He’s a good driver, Doughboy, no denying that. At the nurse’s place he slows down and sticks out his right hand. But he don’t say a word. Meaning, of course, that some things just don’t need explaining. Looking out the window I think I see somebody lying in the road there for a second, right by Jacob’s hedge. It’s just a fancy, though, my own goddamn mind playing tricks on me.
“What do you say we take ourselves homewise for a while first?” Doughboy says, and then hits the gas so hard the car jumps forward and jerks me back.
Homewise. What kind of goddamn word is that? That’s something he picked up since last time I was home. Probably heard it from some flour salesman. I wonder if I should ask about the old man now. But then again it might be better to wait till we get to his house. Might irk him for me to start talking about something like that when he’s trying to keep his mind on the road. I have that three-quarter-pint bottle in my jacket pocket. I can give that to Doughboy as a thank you gift. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll ask him about the accident and thank him all at the same time when we get to his place.
Neither of us has said a word by the time we pull up outside his gate. Doughboy probably thinks I’m blue on account of the old man and everything, so just before we get out of the car he gives me a friendly pat on the shoulder and says: “Cheer up there, fella.”
I flash him a small smile and get out. Doughboy’s place is looking pretty good now. New armchairs in the living room and there’s new clay tiles on the roof, he says, instead of that cheap shingling you see everywhere. And he picked up a gramophone somewhere in the city. Not from that prick Nisse, in other words. The cushion in the chair is so soft I sink damn near up to my ears when I sit down. Doughboy puts on a record and I figure it’s best to let it finish playing before I say anything. Only there’s a few songs on it, so it takes a while. Meanwhile he puts a couple glasses out on the little table and goes and gets a bottle of whisky from the cabinet. I don’t want to hold back my share, so I pull the little bottle of brännvin out of my jacket. His eyes open wide when he sees it’s the good stuff.
“Now, Doughboy,” I say. “Well, you see—”
But the words get stuck in my throat. I just can’t blurt things out and start talking about the old man like that. Maybe it’s better if I just sit here for a little bit and build up to it after I let things settle.
Up with your hand! And up it goes as Doughboy unscrews the bottle cap and leans forward to fill the glasses. I give him the sign, clear as day — stop! I did not come here to drink. So if Lydia is sitting around at home with that goddamn radio dealer, not to mention Ulrik and the neighbor girl, all of them clicking their tongues and shaking their heads, pissing and moaning about Knut going off to get liquored up with that whiskey-soaked Doughboy, then they can just think again! They’ve always had a low opinion of me, as if you can’t collect trash for a living and still be a decent person. Let them talk all the shit they want about me. What do I care?
“What?” Doughboy says. “You mean to say you ain’t even gonna have some of your own brännvin with me?”
“I’m not in the mood for it,” I say to him.
But then he tells me it’ll be quite a letdown if that’s how I plan to show my appreciation for his hospitality. Last thing I want to do is hurt his feelings, of course, ’specially not after all he’s done. I mean, looking after the old man like he did right after the accident. So I go ahead and agree to have a drink with Doughboy and cheer his health. But the glass he pours is awful big. So I won’t be having more than the one. Two at most.
It’s a pretty goddamn nice place he’s got! Done a lot with it since I was here last. Then he only had a heavy iron bed and a few wooden chairs. Wonder if he remembers the ten-crown note he owes me. Maybe I should ask about the old man now. Goddamn gramophone won’t stop blaring, though, so I figure I can hold off a little longer. That woman of his ain’t anywhere to be seen.
So I ask him where she is, just to get things going a bit before I bring up the old man. But Doughboy, he flies off the handle then.
“She left!” he tells me. “Didn’t leave me for nobody else. Went back to live with her folks, up there in Medelpad. Went around telling people all I did was drink after winning the lottery. And then one goddamn day, out of the blue — or one night, actually — I get home here and there ain’t nothing but a note on the kitchen table. Not a scrap of food in the house! Jesus Christ, I get so goddamn mad just thinking about it!”
Doughboy stops for a few seconds and his eyes fill up. “I’m all on my own now,” he says, and then he breaks down. Big as he is, he just looks at his hands and cries.
All of a sudden I feel pretty bad for him. He ain’t a bad fella. So I pour him a new glass. And I take a little for myself, mostly to keep him from getting bluer. All that about what happened to the old man — well, it’s just gonna have to wait. Not like I can trouble him with that right now. He’s got his head buried in his arms on the table. “Cheer up there, fella,” I say. “You and me ain’t seen each other since we buried my Mamma. So come on. Let’s have a drink together.” To comfort him, I take another slug, ’cause he really ain’t a bad fella, Doughboy, when you get right down to it.
“She even took the dog with her!” he says. “So who wouldn’t get furious?”
He’s got a point there. It’s a hell of a thing to go and take a man’s dog.
“You,” he says. “You’re lucky. Grieving for somebody who’s dead, that’s alright. But to grieve for somebody that’s alive. That’s about the worst thing I can think of.”
Well, so much for talking to him about the old man, least for the time being. He’s gonna have to settle down first. But that’s looking kind of hopeless right now, the way the tears start streaming down his cheeks.
“I think maybe we should just finish this bottle,” I say, trying to lift his spirits a bit. And then I empty out the rest of the brännvin and knock it right back, mostly to console him. It was a big shot, that last one, enough to do the trick for me. Not that I’m drunk or anything. The last thing I’m gonna do is give Lydia and the rest of them more ammo to snipe at me with.
But Doughboy, he just can’t be consoled. So I forget the old man for now and start to talk about Elinda instead.
“Don’t think you’re the only one with wife troubles,” I say. And right away Doughboy’s face lightens up when I mention Elinda like that. Not right away, but soon enough. I figure this means everybody must have heard something about that by now. Doughboy, he wipes his eyes with his hand, and then he pulls the cork out of the whiskey bottle. I tell him to hold off. And right away his face gets dark. So I let him pour me another glass. But pouring and drinking, I think to myself — now that’s two different things.
But Christ, I’ve got to dig deep to get at that whole sorry business with Elinda. It’s worn on me something terrible, but that don’t make it easy to talk about. So when Doughboy raises his glass to me I go right along with him. It ain’t no fun to trip over your own words as you try to get them to come out right. Makes you sound like you’re making it all up. After a good slug the whole thing comes a little more natural. And Doughboy, he’s pretty good at helping ease some of the details out of me, so I figure he knows a thing or two about the whole sorry business already. I’m sure it’s Lydia and Nisse I can thank for that. So if they jump all over my ass when I get home, I’ll have a few things to say to them. That’s for goddamn sure!
The whole thing was a mess from the start. If Elinda had to go and get herself another fella while I was doing my conscript service, how come she couldn’t do better than some fat, pasty turd from a little market town? Turns out this lout went to school with Nisse. After I gave him the treatment he went back to this little burg they come from and spread rumors about me. I’d love to get my hands on that son of a bitch again. God forbid he ever shows his face in my neck of the woods. And Nisse could do with a lesson too. Would serve him right for driving around in his starched white shirts, talking shit for the next six m
onths. So I drain my glass and tell Doughboy what really happened. In case he ain’t heard it right.
“At the time I’d been in the service for eight months,” I told him. “And the whole platoon was getting transferred from Jämtland down to Linköping. So on the layover in Stockholm, I get the idea to slip away and go home for the night. I figure a night with the wife, that’d be just the thing. So I rent a car and hire a driver. Sixteen crowns it cost me! Well, if you count the ride out there plus the cost of cleaning up afterwards. Still, I figure it’s worth it just to get to sleep on a real couch again. But then finally when I get home and I’m standing there in my kitchen, what do you think I come face to face with? Here sits this bastard in his bare feet, right there on the cushioned bench, and in his lap is my wife! Darning the son of a bitch’s socks! So I don’t exactly need the whole evening to figure out the shape of things. ‘Get your goddamn socks on!’ I say, yanking them out of the wife’s hands. ‘And get the hell out of here! And you know what, buster? I got a feeling one of them eyes of yours is gonna be black before you hit the door. In fact, you can bet your sorry ass on it!’ And I’ll be goddamned if that miserable clown don’t get his socks on in record time. Then he starts scrambling to get his shoes on — only I can see then that they’re my shoes! So out he goes, into the night in his stocking feet!”
Doughboy, he just grins and pulls back on the cork again. But enough is enough, ’cause the bottle is starting to wobble a bit and the sweat is pouring right down off me. Just put your hand up and show him you mean to stop here. But him, he just keeps grinning and pours another. But pouring is one thing, of course, and drinking is another. I’ve got character. And that pack of pious pricks shaking their heads back in the kitchen at home — well, what the hell would they know about that?
“Now that’s interesting,” Doughboy says. “’Cause what I heard is it was you that got the licking. Someone said they heard that from Nisse.”
A licking! Me! Well, that’s pretty much what I’d expect from that slimy ass-kissing Nisse. No, if someone deserves a thrashing it’s that prick. I’ll just have to remember to have a good talk with Nisse when I get home — as long as I’m in good shape. Get a couple warm belts in me and I can do my talking just fine. What a bunch of goddamn hypocrites, all of them back there. So I drain my glass in one go and tell Doughboy how things really went.
“So we finally get out of that Lappland shithole,” I say. “You should have been with us on that trip, Doughboy. Ten of us fellas and ten liters of brännvin. You really should have been there! We come straight out of that shithole and by the time we get to Stockholm that night we’re feeling mighty fine. And it’s on to Linköping first thing in the morning. So I go ahead and rent a car and driver to get home from Norra Station. With the cost of cleaning up afterwards it come to pretty much twenty crowns. So it ain’t like I’m counting pennies or nothing when it comes to the wife. I figured she’d be over the moon to see me walk in the door like that as I’m turning the key. But then what do I find when I get in the kitchen? Her sitting there all over this bastard, the tramp. And him, he’s half-naked, so it ain’t like I don’t know what’s been going on. And I’ve always been good to that woman — you know that, don’t you, Doughboy? So I just make sure she’s out of the way, good and safe, and then I yank that son of a bitch up off the bench. ‘Get your clothes on, buster!’ I yell at him. ‘You and me got some business to take care of!’ And I peel my army jacket off and tell him, calm as a cucumber: ‘I wouldn’t go entering no beauty contests if I was you.’ And right out the door I send him packing! And this is right from the horse’s mouth, believe you me! Out he goes reeling, in his bare feet! And you know I ain’t one to pull my punches. So if somebody or another is running around talking shit about me, they’ll get theirs soon enough. There ain’t no question about that, now, is there? I might not have the extra padding in my shoulders that some of these stuffed shirts have, like a certain radio dealer we might know. But if they think that’s where a man’s power comes from, my dear friend Doughboy — well, then, they got another goddamn thing coming to them! I’ll tell you, this soldier right here was stuck up in that Lappland pisshole for eight long months. Ain’t had a woman that whole damn time. Just wait till you get home and see your girl — that’s what I tell myself. And I drop twenty-five crowns in one go on a car and driver, not a penny more or less. You know me, Doughboy. I’ll spare no expense for my woman — she always comes first. You know that.”
And if my eyes tear up on me, well, Doughboy, he ain’t the kind of guy to make you feel foolish about that. He pats me on the shoulder and says “Don’t cry, there, Knutteboy. You got friends that care about you, here at home if nowheres else.”
“You’re somebody a man can count on,” I say to him, even though I’d still like to teach them bastards at home a thing or two, sitting there in the kitchen, dragging my name through the mud.
“Put that woman out of your head, Knut-boy,” Doughboy says.
Not like I’ve been thinking about her, but now when I do it’s hard for me not to wonder what she’s up to tonight. I’m grieving. Come all the way out here to bury my one and only father, and she’s out somewhere getting up to god knows what. Alone is what I am. Ain’t a goddamn soul left to turn to.
“Let’s just polish off this last little bit,” Doughboy says.
She’s not the only one that knows how to go out and have a good time, even if the one she’s promised herself to is off grieving a heavy loss. I can empty a glass too, and so I do.
“Stuck in that goddamn Lappland shithole, I was, for eight long months,” I start to tell him.
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” says Doughboy, like he knows all about it already.
Don’t see why he thinks he can take that tone with me. Bigger dogs than him have had to lower their tails to Knut Lindqvist. You’re on your own now, Knut-boy, and there ain’t a goddamn soul left on this earth you can count on. So is it any wonder your eyes start to sting?
“Get hold of yourself,” Doughboy tells me. “What say we go to the Pavilion, you and me?”
I try to get up, but it’s trickier than you’d think, the way his chairs swallow you up.
“It’s too far,” I say. “We’ll never make it.”
“We’ll take the car,” Doughboy says and grabs my arm to hoist me up. Only the floor moves on me and when I grab the table to catch my balance a glass goes crashing to the floor. What a pain in the ass! Why do folks have to put their glasses so close to the edge like that? The table ain’t so steady either, so I grab hold of the gramophone stand. A vase topples over and smashes to pieces on the floor. It’s that last glass of brännvin, I’m sure. Before that one I was steady like an oak. Still, just goes to show. My woman ain’t the only one that knows how to go out and have a good time.
“Forget the vase,” Doughboy says. “Let’s go!”
He turns off the lights and we head out. It got so stifling inside I felt like I might just throw up. But the fresh air outside does me some good. Still, the path is full of rocks that stick right up out of the ground, and I trip over one and land on my knees. Annoying as hell, ’cause now Doughboy will probably think I’m drunk. Not like he’s got room to look down his nose at me. He might be bursting with money now, but he sure wasn’t too good to borrow ten crowns from me that last time, and you think he remembers that? So I got a few morsels of truth I can treat folks to tonight. You better believe it. Like that goddamn Nisse. Might just have to learn the hard way, once and for all, that it don’t pay to play fast and loose with my good name. And the tin-knocker. No saying what’ll happen if I run into that son of a bitch at the Pavilion tonight.
Anyway, it’s good to sit in the car. And I guess I can depend on Doughboy after all. He’s at the wheel fiddling around with the dashboard. He can’t find the knob he wants, so we ain’t going nowhere. It’s funny to see him feeling around all tender and slow with his fingers, like he’s groping a woman. He must be pretty stewed himself, and that’s alwa
ys a hell of a tickle, watching a fella in that kind of shape. So all due apologies, but I can’t keep from starting to chuckle — cackle is more like it. I get caught up in such a belly laugh the door pops open, and I pretty near fall out. Doughboy starts losing his cool. And there ain’t many things funnier than a fuming-mad drunk. I laugh so hard I start to cry. Finally he gets the engine to turn over, but then we jerk backwards right into a telephone pole. He cusses into his jacket and jams it into the right gear. When he hits the gas we fly out into the road like a cannonball. Yep, he’s a pretty good driver, Doughboy. Some bicyclists scream at us and a couple others we pass just stand there at the edge of the road, glaring at us. He’s driving pretty damn good, considering he don’t even have his headlights on. And me, I can’t stop laughing, pretty much the whole way, ’cause Doughboy’s drunk as a skunk.
Hurtling along the road at that speed, we pull up outside the Pavilion in no time flat. A lot of folks there. They’re gawking at us ’cause I’m laughing so hard. You’d think a man couldn’t have a little fun in this goddamn country. There’s a little hole in the ground near the entrance, and I lose my footing there and end up on my knees. So now the doorman probably thinks I’m drunk. And sure enough I’m getting the stiff arm at the door. We ain’t getting in.
“No entry?” I say, riled up. “We all know what kind of turkey shoot this place is. But that don’t make us the turkeys!”
Takes more than a few brass buttons to make me grovel at the door. But Doughboy, he ain’t standing shoulder to shoulder with me the way I’d expect. Instead he pulls me back and tries to calm me down, and then he says to the doorman, just like he’s a captain of industry or something: “The newspapers might find this an item of some interest, you understand.”
Sleet: Selected Stories Page 18
