Strange Fugitive

by Morley Callaghan

  “You want to watch your step, Jimmie, he may be.”

  “I really don’t want to be bothered with her at all,” he said. “The big guy’s only hobby is making simply splendid beer. I go up and drink his beer until I get woozy-eyed. Out of respect to the beer I’m polite and even distant to the lady.”

  “How does she take it?”

  “Awful.”

  “I guess she likes loving,” Harry said thoughtfully, thinking of Anna.

  “Does she? Do I like mushrooms?”

  “Do you like mushrooms too?”

  “Dooze I, I should say I dooze.”

  “I think I like them more than anything.”

  “Me too, more than anything.”

  “I like a pan full, fried in lots of butter and gobs of them in my mouth until it’s so full I can hardly close it.”

  “Hell, with toast. We used to have them in the back garden.”

  The one o’clock whistle blew. They moved briskly. Harry looked up at the unbroken grayness of the sky. A boxcar had to be loaded with six-by-ones before the rain started. It was a sultry-hot, and sticky day.

  He got the gang working hard. The air was so hot in the kiln it was hard to breathe. With three men he went into the kiln to push out the big pile of lumber piled high on the steel rollers.

  It was easy going into the kiln because you just had to lift your feet carefully, keeping close to the wall but you had to step gingerly pushing the pile out, watching not to trip on the beams and the pipes on the ground, keeping your legs away from the roller. Harry and Jimmie were behind the pile pushing. The Swede and Scottie and the three Italians were pushing from the side of the kiln.

  “Heave ho, let ’er go?” Harry yelled, bending his back, and Jimmie bent his back and they heaved steadily, the rollers moving slowly. Harry, pushing, looked along the narrow space between the pile and the kiln wall, over bent backs of men to the streak of daylight near the doors. The pile was hardly moving. Harry knew some of them weren’t putting their backs to it. “For the love of Mike, push,” he yelled, getting sore, pushing hard and sweating. Jimmie was pushing hard, but two of them couldn’t do it. “You’re not a cripple, Scottie,” Harry said quietly. The pile moved slowly and Harry knew the big wop, Tony, was only half trying. The lousy skunk, holding things up. Tony, his body pressed flat against the pile, pretended he was shoving. “You’ll push or get the hell out, Tony,” he said. The pile moved slowly out from the dark kiln.

  Harry looked grimly at Tony, who stared back stupidly, leaning against the pile. “Jees’, it’s hot, boss,” Tony said smiling.

  “Get in the car, Jimmie,” Harry said. “You get up on the pile, Tony. We got to get this done quick.”

  Scottie and the Swede adjusted the rollers so Tony, on top of the pile, could swing a board loose, onto the rollers sloping down to the open door of the boxcar.

  The men worked rapidly. Harry saw that Tony was working all right; things were going smoothly. It would not rain for maybe three-quarters of an hour. He turned away from the pile and took a step forward. Someone yelled, he ducked and felt a sharp hot cut on his heel that became a dull ache. A board from the top of the pile had fallen on his heel. He knelt on the ground on one knee. Jimmie Nash jumped down from the boxcar.

  “You better rub it.”

  “Holy smoke, it’s stinging.”

  “It might have hurt your leg for fair.”

  “Jees’ ya, how on earth . . .”

  “It swung over the rollers.”

  Harry got up, limping around on one foot, biting his lower lip and swearing softly to himself. Scottie looked at him stolidly. Tony, up on the pile, put out the palm of his hand, to see if it had started to rain. Saws in the milling plant screeched, tearing through wood.

  Harry knelt down, fingering his heel tenderly. He heard Tony say in hardly more than a whisper, “bastard.”

  He looked up quickly. Tony’s head was turned away toward the sloping roof of the flour elevator.

  Harry started to climb the pile. Tony, kneeling on his hands and knees, looked down at him, staring stupidly. He got up suddenly, stepped over to the other side of the pile and dropped down heavily. Harry dropped down. Going around the pile he saw Tony standing opposite the kiln, watching him doubtfully.

  “I’ll get ya, ya skunk,” Harry said.

  Tony backed into a pile of loose lumber, tripped, sprawled, got up quickly. Harry moving in a circle, edged around, backing Tony into the kiln. He’d get him, smash him. Tony stood still, wetting his lips, staring obliquely at the ground, shaking his head slightly, his mouth opening as Harry crouched, ready to spring.

  Tony took one step backward and Harry poked him three times in the jaw, shooting his head back each time so the chin stuck out horizontally. The big wop fell sideways and tried to crawl away from the kiln. Harry jumped on him, his knees hitting him on the chest and swinging his fist to an ear. The wop shook his head, rolling until they banged against the kiln wheel-track, and sank his teeth into Harry’s shoulder, trying to smother him with his arms and big shoulders. Punching and gouging Harry worked loose. Get his head against the rail, bang it, hang it, the skunk! Harry got up on one knee. The gang stood a few feet away, watching silently. Two men from the milling plant were standing with them. They should have stopped it but stood there, not caring what happened. Harry rubbed his heel, looking indifferently at the big Italian who moaned, trying to get up on his knees.

  Hohnsburger, the superintendent, came hurrying along the platform. Harry brushed his overalls with his hands and straightened his shirt. He waited for Hohnsburger to speak.

  “What’s the matter, Trotter?”

  “Tony threw a board at me and called me a bastard.”

  Hohnsburger looked at Tony sprawled clumsily on the ground, then his face got red.

  “Don’t you think the car’s got to be filled? Don’t you think the job matters?”

  “I know that.”

  “Sure you know it.”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake man.”

  “There’s no use talking here. Come on along to the office.”

  Harry felt a raindrop on his cheek. He wiped it away with his finger. There was a muddy smudge across his cheek. His shirt was torn open, the buttons ripped off down to his belt. A bruise on his left cheek. The men, whispering, watched them, the Swede and two Italians feeling happy. Jimmie Nash leaned against the boxcar. Big Tony got up slowly, squatting on a beam, holding his head in his hands. Harry limped badly, following Hohnsburger along the platform to the office.

  In the office Hohnsburger sat down heavily, tilting back in his chair. He wiped his forehead with a large clean handkerchief, tipped his straw hat on the back of his head. He sneered at Trotter.

  “You’re a hell of a foreman,” he said, working himself up slowly.

  “Now listen, why don’t you try and get things straight. I tell ya Tony threw a board at me. He might have broken my leg. What in hell do you think I am? Would it have done any good calling you?”

  “Don’t shout at me, I tell you.”

  “I’m not shouting.”

  “You are, I tell ya.”

  “All right then, let it go at that.”

  “Let it go at that. Not on your life. Why should Tony throw a plank at you! Why the hell didn’t you fire him and let it go at that?”

  “That wouldn’t have done me any good.”

  “Well, I’m fed up. In the last six months since you took over the foreman’s job we’ve had about six compensation cases, men getting hurt and so on, if you’re not thinking of yourself, you’re trying to kill the men. You’re going to quit.”

  “You’re damn right I am, Hohnsburger, I wouldn’t work around you again for a million dollars. You’re low. You’re rotten. You’re the guy I should poke.”

  Hohnsburger stood up, six feet and solid. They looked at each other, hating.

  “I got to give you a week’s notice,” he said. “But I’ll give you a week’s pay instead. See? I’ll fi
x it up at the time office.”

  Harry stepped out of the office, slamming the door. Oh, the lousy-livered rotter, if he could just sock him right on the nose. He walked along the platform from the office, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched up. He was glad to feel the rain on his face. The gang near the boxcar had taken shelter in the kiln, and though he couldn’t see them, he knew they were watching him. The lumberyard often smelled good in the rain, the fresh lumber. Some lumber had a bad smell. Jimmie Nash was standing alone in the rain near the boxcar.

  “What’s up?” he said quietly.

  “I’m quitting.”

  “What’s the matter, trouble with Hohnsburger?”

  “He’s low. I’ll see ya again,” he said in an offhand, friendly way.

  Harry walked over to his compartment in the warehouse, to change his clothes. He dressed carelessly without thinking of being neat and tidy, his thoughts disordered. He was breathing heavily. He stood up straight, without moving, thinking of Tony, and holding himself in. His heart pounded. He felt his hands on Tony’s head. He thought of Hohnsburger and began to dress slowly, trying to feel cool and practical. He tied a tight knot in his dark blue tie. He slipped on his coat quickly, but before stepping out of the warehouse he took out his penknife and began to clean his nails carefully. He hadn’t asked Farrel for Anna’s phone number. Many thoughts came to him but he knew he was really thinking of Vera.

  On the streetcar going home he imagined himself explaining the fight to Vera. He hung on to a strap, leaning forward, brushing against a woman who had on her knees a big basket of fruit. In his nostrils was the faint perfume of pale flowers and the smell of funerals. He looked around but could not locate the scent. His father and mother had been buried, with the same smell in the room. His father had died first, two years before his mother. He remembered his mother’s funeral, the odour in the room, and her face small and pinched but very calm. He tried to remember her face from years ago, when he was at public school, and for the first time, seemed aware of having lived in the same house with her for years, without actually looking at her. The woman with the basket of fruit got up and left the car. He was sorry for himself and wanted sympathy. Slightly bewildered, he wished his mother were alive, so he could go home to her.

  He went past his car-stop, having made up his mind to go downtown, and home later at the usual hour.

  7

  For two days he did not tell Vera he had lost his job. In the morning he got up at seven o’clock, as usual, very serious, thinking only of deceiving her. He tried three lumberyards in the city, each time imagining what he would say to her if he got the job, but he did not look like a first-class foreman, nor come highly recommended. In one yard he could have got a job without authority attached to it, at a small salary, but would not take it.

  On the third day, Saturday, he left the house at seven and was home at one-thirty. They were to go on a picnic in the afternoon, the two of them, out east and up the railway tracks in the country to a wooded ravine with a slow twisting river. Two or three times a month in the summer Vera packed a lunch and they took the streetcar out east, and stayed in the ravine till twilight when night noises in thickets and occasional sounds of someone moving on the hill scared her, and then they climbed the hill, to walk slowly along the tracks and down the street to the city terminal three miles away.

  They got out to the city limit at four o’clock in the afternoon. Vera walked on ahead while Harry went into the Greek’s confectionery store on the corner and bought two large bottles of lime juice, and took six straws. The road was not paved beyond the city limit. The cement sidewalk ran on for eight blocks. Harry carried a Boston bag with the lunch, and two bottles under one arm. Vera carried the coats.

  At the eighth block they turned north. The street, a few houses on each side, ended at the railway embankment and barbed-wire fence. Harry hoisted up the lower wire, Vera crawled underneath, then Harry went under it and they sat down on the bank till Vera changed her shoes, for it was no use trying to walk along the ties with high heels.

  They followed the tracks between the hills until the bank on the right flattened out and they stood at a steep path looking down the dark ravine. They walked on to the next path, Vera strutting happily on the ties. She took a handkerchief from her pocket and knotted it at the four corners. She caught up to Harry and tried to put it on his head.

  “Go chase yourself,” he said irritably.

  She giggled, slyly putting an arm around his waist, and kissed him until she slipped the handkerchief on his head. He put his arm around her, lifting her on to the track, balancing her as she walked.

  They went down into the ravine and followed the river to a shady place under a low tree where there were no sounds. Vera spread the coats and lay down, taking out a book from her bag. Watching her stretch out on her belly, skirts far above the smooth curve behind her knees, Harry made up his mind to tell her about the quarrel with Hohnsburger. She seemed so happy he felt aloof from her and depressed. She paid no attention to him, taking it for granted he was enjoying himself. He got up and walked slowly away among the trees, following a cow path that twisted over a piece of swampy ground, ending in the river. Ahead, a wooded hill sloped up to the skyline. A farm house was on the skyline. He decided not to mention anything to her until she had had her good time. He stood still, thinking of her lying in the shade back near the river, her slim hand stroking her face, and didn’t want to say anything that would alter her feeling of satisfaction. He went back to the shady place under the tree.

  Then they played ball until they got hungry. Harry, standing across the river, tossed the tennis ball, and she hit it with a small branch he had broken from a tree. She hit some far across the river, yelling happily watching him chase the ball.

  After lunch they lay down on the coats, Vera went on reading, Harry smoked, turning over in his mind words and thoughts which would make the conversation run smoothly.

  Sitting up suddenly, curling her arms around her knees, she said quickly: “Have you thought any more about me becoming a Catholic?”

  “Not once, Vera. What difference does it make?”

  “Not much I guess.”

  “Then why bother about it?”

  “Sit up and listen, put your coat around you, it’s getting cool down here in the ravine.”

  He sat up, looking at her solemnly.

  “I met one of the girls today, and she told me the most wonderful story about a priest.” Vera told the story carefully. This priest was a plump man of fifty-six with snow-white hair. In his house were two younger priests, and an old housekeeper. This priest was a jolly man who loved life and at the same time was extremely religious. “He didn’t get excited about religion,” Vera said. “There was just something about him. It was his way. You got to know that he was religious.”

  “The way he walked, eh?”

  “No, this is serious. He was the sort of man you’d expect to make the perfect father. Or a wonderful husband.”

  “Well, what was preventing him?”

  “Nothing was preventing him. Only something else was holding him. Something else holding him and taking up all that part of him, see.”

  “I guess he had other things to think about. He knew when he was well off.”

  “He couldn’t have looked at it in that way. I mean when you think of getting and begin married, you can’t help thinking of marriage nights and so on, isn’t that right?”

  “Maybe so, I guess you feel better about it in the night. Things don’t seem so practical as in the daytime and your own thoughts work with you.”

  “You just drift easily with your thoughts, that’s it.”

  “That’s it all right.”

  “Well, listen to this. The old priest’s housekeeper found out something. About two o’clock one night she heard someone moving around the house, and standing on the stairs she could see this priest, and he had a coat wrapped around him and his slippers on and he was going downstairs. It w
as a warm summer evening.”

  “She followed him, eh?”

  “Yes, she followed him out the door and across the lawn to the church. He went up to the altar and knelt down and prayed, ‘Hail Mary,’ like that. All alone in the big white church at two o’clock in the morning.”

  “What got into him? Something worrying him?”

  “Not really. The housekeeper found out that he did it three times a week. It never bothered him during the daytime. See how it works out?”

  “What are you getting at, Vera?”

  “It was like keeping a date. Don’t you see?” she said, excited a little. “There in the cathedral at night he kept a date. It all took the place of something and I just bet that was the reason why he seemed such a happy contented priest. Somehow or other the idea makes me feel like becoming a Catholic.”

  “Applesauce, Vera.”

  She was not listening, staring over the river. The sun sank away behind the hill. It was getting dark quickly in the ravine.

  “Is it very important to you?” he said slowly.

  “Why ask that?”

  “Well, there’s something pretty important I want to say.”

  “Aren’t you interested in what I was saying?”

  “Yeah, only this touches us closer.”

  “Well, why on earth hesitate then?”

  “All right, I’ve lost my job at Pape’s.”

  She looked at him steadily, then smiled.

  “Don’t be silly, Harry.”

  “It’s the straight goods, Vera. You don’t think I’d kid you about a thing like that?”

  “Harry, Harry, in heaven’s name, Harry, what’s the trouble, why did it happen? What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Was it Hohnsburger? You must have done something. You should have watched yourself.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Today?”

  “No, two days ago.”

  “Then it wasn’t fair to come on a picnic today and pretend to be happy. It isn’t fair to me.”

  “For God’s sake, Vera.”