Hard City

by Clark Howard

  “The reason I didn’t write to you,” Richie started with his own explanation, “was because I was afraid they’d check my mail and maybe get you in trouble. They were on me to tell them who all knew where I was that last year.” He decided then and there not to tell her about Lamont, because he had no excuse for not writing her from there.

  “So,” she said after an uncomfortable pause, “what are you doing with yourself these days? Besides dressing like a tough guy, I mean.” Immediately biting her lip, she added, “There I go again. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m so surprised to see you like this. Anyway, are you working or what?”

  “Yeah, I’m working for the Illinois Central railroad, typing up bills of lading.”

  “Typing! You know how to type?” Linda was clearly impressed.

  “Yeah, I learned how in St. Charles. I worked as an office boy my whole time there.”

  “Why, Richie, that’s wonderful! I do a little typing at the library, but it’s the hunt-and-peck method, you know?” When he looked confused, she explained, “Hunt for the right key and peck it.” Looking at her watch, she said, “Golly, I’m almost late. I’ve got to go.”

  “I’ll walk you,” Richie said,

  “No, that’s okay.” Linda glanced nervously at the library. She’s afraid somebody’ll see her with me, Richie thought.

  “I was going to ask you to a movie sometime,” he said, “but I guess you wouldn’t want to be seen in public with me.”

  “Oh, Richie, I said I was sorry. You just really caught me by surprise, that’s all.”

  “Sure.” He bobbed his chin at the library. “Better hurry, you don’t want to be late.”

  Starting to walk away, Linda suddenly turned back. “Listen, let’s meet somewhere and have a talk, you want to?”

  Shrugging, Richie said, “Okay.”

  “You know where they have the band concerts in Garfield Park, on Wednesday nights? Let’s meet there. One of the benches back by the drinking fountain. We’ll be able to hear the music and can talk without disturbing anyone. That okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “See you then,” Linda said, and winked.

  When she winked, Richie fell in love with her all over again. Standing on the corner, watching her walk away, her young body splendidly erect, carriage almost regal, he felt like a ragged peasant who had just been spoken to by a princess. Not certain whether he was looking forward to Wednesday night or not, he headed back toward Maypole Avenue, where everyone was the same.

  Stan, Bobby, and Richie roamed the alleys behind Rush Street and other near North Side avenues known for the number of bars and lounges on their blocks.

  “It’s like in the old days when you and me used to prowl the loading docks,” Stan said to Richie, “looking for deposit bottles to steal. ‘Member?”

  “Yeah.” Richie nudged him with an elbow. “ ‘Member the cases of soup we stole?”

  Stan laughed. “Yeah! Soup, for Christ’s sake!” Stan in turn nudged Bobby. “You shoulda seen us, Case. We’d steal any fucking thing.”

  “Sure, sure,” Bobby Casey replied drily. “The good old days.”

  Bobby Casey sounded peculiarly like John Garfield and Richie resented it. He resented most things Bobby Casey said and did, and it occurred to him that he now felt about Bobby the same way Bobby had always felt about him. Everybody, Richie knew, was waiting for him and Bobby to duke it out. Richie was doing nothing any longer to prevent it; Bobby still did not know Richie had fought in club fights, and Richie was almost eager to surprise him with his skills. On several occasions already he and Bobby had come close to throwing punches, but something had interfered each time. The one important thing that kept them at arm’s length, they both knew, was the success the three of them had stealing together.

  “There’s one,” Stan said now, indicating a rectangle of light that was the open back door of a bar. On warm summer evenings it was common for bartenders to open the back door for a few minutes to let some of the smoke and beer odor out. “You do the front,” Stan said to Bobby, handing him a package of firecrackers. “We’ll meet you at the car.” As Bobby trotted away, Stan and Richie stood across the dark alley from the open door. Stan slipped a chisel from under his belt. “When we get inside, you stand between the men’s room door and the front of the joint. If anybody heads back toward us, warn me. Keep your blade handy.”

  “Right,” Richie said, wetting his suddenly dry lips, wiping his palms on his slacks. He would never understand why his lips got dry and his palms got wet.

  About five minutes after Bobby left, Stan and Richie heard, all the way through the bar, the pack of firecrackers going off at the front door.

  “Let’s go,” Stan said urgently.

  Through the back door they went. Up the hall they could see the bartender and several patrons hurrying to the front exit. Stan ducked quickly into the men’s room, leaving the door open. Richie planted himself in front of the door, eyes flicking from the bar to the men’s room and back, one hand around the closed switchblade in his coat pocket. Even as his stomach churned acid in the tension of the moment, he could not help wondering whether he would actually use the knife or not, if anyone ran back to challenge them. He thought he would, to protect Stan, who after all was the best friend he’d ever had, but he was not totally, completely certain.

  Standing tensely outside the men’s room, Richie’s darting glances inside caught Stan as he expertly used the chisel to pry the rubber machine off the wall. In less than a minute, Stan was back out and they were going through the rear door and hurrying down the alley; not even running because it was not necessary, they had not been seen. At the car they had stolen for the night, Bobby was waiting. As they drove away, Stan behind the wheel, Bobby used the chisel to pry off the back of the machine. He passed handfuls of quarters to Richie in the back seat, who put them in a shoebox, and handfuls of Trojan prophylactics, which he put in a second shoebox.

  “Just like in the old days with the gumball machines,” Stan said with a happy smile as he drove, “on’y now we get quarters instead of pennies. And”—he glanced in the rearview mirror at Richie—“we get free rubbers for ourselves and the rest we sell to Jo-Jo.”

  “We sure owe a debt of gratitude to Max,” Richie said seriously.

  “Max? Max who?” Bobby asked, looking over his shoulder.

  “Max Prophylactic,” Richie said. “He’s the guy who invented rubbers.”

  “No shit?” said Bobby, amazed. “Is that why they’re called prophylactics? ’Cause they was named after. . . ?” He saw Stan unable to suppress his laughter then, saw Richie grinning at Stan in the rearview mirror, and knew he had been tricked. “You’re asking for it, asshole!” he said angrily to Richie. “Just keep it up and you’re gonna get it!”

  “Sure, sure,” Richie said, in a real John Garfield voice.

  He wondered how it was going to feel to smash his fist into Bobby Casey’s obnoxious face.

  Dressing to meet Linda at the band concert, Richie left his Cugat jacket at home and wore his sport shirt with the collar unbuttoned, the way the squares wore them. He still had to wear his pegs and his Bulldogs, because he had thrown away the Lamont corduroys and shoes, but he modified the look by leaving his shirt out to cover the high waistband, and not draping his key chain into his pocket. There was nothing he could do about his hair, short of getting it cut, which he would not do.

  Linda was waiting for him when he got there, a purse and two books on her lap. She was wearing one of the “new look” long skirts and flat ballet shoes, and had on a little beret. “Hi,” she said, getting up as he approached. “Want to get some ice cream before the music starts?”

  “Hi. Sure.”

  “The ice cream man just went that way. If we go around, we can meet him.”

  As they walked, Richie took the two books out of her hands and looked at them. “Gentleman’s Agreement. Good book. The Snake Pit. That’s good too.”

  “You’ve read th
em?” Linda asked, surprised.

  “Sure. When they first came out.”

  “I’m so glad you’re still reading,” she said. Putting her arm through his, she leaned her head briefly on his shoulder, a kind of in-motion half hug.

  When they found the ice cream vendor, Richie bought them both Cream-sicles, fishing one bill out of his pocket to pay for them so he would not have to take out his entire roll. He seldom carried less than a hundred dollars now, and he knew Linda would never believe he had earned that much honestly. With their ice cream, they walked back toward the band shell.

  “So what school do you go to now?” Richie asked.

  “Austin High. I got a permit to go there because my grades were so good. I’m not really in that district.”

  “I hear it’s a nice school.”

  “Oh, it is! It’s in a real great neighborhood and the nicest kids go there.”

  “Now that you’re in high school, does your old man still watch out the window for you to come home?” he asked lightly.

  Linda immediately looked away; there was still enough light for Richie to see that she was blushing.

  “There’s just my mom and me now. She divorced my dad.”

  “Oh.”

  They got back to one of the park benches farthest from the bandshell just as the lights came on and the music began. It was a pop concert and the first selection was “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover.”

  Sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, Linda said, “I have a confession to make. I should have told you the other day, but you surprised me so, just popping up like that. Anyway, I have to tell you now—I have a steady boyfriend.”

  “Oh.” Richie could not think of anything else to say.

  “His name is Glenn and we’ve been going steady for over a year. We met in this church group that my mom and I started going to after she divorced my dad. Glenn’s a real nice boy, very clean-cut and honest; my mom really likes him.”

  “That’s nice,” Richie said, managing to keep the rancor out of his voice. Forcing a smile, he said, “I guess he probably dresses more to your taste, huh?”

  “Oh, now, Richie, don’t be mad about that,” she pleaded. “I said I was sorry. Anyway, that doesn’t have anything to do with it. At least, it doesn’t have a lot to do with it—”

  “Look, if you’ve got a steady, why’d you even offer to meet me tonight? Why’d you give me that little hug a while ago? What the hell are we doing sitting in the park in the dark?”

  “I want us to be friends, Richie, that’s why. I used to help you, remember, when you were all alone? You told me I helped you stop stealing once. I can help you again if you’ll let me.”

  “Help me how?” he asked. “I don’t need any help—”

  “Oh, Richie, you must. The kind of clothes you wear, the way you comb your hair, you’ve got to be hanging out with a gang of some kind. You couldn’t have very nice friends. Nice boys just don’t go around looking like that.”

  “Linda, you don’t know my friends,” he said impatiently, “you don’t know anything about them, so what the hell are you talking about them for?”

  “You don’t have to use vulgar language,” she chastised. “You never used to say ‘hell’ when I knew you before.” Linda put a hand on his arm. “If you’ll just listen to me, Richie, you’ll see that what I’m trying to tell you is for your own good. I think what you should do is come with me to one of our church group youth meetings. You can meet some nice people, maybe join in some of the activities—”

  “No!” he said, shaking her hand off. “I don’t want to go to your church group.” She had made him feel like a freak again. “Look, I’m not interested in meeting your friends any more than you’re interested in meeting mine. Maybe I shouldn’t even have tried to see you; I don’t know. But we used to like each other so much, we used to have so much fun together, and we never did anything with your friends or my friends; there was just you and me—”

  “We were kids then, Richie,” she insisted. “We’re almost grown now. If we’re going to be friends—”

  “What do you mean, if? Aren’t we friends now?”

  “Well, sure, I guess we are, only—”

  “Only it can’t be like it used to be, is that it? Can’t be just the two of us liking each other, enjoying being together, talking, having fun. You’ve made up a few new rules for us, haven’t you?”

  “You can really be nasty when you want to, can’t you?” Linda was looking at him with the same severe expression Mrs. Hubbard always had. Like he was scum. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” she said coldly. “Maybe you and I have grown too far apart to even be friends.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said in quick, clipped words. Linda’s expression became knowing.

  “Still playing John Garfield?”

  “Not anymore,” he said. Inside his blood was boiling. “I’m not playing anything anymore.”

  Rising, he handed her the two books. “So long, Linda.”

  Walking away, leaving the park, he headed once again for Maypole Avenue.

  Where he belonged.

  48

  Richie, Stan, and Bobby were slouched down in seats at the Savoy Theater out on West Madison Street, watching the last showing of Key Largo, with Bogart and Robinson. The picture was almost over when Richie noticed an usher walk down the side aisle nearest them, step into a little alcove near the screen, and check the emergency exit to make sure it was locked. Nudging Stan, Richie bobbed his chin at the usher, and both boys then watched him as he crossed the front of the first row and did the same with the door in the other side aisle.

  Five minutes later, the picture ended, the house lights went up, and the sparse late-night audience moved out of their seats and up the aisles.

  “Wait until we’re the last ones out, then cover the two aisle doors for me,” Richie whispered urgently to Stan and Bobby. They each took an aisle and sauntered along behind everyone else. When everyone was out except them, Richie dashed to the nearest exit alcove, pushed down the opening bar, and covered the locking slot with a half-empty pack of cigarettes he had. The door still closed all the way, but the bolt did not go into its slot, leaving it unlocked.

  Hurrying up the aisle, Richie caught up with Bobby and they walked on out, joined by Stan in the lobby.

  “It’s open,” Richie said when they were walking down Madison Street.

  “Think it might be wired?” Stan asked. Richie shrugged.

  “No telling.”

  “If it’s a silent alarm, the heat could be on us before we knew it.”

  “What could we get out of the place?” Bobby Casey wanted to know.

  “There’s probably twenty bucks change for the ticket booth and the candy counter, to start tomorrow with,” Richie appraised. “Could be money in the manager’s office from tonight; might be in a safe, might not. Two pay phones in the lobby we could rip open, and probably a dime Kotex machine in the ladies’ room. Toni told me they usually have one in every theater. Must be cartons of candy under the candy counter, that we could sell to Jo-Jo. We might make a bill, a bill-and-a-quarter.”

  They found an all-night coffee shop and had something to eat while they evaluated the plan further. It was something new and therefore to be approached with caution and consideration, but it was also exciting and energizing, already igniting in them a spark of the thrilling fear they knew would be experienced if they actually did it. To Richie, it was a feeling, that fear, unlike any other in the world, second only to ejaculation in its utter effect on every nerve-end in his body. Stealing, especially at night, in darkness, stealthily, gave one, like sex, a totally unique sensation. From the expressions Richie had seen on the faces of Stan and Bobby, he knew they felt it also. None of them ever discussed it. They did discuss how sex had been with this girl or that, what kind of blow job she gave, how she tasted when they ate her, but how they felt in the throes of robbery was too intimate, too personal.

  After an hour, they
decided to hit the Savoy. Returning to their neighborhood, they retrieved several chisels and screwdrivers, wrapped in a towel under the coal chute in Bobby Casey’s basement. From a dark residential block a mile from the theater, they unlocked a parked car with a coat hanger, hot-wired it, and drove along side streets to park around the corner from the Savoy. It was nearly three A.M. when they slipped down the alley and found the exit door Richie had fixed.

  It took them a total of twenty minutes inside the dark theater. While Bobby pried the Kotex machine off the wall, Stan forced open all the drawers in the manager’s desk, and Richie jimmied the lock on the storage compartment under the candy counter and stacked all the unopened cartons of candy and chewing gum next to the exit door. Ten minutes after they were inside, they knew there was no alarm system or there would already have been a response. Bobby broke open the Kotex machine right in the ladies’ room and left it there, empty of dimes, and Stan emptied the contents of two change boxes, and with his switchblade slit open a locked bank bag containing the night’s receipts. The last thing they did, because they were certain it relayed some kind of signal, was pry both pay phones off the wall and empty their coin boxes. Then, each with an armload of candy and gum cartons, they hurried back down the alley to the car.

  The robbery netted them sixty-eight dollars from the bank bag, twenty each from the change boxes, eight from the two phones, three from the sanitary napkin machine, and thirty dollars from the candy and gum they sold to Jo-Jo: a total of one hundred forty-nine dollars, or nearly fifty dollars each.

  “Not bad,” said Stan Klein the next day. “I just read in the paper the other day that the average working stiff only makes forty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents in a whole week. We made that much in one night. I’d say we’re doing pretty fucking good.”