Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [22]
He had been working as a delivery boy for a blueprint company, and quit after an argument with the manager. The manager, a gray man with yellowish eyeballs, had accused Jack of taking money out of petty cash. Jack had taken the money, all right—all the delivery boys did, as a matter of course—but he knew it could not be proved and he denied it. When the manager still looked suspicious, Jack told him he could take his job and stick it up his ass. Then he demanded the wages due him and walked out. He had hated the job anyway; running all over downtown Portland with huge unwieldy rolls of blueprints, always running, never enough time to walk, then sweeping the place out and having to put up with the bossiness of the printmakers, who for lack of any real authority tried to push the boys around. And besides, the place smelled of heat and chemicals, and nauseated him. He could not understand how people could work there and even claim they liked it.
Since then he had been living on his wits, and not doing a very good job of it. Now he was really up against it, for the first time in his life; really at the point where he had to decide if he was going to let them run his life for him (as they always had in the past) or whether he was going to run it. So far, since his romantic dash for “freedom,” he had run it right straight into the ground. How easy it would be to just give up and let them take over again. Go back to the orphanage where he had a bed and meals and clothes issued to him, where he worked because they told him to work, went to school because they told him to go to school.... But it would only last another year or so, until he was eighteen. Then even the orphanage would kick him out. But he could do what a lot of the others did, join the Army. They said the Army would take care of you; three squares and a flop, and all you had to do was obey orders; there wasn’t a war on, so no danger of getting your ass shot off; just a nice, easy life, uniforms, barracks, chow, and marching around with a rifle.
The very thought of it made Jack sick to his stomach. He knew it was not for him. He had run away from the orphanage in the first place because he was the toughest boy in the place and there was no more challenge for him and he was going crazy from boredom. Or something. The Army would be the same; he would feel that dull surge of hatred when somebody tried to tell him what to do, and sooner or later he would pop somebody and they would throw him in the stockade.
Well, he could get a job. Do what he was told. Bother no one. Dry up and blow away. Ffft. What was the difference?
He watched the green bills disappearing into Billy Lancing’s pocket at the end of almost every game. There was getting to be quite a wad in there. Jack felt hunger for that money. He wanted to walk up to Billy and just take it away from him. Why not? Why not wait till he leaves, follow, catch him in a lonely place, brace him, take all the money and the hell with it? Jack felt a tickling of emotion he could not identify, something to do with the Negro’s talent, and it might be unfair (odd word!) to steal his money...but the thought passed, and he decided if he had a chance, he would do it. He hoped the kid wouldn’t hate him for it. What difference did that make? He and the kid weren’t friends; every time the kid glanced at Jack his eyes veiled over with what Jack knew was fear; hell, the kid probably hated Jack, and every other big mean-looking white.
Denny came back and sat down next to Jack, grunting with disgust. “Shit! That goddam machine is fixed, you know that?” He felt through his pockets. “You got a cigarette?”
Levitt brought out his pack, took out the last two, and handed one to Denny. “You got any gold left at all? I’m gettin hungry.”
“I wonder how come that rich bastard