The Long November Page 2

  Values are funny things; I would probably have wanted Mars if I had lived on the moon. Across the street lived Mary Hodgins. Mary thought I looked like Buddy Rogers and she let the world know about her crush on me. But Mary wouldn’t do. It had to be Steffie. Steffie of the aristocratic grandmother with the Gibson mansion and the Gibson gods. Those gods that must have been a seven per cent First Mortgage, the black velvet band Grandmother Gibson always wore at her throat, the dated elegance even then of the Waverly Electric coupé, and the silver-headed black cane. I had to be the equal of the Gibsons, and since there was no difference between Steffie’s background and mine, the difference must lie in the bank rolls. The smart thing to do, I figured, was to fatten the Mack bundle.

  I dreamed at nights, before I fell asleep, of dashing ways I could bring the world to Steffie. Steffie, who didn’t appear to know I was in it. Daring ways I could impress old Mrs. Gibson and Steffie’s father. Steffie’s mother I had seen just once and I only knew she looked like Steffie. Great rivers of gold streamed through my dreams, piled higher than the spray from the Cataract. Odd moments when Steffie would be mine and my eager trembling hands would caress those breasts. Things we would do. Places we would visit. Headwaiters, who would always know my name, in New York or London, Paris or Toronto. I was Joe Mack, and Steffie was the beautiful Mrs. Mack. Then the waking dreams became sleeping dreams and again Steffie walked in them. The morning would bring school and a glimpse of the goddess who held my life in her slim hands.

  Pete Rocco ran liquor across the border at nights on the upper river, and I thought maybe I could get “in” with Pete. Maybe I could get that Caddy roadster of Bert Hamilton’s. Maybe the Gibsons would notice me then, and even if Steffie wouldn’t ride with me she would certainly envy the girls who did. But if I made money that way and the Gibsons ever learned, I could be sure Steffie would be kept far from our Joe. Nuts, Joe, worry about one thing at a time—worry about Granny Gibson when she becomes a fact. Get the money, get the car, get the girl. Get a car that makes Mr. Gibson’s Packard look like a peanut wagon.

  The high-school dance of 1929 stands out, too. It marked many things, including my face. It marked my leaving school; but most of all it was the night I first kissed Steffie. A cool, kid-like kiss, just sweet and pure like a milk shake; a little frightened, though. But I’m ahead of my story, like I’m ahead of hell, but not by much. I’m a union member of the second generation of the twentieth century and my spot in hell is assured. You aren’t in hell, are you, Granny Gibson? And your son isn’t. You’re both in a good Presbyterian heaven where entrance is guaranteed if you never charged less than seven per cent on a first mortgage. You should be happy, Granny. You didn’t live long after 1929. You left, and your gods were not far behind you, and your son soon followed your gods. Your mansion is filled with little people; walls have been cut to make more bathrooms because little people are demanding them, too. And all that is left of the Gibson greatness is in the smell of burning leaves, in the memory of a half-assed soldier in a dark room in Italy. I won’t get to your heaven, Granny, or any heaven, because I defied the gods. I had to...I had to patch up and live in a world you and your son and your generation slipped out of so easily.

  We didn’t build it, Steffie and I, nor did we wreck it, but we have to live in it and try to make it go. That’s what I’m told I’m doing over here. Yes, Granny, even in 1944 we’re still patching. And all those years you’ve been lying quietly in your “six-by-three” at Pleasant View. Your tightly drawn skin may have loosened, but I’ll bet your spine is as rigid as it was the night you told Steffie she mustn’t see me again, and I’ll bet the black velvet band is still there. There are some advantages to being alive, Granny. I’m going back to 1929, and I’m going to a high-school dance, and you are just going to lie there.

  Steffie will never be lovelier than she was that night. I know very little about women’s clothes, but the combination of Steffie’s blondness and her platinum gown knocked my breath out. The gym was filled with awkward-looking kids in suits and dresses bought to allow for their growth. But Steffie’s dress was for Steffie that night, and God, she was beautiful. Betty had taught me how to dance and I was pretty good, but asking Steffie to dance took some courage. I danced with a couple of other girls first, studiedly avoiding Steffie just in case she might see me looking at her. Then I asked her and she named the dance after next. It wasn’t hard, after all. I just walked up and said: “May I have a dance, Miss Gibson?” then paused for a terrible moment, until she said:

  “The one after next, if you wish, Mr. Mack.”

  The dance with Steffie was the most exciting thing that ever happened to our Joe. Sure, I’ve had excitement. I’ve had more than most guys. I’ve had my share of women and some of them could be damned exciting, but nothing will ever equal sliding my arm around Steffen Gibson’s slim waist.

  “Gee, this is swell...

  “It is a nice dance, isn’t it, Mr. Mack?”

  “Why not call me Joe?”

  “All right, Joe...my name is Steffie...

  “As if I didn’t know...the music sure is swell, eh, Steffie?”

  “It is nice...I didn’t realize a basketball player could be as good a dancer...”

  “Gee thanks, Steffie, you’re pretty good yourself...but if I can dance it’s all my sister Betty’s fault...

  “I think Betty is the best-looking girl in the high school...

  “I think you are, Steffie.”

  “Oh, Joe, that was very nice. I...”

  “I mean it...”

  And the dance ended with the promise of another two dances later.

  I went to the washroom, hurriedly finding a sanctuary lest my face tell what wonders had been mine. Steffie turned to dance with her cousin, Paul Lacey, a thin drip of a kid and a well-known sissy. In the washroom Pete Rocco’s kid brother was drinking some wine with big Bill Franks, a husky, ugly kid with a dirty mouth. They were pretty drunk and I refused to drink from the bottle. I didn’t want wine to smell up my breath and I needed nothing to lift my soaring dreams. Some others were there and as I washed I could hear the tail end of a joke Franks was telling. There was a roar of laughter and just then Paul Lacey came in. He was a bashful kid and, ignoring the trough, went into one of the cubicles and closed the door.

  Bill Franks shouted, “Go ahead, Lacey, we know you sit down to pee.”

  Everyone laughed, and I could see Lacey’s face growing red. He turned and spoke over the top of the cubicle.

  “You have a filthy mind, Franks...”

  “You have a filthy mind, Franks....” Franks mimicked, and dropping his voice back to its growl, added, “an’ my fists are filthy, too, Paulsy...

  I turned from the sink. It wasn’t my scrap but Paul was Steffie’s cousin, even if he were a hell of a sissy.

  “Gee, you’re a big, tough guy with a couple of belts of Dago-red,” I said to Franks. “Lay off Lacey...”

  “Never mind, Joe...it doesn’t matter,” Lacey said.

  “Are you two going together now?” Franks cracked, but his tone was changed and nobody laughed as we went out.

  Outside Lacey said, “Thanks, Joe...I’ve got this dance with Steffie...see you later.”

  The next dance with Steffie was a second edition of heaven, only this time she held me a little tighter.

  “Thanks for helping Paul, Joe...he isn’t like the other boys...”

  “Oh, he shouldn’t have mentioned it...that Franks is a big chump.”

  But it was done...it was accomplished, and my heart was singing. I’d tied Steffie in somehow.

  “Steffie, would you like to go over the river to a movie on Sunday?”

  “I’d love to, Joe.”

  The evening was grand. Steffie shared her dances with Paul and me and I waited the alternate ones out. Paul looked at me in a curious way when we’d pass going to or from Steffie. I know now, and so do you, Paul, what your look meant and I’m sorry. Whatever I’ve become, whatever has happe
ned or may happen to our Joe, you are a far more tragic product of our times. I’ve seen you by the dozen, Paul, around docks when the fleet comes in, in men’s washrooms, mincing along beside a drunken soldier. Staring like a whore at the men you pass in the street. Don’t feel too badly, Paul, you’ll never be alone. The ignorance that produced you is still active in the world, and it’s likely to be for some time.

  Toward the end of the evening I went back to the washroom and Lacey seemed to have waited for me so that we might go together. Franks and Rocco were still drinking and Franks was quite drunk. He looked up as Lacey and I stepped into the room, and a silly smile came over his big farmer face. He turned to Rocco.

  “Let’s get outta here an’ leave these girls have it all to themselves...”

  Someone must have ribbed him about stepping down earlier. There was nothing friendly in the tone of his voice. He wanted trouble, and I’d have been glad to fix him up any other time, but not at this dance. Too many guys were there, though, and Paul Lacey was watching me with that funny look in his eyes, while his tongue seemed very busy wetting his lips. Whatever happened would be reported to Steffie. I’d done some boxing with Johnny Adversa, our local pro, and I figured I could take this farmer if I had to, but I hated to mess up that evening. The evening had been perfect and I wanted to keep it that way.

  Franks had other ideas about it, and he kept it coming at me.

  “What’s the matter, Joe-boy, doing a little suck-holing on that stuck-up Gibson dame?”

  That did it.

  “Come on outside, farmer,” I said. We went out. Paul slid back and rushed to carry the news to Steffie. Nothing draws a crowd faster than a fight and the news traveled on Paul’s eager lips until half of the bunch came out to see it. Betty came with Vince McConnell, and Steffie and Paul were with them. Paul’s version of the incident grew each time he told it until I was sort of a cross between Jack Dempsey and Saint George. I knew there would be trouble about this, lots of trouble. Franks and I were both big kids and fighting bare-fisted meant somebody was going to be hurt. I wanted to suck him into throwing the first punch, and from there out I’d be carrying the righteous banner of self-defense. The parking space seemed the right place, and I took off my jacket and shirt and put them in the old family Studebaker Betty and I were allowed to use on dance nights. Franks took off his jacket. The big farmer didn’t seem to be as drunk as I’d figured. I felt pretty sure one of the teachers would be out to break it up. The crowd was forming fast and someone should notice the number missing from the dance floor.

  Whether you are a man or a nation there is no backing down from a fight. I didn’t want to fight Franks, even though I was mad about the “suck-hole” crack. But you can’t quit...you can’t point out to the by-standers that nothing is ever solved by a fight. To them, who risk nothing, the man who doesn’t fight is yellow. So you fight, win or lose. And you may bear a mark for the rest of your life, as I have under my right eye, from that big ring on Franks’ finger. Betty tried to stop it and Franks laughed. To hell with sucking him into the first punch. I pushed Betty away and swung hard. Johnny had showed me more about fighting than Franks ever knew, and the first left chipped past the point of his jaw and cleared his face of the silly farmer smile. I followed fast with a right to his middle and he came down with his guard. The third was a feint to the gut, again with the left, and I put everything I had into the next right. One to the button of his jaw, but it merely set him back in the gravel for a minute.

  He was tough; some of these plow-jockeys will fool a guy. He shook his head and got up to come in again, game as hell. His huge fists were flailing like a windmill and I had to keep out of his way. He knew enough to try to get close; it was rough and tumble and with all that beef and weight he’d have flattened me if he could have got hold of me. I had to close in to hit him and I tried a counter-punch. One for one, or two for one if you’re fast enough, or if you’re Gene Tunney. I let him sock me once and tried to ride the punch while I laid two on him. One to the belly and one to the jaw. I took his punch high under my right eye and the ring dug in. He hit me hard in the belly with his right, too, so it was two for two, and I thought I was going to puke.

  I shook my head and started really throwing punches, timing them carefully and pacing my fight the way Johnny taught me, and it didn’t take long. I kept working one on his middle and one on his face, drawing his guard up and down and staying out of the way of his arms when he came in to grapple. Finally he went down on one knee and I backed away. He shook his head again, then sprang at me from his kneeling position. He held both arms apart and it was more of a flying tackle than anything else. I clipped him hard on the jaw as he reached me and I felt the jawbone crack, but his knee came up in my crotch and the pain was terrific. The fight was over, Franks was cold, and I had to puke.

  I brushed them away and went around to the far side of the Studebaker and let it go. I felt better afterward, and as I sat on the running board I could hear them taking Pranks over to the car to go to the hospital. I started to pull my shirt on. Steffie came around the car, and in the light from the gym windows I could see her eyes shining. My face must have been a mess because the cut under my eye bled, and I could feel a honey of a shiner coming. Steffie wet her handkerchief on her tongue and wiped some of the dried blood from my face.

  “Does it hurt much, Joe?”

  “No, Steffie, it’s okay...I’m sorry to bust up the dance this way...”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Joe and...oh, Joe, you did that all for me...

  God knows what that whacky Paul had told her. If she wanted to think I’d been in there pitching solely for her it was fine with me.

  But I would have gone to hell for you, Steffie, then or later in our lives, and I’d do it now. You’re the only girl I’ve ever loved, the only girl I’ve ever known who made a damned bit of difference. Steffie Gibson, for whom the sun rises and sets, for whom the stars wind their way through the heavens, for whom all beautiful things are made. My Steffie...only you aren’t and maybe you never will be. But that night when you stood and dabbed my cheek with your hanky, and I could smell the leaves of a November night mixing their scent with a faint trace of clover from you...that night the whole world paused.

  Betty and Vince drove home with Paul, and Steffie came with me. We stopped at the Chinaman’s for a sandwich. A lot of the dance crowd were in the restaurant and I was a great hero that night; how they love a winner!

  “Great scrap, Joe-boy...

  “You sure took him, Joe!”

  “That’ll teach the farmer, eh Joe?”

  “You can take the boy from the country but you can’t take the country from the boy...”

  Steffie and I just walked on through to a booth in the rear. I knew there was going to be trouble. One of the lads who took Franks to the hospital told me Franks’ jaw was broken. I knew that, and I knew there’d be hell to pay tomorrow, but that was tomorrow...tonight I had Steffie.

  We sat for a long time in the booth. Nothing much was said but I held her hand across the table. It all seemed so damned natural and proper and just as I’d dreamed it. There she was, in all her loveliness, sitting across from me and looking very happy, too.

  “Gee, you’re pretty, Steffie...”

  “Thank you, Joe...”

  “You know, Steffie, I’ve thought a lot about you...”

  “Have you, Joe?”

  “Ever since the first day I saw you...I guess it’s silly but I haven’t thought of anyone else...”

  “It isn’t silly, Joe...I’ve thought about you, too.” When we left it was late. I drove up in front of the driveway entrance to the Gibson home, but Steffie wouldn’t let me drive the car in for fear of waking her grandmother. I kissed her just before we got out of the car. That wonderful kiss, as natural as if we’d done it a hundred times. We walked up the grass fringe of the curving drive to be very quiet. The front door opened just as we reached it and there stood Grandmother Gibson, completely dressed
with cane and velvet band. Her face showed nothing of her temper, and she spoke coldly.

  “I don’t know who you are, young man, but it is a disgraceful hour for this child to come home and I’ll ask you not to see her again. Come in, Steffen.”

  And the door closed on my goddess.

  I was a sore Joe the next morning. Bodily I ached from head to toe, but my heart was singing. I had kissed Steffie. I looked at my swollen face; these lips had actually kissed her. The coolness of Steffie’s soft lips clung, and the softness of her touch on my cut eye could be felt still. No matter what happened now, I thought, some part of Steffie has been mine, if only for an instant, and neither of us will ever forget. Yes, Steffie...I have never forgotten, and I don’t think you ever will. No one will ever love you as I do, and if it’s love women live on, then you’ve had enough to last you a lifetime. You know that, don’t you? And you must believe it, Steffie, for in you, and only in you, have I ever found peace.

  The morning brought other things besides an aching body and a singing heart. Mother had to be faced. I knew Betty would be plugging for me, but when Mother saw my face, plenty of good Scotch hell would break loose. I thanked God it was Saturday, and I didn’t have to go to school. Betty bathed my eye while Mother got it off her chest.

  “That’s a fine face to bring home from a dance...wait until your father sees you...”

  Mother had tossed that threat at us for as long as I can remember and there never was a time either Betty or I ever worried. Dad was a good little guy, but he walked around in a fog of powerhouses, generators, and transformers, and let Mother run the rest of the world.

  “I’m sorry, Ma...”

  “Sorry...after the work I’ve put in raising you two and all you do is brawl in the streets like a couple of common trollops...”

  Trollops were both male and female to Mother and the lowest form of animal life.