All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [208]
“Yes,” I agreed, “it is.”
It had been a long time. The last time had been in the middle of the night. With the Boss. And in the silence after my remark I knew that he was remembering, too. He was remembering, but after he had said it. Then I knew that he had put the memory away. He was denying the memory. “Well, it is a long time,” he said as he settled himself, as though he had remembered nothing, “but don’t let it be as long next time. Aren’t you ever coming to see the old fellow? We old ones like a little attention.”
He smiled, and there wasn’t anything I could say into the face of that smile.
“Damn it,” he said, popping out of his chair without any audible creaking of joints, “look at me forgetting hospitality. I bet you are dry as Andy Jackson’s powder. Little early in the day perhaps for the real thing, but a touch of gin and tonic never hurt anybody. Not you and me, anyway. We’re indestructible, aren’t we, you and me?”
He was halfway across to the bellpull before I managed to say anything.
“No, thanks,” I said.
He looked down at me, the faintest shade of disappointment on his face. Then the smile came back, a good, honest, dog-toothed, manly smile, and he said, “Aw, come on, and have a little one. This is a celebration. I want to celebrate your coming to se me!”
He got in another step toward the bellpull before I said, “No, thanks.”
For a moment he stood there looking down at me again, with his arm lifted for the pull. Then he let his arm drop and turned again toward his own chair, with the slightest slackening visible–or I imagined it–in his frame. “Well,” he said offering something which wasn’t quite the smile, “I’m not going to drink by myself. I’ll get my stimulation out of your conversation. What’s on your mind?
“Nothing much,” I said.
I looked at him over there in the shadow and saw that something was keeping the old shoulders straight and the old head up. I wondered what it was. I wondered if what I had dug up were true. I looked across at him, and didn’t want it to be true. With all my heart, I discovered, I didn’t want it to be true. And I had the sudden thought that I might have his drink of gin and tonic, and talk with him and never tell him, and go back to town and tell the Boss that I was convinced it was not true. The Boss would have to take that. He would pitch and roar, but he would know it was my show. Besides by that time I would have destroyed the stuff from Miss Littlepaugh. I could do that.
But I had to know. Even as the thought of going away without knowing came through my head, I knew that I had to know the truth. For the truth is a terrible thing. You dabble your foot in it and it is nothing. But you walk a little farther and you feel it pull you like an undertow or a whirlpool. First there is the slow pull so steady and gradual you scarcely notice it, then the acceleration, then the dizzy whirl and plunge to blackness. For there is a blackness of truth, too. They say it is a terrible thing to fall into the Grace of God. I am prepared to believe that.
So I looked across at Judge Irwin, and liked him suddenly in a way I hadn’t liked him in years, his old shoulders were so straight and the dog-toothed smile so true. But I knew I had to know.
So, as he studied me–for my face must have been something then to invite a reading–I met his gaze.
“I said there wasn’t much,” I said. “But there is something.”
“Out with it,” he said.
“Judge,” I began, “you know who I work for.”
“I know, Jack,” he said, “but let’s just sit here and forget it. I can’t say I approve of Stark, but I’m not like most of our friends down the Row. I can respect a man, and he’s a man. I was almost for him at one time. He was breaking the windowpanes out and letting in a little fresh air. But–” he shook his head sadly, and smiled