In a sense he did get away with it. He had very good lawyers. He was sentenced to from five to twenty years, which means he'll be out again in five even if his appeal fails. This is supposed to teach him the error of his ways. I hope it will. But I wonder. Watching his face, trying to penetrate to the strange cold recesses behind it, I wonder if anything ever will. I have a curious feeling of defeat.
So that's that. My personal troubles in this connection are over. My wife and I have a finer relationship based on what we went through together. My leg is pretty well healed up now, and I only limp a bit in wet weather. The doctor says even this will clear up in time, or almost. And after all, what are four or five months out of a lifetime?
Artie Clymer is dead, but he didn't amount to much, anyway. Some other tramps got beaten up. And Finelli, a good man, is dead, but men die every day, and the water closes over their heads, and the world goes on. And what are you going to do about it?
Apparently nothing.
But, damn it, something ought to be done.
I don't have the answer. I do have two kids, and it's up to me to see that they grow up to be decent members of society. Maybe if I realized that Pudge had an evil kink in him that no ordinary training could eradicate, I would be reluctant, too, to face it. But I think I would have to, remembering that night when I lay in the weeds on Williams Avenue.
I think sooner or later we'll have to find the answer. Because we all live closer together now, more interdependent and intertwined than ever before, and the tiger is flourishing among us.
Every day you read of his casual violence and its victims. But, of course, you don't think you'll be the next one. I didn't think so, either.
The Tiger Among Us Page 19
