Dead End Read online

  I thought he meant she was unwell. He took me bowling on Friday and won a carton of cigarettes for making high score of the week.

  When I was just turning eighteen and in my last term of high school, Daisy began to have sick spells, keep to her bed a lot. She was always skin and bones, although I was surprised when I once came upon a snap of her as a young girl—she had a slim but solid figure. I came home one afternoon from football practice—I was always a second-string tackle—to find her on the kitchen floor. I set up such a hollering the neighbors came running and soon an ambulance doc. He said Daisy was dead—as if I didn't know—that her heart had given out. Nate took it bad, crying all night and staring at the wall for a few days. Of course, I felt bad at losing Mom, but it really didn't change my life much. After the funeral things went on as before, except I did the shopping after school and Nate cooked.

  I was almost as big then as I am now, weighed in at a hundred and seventy-four pounds, and was trying to be an amateur boxer. Nate was my manager, trainer, and second, and after Daisy's death we worked hard at it. Three nights a week I'd train at a gym the pros used during the day. I had a few fights, winning them all. They weren't easy fights and I didn't see any future in throwing leather. But it made it easier for us to forget Daisy, gave both of us a charge, me in there fighting, Nate leaning on the ring apron, shouting advice. Nate and I were closer than any father and son.

  When I graduated school a few months after the funeral, Nate gave me a swell watch, a wrist watch with the picture of a pug, the hands of the clock being his arms. I still have it. The night of my graduation he took me out for some real Japanese food and a couple of belts of rye, telling me how sad it was Daisy didn't see me get my diploma, how I must go to college, maybe even get an athletic scholarship. When we returned to the flat there was a check for three hundred and fifty dollars in the mail for Bucklin Penn. There was one for Nate too, for the same amount. He said, “From your dear mother's policy.”

  Never having had that much money before, I was too delighted to think straight for a moment. Then I asked, “But what's with this Bucklin Penn tag?”

  Nate was unrolling my diploma, which he was going to have framed the first thing in the morning. I was astonished to see the same name on the diploma—Bucklin Penn. I asked, “What is this, Dad? Why isn't Laspiza printed there?”

  Nate had the same look in his eyes as when he was getting ready to make a tough pool shot, or pitch his fast ball. “Because your name is Penn, Bucky.”

  “That was Mom's maiden name but my name is Laspiza.”

  “No it isn't,” he said quietly. “That's why I arranged for your correct name on your diploma. Son, it's time you knew I'm not your actual father.”

  “Well, who is?” I asked, my voice a croak. I was all mixed up; him telling me that and calling me son at the same time.

  “I don't know. Daisy would never tell me. Truth is, I never asked.”

  Now, Nate had a good sense of humor, sometimes was given to mild practical jokes. Like once I'd saved up for a model plane they were advertising on a corn-flakes box. I gave Nate the letter with the money to mail on his way to the office. That night he came home with the plane-kit box, addressed to me, stamped and everything, said mail service was sure fast these days. It took me a few days to realize he had bought a kit in a store, had his company's mail room fix it up.

  Feeling like I'd stopped a gut wallop, I asked, “Nate, what kind of a gag is all this?”

  “How I wish it was a gag, Bucky. This is going to be rough, for both of us, but I have to tell you something I wanted to say long ago, but Daisy wouldn't let me. I kept telling her it was a mistake not to tell you....”

  “Tell me what?”

  “You're almost a man now, Bucky. You can understand this. Daisy and I grew up together in a small town not far from Gary. We were sweethearts from the day we first saw each other. Her folks weren't too keen about having me in the family because I was Italian. Well, her parents were killed in an auto accident when Daisy was fifteen, and she came to live with us. We were to be married when she was eighteen. After about a year or so, she began working as a waitress in a combination bar and restaurant. My people were very strait-laced, you understand. They didn't want her working. But Daisy liked being independent, and she wasn't working nights—when the bar might get rough—only during the afternoons. I don't have to tell you about sex, Bucky; we went over that a few years ago. What I'm trying to say is, I never touched Daisy, although we both wanted it. You see, we agreed we would wait.”

  He stopped talking for a moment, and when he continued his voice was shaking like a ham actor's. “Daisy was going to be seventeen on August twenty-fifth. I was nineteen and that summer I got an offer to play semipro ball up in Canada. It looked like my big chance. In July—July eighth in fact; 111 never forget that date—my father wrote that I should consider Daisy dead—they had kicked her out of the house. I left the team and rushed home. She was a month pregnant with you. Some louse had fed her a few drinks, raped her. She had been ashamed to even go to the police. We were married that same day, and came east. I promised her I would raise you like my own son. Bucky, you know I've kept my word. I intend to help you through college, keep on being your best friend and—”

  “Best friend—you are my father!” I was talking in a daze.

  “No, I'm not. A fact is a fact.”

  “But you've been a father to me for almost eighteen years. Why didn't you... don't you... at least adopt me?”

  “I can't do that, kid.”

  “Why?”

  “Well—I just can't. You're better off with a name like Perm. A good American name that—”

  “Nate, Nate, don't bull me! Why can't you give me your name?”

  “What's in a name?” he asked, then turned away and added—almost painfully, “Bucky, don't ask me why.”

  I spun him around. “But I'm asking!”

  “Look... I never told you this, of course, but—I'm wanted by the police.”

  “Since when? What for?”

  “I don't want to talk about it. But it's true.”

  “I don't believe it. Why, you're so honest you wouldn't keep the three bucks in that purse you once found! What—”

  Nate was suddenly full of cheer. “Still time to make a late show downtown, kid. Come on. What difference does it make if you're called Smith, Brown, or anything else? A handle is merely a label and I've raised you to be a fine young fellow. We'll take in a show and forget it.”

  “Sure, just forget a trifle like finding out I'm a bastard!” I screamed, running out of the apartment.

  I had the check with me and managed to cash it. Then I did a real dumb thing: I got crocked in the neighborhood. Being a pug and a football player, I was sort of a big deal around the block, and plenty of the better-looking babes kept asking me to take them out. Elma wasn't one of them. She was a big plump girl of about eighteen and her claim to fame was her constant use of a four-letter word. Okay, it may sound jerky now, but then it was kicks to hear a girl talk like that. Guys took Elma out to hear her dirty jokes, and when she got mad Elma would repeat that four-letter word over and over, so the fellows would try to get her boiling. That wasn't so simple, for Elma was very easygoing. Don't get me wrong; I knew she never went all the way. But several times she let me run my hands over her. Elma never made any bones about it: She went for me in a big way. All I remember about that drunken night was me telling everybody my name wasn't Laspiza, like a fool, and Elma hanging on to me, saying, “Penn is a nice name, Bucky. Why, maybe you're descended from the famous William Penn. Jeez, you got an arm like a rock. Make a muscle for me, Bucky.”

  Nate finally found me around two in the morning, took me home. For the first time in his life he took off a few days from his job, stayed with me. The crazy thing is I might have got over the shock if I hadn't stupidly broadcast the fact I was a bastard. It was a bit of choice gossip. I knew guys were snickering behind my back, and the girls avoided me. But El
ma was with me as much as possible.

  It got so I couldn't stand the damn block and one day I went off and enlisted in the Army. This was about a year before Korea. Nate was heartbroken—which gave me a kind of dumb satisfaction. He told me, “You've made a bad mistake, Bucky. You should have gone to college. A man isn't anything today without a college degree. If I'd gone to college do you think I'd have ended behind a reception desk, grinning like a dressmakers' dummy? I been with the company for over fifteen years and every time there was an opening, a chance, they passed me by for a college kid.”

  “So what? I would have been drafted in a few months anyway.”

  “I suppose so. Take care of yourself in the Army, come out with a clean record. This might work out for the best, maybe you can still go to college, on the G. I. Bill when you get out. It will be good for you to get away—this Elma isn't for you, Bucky. She's older and a—”

  “Nate, you were about twenty-seven when World War II was going. I guess having me around kept you 4F.”

  “A busted eardrum kept me out.”

  “I bet you told them I was your real son then. I bet!” I said, leaving the house for a last date with Elma.

  I breezed through basic in a southern infantry camp. Nate wrote me regularly, sent me shaving kits and all the dopey things you send a soldier, but I never answered him. Whenever I got a leave I spent it drinking and fighting bootleg pro bouts in a nearby big city. I was stationed in Texas when Korea broke and we were sure to be sent over. I got a two-week leave and a plane ride back home. I really didn't go “home,” I took a room downtown. The first thing I did was insist upon Elma spending the night with me. The deal with me was, I couldn't think of anything but Nate not being my old man. I guess it became an obsession with me. I thought about it all the time, in camp, in the ring, even sleeping with Elma. The thought kept rattling around in my head. When I could look at it calmly, I knew he had done the right thing by Daisy. Most guys wouldn't have. What it must have meant to Nate to give up pro ball, his big chance. And to leave his family. But what kept eating at me was, why hadn't he adopted me? It didn't make sense. I'd think back to all he'd done for me, all the attention and care, and yet he wouldn't give me his name. Why?

  I was liquored up most of the time, not much of a feat as I'm hardly a drinker; a few shots does it far me. When I had three days left of my leave, I went up to the apartment late one afternoon, knowing Nate would be home from work by then.

  When I opened the door he was making supper, wearing an old smoking jacket. Nate never slopped around the house in his undershirt. He said, “Hello, Bucky. I heard you were in town. Looks like you've put on muscle. Soldiering must agree with you.”

  “I can take it or leave it. I... uh... meant to come by sooner but I had a few stops.”

  “I can smell them. Want supper?”

  “No.” I staggered a bit trying to make the table. “I want something else, Nate.”

  “Broke? I can let you have—”

  “I want you to call me Bucky Laspiza. I want to hear you say it right now!” I said, the anger building up in me so strong the words came blurting out.

  Nate gave me a “fatherly” smile. “Come on, now, Bucky, you're crocked. Why do you let that worry you so? You know the old line about what's in a name? I think—”

  “Nate, stop stalling. You're going to call me Bucky Laspiza, or I'm going to make you. I been thinking about it for weeks now. You've called me 'Son,' and 'my kid,' and 'Bucky,' but I can't ever remember you calling me Bucky Laspiza!”

  “Aren't you being silly?”

  “Nothing silly about it to me!”

  “Bucky, suppose I did say what you want—what difference would it make?” he asked, coming around the kitchen table to face me. I'd worked out with him enough to tell from the way he had his legs apart that he was set to hit me. I wanted him to. I guess what I'd really been thinking in the back of my noggin all these months was that I hated Nate so damn much I wanted to kill him.

  “Don't soft-sell me, Nate. It will make a lot of difference to me. Just call me Bucky Laspiza, Nate.”

  “Want me to call you mister, too?” he said, wetting his lips nervously.

  “The hell with mister. Call me by my name!”

  “Certainly. Hello, Bucklin Penn.”

  “Goddamn you, Nate, you're going to call me Laspiza!”

  “I can't. It isn't your name.”

  I started for him. He was good; even though I expected the punch, his right came so fast I couldn't block it. It was a hell of a wallop, sent me reeling-crashing against the wall, almost floored me. I knew then Nate felt the same way: All his resentment against me was in that crack on the chin.

  My mouth was bleeding, my head ringing. Nate was so eager he goofed—he came at me. I got my arms around him, was too strong for him, not to mention the forty pounds of young muscle I had on him. I wrestled him to the floor, smothering his blows with my body. I sat on his gut, slugging him with both hands. I was so nuts I think I would have killed him if he hadn't gone limp and whispered, “Don't, Bucky. This... is... crazy stuff.”

  “Call me Bucky Laspiza!” I gasped.

  “Bucky L-Laspiza,” he said, turning his head away from me, the words coming out a tormented moan.

  There was a bruise on his cheek; a trickle of blood ran out of one ear. I got off him and sat on the floor, feeling my numb chin. I was suddenly very sober and scared—I had damn near killed him. I stroked his thin hair and Nate began to cry. I kissed him on the forehead, muttered, “Oh, Dad, Dad! What's happening to us? You're right, this is crazy. Why can't you adopt me, give me your name?”

  “Don't talk about that,” he said, hugging me with one hand, but still not looking at me. “I told you about the police... looking for me.”

  “All this time? For what?”

  “Murder. I... I... killed your father.”

  I pulled away from him. “Stop snowing me, Nate. That's a lie.”

  “No it isn't.” He was whispering again.

  “I thought about it in camp—you're all I thought about. You've always told me how the oil company has such a careful check on their employees. All that security stuff. If you were wanted by the cops, they would have had you long ago.”

  “They—the police—they... don't know I killed him.”

  “Then there isn't any reason why you can't adopt me.”

  He didn't answer. For several minutes neither of us spoke. Nate's eyes were shut and his face was so white I thought he had passed out. I stood up. Pulling Nate to his feet, I led him to a kitchen chair. For the first time Nate didn't look dapper, merely old. He leaned on the table, feeling of his face, staring at the blood that came off on his hands. I wet a dish towel with cold water and tossed it on the table. Nate held it to his face for a long while.

  “Nate, that stuff about killing; it's a lie, isn't it?”

  “Yeah. But I wanted to kill him. I used to dream how I had killed him—whoever he was. I'd dream of ways of slow... I suppose that's why Daisy never would tell me.”

  “Dad, I'm sorry I hit you.”

  He took the towel from his puffed face, looked at me. “I could cut off my hand for punching you, Bucky.”

  “Nate, listen: I still want you to adopt me.”

  “Son, in time you'll forget about it.”

  “Can't you understand that I wouldn't want any other man for a father?”

  “I've always been your father, Bucky.”

  “Damn it, Nate, make it legal!”

  He shook his head and groaned with pain. Then he said, “I just can't do it. Sometimes I wanted to but... Bucky, I've always been an also-ran—in everything I did. I never made the big leagues or had a good job. Well, a man can't be a complete blank. What I'm trying to say is that even a bad thing can still be the biggest deal in your life. That's the real reason why I never adopted you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You see, if I had adopted you, or put my name down when you were
born—it was that simple—why, in time it would have been forgotten. I would have forgotten it! Son, you can't ask a man to forgive and forget the biggest thing in his life.”

  “What?”

  “No matter if I was second best in everything else—in that I stuck to my guns.”

  “You mean you wanted to hold it over Daisy all her life. Is that it?”

  “No. I loved Daisy. You should know that.”

  “Bull! You did the 'right thing' and wanted to make damn sure she'd never forget it—you wanted to punish her! What did it do, keep you on that righteous kick all your life?”

  “That's not so. Daisy is dead and I'm still young enough to—I can't even think of marrying again.”