An American Tragedy (24 page)

She was being ragged by Clyde, as she thought, and she didn’t like it. She was thinking of Sparser who was really more appealing to her at the time than Clyde. He was more materialistic, less romantic, more direct.

He turned and, taking off his cap, rubbed his head gloomily while Hortense, looking at him, thought first of him and then of Sparser. Sparser was more manly, not so much of a crybaby. He wouldn’t stand around and complain his way, you bet. He’d probably leave her for good, have nothing more to do with her. Yet Clyde, after his fashion, was interesting and useful. Who else would do for her what he had? And at any rate, he was not trying to force her to go off with him now as these others had gone and as she had feared he might try to do—ahead of her plan and wish. This quarrel was obviating that.

“Now, see here,” she said after a time, having decided that it was best to assuage him and that it was not so hard to manage him after all. “Are we goin’ t’fight all the time, Clyde? What’s the use, anyhow? Whatja want me to come out here for if you just want to fight with me all the time? I wouldn’t have come if I’d ’a’ thought you were going to do that all day.”

She turned and kicked at the ice with the minute toe of her shoes, and Clyde, always taken by her charm again, put his arms about her, and crushed her to him, at the same time fumbling at her breasts and putting his lips to hers and endeavoring to hold and fondle her. But now, because of her suddenly developed liking for Sparser, and partially because of her present mood towards Clyde, she broke away, a dissatisfaction with herself and him troubling her. Why should she let him force her to do anything she did not feel like doing, just now, anyhow, she now asked herself. She hadn’t agreed to be as nice to him to-day as he might wish. Not yet. At any rate just now she did not want to be handled in this way by him, and she would not, regardless of what he might do. And Clyde, sensing by now what the true state of her mind in regard to him must be, stepped back and yet continued to gaze gloomily and hungrily at her. And she in turn merely stared at him.

“I thought you said you liked me,” he demanded almost savagely now, realizing that his dreams of a happy outing this day were fading to nothing.

“Well, I do when you’re nice,” she replied, slyly and evasively, seeking some way to avoid complications in connection with her original promises to him.

“Yes, you do,” he grumbled. “I see how you do. Why, here we are out here now and you won’t even let me touch you. I’d like to know what you meant by all that you said, anyhow.”

“Well, what did I say?” she countered, merely to gain time.

“As though you didn’t know.”

“Oh, well. But that wasn’t to be right away, either, was it? I thought we said”—she paused dubiously.

“I know what you said,” he went on. “But I notice now that you don’t like me an’ that’s all there is to it. What difference would it make if you really cared for me whether you were nice to me now or next week or the week after? Gee whiz, you’d think it was something that depended on what I did for you, not whether you cared for me.” In his pain he was quite intense and courageous.

“That’s not so!” she snapped, angrily and bitterly, irritated by the truth of what he said. “And I wish you wouldn’t say that to me, either. I don’t care anything about the old coat now, if you want to know it. And you can just have your old money back, too, I don’t want it. And you can just let me alone from now on, too,” she added. “I’ll get all the coats I want without any help from you.” At this, she turned and walked away.

But Clyde, now anxious to mollify her as usual, ran after her. “ Don’t go, Hortense,” he pleaded. “Wait a minute. I didn’t mean that either, honest I didn’t. I’m crazy about you. Honest I am. Can’t you see that? Oh, gee, don’t go now. I’m not giving you the money to get something for it. You can have it for nothing if you want it that way. There ain’t anybody else in the world like you to me, and there never has been. You can have the money for all I care, all of it. I don’t want it back. But, gee, I did think you liked me a little. Don’t you care for me at all, Hortense?” He looked cowed and frightened, and she, sensing her mastery over him, relented a little.

“Of course I do,” she announced. “But just the same, that don’t mean that you can treat me any old way, either. You don’t seem to understand that a girl can’t do everything you want her to do just when you want her to do it.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” asked Clyde, not quite sensing just what she did mean. “I don’t get you.”

“Oh, yes, you do, too.” She could not believe that he did not know.

“Oh, I guess I know what you’re talkin’ about. I know what you’re going to say now,” he went on disappointedly. “That’s that old stuff they all pull. I know.”

He was reciting almost verbatim the words and intonations even of the other boys at the hotel—Higby, Ratterer, Eddie Doyle—who, having narrated the nature of such situations to him, and how girls occasionally lied out of pressing dilemmas in this way, had made perfectly clear to him what was meant. And Hortense knew now that he did know.

“Gee, but you’re mean,” she said in an assumed hurt way. “A person can never tell you anything or expect you to believe it. Just the same, it’s true, whether you believe it or not.”

“Oh, I know how you are,” he replied, sadly yet a little loftily, as though this were an old situation to him. “you don’t like me, that’s all. I see that now, all right.”

“Gee, but you’re mean,” she persisted, affecting an injured air. “It’s the God’s truth. Believe me or not, I swear it. Honest it is.”

Clyde stood there. In the face of this small trick there was really nothing much to say as he saw it. He could not force her to do anything. If she wanted to lie and pretend, he would have to pretend to believe her. And yet a great sadness settled down upon him. He was not to win her after all—that was plain. He turned, and she, being convinced that he felt that she was lying now, felt it incumbent upon herself to do something about it—to win him around to her again.

“Please, Clyde, please,” she began now, most artfully, “I mean that. Really, I do. Won’t you believe that? I meant everything I said when I said it. Honest, I did. I do like you—a lot. Won’t you believe that, too—please?”

And Clyde, thrilled from head to toe by this latest phase of her artistry, agreed that he would. And once more he began to smile and recover his gayety. And by the time they reached the car, to which they were all called a few minutes after by Hegglund, because of the time, and he had held her hand and kissed her often, he was quite convinced that the dream he had been dreaming was as certain of fulfillment as anything could be. Oh, the glory of it when it should come true!

FOR the major portion of the return trip to Kansas City, there was nothing to mar the very agreeable illusion under which Clyde rested. He sat beside Hortense, who leaned her head against his shoulder. And although Sparser, who had waited for the others to step in before taking the wheel, had squeezed her arm and received an answering and promising look, Clyde had not seen that.

But the hour being late and the admonitions of Hegglund, Ratterer and Higby being all for speed, and the mood of Sparser, because of the looks bestowed upon him by Hortense, being the gayest and most drunken, it was not long before the outlying lamps of the environs began to show. For the car was rushed along the road at break-neck speed. At one point, however, where one of the eastern trunk lines approached the city, there was along and unexpected and disturbing wait at a grade crossing where two freight trains met and passed. Farther in, at North Kansas City, it began to snow, great soft slushy flakes, feathering down and coating the road surface with a slippery layer of mud which required more caution than had been thus far displayed. It was then half past five. Ordinarily, an additional eight minutes at high speed would have served to bring the car within a block or two of the hotel. But now, with another delay near Hannibal Bridge owing to grade crossing, it was twenty minutes to six before the bridge was crossed and Wyandotte Street reached. And already all four of these youths had lost all sense of the delight of the trip and the pleasure of the companionship of these girls had given them. For already they were worrying as to the probability of their reaching the hotel in time. The smug and martinetish figure of Mr. Squires loomed before them all.

“Gee, if we don’t do better than this,” observed Ratterer to Higby, who was nervously fumbling with his watch, “we’re not goin’ to make it. We’ll hardly have time, as it is, to change.”

Clyde, hearing him, exclaimed: “Oh, crickets! I wish we could hurry a little. Gee, I wish now we hadn’t come to-day. It’ll be tough if we don’t get there on time.”

And Hortense, noting his sudden tenseness and unrest, added: “Don’t you think you’ll make it all right?”

“Not this way,” he said. But Hegglund, who had been studying the flaked air outside, a world that seemed dotted with falling bits of cotton, called: “Eh, dere Willard. We certainly gotta do better dan dis. It means de razoo for us if we don’t get dere on time.”

And Higby, for once stirred out of a gambler-like effrontery and calm, added: “We’ll walk the plank all right unless we can put up some good yarn. Can’t anybody think of anything?” As for Clyde, he merely sighed nervously.

And then, as though to torture them the more, an unexpected crush of vehicles appeared at nearly every intersection. And Sparser, who was irritated by this particular predicament, was contemplating with impatience the warning hand of a traffic policeman, which, at the intersection of Ninth and Wyandotte, had been raised against him. “There goes his mit again,” he exclaimed. “What can I do about that! I might turn over to Washington, but I don’t know whether we’ll save any time by going over there.”

A full minute passed before he was signaled to go forward. Then swiftly he swung the car to the right and three blocks over into Washington Street.

But here the conditions were no better. Two heavy lines of traffic moved in opposite directions. And at each succeeding corner several precious moments were lost as the cross-traffic went by. Then the car would tear on to the next corner, weaving its way in and out as best it could.

At Fifteenth and Washington, Clyde exclaimed to Ratterer: “How would it do if we got out at Seventeenth and walked over?”

“You won’t save any time if I can turn over there,” called Sparser. “I can get over there quicker than you can.”

He crowded other cars for every inch of available space. At Sixteenth and Washington, seeing what he considered a fairly clear block to the left, he turned the car and tore along that thoroughfare to as far as Wyandotte once more. Just as he neared the corner and was about to turn at high speed, swinging in close to the curb to do so, a little girl of about nine, who was running toward the crossing, jumped directly in front of the moving machine. And because there was no opportunity given him to turn and avoid her, she was struck and dragged a number of feet before the machine could be halted. At the same time, there arose piercing screams from at least half a dozen women, and shouts from as many men who had witnessed the accident.

Instantly they all rushed toward the child, who had been thrown under and passed over by the wheels. And Sparser, looking out and seeing them gathering about the fallen figure, was seized with an uninterpretable mental panic which conjured up the police, jail, his father, the owner of the car, severe punishment in many forms. And though by now all the others in the car were up and giving vent to anguished exclamations such as “Oh, God! He hit a little girl”; “Oh, gee, he’s killed a kid!” “Oh, mercy! “Oh, Lord!” “Oh, heavens, what’ll we do now?” he turned and exclaimed: “Jesus, the cops! I gotta get outa this with this car.”

And, without consulting the others, who were still half standing, but almost speechless with fear, he shot the lever into first, second and then high, and giving the engine all the gas it would endure, sped with it to the next corner beyond.

But there, as at the other corners in this vicinity, a policeman was stationed, and having already seen some commotion at the corner west of him, had already started to leave his post in order to ascertain what it was. As he did so, cries of “Stop that car”—“Stop that car”—reached his ears. And a man, running toward the sedan from the scene of the accident, pointed to it, and called: “Stop that car, stop that car. They’ve killed a child.”

Then gathering what was meant, he turned toward the car, putting his police whistle to his mouth as he did so. But Sparser, having by this time heard the cries and seen the policeman leaving, dashed swiftly past him into Seventeenth Street, along which he sped at almost forty miles an hour, grazing the hub of a truck in one instance, scraping the fender of an automobile in another, and missing by inches and quarter inches vehicles or pedestrians, while those behind him in the car were for the most part sitting bolt upright and tense, their eyes wide, their hands clenched, their faces and lips set—or, as in the case of Hortense and Lucille Nickolas and Tina Kogel, giving voice to repeated, “Oh, Gods!” “Oh, what’s going to happen now?”

But the police and those who had started to pursue were not to be outdone so quickly. Unable to make out the license plate number and seeing from the first motions of the car that it had no intention of stopping, the officer blew a loud and long blast on his police whistle. And the policeman at the next corner seeing the car speed by and realizing what it meant, blew on his whistle, then stopped, and springing on the running board of a passing touring car ordered it to give chase. And at this, seeing what was amiss or awind, three other cars, driven by adventurous spirits, joined in the chase, all honking loudly as they came.

But the Packard had far more speed in it than any of its pursuers, and although for the first few blocks of the pursuit there were cries of “Stop that car!” “Stop that car!” still, owing to the much greater speed of the car, these soon died away giving place to the long wild shrieks of distant horns in full cry.