I’ll See What I Can Do
“Is it possible Larry is guilty?” I asked.
David glared at me in response to my question. I qualified it to soothe his obvious upset. “I don’t mean any disrespect to you or your boy, but the police in this city aren’t stupid. The detectives on the homicide squad are some of the best. If they arrested Larry and charged him with murder, it’s reasonable for me to think they had a good reason. What could the reason have been?”
David’s glare faded, and his huge shoulders sagged in a posture of defeat. “It’s possible.” He admitted. “He wouldn’t have done it on purpose, but he could have done it just the same.”
I wanted more information. “Explain it to me.” I said.
“Larry fights.” David said miserably. “He’s always fought. When he was younger, he fought with his brother Eddie. I’d no sooner pull them apart, than they’d be back at it like two stallions over a mare. When he got older, he fought with the seasonal help. I caught them one time, when Larry was sixteen. They’d marked off a boxing ring in the dirt and Larry offered to take anyone who wanted to challenge him.
“I tried to stop it, but Larry begged me not to. ‘They said I was soft because I’m the boss’s son.’ He complained to me. ‘Let me prove I ain’t soft.’” David lifted his shoulders and let them hang again in a miserable shrug. “What could I do? I let him fight. He proved he wasn’t soft, but I didn’t like what I saw. Larry fought like he had the devil inside him. I didn’t like to see violence like that. I don’t like violence.”
I ignored David’s pacifist nature to ask a relevant question. “Is he any good?”
David raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know anything about fighting. I know Larry is tall, like me. He’s strong, like I am. I’ve never seen him back down. When his blood is up, he doesn’t know when to stop. The last time I broke up one of his fights, it was all I could do to drag him away from the other man.”
David sighed again. His breath was a deep sound which rattled with sadness. “That’s why I was so pleased when him and Ted became friends. Once they took up together, Larry stopped fighting. Abby and me were thrilled. I never thought it was because they were up to…other things.”
I pressed David for one more piece of information. “If he was angry enough, if he and Ted had a falling out, is it possible he could have lost control and killed Ted by accident?”
David admitted that it was. “It’s possible.”
From the misery which David displayed as he answered my question, I almost regretted asking it. I didn’t though, because the question needed to be asked. Still, my heart went out to David and his worry for his son.
I considered David’s story and his explanation of his son’s personality. David interrupted my thoughts with an amended plea for help. “Will you see him with me? Will you visit with Larry and the lawyer? If you agree that he’s innocent, will you help me prove it? Please, Law. I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”
I sat back in my chair and rubbed my face with both hands. I didn’t know what to say to David. Like my brother, David had picked the worst time to show up. His request was a reasonable one. If I was still on my own, I would have committed to him in an instant. I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t only responsible for myself anymore. I was also responsible to Walt and the restaurant. I told David of my dilemma.
“Have you ever heard of the Firestone Restaurant Guide?” I asked.
David shook his head that he hadn’t. I explained. “The Firestone Tire Company publishes a restaurant guide for all the major cities in the country. They send inspectors out in secret to test all the popular restaurants. When the inspector writes his review, he can award one, two, or three stars. If a place isn’t good enough to get a star, they don’t award any, but the restaurant is still listed in the guide. A listing with no stars is the same as a bad review. A ‘no star’ listing can ruin a restaurant’s business. On the other hand, just one star can be a huge boost for business.
“Even though the Firestone people test the restaurants in secret, they still notify the owners that they’re being tested and give them a range of dates. Walt was notified last month. This week is the last of the four-week-long range of dates. We may have already been inspected, but we have no way of knowing until the report comes out. Walt is under a huge amount of pressure to make sure everything is perfect. I’m a big part of that.”
David thought I was going to refuse to help him. He started to panic. “My son’s LIFE is at stake!” He argued.
I held my hand up to quiet my old friend. “You didn’t let me finish.” I said. “I have to talk to Walt about this. The decision isn’t mine to make, not alone. Even if Walt won’t agree, I won’t abandon you. I’ll find a way. We might have to get creative. That’s the best I can do.”
“I understand.” David said even though his tone of voice and shrunken posture told me that he didn’t. “I’m going to be in the same situation soon. If the thaw comes to Montana in the next couple of weeks, we’ll have to start planting. Abby’s brother, Robert, can run things, but I should be there to make the decisions. In the spring, we make choices to decide the whole year. I trust Robert, but it’s not his farm, it’s mine. I should be there to make sure things get done the way I think they should.”
David sighed out his lingering disappointment and looked at me intently. “When will you know?” He asked.
“I’ll talk to Walt when he wakes up. The alarm is set for ten. In the meantime, I’ll get ready. That way, if Walt agrees, you and I can start right away.” I stood from the table and pushed the chair in. “You just got into town, right? I guess you need to find a hotel and get settled.”
David said that was so. He’d even left his suitcase in the parcel check at the train station. He had to retrieve it and find a hotel. I folded the form from the police department and the letter from Scofield and gave both back to David. Once he had them safely tucked away in his pocket, I escorted David to the front door of Walt’s Special and led us out onto the sidewalk.
David and I stood in the grey dampness of the end-of-winter morning while I pointed out the features of the northern extreme of the financial and political district of Philadelphia. Walt’s restaurant was five blocks to the north of City Hall and immediately south of Vine Street. Directly across the street was the largest landmark of the area, Hahnemann Hospital. I identified it as a way for David to find his way back to us.
I also pointed out the upper floors of the Broadwood Hotel, just visible over the surrounding low-rise buildings, a block-and-a-half farther north. I recommended David stay there because it was close to our apartment and far enough from City Hall to be affordable. I told David to get settled and then to telephone the lawyer for an appointment to see him.
I hoped I’d be able to go with David to see the lawyer, but David needed to see him regardless, so I told him to make the appointment for as soon as he could get one. Before David left on his errands, I tried to encourage him. “Try not to fret too much. You’re here now and you can help. Take care of your errands and come back here. I’ll have an answer for you by ten-thirty. Then we’ll see where we stand.”
* * * *
I didn’t return to the apartment after David left because I didn’t want to disturb Walt’s sleep. Instead, I went back into the restaurant and cooked breakfast for myself. After I ate, I took a miserable shower in the tiny stall in the changing room which was used by the kitchen staff. I’d used the shower once before when the bathroom in the apartment was out of order, and I hadn’t enjoyed the experience. The shower head was too low, the stall too small, and the water pressure non-existent. I managed to get clean, but only just.
When I was dry, I put my pajamas back on and went into the kitchen to check the wall clock. It said I still had an hour to kill before Walt would be awake. I spent the hour at the little break table. To pass the time, I read the paper and smoked a cigar I’d taken from the tobacco case behind the bar.
The big headline of the morning was about the death of an old-time boxer, James ‘The Boilermaker’ Jeffries. Also known as ‘The Great White Hope,’ Jeffries had died earlier in the week at the age of 77. I had a flash of memory from when I was a kid, nine years old or maybe ten. I remembered another headline about the man. The one I remembered was from when Jeffries had come out of retirement to fight the legendary Jack Johnson. The Boilermaker had put in a poor showing and lost the fight, but he was well past his prime by then.
My memory of The Boilermaker made me think of my youth. Thoughts of my youth reminded me of my family and specifically of my brother. “Fucking Georgie.” I muttered and drew on my cigar. I blew more smoke at the ceiling and thought about the previous morning.
A steady knock had disturbed Walt and me at seven in the morning. Walt assumed the knock was a delivery for Walt’s Special, so he ran down to answer the door. He was gone for several minutes. When he came back, he asked about my brother.
“How old is your brother?” Walt asked while he removed his robe and returned it to the closet.
The question had been so strange that I sat up in bed to face Walt directly. “What?” I asked even though I’d heard the question perfectly well.
“Your brother,” Walt insisted, “how old would he be?”
I hadn’t thought about my estranged family or my siblings in a very long time. I had to search my memory to give Walt the answer he wanted. I spoke my mental exercise aloud. “My folks had the four of us pretty close together. I was first in July of 1900. Millie came next in September of 1901. Edith was at the beginning of 1903, the end of January, I think. My brother Georgie was the last in April of 1905. He’s five years younger than me. This is March, so I’ll be fifty-three in July and Georgie will be forty-eight next month.”
Walt nodded at my math. He seemed satisfied by it. I was about to ask him why he’d mentioned the subject when he explained himself. “I think I just met your brother.”
I opened my mouth because I felt like I should say something, but nothing came to mind. Walt spoke into the silence. “When I answered the door, there was a man standing on the other side. He looked like he’d been standing there a long time. It’s only drizzling outside but the man was soaked. I asked if I could help him, but he shook his head.
“He said something about having the wrong address and started to walk away. I asked him what address he needed. He hesitated, then he asked if I knew you. I told him that you were up here. He asked me who I was, so I told him. The man shook his head again. He said, ‘I thought I was ready, but I’m not.’ I asked him what he meant, but he wouldn’t say. He said, ‘tell my brother that little Georgie came to call.’ Then he walked away.”
I was stunned by what Walt said. I never thought I’d hear from any member of my family again. I tried to ask Walt how my brother looked, but the words died before they left my throat. I swallowed and tried again. “What did he look like?”
Walt lifted his left shoulder and dropped it in a half shrug. “I could hardly tell. His hair was matted to his head with the rain, and he had the collar of his overcoat turned up. He was a big man with a deep chest, like you are. He had your eyes. That’s all I could see. What do you think?”
I didn’t know what to think. I told Walt as much. “What am I supposed to say? My father threw me out in 1918. That’s thirty-five years ago. The last time I saw Georgie, he was a kid. For all that time, I knew I had a family in this city. They never tried to find me, and I never tried to find them. I only found out my mother was dead from the fucking newspaper. This morning a man shows up who says, ‘little Georgie came to call.’ WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN TO ME?”
I hadn’t realized I was shouting until I stopped talking and was deafened by the silence of the room. Walt frowned at me and got back in bed. He moved his body to press against mine and kissed my face. “Don’t worry, Love. If he comes back, we’ll deal with it. Try to get some sleep.”
Walt rolled over and composed himself to sleep. Somehow, he managed to shut off his worry about the Firestone inspection and was back to sleep in minutes. I laid down to stare at the ceiling and brood. At nine o’clock, I gave up on sleep and got out of bed.
I scrubbed the kitchen in the apartment from top to bottom to take my mind off Georgie and all the bad shit I’d buried in my ancient history. My kitchen cleaning hadn’t soothed my mind and now, through some great big coincidence from hell, David had shown up out of the same ancient history to dredge up more bad memories.
I felt a little unhinged by the situation. I wondered if stress from all sides could cause a man to crack up. ‘Maybe a nice long stay in Byberry Asylum would be relaxing.’ I thought as a reference to the Victorian era nuthouse which loomed over the northern end of the recently renamed Roosevelt Boulevard. I stuck the end of my cigar in my mouth and let it rest between my cheek and my teeth. I folded my arms over my chest and allowed my mind wander. As it wandered, my imagination conjured an image of David and his ancient suit.
‘He’s still gorgeous.’ I thought as I stared at the ceiling. ‘Blond and strong and beautifully tan. How the hell can he be that tan in March? He’s grown into himself. Filled out a bit. He looks even more masculine than he did before. I’d love to see him out of that suit. I’d love to see him like I used to, shirtless with just slacks and suspenders on.’
I imagined David behind the bar at Madam Mitch’s Kingdom of Keystone. I pictured him in his too short slacks held up by the leather suspenders I’d given him as a gift. A lusty fantasy played through my mind. The fantasy blended images I held from years ago with the new ones I’d printed on my memory from that morning. My thoughts became a blur of David’s features, and of all the erotic acts the male body was capable of.
I rolled my cigar around in my mouth as I fantasized. I imagined its saturated length was made of throbbing meat instead of rolled tobacco. A large segment of ash dropped from the end of the cigar and distributed itself over my pajama shirt. I swore and brushed at the mess. My hands smeared the ash because they were damp with the sweat of arousal. I swore again and went to the big three-basin sink to wash up.
I quenched my cigar in the sink and threw it away. I washed my hands and splashed cold water on my face to calm down. The cold water helped to clear my mind and focus my thoughts. “You’re married, you dope.” I said aloud to myself as I dried my hands and face. “Stop thinking about David. He’s married too, though I don’t understand how he managed to do it.”
I made myself think of Walt and his troubles. I hoped the restaurant review would go well. The stress of the month-long inspection period had been wearing on my husband. His sleep had been erratic and his mood sour. The restaurant was his dream. He’d worked and saved for it. He’d taken a huge financial risk when he bought it. I had taken the risk with him, but I didn’t worry as much over financial success or failure. For Walt, to succeed would be the vindication of his life’s work, to fail would be a crushing defeat of those same aspirations.
I used the thumb of my left hand to spin the gold band I wore on my ring finger. “Luck to us both, my husband.” I said to the empty kitchen.
I checked the clock again. The time was just short of ten in the morning. I tucked the newspaper under my arm and headed upstairs to see how Walt would greet the morning.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'd like to once again ask for the input of anyone who knows a significant amount about the Vietnam Conflict / War. I plan to do my own research, but I'd love to talk to someone with firsthand knowledge. Also, if you were a young adult, between 15 and 35 years old in 1968, I'd be interested to know what you thought of the war at that time? Did you support it? Did you protest? I would like to understand that time in history from all sides. Please email me if you'd be willing to talk. [email protected]. Thanks!
