Odds Against Tomorrow

Chapter Twenty-Two

At three-thirty Earl turned away from the window and pulled his overcoat about his shoulders. The weather was starting to work for them; clouds had come up an hour or so ago and rain was falling on the black earth and beading the windows with soft, gray moisture. Darkness was settling fast. The night would be cold and windy, with the rain lashing at everything. They could leave now, he thought, moving out under the cover of this murky weather.

“You better go up and get Sambo,” he said to Lorraine. Earl limped to the table and poured himself a short drink, using up the last of the bottle. He felt cold and empty, but very calm. “When we drop Sambo we’ll head away from the main highway. Go out the back way. I know the roads.” He drank the whisky and stood perfectly still as the warmth spread slowly through him.

“The sooner we start the better,” Lorraine said.

“Sure,” Earl said. “We’ve got to roll. Wind ’em up.” He looked at her with a little frown shading his eyes. “That’s the Army command for starting up truck convoys. Did you know that, Lory? Wind ’em up.”

“Do you feel all right?”

“I’m fine. We’ll dump Sambo and get rolling. Go get him.”

Lorraine turned and went into the kitchen. Earl heard her heels clattering on the back stairs. She crossed over his head, going down the hall to the room where Ingram was watching the road. Crazybone had gone up an hour or so ago to keep him company.

The old man lay with his eyes closed, his slow breathing sounding like the wind rustling a pile of dry papers.

Earl limped about pointlessly examining the junk on top of the mantel, studying the sturdy old beams and floor boards, pausing once to frown at the broken radio on the table. I’ll never see any of this again, he thought. Never see this room again in my life. Why should that bother him? he wondered. It was a cold, stinking dump. No man in his right mind would want to see it again. But leaving it reminded him of the other places he had left. He stood fingering the glass, while a dizzying succession of rooms and barracks and Army camps flashed through his mind. He was always the guy who had to leave, he thought. Everybody else stayed put, cozy and snug, while he hit the road. He never went back anywhere. There was no place on earth that called out to him, no stick or stone or blade of grass that belonged to him and nobody else.

Was it because he was dumb? Because he couldn’t feel what other people felt? The confident peace he had known after talking with Ingram had deserted him; he was uncertain again, worried and tense, afraid of the shadows in his mind.

Talking with Ingram he had licked this feeling. Or thought he had. Everybody was alone. Not just him, everybody. But what the hell did that mean? How did knowing that help you? he wondered.

The old man stirred and peered at him, pulling the blankets up about his scrawny throat. “You fixing to leave, eh? Think you’ll make it?”

“Sure,” Earl said. The old man sickened him; with his stench, with the fun he took from probing at them. “We’ll make it,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

“Taking the colored fellow with you?”

“That’s right.”

“All three of you, eh? Good-looking white girl, and a white man and a colored man. That’s a funny combination any way you look at it.”

“Well, stop looking at it then,” Earl said.

He heard Lorraine coming down the back stairs, and when she came quickly into the room, he knew something was wrong; her eyes were hard, and there was an anxious frown on her face. “He’s gone,” she said, staring at Earl. “You hear that! He’s gone.”

“What do you mean he’s gone?”

“Just that. He’s gone!” she cried.

“Well, that makes it easier, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t you understand? For God’s sake, can’t you think?”

She looked close to hysteria; her face was gaunt and strained, as if her nerves were being stretched slowly and exquisitely to the breaking point. “God,” she said, “God.”

“Now, Lory,” he said soothingly. “Sambo will be picked up by the police. And he’ll know we’ve lied to him. So he’ll probably talk. But that was going to happen anyway. I don’t see why you’re so worried.”

“I’m sorry because you’re a fool.”

“This is no time to be riding me,” he said slowly. “Just knock it off.”

The old man tittered. “Shouldn’t be fussing at each other this way,” he said. “Look at me and Crazybone. Go weeks without a cross word.” He smiled slyly. “Go weeks without any words at all. That’s the best way.”

“Lory, let’s go. Nothing’s changed. We’re all right.”

“Are you ready?” she said wearily.

“Sure, I’m ready.”

“Have you got the car keys?”

“No, Sambo took—” Earl stopped short, dizzied and weakened by the sudden heavy stroke of his heart.

“Do you understand why I’m worried? Now, do you understand?” Lorraine cried furiously.

“He wouldn’t take the keys. He wouldn’t leave us stuck here.” But the words sounded plaintive and foolish in his ears. “When did he leave, for God’s sake?”

“That idiot upstairs doesn’t know. He went out the back door. That’s all she could tell me.”

“Look, he didn’t take the car. I’d have heard him starting it.” Earl’s voice sharpened with excitement. “I can get it going, Lory. I’ll jump the ignition wires. Sambo didn’t figure on that. I’ll catch up with him someday, and—”

“Shut up!” Lorraine cried softly; a draft of air blew into the room, sweeping coldly about her ankles.

“What?”

She held up a warning hand. They heard the front door slam, and then Ingram came in, hugging his arms tightly against his body. He wore a short woolen coat that belonged to the old man and his hair gleamed with rain water. “It’s getting awful cold out,” he said, stamping his feet on the floor. “Goes right through you.”

“Where’ve you been?” Earl said. “We’re ready to leave.”

“Just down to the road on a little reconnaissance. Everything seems quiet.”

He watched Earl with a puzzled smile. “You people look like you just seen a ghost.”

“Lorraine’s a little nervous, maybe.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Ingram said, glancing at her with the same puzzled smile. “You got a good chance of making it. The cops don’t know about you or your car. Once you drop me off you’re free as birds. Isn’t that right?” he said, turning slowly to Earl. “The cops don’t want me. And you two can make it in her car. Isn’t that the way we planned it?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Earl tried to smile but his face felt stiff and cold all over. “We drop you off, and away we go.” The words came out as if he were drunk, twisting awkwardly on his tongue. “So what are we wasting time for?” he said, almost yelling at Ingram. “Everybody knows the deal. What are we yapping about it for?”

“You got it right,” Ingram said softly. “Everybody knows the deal now.”

He stared at Earl without explanation, without speaking, and the silence grew and filled the room with almost palpable tension. And then Ingram’s face seemed to crumble, and a strangling little moan sounded in his throat.

“We all know the deal, buddy,” he cried hoarsely. “The cops want me — they wanted me all along. But you didn’t tell me. That was part of the deal I didn’t know.”

“Now listen, Sambo, you—”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Ingram’s voice trembled with anguish and contempt. “You were going to let me walk right into their arms. You lied to me all along. I was heading for the chair, while you and her went free. That’s what you planned, wasn’t it? Goddam you, wasn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?” Earl said. He wet his lips, and the taste of his tongue was like a distillation of corruption and shame. “You’re not making any sense,” he yelled furiously.

“Crazybone came upstairs to tell about the radio,” Ingram said softly. “She thought I figured she was lying. She kept saying the woman lifted up the radio and smashed it on the floor. I told her she was imagining things.” Ingram’s smile strained the skin tightly across his shining face. “Sure, I stuck up for you, buddy. I felt like a heel for listening to her. But once you get a suspicion, it’s hard to keep it from growing. All I knew was what you told me. Then the radio got busted. So we couldn’t get any more news. It was hard not to start adding things up. I tried not to, buddy, I tried as hard as I could. But I started adding it up. And you know the answer I got.”

The bitterness in Ingram’s eyes and voice cut Earl like a whip. “She stumbled and knocked over the radio,” he said. “You believe me, Sambo, or that old fool, Crazybone?”

“She stumbled, eh?” Ingram turned and stared at Lorraine, appraising her slender legs and neat, efficient body with deliberate contempt. “Does she look like the kind of woman who falls over her feet? No more than a cat does, buddy.”

“You leave her out of this,” Earl yelled. An illogical anger rushed through him. “Forget about her. What’s she got to do with it, anyway?”

“She’s part of the big lie, isn’t she? Send him out to get his black hide nailed to the wall. Dumb colored bastard — what difference will it make to him? That’s the lie she’s part of. She’s as rotten as you are.”

“Now hold it. I’m warning you.”

“Oh, pardon me,” Ingram said, laughing bitterly. “I forgot my place, didn’t I? You white folks were just sending me out to get killed — that’s all. And I’m such a rude, low-down nigger that I got mad and forgot myself in front of a white woman. I surely am sorry about that.”

“Don’t take any lip from him,” the old man cried, his voice emerging from under the blankets in a muffled cackle.

“Keep still, both of you,” Lorraine said. “Ingram has a right to be angry, if he believes what Crazybone told him. But it just isn’t true. I broke the radio accidentally, Ingram. I swear it.”

“You should have broken them all, ma’am,” Ingram said slowly.

“What do you mean?”

“There was one you forgot about — the one in the car I drove into the mica pit. I climbed down there and the radio was working fine. So I waited to hear the news.”

Lorraine looked quickly toward Earl, her eyes dark and anxious, but he turned away, rubbing the back of his hand roughly across his lips.

“You know what the news said?” Ingram laughed shrilly and slapped his leg, his manner a cruel parody of cringing good humor. “The news said the police are looking for a colored rascal named John Ingram. Just listen to what that cut-up has gone and done. Tried to rob a bank, then went and kidnaped a doctor to take care of his wounded buddy.” Ingram glared at Earl, but his eyes were bright and hard as diamonds. “The name sounded pretty familiar, so I listened real close. Ingram, they said, was about thirty-five, used to live on Arch Street near Maple in Philly. Well, imagine my surprise. That’s me, I thought. Little ole me. Wanted by the police everywhere. The police, that’s how us colored folks say it.” Ingram continued to stare at Earl, his smile changing slowly, becoming bitter and cold and sad. “You can imagine how surprised I was, buddy. Can’t you imagine it?”

“It’s different than what you think,” Earl said, making a weary futile gesture with his hand. “It’s not all one thing or another, like you think. It’s a question of what you got to do, of how things really are—” The confusion in his voice swelled into empty, pointless anger. “But you don’t understand that, do you? It’s all black and white to you, isn’t it?”

“We’ve got to go, Earl,” Lorraine said. “Get the car keys.”

“Yeah, I was surprised by the news,” Ingram said, as if he hadn’t heard her; he was watching Earl with hurt, bewildered eyes. “After I saved your skin, after I brought your girl here and got a doctor to patch you up — after all that, you could go on lying to me. It wasn’t hard for you — that’s what I can’t understand. It was easy. You smiled and lied to me like it was the most natural thing in the world.”

“You don’t know how it was, I tell you. You just see it one way.”

“Get the car keys,” Lorraine cried.

“We talked about going to ball games together, remember?” Ingram said, clenching his hands tightly. “Like buddies. Sit in the sun and drink beer. Talk about what we’d been through. You remember all that?” Ingram’s voice was derisive and bitter, but tears were shining softly in his eyes. “Old times in the Army, baseball games, how you felt about your old man — no, I didn’t think you were lying to me. That was a great snow job, buddy.”

“Damn it, shut up!” Earl shouted.

“That’s the way,” Ingram said, in a tone of mocking approval. “Don’t talk about it. Lie, cheat — but oh for Lordy sakes, don’t say nothing about it. Treat people like dirt, but don’t be crude and discuss it.” Ingram laughed and pulled the car keys from his pocket. The Silver Star gleamed and flashed in the light. “But you want to talk about these, don’t you? And saving your neck. That’s all right. That’s nice and clean, isn’t it?”

“Give it here,” Earl said, putting out his hand. “Give it here, Sambo.”

“You need old black Sambo now, don’t you?”

“Give them to me!” Earl’s voice rose in a shout; Ingram’s defiance justified the anger pounding through his body. He pulled the gun from his pocket. “Give ’em here,” he said softly. “I’m not kidding.”

“You can’t shoot me,” Ingram said, laughing at the hot anger in Earl’s face. “Who’d you go to ball games with then? Who’ll you talk about the Army with? You can’t shoot your old buddy.”

Earl took a quick, long stride toward him and jammed the gun into his stomach. When Ingram doubled up, gasping painfully for breath, Earl brought the gun barrel down on his head with an abrupt, chopping gesture.

The old man sat upright, his eyes bright with pleasure. As Ingram’s body pitched to the floor, he cried, “That’s the way to handle ’em. Put the iron to ’em.”

Lorraine knelt smoothly and quickly and took the keys from Ingram’s motionless hand. “Let’s get away from here,” she said to Earl. “Please, for God’s sake.”

Earl stared down at Ingram, the gun hanging limply at his side. “Why didn’t he hide the keys?” he muttered. “Throw them away or something.”

“Earl, please!” Lorraine’s voice was shaking. “Please.”

“Waving ’em around like a fool,” Earl said. “Didn’t he know better? Communications character. Didn’t know nothing.” He shrugged wearily. “Give me a hand with him, Lory. We’ll put him on the couch.”

“What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know. God, I don’t know. But give me a hand. Come on, move. Come on, Lory.”

After they lifted Ingram’s body onto the sofa, Earl looked at him for an instant in silence, appraising his heavy breathing and the blood running brightly down his temple and cheek. “I didn’t hit him hard,” he said to Lorraine. “Just enough to put him out for a while. That’s all I did, I swear.”

Lorraine pulled her coat tightly about her throat and hurried toward the door. The old man grinned at Earl who was still standing beside the sofa staring at Ingram. “Go with her,” he said. “You got a long life ahead of you, son.” He pushed the covers back and rummaged around under his bed, hanging over the side like a big gray crab. “Here it is,” he said, as his clawing hand touched the Bible. “The Word.” He flopped back into bed exhausted and triumphant. “Me and the colored boy will read some prayers for you. We’ll shout till God hears us, and saves you from evil and death. Go on, leave us now.”

Earl couldn’t make himself move. “Sambo?” he said softly.

Lorraine looked back from the door and cried, “Earl!” When he didn’t turn, she ran across the room and shook his arm roughly. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m all right,” he muttered. “I’m okay.” He saw Ingram’s eyelids flutter. “Go out and turn the car around, Lory,” he said.

“Why won’t you come?’” she cried softly.

He jerked himself free from her desperate hands. “Do what I tell you. Turn the car around. Tap the horn when you’re ready.” He stared into her white, strained face. “Do what I tell you!”

She backed away from him, moistening her lips, and then turned and ran from the room, her heels sounding with a frantic clatter on the hard floor.

Earl saw that Ingram was staring up at him, his eyes bright with fear and wonder. “I’m going to leave you some dough,” he muttered. He took out the money Lorraine had given him, worked three tens loose with his thumb and let them flutter to the foot of the sofa. “There’s thirty bucks. It’s not much, but it’s all we can spare. With what you’ve got of your own, it’s something, Sambo.”

Ingram’s expression was grave; he seemed to be searching for something in Earl’s face, probing at him with soft wondering eyes.

“I can’t give you any more,” Earl said. He saw that the old man was watching him, the gloomy light shining on his gray hair and soft silvery whiskers. Night had fallen now, pressing with black finality against the windows. Earl shifted uneasily as he heard the wind clawing at the sides of the house like an angry animal. “You got a chance,” he said, trying to force a note of conviction into his voice. “There must be some colored folks living here in the country. They’d put you up, wouldn’t they? You got money to smooth your way with. Think about that, eh?”

Ingram didn’t answer him; his eyes were full of speculation, but the line of bright, crusted blood was like a seal drawn across his dry lips.

“You think I’m ratting on you,” Earl said bitterly. “Why don’t you say it? Say something, damn it. You helped me, now I’m walking out on you — that’s what you’re thinking, I know.” Ingram said nothing, and Earl came closer to him, and cried softly, “It’s got to be this way, Sambo. Don’t you see? Lory and me have got to take off. I’ve got to go with her. Everything I am makes it what I’ve got to do. We’re running to save our lives. It’s the way life is. It’s rotten, maybe, but I didn’t make up the rules. Well, did I, Sambo? Did I?” Earl heard his voice rising to a shout; he could feel the words swelling in his throat like filth he needed to eject from his body. “I didn’t make up the rules, remember that! I didn’t do nothing to you. You can’t blame me. I’m not responsible for you, am I?”

“Read the book of God!” The old man intoned the words slowly and solemnly. “He’s got the answers. Don’t matter whether you’re black or white, there’s where to find the answers.”

Ingram was sick and frightened, but more than that he was puzzled — he didn’t understand Earl or himself, and that seemed more important now than his fears or his illness.

In some devious way he had led Earl to this last moment of shame. Why had he done it? To humiliate him, just to see this look of shame in his eyes? Was it that way with all colored folks, he wondered, with their smiles and head bobbings, their unctuous courtship of the most evil and arrogant things in people. Cultivating their faults till they grew so big they couldn’t be hidden any more... Was that all they wanted? To make white people worse?

If that’s all he’d wanted, he was no better than Earl. The relationship had just been an exercise in deceit, with both of them using kindness and understanding as their weapons. There was no honesty in it at all. It would have been kinder to walk out on him and let him die. He would have died without shame, anyway. It was wrong to treat a man decently just to get the whip hand over him. It was scheming and vicious. Not just dumb and scared like Earl.

“Listen!” the old man cried triumphantly. “Here’s Ecclesiasticus. Get this now: ‘God created man of the Earth, and made him after his own image—’” He laughed shrilly, peering sideways at Earl and Ingram. “Ain’t that rich? Ain’t that a thought to tickle your ribs?”

“Haven’t you anything to say?” Earl said, looking quickly over his shoulder at the door. “I’m leaving you some dough, Sambo. I’m doing the best I can for you.”

“And listen here,” the old man said. “Listen to this.”

“Goddamit, shut up!” Earl yelled at him.

“Don’t be cursing the Good Book. Go your way. Me and the colored boy will pray for you. You’ll need it, son. You’ll need it.”

“I’ve got to leave you, Sambo,” Earl said. “I got to.”

“‘Tarry not in the error of the ungodly, give glory before death,’” the old man cried. “‘Give thanks whilst you’re living... and thou shalt glory in his mercies.’ That’s old Ecclesiasticus, too, a-shouting and a-stamping for all he’s worth.”

Ingram understood himself at last. He hadn’t tricked Earl. He was sure of that. In a confusing way he had been closer to him than anyone else in his whole life.

“‘O what is brighter than the sun?’” the old man shouted in the imbecile voice of a man drunk with sound and rhythm.

The blast of a horn came from outside the front door, insistent and demanding.

“I got to go,” Earl said. He backed slowly away from the sofa, watching Ingram with childish anxiety. “You understand, don’t you, Sambo? Just say you understand.”

“‘Or what is more wicked than that which flesh and blood hath invented?’” the old man cried, his voice crescendoing into an evangelistic roar.

The horn sounded again, two sharp blasts, and Earl glanced guiltily over his shoulder. “So long, Sambo, so long,” he said.

“‘He beholdeth the power of the height of heaven; and all men are Earth and ashes!’” The old man closed the book as the draft from the opening door stirred his thin hair in grotesque waves. He settled back, drained and exhausted by his exertions. “There’s always comfort in the Bible,” he said. “Remember that, boy. Remember it when the police come to hang you.”

Ingram was too sick and weak to move. The pain in his chest was dull and heavy, a weight pinning him helplessly to the sofa. He turned away from the old man’s vindictive eyes, listening to the whine of the car plowing through the thick mud. The wind came up furiously then, obliterating everything with its sweeping roar, and when it died down he could hear nothing but the faint echo of the throbbing engine. That faded swiftly into silence, and he knew they were on their way at last, pushing through the dark toward freedom.

The cold tears stung the crusted blood on his cheeks. He’s just dumb, he just doesn’t know what he’s doing, he thought. Why couldn’t I have said something to him?