Rock Island Line

by David Rhodes

  “He’s got a shiv,” said Earl. “Don’t look now, you fool! My guess is he’s on to us, and is trying to draw us into making a mistake and challenging him here in the open where he’ll have a chance to use his gun.”

  “Come on, he doesn’t have a gun,” said Marty.

  “Don’t kid yourself, buster. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had his cat’s claws dipped in poison either, and trained to hand command. We’ve already underestimated him once, let’s not make the same mistake twice—it might be our last.”

  “He wouldn’t kill us.”

  “Not if we outfigure him. Did either of you guys bring guns?” They shook their heads. “OK, good. Too many guns is a mistake. Besides, it’s better you don’t have any. An amateur with a gun is a danger to himself.”

  “Look, Earl, I could start to resent—” began Al, who, though a year younger, had a good physical sense of himself.

  “Skip it. No offense. Look.” He pulled out a .38—the kind usually worn by policemen—from under his coat where he’d had it stuck in his pants. The sight of it held the other two in a spell. July left for Pine Street, hoping to have the same luck there that he’d had the day before.

  “Is it loaded?”

  “Of course it is. It’s a danger to ever leave a gun unloaded. If you know it’s always ready to fire, then you’ll never make a mistake—thinking the chamber’s empty.”

  A little after nine July saw the pretzel man across the street and went over to get one, carrying Butch because the traffic was heavy. Waiting for his turn, he sold a paper, then two and then three. He set Butch down on the sidewalk and began making change. He sold another. His turn for a pretzel came up and he stepped forward: “Just one,” put on mustard, hesitated, then decided against a hot chestnut and paid a nickel. When he walked back out of the small knot of people he didn’t see Butch anywhere. He called and looked around the corner, and up and down the curb. Then he checked the ledges and basement window casings. He began to panic. “Hey, mister. You seen a cat—a black-and-orange one?”

  “No, sorry.”

  He looked wildly out into the street. Nothing . . . just a wet paper bag which deceived him for a second. He crossed in the traffic to get to the other side. A car honked furiously and someone shouted at him.

  “Hey, mister, you seen a black-and-orange cat?”

  “No, sorry. How about a paper?”

  “Sure.”

  “Here, keep the change. What color did you say?”

  But July was gone, running to look around another corner. Then he crossed the street again and began knocking on doors. “Have you seen a black-and-orange cat? It disappeared just a couple of minutes ago, right out in front of your building.”

  “No, sorry.”

  He looked for over an hour, and stopped a patrol car—despite his fear of being arrested for something—and both men got out and helped him look, and let him listen while they called in Butch’s description to the department. They said they’d look for him from their car. A half-hour later they returned, driving at a snail’s pace, and told him he might wait until the afternoon and go down to the city pound and see if Butch was brought in—and why wasn’t he in school? July thanked them and made up a lie about his parents having permission for him to be out until after the noon hour and went away as quickly as he could without running.

  At one o’clock he was given directions to the city pound, got on a bus and went down. The sight of all the animals howling and looking through their wire cages in hopeless, doleful despair made him begin crying. But he stopped soon after, and resolved never to again. The manager talked to him and informed him that there were no more cats to be seen there today, and no, it was impossible that they might already have disposed of Butch—and wouldn’t. He could come back every day for the next year, if he wanted to, and check. Their policy was to keep any animal they brought in off the street for at least a week before they put it to sleep.

  July went back to Pine again and resumed looking, having no real hope of finding him, but afraid to return to his room alone. A young boy stood in the middle of the block. July approached him; but before he could ask if maybe he hadn’t seen a black-and-orange cat, the boy said menacingly: “Hey, white boy, I’ve got somethin’ for ya.” And he pushed a folded sheet of paper, quite soiled and rumpled, into July’s hand and ran off down the street, twice throwing back the finger. The letter was put together the way magazines always showed threatening letters—words from a newspaper pasted together—the effect being quite impersonal and sinister: If you want your cat back. Alive.

  Come to locust parking lot, 23rd. St.

  At 12 midnight unarmed and alone.

  We know all about you

  He read it over to himself several times. It didn’t seem to make any sense. It was as if bad luck or fate had written him a letter threatening him even further; that is, there was a knowledge somewhere that couldn’t reasonably exist. He almost wouldn’t believe what it meant. He put it in his pocket and went home. For over an hour he sat on the bench above his room and watched the trolleys. He thought he heard his name called from down in the tunnels, but it was just the groan of the tracks and the howling of the wind. Then he slipped down under and into his room. Sitting in total darkness, holding his mother’s pistol, he thought: We know all about you.

  His terror began to rise. He lit his lamp and set it in front of the door, letting the flames flicker in his mind. He became more afraid and the terror rose again. He became incapable of thought. Words refused to form, or when they did their meaning would be drained from them like madmen’s talking. Then the stranger inside him came very far up and he began watching himself from the inside being afraid, whipping the terror still further, looking at it like a spot of bright flickering light, getting brighter and brighter, flaring up and going down. And then ten minutes after he was sure he could take no more the specter came in.

  July knew he was a specter because to enter he didn’t have to use the door; he came through it. His hair was as black as a raven. His hands and arms were like brass. His fathomless eyes glowed with compassion.

  July’s terror subsided. The stranger inside him sank back down. A peacefulness overtook him. “I was so afraid,” he said. “They have my cat.”

  He took the note out of his pocket and handed it to the specter, who took it and read it, then let it fall between his fingers as if it were of no importance at all.

  “There’s nothing we can do about it now,” he said, and his voice was strong and gentle. “I wonder if you couldn’t put that gun down, or at least stop pointing it at me.”

  July taped it under the table. “What am I going to do?” he asked.

  “When the time comes you’ll simply do it,” said the visitor. “Have you put away your two dollars today?”

  “No.”

  “Well, why don’t you do that? Maybe even count your money?”

  “OK,” said July. “But I don’t have any bills—no, wait, yes I do.” He uncovered the jar and added two dollars to it. Then carefully took out the whole wad, squared it up evenly and began counting it with pleasant, lingering deliberation.

  “How much do you have there?”

  “Wait, I’m not finished yet . . . one hundred . . . and twenty . . . four dollars. Wow! I didn’t think I had that much. I thought maybe a hundred fifteen, but one twenty-five, that’s almost one fifty!”

  “Better put it back now,” said the specter.

  July agreed and buried it, smoothed out the bed and sat back on his chair.

  “What’ll we do now?” asked the specter.

  “We could play cards. Do you know crazy eights?”

  “Not really. But I don’t care to play. Why don’t you play and I’ll watch? I’d enjoy that.”

  “I’ll play solitaire, three-at-a-time turn up.”

  “Fine.”

  July played three games. “Bad luck,” the comforting specter said each time. Sometimes he pointed out plays July’d overlooked, or commen
ted on things like, “You’ve got to get that eight out of the hole.” Finally, July won. Then the specter said, “Why don’t you lie down and go to sleep for a while? What time is it?”

  “Seven fifteen,” said July.

  “Well, I’ll set the alarm for ten thirty. That’ll give you plenty of time. But if you’re going to be able to do anything you’ll need to be rested, or your nerves will collapse just when you need them.”

  July got under his blankets fully dressed and closed his eyes, then reopened them. “Say,” he said. “If you’re who you are, how can I be who I am?”

  “What a question,” laughed the specter and his face glowed even brighter and July looked away for fear the radiance of it would lull him to sleep and he’d miss the answer. “And since you put it that way, I guess all I can say is you’re not.” July closed his eyes. “That is, if one of us were in question, I’m afraid it would have to be you.” July fell asleep.

  When he awoke he was alone. He reached behind the clock and unset the alarm, though it had not yet gone off. With the lamp lit, he discovered it to be just several minutes after ten. He went out and passed water on the ground; then he came back in, shut the door and began to contemplate what he was going to do.

  Earl, Al and Marty arrived at the parking lot a quarter of an hour before midnight. Marty carried the cardboard box with the cat in it. The lot was asphalt, and large enough for fifty cars. A ticket booth sat at the entrance, closed from nine to six thirty. There were twenty-odd cars parked haphazardly. The corner they chose was empty for two stalls each way and was at the back of the lot. Between them and the alley was a chain-link fence. Earl took the box from Marty and set it down against the brick side of the building and fence.

  “Now, let’s run over again what we’re going to do.”

  “He’ll never come. Let’s wait awhile, then let the cat out and go home.”

  “Don’t worry, he’ll come. Now, with the cat in the corner he’ll have to come into the clear, here away from the cars. We’ll see him as soon as he comes in anyway and I’ll have plenty of time to get ready.”

  “I don’t know,” said Al. “We could get in a lot of trouble for this.”

  “Naw.”

  “As soon as we see him you two should get behind that Buick. I’ll get behind this car over here and call to him and tell him to come into the corner where he can see his cat. Then, after he’s beside the box I’ll call out and tell ’im I’ve got a gun and to throw all weapons down.”

  “What if he doesn’t?” asked Al.

  “He will: I’ll tell him that if he doesn’t I’ll fill the box with lead.”

  “Holy Jesus, we could get in trouble for this. What if we kill him?”

  “They’d get us for sure.”

  “No they wouldn’t,” said Earl. “They’d never join us with a motive. There’s no way they can find you if they don’t have a motive to go on.”

  “But we’ve got a motive—why else would we be here?” Al said.

  “That’s the way I see it too, Earl. Let’s turn the cat loose and go home. This whole thing’s gotten out of hand. Fuck, if you want to fight him, just go up and bust him in the mouth. What are we doing here anyway? Really, what are we doing here?” He tried to laugh then, to offset the whine that had crept into his voice, but he couldn’t pull it through and lost Al, who for his own pride’s sake couldn’t condone such an obvious display of shameful emotions.

  “A grudge isn’t a motive,” said Earl. “Besides, what’s to worry about?”

  “Say, if you aren’t going to use your gloves, Earl, could I put ’em on? It’s freezing out here.”

  Earl gave them to him. “Then while I’ve got him covered, you two make sure he’s clean—he’ll be helpless with the flashlight in his face—and I’ll come in and take ’im.”

  Then they went over it again, and crossed to the entrance to look down the street. Earl took his gloves back and they returned to their cover and talked through the plan again. Changing it a little, he decided Al should hold the flashlight and stay back away from July when they searched him, thereby making sure of a good shot. When July’s silhouetted figure stepped into the lot they all froze.

  July was as afraid as he could ever remember being, and nothing within the realm of complete and utter destruction would have surprised him. He half expected all of the car headlights to flick on and come moving toward him, or hear his cat’s final cry.

  “I’ve got a gun!” Earl sang out. “Come over here into the corner. I’ve got a gun, remember.” July went over, beyond the cars obstructing his view of the box. Why can’t I be braver? he asked himself. Why do I have to be so frightened? Please be all right, Butch. He walked faster. “All right, hold up,” came the voice. “The cat’s in the box. Throw down your weapons, Marine boy, or I’ll fill the box with thirty-eight slugs.” Pause. July was too afraid to talk or move. “OK. Go search him.” A flashlight came on and aimed at his face. He could barely make out two figures coming toward him. “Remember, I’ve got a gun,” came the menacing voice again. He controlled himself no longer. The urge to run overcame him. He grabbed up the box, put it under his left arm, threw the handful of gravel rocks from his right hand at the light and ran.

  “That son of a bitch hit me with a rock!”

  “Get him!” shouted Earl, too excited to begin running himself. “Get him! He’s afraid! He’s scared to death! Get him! Get him!”

  “He hit me with a rock—shoot him!”

  “Get him!” They began running after him.

  “Shoot him!” cried Marty and Al together.

  “Never mind that. I don’t have any bullets. God, was he scared! Get him!”

  Running with the box under his arm slowed July down considerably. He lost more of his lead when four or five teenagers tried to stop him, figuring him to be a thief. Down an alley, back onto the street. He could hear their footsteps gaining on him, but there was nothing he could do. He heard them gasping for breath right behind him, then felt them grabbing hold of his shoulders. He dodged to the right, freeing himself for a moment, and continued running. But he couldn’t get away and they forced him down into a basement staircase. Frantically, he tried the door at the bottom, but it was locked. His three assailants were coming down, one of them saying, “Stay back, stay back, he’s mine. I’ll take ’im. Boy, is he scared!”

  The realization that July was frightened—terrified of them—brought Earl such joy that he wanted to laugh out loud. His desire to beat July to a pulp so completely overcame him that his whole body seemed to be shaking and throbbing as he came down the steps. But he didn’t comprehend the extent to which July was afraid, or how badly he wanted to get up the stairs and out onto the street again. July was so afraid of being beaten to death at the bottom of the steps and left there by the locked door that, without a thought, he opened the box, picked up the only thing he could find and with a broken brick in each hand ran up the stairs.

  Earl was hit three times in the face and once in the chest. He sank down and felt feet clambering over him, and, shaking with the ecstatic memory of July’s fear, feeling the trapped laughter swinging around him, he passed out. Al was hit once, ripping his nose open, and came out of the stairwell with Marty breathing down his neck, running. July, with his cat beside him, came up onto the street, let the bricks fall, turned and ran with Butch in the opposite direction as though the Lords of Death were after them, Butch running with his tail flat out behind him, right down the middle of the deserted street.

  Once back in their room, July sat for a long time in his chair staring at the table in front of him, where lay the remains of his successful game of solitaire.

  Even after he’d caught his breath and the adrenaline had melted back down the sides of its pot, he remained wrapped in thought. How could he accept his own cowardliness? The memory of the uncontrollable fear—if there had been a cliff there instead of a locked door, he would’ve gone over, like a herd of stupid sheep—made him utterly ashamed of hi
mself, and in his own eyes he was the lowest of the low. All honor cast to the winds. Coward, coward, coward! he silently screamed at himself. What would his visitor of earlier that night have thought of him if he had known that there was such an emotion in him? Clearly, if he had known, he never would have come. July wished for a second chance. He pictured what he would do. Standing up against the fence with the flashlight in his face, he pulled out his gun and coolly, gloriously, let the bullets fly in all directions, was hit once in the arm, then the leg, sank down on his knees, let loose another two shots, killing them, and was taken away in an ambulance with police sirens.

  No, it hadn’t been like that. It could never be like that. He’d had his one chance and had muffed it. Coward, coward, coward. Weak, weak, weak.

  Butch jumped up on his lap and raised him partially out of his thoughts. “Ho, ho,” he said, pointing his finger into Butch’s fur. “There you have it—mugged. How’d ja like that, huh?” Butch looked at his finger in contempt. “Ho, ho, I saw how scared you were—‘After that cat, boys. After him!’” Butch looked as if it were all beneath him. That’s fine for you, thought July—being afraid doesn’t mean anything to you; you’re just a cat.

  He fed him the last of the food in the can, and tossed it out the door because it was beginning to smell.

  The next morning found him frightened again. He’d not stopped to think before going to sleep that he’d have to either return to the same place to pick up his papers, where he couldn’t avoid meeting with the very people who had threatened him—the reasons for which he partially understood and partially didn’t—or give up his job. He lay under the blankets and didn’t want to get up. But after he’d thought about it and seen that those were the only alternatives he had, he went off to the pickup, leaving Butch behind in his box.