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Ninety Days Inside The Empire: A Novel by William Appleman Williams

Glimpses of An Election

Page 93

Cat broke up.

"So Run-Run holds them out and they consult heads together and then she points up the street and he nods to her and even kind of bows like he was thanking her and walks off as easy as you please.

"Now this is the best part. He's halfway down the porch steps when he turns around, goes back and hands her the sheet on Clay."

This time Marsh erupted in laughter, finally poured them another drink.

"I got to hear another."

"It's a good bit different. We were finishing our last block that day, so we were exactly opposite. I'd had a good visit and was waiting for him on the sidewalk. This big, I mean huge, man comes to the door in pants with suspenders over a skivvy shirt and a long-necked bottle of beer in his hand. He lifts the beer like he's going to clobber Run-Run and yells: 'What the fuck you botherin' me for, you crazy bastard?'

"Run-Run tilts his head back a little and says: 'I may be crazy but I ain't no bastard.' This character steps right up and sticks his face in Run-Run's, stares at it and then gives Run-Run a big belch. 'No, I can see you ain't, so you might as well come on in and have a beer.'

"Run-Run goes in and I'm walking circles for twenty minutes down at the corner...."

"And?" Marsh was fascinated.

"Turns out the toy's worked for Crown for years and hates his guts. Knows enough about whatever all this Mexican stuff is to be mad as hell because he thinks it's bad for his union and is only too happy to vote for Clay. Said he would talk to his buddies about it. You never know, do you?"

Marsh was quiet. Finally: "You pick your friends pretty careful, don't you? I mean like Susan and Run-Run."

Cat was taken off-guard. He fumbled a bit with his glass.

"Well, Mr. Judge, friends like that pick each other. You must know that."

Marsh was looking at a faraway place, misty through the years...and the heartbreak. His voice was so low that Cat wasn't sure if he meant to say it aloud: "You take care of Susan and that baby."

Cat knew he had unintentionally gouged deep into scar tissue. But it came to him what to do. He remembered an afternoon after Iwo when a man in his late forties had come to him, a mere kid, really, who might have been the man's son, to ask him what to do about a Dear John letter. He, Cat, had just finished a warm, even passionate, letter from Susan, who had wanted to take another bath.

"Well, Kenneth, the first thing we're going to do is get us a couple of beers. Then we are going to go down and inspect the starboard shaft alley all the way back into the emergency steering compartment. Then we are going to come up to the fantail and sit there and catch us some fish. By then we will have kicked us enough ass to talk some maybe sense about people who write Dear John letters."

Afterward, Cat had wondered where the hell it came from; his grandmother, where? He still wondered. But he knew what to do.

"I think I've got a right to know what the hell is going on with this Mexican business. Why you so sly about it if a worker knows what's going on?"

Marsh jerked, winced with the pain of his knee hitting the chair rung. He did not like being on the defensive, really in a corner. He had developed great respect and affection for this young man. He poured himself another hit, offered the bottle to Cat, who shook his head.

"Here's to that kind of friendship."

He adjusted his knee.