Dead End

it.”

     “Sure, just forget a trifle like finding out I'm a bastard!” I screamed, running out of the apartment.

     I had the check with me and managed to cash it. Then I did a real dumb thing: I got crocked in the neighborhood. Being a pug and a football player, I was sort of a big deal around the block, and plenty of the better-looking babes kept asking me to take them out. Elma wasn't one of them. She was a big plump girl of about eighteen and her claim to fame was her constant use of a four-letter word. Okay, it may sound jerky now, but then it was kicks to hear a girl talk like that. Guys took Elma out to hear her dirty jokes, and when she got mad Elma would repeat that four-letter word over and over, so the fellows would try to get her boiling. That wasn't so simple, for Elma was very easygoing. Don't get me wrong; I knew she never went all the way. But several times she let me run my hands over her. Elma never made any bones about it: She went for me in a big way. All I remember about that drunken night was me telling everybody my name wasn't Laspiza, like a fool, and Elma hanging on to me, saying, “Penn is a nice name, Bucky. Why, maybe you're descended from the famous William Penn. Jeez, you got an arm like a rock. Make a muscle for me, Bucky.”

     Nate finally found me around two in the morning, took me home. For the first time in his life he took off a few days from his job, stayed with me. The crazy thing is I might have got over the shock if I hadn't stupidly broadcast the fact I was a bastard. It was a bit of choice gossip. I knew guys were snickering behind my back, and the girls avoided me. But Elma was with me as much as possible.

     It got so I couldn't stand the damn block and one day I went off and enlisted in the Army. This was about a year before Korea. Nate was heartbroken—which gave me a kind of dumb satisfaction. He told me, “You've made a bad mistake, Bucky. You should have gone to college. A man isn't anything today without a college degree. If I'd gone to college do you think I'd have ended behind a reception desk, grinning like a dressmakers' dummy? I been with the company for over fifteen years and every time there was an opening, a chance, they passed me by for a college kid.”

     “So what? I would have been drafted in a few months anyway.”

     “I suppose so. Take care of yourself in the Army, come out with a clean record. This might work out for the best, maybe you can still go to college, on the G. I. Bill when you get out. It will be good for you to get away—this Elma isn't for you, Bucky. She's older and a—”

     “Nate, you were about twenty-seven when World War II was going. I guess having me around kept you 4F.”

     “A busted eardrum kept me out.”

     “I bet you told them I was your real son then. I bet!” I said, leaving the house for a last date with Elma.

     I breezed through basic in a southern infantry camp. Nate wrote me regularly, sent me shaving kits and all the dopey things you send a soldier, but I never answered him. Whenever I got a leave I spent it drinking and fighting bootleg pro bouts in a nearby big city. I was stationed in Texas when Korea broke and we were sure to be sent over. I got a two-week leave and a plane ride back home. I really didn't go “home,” I took a room downtown. The first thing I did was insist upon Elma spending the night with me. The deal with me was, I couldn't think of anything but Nate not being my old man. I guess it became an obsession with me. I thought about it all the time, in camp, in the ring, even sleeping with Elma. The thought kept rattling around in my head. When I could look at it calmly, I knew he had done the right thing by Daisy. Most guys wouldn't have. What it must have meant to Nate to give up pro ball, his big chance. And to leave his family. But what kept eating at me was, why hadn't he adopted me? It didn't make sense. I'd think back to all he'd done for me, all the attention and care, and yet he wouldn't give me his name. Why?

     I was liquored up most of the time, not much of a feat as I'm hardly a drinker; a few shots does it far me. When I had three days left of my leave, I went up to the apartment late one afternoon, knowing Nate would be home from work by then.

     When I opened the door he was making supper, wearing an old smoking jacket. Nate never slopped around the house in his undershirt. He said, “Hello, Bucky. I heard you were in town. Looks like you've put on muscle. Soldiering must agree with you.”

     “I can take it or leave it. I... uh... meant to come by sooner but I had a few stops.”

     “I can smell them. Want supper?”

     “No.” I staggered a bit trying to make the table. “I want something else, Nate.”

     “Broke? I can let you have—”

     “I want you to call me Bucky Laspiza. I want to hear you say it right now!” I said, the anger building up in me so strong the words came blurting out.

     Nate gave me a “fatherly” smile. “Come on, now, Bucky, you're crocked. Why do you let that worry you so? You know the old line about what's in a name? I think—”

     “Nate, stop stalling. You're going to call me Bucky Laspiza, or I'm going to make you. I been thinking about it for weeks now. You've called me 'Son,' and 'my kid,' and 'Bucky,' but I can't ever remember you calling me Bucky Laspiza!”

     “Aren't you being silly?”

     “Nothing silly about it to me!”

     “Bucky, suppose I did say what you want—what difference would it make?” he asked, coming around the kitchen table to face me. I'd worked out with him enough to tell from the way he had his legs apart that he was set to hit me. I wanted him to. I guess what I'd really been thinking in the back of my noggin all these months was that I hated Nate so damn much I wanted to kill him.

     “Don't soft-sell me, Nate. It will make a lot of difference to me. Just call me Bucky Laspiza, Nate.”

     “Want me to call you mister, too?” he said, wetting his lips nervously.

     “The hell with mister. Call me by my name!”

     “Certainly. Hello, Bucklin Penn.”

     “Goddamn you, Nate, you're going to call me Laspiza!”

     “I can't. It isn't your name.”

     I started for him. He was good; even though I expected the punch, his right came so fast I couldn't block it. It was a hell of a wallop, sent me reeling-crashing against the wall, almost floored me. I knew then Nate felt the same way: All his resentment against me was in that crack on the chin.

     My mouth was bleeding, my head ringing. Nate was so eager he goofed—he came at me. I got my arms around him, was too strong for him, not to mention the forty pounds of young muscle I had on him. I wrestled him to the floor, smothering his blows with my body. I sat on his gut, slugging him with both hands. I was so nuts I think I would have killed him if he hadn't gone limp and whispered, “Don't, Bucky. This... is... crazy stuff.”

     “Call me Bucky Laspiza!” I gasped.

     “Bucky L-Laspiza,” he said, turning his head away from me, the words coming out a tormented moan.

     There was a bruise on his cheek; a trickle of blood ran out of one ear. I got off him and sat on the floor, feeling my numb chin. I was suddenly very sober and scared—I had damn near killed him. I stroked his thin hair and Nate began to cry. I kissed him on the forehead, muttered, “Oh, Dad, Dad! What's happening to us? You're right, this is crazy. Why can't you adopt me, give me your name?”

     “Don't talk about that,” he said, hugging me with one hand, but still not looking at me. “I told you about the police... looking for me.”

     “All this time? For what?”

     “Murder. I... I... killed your father.”

     I pulled away from him. “Stop snowing me, Nate. That's a lie.”

     “No it isn't.” He was whispering again.

     “I thought about it in camp—you're all I thought about. You've always told me how the oil company has such a careful check on their employees. All that security stuff. If you were wanted by the cops, they would have had you long ago.”

     “They—the police—they... don't know I killed him.”

     “Then there isn't any reason why you can't adopt me.”

     He didn't answer. For several minutes neither of us spoke. Nate's eyes were shut and his face was so white I thought he had passed out. I stood up. Pulling Nate to his feet, I led him to a kitchen chair. For the first time Nate didn't look dapper, merely old. He leaned on the table, feeling of his face, staring at the blood that came off on his hands. I wet a dish towel with cold water and tossed it on the table. Nate held it to his face for a long while.

     “Nate, that stuff about killing; it's a lie, isn't it?”

     “Yeah. But I wanted to kill him. I used to dream how I had killed him—whoever he was. I'd dream of ways of slow... I suppose that's why Daisy never would tell me.”

     “Dad, I'm sorry I hit you.”

     He took the towel from his puffed face, looked at me. “I could cut off my hand for punching you, Bucky.”

     “Nate, listen: I still want you to adopt me.”

     “Son, in time you'll forget about it.”

     “Can't you understand that I wouldn't want any other man for a father?”

     “I've always been your father, Bucky.”

     “Damn it, Nate, make it legal!”

     He shook his head and groaned with pain. Then he said, “I just can't do it. Sometimes I wanted to but... Bucky, I've always been an also-ran—in everything I did. I never made the big leagues or had a good job. Well, a man can't be a complete blank. What I'm trying to say is that even a bad thing can still be the biggest deal in your life. That's the real reason why I never adopted you.”

     “What are you talking about?”

     “You see, if I had adopted you, or put my name down when you were born—it was that simple—why, in time it would have been forgotten. I would have forgotten it!