Heaven Ran Last

Chapter I

I saw him when he got off the train. He was just as big as I remembered him, with thick Irish features, and that made him easy to spot. He was bent a little under the weight of his duffel bag and he looked uncomfortable in the heavy uniform.

I worked my way through the crowd and slapped him on the shoulder.

“Welcome home, hero,” I said. I gave him a big grin that probably seemed on the level.

He eyed me for a second and then he smiled, a slow, easy smile of recognition.

“Well, Johnny, this is swell. It’s swell to see you.”

I pulled him away from the mob coming off the train and he put the duffel bag down, and began to look around. He was looking for someone and I know who he was looking for.

“Is Alice here?” he said. “Did she come down with you, Johnny?”

“You’ll have to wait about another half hour to see her,” I said. “She didn’t want to meet you in a crowd so she called me this morning and asked me to pick you up. You know how a woman is.”

“Well,” he said, smiling again in his slow, soft way, “it was swell of you to go to the trouble.”

“What do you mean? I was glad to do it. Now grab that bag and come along. I know you want to see that little wife of yours.”

“I sure do,” he said, very simply.

We didn’t do any more talking on the way through the station. I was wondering what he was thinking. He didn’t know me very well. I had met him a few times before he went into the army. He used to stop in to put down a bet or two when I had my place out North. I knew his wife better. I met her after he left, and after I got to know her real well, I told her to mention me every now and then in her letters. Just casual stuff, so if somebody saw us together and wrote him about it she could cover up.

He whistled when he saw the car, a Packard with red leather upholstery and a lot of fancy chrome gadgets. He put his duffel bag in back and got in front with me.

“This is class,” he said. “Things must be going good with you.”

“You know me. I like things that cost money.”

I drove over to Madison street, turned left and went down to Michigan. I swung left there and got in the outer lane so I could get over to the Drive at the Drake Hotel. Alice lived on Winthrop avenue, about sixty hundred north, and the Drive would get us there in twenty minutes.

We didn’t talk much until we passed the Drake. He was looking at the buildings and the lake and the crowds of people.

“It all looks the same,” he said finally. “Funny, but you get to thinking you won’t recognize things when you get back. You worry about the people, too.”

“They never change,” I said.

“I guess you’re right.” He turned a little on the seat and looked at me. “They don’t change if you’re with them because you’re both changing, I guess, and you don’t notice it because it happens slow. But after not seeing a person for three years...”

He didn’t finish it. The words just trailed off and he looked out at the lake with a kind of strange look on his face. I knew he was thinking about Alice.

“Three years is quite a stretch,” I said. “How was it? Pretty tough?”

His eyes came around to me. “It wasn’t much fun. The worst thing is the feeling you’re slipping away from everybody you knew at home.” He frowned a little. “That isn’t just what I mean but it’s hard to put into words.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said.

“I should have got home eight or ten months ago,” he said. “My outfit left just before Christmas in forty-five, but I got stuck as a witness for those war trials. That’s what held me up. Those last months were really the worst because there didn’t seem to be any reason for being over there any more, and I knew Alice was having a tough time waiting for me to get back.” He looked at me then, like he was a little embarrassed. “You know, Johnny, I want to thank you for showing Alice a good time while I was away. She wrote me about the times you took her swimming and things like that.”

“Ah, cut it out,” I said. “That was a break for me. She’s a swell kid. Anyway she paid me back by saving my neck a couple of times. Every time I’d figure on getting married I’d bring the girl over for Alice to take a look at. And she always gave me the straight dope. Those babes can fool you and me, but they don’t fool her.”

He laughed at that. “Yeah, she’s plenty sharp about things like that. I guess it’s because she’s so straight herself she can see through the wrong kind.”

“Sure,” I said.

We didn’t talk any more until I turned off Sheridan at Granville. When I started down Winthrop he said suddenly, “Johnny, you may think I’m nuts but I’d like you to come up with me for a while.” He looked at me anxiously. “You know how it is. I haven’t seen her for a long time and it’d be easier if someone was around.”

“Don’t be crazy,” I said. “You kids want to be alone. You don’t want a broken-down bookie hanging around.”

“I wish you would,” he said. “I don’t know, I guess I’m kind of nervous.”

You slob, I thought. You stupid, damn slob.

“Well,” I said, “I’ll go and buy a couple bottles of beer and come back for a little while. But you should see her alone first.”

“I guess that’s best,” he said.

I pulled up in front of the place where Alice lived. It was a four-story, brown-brick walkup that some smart operator had made into two-room kitchenette apartments. Alice’s front room faced the street on the second floor.

He got his duffel bag out and said, “Well, I’ll be seeing you in a little while, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll be back with the beer pretty soon.”

I put the car in gear and got out of there fast. There was a bar about three blocks away and I went in there and told the bartender I wanted a beer and three quart bottles to go.

The bartender was middle-aged, with a pink bald head beaded with sweat. He nodded and drew me a beer and then bent over with a grunt to get the bottles out of the ice box.

I sat there and sipped my beer, trying to get my mind off what was going on back there in her apartment. But I couldn’t think of anything else.

I could see him running up the steps, like a guy in a magazine story, and swinging her up in his arms to show her he was husky and strong and full of juice. Then he’d carry her into the little front room and kiss her a dozen times and run his hands over her and tell her how wonderful she was and how glad he was to be home.

I wondered how she’d take that big Irish guy with the husky shoulders and heavy hands.

I knew what hands did to her. She’d probably suck in her stomach and push herself closer to him and wriggle.

I was holding the glass so tight my knuckles were white. I felt mean. I wanted the bartender to say something, anything, so I could let him have it right in the face. But he just stood there, his back to the cash register, looking out at the street.

I put a bill on the bar, picked up the bottles of beer and went out into the hot sunlight. My shirt was sticking to my back by the time I got behind the wheel. Some kids were playing in the street, and the sidewalks were crowded with tired looking women in wash dresses, with damp stringy hair and bare legs. Most of them were carrying brown paper bags full of groceries.

I drove back down Winthrop and parked across the street from her place. I put the bottles of beer under my arm and went inside the cool, tiled vestibule.

My fingers hit Alice’s bell automatically. I didn’t have to look. The buzzer sounded after a moment and I opened the door and went up to the second floor.

She was standing in the doorway with an odd expression on her face. From inside the apartment I could hear a shower running.

“Well, where’s the hero?” I asked her. “I got him a nice cold bottle of beer.” My voice was a little louder than it had to be; I didn’t know if he was listening.

“He’s cleaning up,” she said. Her voice was a little loud, too. “He said he wouldn’t feel right until he got out of that uniform and into some civilian clothes.”

I went past her into the front room and she closed the door and stood with her back to it, watching me with the same funny look.

“Well, I don’t blame him,” I said. “He looks pretty good, doesn’t he?”

She left the door and came toward me slowly. Her eyes looked dark and big. Everything about her looked drawn up tight.

“He’s lost a little weight, I think,” she said.

“Yeah, I guess he did.”

“He said he couldn’t eat at all on the boat.”

We were watching each other now and the things we said were just noises that didn’t mean anything. She kept coming closer until she could put her hand out and touched my arm.

“Johnny—”

I slapped her hand away. “I’d better fix him a glass of beer,” I said.

She looked at me steadily and the color began to come up in her face. “I guess you’d better.”

I went into the little kitchen and put the bottles on the table. I got an opener out of the drawer and when I turned around she was standing in the doorway.

“I’ll get the glasses,” she said.

I opened one of the bottles and she got glasses from the pantry and put them on the table. I picked up one and filled it slowly.

She was standing close, almost touching me, and her eyes were on mine, wide and shiny.

“Johnny, I can’t do it,” she said, and her voice was a whisper. “I want you, Johnny.”

“For God’s sake, shut up,” I said. I kept my voice down but the way I said it brought another patch of color to her face.

“Don’t talk to me that way, Johnny.”

My hand was shaking and some of the beer slopped over the edge of the glass and ran down over my fingers. It made me cold all over. I put the glass down and looked at her.

We were a few inches apart, staring at each other, our arms at our sides. I could hear my breath and I could hear my heart pumping heavily.

“Johnny,” she whispered. She raised one hand and touched my arm.

My arms went around her and I held her so tight I could hear her straining to breathe. She pressed closer to me and said, “Johnny,” in such a soft voice that I didn’t hear the word, just her breath against my ear.

I don’t know how long we were like that before I shoved her away and picked up another glass. She stood twisting her hands together and looking like she might cry.

“Johnny, it’s got to be you. I can’t stand it with him.”

My hands were shaking so I had to put the glass down. “He’s back,” I said. “We knew he was coming back. We knew how this was going to end. I’m out.”

“No, Johnny—”

“Will you shut up?”

She backed away from me a little and her hands came up slowly until they were touching her breasts. We stood there, not saying anything, just staring at each other, until I heard the shower stop and the bathroom door open.

“Where’s everybody?” I heard him call out.

“Right out here getting that beer ready,” I yelled.

“That sounds good. Where’s Alice?”

I picked up the bottle of beer again and looked at Alice until she turned and went back into the living room.

I filled two more glasses and put them on a tray. When my hands stopped shaking I went into the front room. He was sitting in one of the chairs and he was wearing just a pair of slacks. He was built like a coal heaver. Thick arms and shoulders and there was a mat of red hair on his chest. He put a big grin on his face when he saw the beer.

“This is the life,” he said.

Alice was standing beside him and he reached up and took hold of her wrist. “Sit down on Pappa’s lap and be comfortable,” he said.

“It’s hot, Frank. I’ll sit over on the sofa.”

“No, you won’t.” He laughed. “I’m not going to let you get that far away from me for a long time.”

He caught her around the waist with his other arm and pulled her onto his lap. She struggled a little but he held her arms tight and put his chin into her shoulder and worked it around until she began to squirm and giggle.

“I guess I’ll have to start showing you who’s boss again,” he said. “Maybe you’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a man around the house.”

“Frank, don’t!”

He laughed as she continued to twist around in his arms. He put his hand on her knee and squeezed it lightly.

I saw his expression change then and the color coming up in his face. When he saw me watching he grinned a little, embarrassed.

“I guess we’re forgetting Johnny with the beer,” he said. “But a guy doesn’t come home to his wife every day.” He laughed and took his hand away from her knee a little self-consciously. “I’ll take that beer now.”

I gave him a glass as carefully as I could, but some of it spilled. I couldn’t help it.

“Watch it, boy.” He grinned. “I just had my bath.”

I tried to smile. “A little nervous, I guess.”

“You look kind of pale at that,” he said. “Like you might be getting a little sick. You got to watch yourself in this weather.”

I put the tray down carefully. I felt like I was coming apart inside. Seeing her there, lying back against his bare chest, with his hands touching her familiarly, was what did it.

“I’ve got to be going,” I said.

Alice didn’t say a word. Her lips were parted and the expression on her face didn’t tell me anything.

Frank said, “Well, we haven’t been very polite, I guess, but you know how it is, Johnny.” He grinned and put his hand back on her knee.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know how it is.”

There was a chance there for a crack, a nasty crack that would have hurt her. But he might have tumbled to something. I didn’t feel like hurting her or making cracks.

I waved to them and went out of the door and down the steps as fast as I could.