The Boy Grew Older

Peter found himself turning to Pat for companionship. Perhaps he did not exactly turn, but was rather tugged about without will of his own. The needs of Pat were increasingly greater and Peter was caught up into them now that he had nothing in particular to do with his evenings. Instead of taking Vonnie out to an early dinner before the show he helped to put Pat to bed. It didn't seem quite virile to Peter, but it was easier than hanging around Jack's or Joel's or the Eldorado. Of course, Pat was supposed to be in bed long before the night life of New York had really begun, but bit by bit he edged his time ahead until it was often eleven or after before he fell off to sleep. The child fought against sleep as if it were a count of ten. Never within Peter's memory did Pat express a willingness to go to sleep, much less a desire. It was always necessary to conduct him forcibly over the line where consciousness ceased.

Peter was swept under the tyranny of this obligation a couple of nights after Vonnie went away. Unable to think up anything to do, he came back to the flat a little after ten. He saw a light burning down the hall in Pat's room and occasional entreaties and commands drifted out. Pat wanted a drink of water and the toy alligator and the electric engine and six freight cars. Looking at his watch Peter found that it was half past ten. He walked into the child's room and exclaimed sternly, "What's all this racket about?"

"He wants the funny section read to him," explained Kate, "and it's been lost some place. I can't find it anywhere."

"That's perfect rubbish," said Peter.

"I've looked all over for it, Mr. Neale."

"That wasn't what I meant was rubbish, Kate. I'm glad you lost it. I want you to keep on losing it. I meant it's rubbish for him to be staying up this late and asking for things."

"Yes sir."

"Now we'll both say good night to him, Kate, and let him go to sleep."

Pat began to cry not only loudly but with a certain note of sincerity which caught Peter's ear. "What's the matter with him now?"

"He made me promise I'd tell him a story if I couldn't find the funny paper," said Kate.

"It's too late now and anyway if he made you do it, Kate, it isn't a promise. It don't count."

"Yes, Mr. Neale. But it's so set he is he'll be calling me back all the night long for me to tell him the story. It's nothing he does be forgetting."

"All right, Kate, we'll settle that very easily. You go out and I'll stay and he can cry his head off."

"Where'll I go, Mr. Neale?"

"I don't care, Kate. Go any place you like. It isn't eleven o'clock yet. Where do you usually go?"

"To my sister's in Jamaica, but it's no time to be routing them out at this hour."

"Well, let me see. I tell you, Kate, there's a moving picture theatre down there at Fifty-ninth Street that keeps going till after one. Here's some money. You go there and see the picture and I'll stay and show this young man he can't get everything he cries for."

"I want to see the picture," said Pat, sitting up in bed.

"Now don't be silly. You get back there on your pillow," said Peter, "or I'll just knock you down."

Kate rummaged around for her bonnet and finally went out. During all this time Pat kept up a suppressed sobbing. As soon as the door slammed behind Kate he was sufficiently rested again to begin crying full force.

"Well, what is it now?" said Peter as fiercely as he could.

Pat's utterance was muffled with tears. "I want a story."

"You heard Kate go out. If you've got any sense you know she can't tell you a story."

"You tell me a story."

"I'm too busy. Go to sleep."

"Why are you busy?"

"Because I am. Now go to sleep."

"I don't want to go to sleep. I want you to tell me a story."

Pat commenced to cry again. He had sensed an opening.

Peter dropped his guard. "Just one story?" he asked.

Upon the instant Pat ceased crying and sat up. "Tell me about the old beggarman and Saint Pat."

"I don't know it," said Peter. In fact he felt almost as if he had been suddenly called upon to make a speech at a public banquet. Of course, he had heard of Cinderella and Red Riding Hood and Aladdin and the wonderful lamp, but he could not quite remember what any of them did. Suddenly he remembered another source book.

"Once," he began, "there was a man named Goliath and he was the biggest man in the world. He could beat any man in the world. And one day there was a little man named David – ."

"I'm bigger than David," interrupted Pat.

"I guess you are. He was a little bit of a man, but he wasn't afraid of Goliath. He said, 'Ole Goliath, you talk too much. You make me sick.' And he picked up a rock and hit Goliath and knocked him down."

"Why did he knock Goliath down?" Pat wanted to know.

"I guess he knocked Goliath down because it was Goliath's bedtime and Goliath wouldn't go to bed."

Pat remained alert in spite of the moralizing. He gave no hint of recognition that the end of a story had been reached. Anyhow, the creative impulse had seized upon Peter particularly since it might be so unblushingly combined with propaganda.

"Well," he continued, "pretty soon George Browne came out of his house and he was the second biggest man in the world and he wouldn't go to bed and so David picked up another great big rock and knocked him down. And then your friend the Red Bat came out of his house and he was the next biggest man in the world and he wouldn't go to bed and so David picked up another rock and knocked him down."

"No, he didn't," broke in Pat.

"I'm telling this story. David hit the Red Bat with a rock and knocked him down because he wouldn't go to bed."

"No, he didn't."

"Oh, all right then, if you know so much about it, he didn't. What did he do?"

"He knocked David down."

Peter realized that his narrative was overburdened with propaganda and he was artist enough to throw over some of his moralizing ballast.

"Well, this was the way it happened, Pat. David picked up a big rock and threw it at the Red Bat, but the Red Bat was too smart for him. The Red Bat caught the rock and threw it back at David and knocked him down. That was it, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Pat.

When Kate returned a little after one Peter reported, "I didn't have any bother with him. He just went right off to sleep."

II

David and Goliath became set as a bedtime story and lasted through the next six months almost without change. Indeed Pat resented changes. "Once," Peter would begin, "there was a man named Goliath and he was the biggest man in the world and he could lick any man in the world."

"Not lick," Pat would interrupt. "Beat."

"Oh, yes, he could beat any man in the world." Peter found himself coming home for Pat's bedtime with increasing frequency. Once or twice he tried to break away, but upon such occasions Kate reported that the child had cried for him and had kept awake until after midnight asking for the story of David and Goliath.

"You tell it to him," said Peter. "I think I can teach it to you. He wants it just this way." And he repeated the accepted version.

Kate shook her head. "I'm too old a woman to be learning so many words, Mr. Neale," she said. "And it's not a story I think Father Ryan would like me to be telling. That's not the way the story do be going in our Bible."

"Gosh," thought Peter to himself. "She thinks it was Martin Luther made those changes."

Notwithstanding Goliath, Peter made a gallant attempt to break away from his newly found responsibilities. He felt that he ought to. He felt that in the restaurants and poolrooms there lay the sort of sporting gossip he ought to pick up for his column. Of course, not all New York kept Pat's hours in those days but there was something almost auto-hypnotic in getting the child to sleep. In addition to the bedtime story, Peter found it necessary to feign great weariness in order to suggest a similar feeling in Pat. He would yawn prodigiously immediately after the Red Bat had knocked down David and pretend to doze off on the foot of Pat's bed. Presently, he would hear the boy's regular breathing and would tiptoe out of the room. But Peter acted his rôle much too well. After so much shamming he generally was actually tired himself and indisposed to wander down to Jack's or any of the other places where he might find fighters or their managers.

Indeed, he made the discovery that the material to be extracted from these people was not inexhaustible. Like David and Goliath they had a tendency to run into formula. "And I yell at him, don't box him; fight him. Keep rushing him. Don't let him set. And when he comes to his corner at the end of the third round I bawl in his ear, 'You kike so and so, begging your pardon, Mr. Neale, if you don't get that lousy wop I'm done with you.' And would you believe me it did him a lot of good. It put guts in him. In the fourth we nail him with a right and we win. Now we're going after the champ and if we ever get him into a ring we'll lick him."

A year or so before Neale could have taken stuff like that and worked it over into a column on "The Psychology of a Prizefight Manager." But now all the inspiration was gone. He had heard precisely the same tale in much the same language too many times. He was almost tempted to cry out, "Not lick him, beat him."

Nor was there much more available color in the fighters themselves. They were a silent crowd, most of them, particularly if they happened to have a manager along.

Once, Peter found Dave Keyes, the Brooklyn lightweight, sitting all alone in Jack's. He was going great guns that year and Peter thought of him as the logical successor to the champion. They had met a couple of times at fight clubs, but Keyes did not seem to remember Peter. He was sober but not bright. Still, Peter felt that he might draw him out during the course of the evening. In time Keyes began to talk freely enough. He was even confidential but fighting seemed to be the last thing in the world he cared to discuss.

"You see there's two dames fall for me. And the tough break is the both of them lives on the same block. See. Well, let me tell you how I works it. First I give Helen, that's the blonde one, a ring and then right bang on top of that I has the call switched over to Gracie's flat – ."

"Life," thought the harassed Peter Neale, "is just one bedtime story after another."

In the Spring a long swing around the baseball training camps took Peter away for almost two months and another month and a half went in a fruitless journey to Juarez to wait for a fight which never happened. It was June when Peter returned and to his horror he found that the child had picked up theology in his absence. A storm helped the discovery. The roll of the thunder was still a long way off when Peter called it to Pat's attention. "We're going to have a thunderstorm," he said.

"No, we're not," answered the child. "Thunder storms only come when you're bad."

"What's that?" asked Peter.

"A thunderstorm's God showing his ankle," explained Pat.

This did not seem a dogma altogether iron clad and yet it worried Peter.

"Thunder's got nothing to do with you're being bad," he told Pat. "If that was it we'd have thunder all the time. Thunder's nothing to be afraid of. It's just somebody up the sky saying 'Booh' at you for fun."

"God lives up in the sky."

"How do you know that? Did you see him?"

"Yes," said Pat stoutly.

That made the question difficult to argue.

"All right," continued Peter. "Call him God if you want to. Anyhow, when it's thunder he's just saying 'Booh' at you and if you get scared you haven't got any sense. Remember that's what thunder is. Just somebody named God saying 'Booh.'"

"No, it isn't."

"Well, you tell me then."

"When it's thunder," said Pat, pointing up the street in the direction of Central Park, "it's a big giant in the trees."

The child paused. "A blind giant," he added.

Peter stared at him and wondered whether the phrase and figure were his own or whether he had picked them up from Kate. Later Peter took occasion to ask her and she denied it. "God's ankle," she admitted but only after revision. "You know, Mr. Neale, it's the way he has of getting things twisted in his little head. You understand now it was 'God's anger' I was a telling him."

"Oh, I knew that all right, Kate. I knew he made up the ankle part of it. But you're sure you didn't tell him anything about thunder and a giant in the trees – a blind giant."

"No, sir."

Peter got to thinking things over and began to remember what Vonnie had said concerning the future of Pat. He was worried. This idolatry of the Red Bat who sang on the phonograph he didn't like. After this it would have to be somebody else who knocked David down. Sandow Mertes maybe. Then there was this blind giant in the trees. He didn't mind Pat's growing up to be a poet. That would fit into the column nicely enough, but not wild poetry. The thing had to be kept in bounds or there wasn't any way to syndicate it. Still the next column of "Looking Them Over" which Peter wrote contained a little poem somewhat outside his usual manner. It was called, "The Big Blind Giant."

Three days later the syndicate manager on the Bulletin called up Peter. "We've got six telegrams already about that poem of yours," he said. "The one about the big blind giant running around and hitting his head against the trees."

"What's the matter with it?" asked Peter aggressively.

"Nothing at all, Peter, they all say it's great. All but that sporting editor of the Des Moines Register – you know him, Caleb Powers?"

"No, I don't know him. What's he say?"

"He just gives the name of the poem and then he says in his telegram, 'Don't tell me the answer, I want to guess.'"

"Five out of six is plenty," said Peter. "And say, Bill, where do you suppose I got the idea from?"

"Where?"

"From my kid – Peter Neale, 2nd. He isn't four yet, but you see I've got him working for the Bulletin already."

CHAPTER XVII

Pat furnished copy for Peter again within a month. Kate came in from the Park all breathless with an account of a fight between the child and his friend and playmate Bobby, last name not given.

"It was about an engine," explained Kate. "Bobby give it to Pat and then he wanted to take it away again. Before we could get to them Pat hit Bobby in the mouth so hard it made his mouth bleed. And that Bobby, him almost six years old. And a head taller than Pat. He bled something terrible, Mr. Neale. First I thought it was just Bobby's blood on Pat's hand, but it kept on and when I looked closer there was all the skin off of the knuckles of Pat. It must have been the teeth of that Bobby when Pat hit him. I'll be putting iodine on it this very minute if you'll watch till I get back, Mr. Neale."

"Put down that engine and come here, Pat," said Peter.

"I can't hear you."

"Yes, you can. I said put down that engine. Nobody's going to take it away from you. Not just now, anyway. It's not yours but I suppose you've won it. Come here, I want to see your hand."

Very reluctantly Pat placed the engine on the sofa and advanced slowly.

"It's all red," he said.

Peter took off the handkerchief. "Nonsense," he said, "you haven't more than scratched it."

He was about to dismiss the matter from his mind and start for the office when he noticed something he'd overlooked. "Kate, Kate," cried Peter in great excitement, "this hand that Pat cut hitting that boy is his left hand."

"Yes, 'tis his left hand he'd be using all the time when I'm not noticing him," said Kate, returning with the iodine. "That's where the strength is. It'll be hard to teach him out of it."

"I don't want him taught out of it, Kate. Don't you ever try to stop him. It's bad to try to change children around. Anyway I don't want him changed. This is fine for him. When he grows up and plays baseball he'll be two steps nearer first base and besides the swing will throw him into his stride. Maybe you don't know what I'm talking about, Kate, but remember I want him to stay a left-hander."

Peter went down to the office and wrote, "There seems to be no shadow of doubt from which hope can spring – I am the father of a southpaw." He nursed the theme and the incident along for almost a column, and there were other by-products of comfort. In the City Room Peter ran into Deane Taylor, the venerable music critic of the Bulletin.

"Mr. Taylor," he asked, "did you ever see a left-handed violin player?"

"No, Peter," said the old man, "there's no such thing. Of course there might be left-handed piano players, but certainly all the fiddlers and all the conductors are right-handed. Come to think of it, I don't know any left-handed musicians at all. But if you're writing something about that you better ask somebody else. I might be wrong. You see I've never gone into music from that angle."

"No," replied Peter, "this is just something I'm interested in personally. Your impression's good enough for me. You don't have to prove it. Thank you very much."

Peter went away greatly pleased. "There's one of Vonnie's guesses gone wrong anyhow," he said.

From his observations of professional baseball, Peter had worked out the theory that lefthanders were more difficult to handle than anybody else. There was Rube Waddell for instance. Peter had seen him call the outfielders in for the ninth inning and retire the side with only an infield behind him. And everybody knew about the way Rube used to disappear every now and then during the middle of a season and go fishing. Only the day before he had had a Rube Waddell story in his column. It was about Rube and the animal crackers. The man who told Peter said the story came straight from Connie Mack and that there was no doubt about its being true. Ollie Shreck, Rube's regular catcher, wouldn't sign a contract one season. When they asked him the trouble he said, "They always put me in to room with Rube on the road. Maybe they think I understand him after catching him so much. Well, Mr. Mack, I won't sign no contract unless you put in a clause that Rube can't eat animal crackers in our bed."

Pat lived up to most of Peter's theories about southpaws. Before the child had quite turned four Peter discovered that Kate had no control over him. She had given him a little theology but no discipline. The facts came out through her complaint that Pat wouldn't eat any of the things which he was supposed to eat. A doctor called in to attend a passing cold had remained to suggest a diet. He was horrified to learn that Kate had allowed the child to eat meat two or three times a day, with the exception of Friday, just as she did.

"Your child is just about one ton behind in spinach," said Dr. Whiting to Peter. "He's got to catch up, but there won't be any particular trouble about that. He's pretty sure to like spinach. All children do. And I want him to have more milk."

Peter found upon inquiry that Pat had never known spinach. "I don't like it," explained Kate.

"Well, he's got to have a lot of it," said Peter. "I want you to start right in today."

The report next morning was unsatisfactory. "How did the spinach go?" asked Peter. "He wouldn't eat any of it," answered Kate. "He said he didn't like it."

"How could he tell he didn't like it if he didn't eat any," objected Peter sharply.

"I don't know. But he said he didn't like it. He threw the plate on the floor."

"How about the milk?"

"He wouldn't drink any."

"Didn't you tell him that he had to."

"I did that, Mr. Neale. I told him God wouldn't love him if he didn't eat his nice spinach and that, begging your pardon, sir, you'd cry."

"Today," said Peter with a certain magnificence, "I'll stay home and eat lunch with him myself. And for lunch we'll have just spinach and milk."

"Well, well," said Peter, with great gusto as lunch was served, "isn't this fine – milk and spinach. Kate, how did you know just what we wanted?"

"I don't want any lunch," said Pat.

"No spinach?"

Pat did not deign a reply.

"What do you want?"

"I want crackerjack and ice cream."

"Spinach is what you're going to get."

Pat began to cry, but Peter found that it was only a sign of rage and not of weakness. The child's refusal remained steadfast. Finally, Peter spanked him for the first time in his life. It was not a success. Pat cried a lot more but he ate no spinach. Press of other work kept Peter from pursuing the problem for three days, during which time the child reverted to his old diet. In a second personally conducted test, Peter Neale managed to induce Pat both to drink milk and eat spinach, but it was not exactly a triumph. The result was gained by strategy, which was ingenious but also abject. Moreover, it was almost wholly accidental. Driven desperate by an unyielding stubbornness, Peter at length lost his temper and shouted at the child. "All right then, don't eat any spinach. I won't let you eat any spinach."

Pat scowled and, reaching all the way across the table, helped himself to a large spoonful. "I'm eating spinach," he said, "I'm eating it right now."

The only thing of which Peter had a right to boast was that he did not allow any false pride to stand between him and the object which he sought. He was quick to seize his opportunity. Pat's seeming free will was harnessed to serve the predetermined purposes of an ego less powerful but more unscrupulous.

"Maybe you are eating a little spinach," said Peter, "but I guess you won't dare take any milk when I tell you not to."

Pat fell into the trap. "Look at me now, Peter, I'm drinking it all up."

Once he learned the method Peter became a strict disciplinarian. Almost invariably Pat disobeyed with alacrity when he heard the stalwart and ringing command, "Now, Pat, I don't want you to go to bed and I don't want you to go this very minute." Of course the thing became a little complicated. Even after much practice Peter used to get somewhat mixed up over such instructions as, "No, the nightgown I don't want you to wear is the one over there."

The eating problem was subjected to still further complexities. Peter was shrewd enough to realize that the scheme of indirect discourse might become strained beyond all usefulness if employed too much. Pat conformed and yet it became evident at length that he saw through the trickery. On his fifth birthday, for instance, at his party he made no rush for the ice cream which was placed before him but looked up plaintively and said, "Peter, why don't you tell me not to eat my ice cream."

Accordingly, other games were invented. The milk race proved generally useful but rules had to be devised to prevent Pat from going too fast. Eventually the contest was introduced by Peter as "a slow milk race." In order to prevent Pat from choking to death he would cry every now and then "Measure!" At that signal both would lower their glasses and set one against the other on the table. Pat took over the announcing of these results. He used only one decision – "I'm ahead" – and this bore no accurate relation to the actual quantity of milk in the two glasses.

As a matter of fact, the milk race never was a very sporting proposition. Pat always won and as the practice continued he began to demand new guarantees of success. "You mustn't start till I'm through, Peter," he would say. "I want to win." Peter also hit upon the device of serving Pat with nothing but "special milk." His own came out of the same bottle but had no title. Nobody but Pat was supposed under any circumstances to be allowed to touch "special milk." The story, circulated by Peter, was that the cow wouldn't like it.

Another incentive to appetite was playing burglar. This game was also one of Peter's inventions, but Pat eventually became the aggressor. "You must be asleep," he would say, "and I must be a burglar and come along and steal some of your spinach. Shut your eyes."

Even years afterward Peter could never look at spinach without blinking.

Kate was not very apt at any of the eating games and the result was that Peter found himself more bound to the flat than ever. Now he seldom got down to the office except during the hours between lunch and dinner. The feeding and more particularly, the urging of Pat came to be almost a regular duty. Peter was never quite sure whether he liked or hated these activities. Although they were confining and arduous he got an undeniable satisfaction out of them. He was succeeding with something a good deal more personal than a syndicate. He was succeeding where Kate, the mother of five or six, had failed.