Dillon explained that he was frightened.
"Otherwise I would help you, see?" he said. He sat on the bench on
the Common in the midst of the insistent november sunshine, hunched over to
protect his stomach. "I mean, I understand, what it is you got in mind, that
you're willing to protect me. But I want to tell you this: you can't do it, you
can't possibly do it. Because nobody can do it, you know? Nobody. This is
something which I got into all by myself, and I am not going to get out of
it."
Foley said nothing.
There were seven derelicts working their usual station down at the
subway entrance at the corner of BoylstonAndTremontStreets. Six of them sat
along the retaining wall and discussed events of importance. They wore
overcoats and hats and wornout heavy shoes in the sunshine, partly because they
were generally cold and partly because they had memories enough to know that
winter was coming again, so that they would need the warm clothing which they
did not dare to leave in the empty buildings where they slept. The youngest of
the derelicts accosted businessmen and women who had been shopping. He worked
diligently to keep them in front of him, trying to block their progress so that
they would listen to him. It is harder to refuse to give a man a quarter after
you have listened to him for a while, and noticed him. Not impossible, but
harder. The younger derelict was still agile enough to manœuver, and could
raise the price of a bottle of Petri faster than the others. Dillon watched him
while he talked.
"I tell you what it is," he said. "The principal thing
which bothers me is the truck. Now I know that that sounds kind of unny,
because I suppose you would think that what would be worrying me would be the
guys in the truck or some guy I don't even know that I see maybe watching me
pretty close in the bart or something."
North on TremontStreet, just beyond theInformationStand and theFountain
and theParkmanBandstand, a couple of Jesus screamers were working a moderate
crwod of clerks and secretaries and sightseers. The woman was tall. She had a
good loud voice and a bullhorn to help it along. The man was short and walked
around distributing leaflets. The man was short and walked around distributing
leaflets. The wind delivered enough of what she was saying to distract Dillon
from watching the derelicts.
"Now there is a strange thing," he said. "When I came up
here I more or less take the long way around, to see if anybody else is
interested and who that might be, you know? So I walk along and then I cross
the street and come on back down past the pair of them there, and the woman
says: 'Unless you accept Jesus, who is ChristTheLord, you shall perish, perish
in the everlasting flames.'
"Now who am I to think about a thing like that, can you tell me
that?" Dillon said. "Couple weeks ago these two gentlemen fromDetroit
came in and had a couple of drinks, and then they sort
of look around and the next thing I know they inform me that we are going
partners. They give me some time to think about it, you know, and while I think I make a few phone calls. So that when the few
minutes are up I had maybe six or seven friends of mine in there and I took the
opportunity to go out in the back and get a piece of pipe that I keep around.
I hit them a couple of good ones and we throw them out in the street in front
of a cab.
"Then two nights ago I get five of these
micmacs come in, real indians, for a change, and they have a little firewater
and begin to break up some of the furniture. So me and a few friends hadda use
the pipe on them.
"So this broad hollers at me there, just a few minutes ago, about
the everlasting flames, and I consider myself a fairly intelligent guy and all
that, pretty good judgement, I get drunk once in a while now and then, but I
got this strong idea I would like to go up with that piece of pipe under my
coat and say: Well, what do I do about those fellows fromDetroit, you want to
tell me that? And then whack her once or twice across the snout to bring her to
her senses."
The
young bum had cornered a middleaged, rather stout businessman right in the
middle of the mall, with open space all around. "I want to tell you
something," Dillon said. "That kid may be a downandouter there, but
he has pretty good moves. I think he used to be a basketball player, maybe.
"Anyway," he said, "I still got a certain amount of my
sanity left and I didn't have the pipe with me, so I don't say anything to her
and I don't bop her a couple, like I would like to. You
can't reason with these people, you know. They get that idea in their heads,
all they can do is stand there and bellyache Gospel at you, enough to drive a
man out of what little mind he's got left.
"I knew this guy, met him when I was atLewisburg on that federal
thing back there three, four years ago. Forget what he was in there for, BAndE
in a federal building, maybe, post office job. Anyway, not a bad guy. Big, used
to box some. He comes from down around NewBedford there. So we strike up a
friendship.
"I get out first," Dillon said. "I come back here. I let
him know where I am. So when they parole him, he goes hom to live with his wife
and her mother but he knows where I am if he needs to get ahole of me. And it
wasn't very long before he needed to. Because those two women went right to
work driving him out of his mind. Dumb portuguese types, you know, and what did
they do when he was in jail but they decide they don't want to be catholics any
more, they're going to be, what is it, Jehovah's Witnesses. Beautiful. Guy
comes home, knows the construction business pretty good, gets himself a job,
every night he comes home, there's maybe a ballgame on or something, they want
him to go out and stand on the sidewalk in front of the supermarket, pedlling
Jesus to every poor bastard that comes around to get a pound of fish.
"So he starts coming up here," Dillon said,
"every chance he gets, just to have a little PeaceAndQuiet. And the next thing I notice, he's coming up this
one time and he doesn't go back. So I say to him,
what're you doing here. And he says: 'For Christ
sake, you aren't going to start in on me, are you?'
" I had some room," Dillon said. "I was separated from my
wife at the time and I had some room. I let him stay with me. He drinks a
bottle of beer and he watches the ballgame while I'm working and during the
day, well, I don't know what he does. The best he can, probably.
"Naturally, it's just a matter of time
the parole office makes a report and says he's missing visits, which is true,
and that his family says he doesn't comes home, which is true, and that he's
consorting with a known criminal, which is me and is also true, and he quit a
steady job, whereabouts unknown. So one night the marshals come by and it's
back to the can, parole violation. Drinking, too. I forgot that. I tell you, them two women preached that poor bastard right
back into the can. You can't reason with people like that, doesn't do any good
at all to talk to them."
Dillon straightened
up and immediately bent forward again. The middleaged man executed a quick fake
and get away from the younger derelict.
"That's the thing that bothers you, you know? It's just, well,
there's something you can help and some kinds of things you can't do anything
about, is all. Knowing the difference, as long as you can tell the difference,
you're in pretty good shape. That was what kind of bothered me about that big
broad with the bullhorn there, was that just for a minute or so it was like I
didn't know the difference. You get so you're in that position, you're not
going to be able to do very much about anything."
The
customary blizzard of pigeons wheeled briefly across the walk and settled back
around an old lady who fed them from a large, wrinkled, paper bag. "I
heard a guy on television the other night," Dillon said. "He was
talking about pigeons. Called them flying rats. I thought that was pretty good.
He had something in mind, going to feed them the pill or something, make them
extinct. Trouble is, he was serious, you know? There was a guy that got shit on
and probably got shit on again and then he got mad. Ruined his suit or
something, going to spend the rest of his life getting even with the pigeons
because they wrecked a hundredollar suit. Now there isn't any percentage in
that. There must be ten million pigeons in Boston alone, laying eggs every day,
which will generally produce more pigeons, and all of them dropping tons of
shit, rain or shine. And this guy in NewYork is going to, well, there just
aren't going to be any of them in this world any more.
"You see what I'm telling you," Dillon said, "you should
understand. I, it isn't that I don't trust you or anything. The man says you're
all right, that does it for me. I accept that. But what you got in mind, if I
do that I'll just have to spend the rest of my life, you know? Being somewhere,
hiding out. And you cannot hide out, is all, you just cannot hide out.
"That guy I was telling you about," Dillon said, "his
wife was theJevohaWitness? Well, it didn't do anything to what liked to do, and
from what he was telling me, she liked to do that pretty often. Like, say, a
couple times a night In Lewisburg he used to tell me he was saving it up, no
handgallops for him, because when he got home he was going to have to account
for every ounce he owned. First time he comes up here, all pissed off, I asked
him, well, at least how was that part? And he says to me, he says: 'You know
something? There's one thing she always hated, it's going down on me. And every since I get home, I been making her do it to get the
other, because at least she's quiet when I'm making her do that.' You
see what I mean? Man gets desperate, he does a few things, he knows it won't
work, pretty soon he quits, just packs it all in and goes away somewhere. Only
way there is.
"See, I know that," Dillon said. "If it's going to happen
then it is going to happen. I don't know, some buddy of mine, that I probably
refused to serve some night, started putting it around I been going out to see
people he thinks I shouldn't. Which is true enough, of course, or else would I
be here? But he's probably doing it too. Everybody's looking out for a little
connexion, you don't shit in the well because maybe you want to drink out of it
some day. Anyway, the word's around there's this grand jury coming up and the
next thing I hear is, well, you know what I hear.
"I have seen the truck," Dillon said. "That is what
impresses me. You put two guys in that truck and they could get the pope. The
only time I see an engine like that was in a cadillac. So you don't, you aren't
going to run away because that thing is going to run right away with you. And
the windshield, the damned thing looks like an old bread truck, a milk truck,
maybe, and the windshield cranks, it's got a crank on the passenger side and
you can open it right up and run a deer rifle out there. You're driving a car
in fron of that truck and they want you, well, good luck to you. I understand
they even got a gyro on it, you know? Like a fucking airpalen. So they can lock
on. Now you're on theMysticBridge and that thing wheels up behind you and the
windshield's opening up, and I ask you, what're you going to do now? You're
going to make a good ActOfContrition, is what you're going to do, because you
got a choice between the rifle and the water and it doesn't matter much.
"Sure I don't drive. I could afford a car, I wouldn't be taking
twenty a week from you. ONly time I'm on the bridge is coming home from the
track on the bus. But you see what I'm getting at. These
guy are serious. I know them very well. You know that. They got a truck
for guys that drive cars, they got something else for guys that walk, like me.
"You see what I'm telling you," Dillon said in the sunshine
under the trees and they sky and the pigeons, "you see what I'm getting
at. Right now they want to scare me, and they did it. I'm scared. I stay scared
and I don't do anything anybody else isn't doing, I don't go into that grand
jury there, maybe, just maybe, being scared is going to be enough. Satisfy
them. He was scared and he didn't spook. Maybe not, too. But I go in there, I
help you, whatever it is I got now, I am not going to have any more. I can walk
around, and I can still tell the difference.
"I had this letter the other day from that guy I was telling you
about, and you know what he said? He said: 'I got seven
months to "go" and then I'm free and clear. No parole officer, no
nothing. What I'm trying to decide is whether I kill that woman or not. I think
right now I won't.'
"You see what I mean," Dillon said, "you're never sure.
You are never sure what a man is going to do. I think if I was I wouldn't care,
they wouldn't need that truck. I would kill myself."
"Okay," Dave said, "okay. Look, did I ever tell you we
could keep you neat and clean? I ever give you that line of horseshit?"
"No," Dillon said. "No, you always been on the level. I
give you that."
"Okay," Dave said. "I understand the position you're in.
You can't talk about thePolack, you can't talk about thePolack. It's all
right."
"Thanks," Dillon said.
"Screw," Dave said. "We been friends for a long time. I
never asked a friend yet to do something he really couldn't do, when I knew he
couldn't do it. The whole town's buttoned up on this grand jury anyway. I never
seen things so quiet."
"There isn't much going on," Dillon said.
"Jesus," Dave said, "I know it. They got me on this
detail, you know? Drugs. I been out of town probably three weeks now, I come
back, and nothing's happening. I didn't miss a thing. You guys must have taken
up circlejerks or something. They ought to run one of those grand juries every
three weeks or so. It sure puts you guys in the closet for a while. I don't
care if they never catch those guys. Crime rate's down sixty per cent just
making the hard guys worry about it."
"Fuck you," Dillon said.
"Hey look," Dave said. "There isn't anything going on.
You can talk all you want, but the grand jury's got you guys up so tight you're
choking on it. By the end of the week, ARtie Van's going to be shining shoes or
selling papers or maybe pimping or something. You oughta get unemployment."
"Cut it out," Dillon said.
"All right," Dave said, "that was a cheap shot. I
apologize. But there isn't anything going on.
"There's something going on," Dillon said.
"Bunch of the boys getting together to watch dirty movies?"
"You want the truth?" Dillon said. "I don't know what it is. People are sort of avoiding me. But
something's going on. Guys calling up asking for guys that aren't there. I
don't know what it is, but they got something going."
"Here's twenty," Dave said. "Who's calling up?"
"Remember EddieFingers?" Dillon said.
"Vividly," Dave said. "Who's he looking for?"
"Jimmy Scalisi," Dillon said.
"Is that so," Dave said. "And does he find him?"
"I dunno," Dillon said. "I'm just a messenger boy."
"They give you numbers," Dave said.
"Telephone numbers," Dillon said. "I got a liquor
license. I'm a lawabiding citizen."
"You work for a guy that's got a liquor license," Dave said.
"Ever see him? You're a convicted felon."
"You know how it is," Dillon said. "I work for a guy with
a liquor license. I forget sometimes."
"Want to forget this?" Dave said.
"I'd just as soon," Dillon said.
"Merry christmas," Dave said.
