Roughneck

by Jim Thompson

  "Things will get better for you," I said. "They can get just so bad and then they have to get better."

  "Yeah? What if they don't?"

  "Then you'll probably be dead anyway, and it won't matter."

  I was drowsy, more than a little weary of the conversation. Unconsciously, and quite unfairly—for no two people are alike—I was comparing his situation with the one I had been in at his age. And I felt that he was rather too ready to despair.

  He was silent for fifteen or twenty miles. Finally, he said, hesitating: "You—uh—you like to take a shortcut, mister? Up through the mountains?"

  "Suits me," I shrugged.

  Silence again. Then: "I r-reckon you're pretty tired, ain't you, mister? You want to go to sleep, I'll wake you up when we get there."

  "Well, thanks," I said. "I think I'll do that."

  I took the last drink in the bottle, and tossed it out the window. I leaned back and was instantly asleep.

  At what seemed to be only a moment later, but which was actually several hours, I suddenly woke up.

  The car was stopped, motor off, lights extinguished. I rubbed my eyes, tried to penetrate the darkness.

  "What the hell?" I grunted. "Why are you stopped here?"

  His head was slightly turned away from me; one hand was in his pocket. "I—I t-tell you, mister," he stammered tensely. "G-gonna tell you somethin'. I—I—"

  "Well, go ahead, dammit," I said, my head still fuzzy with the wine. "Spit it out!"

  "I g-gotta—" His voice broke in a sigh. "I g-got to go to the toilet."

  I laughed, not very pleasantly. "That's an idea but let's not make a production out of it. Come on! What's the matter with you, anyway?"

  He levered the catch on the door.

  I climbed out the door on my side.

  And fortunately I held onto it. For at my second step my foot came down into empty space.

  I gasped, and flung myself backward. Too frightened to speak or cry out, I peered around me in the pale, near-lightless light of the quarter moon.

  We were in the mountains—high among them. And I was standing on the brink of a precipice, on a triangular strip of road bounded on one side by the cliff and on the other by the car.

  It was a bad spot to get in: there was no getting past those cut-in front wheels.

  It was a very bad spot: there was no getting out the other way, at the base of the triangle.

  For the kid was standing there, silently, one arm shakily outthrust, and the dim moonlight sparkled wickedly on the long blade of his knife.

  He took a nervous step toward me, knife circling in his hand. I squeezed backward an inch or two.

  Then, I could retreat no further, nor could he advance further without actually attacking. So we stood there poised, staring at one another. Breathing heavily. Waiting.

  I was terrified, sick and paralyzed with terror. I thought, 'Well, you asked for it. You've been asking for it all your life and you finally got it.' I thought: 'What a hell of a way to die; tossed down a mountainside with your throat cut.'

  Then...

  Well, it was a strange thing but suddenly all my horror and sickness were for this boy. I could think only of the monstrous joke of which he was about to be victim.

  A few dollars, an inexpensive wristwatch, a car that would get him pinched before he had it a day. That was what he was going to get—nothing. Nothing but the gas chamber or a life sentence in prison. And in a way it was all my fault.

  I could have set him right about my financial situation. I could have shown some real interest in him, made an effort to give him some constructive advice. Instead I had chosen to spout platitudes, to egg him on with seeming callousness. To drink and sleep.

  Now it was too late to tell him the truth; he would never believe me. It was too late to plead. He had begun the preliminaries of a holdup murder. Much as he might want to—and I was sure he did want to—he would be afraid to back out now.

  If only there was some way of letting him know, of making him think that...

  I swayed unconsciously. The action seemed to tap something in my mind, to set in motion the horror-frozen cells. And I swayed again, exaggeratedly, and spoke:

  "Thass the knife you were tellin' me about? Le's see the damn thing."

  I put out my hand, slowly. I held it there, the tips of my fingers almost touching the tip of the blade.

  "Well, come on," I said. "You wanted to show it to me, didn't you? Can't see it with you hangin' onto it."

  "M-mister, I—" His hand jerked convulsively, and the blade described an arc. Then, still holding the haft, he let it come down in my palm.

  "Nice knife," I said. "But y'know something? Some people see you carryin' that an' they might think you were goin' to hold 'em up."

  I gave a gentle tug on the blade. I said, "Le's throw it away, huh?"

  He let go.

  I threw it away, flipped it over the precipice.

  ...We reached his hometown around midnight, and his folks, simple, good-hearted people, insisted that I stay over until morning. They were delighted, incidentally, that he had been dismissed from the camp. His father had landed a job that very day and there was one waiting for him, the boy, at the same place.

  The kid and I slept in the same big old-fashioned bed that night. And, yes, I slept soundly. Why not? He was no criminal. Opportunity and necessity had conspired to make him one, but it was doubtful that he would ever again be gripped in such a sinister conjunction. Or, if he was, he had this recent experience to remember and to strengthen him.

  The next morning I drove the car into San Francisco and turned it over to the dealer-owner. My arrival interrupted a telephone call he was making.

  "Wired me you were coming in yesterday," he explained. "Figured you might have been hijacked, so I was putting out an alarm with the highway patrol."

  "I'm glad you didn't have to," I said.

  22

  The War Boom, or, rather, the boom incident to the impending war, was just getting under way in San Diego. There was still a great deal of unemployment. Prices, following the oldest of economic laws, were racing far ahead of wages.

  The seven of us—Mom, Freddie and my family—had to squeeze into a three-and-a-half room apartment. Freddie's job, as a switchboard operator, just about paid the rent on it. I was faced, then, with meeting our other living expenses, and I responded to the emergency quite ignobly.

  I had been proud of my research grant, one of the two awarded yearly in the United States. It was an unusual honor for a man without a college degree, and the field I had been assigned—the building trades—was an important one. The immediate financial return was not large, but that did not matter. A book was to be published from my findings; there would be substantial royalties. Not only that, but it was entirely possible that I might receive academic recognition—an honorary degree. Maybe even a doctorate. I, Jim Thompson, the stupidest guy in high school, the college misfit and bumbler—that Jim Thompson would no longer be, nor his painful memories and gnawing, growing self-doubts. And into his place would step a redoubtable 'Doctor' Thompson.

  Having always detested affectation, I would never have used the title. But I needed it for what it represented—to disprove the almost unbearable implications of a long list of failures. If, I told myself, I could just this once achieve a real distinction—an honor unmarred by fluke or my own shortcomings—if I could just this once do a job that allowed me to keep my pride, meanwhile rewarding me handsomely...

  Well, I got the bad news a few days after we settled in San Diego. The war boom, with its immense leavening of the nation's economy, had made or would make my material obsolescent. The six-room, five-thousand-dollar house permanently vanished. So also did the dollar-an-hour building craftsman. It was "extremely regrettable" and I was not to consider it a reflection on my research or writing...but the book could not be published.

  I started looking for a job.

  I could find nothing—no position that paid e
ven reasonably well or that carried any semblance of responsibility. I felt dispirited, licked, and looked it. Appetiteless and unable to sleep, I had begun to drink great quantities of cheap wine. The stuff told on my appearance. It also, so thoroughly had I become impregnated, smelted.

  I began applying for menial jobs '("Just anything at all, mister.").' I found one just in time to keep us from starving.

  One of the San Diego aircraft factories had begun an extensive expansion program. The building was being carried on simultaneously with the making of planes; and they needed a man to go around on his hands and knees, chipping up the spatterings of plaster and paint.

  I leaped at this "opportunity," to use the personnel manager's term. If I made good (his phrasing again) I would be promoted to a full-fledged janitor. For the present, I would draw twenty-five dollars a week.

  Well, poke fun at it though I do, the job was good for me. It kept me from drinking for at least eight hours a day. Through it, my interest in life was rearoused.

  Roaming the plant from one end to the other, I got a broad and original conception of the workings of a great factory. The snatches of conversation I overhead, the things I saw, began to intrigue me. I tried to resist, but the constant challenge to the imagination was too strong to be ignored. I had to—as we used to say down south—"get in the big middle" of things.

  One day I got up from the floor, wiped my hands against my pants and accosted the general manager. "I understand you're having a lot of trouble with your parts records," I said. "I'd like to have the job of straightening them out."

  He gave me a quick glance. Grinning out of the corner of his mouth, he started to turn away.

  "Give me a chance," I pleaded. "I've held some pretty important jobs in my time. What—"

  "Have, huh?" He gave me another look. "You wouldn't be an expert accountant would you? Or a CPA?"

  "Well, no, but—"

  "You're an engineer, then."

  "No, I'm—"

  "But, of course, you read blueprints?"

  "Well..."

  "Better get back to your work," he said.

  As soon as dinner was over that night, I hastened down to the public library. I drew out every book I could find on accounting and blueprint reading and took them home. I was still reading the next morning when my wife set toast and coffee before me.

  Red eyed, and with a top-heavy feeling in my head, I accosted the general manager again.

  "I can do any accounting job you've got around here, now," I said. "And I can sight-read blueprints. I sat up all night studying."

  Before he could turn away or order me back to my work, I reeled off the titles of the books I'd read. Some of them apparently struck a familiar chord, for he gave me an appraising look.

  "All right. What do you think our trouble is?"

  "Everything," I said. "Whoever installed your record system didn't know what they were doing."

  "That's pretty hard to believe. It was installed by a very good firm of industrial engineers."

  "Well, however good they were," I said, "they didn't know much about people. The system's good enough in theory, but it doesn't work out in practice. It overlooks the human element; it would take a corps of high-paid experts to keep it going. Now what you need is something simple, foolproof, and I can..."

  While he fidgeted, wavering between interest and irritation, I went on talking. In the end, doubtless as the only way he saw of shutting me up, he gave me my chance. I was put in the parts-control department for a week at my regular salary. During that week, I was to study the system and recommend changes which I felt would rectify the trouble.

  I did better than that. In less than a week, I invented and installed a new system. And I gave such a convincing demonstration of its advantages that the former involved and expensive system was permanently discarded.

  In the seven-odd months I remained at the factory, I was steadily promoted to better jobs and I received five pay increases. I quit at the end of that time.

  I had progressed to a point where I was in competition with the professionals of aircraft building, men who had made and were making it their life's work. I couldn't hope to compete with them; I had no strong desire to. After all, I had my own profession, and I had spent almost twenty years in it. I would have to capitalize on that experience, and quickly, or remain the rest of my life in a modestly padded rut.

  I had managed to labor out two short detective stories. With the slender proceeds from these, my wife and children returned to Nebraska for a visit, and I caught a bus for New York. I was confident that I could turn up some kind of writing or publishing job there. Also, by being able to talk directly with editors and publishers, I would improve my chances for doing some really worthwhile freelancing.

  I took a bargain-rate bus, and the fare included meals. You can probably guess what those meals were like. I became violently ill after the first one, nauseated and racked with dysentery. And if there is any worse complaint to have on a cross-country bus—with, of course, no toilet and infrequent rest stops—I cannot think what it is. I began buying my meals but the poison was already in me, and it continued to manifest itself, painfully and embarrassingly.

  The bus driver became annoyed, then infuriated. Due to my getting off "at every damned bush and signboard," he was hours behind in his schedule. The next time I made him stop, he declared, he would go off and leave me and I could by God walk to New York.

  "But I can't help it," I said. "I'm sick."

  "Well, yet yourself some medicine, then! Get a jug of whiskey an' sip on it—that oughta help. Do 'somethin',' for God's sake!"

  I bought a bottle of anti-colic compound. Its only effect was to put me to sleep...with almost disastrous results. So I tried sipping whiskey, and that did help. The griping stopped and stayed stopped—as long as I drank.

  We arrived in Oklahoma City the third day out, and I laid over there a day to see Pop. He could not believe it was I when I first walked in on him. The seven long, lonely months must have seemed like years to him, and I think he had begun to feel that we had abandoned him.

  I made him understand the truth: that his remaining here was due to circumstances beyond our control. He began to brighten up.

  "Well, it's all over now," he said. "You just help me get my things together, and I'll clear out of here right now."

  "Pop," I said. "I—"

  "Well?" He looked at me. "You're going to take me away, aren't you? Th-that's why you've come back?"

  I hesitated. Then, I said, yes, that was why. "But I can't go with you. Pop, I'm on my way to New York."

  "Oh?" He frowned troubledly. "Well, I guess I could travel by myself if—"

  "I've got a swell job there," I lied. "Give me a—well, just give me a month and I can send you to California by stateroom. Get you a nurse if you need one. But the best I can do now is a bus ticket."

  "I don't know," he said dubiously. "I'm afraid the doctor...I'm afraid I couldn't..." He sat back down on the bed. "You're sure, Jimmie? If I wait another month, you'll—?"

  "That's a promise. And I never break a promise."

  "No," he nodded, and his face cleared, "you never do...That'll be fine, then. I won't mind so much now that I know I'm really leaving."

  He was very weak, but organically, considering his age, his condition was at least fair. As to the acute mental depression he had sunk into, the doctor felt that this would be greatly relieved once he was back with his family.

  I stayed over in Oklahoma City that night. The next morning, leaving Pop happily laying his plans for his trip, I caught another bargain-rate bus for New York.

  I had not counted on having to buy my meals on the trip, nor, of course, the purchase of some twenty dollars' worth of whiskey. And I arrived in the big town with one lone quarter in my pocket. It was November of 1941, a cold, bitter night. I was still violently ill, and the cold seemed to congeal my California-thinned blood.

  I stood on a street corner for a time, shivering,
frightened by the crowds, wondering what to do. It was like a bad dream, like one of those nightmares where one is plunged into a strange world—where running is both imperative and impossible. I had to have rest. I had to have some whiskey. I had to, in a month's time—in less than a month, now...My family had not been in Nebraska for several years, and they wanted to make a long visit. So there was no big hurry where they were concerned. But Pop—there could be no delay there. I could not fail him.

  Meanwhile, first things first.

  My baggage, a briefcase and Gladstone, was worn but substantial looking. I had no trouble in checking in at a first-class hotel and charging a quart of whiskey to my room. I gave my quarter to the bellboy. Slugging down a few drinks, I tried to map out a plan of action.

  It would be impossible to hold a job until this bowel ailment was cleared up. At any rate, a job would not get me the money I had to have as quickly as I had to have it. I thought and thought, turning a thousand wild schemes over in my mind. And the one I finally settled on was probably the wildest of them all.

  I would write and sell a novel.

  This solution to my dilemma seemed even more preposterous the next morning. But I gave myself a pep talk—and several stiff drinks—and sallied forth into the city. After all, I was a writer, wasn't I? And publishers needed books, didn't they? And it was no crime to be broke, was it? So what was the difference if the proposition I had to make was just a trifle unusual?

  It made quite a bit of difference, it seemed. I never got past the receptionists at the first few publishers I called on. At the fifth—or maybe it was the sixth—an editor heard me out sympathetically, and suggested that I wire whatever friends or relatives I had for a ticket back to California. He lent me two dollars for this purpose. I spent it for breakfast, cigarettes and a few more drinks. Then, I tackled another publisher.

  This was a small but reputable firm which had published many first novels. I was promptly admitted to an editor's office. He listened to me incredulously, burst into laughter and took me in to see the publisher. That gentleman also listened, a frown of wonder creasing his forehead.