Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

Last Payment by Ron Boring

Most newspaper men drink a little. Jim drank more than most... but then he had good reason.

Jim had been expecting it all week. But when his notice of dismissal came that morning it caught him off balance. He hadn’t realized that it showed that much.

The clock at the far end of the newsroom told him that he had another hour left in his shift. The last shift. He bent over his typewriter and dug into the last summary. He hoped that Alec, the senior editor and desk man, would let him go early. It was the least he could do.

Otherwise, Jim thought, he wouldn’t be able to get downtown to make the payment before the store closed. Then there would be the weekend, and by the time Monday came around, he knew he wouldn’t have enough money.

He slapped the first half dozen pages down in front of Alec; Alec took them automatically, without looking up. He had been checking news copy for almost thirty years. Methodically, his tired eyes swept up and down the yellow pages, his right hand correcting a comma here, a typo there. Jim went back to his own desk.

Alec finished up his little pile of copy, with a continuous motion placing page after page in front of the teletype operator.

And all across the country, his stories came up on similar teletype machines in every private radio station. Every hour another fifteen hundred words, to be ripped from the machines by breathlessly running copy boys and spread in front of editors and announcers. So goes the news of a turbulent world, he thought.

Jim finished up and threw the remaining sheets in front of the older man.

“Leaving early tonight, do you mind?” he forced civility into his voice.

“Can’t see what difference it makes,” Alec replied, still glaring at the copy. “This the best you can do?” he asked, referring to the UN piece.

“Do you want me to go out and make the news too?” he said.

“See you sometime, Jim,” said Alec with the small smile of a man who has had his revenge.

“Yeah,” Jim said, getting his coat from the rack. He walked through the room to the door. No one looked at him directly. But as he passed each man he could feel his eyes on him. Word gets around fast in a news office.

He wasn’t embarrassed. He had been through the same thing four times since the beginning of the year. This was the shortest tenure yet, not quite five weeks. He had better learn to watch himself from now on, he thought. He took the stairs three at a time.

The notice had come that morning with his pay. Not much warning. Too bad the place wasn’t unionized, he thought. Maybe then he could have raised a little hell.

He stepped into the street. The setting sun made him squint. He pulled his Spring-and-Fall closer about him and strode to the streetcar stop.

He glanced at his watch and saw with relief that he would miss the rush hour. It was the last payment he would have to make and it was now or never. He knew what would happen to the money unless he made use of it now.

He waited with the handful of workers at the corner. He wondered what he would do. There was always a chance of getting a temporary job with UPI, that is, until word got around that he had been canned again. But it would be a couple of weeks’ pin money.

But what would Marie think? She had been very patient, but he winced at the thought of hurting her again. He didn’t imagine she could take it much longer.

The street-car was slow in coming, and he began to fidget. The tentacles of that familiar hunger crawled through his body and he tried to put it down. He had to control himself. He looked at the people around him. Strange people, he thought... jobs, lunch pails... loves...

Again, the hunger. More urgent this time. Again he clenched his fists in his pockets.

Alec hadn’t said a thing to him all week. He just sat and spied and informed on him. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t done his job, he told himself. It was just that Alec couldn’t stand people doing what they wanted. What bothered him most, apart from the effect it would have on Marie, was the total indifference of his so-called friends. You’d think it was the most natural thing in the world to be fired for being a drunk.

He began to sweat. He needed a drink. He stepped aboard the streetcar, went to the rear and slumped down.

He thought about the job and how he lost it, and the three before it. Hell, he thought, drinking was almost a prerequisite in the news business. Even Alec was known to take a drink now and then. What are a few drinks between friends?

It must have been the black-list, he concluded. Not overt, but spread slowly by word of mouth, over poker, over drinks. He was not liked and must be kept on the merry-go-round.

The streets sped by. He took out his wallet and counted his money. Forty-three dollars, after taxes. Well, he hadn’t lost much. He realized that he had come to his stop and lept for the bell rope. He got off and went into the small jewelry store near the corner.

It was a second rate place by any standard. He knew when he first bought the ring that he had been bilked. But he didn’t care. It looked pretty on Marie’s finger, and she seemed to think the whole world had been imprisoned in that tiny, gleaming chunk of glass. She had been happy, and so had he.

He was happiest when he was paying for it. Every month for over two years he had taken his thirty-six dollars to the tiny shop, chatted with the old man behind the counter, and checked the dwindling balance.

He suddenly became a little sad when he realized that this was to be the last payment. He had come to look upon the old man as a benefactor, someone he could share his happiness with. And paying had been one way of showing his love for Marie.

“Today’s the day, eh?” the old man cackled, opening the account book.

Jim had the right change clenched in his fist, and he spread the meagre bills one by one on the counter.

The old man counted the money and made an entry into the musty old ledger. Then, with a minutely magnificent gesture, he crossed out the account. Then he handed the card over to Jim.

“Here. The honour of ripping it to shreds,” he said, smiling.

Jim started. “No. I... I’d like to keep it,” he said blushing, and thrust the tattered card into his coat pocket. Just a reminder of two years of diligence.

“How’s the girl?” the old man asked, his eyes laughing.

“Getting along fine. I guess this’ll be the last time I’ll be seeing you,” he answered. He was reluctant to leave.

“You’ll be buying an anniversary gift before long. I’ll save something for you... nice... not too expensive.”

Jim waved good-bye and went out the door. He didn’t look back. It was too early to go home to Marie. And he needed time to think of a reasonable excuse for again being out of a job.

He walked south, looking at the receipt the old man had given him. The word PAID was scrawled in large red letters over it. He put this, along with the card, tenderly into his wallet.

At least it wouldn’t be all bad news, he told himself. She’d be happy to know that at last the ring would be her own, and no one could take it from her. But what would she say about the job? He had promised again and again that he wouldn’t drink. But she must have known that it would be a hard promise to keep. He wondered how much longer she could love a man like himself, who couldn’t even hold a forty-three-dollar job... a man who couldn’t control a simple thing like drink.

He sat at his usual spot, and the waiter dropped a glass of beer without waiting to be asked.

He shuddered at the first taste of the cold, bitter liquid, then sat back in the gloom of the seedy men’s room. The first glass went down badly, but swiftly, and he felt better after a couple more.

He had roughly six dollars left. More than enough to get a glow on with beer at fifteen cents a glass, not counting tips. He never drank anything but beer.

He lit a cigaret and blew a smoke ring. It spread out in front of him over the black, wet table. Then someone opened a door and the draught exploded it. He let the lighter remain lit for a moment then blew it out. The top was hot with the flame and he relished the feel of it.

Someone was talking about astrology in a loud voice.

He knew that Marie would be very angry that he was drinking the last of the money. He would need it for food, car fare, and clean shirts when he would have to look for a job.

Marie loved him now, he knew that. But for how long? He ordered another drink and began talking to himself out loud.

“Shaddup!” someone said.

He went to the washroom and doused his face with cold water. He felt better. His reflection in the mirror glared redly back at him. He cursed himself, then followed it up with a sly smile and went back for more beer.

An old man was sitting at the table he had just left. He was annoyed, but sat down anyway, putting his change on the table. The old man looked at the heap of silver acquisitively, then went back to his dreams.

He had met Marie three years before, and loved her from the first moment they had met. Marie didn’t take to him at first. He was far too moody, she said. But after a time she became accustomed to his shifting tempers and erratic habits. And he didn’t drink then.

He finally got the nerve to propose to her. She accepted, not too readily, but life took on a new meaning for him. He got a job with a small newspaper, bought a ring, got a job with a bigger paper, and things were just dandy.

Then he began to drink and talk to himself.

He was thrusting a finger at an imaginary Alec when he toppled a full glass of beer over the old man. The waiter came over and wiped up after him. The old man left, cursing him through toothless gums. He ordered another round, and found that he could just pay for it, with two dollars to spare. That would be for the cab. He was in no condition to walk very far, and street-car drivers can be sticky sometimes.

The waiter looked closely at him, decided that he had had too much to drink, and threw him out into the street. Jim fell and bruised his knee, but he couldn’t feel the pain. He picked himself up slowly and walked toward the cab stand.

He felt strong enough now to have it out with Marie. It was only when he was completely drunk that he could talk to her about things that really troubled him.

The cab driver was apprehensive, but took him in without asking him beforehand how much money he had.

He shuddered a little as he went through the front door. The house was dark, except for a light in the upstairs hall. He looked at his watch. Marie would still be up. He tip-toed up the red-carpeted stairway to her room. He hesitated, his heart pounding, opened the door and went in to the room.

It was dark.

“Marie...” he said quietly.

There was a shuffling sound from the bed.

“Don’t say anything, Marie... I’m sorry,” he said as he searched for the fight.

He wondered how he would break it to her. His hand closed around the account card in his pocket.

“I’ve done it, Marie...” he said joyfully. “I’ve made the last payment!”

“Get him out of here, for god’s sake,” a man’s voice said.

Jim’s heart sank. She was at it again, he thought, and turned for the door.

“Come back in an hour, Jimmy,” she was saying as he went out.