Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation Read online

  But he was different. You could tell. There was something about him—something hungry. One of the men, fellow named Jan who’d been to college, was talking about the kid over supper; said the boy looked like a wild animal huddled up in an unaccustomed cage. I couldn’t of put it better myself. This Jan was smart, and he said the kid was starved for affection.

  Well, Hell, ain’t we all?

  The kid stuck his hand through the bushes and plucked a handful of ripe berries off. He hadn’t been so good at it the first few hours in the fields. Anyone could see he wasn’t a regular crop-man, but after a bit he’d watched us with those sharp green eyes, and pretty soon he could six-pluck a fistful as well as the rest of us.

  “Where you from, kid?” I asked.

  He looked over at me, and puckered his lower lip. I don’t think he knew he was doing it. He gave a strong blow and his dirty brown hair went out of his eyes for a second. It fell back in a long branch, and hung there.

  He settled back on his haunches, pushing the hair away with force, and said, real slowly, “Up near Cedar Rapids way.”

  “That’s in Iowa, ain’t it?” I asked.

  He nodded, breaking a dirt clod in his hand.

  “Thanks—thanks for…the…other day,” he stumbled, his face turned down in shadow.

  I knew what he meant. The fight. He’d gone nuts, for no reason, when he’d heard the boss’s wife, Miz Fenkel, talkin’ to her little boy in German, and I’d hadda pull him high off before he’d smashed the poor woman.

  There hadn’t been no reason for it. He’d just started for her. I’d slapped him once, good and hard, and the craziness had died out of his eyes and he’d settled back without a word.

  But it hadn’t made sense.

  “I—I—thought,” he mumbled, and then stopped. He tried again, “—it seemed for a minute she was…but it wasn’t…” His voice died off again and he sat there idly fumbling with the dirt.

  I did something I don’t do, usually. I started to pry into another man’s business. “What’s your name, boy?”

  He looked up, then. He looked at me long, and I could tell he wasn’t just thinking about now. I’d done him a favor, sure, but he didn’t know me from Adam. I was just another field bum, pickin’ strawberries. He was thinking, what if I tell this man my name, and in the future, and what’ll happen, and is there a reason not to tell, and then he said, “Holloway. Most call me by my first; that’s Fair.”

  “Fair Holloway?”

  He nodded. “What’s that short for?” I asked.

  “Fairweather.” He seemed embarrassed.

  “Nice name,” I said, and went back to my berries. That was enough prying for then. I didn’t want to scare him off. I kinda liked the boy. He seemed grateful I stopped, too. I saw him give me a short look, then he bent over his rows again.

  Natchitoches, Louisiana’s a piece down from Cedar Rapids. A strawberry farm is a good ways from the home this boy must have come from, too.

  While I picked, I wondered about him. I wondered more than I think I’ve ever wondered about anyone. Any kid would say he was going to put his old man down, like that, in that real matter-of-fact talk, was something pretty odd. Besides, I liked him. He seemed like a nice kid, aside from what he’d said, and except for his goin’ after Miz Fenkel that way.

  I finished that row, not even minding the sun, or the mosquitoes, just thinking, and started on another line. The kid stayed right next. He didn’t go off to work another string. I liked that. He seemed to get along with me, too.

  We worked till the sun was good and high, and starting down a bit, then they called us for supper. I got up, slow, because I ain’t as young as I used to be, which sounds like what everybody else says, but it’s true. I’m getting on. It won’t be too many years I can keep running the crops this way.

  I been running ’em a long time, and maybe the reason I’d taken an interest in the kid was that I’d been on the road alone all those years, and I saw myself in the kid a little bit. I don’t know, maybe that was it. Maybe not. But I liked him, and I figured he needed a friend.

  The boy was ahead of me, swinging his berry bag from his hand, kicking at the dirt, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Hey!” I yelled. He turned and stopped when he saw it was me. His eyes were wary, and every line of his blue-jeaned body suggested running again.

  “I’ll walk over with you,” I said, coming up. We started walking again, and he didn’t say a word, so I didn’t figure it was my place to do otherwise.

  Our feet sank into the summer ground slightly, giving a sort of springiness to our walk, that even our heavy boots couldn’t take away. It was good to be alive.

  I stole a look at Fair Holloway out of the corner of my eye. He was a hungry-looking thing, like I said. His face was long and tanned from the sun, and it came to a point at the chin. His cheekbones were high and his nose was straight and thin as a finger.

  His hands hung loose and open by his sides, but they had a way of knotting up—sudden-like—for no particular reason at all. He seemed and looked like an ordinary enough kid.

  And he wanted to kill his father.

  We came up to the house, and Fenkel, the man’d hired us, was out back with his wife, ladling out soup to the first batch of field workers.

  We dumped our bags into a trough the hired girls would use when filling the berry boxes, and sat down at the big table.

  There was soup, and biscuits, and chittlins, baked potatoes and fresh peas. Corn on the cob, cranberry sauce, two kinds of preserves, and hot, black coffee. Then Miz Fenkel brought out half a dozen good old-fashioned Dutch Apple pies and we cleaned ’em up in short time.

  Once, she was saying something to her husband in German, as she served us, and I saw Fair tighten up again. He made like to rise a little, and I put my hand on his shoulder, hard, and he seemed to snap out of a dream. He sat back down again real slow, and shook his head a couple times. He ran his hand through his hair, down across his face, and gave me a sort of sick white smile.

  Right about then I figured I’d stick with the kid some. He needed a friend real bad. He needed someone to keep an eye out for him.

  There was usually a horseshoe game going after supper, for a half hour or so, and most of the men were over watching. I didn’t bother joining them. I wandered over to where the kid was leaning up against the steel frame of a plow. I was drawn to him, somehow.

  “They put up a good spread here, don’t they?” I said, coming up behind him.

  He spun around, half-dropping, his hands tightening, and glared at me. Those sharp green eyes were slitted up like a catamount’s, and his tongue kept flicking in and out, in and out.

  For a minute there I was petrified. I’d never seen a kid that looked so old. He could have been a thousand years old in that minute. With the hate of a thousand years all ready to brim over. Then he saw it was me, and all that stoking died down. I could see the scare and fury simmer out from behind his eyes and he wiped his hand across them, as though they were burning. “Yeah. Yeah, they put up a real fine spread.” He sounded bone-weary.

  I sat down right by his feet, with my back against the plow. He gave me a funny look. The kind of look a man who is alone always gives someone breaking into his loneliness. But I tried again. “Why do you want to kill your old man?”

  He looked me that slow, careful look, and then pursed his lips. He was weighing it again, I could see.

  “I’m just curious, that’s all,” I said. “If you’ve got reasons, why then don’t tell me. I was just curious, that’s all.”

  He slid down, then, and went plonk in the dirt right next to me.

  I thought he was going to silence, but he started in talking and pretty soon I’d of had to stop him with a gag in the mouth to shut him up.

  “My father went overseas near the end of the Second World War,” he said, “and he met a fraulein.” Way he said that kraut word I thought it was all the nasty stuff in the world, all in one word. He sounded real strange w
hen he talked about it, like someone older than fifteen, sixteen.

  “Yeah,” I urged.

  “He married up with her, over there, and then brought her back here. Then he married her again, over here, just to make sure it was legal. Only trouble was,” and his face drew tight, “he was a bigamist. He was still married to Maw.” His face was white and stretched, as though someone had it out on dryers in the sun. It was real harsh and tight, with the lines under his eyes and around his mouth like ink.

  I wondered how a young kid could look so old.

  I wondered what he’d been through to know words like bigamist. He told the story quick, and it seemed he knew what he was going to say even before he said it. I wondered how often he’d told this story.

  “My mother slashed her wrists once, and stuck her head in the oven a second time.” He winced when he said it, like it hurt in his stomach. “But she couldn’t die, cause she loved that man too much. He came home one night and made a big scene that broke her heart for real, then he ran off somewhere, and was gone with that fraulein of his.”

  Then I understood why he’d tried to jump Miz Fenkel. The kid just hated German women. He was in a bad way. He could get real sick if he was to let a thing like that rule his whole life. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know how.

  He’d stopped talking, and had begun playing with the dirt between his outstretched legs. It was difficult to keep thinking of him as a young kid. He didn’t say any more, and I knew that was the story.

  “How long you been looking?” I asked.

  “Four years,” he said; real quiet.

  “Ever found track of him?”

  “Little bit. Words here and there. I always follow up what anyone says. If they tell me an American’s living with a German wife, I always go there. That’s why I came down here, but Old Man Fenkel ain’t American, he’s German.” He seemed disappointed, somehow. “I’ll find him,” he finished.

  He stopped cold. I knew that was all. I wasn’t going to get any more, and it was a polite way of sayin’, don’t ask for no more.

  I didn’t want no more.

  All the next week we stayed pretty close together. The kid took a like to me, cause I didn’t bug him, and he knew I understood his troubles. And I was glad to be around him—it gave me something to do, watching out for him.

  But the berry crop played out in a week, and Fenkel paid us all off, and thanked us mightily. He’d made connections and had a pretty penny setting up waiting for him for the batch.

  Day he paid us off, I didn’t see Fair much. He got his stuff—just a few things—together in a beat-up old carpetbag and moved out of the bunkhouse. After Fenkel gave me my wages, I started to move out, slow, looking for the kid. I was just toting my blanket roll and some spare clothes. I moved out of the farm and down the road, looking both ways for the boy.

  Then I saw him. He was up the road a few yards, walking slow, kicking the clods of dirt like he always did. I yelled to him.

  “Where ya headin’, Fair?”

  He looked over his shoulder, and I was glad he didn’t give me that catamount stare. He’d gotten real used to me during the last week, and we’d bunked down next to each other every night, so I kind of figured maybe I’d tag along with him, show him where the next crop was gonna be.

  He answered, “Don’t know, Harry. I was thinking of going down to Lake Charles. Some of the boys said there was a peanut crop coming out around there somewhere.” Then he wetted his lips like he did once in a while, and said, slow, like he had trouble getting it out, “I was talking to one of the hands. He—he said he thought there might be someone down there I’d want to see.” He didn’t look at me when he said it, kept staring at his dusty army boots.

  There was a light in his eyes.

  “Your old man?”

  He nodded.

  “How do you know it is?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then why—” I began.

  He cut me off. “I’ve got to find out. It might be. It just might.” His voice fell to a whisper. “I’ve got to see.”

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  He stared for a minute; he must have been wondering why a full-grown one like me wanted to chum up with a kid like him. But he ducked his head a little bit, so his hair tumbled again, and told me I could come if I was of a mind.

  I had a mind, so we walked into Natchitoches together.

  We caught a few hours’ sleep in the bus station, and later that night we hopped a freight, which is real tough to do these days, and started for Lake Charles.

  We lay in the boxcar, staring out through the slats of the construction, watching the fuzz of trees whipping past.

  I didn’t know for sure yet why I was going with this kid, but he was something I was interested in, and it’d been a long time since I’d been interested in anything.

  It’s lonely out on the road—and that’s the way most guys like it. That way nobody makes demands on you. But this kid was company, and interesting, and he had worries, and he didn’t ask for nothing. You could be with him and not worry about him making any demands.

  And he needed a friend real bad. It’s good for a man to be a friend, once in a while.

  I looked over at him, lying on his carpetbag, staring with his eyes shut.

  “The whole idea about Lake Charles is pretty slim,” I said. It puzzled me. Someone back at the berry farm had told the kid he knew of a man that fit the description Fair gave of his father, with a kraut wife and all, and the kid had taken off like a big bird.

  It didn’t matter to me. One way was as good as another, but the way that kid shifted direction with the rumors was a strange thing.

  He mumbled something in answer, but I didn’t catch it.

  “It probably isn’t your old man,” I continued. I could tell he wasn’t listening.

  All the time in that freight he’d just laid there with his head on that carpetbag, part of the time staring up at the stars through the slats, part of the time like he was asleep. I couldn’t tell if he was or not.

  Funny thing. I didn’t try to talk him out of killing his old man. That was his business, and it seemed right that he do it, if he wanted to. The kid had built his life around it, that was easy to see, and if you took that away from him, well, hell, he’d of had nothing.

  It was a kind of distant thing, really, that’s why I didn’t worry about it too much. It was like someone that says I’m going to China some day, but you know they’ll never quite make it. It was like that with his killing his father. I didn’t think he was going to find his old man. The United States is a big place. I was sure we’d never run into the father. I was pretty much sold on sticking with the kid, by this time. We got along, and it was a good deal.

  All but the father business.

  He was okay aside from that.

  And then, I was sure we wouldn’t find the old man.

  I was wrong.

  First night in town, that kid made like a bloodhound, and the trouble started brewing.

  We got into Lake Charles and the kid said we’d better split up for a while. He said he had to check at some store or other for something, and we’d meet back in the center of town in an hour.

  I didn’t see no reason for splitting like that and I told him I’d come along.

  “Look, Harry, you go where you want, and I’ll meet you. I want to go someplace by myself.” He was starting to catamount me, so I agreed. I went off looking for a greasy spoon to get some grub. That train ride had hungered me good.

  In an hour, I was back sitting on a bench in the square where we’d parted. After a cop had told me to move on three times and I’d shifted benches three times, Fair came back.

  His lips was drawn so tight against his face they looked like two lines of topsoil down a field. I knew he had something.

  “He’s here,” was all he said, and started past me. He probably hadn’t even come back through the square to meet me, that was most likely just the way to get where he
was goin’.

  I grabbed his arm. He was only a bit smaller than me, and he shook me off quick. “Don’t be doing anything crazy now, Fair,” I said, waving my hands around without any purpose.

  He just looked at me like I’d told him to stop breathing. “Harry, don’t you understand? That man’s in this town. I have to kill him. Don’t you understand?” It was so queer, to hear them words coming out of that young boy’s mouth, in that kid’s voice—but them words!

  He started off, then, and I knew I couldn’t say nothing. I still didn’t believe it was his father, and I was hoping he’d stop when he saw that. I decided to just go along with him. You don’t try and stop a person when they want to live their life that way. This was his problem—I was just along to see he didn’t do anything crazy.

  We walked out of town, and down a dirt road. We kept walking and every once in a while the kid would stop someone on the road or yell at a man in a field and ask him where Ernest Luber’s farm was.

  How did the kid know this Luber was old man Holloway with a new name? I couldn’t understand it.

  “How do you know it’s your old man?” I asked him, trotting alongside.

  “I know.”

  “But how do you know? You can’t just take a poor description! You got to know!” I pleaded with him.

  “I know!”

  “Fair, watch yourself. You can’t do something to this man, even if he is your father. That’s for the law to handle.” I was getting desperate. What if it was his father?

  “The law didn’t help my maw. Go look at her. Then come back an’ tell me the law. Go ahead!” He snapped it out, and I knew I couldn’t talk to him. He was set to go after this Luber.

  It was all real queer. I liked that boy, and I had to stay with him, but I felt futile, and helpless, like I couldn’t do nothing.

  Every now and then I’d tell him to forget it.

  He didn’t even listen.

  By the time we’d been walkin’ a half-hour, the bandanna round his throat had been soaked to sogginess with sweat. He was on a kill day. His eyes showed it.