Sam McCain - 01 - The Day the Music Died

by Ed Gorman

  “We was just drunk is all.” Then he waved me off. “I had enough of this bullshit, man. I ain’t got no shoes on. I’m goin’ in.

  An’ you get the hell out of here and leave my wife alone. You hear? You leave her alone, McCain.”

  I hit him with the only weapon I had. And, who knew, maybe it wasn’t a weapon at all. Maybe my guess was totally wrong. “You ever find that gun of yours?”

  He tensed up. No doubt about it. “What gun, man?”

  “Your thirty-two.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “Yesterday. When they were throwing you out of Paddy’s. I drove your car, remember?”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “You said you couldn’t find your gun.”

  “Not me, man. I never had no gun

  to lose.” He’d forgotten that, too.

  “I think I know where it is.”

  He looked startled. “What you talkin’ about?”

  “Cliffie Sykes has got it. It’s the gun he found at Kenny Whitney’s. It’s the gun that was used to kill Susan.”

  He started walking. I don’t know where he was going, but he seemed frantic to get there. He must have walked, barefooted in the icy night, four, five hundred feet down that narrow asphalt strip of road. And then he stopped and walked back, the Platters loud about two trailers down.

  “I didn’t kill her, man. I swear I didn’t. A colored man like me, Sykes’d hang my ass for sure if he ever found out that was my gun.”

  Actually, Sykes probably wouldn’t hang his ass. He was having too good a time sullying the familial pride of the Whitneys, but I didn’t want Greene to know that.

  “How’d the gun get out at Whitney’s?”

  He looked sullen and then he looked sad.

  “I gave it to Susan. About a year ago or so.”

  “Why?”

  Another sullen look. “This ain’t any of your business.”

  “Why’d you give her the gun, Darin?”

  After a time, he said, “Because she was afraid.”

  “Of whom?”

  “My feet’re freezin’, man.”

  He started doing a little dance step to impress me with how cold his feet were.

  “You can sit in the car.”

  “Up yours.”

  “Who was she afraid of?”

  He was silent for a time. “Kenny.”

  “What happened between you and Kenny?”

  An old Plymouth pickup truck came down the narrow lane. The man inside waved at Darin and Darin waved back. Inside, his phone started ringing.

  “I better get that,” he said.

  And then he was gone and I knew he’d answered all the questions he was going to. I listened to him slam the door and then bolt it from the inside. He must have had three different kinds of bolts.

  I backed out of the parking space. I thought maybe I could find Lurlene, but then I decided she had too much of a head start. Besides, I was worrying about Ruthie again. I hadn’t liked the way we’d left it, that a couple of her friends would help her take care of things. That was the trouble with the abortion laws, a subject I’d argued about in law school. The alternative to legal abortion was illegal abortion and that meant a lot of innocent girls dying every year because well-intentioned friends had decided to help them out.

  When you came into town from the northeast, as I did, it looked a lot bigger, a monument to Mammon out here on the prairies. We even had a Howard Johnson’s motel and

  restaurant and that was the new place for the more social teenagers to hang out. Not the motel—there was only one motel in town that’d let teenagers shack up, a trucking place out on the highway —the restaurant. It was kind of funny seeing all these hot rods in the Howard Johnson parking lot, chopped and channeled louvered Merc’s and street-rods and Bob Mallory’s

  beautiful ‘ci Ford Phaeton, all those Turbo heads and Johannsen ignitions and extra pots to soup everything up.

  I drove up to the edge of the parking lot where there was a pay phone. I called my folks and tried to sound chatty. Then I said, calmly as I could, “I told Ruthie I’d help her on this history test she’s got next week.”

  “Oh?” Mom said. “That’s strange. I didn’t know you helped her with her tests.”

  I laughed. “You mean, she’s the smart one so why would she want help from me?”

  “Well—” Mom said. And laughed, too.

  “Is she around, Mom?”

  “No. She called and said she was staying at Gloria Spellman’s tonight. Said they’d both be up studying all night.”

  It wasn’t true. I wondered where Ruthie really was tonight. I got scared. “Well, tell her I’ll call her in the morning.”

  “I’ll tell her, honey.”

  “And say hi to Dad.”

  “I will. Love you, honey.”

  “Love you, too, Mom.”

  I drove downtown. The girl-cruise was in full flower. Cars of every description moved slowly along Central Avenue where the theaters and pizza shops and hamburger joints were located-where the girls were located. Up and down, down and up, the cars drove, most of the boys resorting to grins and gawks and graceless waves. That was how the uncool boys handled it, the ones in Dad’s car or driving the 1948 Kaiser or the

  Henry or an old dog of a Dodge that was rusting into death even while you watched. The kids fit their cars. In my day, I’d maneuvered a

  Studebaker with bad steering problems up and down Central Avenue. I had science fiction magazines and Gold Medal paperbacks stacked in the backseat and the only radio station I could get played Lawrence Welk every third song.

  I’d suffered from pimples, wet dreams, athlete’s foot and a secret terror that I’d never really be a man. Women only thought you were cool if you thought you were cool—and I knew I wasn’t cool.

  Things didn’t look as if they’d changed much.

  Three exquisite young blondes were flirting with some guy in a leather jacket sitting inside a cherry-red street rod. There was only

  room for two inside. He was probably deciding which of the lucky girls he was going to let inside. He was doing this while all the losers (those carrying on in my tradition) drove their clunk-mobiles up and down the street.

  I found another outdoor phone. But realized I didn’t have the change for a long-.tance call.

  I looked up and down the street. The nearest place where I could get change was the Rexall that Wes owned. At first I ruled it out but then decided he wouldn’t be there. He’d be home sleeping it off. Or at Mary’s letting her help him sober up.

  Jim the handyman was the only customer in the pharmacy when I walked up to the counter. A teenaged girl was working tonight. She handed Jim’s package over and said, “Here you go, Jim. Your animals sure are lucky, the way you take care of them.” She smiled when she said it.

  “Animals are just like humans to me,” he said.

  “They keep me company since my wife died.”

  “You must have quite a few,” the girl smiled.

  When Jim saw me, he said, “Hey, hi, McCain. Tell your folks I’ll have that roofing estimate for them by Tuesday.”

  I nodded. “You’ll wait ‘til better weather to put it on, won’t you?”

  He laughed. “I sure will.”

  I asked the girl for change for a five and she gave it to me. Just as I was turning to leave, I heard noise from the back of the store, boxes tumbling down in a crash. Then a drunken man’s voice said, “You think I want you anymore after you’ve treated me this way? You get the hell away from me and you stay away from me. You understand that? You stay away from me.”

  The girl and I stared back there for a long moment.

  Then Mary Travers appeared, walking quickly out from between the heavy green curtains that concealed the stockroom.

  She walked very quickly to the front of the store.

  She kept her eyes straight ahead,

  mortified. She was out the front door in mo
ments.

  I went out after her. She was already halfway down the block. I caught up with her, sliding on an icy patch the last few steps. Ever the hot dog, I am. I grabbed her by the sleeve as she kept on walking.

  We didn’t say anything. Just looked at each other. And then I fell into step, walking.

  The night was cold enough to numb your nose. We walked by the town square. It looked cold and lonely. The bandstand had smashed snowballs frozen to its sides. The guy on the Civil War memorial had a real bad case of snow dandruff on his shoulders.

  She said, “I really hurt him.”

  “I guess you probably did.”

  “And maybe I love him.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  For the first time since we’d started walking, she looked at me. “I don’t think he ever got drunk before.”

  “He isn’t any better at it than I

  am.”

  “No, you’re the worst, McCain.”

  “Thanks.”

  We walked some more. “Maybe I’m so used to thinking that I’m in love with you—well, maybe I’m not anymore and I don’t even realize it.” She sounded as if she was trying to solve a particularly difficult math problem. “On the other hand, maybe that’s true for you, too.”

  “Me?”

  “Uh-huh. With Pamela.”

  “Oh.”

  “That you don’t really love her anymore, you just think you do.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh, hell, McCain, I just never thought it’d be this hard when we were growing up. When you’re a little kid, it looks like adults know everything.”

  “Yeah.”

  We were on a block of taverns now. Every open door treated us to a different form of music-country-western, rock and roll, pop. You could smell beer and smoke. It was payday money being spent on Friday nights. And spending payday money meant not buying groceries and not buying shoes for the kids and breaking your promise again and again to your wife. You work as a public defender for a year, as I did, you hear about payday money a lot.

  “I’m going to marry him, McCain.”

  “I just heard him tell you he never wanted to see you again.”

  “He’s just drunk and hurt.”

  “Yeah, I s’pose.”

  “How’s that going to make you feel? If I tell him I’m going to marry him?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Will you try and stop me?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I figured you’d say.”

  “Then you’re going to do it?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess I am.”

  And then she broke away, running down a dark street, her breath plumes of silver, her near-frail body disappearing in the gathering shadows on the dark side of the streetlight.

  “Hey, wait up, Mary.”

  “Just go to hell, McCain. Just go straight to hell.”

  And then I couldn’t see her anymore, it was almost eerie the way she vanished, I couldn’t see her or hear her, she was just gone.

  I found a phone booth and got a long-.tance operator. It got complicated. I didn’t know the number so she first had to call information. By the time we made a connection, my nose was frozen and I really had to piss.

  “I’ll be damned,” a smooth

  whiskey-voiced man said. He was my age, but sounded ten years older and twenty years smarter.

  His name was Wyatt Cooper and we’d graduated law school together. He was a Republican, but I liked him anyway.

  “You got a few minutes to talk?” We hadn’t spoken in six months but the one thing I liked about Wyatt was you could count on him when you were in a spot.

  “Well, I’ve got a friend here. But I suppose she could spare me for a few minutes.”

  “I appreciate it, Wyatt.”

  “You think you can keep your hands to yourself for a few minutes, darlin’?” he said.

  A female voice giggled in the background and said, “I’ll try real hard.”

  We spent a few minutes talking about the careers of some of our friends who’d journeyed to Chicago and Washington and New York. One of our old cronies had gotten a very good job in Ike’s justice department. He was already working for Nixon’s election campaign.

  “I’m worried is what I am.”

  “About what?”

  I hesitated. “I know somebody who

  needs a little illegal medical help.”

  “You could always get married. I’m thinking of that, myself.” I heard the female voice coo in the background.

  “I’m not involved. Not directly, I mean.”

  “McCain, the white knight.”

  “It’s my sister.”

  “Oh, shit, man, I shouldn’t have made a joke.”

  “It’s all right. What I want to know is can you help?”

  “Just a sec.” He cupped the phone. They talked for several minutes behind his hand. “How far along is she?”

  “A month.”

  He repeated: “A month.” Then he cupped the phone again. They talked some more.

  “My friend Sue here knows a doctor,” he said.

  “A real one?”

  “A real one. He’s a staffer at one of the local hospitals here. Could you get her over to Des Moines?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sue’s a nurse. She knows this doc’ll help out once in a while if the girl isn’t too far gone and if he knows all the people involved.

  He doesn’t want to get his ass in a sling, obviously.”

  “Is she going to see him anytime soon?”

  “Tomorrow morning. They both drew Saturday.

  She can talk to him then.”

  “You know what it’s like otherwise, without a real sawbones.”

  “No shit. Girl around here had her friend try it with some kind of automobile suction device.

  Killed her.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. She feels guilty about it and wants to handle it fast before my folks find out. So she might try something stupid.”

  “I think Sue can have an answer for you sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That’d be great.”

  “You still got the same phone number?”

  “Yeah. But it’d probably be easier if I called you.”

  “Fine. Try me around two, three in the afternoon.”

  “I really appreciate this, Wyatt.”

  “No sweat. I just hope we can help you out.”

  Now I needed to find Ruthie. Her friend Gloria drove a new yellow Vw bug that she’d received for her sixteenth birthday from her godfather. I swung by her folks’ home. The bug wasn’t there. I then began a systematic check of the places where the teenagers hung out. I even drove out to Howard Johnson’s again. I spent forty-five minutes on my search and had just about given up when I saw a yellow bug swinging out of the drive of a pizza place out on the south highway.

  I honked the horn. Gloria recognized me. I waved and signaled for her to pull over to the curb.

  As I approached the car, I could see that Gloria was alone. Would she have any idea where Ruthie was? I felt good about my call to Wyatt. I should have phoned him as soon as I found out Ruthie was pregnant.

  Gloria rolled down the Vw window and turned down a Frankie Avalon song on the radio.

  “Hi,” she said. She had a small,

  freckled face with a slight overbite and a rather pointed chin. She wore a thin yellow parka that almost matched the color of her bug, which I suppose was the idea.

  “Hi. I’m looking for Ruthie. Have you seen her?”

  I could have won a few million from Gloria in a poker game. Though her lips were shaping themselves into a lie, her eyes glanced guiltily away. “Uh, uh-uh.”

  “Have you heard from her, then?”

  “No, I haven’t heard from her, either.”

  “That’s funny.”

  “What is?”

  “My mother’s under the impression she’s staying all night at your place.”


  “Gee, that is funny.”

  I said, “Why don’t you turn your engine off?”

  For the first time, she showed a little bit of fear.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want you to leave until you tell me the truth.”

  She shifted into first and said, “I’d

  better be going now.”

  I reached in and grabbed the steering wheel.

  “Damn it, Gloria, you remember the girl they found last night? The dead one who’d had the abortion?”

  She sank back in the seat.

  “Did you hear what I said, Gloria?”

  “Yes, I heard.”

  “You know what’s going on with Ruthie, right?”

  She took a moment but finally, she nodded.

  “Where is she, Gloria?”

  She looked up at me. “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I really don’t. She didn’t tell me.

  She just asked me to cover for her, you know, with your mom, in case she asked if Ruthie was staying at my house tonight.”

  “Gloria, if she goes to some quack who doesn’t know what he’s doing—”

  “Honest to God, she didn’t tell me. She just said she’d figured out a way to take care of it. Honest. That’s all she said.”

  I believed her. Her face had shifted from guilt to exasperation. Now she was telling me the truth and I was acting as if I didn’t believe her.

  “Do you ever hear of anybody around here who does these operations?” I said.

  “You mean like doctors?”

  “Doctors or anybody. A nurse,

  maybe.”

  “Uh-uh. Most girls go out of state.

  There’s a place in Kansas City where my sister went.”

  I should’ve called Des Moines sooner. I could have stopped this from happening tonight.

  “If you see her or hear from her—”

  “I’ll tell her to call you. I really will.

  But right now I’m kind of freezing my butt off.

  These heaters—”

  “That’s all right. Thanks for talking.”

  “She’ll be all right. I’m sure she will.”

  “I hope you’re right, Gloria.”

  The yellow bug headed up to the corner and then turned right when it got a green arrow on the traffic signal. Mist and fog were setting in.