Pride

by William Wharton

  “But we’d have to have a phone then; that’d cost money.”

  “Sure, Mom could take all the messages and keep the bills straight and everything. I could help you and pick up or deliver all the things that are close by. There are hundreds of things that need fixing, and people wouldn’t be throwing so much stuff away in the trash. I could even go around picking through the trash early in the morning and find things for you to fix up and sell. That’d be fun.”

  Dad’s got everything packed up. We’re walking back along the pier. I’m just behind him. I’m so interested in talking about Kettleson’s Fix-it Shop I’m not even afraid of the holes. The water’s not as far in as it was when we first went out. I think Dad’s even listening to me.

  “It’d be fun all right, Dickie. I could fix up the truck to go around and fix things right in people’s homes. I’d have our Kettleson’s Fix-it Shop sign painted on both sides. How’d you like that?”

  “That’d be terrific. We could cruise around in the truck looking for work and I’d carry your tools. I could even learn to help, little things at first.”

  “Yeah, but how about school? If you don’t go to school you’ll never amount to anything.”

  “Oh, come on, Dad. I hate school. I’m not learning much there. I learn more out fishing with you or fixing porches than I ever learn at school. Do you think Sister Anastasia knows about stingrays or unions or ‘get-byers’? She doesn’t teach us anything except religion and civics and diagramming sentences. Those things don’t mean anything to me.”

  “Maybe not; but you have to go to school. You could help me weekends and after school if you want.”

  Heck, I knew I’d have to go to school. My dad and mom have this idea that your whole life will be different if you only go to school. What’ll happen is I’ll probably just get to be another one of those “get-aheaders.” They don’t think about that.

  PART 12

  Tuffy wakes and rolls over on his back. It’s dark and warm in the attic. He gnaws awhile on the untattooed arm he’s dragged with him. He’s thirsty, but not thirsty enough to go looking for water. There are probably two factors involved in his lack of mobility. One, he’s lived in a cage most of his life; moving around searching for food or water is not part of his normal experience. His tendency is to wait until Cap brings him what he needs. Tuffy is probably not totally aware he isn’t in a cage. Secondly, a lion’s natural state when it’s satiated is inertia. Tuffy has moved only twice in the two days since he killed and ate Jimmy, each time to excrete in another corner of the attic. This was at night so no one heard him or was aware of his heavy, muffled movements.

  Tuffy falls asleep on his back, his legs spread, his paws cocked loosely outward. He is feeling no threat at all, perfectly comfortable in the quiet darkness.

  Cap Modig has been booked and released without bail to aid in the search for and capture of the lion. At Cap’s insistence, Sally was not charged but told to be available as a witness. Cap has been accused of criminal negligence for harboring a dangerous animal in an urban area.

  When they get back to the Wall of Death, Cap tapes on his New Jersey license plates and mounts the headlight to make his motorcycle legal on the road; Sally starts packing, throwing her clothes into a battered brown suitcase. There is quiet in the darkened pit. Except for the necessary conversation at the police station, she has not spoken to Cap, nor he to her.

  “Aw, come on, please, Sal; you aren’t going to leave me now. Besides Murph says you have to stay until I’m arraigned before the judge. I’ll plead guilty, then you can go.”

  “I’m getting out of here. I should’ve left a long time ago. This whole act is ruined now, anyhow, with Jimmy gone and Tuffy run off. What’re you going to do, train Sammy to ride in the sidecar?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t go, Sal. I’ll do whatever you say.”

  Cap pulls out one of the apple boxes, collapses onto it. He’s feeling the quiet, no Tuffy in the background, grunting, padding back and forth, coughing, growling. He turns his head. The smell of Tuffy is still there but then it would be; the smell of a lion in captivity is strong and he’s only been gone two days. Cap can’t know that Tuffy is less than fifty yards from where he’s sitting.

  Cap reaches in the black box, takes out his locked metal coffer, where they keep the money. He pulls out a roll of bills, starts peeling off some of them, then stops, snaps the rubber band back around the entire roll. “Here, Sal, take it. You’re going to need money wherever you go. This will help you get started again.”

  Sally doesn’t turn around. She has her knee on her overfilled bag, trying to get the snaps to hold; the other side bulges open. Cap goes over to help. She pushes him away with her arm, her hip.

  “Go away! I don’t need your help and I don’t want any of your blood money either. I’ll make out O.K. Good operators are hard to find and now the Depression’s not so bad I can get a job. You don’t have to worry about me; you never did anyhow.”

  “Don’t say that, Sal. I love you. I’ve loved you from the first day you came to the hospital.”

  “That’s what you say. How long has it been since we let that little J.P. in Elkton pretend to marry us, and what good did it do? I’ll tell you, almost ten years now. Jimmy says I was just some kind of a whore to you; all you ever really loved was that damned lion. Now look what’s happened and Jimmy’s dead.”

  She starts crying. She sits down on her sprung suitcase, jams her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands. Cap gets down on his knees beside her.

  “I didn’t have anything against Jimmy. I knew about you two all the time, but I loved you, I wanted you to be happy. That’s what love is, isn’t it, Sal, wanting the other person to be happy?

  “I know I’m too old for you, I tried to tell you that. I think somewhere along the way we got to be more like father and daughter. I don’t know how it happened, it just did. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you; I do; you’re the only woman I’ll ever love.”

  There’s a long silence broken by sobbing. Cap, whose leg hurts where he kneels, struggles up on one knee. Sally’s face is still buried in her hands and she’s not looking at him.

  “Listen, Sal. I know it’s dumb and all and I know you really ought to just pick up and go, get out of here. You’re young, you have your whole life ahead of you. But, before you go, I want to say something. I want to say it and maybe it’ll help you know Jimmy’s wrong. I love you truly and always will.”

  There’s a long pause as Cap lowers his head, his baldness shining in the bluish-gray light coming down into the black pit.

  “Sally, I’d be the happiest man in the world if you’d marry me in your church before a real priest as soon as possible. I don’t know what the police will want of me, if I’ll have to go to prison for this or what. We still don’t know what else Tuffy might do before they catch him, but I’m asking you to think about it.

  “Will you marry me, Sal?”

  Sally slowly lifts her face from her hands. She looks at Cap in that dim light. “No, Cap. I don’t think I love you any more. You really are a fine man and you’ve always been good to me, but I don’t want to live this kind of life. I’m all done in.”

  “I’m finished with it too, Sal. I’m ready to settle down. I can probably get something for the Wall and the bikes. Just this concession is worth a lot and we have three more years left on it. I can sell all this and we could take off out of here, in the truck.”

  Sally buries her face in her hands again but continues shaking her head back and forth sadly. Her sobs have subsided but she’s crying freely now, tears running through her fingers.

  “Look, Sal, I have my motorcycle fixed up for the road. I can put the sidecar on and take you to a hotel. You can stretch out there, take a bath and everything; get cleaned up, and enjoy a good rest. That’s what you need. Or, if you want, I can take you over in the truck; it’d just take longer because I have to go all the way out to the garage and pick it up. What do you say? I know yo
u don’t want to stay here, but let me help you. God, I owe you at least that. I don’t mean I owe you, I want to help you.”

  Cap stops. He’s trying to stand now, pushing himself up painfully on his good leg. He has his cap in his left hand. He puts it on his head and stands limply, his hands at his sides.

  “I don’t know what to say, Sal. I only want to help. I love you and I want everything to be the best for you.”

  Sally speaks through her hands, through her fingers, through her crying.

  “Oh, Cap, I’m so down in the dumps. I can’t get anything straight in my head. I don’t know what to do, where to go, what I really want.”

  Cap reaches out tentatively, takes her hands from her face, pulls her slowly to her feet.

  “First, at least, let me help you with that suitcase.”

  Sally stands, hunched over, her head bent, her hair disheveled, while Cap puts his weight on the suite ase and manages to get both snaps tight. He stands it on end.

  “Here, Sal, sit on this or on that box while I hook my sidecar to the motorcycle; I think that’ll be the best way. Then, after I get you safe in a hotel, I can go help look for Tuffy. If I find him he’ll get in the sidecar and I can take him back to the cage. If he’s hiding somewhere near and he hears the motorcycle, I know he’ll come out to me.”

  Sally continues standing, her hands clasped in front of her. She’s wearing a dress, the dress she wore to the police station, her only dress now. Cap stares at her a minute, then hustles outside, pushing the sidecar with him.

  “I’ll be right back, you just stay there, O.K.?”

  Sally nods her head slightly; Cap leaves. She settles onto her suitcase again. She picks up her handbag from where it was on the floor of the pit beside her. She opens it, takes out a compact, wipes away her tears. She runs her fingers under her eyes to even out the smear of her mascara. She pulls out a small handkerchief and blows her nose, then takes a powder puff from the compact and powders her nose and cheeks. She puts the compact away and pulls out a brush, with which she smooths her hair, brushing her blond bob to the shape of her head. Then she reaches into her purse again and pulls out a lipstick, turns it up and carefully applies the deep red to her upper lip, presses the upper lip against the lower with practiced swiftness, turns the lipstick down again, caps it, and puts it into her purse. She continues to hold her compact in her other hand, checks her hair again and wipes once more the moist mascara under her eyes. She’s still crying.

  Cap comes to the door of the pit, she stands, he moves and picks up her bag.

  “O.K., Sal? I’ll take you over to the Brighton, where you’ll be safe and comfortable.”

  He starts to turn, not sure if she’s coming. He doesn’t seem to notice that she’s freshened up. Cap is worried, so anxious for Sally and for Tuffy he isn’t noticing much of anything. His hands are slightly greasy from attaching the sidecar to the motorcycle. Sally follows him.

  Cap helps Sally into the sidecar and puts the suitcase across her lap.

  “It won’t be a long trip and that suitcase will help break the wind. I’m sure there will be a room this time of year. It’s the only place I could think of that’d still be open off-season like this.”

  Sally looks at Cap as he concentrates on setting the magneto, priming the choke, getting the bike in neutral, and kicking over the engine. He looks at her before he engages gears, and she gives him a quick wisp of a smile.

  “Cap, I really do love you, but I’m all mixed up inside. Just give me some time to get over this, please.”

  Cap looks at Sally then turns gently, slowly off onto the boardwalk as if he’s transporting an invalid, a case of eggs, rather than the woman who has, herself, driven this motorcycle on a wall with a four-hundred-pound lion in it beside her.

  After Cap has left Sally at the hotel, promising he’ll come back to tell her what’s happening every day, he takes off for the police station. One condition of his release is that he’s to check in there every two hours. This is fine with Cap; it’s his only way of finding out if anybody’s spotted Tuffy anywhere and to keep up with what’s being done in terms of a search party. He doesn’t want anybody to get hurt and also he doesn’t want anything happening to Tuffy. He parks his bike outside and goes inside. Murph is at the sergeant’s desk. He’s on the phone. He motions Cap to sit down on one wooden bench across from him.

  “That’s right, sir. We’ve got everybody out looking for the lion: our local police, the state Guard and fifty members of the CCC who were working at the recreation park.”

  “Yes sir. We’re doing everything we can. We’re hoping to have that lion behind bars again by the end of the day.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Murph hangs up, looking at the phone, unhappily, as he lowers it onto the hook. He glances over at Cap. Cap gets up and comes to Murph’s desk. Murph lights a cigarette.

  “That was the commissioner. He’s really up a creek. He wants us to shoot Tuffy on sight, not take any chances. If you want to save that lion, Cap, you’d better find him yourself. There are an awful lot of scared-to-death, trigger-happy cowboys out there, with guns, who want to be the local hero who kills a real man-eating lion.”

  Cap looks down at the floor, then up at Murph. “I’d like to say he wouldn’t hurt anybody. I’ve known that lion well as I know you, Murph, but after what’s happened, I can understand if nobody believes me. God, I feel awful about all this. I just never expected it. Jimmy must really have done something terrible for Tuffy to do a thing like that.”

  Murph looks at Cap through the smoke of his cigarette.

  “I’ll tell you, Cap, if it’d been anybody else got killed we’d’ve probably booked you for involuntary manslaughter and you wouldn’t be walking the streets. That guy wasn’t even worth being called human far as I’m concerned.”

  “Oh, Jimmy was O.K. He was only a mixed-up, scared kid. I don’t think he was much more than twenty-six or twenty-seven. He might’ve straightened out.”

  “My guess is he might’ve straightened out behind bars somewhere; straightened up into a hardened criminal.”

  Murph pulls over some papers and goes through them. “You’re sure you don’t even know his last name? How can you live with somebody for ten years and not even know their last name?”

  “I told you. He just never talked. I know he comes from Texas somewhere and that’s all. I don’t even know if Jimmy’s his real name.”

  “Well, identification’s going to be a big problem. We got two fingers from that pile of meat we brought in. There wasn’t enough left of his face to even do a proper mug shot at the morgue, nothing we could hang on a post-office wall, anyway. If it were up to me, and we can just get Tuffy back safe in a cage again, I’d as soon forget the whole damned thing.

  “The little bastard just didn’t exist far as I’m concerned. Filling up Tuffy’s stomach is probably the best thing he ever did in his life.”

  Cap’s uncomfortable. He knows Murph’s trying to make him feel better, make him feel less guilty, but he feels even more guilty talking about Jimmy. “Has anything come in at all, Murph? Has anybody heard or seen anything?”

  “Just the usual crap, same people who are always seeing burglars or having people peeping in their windows. We have a regular file on them. About half of them have already called in, hearing snarling sounds in the night or roaring in the distance, shadows in the next-door garden. One daffy old dame on E Street is even convinced her dog was bitten by the lion. I tried explaining to her how if that lion had taken a bite of her dog, he’d have eaten the whole animal. Some flea probably bit it.”

  “Still, Murph, if Tuffy does attack anything it could be a dog. Normally, lions stay away from humans. I’ll never know why he went for Jimmy. Jimmy would always give him an extra poke with the goad, things like that, because he was afraid of Tuffy, hated him, probably because he was afraid; but I still can’t understand Tuffy killing him and actually eating him like that.”

  “Don’t worry ab
out it, Cap. You just go out and get that lion locked up and we’ll hope for the best.”

  “I have the motorcycle with the sidecar he’s always driven in. If he hears that motorcycle and is in hiding I know he’ll come out. And that way I can put him right in the sidecar and carry him home with no trouble.”

  “Well, you’d better get out there and start cruising. I sure hope you’re the first to find him and also that none of those trigger-happy morons out there start shooting at each other the way they do during hunting season up in Pennsylvania. I’m staying here partly to be on the phone and take any messages but mostly to stay out of the way of those private safari hunting posses. I don’t think I’m as afraid of Tuffy as I am of those guys.”

  “O.K., Murph, and thanks a lot. I’ll keep checking back just in case there’s a sighting of some kind. I can’t imagine where Tuffy would go, but it can’t be too far. A lion, after he’s eaten like that, doesn’t usually go running around much. He’s probably sleeping it off somewhere like a drunk.”

  Cap starts toward the door.

  “Don’t know how to thank you, Murph. If Tuffy’s got any chance at all it’s because of you.”

  “Come on, Cap, get out here. Go get that big cat of yours and put him in a cage where he belongs.”

  Cap goes out the door, jumps on his motorcycle, kicks it into life. He says to himself:

  “That’s the trouble. Behind bars, in a cage, is just where he doesn’t belong.”

  Cap first goes along as close as he can stay to the boardwalk all the way into South Wildwood. He leaves his engine running as he looks under the boardwalk, through the marsh grass which grows high here where the boardwalk ends and sand piles in drifts against the boards. He goes along whistling his usual signal for Tuffy and calling his name. There’s no one else around; this is a deserted part of the city. But no Tuffy.

  Cap mounts again and cruises inland to where there are salt marshes. He looks under each of the small bridges passing over the salt-water runoffs to the sea. These marshes fill and empty with the tides. Twice he sees groups of men with rifles, searching. He manages to avoid contact with them. If they see anything of Tuffy they’ll phone in to Murph at police headquarters or they’d’ve blown Tuffy to kingdom come.