Some Came Running

by James Jones

  He left the American Legion early with two fifths of Imperial, Raymond did, and roared his Dodge out of town north on Route 1, heading for the West Lancaster road. But as soon as he was outside the city limits and across the new bypass grade they had had to stop on because of the weather, he stopped long enough to open one of the bottles and had himself a good stiff belly-burning drink and then put the open bottle between his knees. He could do that out here, where Sherm Ruedy had no jurisdiction. The two fifths had been a lucky windfall from running into the Old Man at the Legion and making a loan of a few bucks. The Old Man was a good guy, even if he was a town bum. Raymond had been hanging out at the Legion more, lately, since he had had the fight with Dewey, and had not been going to Smitty’s. He knew he upset them when he came around, especially Dewey, and he didn’t want to do that to them. And, Christ, it would be six months before he was ready for a fight like that again. It was the best fight they would see around Smitty’s for some time, by God. But there wasn’t any use going back around to Smitty’s this soon, when he only bothered them. Raymond knew he bothered them. It was because he was so dumb. But he couldn’t help it if he was just born dumb. Dewey always was the smart one, and he could have made good grades in school if he had only worked at it a little. He took after the Old Man; Raymond, he took after the Old Lady. She always had been dumb. So the best thing was just to stay away from them until they were both healed up. And that was why he had taken to hanging out at the Legion more. Raymond liked the Legion. He liked the old guys from the first war, like the Old Man. Raymond liked to sit around with them and get them to talking about their war and not say anything about his war. They had had a good war, the old guys, just as good as ours. And they never got to talk about it much anymore. They liked to talk about it, but they were shy. So he liked to sit around the outside of the poker game with his drink and get them started and then just listen to them. The old guys enjoyed it, and they knew he could appreciate the combat stories because he had seen a lot of combat himself. Hell, yes! Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Bougainville, the Bismarcks. But then some of the new guys had come in and spoiled it. They just wouldn’t talk around any of the new guys but him. So he had just got his two fifths and left quietly.

  Raymond drove on up Route 1, drinking and singing some of the old Army songs to himself as he went, and turned off at the West Lancaster road. But he did not go on into West Lancaster to any of the neon-lighted joints. He could see their lights, all happy looking, but just before you got to the buildings was a road right, back south, and Raymond turned off on it. This road led to the river bottoms, and this was Raymond’s secret. He laughed as he slowed down and took another drink.

  They always wondered where he went when he went roaring out of town in his old Dodge. They thought he was going to Terre Haute to the whorehouses. So he just let them think it. But he didn’t go to the whorehouses; he went to the river bottoms. And not a soul knew it! Raymond laughed to himself and had another drink.

  So he just fooled them all. The river bottoms was his secret. Every man ought to have one secret. And the river bottoms and the river, they did something to a man. They opened you all up. Maybe a smart man couldn’t do it; he’d get to thinking too much. But a dumb man like him could. He could sit and look at that river hours and hours. It just flowed on and on, so smooth. Old branches and cans and bottles and once in a while a piece of an old boat. They just came floating along and then out of sight. You could almost think there was something down underneath pulling them along so fast. And you just sat and watched. Until you couldn’t see them anymore. It was wonderful.

  Raymond laughed happily and looked out at the white snow-covered fields. He decided he would go down to the old Rivertown ferry tonight; he hadn’t been there for a long time. She’d be iced up tonight. Ahead of him the road from West Lancaster deadended into another gravel road and he turned back east again toward the river.

  Hell, he knew this country like the back of his hand, Raymond thought. He had been coming over here in the bottoms ever since he learned to drive and to sneak the Old Man’s car out. In just about a mile now he would hit the shelf, the ledge between the high bottoms and the low bottoms. It stretched off to the south and to the north as far as you could see and right on its lip the road forked, and below it the low bottoms ran on down to the river; and above it the high bottoms ran on back to the higher ground of the prairies. When he reached it, Raymond stopped the car and had another good drink and sat for a while, looking in the moonlight out across the uneven little fields of the low bottoms to the heavy tree line of the river. It never failed to astonish him how far you could see, clear over into Indiana, from the shelf. When he reached for the bottle, he was surprised to find it was almost empty, so he killed it and opened up the other one. Then he started down the incline, on the left fork, toward the old Rivertown ferry.

  Almost at once, the gravel petered out from under him and Raymond laughed to himself softly. He was really getting down in here now. The other fork, the one that ran south along the lip of the shelf, was the main used one. It would take you all the way to Israel if you follered it, and along this road—up there at the top of the shelf—was where all the farmhouses were, where they were safe when the river overflowed the bottoms. But this fork; this fork was dirt, almost as soon as you got down the sloping shelf. Nobody ever come down here, except the farmers when they come to plow their low bottoms fields. Raymond laughed and took another drink out of the new bottle and guided the Dodge along the frozen ruts. Sure as hell was cold out. Yes, sir, he was really getting down in here now. There was a place along here where you had to ford a little creek on the shale rock, then you had to bear left right after that at a dirt fork.

  When he reached the riverbank, he slowed the car almost to a crawl. The road, little more than a sandy track now, curved around behind some trees; it had used to go right down the bank then to the ferry, but now the river had washed away the road, and there was a ten-foot bank straight down to the water. You could drive right off of it if you didn’t know about it or weren’t careful. Down in around here, a fellow had to be real careful.

  Taking the bottle with him, Raymond climbed out and stood on the sandy frozen ground looking out over the bank at the river. It was frozen clear over all right, or at least it was as far as he could see it. He took another big drink and stood and looked at it some more, but finally the cold drove him back to the car. Clutching the open bottle between his knees, he turned the car around, and a sense of awe and wonder gripped him at the thought of all those hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people who had crossed the old-time river on that old Rivertown ferry, as he drove off back the way he had come. But instead of going on back west to the shelf, he turned off left—south—again on another little track through the fields. If he followed this track, it would bring him back to the shelf road further down about five miles in a big circle.

  Yes, sir. All those people. Hell, he knew this country like the back of his hand, he thought, and Raymond laughed. He listened to him, listened to Raymond laughing. That Raymond. He was a bum. And dumb. But he liked him. He liked Raymond. Him and Raymond had been coming over here together ever since Raymond was a kid. He bet there wasn’t a man in the country knew the river bottoms between Israel and West Lancaster as well as Raymond did. And he had shown him all of it.

  That Dewey, Raymond thought thinking about the Legion and the old guys and the new guys and their wars. He laughed and took another drink as the car bounced along the track. That Dewey sure was a rough one. By God, he had sure broken his goddamned nose, by God! And he was just as smart as he was rough. He had been right about the war, too. Of course, Raymond was right, too: The war was sad. When guys got killed and all. But it was more happier than it was sad. Of course, you were scared of getting killed, and you hated to see your buddies get it; but you were shooting Japs all the time, and you were living out in the open, with your gun and your C rations. Raymond had never been healthier in his life than he had during
the war. And that wasn’t all of it—because in between campaigns, you got to go back to New Zealand or Australia where everything was wide open and there was plenty of women and liquor, and then off you’d go to a new campaign again. Hell, yes! War wasn’t sad at all. Old Dewey was right, all right. He was a smart one, all right. Raymond laughed softly to himself and took another drink.

  Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes. Now how the hell did that tree get there? He must have got off the track and into some damned field. Now what do you think of that? Oh, Raymond took the low road, and almost hit a tree. Oh, you take the high road, and I’ll take the low road. Hell, yes! Laughing softly to himself, he corked the bottle and lay down in the front seat, thinking about Dewey and how he had broke his damned nose, and laughing happily for himself and Dewey. He’d get out of this old field tomorrow. Suddenly, he wished Dewey was here with him and they were getting drunk together, then they could talk about all the things they used to do together when they were kids. That Dewey. He sure had one hell of a fine left jab. Hell, yes! Closed his eyes up tighter’n a drum. He couldn’t see a thing.

  It was Hubie who phoned them up the news. The farmer who had found him had called the sheriff, and the sheriff had just now brought the body in. Everybody uptown was talking about it.

  “Where’s Dewey?” he said. “I got to find Dewey before somebody else tells him.”

  Neither Dave nor ’Bama had the slightest idea where he was, but it was not long after that that the two of them came walking in from town. It was clear from the look on Dewey’s face that Hubie had already told him.

  “I never should have made him give up,” Dewey said, staring at them, his blue eyes bright with pain. “I should have quit, when he couldn’t see anymore.”

  “I keep tellin him that that didn’t have nothin to do with it,” Hubie said. “Hell, I’ve seen Raymond make Dewey give up two dozen times; and I’ve seen Dewey make him give up at least that many. I keep tellin him, but he won’t listen to me. You guys tell him.”

  “Hubie’s right,” ’Bama said. “I’ve seen both of you make the other one give up. That didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.”

  Dewey would only shake his head disconsolately. “I should never have made him admit he’d had enough.”

  The four of them sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee, since nobody—excepting only Dewey—much felt like having a drink, talking about Raymond, holding a sort of private wake as it were, interspersed with long periods of silence. Into these silences, Dewey would every so often say his one single, painful sentence, shaking his head, “I never should have made him give up.”

  And equally often, at other moments, he would start up, and say vaguely, “I think I’ll have a drink.” But one or another of them would always talk him out of it. They managed to keep him from drinking anything for almost two hours. But finally, he simply told them all to go to hell and would not be brooked any longer.

  “Goddam it, I’m going to have a drink!” he insisted, his blue eyes blazing. And when nobody refused him flatly, he got himself a bottle and set it on the table and proceeded to get blind staggering drunk. By now, Wally Dennis had heard the news and come down to join them, and the four of them sat up with Dewey while he drank. Finally, he took his bottle and went off alone into the front room and lay down on the couch, saying almost nothing except his one haunted sentence over and over again: “I never should have made him give up.”

  Later on in the day, some of the women began to arrive: Doris Fredric, Lois, Hubie’s girl, Martha. Lois went in alone and tried to soothe him, but Dewey only cursed her savagely and told her to leave him alone. Finally, between all of them, they got him upstairs into one of the bedrooms, still hugging his bottle—a new one, now. He did not weep, or show any other emotion, except to curse them when they tried to make him stop, and tell them over and over that he should never have made Raymond admit he was whipped. He stayed drunk for two whole days until the funeral, unbathed, disheveled, not even taking off his clothing he dozed in, wandering around the house disconsolately. But when it came time for his brother’s funeral, he came out into the kitchen, a gaunt spectral broken-nosed and red-eyed shape, and announced that he was ready to go.

  “My God! You can’t go lookin like that!” Hubie pleaded with him. “Why don’t you stay here? I’ll stay with you. Or Lois will.”

  “Sure; I will,” Lois said.

  “I’m going!” Dewey said.

  “Well, at least let us get you cleaned up,” ’Bama said. “You look like the wrath of God now.”

  “No!” Dewey said. “I’m going like I am! To hell with it!” He paused, and peered at them drunkenly. “I never should have made him give up,” he said.

  All of them tried to reason with him, but Dewey was indomitable. So in the end, they bundled him up into one of Dave’s topcoats and, drunk, disheveled, gaunt-faced, red-eyed, and unshaven, they half-carried him to Raymond’s funeral, arriving en masse and sitting down at the back, a loyal delegation of the town bums, so to speak, true to their own.

  “Raymond would have liked it better this way, anyway,” Dewey hiccupped brokenly.

  The funeral was in the dinky little Church of Christ, Saved, out in the east end which Dewey’s mother belonged to, and their entrance there and Dewey’s appearance made a lot less of a furor than it would have at, say, the Episcopal or the Methodist churches. These were people who were not unused to the idea of a man getting wildly drunk to relieve his pain at a funeral. The sermon was preached by the thin elderly Church of Christ, Saved, pastor; and it was not very long. Mostly, the pastor dwelt upon Raymond’s war record. There wasn’t very much else for him to dwell upon. Afterwards, Dave and ’Bama supported Dewey to go up for the traditional last look at the corpse. Dewey stared down at it for a moment, his blue eyes wild, then he walked on quietly. He insisted on going out to the cemetery, too, and stood hatless in the cold between Dave and ’Bama in Dave’s topcoat, and when that was all over, he shook hands politely with the pastor, and then they took him home. After a couple of more days of drinking ’Bama’s whiskey, during which somebody was with him most of the time, he allowed himself to be gradually sobered up.

  His eyes bloodshot but clear, he came out into the kitchen and ate the first food he had eaten in almost five days. “What the hell,” he croaked, his new, malevolent face snarling at them from behind the sideways, knotted nose. “There ain’t nothing left in this town anymore, anyway. There never was much. Let’s you and me go back and join the Army again, Hubie,” he said to his sidekick. “What do you say? That’s where we belong anyway. The damned Army’s the only home we ever had.”

  Hubie, who was sitting across the table from him, merely laughed. “The goddam Army was never no home to me,” he said. But six months later, after hashing and rehashing it over and over again and arguing and cursing each other, out of their new bitterness, as they worked less and less and drank and talked more and more—finally, that was what they did—leaving their two girlfriends callously to their own devices. But before that happened, a lot of other things had happened, too.

  Dave, who had watched the whole sequence of events concerning Raymond from the position of sort of an innocent bystander, in between his more and more numerous visits over to see Gwen, found he could not overcome a vague disquieting feeling—which he was sure all the others felt, also—that somehow or other they all had somehow failed Raymond. Certainly, he knew that Dewey felt it—although Dewey never mentioned his brother again after he sobered up after the funeral. Certainly, too, from that time on was when everything began to go bad: From the time that Mildred Pierce married, and Raymond Cole died, which was, of course, also the time that he himself had given up finally on Gwen, the centrifugal force that seemed to hold them all together had begun to dissipate and fail. And a long time afterwards, he came to believe that if Dewey and Hubie had never gone back to the Army, he himself would never have married Ginnie Moorehead.

  Because after all, Dave thought,
all that time, Wally was still running around with and sleeping with the Junoesque Rosalie Sansome, wasn’t he? and he hadn’t married her, had he?

  Chapter 55

  WALLY FRENCH DENNIS had no intention of marrying Rosalie Sansome. He had no intention of marrying anybody. The Christmas vacation with Dawnie had proved that to him. Whatever qualms he may once have had over her going away to school, he had been completely absolved of them during her Christmas vacation home from Western Reserve.

  He did not know what exactly had happened to her—to Dawn. It was not something he could point to with his finger and say: This is what she is doing to me. It wasn’t like that at all. If it had been, he would have felt a lot easier about all of it, and would have had a much surer sense of control. But instead, he was not even sure he was not imagining all of it; and (by analyzing himself shrewdly) he came to the conclusion that because of this, there existed in him this certain uneasy guilt caused by a reasonable doubt. That, of course, placed him in an untenable position: Maybe he was wrong about her, he would find himself thinking. The result was, he would repeatedly find himself trying desperately to reach her, to break through that invisible wall—while she, aloof, uninvolved (quite unlike himself) merely remained indifferent and untouched.