Big Money

Charley Anderson

The train was three hours late getting into St. Paul. Charley had his coat on and his bag closed an hour before he got in. He sat fidgeting in the seat taking off and pulling on a pair of new buckskin gloves. He wished they wouldn’t all be down at the station to meet him. Maybe only Jim would be there. Maybe they hadn’t got his wire.

The porter came and brushed him off, then took his bags. Charley couldn’t see much through the driving steam and snow outside the window. The train slackened speed, stopped in a broad snowswept freightyard, started again with a jerk and a series of snorts from the forced draft in the engine. The bumpers slammed all down the train. Charley’s hands were icy inside his gloves. The porter stuck his head in and yelled, “St. Paul.” There was nothing to do but get out.

There they all were. Old man Vogel and Aunt Hartmann with their red faces and their long noses looked just the same as ever, but Jim and Hedwig had both of them filled out. Hedwig had on a mink coat and Jim’s overcoat looked darn prosperous. Jim snatched Charley’s bags away from him and Hedwig and Aunt Hartmann kissed him and old man Vogel thumped him on the back. They all talked at once and asked him all kinds of questions. When he asked about Ma, Jim frowned and said she was in the hospital, they’d go around to see her this afternoon. They piled the bags into a new Ford sedan and squeezed themselves in after with a lot of giggling and squealing from Aunt Hartmann. “You see I got the Ford agency now,” said Jim. “To tell the truth, things have been pretty good out here.” “Wait till you see the house, it’s all been done over,” said Hedwig. “Vell, my poy made de Cherman Kaiser run. Speaking for the Cherman-American commoonity of the Twin Cities, ve are pr’roud of you.”

They had a big dinner ready and Jim gave him a drink of whiskey and old man Vogel kept pouring him out beer and saying, “Now tell us all about it.” Charley sat there his face all red, eating the stewed chicken and the dumplings and drinking the beer till he was ready to burst. He couldn’t think what to tell them so he made funny cracks when they asked him questions. After dinner old man Vogel gave him one of his best Havana cigars.

That afternoon Charley and Jim went to the hospital to see Ma. Driving over, Jim said she’d been operated on for a tumor but that he was afraid it was cancer, but even that hadn’t given Charley an idea of how sick she’d be. Her face was shrunken and yellow against the white pillow. When he leaned over to kiss her her lips felt thin and hot. Her breath was very bad. “Charley, I’m glad you came,” she said in a trembly voice. “It would have been better if you’d come sooner… Not that I’m not comfortable here… any way I’ll be glad having my boys around me when I get well. God has watched over us all, Charley, we mustn’t forget Him.” “Now, Ma, we don’t want to get tired and excited,” said Jim. “We want to keep our strength to get well.”

“Oh, but He’s been so merciful.” She brought her small hand, so thin it was blue, out from under the cover and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Jim, hand me my glasses, that’s a good boy,” she said in a stronger voice. “Let me take a look at the prodigal son.”

Charley couldn’t help shuffling his feet uneasily as she looked at him.

“You’re quite a man now and you’ve made quite a name for yourself over there. You boys have turned out better than I hoped… Charley, I was afraid you’d turn out a bum like your old man.” They all laughed. They didn’t know what to say.

She took her glasses off again and tried to reach for the bedside table with them. The glasses dropped out of her hand and broke ontheconcretefloor. “Oh… my… never mind, I don’t need ’em much here.”

Charley picked the pieces up and put them carefully in his vest pocket. “I’ll get ’em fixed, Ma.”

The nurse was standing in the door beckoning with her head. “Well, goodby, see you tomorrow,” they said.

Once they were out in the corridor Charley felt that tears were running down his face.

“That’s how it is,” said Jim, frowning. “They keep her under dope most of the time. I thought she’d be more comfortable in a private room, but they sure do know how to charge in these damn hospitals.” “I’ll chip in on it,” said Charley. “I got a little money saved up.” “Well, I suppose it’s no more than right you should,” Jim said.

Charley took a deep breath of the cold afternoon when they paused on the hospital steps, but he couldn’t get the smell of ether and drugs and sickness out of his head. It had come on fine with an icy wind. The snow on the streets and roofs was bright pink from the flaring sunset.

“We’ll go down to the shop and see what’s what,” said Jim. “I told the guy works for me to call up some of the newspaperboys. I thought it would be a little free advertising if they came down to the salesroom to interview you.” Jim slapped Charley on the back. “They eat up this returnedhero stuff. String ’em along a little, won’t you?”

Charley didn’t answer.

“Jesus Christ, Jim, I don’t know what to tell ’em,” he said in a low voice when they got back in the car. Jim was pressing his foot on the selfstarter. “What do you think of comin’ in the business, Charley? It’s gettin’ to be a good un, I can tell you that.” “That’s nice of you, Jim. Suppose I kinder think about it.”

When they got back to the house, they went around to the new salesroom Jim had built out from the garage, that had been a liverystable in the old days, back of old man Vogel’s house. The salesroom had a big plateglass window with Ford slanting across it in blue letters. Inside stood a new truck all shining and polished. Then there was a green carpet and a veneered mahogany desk and a telephone that pulled out on a nickel accordion bracket and an artificial palm in a fancy jardiniere in the corner. “Take your weight off your feet, Charley,” said Jim, pointing to the swivelchair and bringing out a box of cigars. “Let’s sit around and chew the rag a little.”

Charley sat down and picked himself out a cigar. Jim stood against the radiator with his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. “What do you think of it, kid, pretty keen, ain’t it?”

“Pretty keen, Jim.” They lit their cigars and scuffled around with their feet a little.

Jim began again: “But it won’t do. I got to get me a big new place downtown. This used to be central. Now it’s out to hell and gone.”

Charley kinder grunted and puffed on his cigar. Jim took a couple of steps back and forth, looking at Charley all the time. “With your connections in the Legion and aviation and all that kinder stuff, we’ll be jake. Every other Ford dealer in the district’s got a German name.”

“Jim, can that stuff. I can’t talk to newspapermen.”

Jim flushed and frowned and sat down on the edge of the desk. “But you got to hold up your end… What do you think I’m taking you in on it for? I’m not doin’ it for my kid brother’s pretty blue eyes.”

Charley got to his feet. “Jim, I ain’t goin’ in on it. I’m already signed up with an aviation proposition with my old C.O.”

“Twentyfive years from now you can talk to me about aviation. Ain’t practical yet.”

“Well, we got a couple of tricks up our sleeve… We’re shootin’ the moon.”

“That’s about the size of it.” Jim got to his feet. His lips got thin. “Well, you needn’t think you can lay around my house all winter just because you’re a war hero. If that’s your idea you’ve got another think comin’.” Charley burst out laughing. Jim came up and put his hand wheedlingly on Charley’s shoulder. “Say, those birds’ll be around here in a few minutes. You be a good feller and change into your uniform and put on all the medals… Give us a break.”

Charley stood a minute staring at the ash on his cigar. “How about givin’ me a break? Haven’t been in the house five hours and there you go pickin’ on me just like when I was workin’ back here…”

Jim was losing control of himself, he was starting to shake. “Well, you know what you can do about that,” he said, cutting his words off sharp. Charley felt like smashing him one in his damn narrow jaw. “If it wasn’t for Ma, you wouldn’t need to worry about that,” he said quietly.

Jim didn’t answer for a minute. The wrinkles came out of his forehead. He shook his head and looked grave. “You’re right, Charley, you better stick around. If it gives her any pleasure…”

Charley threw his cigar halfsmoked into the brass spittoon and walked out the door before Jim could stop him. He went to the house and got his hat and coat and went for a long walk through the soggy snow of the grey afternoon.

They were just finishing at the suppertable when Charley got back. His supper had been set out on a plate for him at his place. Nobody spoke but old man Vogel. “Ve been tinking, dese airmen maybe dey live on air too,” he said and laughed wheezily. Nobody else laughed. Jim got up and went out of the room. As soon as Charley had swallowed his supper he said he was sleepy and went up to bed.

Charley stayed on while November dragged on towards Thanksgiving and Christmas. His mother never seemed to be any better. Every afternoon he went over to see her for five or ten minutes. She was always cheerful. It made him feel terrible the way she talked about the goodness of God and how she was going to get better. He’d try to get her talking about Fargo and old Lizzie and the old days in the boardinghouse, but she didn’t seem to remember much about that, except about sermons she’d heard in church. He’d leave the hospital feeling weak and groggy. The rest of his time he spent looking up books on internalcombustion motors at the public library, or did odd jobs for Jim in the garage the way he used to when he was a kid.

One evening after Newyears Charley went over to the Elks Ball in Minneapolis with a couple of fellows he knew. The big hall was full of noise and paper lanterns. He was cruising around threading his way between groups of people waiting for the next dance when he found himself looking into a thin face and blue eyes he knew. It was too late to make out he hadn’t seen her. “Hello, Emiscah,” he said, keeping his voice as casual as he could.

“Charley… my God.” He was afraid for a minute that she was going to faint. “Let’s dance,” he said.

She felt limp in his arms. They danced a while without saying anything. She had too much rouge on her cheeks and he didn’t like the perfume she had on. After the dance they sat in a corner and talked. She wasn’t married yet. She worked in a departmentstore. No, she didn’t live at home any more, she lived in a flat with a girlfriend. He must come up. It would be like old times. He must give her his phonenumber. She supposed things seemed pretty tame to him now after all those French girls. And imagine him getting a commission, the Andersons sure were going up in the world, she guessed they’d be forgetting their old friends. Emiscah’s voice had gotten screechy and she had a way he didn’t like of putting her hand on his knee.

As soon as he could Charley said he had a headache and had to go home. He wouldn’t wait for the guys he’d come with. The evening was ruined for him anyway, he was thinking. He rode back all alone on the interurban trolley. It was cold as blazes. It was about time he got the hell out of this dump. He really did have a splitting headache and chills.

Next morning he was down with the flu and had to stay in bed. It was almost a relief. Hedwig brought him stacks of detective stories and Aunt Hartmann fussed over him and brought him toddies and eggflips, and all he had to do was lie there and read.

First thing he did when he got on his feet was to go over to the hospital. Ma had had another operation and hadn’t come out of it very well. The room was darkened and she didn’t remember when she’d seen him last. She seemed to think she was home in Fargo and that he’d just come back from his trip south. She held tight to his hand and kept saying, “My son that was lost hath been returned to me… thank God for my boy.” It took the strength out of him so he had to sit down for a second in a wicker chair in the corridor when he left her.

A nurse came up to him and stood beside him fidgeting with a paper and pencil. He looked up at her, she had pink cheeks and pretty dark eyelashes. “You mustn’t let it get you,” she said. He grinned. “Oh, I’m all right… I just got out of bed from a touch of flu, it sure pulls down your strength.”

“I hear you were an aviator,” she said. “I had a brother in the Royal Flying Corps. We’re Canadians.”

“Those were great boys,” said Charley. He wondered if he could date her up but then he thought of Ma. “Tell me honestly what you think, please do.”

“Well, it’s against the rules, but judging from other cases I’ve seen her chances are not very good.”

“I thought so.”

He got to his feet. “You’re a peach, do you know it?” Her face got red from the starched cap to the white collar of her uniform. She wrinkled up her forehead and her voice got very chilly. “In a case like that it’s better to have it happen quickly.” Charley felt a lump rise in his throat. “Oh, I know.” “Well, goodby, Lieutenant, I’ve got to go about my business.” “Gee, thanks a lot,” said Charley. When he got out in the air he kept remembering her pretty face and her nice lips.

One slushy morning of thaw in early March Charley was taking a scorched gasket out of a Buick when the garage helper came and said they wanted him on the phone from the hospital. A cold voice said Mrs. Anderson was sinking fast and the family better be notified. Charley got out of his overalls and went to call Hedwig. Jim was out, so they took one of the cars out of the garage. Charley had forgotten to wash his hands and they were black with grease and carbon. Hedwig found him a rag to wipe them off with. “Someday, Hedwig,” he said, “I’m going to get me a clean job in a draftin’room.”

“Well, Jim wanted you to be his salesman,” Hedwig snapped crossly. “I don’t see how you’re going to get anywheres if you turn down every opportunity.” “Well, maybe there’s opportunities I won’t turn down.” “I’d like to know where you’re going to get ’em except with us,” she said. Charley didn’t answer. Neither of them said anything more in the long drive across town. When they got to the hospital they found that Ma had sunk into a coma. Two days later she died.

At the funeral, about halfway through the service, Charley felt the tears coming. He went out and locked himself in the toilet at the garage and sat down on the seat and cried like a child. When they came back from the cemetery he was in a black mood and wouldn’t let anybody speak to him. After supper, when he found Jim and Hedwig sit ting at the diningroom table figuring out with pencil and paper how much it had cost them, he blew up and said he’d pay every damn cent of it and they wouldn’t have to worry about his staying around the goddam house either. He went out slamming the door after him and ran upstairs and threw himself on his bed. He lay there a long time in his uniform without undressing, staring at the ceiling and hearing mealy voices saying, deceased, bereavement, hereafter.

The day after the funeral Emiscah called up. She said she was so sorry about his mother’s death and wouldn’t he come around to see her some evening? Before he knew what he was doing he’d said he’d come. He felt blue and lonely and he had to talk to somebody besides Jim and Hedwig. That evening he drove over to see her. She was alone. He didn’t like the cheap gimcracky look her apartment had. He took her out to the movies and she said did he remember the time they went to see The Birth of a Nation together. He said he didn’t, though he remembered all right. He could see that she wanted to start things up with him again.

Driving back to her place she let her head drop on his shoulder. When he stopped the car in front of where she lived, he looked down and saw that she was crying. “Charley, won’t you give me a little kiss for old times?” she whispered. He kissed her. When she said would he come up, he stammered that he had to be home early. She kept saying, “Oh, come ahead. I won’t eat you, Charley,” and finally he went up with her though it was the last thing he’d intended to do.

She made them cocoa on her gasburner and told him how unhappy she was, it was so tiring being on your feet all day behind the counter and the women who came to buy things were so mean to you, and the floorwalkers were always pinching your seat and expecting you to cuddlecooty with them in the fittingbooths. Some day she was going to turn on the gas. It made Charley feel bad having her talk like that and he had to pet her a little to make her stop crying. Then he got hot and had to make love to her. When he left he promised to call her up next week.

Next morning he got a letter that she must have written right after he left saying that she’d never loved anybody but him. That night after supper he tried to write her that he didn’t want to marry anybody and least of all her; he couldn’t get it worded right, so he didn’t write at all. When she called up next day he said he was very busy and that he’d have to go up into North Dakota to see about some property his mother had left. He didn’t like the way she said, “Of course I understand. I’ll call you up when you get back, dear.”

Hedwig began to ask who that woman was who was calling him up all the time, and Jim said, “Look out for the women, Charley. If they think you’ve got anything they’ll hold onto you like a leech.” “Yessir,” said old man Vogel, “it’s not like ven you’re in the army yet and can say goodby, mein schatz, I’m off to the vars, now they can find out vere you live.” “You needn’t worry,” growled Charley. “I won’t stay put.”

The day they went over to the lawyer’s office to read Ma’s will, Jim and Hedwig dressed up fit to kill. It made Charley sore to see them, Hedwig in a new black tailored dress with a little lace at the throat and Jim dressed up like an undertaker in the suit he’d bought for the funeral. The lawyer was a small elderly German Jew with white hair brushed carefully over the big baldspot on the top of his head and goldrimmed pincenez on his thin nose. He was waiting for them when they came into the office. He got up smiling solemnly behind his desk littered with bluebound documents and made a little bow. Then he sat down beaming at them with his elbows among the papers, gently rubbing the tips of his fingers together. Nobody spoke for a moment. Jim coughed behind his hand like in church. “Now let me see,” said Mr. Goldberg in a gentlesweet voice with a slight accent like an actor’s. “Oughtn’t there to be more of you?”

Jim spoke up. “Esther and Ruth couldn’t come. They both live on the coast… I’ve got their power of attorneys. Ruth had her husband sign hers too, in case there might be any realestate.” Mr. Goldberg made a little clucking noise with his tongue. “Too bad. I’d rather have all parties present… But in this case there will be no difficulty, I trust. Mr. James A. Anderson is named sole executor. Of course you understand that in a case like this the aim of all parties is to avoid taking the will to probate. That saves trouble and expense. There is no need of it when one of the legatees is named executor… I shall proceed to read the will.”

Mr. Goldberg must have drafted it himself because he sure seemed to enjoy reading it. Except for a legacy of one thousand dollars to Lizzie Green who had run Ma’s boardinghouse up in Fargo, all the estate, real and personal, the lots in Fargo, the Liberty bonds and the fifteenhundreddollar savings-account were left to the children jointly to be administered by James A. Anderson, sole executor, and eventually divided as they should agree among themselves.

“Now are there any questions and suggestions?” asked Mr. Goldberg genially.

Charley couldn’t help seeing that Jim felt pretty good about it. “It has been suggested,” went on Mr. Goldberg’s even voice that melted blandly among the documents like butter on a hot biscuit, “that Mr. Charles Anderson, who I understand is leaving soon for the East, would be willing to sign a power of attorney similar to those signed by his sisters… The understanding is that the money will be invested in a mortgage on the Anderson Motor Sales Co.”

Charley felt himself go cold all over. Jim and Hedwig were looking at him anxiously. “I don’t understand the legal talk,” he said, “but what I want to do is get mine as soon as possible… I have a proposition in the East I want to put some money in.”

Jim’s thin lower lip began to tremble. “You’d better not be a damn fool, Charley. I know more about business than you do.”

“About your business maybe, but not about mine.”

Hedwig, who’d been looking at Charley like she could kill him, began to butt in: “Now, Charley, you let Jim do what he thinks best. He just wants to do what’s best for all of us.”

“Aw, shut your face,” said Charley.

Jim jumped to his feet. “Look here, kid, you can’t talk to my wife in that tone of voice.”

“My friends, my dear friends,” the lawyer crooned, rubbing his fingers together till it looked like they’d smoke, “we mustn’t let ourselves be carried away, must we, not on a solemn occasion like this… What we want is a quiet fireside chat… the friendly atmosphere of the home…”

Charley let out a snorting laugh. “That’s what it’s always been like in my home,” he said halfaloud and turned his back on them to look out of the window over white roofs and iciclehung fireescapes. The snow, thawing on the shingle roof of a frame house next door, was steaming in the early afternoon sun. Beyond it he could see backlots deep in drifts and a piece of clean asphalt street where cars shuttled back and forth.

“Look here, Charley, snap out of it.” Jim’s voice behind him took on a pleading singsong tone. “You know the proposition Ford has put up to his dealers… It’s sink or swim for me… But as an investment it’s the chance of a lifetime… The cars are there… You can’t lose, even if the company folds up.”

Charley turned around. “Jim,” he said mildly, “I don’t want to argue about it… I want to get my share of what Ma left in cash as soon as you and Mr. Goldberg can fix it up… I got somethin’ about airplane motors that’ll make any old Ford agency look like thirty cents.”

“But I want to put Ma’s money in on a sure thing. The Ford car is the safest investment in the world, isn’t that so, Mr. Goldberg?”

“You certainly see them everywhere. Perhaps the young man would wait and think things over a little… I can make the preliminary steps…”

“Preliminary nothing. I want to get what I can out right now. If you can’t do it I’ll go and get another lawyer who will.”

Charley picked up his hat and coat and walked out.

Next morning Charley turned up at breakfast in his overalls as usual. Jim told him he didn’t want him doing any work in his business, seeing the way he felt about it. Charley went back upstairs to his room and lay down on the bed. When Hedwig came in to make it up she said, “Oh, are you still here?” and went out slamming the door after her. He could hear her slamming and banging things around the house as she and Aunt Hartmann did the housework.

About the middle of the morning Charley went down to where Jim sat worrying over his books at the desk in the office. “Jim, I want to talk to you.” Jim took off his glasses and looked up at him. “Well, what’s on your mind?” he asked, cutting off his words the way he had. Charley said he’d sign a power of attorney for Jim if he’d lend him five hundred dollars right away. Then maybe later if the airplane proposition looked good he’d let Jim in on it. Jim made a sour face at that. “All right,” said Charley. “Make it four hundred. I got to get out of this dump.”

Jim rose to his feet slowly. He was so pale Charley thought he must be sick. “Well, if you can’t get it into your head what I’m up against… you can’t and to hell with you… All right, you and me are through… He dwig will have to borrow it at the bank in her name… I’m up to my neck.”

“Fix it any way you like,” said Charley. “I got to get out of here.”

It was lucky the phone rang when it did or Charley and Jim would have taken a poke at each other. Charley answered it. It was Emiscah. She said she’d been over in St. Paul and had seen him on the street yesterday and that he’d just said he was going to be out of town to give her the air, and he had to come over tonight or she didn’t know what she’d do, he wouldn’t want her to kill herself, would he? He got all balled up, what with rowing with Jim and everything and ended by telling her he’d come. By the time he was through talking Jim had walked into the salesroom and was chinning with a customer, all smiles.

Going over on the trolley he decided he’d tell her he’d got married to a French girl during the war but when he got up to her flat he didn’t know what to say, she looked so thin and pale. He took her out to a dancehall. It made him feel bad how happy she acted, as if everything was fixed up again between them. When he left her he made a date for the next week.

Before that day came he was off for Chi. He didn’t begin to feel really good until he’d transferred across town and was on the New York train. He had a letter in his pocket from Joe Askew telling him Joe would be in town to meet him. He had what was left of the three hundred berries Hedwig coughed up after deducting his board and lodging all winter at ten dollars a week. But on the New York train he stopped thinking about all that and about Emiscah and the mean time he’d had and let himself think about New York and airplane motors and Doris Humphries.

When he woke up in the morning in the lower berth he pushed up the shade and looked out; the train was going through the Pennsylvania hills, the fields were freshplowed, some of the trees had a little fuzz of green on them. In a farmyard a flock of yellow chickens were picking around under a peartree in bloom. “By God,” he said aloud, “I’m through with the sticks.”