Ancient Lineage and Other Stories

by Morley Callaghan

  “So you are scolding him,” his wife said. “It’s his cap. Not yours. What happened, Steve?”

  Steve told them he had been playing ball and he found that when he ran the bases the cap fell off; it was still too big despite the tuck his mother had taken in the band. So the next time he came to bat he tucked the cap in his hip pocket. Someone had lifted it, he was sure.

  “And he didn’t even know whether it was still in his pocket,” Dave said sarcastically.

  “I wasn’t careless, Dad,” Steve said. For the last three hours he had been wandering around to the homes of the kids who had been in the park at the time; he wanted to go on, but he was too tired. Dave knew the boy was apologizing to him, but he didn’t know why it made him angry.

  “If he didn’t hang on to it, it’s not worth worrying about now,” he said, and he sounded offended.

  After that night they knew that Steve didn’t go to the park to play ball; he went to look for the cap. It irritated Dave to see him sit around listlessly, or walk in circles, trying to force his memory to find a particular incident which would suddenly recall to him the moment when the cap had been taken. It was no attitude for a growing, healthy boy to take, Dave complained. He told Steve firmly once and for all he didn’t want to hear any more about the cap.

  One night, two weeks later, Dave was walking home with Steve from the shoemaker’s. It was a hot night. When they passed an ice-cream parlor Steve slowed down. “I guess I couldn’t have a soda, could I?” Steve said. “Nothing doing,” Dave said firmly. “Come on now,” he added as Steve hung back, looking in the window.

  “Dad, look!” Steve cried suddenly, pointing at the window. “My cap! There’s my cap! He’s coming out!”

  A well-dressed boy was leaving the ice-cream parlor; he had on a blue ball cap with a red peak, just like Steve’s cap. “Hey, you!” Steve cried, and he rushed at the boy, his small face fierce and his eyes wild. Before the boy could back away Steve had snatched the cap from his head. “That’s my cap!” he shouted.

  “What’s this?” the bigger boy said. “Hey, give me my cap or I’ll give you a poke on the nose.”

  Dave was surprised that his own shy boy did not back away. He watched him clutch the cap in his left hand, half crying with excitement as he put his head down and drew back his right fist: he was willing to fight. And Dave was proud of him.

  “Wait, now,” Dave said. “Take it easy, son,” he said to the other boy, who refused to back away.

  “My boy says it’s his cap,” Dave said.

  “Well, he’s crazy. It’s my cap.”

  “I was with him when he got this cap. When the Phillies played here. It’s a Philly cap.”

  “Eddie Condon gave it to me,” Steve said. “And you stole it from me, you jerk.”

  “Don’t call me a jerk, you little squirt. I never saw you before in my life.”

  “Look,” Steve said, pointing to the printing on the cap’s sweatband. “It’s Eddie Condon’s cap. See? See, Dad?”

  “Yeah. You’re right, Son. Ever see this boy before, Steve?”

  “No,” Steve said reluctantly.

  The other boy realized he might lose the cap. “I bought it from a guy,” he said. “I paid him. My father knows I paid him.” He said he got the cap at the ball park. He groped for some magically impressive words and suddenly found them. “You’ll have to speak to my father,” he said.

  “Sure, I’ll speak to your father,” Dave said. “What’s your name? Where do you live?”

  “My name’s Hudson. I live about ten minutes away on the other side of the park.” The boy appraised Dave, who wasn’t any bigger than he was and who wore a faded blue windbreaker and no tie. “My father is a lawyer,” he said boldly. “He wouldn’t let me keep the cap if he didn’t think I should.”

  “Is that a fact?” Dave asked belligerently. “Well, we’ll see. Come on. Let’s go.” And he got between the two boys and they walked along the street. They didn’t talk to each other. Dave knew the Hudson boy was waiting to get to the protection of his home, and Steve knew it, too, and he looked up apprehensively at Dave. And Dave, reaching for his hand, squeezed it encouragingly and strode along, cocky and belligerent, knowing that Steve relied on him.

  The Hudson boy lived in that row of fine apartment houses on the other side of the park. At the entrance to one of these houses Dave tried not to hang back and show he was impressed, because he could feel Steve hanging back. When they got into the small elevator Dave didn’t know why he took off his hat. In the carpeted hall on the fourth floor the Hudson boy said, “Just a minute,” and entered his own apartment. Dave and Steve were left alone in the corridor, knowing that the other boy was preparing his father for the encounter. Steve looked anxiously at his father, and Dave said, “Don’t worry, Son,” and he added resolutely, “No one’s putting anything over on us.”

  A tall, balding man in a brown velvet smoking-jacket suddenly opened the door. Dave had never seen a man wearing one of these jackets, although he had seen them in department-store windows. “Good evening,” he said, making a deprecatory gesture at the cap Steve still clutched tightly in his left hand. “My boy didn’t get your name. My name is Hudson.”

  “Mine’s Diamond.”

  “Come on in,” Mr. Hudson said, putting out his hand and laughing good-naturedly. He led Dave and Steve into his living room. “What’s this about that cap?” he asked. “The way kids can get excited about a cap. Well, it’s understandable, isn’t it?”

  “So it is,” Dave said, moving closer to Steve, who was awed by the broadloom rug and the fine furniture. He wanted to show Steve he was at ease himself, and he wished Mr. Hudson wouldn’t be so polite. That meant Dave had to be polite and affable, too, and it was hard to manage when he was standing in the middle of the floor in his old windbreaker.

  “Sit down, Mr. Diamond,” Mr. Hudson said. Dave took Steve’s arm and sat him down beside him on the chesterfield. The Hudson boy watched his father. And Dave looked at Steve and saw that he wouldn’t face Mr. Hudson or the other boy; he kept looking up at Dave, putting all his faith in him.

  “Well, Mr. Diamond, from what I gathered from my boy, you’re able to prove this cap belonged to your boy.”

  “That’s a fact,” Dave said.

  “Mr. Diamond, you’ll have to believe my boy bought that cap from some kid in good faith.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Dave said. “But no kid can sell something that doesn’t belong to him. You know that’s a fact, Mr. Hudson.”

  “Yes, that’s a fact,” Mr. Hudson agreed. “But that cap means a lot to my boy, Mr. Diamond.”

  “It means a lot to my boy, too, Mr. Hudson.”

  “Sure it does. But supposing we called in a policeman. You know what he’d say? He’d ask you if you were willing to pay my boy what he paid for the cap. That’s usually the way it works out,” Mr. Hudson said, friendly and smiling, as he eyed Dave shrewdly.

  “But that’s not right. It’s not justice,” Dave protested. “Not when it’s my boy’s cap.”

  “I know it isn’t right. But that’s what they do.”

  “All right. What did you say your boy paid for the cap?” Dave said reluctantly.

  “Two dollars.”

  “Two dollars!” Dave repeated. Mr. Hudson’s smile was still kindly, but his eyes were shrewd, and Dave knew that the lawyer was counting on his not having the two dollars; Mr. Hudson thought he had Dave sized up; he had looked at him and decided he was broke. Dave’s pride was hurt, and he turned to Steve. What he saw in Steve’s face was more powerful than the hurt to his pride; it was the memory of how difficult it had been to get an extra nickel, the talk he heard about the cost of food, the worry in his mother’s face as she tried to make ends meet, and the bewildered embarrassment that he was here in a rich man’s home, forcing his father to confess that he couldn’t afford to spend two dollars. Then Dave grew angry and reckless. “I’ll give you the two dollars,” he said.

  Steve looke
d at the Hudson boy and grinned brightly. The Hudson boy watched his father.

  “I suppose that’s fair enough,” Mr. Hudson said. “A cap like this can be worth a lot to a kid. You know how it is. Your boy might want to sell – I mean be satisfied. Would he take five dollars for it?”

  “Five dollars?” Dave repeated, “Is it worth five dollars, Steve?” he asked uncertainly.

  Steve shook his head and looked frightened.

  “No, thanks, Mr. Hudson,” Dave said firmly.

  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Mr. Hudson said. “I’ll give you ten dollars. The cap has a sentimental value for my boy, a Philly cap, a big-leaguer’s cap. It’s only worth about a buck and a half really,” he added. But Dave shook his head again. Mr. Hudson frowned. He looked at his own boy with indulgent concern, but now he was embarrassed. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “This cap – well, it’s worth as much as a day at the circus to my boy. Your boy should be recompensed. I want to be fair. Here’s twenty dollars,” and he held out two ten-dollar bills to Dave.

  That much money for a cap, Dave thought, and his eyes brightened. But he knew what the cap had meant to Steve; to deprive him of it now that it was within his reach would be unbearable. All the things he needed in his life gathered around him; his wife was there, saying he couldn’t afford to reject the offer, he had no right to do it; and he turned to Steve to see if Steve thought it wonderful that the cap could bring them twenty dollars.

  “What do you say, Steve?” he asked uneasily.

  “I don’t know,” Steve said. He was in a trance. When Dave smiled, Steve smiled too, and Dave believed that Steve was as impressed as he was, only more bewildered, and maybe even more aware that they could not possibly turn away that much money for a ball cap.

  “Well, here you are,” Mr. Hudson said, and he put the two bills in Steve’s hand. “It’s a lot of money. But I guess you had a right to expect as much.”

  With a dazed, fixed smile Steve handed the money slowly to his father, and his face was white.

  Laughing jovially, Mr. Hudson led them to the door. His own boy followed a few paces behind.

  In the elevator Dave took the bills out of his pocket. “See, Stevie,” he whispered eagerly. “That windbreaker you wanted! And ten dollars for your bank! Won’t Mother be surprised?”

  “Yeah,” Steve whispered, the little smile still on his face. But Dave had to turn away quickly so their eyes wouldn’t meet, for he saw that it was a scared smile.

  Outside, Dave said, “Here, you carry the money home, Steve. You show it to your mother.”

  “No, you keep it,” Steve said, and then there was nothing to say. They walked in silence.

  “It’s a lot of money,” Dave said finally. When Steve didn’t answer him, he added angrily, “I turned to you, Steve. I asked you, didn’t I?”

  “That man knew how much his boy wanted that cap,” Steve said.

  “Sure. But he recognized how much it was worth to us.”

  “No, you let him take it away from us,” Steve blurted.

  “That’s unfair,” Dave said. “Don’t dare say that to me.”

  “I don’t want to be like you,” Steve muttered, and he darted across the road and walked along on the other side of the street.

  “It’s unfair,” Dave said angrily, only now he didn’t mean that Steve was unfair, he meant that what had happened in the prosperous Hudson home was unfair, and he didn’t know quite why. He had been trapped, not just by Mr. Hudson, but by his own life. Across the road Steve was hurrying along with his head down, wanting to be alone. They walked most of the way home on opposite sides of the street, until Dave could stand it no longer. “Steve,” he called, crossing the street. “It was very unfair. I mean, for you to say …” but Steve started to run. Dave walked as fast as he could and Steve was getting beyond him, and he felt enraged and suddenly he yelled, “Steve!” and he started to chase his son. He wanted to get hold of Steve and pound him, and he didn’t know why. He gained on him, he gasped for breath and he almost got him by the shoulder. Turning, Steve saw his father’s face in the street light and was terrified; he circled away, got to the house, and rushed in, yelling, “Mother!”

  “Son, Son!” she cried, rushing from the kitchen. As soon as she threw her arms around Steve, shielding him, Dave’s anger left him and he felt stupid. He walked past them into the kitchen.

  “What happened?” she asked anxiously. “Have you both gone crazy? What did you do, Steve?”

  “Nothing,” he said sullenly.

  “What did your father do?”

  “We found the boy with my ball cap, and he let the boy’s father take it from us.”

  “No, no,” Dave protested. “Nobody pushed us around. The man didn’t put anything over us.” He felt tired and his face was burning. He told what had happened; then he slowly took the two ten-dollar bills out of his wallet and tossed them on the table and looked up guiltily at his wife.

  It hurt him that she didn’t pick up the money, and that she didn’t rebuke him. “It is a lot of money, Son,” she said slowly. “Your father was only trying to do what he knew was right, and it’ll work out, and you’ll understand.” She was soothing Steve, but Dave knew she felt that she needed to be gentle with him, too, and he was ashamed.

  When she went with Steve to his bedroom, Dave sat by himself. His son had contempt for him, he thought. His son, for the first time, had seen how easy it was for another man to handle him, and he had judged him and had wanted to walk alone on the other side of the street. He looked at the money and he hated the sight of it.

  His wife returned to the kitchen, made a cup of tea, talked soothingly, and said it was incredible that he had forced the Hudson man to pay him twenty dollars for the cap, but all Dave could think of was Steve was scared of me.

  Finally, he got up and went into Steve’s room. The room was in darkness, but he could see the outline of Steve’s body on the bed, and he sat down beside him and whispered, “Look, Son, it was a mistake. I know why. People like us – in circumstances where money can scare us. No, no,” he said, feeling ashamed and shaking his head apologetically; he was taking the wrong way of showing the boy they were together; he was covering up his own failure. For the failure had been his, and it had come out of being so separated from his son that he had been blind to what was beyond the price in a boy’s life. He longed now to show Steve he could be with him from day to day. His hand went out hesitantly to Steve’s shoulder. “Steve, look,” he said eagerly. “The trouble was I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed it that night at the ball park. If I had watched you playing for your own team – the kids around here say you could be a great pitcher. We could take that money and buy a new pitcher’s glove for you, and a catcher’s mitt. Steve, Steve, are you listening? I could catch you, work with you in the lane. Maybe I could be your coach … watch you become a great pitcher.” In the half-darkness he could see the boy’s pale face turn to him.

  Steve, who had never heard his father talk like this, was shy and wondering. All he knew was that his father, for the first time, wanted to be with him in his hopes and adventures. He said, “I guess you do know how important that cap was.” His hand went out to his father’s arm. “With that man the cap was – well it was just something he could buy, eh Dad?” Dave gripped his son’s hand hard. The wonderful generosity of childhood – the price a boy was willing to pay to be able to count on his father’s admiration and approval – made him feel humble, then strangely exalted.

  1952

  AFTERWORD

  BY WILLIAM KENNEDY

  The first time I met Morley Callaghan was at his son Barry’s dining room table in Toronto and I offered him effusive praise for his memoir, That Summer In Paris, which I had read and reread. The book had given me a world of literary exuberance, inhabited by writers I was obsessed with – James Joyce, Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway – and included the spectacular tale of Morley knocking down Hemingway in the second round of a bo
xing match, after which Fitzgerald, the timekeeper, confessed he’d let the round run four minutes instead of three. Hemingway reacted: “All right, Scott, if you want to see me getting the shit knocked out of me, just say so. Only don’t say you made a mistake.”

  Preposterous consequences continued for years thereafter: a permanent wedge driven between Hemingway and Fitzgerald, the press distorting it into comeuppance for Hemingway the bully, Hemingway repeating the story without the knockdown, also writing Fitzgerald biographer Arthur Mizener that the second round had lasted thirteen minutes. The whole comic opera served over time to isolate Morley from his very good friends – Fitzgerald, who had introduced Morley’s writing to his own editor at Scribner’s, Max Perkins, who became Morley’s editor; and especially from Hemingway, who had befriended Morley in Toronto and helped him publish short stories in Ezra Pound’s Exile, and Ernest Walsh’s This Quarter, both literary magazines in Paris.

  In 1925 Morley sent Hemingway three stories. He liked them but singled out one, “A Wedding Dress,” which is in this collection, and called it “a hell of a good story, a complete finished story, well written, damned good.” He added, “Let me tell you right now and you can cut this out and paste it in the front of your prayerbook, that you have the stuff and will be a hell of a fine writer and probably the first writer that’s ever come out of Canada … Write a lot but see a lot more. Keep your ears and eyes going and try all the time to get your conversations right. Often your conversation is perfect. That’s what’s really a creative ear. About the most valuable asset you could have.”

  But Hemingway went farther than heavy praise for Morley. He sent a letter and the manuscript of a long Morley story to his own publisher, Robert McAlmon, and offered to pay half the cost of publishing it. (This hitherto unknown letter was found in April 2012 in a Toronto library by Toronto Star reporter Bill Schiller.) McAlmon had just published, in Paris, Hemingway’s first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems, and Hemingway wrote him: