Dead End

was his boy. He put me on the floor, selling. The third day I was a salesman some crumb tried on a loud, checkered sport coat—something he'd picked out himself. When he looked in the mirror and said, “I look like a wop in this,” I flattened him before I realized I was swinging. He sued the company and that was very much that.

     I worked in a supermarket; turned out I was good at displaying and selling vegetables. Only for some dumb reason I told them my name was Bucklin Laspiza, got screwed up on my Social Security and had to leave the job after a few months—when I was starting to know what it was all about.

     Another time I became a truck helper. If I became a driver and got a union card, the pay would be high. But the fat-jawed dispatcher thought calling me “Fountain Penn” was such a witty remark that I had to break his nose after a few weeks.

     Considering the way she acted later on, it was odd Elma never complained about my job turnover then. It was really her sickness that changed her, I guess. One of the reasons we got along so smooth then was, no matter how often I got the sack, she didn't nag about it. It was about this time she began to get tired easily and at first we thought she was pregnant. I think I wanted a kid; at least I kept telling myself he wouldn't have to worry about his name.

     The doctor said Elma had a tumor, a big one, and needed an immediate operation. She had a hysterotony, or whatever they call it, where they cleaned her out. The doctor explained that he had left her sex roots in—and maybe I'm not using the correct terms—but actually I think he was wrong. It was a difficult operation and for a time they didn't think she was going to make it. It took every dime we had. Her folks didn't have a penny, and I doubt if they would have helped us anyway—they didn't look with favor upon taking a “bastard” into the family. I wired Nate, care of his local office, for three hundred dollars and got it within a week.

     For a time it was even sort of tender fun nursing Elma back to health, but after that she was never the same. For one thing, she completely let herself go, became all soft and baggy, a regular heavyweight of lard. And she suddenly decided she couldn't work any more—hell, it took months before she would even get out of bed.

     Things have a way of working— sometimes—and we were both happy when I was appointed a police officer, sent to the police academy for three months. I was nuts about the job. It did something to my—I suppose “ego” is the right word—to be sporting a badge and a gun. Maybe it was silly, but I was very pleased with myself, full of a deep feeling of satisfaction. You see, I was no longer a nameless nobody. I was now authority, with a gun to prove it, and until I met up with Doc, it was all very important to me. Especially that gun—I spent every free minute I could snag on the target range.

     I got along okay in the academy, worked hard at it. Although I was still walking around with a ton of chips on my shoulder. If I wasn't one of the top ten students, I was a long way from the bottom ten, too. Here's something else. Around our block we always made a point of chasing any colored kids that happened to come by. Don't get me wrong, we weren't any lynch mob—we chased all kinds of kids—but a colored one was a sure target. So the only guy in the whole class I really got to be a buddy with was a dark brown fellow named Ollie Jackson. I suppose you'd call him “colored”; actually his face looked like the United Nations. His folks had come from the Hawaiian Islands and along with his mahogany-brown skin he had Oriental almond-shaped eyes, and an Indian's hooked nose. Ollie was one of these calm, easygoing types, and strong as a barrel of dead fish. At first look you'd take him for a short, fat joker. That was a mistake because he wasn't so short and he wasn't fat—it was all muscle, hard as steel. We got to be friends in the boxing class.

     Most of the fellows took it easy, even with the heavy gloves on. But with my ring experience I had it all over the rest of them and I used to work over anybody I got into the ring with. Sure, I was going for mean then. I tangled with Ollie one day and had no trouble clouting him. He was so wild I could really tee off, but I couldn't floor him. He kept rushing me and finally managed to clinch, put those thick arms around me in a bear hug—and squeezed. When the ref parted us my arms were numb from the elbows down—I simply couldn't raise them. Ollie grunted with pleasure as he started pasting me with roundhouse swings, each feeling like a baseball bat across my face. I wanted to go down and end it, but I had to admire this cat: He'd taken everything I'd dished out, waiting for his chance.

     I was so groggy I really didn't remember a thing until I woke up in the middle of the night, beside Elma. I had a headache for days. But the next morning when Ollie came over to ask how I felt, I said great and we were ace buddies—because I knew damn well his head was hurting him, too.

     When we graduated, we were assigned to the same precinct house. It was a rough section of town and Ollie the first “colored” cop on duty there. He got hell the first few days—until I started hanging around his post on my off time and between us we walloped respect into a lot of would-be tough studs. Ollie was always calling me down for clouting first and asking questions later. The truth is, I was belting a lot of characters and there were plenty of complaints coming in about me. I didn't know this until the sergeant in charge of our platoon took me aside and told me, “Penn, you're new to the force and this is a deprived area, and tough. You'll come across provocations every tour of duty—but that's part of your job. You've got to stop being on edge all the time. I've been a police officer for a lot of years, so believe me when I tell you a tough cop always ends up a dead cop. You're making a name for yourself, but it's a lousy name. You look like an intelligent kid, so stop taking the easy out.”

     “What easy out, sir?” I asked, the “name” bit making me tense.

     “Use your head more and your fists less. I'm talking to you because I think you have the makings of a good cop. Only you got to relax, use your judgment more. Don't become a hoodlum with a badge.”

     Of course, the troubles I was having on the job were nothing compared to what Elma was giving me. It seemed she had nothing to do but slop around the house and complain. I tried to be fair about it, remembering how she had catered to me when I got out of the Army. But Elma never wanted to get better. She let herself go to a shapeless ton, and whatever the sex thing was between us, it vanished. Actually I think the operation took all desire out of her. She got so big she was a freak—there simply wasn't room for the both of us in one bed. I began sleeping on the living-room couch, which wasn't any dream either. I was nice about it, explaining my changing tours would keep her awake. But not getting a decent night's sleep made me sour on the world most of the time.

     The biggest trouble was money. I couldn't blame her for beefing. During my rookie probationary period, in fact up till the end of my first two years, I was making under $4000 a year, with my actual take-home pay a few dimes and quarters over sixty bucks a week. And that didn't make it. Not that we were living big, but the rent was $92 alone, with no possible cheaper apartments to be found. When Elma had been working the aircraft, she was pulling down $110 or $125 with overtime, so the rent hadn't made much of a dent. Or when we were both working, it hadn't been such a big item. But on my peanut salary, two weeks' pay about covered the rent and gas and electric, the phone bill. By stretching each penny we just about made it. Elma was always nagging that we needed a hi-fi, or a toaster, or about having to wait two weeks to have the TV repaired. Or she had to have a new dress—God knows why; Elma rarely went out. I brought in food before or after I went to work. When she couldn't think of anything else to nag about, she would point to my watch, yell, “Look at you, a grown man, an officer of the law, and you have to wear a kid's watch! If I ever get my hands on it, I'll throw it out!”

     When I told her to shut up, that the watch was still working fine, she repeated her favorite four-letter word half a dozen times—as if proving something.

     Whatever we needed for the house had to be bought on time, so we were always in debt, really strapped. Elma's beef about money was legit, but what sent me straight up was this dumb idea she had that there was all sorts of graft for a beat cop to put his hands on. She would nag that I was a dummy who wasn't trying. I'd keep telling her the old days of a patrolman even taking apples on the cuff were gone. I didn't doubt but that there was cushion money around, but only for the brass. Like I knew damn well there was a book working in the rear of a meat store on my post. I also knew—also damn well—it couldn't operate without the knowledge of the precinct captain and downtown. This joint had been taking bets for years. So I began dropping into the store, pretending I was asking the counterman about the best kind of meat for my sick wife. We both knew my presence wasn't helping “business,” and if they wanted to they could have called downtown and maybe have me sent to another precinct. But the counterman (and he was a real butcher, too—they did a good meat business) would tell me to stop by when I was off and give me a steak, or a ham. It was understood I could stop by once a week.

     It was so petty it made me feel lousy. Ollie told me, “Why bother with that stuff? You get a few bucks' worth of meat for free—big deal.”

     But Ollie could talk; his wife was a schoolteacher. When they bought a new car and I made the mistake of mentioning it to Elma, she blew her stack. “And we haven't even got decent furniture, a rug, a vacuum cleaner, much less a car! I'm ashamed to ask my folks up here.”

     “If they ever should decide to come, tell 'em to take a bath first. Honey, Ollie makes it because his wife has this good job. Why don't you try for some part-time work? Not for the dough so much, but it would be good for you.”

     After sputtering her favorite word, she said, “You know I'm not strong, that I nearly died. What you trying to do, get rid of me?”

     “Stop it. The operation was almost a year ago. If you got out of the house more, you wouldn't be so sickly.”