All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [251]
I got up, with my half-empty glass in my hand.
“And now, Tiny,” I said, “that I know you are real, I sort of feel sorry for you. You are a funny old fat man, Tiny, with your heart getting bad and your liver nigh gone and sweat running down your face and a mean worry on your mind and a great blackness like water rising in a cellar inside you and I almost feel sorry for you but if you say a word I might stop feeling sorry for you. So now I’m going to drink up your whisky and spit in the glass and go.”
So I drank off the whisky, dropped the glass on the floor (on the thick rug it didn’t break), and started for the door. I had almost got there, when I heard a croak from the couch. I looked around.
“It–” he croaked, “it won’t stand in a court.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said, “it won’t. But you still got plenty to worry about.”
I opened the door and walked through and left the door open behind me and walked down the long hall under the great, glittering chandelier, and walked out into the brisk night.
I took a deep drag of fresh air and looked up through the trees at the distinct stars. I felt like a million. I had sure-God brought off that scene. I had hit him where he lived. I was full of beans. I had fire in my belly. I was a hero. I was St. George and the dragon, I was Edwin Booth bowing beyond the gaslights, I was Jesus Christ with the horsewhip in the temple.
I was the stuff.
And all at once the stars I was like a man who has done himself the best from soup to nuts and a Corona Corona and feels like a virtuous million and all at once there isn’t anything but the yellow, acid taste which has crawled up to the back of the mouth from the old, tired stomach.
Three days later I got the registered letter from Sadie Burke. It read:
Dear Jack:
Just so you won’t think I am going to welch on what I said I would do I am enclosing the statement I said I would make. I have got it witnessed and notarized and nailed down as tight as you can nail anything down and you can do anything with it you want for it is yours. I mean this. It is your baby, just like I said.
As for me I am getting out of here. I don’t mean just getting out of this cross between an old folks’ home and a booby-hatch, but out of this town and out of this state. I can’t stand it round here and I’m pulling out. I’ll be gone a long way and I’ll be gone a long time and maybe somewhere the climate will be better. But my cousin (Mrs. Sill Larkin, 2331 Rousseau Ave.) who is the nearest thing to a relative I got will have some kind of address for me sometime, and if you ever want to contact me just write me care of her. Wherever I am I’ll do what you say. I’ll come if you say come. I don’t want you thinking I am going to welch. I don’t care who knows anything. I’ll do anything you say about that piece of business.
But if you take my advice about that piece of business you will let it drop. This is not because I love Duffy. I hope you will give him an earful and let him wet his pants. But my advice is to let it drop. First, you cannot do anything in law. Second, if you use it politically the best you can get will be to keep Duffy from being re-elected, and you know as well as I do he will never get nominated even. The boys will never nominate him for they know he is a dummy even by their standards. He was just something the Boss kept around. Springing this stuff won’t hurt the gang any. I will just give them an excuse to get rid of Duffy. If you want to get the gang you got to let them dig their own grave like they sure will now the Boss is gone. But third, it is sure going to be rough on that Stanton dame if you break this stuff. She may be so noble and high-toned like you said that she will want you to do it, but you are a sap if you do. She has maybe had plenty to put up with already in her way, and you would be a sap to crucify her just because you got some high-faluting idea you are an Eagle Scout and she is Joan of Arc. You would be a sap to tell her even. Unless you are so blabber mouthed you have done it already. Like you maybe have. I am not going on to say she is my best friend but she has had her troubles like I said and you might give her a break.