Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [125]
Jack, in the course of his work, had to deal with a lot of drunks, and he knew that the only way to handle them was to get them somehow into their cars, or if they were too drunk, into a cab, and get rid of them; he knew he could not rise to any challenge, he had to withstand any insult without losing his temper, and it really wasn’t too hard to do. After all, it was part of his job. But one night, after a series of particularly haughty, drunk suburbanites, he was walking up Broadway alone, on his way home, and there were four teen-agers blocking the sidewalk, arguing with each other. He tried to get past them, but one turned on him and shoved him against the building and swore at him. Jack wanted to get home, so he tried to leave, but the boys surrounded him. He was still a very hard-looking man (he had not yet begun to wear glasses) and perhaps the boys, in their desperate boredom, felt challenged by his obvious toughness. They ganged up on him, and something drawn very tight inside him snapped, and with real joy he took them on, grabbing two by the neck and smashing their heads together, kicking another in the stomach and hearing with great pleasure his grunt of surprise, and then watching the last of the boys, his arms akimbo, his mouth open in stupid fear, backing away from Jack. With a giggle, Jack followed him and hit him in the chest, as hard as he could, and the boy folded up. Two policemen in a patrol car had seen the whole thing and were crossing the street when the last of the boys folded up. They put the arm on Jack, and after calling for another patrol car and an ambulance they took him downtown. Both of the policemen had been delighted by what Jack had done, but they braced him and took him downtown anyway. When they found out he was on parole they were genuinely sorry they had picked him up.
Jack was certain he was going back to San Quentin, and he retreated bitterly into his hard shell, hating himself for his pretended hardness. They offered him his one telephone call and he shook his head angrily; then, rising out of the stupid hardness, accepted, and called Sally.
“I’m in jail,” he told her.
“Oh my God, I’ll get you a lawyer,” she answered.
The next morning, after a great deal of fussing, Jack was released. He had never seen and heard so much bathos in his life. They were all there—his parole officer, his lawyer (Jack had expected to see John, the man he had hit out in front of Rosenbloom’s, and was surprised to find that he was being represented by Cyril Whitehead, one of the most famous criminal lawyers in the country), Sally, the four punks, their parents, a representative of the District Attorney’s office, two or three other lawyers with the fat, well-bred look that comes from a corporation practice—all these people milling around, talking, touching each other, alternately smiling and looking serious; and the upshot was that while fighting was forbidden to parolees, they did have the right to protect themselves, and as to the four boys, well, they were all from good, local, prominent families, and were really good boys at heart, and they were awfully sorry (sorry they had been knocked around, Jack thought) and promised not to do anything of the kind again, etc. etc., and Jack and Sally went home, and for weeks she was very loving and devoted to him. She had almost lost him; it could happen just like that.
For his part, Jack understood what Sally must be going through, stuck at home all the time, and a most wonderful solution came to him: it was time to start having children. Even though he only made $72.50 a week, which was really not enough to have children on, it was better just to dive right in now and save Sally from her perpetual boredom that to wait