The Spiked Heel

6

He thought about the incident with the fire hose for the remainder of that week, and in all his thoughts he was surprised to find himself seeking an excuse for McQuade’s behavior.

He did not want to believe that the man who’d turned the fire hose on Charlie and Steve was the same man who’d bought him the cup of coffee afterward, the man he had grown accustomed to as “Mac.”

He could not, in all truth, attribute any particular viciousness to McQuade’s hosing. There had been no sadism involved, he was certain of that. He had seen McQuade’s face when he was playing the hose on the two men, and there had been no glee there, in fact there had not even been any anger on it. The face had been expressionless, the hands holding the hose firm. In that moment, McQuade had looked like a man trying to put out a fire, nothing more and nothing less. But even so, even so…

He began to question himself about brutality. From what McQuade had said, he was trying to teach an object lesson. By watering down Steve and Charlie, he was showing the rest of the workers that Titanic would brook no horse manure. He must have realized, then, that the fight could have been broken up without using the hose. But he preferred to use the hose instead, giving his lesson dramatic impact, and was this not brutality, and, if not, what was brutality? McQuade had used two other men for his own devious purposes. Those two men had been humiliated and damn near drowned, and those two men had lost their jobs in the bargain, and all so that McQuade could show the workers who was boss.

Is that wrong? Griff asked himself. He did not know.

He tried to discount the hosing from his evaluation. In his mind, the use of a hose was connected with penal institutions, and so he discounted the hosing in judging the case. Suppose McQuade had used his bare fists instead? Suppose he had stepped onto the floor and disarmed them and beat them senseless with his hands, or suppose he had not even beat them senseless, just socked one or the other or both, but stopped the fight, and got the men back to work, would he have been wrong then?

Well, no, he supposed, not if it were for the good of the factory. A mixup on the eighth floor could mean a slowdown on every floor. The fight had to be stopped, and McQuade stopped it, and how he stopped it was not really terribly important.

Except that I was damn close to stopping it myself, Griff thought, without the use of either a hose or fists. Now, wait a minute, wait a minute, he told himself, how can you be sure it was going to stop? Because they were listening to you? Steve could have stepped in any minute and cracked Charlie’s head wide open, and that would have fixed things up solid, wouldn’t it?

McQuade had acted decisively. He had sized up the situation, delivered a warning, and then taken action when his warning had gone unheeded. He had behaved somewhat like a — a despot… yes, but hadn’t that been called for in the situation? There was danger present. Hadn’t he prevented any blood-letting?

So, disregarding the automatic association of brutality with a hosing, didn’t one have to admit that McQuade was acting for the good of the company and even, when you got right down to it, the good of the two men who were menacing each other with dangerous weapons?

Had anyone really been hurt? No.

Had anyone really suffered for it? No. (Except Charlie and Steve, and Hengman would have canned them, anyway.)

And hadn’t it really set things straight in the factory? Didn’t everyone know the score now? Didn’t they know they were there to make shoes, and, whereas there may have been goofing and cheating and stealing and whatever-the-hell under the Kahn regime, didn’t they now know them days was gone forever, and that Titanic was a new firm with fresh blood and keen ideas, strong ideas, maybe, but ideas under which a company could flourish and thrive and beat out the rest of the field, and if that happened wouldn’t it benefit those people who worked in the factory, those people who spent nine hours of every day there, more waking hours than they spent at home, people who — in reality — damn near lived at the factory, wouldn’t, it help them?

It was a question of the general good, he figured. Maybe things would be tough for a while, but it would all turn out for the best. The people of the factory would be served. Once you got that prejudical picture of the hosing out of your mind, things fell into place, and you had to admit no real injustice had been done. You had to admit that if you were being fair with yourself. And fair with McQuade.

He was no monster. He was a man doing a job.

Nonetheless, and in spite of Griff’s reasoning, a pall seemed to settle itself over the factory for the remainder of that week. He could not have described the pall accurately if he’d wanted to. It was more an attitude than anything else. The workers went about their jobs as usual, but the atmosphere seemed to have tightened a little. There was not as much laughter as there used to be, not as much jibing or friendly chatter. The workers worked, and whenever someone in a business suit appeared on the floor, they worked harder, and into their work a sort of tremulous fear crept, a fear that was never admitted except in the quick shifting of an eye or the sudden turn of a head over a shoulder. The shop stewards, despite their outrage over the hosing, were forced to admit that the two men involved had not behaved in an exactly exemplary way, and they couldn’t very well oppose the firing of those men once the facts were laid before them. Their hands were tired, and this bound helplessness spread to the rest of the factory until Charlie and Steve took on the proportions of martyrs in a forgotten cause.

The workers remembered the fight, and then they began wondering why the fight had started, and they recalled there had been some business about piecework-and overtime, and in recalling that they also were forced to recall Manelli’s overtime edict, and so they worked harder during the day, knowing that overtime was frowned upon now. But their work was a sort of “I’ll-show-you-you-bastard” kind of thing. If they were to be denied overtime, they would have to earn that extra cash during the day. They worked with a vengeance, and behind their increased labor was this fear that sneaked into their eyes and their gestures. They did not want to lose their jobs. The factory was their home, and they did not want to be put out into the street.

Griff could not ignore the changed tempo or the changed attitude of the factory. He had been with the firm for eleven years, and in those years, the business had become a part of his makeup. He loved the business, and he loved shoes, and he loved everything about making shoes. The factory, as corrupt and as badly functioning as it had been under the Kahns, was nonetheless a warm sort of retreat for him. There had never been a morning when he did not rise looking forward to the job ahead of him. He liked going to work. He knew there were many men who despised their jobs, but this did not at all lessen his own pleasure. There was excitement in the factory, and warmth, and a feeling of well-being. He was a lucky man, and he knew it.

But now, with the change that had moved in after the hosing, he felt a strange uneasiness, and the uneasiness gave way to a troubled mystification. He did not like the new climate of Julien Kahn. And because that climate was such an integral part of his life, he carried it with him all day long, he carried it home with him at night, and he carried it with him while he was asleep, and all the while it troubled him deeply because the making of shoes was his first love, and now he hardly recognized his love.

He blamed the factory for the failure of his first date with Cara Knowles. Actually, his fixing of blame may or may not have been valid. He did feel extremely morose that Saturday night, but there were a good many other factors which combined to make the date a failure, and his moroseness was only one of them.

March 13 had started out to be another normal March day, full of wind and ill temper. He had awakened from a deep sleep at about ten o’clock, smoked a cigarette, and then started preparing some bacon and eggs for breakfast. He began washing while the bacon fried, saving the shaving until that evening, and figuring he’d certainly have time enough to finish before the bacon was done. He miscalculated and, when he went back into the kitchen of his efficiency apartment, he was greeted with the sight of six curling black strips of charcoal. The burnt bacon killed all taste for eggs. He poured himself a cup of coffee and drank only that, having another cigarette at the table.

He had awakened again with the memory of the factory sharp in his mind. For the hundredth time, he went over the hosing, and then tried to understand the attitude of the workers; and for the hundredth time he was left with a vague sense of uneasiness and despair. He tried to tell himself that he was, after all, not responsible for the attitude of anyone in the factory. He had a fairly important job, and he did that job better — probably — than anyone else in the factory could have done it, but he did not kid himself into thinking he was indispensable. He was simply a cog in a vast machine — perhaps a unique cog in that he recognized his own cogginess and at the same time was endowed with a sense of responsibility toward the rest of the machine — but nonetheless a cog. So why did he feel upset about the way things were going? He could not answer the question.

It started raining at noon. It was a cold dreary rain accompanied by a sharp wind that flung enraged needles of icy water against the windowpanes. He listened to the rain, and the rain increased his gloominess, seemed to entrap him within the four walls of his apartment and the gray walls of his thoughts. He tried to read but soon put the book aside. He paced the apartment for a while, asking himself, What the hell is wrong with me, why doesn’t it stop raining? and then he threw himself onto his bed, seeking the solace of sleep, annoyed when sleep would not come. He got up finally and went out for a newspaper, but all the papers at his local stand were soaked through. He bought a copy of The Saturday Evening Post instead, but when he got back to his apartment he no longer felt like reading it. He looked at the Norman Rockwell cover, and then he thumbed through the magazine looking at all the illustrations and the cartoons, and then put it aside, convinced that eight o’clock was at least four million years away.

He began looking forward to his date with Cara. In his mind, he wove a sort of dream fantasy around the date. Seeing her would set the rest of the day right, he told himself. They would have one hell of a good time, and all the rain and all the doubt would be washed away. He began to wage a silent battle with his wrist watch, playing tricks with time. The next time I look, ten minutes will have passed. I’ll count to three hundred slowly, and five minutes will have passed. It will now be four o’clock. It will now be five twenty-seven.

At a quarter to six, he went down for supper. He was not very hungry, but he forced himself to eat, knowing he would be drinking later on, and not wanting to fall flat on his face. The pork chops were greasy, and the french fries were soggy and tasteless. Even the coffee tasted like muddy rainwater. He went back to his apartment, convinced now that nothing would go right until he was with Cara.

He dressed carefully, putting on a white shirt and a blue suit. He tied a Windsor knot and then buttoned down his collar. He examined himself in the mirror and was somewhat pleased with the result, even though he’d nicked his chin while shaving. He remembered then that he’d forgotten to polish his black shoes, and he set to the task disgustedly, taking off his jacket and getting a smear of polish on the sleeve of his shirt. He debated changing the shirt, convinced himself it would not show under the jacket, and then went to wash the black goo from his hands. He had always enjoyed polishing shoes. Tonight, he had not.

He left the apartment at seven-fifteen and drove through a blinding rain uptown to the Bronx. All I need is a flat, he thought, and then he looked skyward quickly and said aloud, “I didn’t mean that, Boss.” He could not find a parking space on the Grand Concourse. He almost collided with a bus while he was making a U-turn, but he finally found a narrow space near the courthouse.

He did not believe in umbrellas or hats. He turned up the collar of his raincoat, checked the address she had given him, and then stepped out into the rain. He was beginning to feel a little better. He’d be seeing Cara soon, and everything would be all right. He quickened his step and then abruptly glanced at his wrist watch. It was only seven forty-five, and he’d told her eight o’clock. He looked around hastily, spotting a bar and heading for it. He shook off his coat when he was inside and then found a stool at the bar and ordered a whisky sour. A blonde was seated alone at the far end of the bar. She was not pretty, but she received the automatic attention any blonde in a bar receives. He was surprised when she looked up and smiled at him. He smiled back courteously and then sipped at his drink, pleased she had noticed him, more convinced than ever that the evening would make up for the day. Something stupid was on the television set. He watched it for a moment, identifying Ken Maynard, Bob Steele, and Hoot Gibson. What did they call Maynard’s horse? Trigger? Champion? Oh hell. It annoyed him. He kept watching the movie and sipping at his drink, and he finally called over the bartender and asked, “What’s his horses’s name?”

The bartender stared at him as if he were drunk, and he found this amusing.

“Whose horse?” the bartender asked.

“Ken Maynard’s.”

The bartender fixed him with a contemptuous stare. “Tarzan!”

Griff snapped his fingers. “Tarzan! Of course.” The “of course” suddenly reminded him of McQuade. Of course, of course. Pee on McQuade, he thought, both barrels.

He left the bar at seven fifty-five, imagining the blonde sighed wistfully as he went to the door. The rain had let up a little, and he walked up the Concourse cheerfully, thinking of the games he’d seen at the Stadium, wondering if Cara liked baseball, wondering what he would do if she didn’t like baseball. He was twenty-nine years old, and the idea of changing his ways did not particularly appeal to him, especially if it meant forsaking baseball. Well, she probably did like baseball. He would ask her.

He found the address easily enough and stepped into the well-kept foyer of the building. He examined the bell buttons in the foyer, saw she was on the ground floor, and then walked into the lobby, looking for the apartment number. He saw the white letters on the small black shingle immediately: FREDERICK KNOWLES, D.D.S.

A dentist. Well now! He remembered the old joke, is he a doctor doctor? No, he’s a doctor dentist. Smiling, he pushed the chime panel set in the door jamb. He waited patiently, and then he heard footsteps and a voice coming from somewhere in the depths of the apartment. “Just a moment.” He realized abruptly that he had used the office entrance, and that there probably was another entrance to the apartment, and he felt somewhat foolish.

He heard the peephole flap swing back and then fall again, and then the door was opened, and he stared into the darkness of the waiting room.

“Hi,” Cara said. “Do you have a toothache?” She said it almost automatically, and he sensed it was a gag line she’d used before whenever a calling swain had made the same mistake. The knowledge that he was getting secondhand humor annoyed him. He forgot his annoyance and said, “Yes, a bicuspid at the back of my mouth. Can you fix it?”

“Come on in,” Cara said. “I won’t be a moment.”

He stepped into the waiting room, and she threw on a light and said, “Do you want to wait here, or do you prefer the comforts of the living room? I’d introduce you to the family, but only the dog is home.”

“I’ll wait here,” Griff said.

“Fine.” She looked at him and said, “You look nice.”

He felt suddenly embarrassed. She had beat him to the punch, and now anything he said about her appearance would seem like a bald-faced return of her compliment. He tried to gag it through.

“You look ravished,” he said, and then he snapped his fingers in seeming Freudian-slip annoyance. “Ravishing, I mean.”

“Thank you, sir,” Cara said, and then she fled into the depths of the apartment.

Actually, he had been a little disappointed with her appearance. He had expected something gayer, he supposed, but she was wearing a black silk dress with a rather high throat, a string of pearls at the neck. He had noticed the Julien Kahn suede pumps almost instantly, and had begun to price them automatically before he’d caught himself. He realized with a start that he’d been disappointed because the dress did not reveal the tiny beauty spot in the hollow of her throat, and he smiled at his own fetish. He found a chair in the waiting room, picked up a copy of Life, and began to feel as if he were really waiting to have a tooth extracted. This is psychologically bad, he thought. I must tell Cara she shouldn’t make her beaus feel as if they have a dental appointment.

Next time, use the right door, stupid, he further thought.

She came back in about ten minutes, a sheared beaver coat slung over her arm. He could see the embroidered name “Jean Knowles” on the lining of the coat, and he knew she had borrowed it from her mother or her sister, and this somehow combined with the secondhand greeting she’d given him to put a sour taste in his mouth. He took the coat and helped her into it.

“Will I need an umbrella?” she asked.

“It was only drizzling when I came in,” he said.

“Okay, we’ll skip the umbrella.” She smiled brightly. “Shall we go?”

“Any time you say.”

“I say now,” she said.

She threw the snap lock on the apartment door and slammed the door behind her. When they reached the foyer of the building, they looked out at the sidewalk. It was pouring bullets, the rain coming in sharp slanting sheets.

“Drizzle,” she said. “I’ll go back for the umbrella.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said guiltily.

“No, that’s all right.”

He stood alone and looked out at the rain, waiting for her return. He was disappointed thus far, but he told himself to snap out of it, everything would work out, what the hell did he expect so soon, their first date, did he want her to greet him on the living-room couch, her skirt up over her head? The thought startled him a bit because he had not seriously considered the idea of taking Cara Knowles to bed until just now. He toyed with the idea for a moment, and then put it out of his mind, not realizing that the idea was all a part of his initial disappointment, not realizing that he had already disqualified her as any serious contender for his heart. When she returned with the umbrella, he opened it for her and stepped out into the rain first. It was a woman’s umbrella, dainty and small. She climbed under it and he found half of his body in the rain, and this annoyed the hell out of him, even though he’d willingly walked in the rain without any covering before.

“We certainly picked a night, didn’t we?” she said.

“It doesn’t matter much,” he told her. “We’ve got a car, and we’ll be inside most of the night anyway.”

“I like rain, anyway,” she said. “Sometimes I just put on a raincoat and galoshes and go walking up the Concourse in the rain. It’s very soothing.”

He had the feeling that she had said this many times, too. “Is it?” he asked.

“If you like rain,” she answered, smiling.

They reached the car, and he unlocked the door for her and helped her in. He went around to his side and stood in the rain for several moments before she realized his door was locked and slid over to open it for him.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t realize—”

“That’s all right,” he said. “Rain makes you grow.”

“You’ve had enough tonight to make you another McQuade.”

The reference bothered him. He told himself it was male vanity, but it still bothered him. He was not exactly a half pint, even if he were not as tall as McQuade. He started the car and swung around to the Concourse.

“One good thing about rain,” he said, “it keeps folks at home. We’ll have a dance floor we can really dance on.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I thought one of the places up on Central Avenue.”

“Oh, fine,” she said. “This is a good night for drinking and dancing, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” He wanted to say more but he couldn’t find words. He shut up, painfully aware of the silence that had shouldered its way into the car.

“This is a nice car,” she said. “What is it?”

“Oldsmobile,” he answered.

“It’s very nice.”

“Well, it gets me where I want to go.” The cliché rang in his ears. He almost winced.

“That’s the important thing, I suppose.” She paused. “Did you notice I’m wearing Julien Kahn shoes?”

“I noticed them right off. Black Magic.”

“Is that their name?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“We make good shoes.”

“Yes, of course.” Dammit, there it was again. Of course, of course, of course. “We’re one of the top houses,” he said lamely.

“Have you been with the firm long?”

“Eleven years,” he said.

“Not really?”

“Yes. Yes, I have. Why?”

“No, it’s just that I don’t know anyone who’s been with anyplace for such a long time. You must really like your job.”

“I do.”

“I can see why it would be exciting. A fashion shoe, there’s always a little glamour that rubs off, I suppose.”

“Don’t you like your job?”

“Well, it’s all right. It gets a little dull sometimes, and Mr. Manelli isn’t exactly an exciting man to work for, if you know what I mean.”

“He’s something of a clod,” Griff said. “I can see your point there.”

“Do you like Manelli?”

“Well…” Griff smiled. “Why don’t we forget all about Julien Kahn for a while, okay? We’ll pretend the factory doesn’t even exist.”

“That would suit me fine,” Cara said.

They went to a place called Skippy’s, and Griff was surprised to find it packed to the eyeballs, in spite of the rain. Their waiter took them to a table too close to the bandstand, but there was nothing else available, and they realized all the places along Central Avenue would probably be just as crowded. There was a good deal of noise in Skippy’s, and a good deal of smoke, and when the band started playing, they could barely hear each other speak. They fled to the dance floor. The floor was jampacked. Cara felt good in his arms, but it was almost impossible to dance, and he felt hot and awkward and clumsy. She was pressed tight against him, her body molded against his. He could feel the mounds of her breasts through the thin dress she was wearing, and below that the firmness of her stomach. He realized abruptly that no one on the floor was really dancing. It was a sort of vertical fornication exhibition, and the thought embarrassed him and he sensed Cara’s embarrassment at the same moment. It was as if they had been stripped naked and thrown against each other. Her body against his did not excite him; his embarrassment squashed any excitement he might have ordinarily felt, making him feel like a degenerate in a crowded subway car. He wondered if Cara thought he was enjoying this, and he wanted to say something about it, but he figured any mention of it would only aggravate the situation. For a brief moment, there was an open spot on the dance floor. He moved into it, and Cara pulled her body from his gently, and then the spot closed in upon them, shoving her against him with rude forcefulness, exaggerating their nakedness.

“We’d better sit down,” he said.

She nodded and smiled tremulously, but there was something of accusation in the smile. They fought their way back to the table, and he grasped for his drink anxiously.

The trumpet player blasted away at his back.

“It’s pretty crowded,” he shouted.

“Yes,” she said. She seemed to want to adjust her clothes, like a prostitute after a brief tussle in bed with a stranger.

“I had no idea—” he started, but a trombone behind him ended the sentence for him in a throaty growl which seemed never to finish. He waited until the piano chorus, and then he said, “This is a good night to get pleasantly looped, don’t you think?”

“It might not be a bad idea,” she said, and then she sighed a curiously forlorn sigh.

They began drinking in earnest. There was a feverishness about the way they drank. It was as if they both realized this evening was going to be a bust, and they had to do something about it, and damned fast. They had to dull their senses, they had to weave a fantasy which did not exist, they had to become a part of something they had both expected and which somehow had not materialized. They drank quickly, hardly tasting what they drank, drinking because they wanted to get as high as possible as soon as possible. And perhaps because they drank so determinedly, their drunkenness was a long time coming, and even when it came, it produced a forced gaiety which was as strained as their earlier sobriety had been. The liquor put a high flush on Cara’s face, and it darkened the brownness of her eyes, giving her a somewhat feral expression which she had not worn at the start of the evening.

“What’s the use?” she said to him thickly.

“What’s what use?” he answered.

“What’s the use?” she repeated, leaning over the table toward him. “You get a pattern, and then you got a pattern.”

“You talking about shoes?” he asked, trying to keep her in focus.

“People,” she said. “I’m talking about people.”

“What about people?”

“You’re a doll,” she said. “Mmmm, you’re a doll,” and there was something savage in her face now. Her lips were skinned back over her teeth, and her eyes held his unwaveringly. “Dance with me, doll,” she said.

He looked at the animal expression on her face, and he told himself he was imagining the look. It was harsh and cold and in some way he could not make out it was curiously related to the expression he had noticed the first time he met her.

“Come,” she said, “dance.” The word escaped her lips like a hiss. “Dance with me. Dance with me.”

They went back into the churning morass of bodies on the floor, and this time they became a part of the exhibition. Where she had strained to keep her body away from his before, she did not resist now. Where he had tried to keep a loose arm around her waist earlier, he found his arm tightening now. They were naked again, but this time they had tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the evil was good, and they used their bodies together, and they enjoyed each other’s nakedness. He was excited this time, and he knew she could feel his excitement through the thinnness of her dress, and he felt her straining against him, and he pulled her closer and closer, tighter and tighter, and then all at once the shame hit both of them again, but this time it was a shame bred of guilt. The glow of the alcohol had suddenly evaporated, and with it the sham gay world they had consciously created. They pulled away from each other simultaneously, avoid each other’s eyes, not wanting to touch each other again. Their intimacy had been falsely generated. They had behaved like lovers when they were not yet even friends, and the knowledge was a little shocking — and a little disgusting.

They left Skippy’s, and they drove down Central Avenue and then down Jerome Avenue and onto the Concourse. They did not speak much. They listened to the music on the radio, and they listened to the snickering slap of the windshield wipers and the gentle whisper of the tires against wet asphalt. They both knew the night had been a failure, and so they did not speak of it.

Amazingly, they bore no enmity toward each other. They parted as friends who had been through something of an ordeal together.

He told her he would see her on Monday, at the factory. She smiled and thanked him for a wonderful evening, and he lied back and said no, thank you.

He unlocked her door for her, and she took his hand and squeezed it warmly for an instant, in perhaps the first honest display of emotion either of them had felt all evening long.

He did not kiss her good night.

She disappeared into the blackness of the waiting room, and then she closed the door gently.

He walked out into the rain.