling your name and it goes to your head like high wine. And after you make a touchdown they all pound you on the back and holler at you and tell you you're the best damn quarterback Old Big Prairie High ever had, and you feel so proud that you're ready to bust. You're finally getting somewhere.

And there's a girl, too. But we'll have to go back again to understand that.

You have to go clear back to the beginning to understand about Lola, because it was Lola who put the hunger in you to pull yourself out of Burk Street and be somebody.

Lola was a symbol at first, and hardly a person at all. She was nine years old and she wore a white dress and black patent-leather slippers, and she was the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen because she represented something that you were just beginning to understand. She represented class. She lived in a big white house on Cedar Street and her old man drove a new Dodge sedan. She didn't even know you were alive.

There is one day that you remember in particular. It was in September, and you remember standing around in front of the school building that afternoon after school was out, with the rest of the bunch. Then Lola came out, talking to some girl that you didn't know but who must have lived on Cedar Street, too, and they passed right by the group of boys, their heads in the air, not even seeing them.

“Snotty little dames,” one of the kids said under his breath.

Somebody snickered. “I wouldn't kick that Lola Johnson out of bed, though.”

Nine years old. You learned fast on Burk Street. The boys began shoving each other and pushing and snickering wisely to cover up their embarrassment, and for the first time you could remember you were ashamed of them, ashamed of being one of them.

“What's the matter, Roy?”

“He's stuck on Lola Johnson.”

“Like hell I am.”

“Goddamn, let's go down to the slough and see if the mud-cats are bitin'.”

“I've got somethin' else, to do.”

You walk off, careful not to take the street Lola and the other girl had taken, but as soon as the other kids are out of sight you cut quickly across vacant lots and come out on Cedar Street.

You can think of no logical reason why you did it. But your chest was pounding and aching, and not just from the run, as you fell in quietly behind Lola and the other girl, almost a full block back. She looked so clean—even after a full day at school she was clean and white and starched. I love you, Lola! The thought explodes in your mind as you watch her from a distance. You don't know what love is, of course; you only know that she represented something that you craved.

The girl dropped off at one of the houses on Cedar and Lola walked on alone. She reached her house finally and went inside and for a long while you stood across the street, just looking at the house, with a strange kind of ache inside you.

In some strange way, in the remote, dark places of your mind and heart, you came to a decision that afternoon. Somehow, you had to reach that other world of Cedar Street. You had to be someone that Lola Johnson could look up to.

It took a long time. When you had the football in your hands and when you heard the crowd yelling from the sidelines, knowing that Lola was yelling too, then you thought yon had made it.

In your senior year you were sure you had. You were “somebody” now. People pointed you
out—That's Roy Foley—all-State quarterback.
Not even Lola could ignore a thing like that. When you spoke to her in the halls, between classes, she spoke back. Sometimes she smiled, and when she did your insides would go to mush.

“Lola, ah— That is, well, I'm going your way this afternoon. If I could carry your books ...”

“Oh, I'm sorry, Roy, but I'm not going straight home this afternoon. I promised Patsy that I'd go over to her house.”

Well, you never walked home with her. But, on the other hand, she didn't look down her nose at you either. She knew who Roy Foley was, and that was something.

You told yourself it was something—but you began to wonder. Had you really made progress, or had you been kidding yourself? It was Lola herself who put your mind at ease—for a little while, at least.

“Lola— Well, I was thinking, if we beat Classen Friday, ah— Well, they'll be having a dance in the gym, I guess....”

You'd stopped her in the hallway, between classes, on some flimsy excuse, and the words came blurting out. You were alone with her for just that moment. The warning buzzer was sounding outside the superintendent's office, the signal that classes were ready to begin. For a moment she looked blank, and you were afraid that she was going to rush on to class without bothering to answer. Then she paused, glancing almost furtively, you thought, up and down the empty hall.

Suddenly to your amazement, she became a different person. She smiled. She almost blinded you with the dazzling warmth of it.

“Oh,” she said. “Roy, I
do
wish I could go to the dance with you!” You could feel yourself glowing inside. And you felt eight feet tall. “But I've already promised Bob Carney I'd go with him. I
will
see you, though, won't I, Roy?” And then, miracle of miracles, she took your hand in hers and squeezed it!

There was one thing you were sure of, as you stood there, struck dumb in your rose-colored trance. She liked you. It was in her eyes, in her quick response as she squeezed your hand. The only thing you could think of was, She likes me! Maybe she even loves me!

And maybe it was true. Probably she did love you, or at least was infatuated with you, but of course things are never as simple as that. How were you to know or understand the complexities of women? It never occurred to you that when Lola smiled or showed a warmness toward you, it was always when there was no one to see her.

The entire team was at the dance, of course, and people kept pounding your back and telling you what a great guy you were. You weren't a very good dancer, but the girls didn't seem to care that night because you were a hero. You were the greatest guy around.

“I never was so excited in my life, Roy, the way you made that touchdown in the last quarter!”

You've forgotten the girl's name. You probably didn't even see her because you were watching all the time for Lola. You saw her come in and she was so beautiful that it made you ache inside just to look at her. You let her have one dance with her date, and then you cut in.

“Hello, Lola.”

She smiled and you could see that she was glad you'd tagged in. She's proud to be dancing with you. Lola is more than a symbol now, she's everything you want or will ever want. She's cleanness and sweetness and softness, everything that Burk Street isn't. When you put your arms around her, you want to mash her to you. But you don't do that. You dance, a little more clumsily than usual, and you feel sweat breaking out on your forehead.

This is a hell of a thing. On the football field you're not afraid of anything and you know just what to do, but you're dancing with a girl and she's smiling at you and you're scared to death.

“Is anything wrong, Roy?”

“Wrong? Oh, no, not a thing. Everything's fine. I guess I don't dance so good—so well, though.”

“We could sit this one out,” she says, “if you don't feel like dancing.”