The Novels of William Goldman

by William Goldman

  Before I can explain what happened next, I have to put in a word about Athens High School, which is very small, being made up of people from two grammar schools in the area, Athens itself, and Crystal City. Naturally, these groups stayed mostly to themselves and a rivalry grew up to see which one Felix was going to be a part of. That sounds pretty juvenile, I know, but we were in those days. Anyhow, the bunch from Crystal City was paying a lot of attention to Felix and it looked like he was going to join them. Nobody in our gang was particularly pleased by this, except Zock and me, who didn’t care, and Johnny Hunkley, who disliked Felix anyway for obvious reasons. But “Buttons” and the rest were a little worried as, if anything ever did happen between us and Crystal City, they would be a cinch to mop up, since Felix alone could have done the job. So pressure was put on me to do something, and I gave in to it, for I freely admit I enjoyed being high muckamuck and did whatever I could to maintain my position.

  I talked it over with Zock and he agreed to come along that night as we took the walk from my place to where Felix lived. Which was on the college grounds, as his old man was a new janitor there and also, I later found out, something of a lush. Anyhow, we walked over on that beautiful October night, not saying much since I was rehearsing in my mind what I was going to tell Felix. I rang the bell and his old man answered, reeking as usual, and said that Felix was in the back room, lying down.

  He was. Wearing only underwear shorts. That being the first time I had ever seen him in the flesh, it shook me, for the room was small, the ceiling low, and he seemed to fill it as he lay there on the bed. He sat up when we came in, the muscles rippling under his cocoa skin, and I remember thinking that he just had to end up as heavyweight champion of the world or as king of some South Sea island.

  He looked at us and said: “Well?”

  Zock nodded to me but I couldn’t say much, having forgotten all I’d rehearsed. We sort of stammered around for a while, not getting anywhere, and then I said that it was such a beautiful night Zock and I decided to take a walk. Felix Brown’s answer is something I’ll never forget as long as I live.

  He said: “ ‘Pale amber sunlight falls across the reddening October trees.’ ”

  Zock right away replied: “ ‘That hardly sway before breeze as soft as Summer.’ ”

  Which might sound like gibberish to the general public, but I knew what they were talking about. Those were the first lines of a poem by Ernest Dowson, a rummy English poet and Zock’s favorite at the time. I liked him too, although to my mind, he could never hold a candle to Kipling.

  Well, Zock followed it up with more Dowson. “ ‘You would have understood me had you waited.’ ” And Felix said: “ ‘I could have loved you dear as well as he.’ ”

  Which started things off.

  They went all through Dowson, me throwing in my favorite lines from “I have been faithful to you, Cynara, in my fashion.”

  I have forgot much, Cynara. Gone with the wind.

  Flung roses, roses, riotously with the throng.

  After Dowson came William Butler Yeats: “But I being poor have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread soft, for you tread on my dreams.” Then Eliot with his hollow men, and I put forth the first paragraph of “Danny Deever.” Followed by “I weep for Adonaïs, he is dead,” and even, “Jenny kissed me.”

  After about an hour, Felix went to the icebox, got some beer, and we took it out in back, sitting on the grass, drinking. We did some more poetry, me listening and swilling down the beer as I was just then acquiring the taste. I was pretty looped before too much longer and so was Zock. But not Felix.

  And when the poetry wore thin, we started talking. I couldn’t possibly explain what happened out there on the grass that night. I think it had a lot to do maybe with the weather, which was perfect, for you almost had the feeling you were floating, so that when you turned your head you could feel the air shifting around you, making a new place for you in the scheme of things. Or maybe again it had to do with the fact that we were getting drunk. But that still doesn’t come close to explaining it.

  For we talked about ourselves, free and open, like a Catholic at confession, not hiding anything but just speaking our minds. I found out some things about Zock that night, such as that he wasn’t too pleased with the way he looked, being ugly and all. And I suppose he found out some things about me he’d never known before. And we both learned a lot about Felix Brown. Such as that, like Zock, he too wanted to be a poet; he had written poetry that I never saw but Zock did and said it was much better than anything he had written, which must have ranked Felix pretty high up on the list. And how he hated being a Negro. And how he wished he were smaller, normal-sized, so that people wouldn’t always be staring at him like a freak. Plus a lot more.

  And the upshot of it all was that Felix didn’t join the gang from Crystal City. Or my own. Because, after that night, Zock and me left the gang ourselves, left it to Johnny Hunkley for whatever he could make of it. So we walked together for a while then, the three of us, probably a funny sight when you think about it. Big Felix and little Zock and me, with me in the middle and a poet on either side.

  I don’t want to give the impression that all we ever did was sit around, telling each other our innermost thoughts. It’s just that it never made any real difference what we were doing. There was always so much to talk about, our coming from different backgrounds, Zock’s being sort of sickly and Fee’s just the opposite, on account of his having been brought up in one of the worst slum areas in the entire city of Chicago. Fee was very smart though, not quite as good as Zock, who was tops in the school, but close, and my grades picked up considerable, what with having two people to help me instead of Zock alone. But I have to admit that even school work wasn’t bad when we did it together. Such as the Saturday afternoon over at Fee’s house when we were boning up for a big Monday test on Hamlet, a play I didn’t like, though it is sacrilege to say so, mainly because it is so damn long.

  “The way I see it,” I said that afternoon, “Hamlet had the hots for his mother.”

  Fee, lying on his bed, began singing “It Ain’t Necessarily So” in his deep bass voice. Zock just shook his head. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

  “I read it some place,” I admitted. “Or maybe somebody told me.” And I took a swig from a can of beer, one of many we had taken from Felix’s old man’s icebox.

  “Well, forget it,” Zock said.

  “Then give me something to remember,” I said right back.

  “O.K.,” Zock began. “How about this? Why don’t we say that in this play we have Man coming to grips...” stopped then, because Fee had snuck behind him and lifted him high into the air, so that his nose was almost rubbing against the ceiling.

  “Must you do this?” Zock asked Felix.

  “Somehow it satisfies me,” Fee answered.

  Zock sighed. “All right,” he said down to me. “Where was I?”

  “Man was just coming to grips,” I told him.

  “Quite right,” Zock said. “Yes. We have Man coming to grips with the one force he is unable to combat.”

  “What force is that?” Fee asked.

  “The Air Force,” I butted in, slapping my knee. “Get it? The...”

  They ignored me. “You see,” Zock went on, “Hamlet is equipped to handle almost any situation. He is brave; he is strong; he is brilliant. But then, whammo, comes this one problem he can’t handle, and he’s done for. How’s that?”

  “Great,” I said. “Marvelous. It stinks.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Jesus Christ,” I told him. “If you believe that, who do you put the blame on?”

  “Set me down,” Zock said. Fee did. “Now,” he continued. “Why do you have to blame somebody?”

  “Forty people are murdered in this play, for chrissakes. That’s why.”

  “No, you don’t,” Fee cut in. “Here. How about this,” and he closed his eyes a second, thinki
ng. “Let’s say that when somebody was a kid, his father beat him. And this guy goes to jail for beating somebody else. But this guy’s father only beat him because his old man whaled him when he was a kid. Who do you blame?”

  “The grandfather,” I said.

  “But what if the grandfather only beat the father because his father beat him. And the grandfather’s father was brought up by an old biddy of an aunt who was cruel to him. And she was cruel because she never got married. You can’t blame the world because nobody ever married the aunt.”

  “Why didn’t they marry her?” I asked.

  “Because she was ugly. Now, whose fault is that?”

  I was about to answer when Fee’s father staggered by. “Don’t mind me, boys,” he said as he went past the door.

  “Afternoon, Mr. Brown,” Zock and I both said.

  “Afternoon, is it?” he answered, and then he was out of sight but we could still hear him staggering along. Then we heard the icebox door opening. Then a bellow. Then he was back.

  “Someone’s been stealing me blind,” he said.

  “ ’Afternoon, Pa,” Fee said.

  “Someone’s been stealing me blind,” Mr. Brown said again.

  “You mean about the beer?” Fee asked. Mr. Brown nodded. Fee looked very serious. “A bunch of beggars came by a little earlier on their way to Kankakee for a convention. They asked for a beer so I gave them one each. Plus one more for the road.”

  “A beggars’ convention in Kankakee,” Mr. Brown muttered, letting it sink in. “Well, I’m damned. Didn’t know they had them.”

  “Every year,” Fee told him.” In a big vacant lot just outside of Kankakee.”

  “Well, I’m damned,” Mr. Brown said again. Then he smiled, turned, heading back for bed. “Don’t mind me, boys,” he called as he disappeared.

  “All right, Euripides,” Fee said when we were alone again. “Now. Whose fault is it? Who’s to blame?”

  “Hamlet,” I answered.

  “Why?” they both asked at once.

  “Because the way I see it,” I told them, swilling down my beer, “he had the hots for his mother...”

  We began, the three of us, on that wonderful October night, and we went right through the winter, always together, into early spring. When things started going wrong.

  The first indication was that Zock’s father, Old Crowe, which I thought up and have never been ashamed for doing so, found that business at his clothing store was dropping off. Something I still believe was his own fault, since he was never what you might term a J. P. Morgan. But naturally he said it was on account of the company Zock was keeping.

  And then one night after supper, my father called me into his study for a talk. “Scuddahoo, Scuddahay,” he began, an old Greek proverb he never bothered translating but which I knew went something like this: “Don’t pal around with niggers because I am America’s leading expert on Euripides and I don’t like it.” He said some more Greek, threw in a little English, all of it going over my head. He never got to the point. Teachers and politicians never do. They just say some crap that doesn’t mean much, but you know what they’re really talking about. And I knew what my father meant so I said: “Yes sir, you bet.” He smiled, did you-know-what to his lips and forehead, muttered, “Indeed? Fine,” and told me to run along.

  I did. Over to Fee’s where we talked all about it. So after that the three of us started meeting secretly. Or staying late around school. Or lying about where we were. I suppose we saw each other almost as much as before.

  But it wasn’t the same. And we all knew it. What happened next was obvious: we drifted apart. Or rather Fee did, away from us. We hated seeing him go, but there just wasn’t much we could do about it.

  So when we saw each other in school we smiled and chatted a bit, but that was all. Before we knew it, Fee had taken up with the gang from Crystal City. They weren’t a bad bunch of people, when you got to know them. Except that right then, they weren’t people at all, but just so many flies, buzzing around Felix Brown. They worshipped him. And what they worshipped him for was not his mind, and not the fact that maybe he was going to be a fine poet. But his strength. I suppose you can’t really blame them for that, since it is a natural thing to do. Besides, if you wanted to pray at the font of the mighty, you couldn’t have picked anyone better than Fee. He was so strong it was frightening. He could lift me with one hand, hold me out at arm’s length without the least sign of strain. And he wasn’t brute power either; Fee was controlled, coordinated, catlike.

  Soon after we split up he began going downhill. He took to drinking too much and sometimes arrived at school smelling like he’d just walked out of a beer keg. Which bothered us plenty until finally one day, when Fee looked and smelled particularly bad, we went up to him.

  “Gee,” Zock said. “I’ve never seen you looking better.”

  “Leave me alone,” Fee told him.

  “I just wanted you to know how nice we thought you looked,” Zock went on. “And what a swell reputation you’re making for yourself. And how proud we both are of you.” And then Zock really let him have it. He stepped right up to big Fee and shattered him. Fee just stood there, staring out over Zock’s head. Finished, Zock waited for an answer.

  “I want to leave town,” Fee said.

  “Leave,” Zock told him.

  “I want to go to San Francisco,” Fee went on. “I want to get away.”

  “There’s nothing keeping you here,” Zock said.

  “I haven’t got the guts,” Fee muttered, and then we were all three quiet for a while. Finally he started talking again, talking very low. “They treat me real nice out in Crystal City,” he said. “I got a lot of friends out there. I’m like a god out in Crystal City, Zock. You ever been one? It’s nice.” He began moving off. “You ought to try it sometime.”

  Which didn’t make much sense to me at the time, but Zock understood it all. Because he wasn’t surprised at what happened after, when Fee really went to pieces. He got in trouble twice with the police, didn’t show up much at school and was drunk when he did come. And surly. With nothing to say to anyone, especially Zock and me. We never talked about it, as whenever I started to, Zock cut me off, telling me to wait, to wait and see. So I waited.

  Until that night in early summer, with school about to stop for the year. It was Friday, and we were standing in the main corridor after classes when Fee came up.

  “Be at the Palace in Crystal City tonight,” he said. That was all.

  The Palace is an auditorium where they hold dances, and roller skating on Mondays, and town meetings, and whatever else you can think of that goes on in a little place like Crystal City. Friday night was an “open dance.” That was what it was called, but actually it was just a place to go to pick up girls, who always appeared from somewhere, most likely the woodwork, judging from their looks. They had what I suppose you’ve got to call a three-piece band playing on the stage. It was hot and crowded inside. Most of the people from school were there. Johnny Hunkley with our old gang; lots of girls; and, of course, the bunch from Crystal City. Zock and I arrived early, went over to one corner, and waited.

  Finally Fee came in. About nine o’clock. He walked to where the Crystal City crowd was located and they all bunched around him, which was pretty sickening I thought, but Zock kept saying: “Wait, wait,” again and again, very excited. Then Fee started showing off, jumping around, stamping on the floor, shouting, picking people up, holding them at arm’s length, making a fool of himself. The room got noisier and noisier until finally it seemed that all hell just had to break loose.

  And it did.

  Because Fee suddenly raised his giant arms. Everything quieted. Even the music stopped. Then he pointed across the floor, pointed right at Johnny Hunkley, who was standing there, scowling.

  “Don’t you like it?” Fee asked.

  There wasn’t a sound.

  Then Johnny Hunkley said: “What if I don’t?”

  “I guess yo
u better do something about it,” Fee told him. “Do something, or get out.”

  They both stepped into the middle of the floor. The musicians grabbed their instruments. Fee and Johnny Hunkley started circling each other.

  It might seem as if Johnny Hunkley was a boy with a lot of guts, standing up to Fee like that. But I don’t think so. It was more his being stupid than brave. For he might have gotten himself killed that night and ought to be thanking God to this day that he’s still alive.

  They circled for a while, Fee on his toes, the other flat-footed. Then Fee snaked out a long left that stung alongside Johnny Hunkley’s cheek. And with that slapping sound, the Palace came to life. From all over people crept up, whispering at first, getting louder and louder.

  Then Johnny Hunkley charged like a bull, head down. Fee stepped aside easily, driving his fist down at Johnny Hunkley’s neck as he went by. Johnny Hunkley went down hard, got up slowly, charged again, and again the same thing happened. And this time, when he got up, you could see the fear showing plain in his eyes.

  But, as I said, he was stupid, so, head down, legs churning, he charged. He did it six, seven, eight times, and by then his neck was swelling and blood was streaming down his face. Felix, fresh and smiling, waited out in the middle, balanced on his toes, light and fast as a featherweight boxer. But Johnny Hunkley was tiring. Panting terribly, gasping, he was gulping down air, filling his lungs with it, and the sound of his breathing echoed in the room, over all the other noise. Pushing himself to his feet, he charged one more time.

  Felix just stood there.

  Johnny Hunkley’s 250 pounds caught him right in the pit of the stomach. Everyone started screaming, closing in tight, watching as Johnny Hunk-ley rolled over on top and began swinging down at Fee’s face with everything he had. When Fee wasn’t moving any more, Johnny Hunkley stood up, swaying, covered with blood, and the Palace went wild.