Going Away by Clancy Sigal

Author:Clancy Sigal [Sigal, Clancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-3705-0
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-07-10T15:35:00+00:00

Johnny came running back out of the plant against the stream of incomers, cracking jokes all the way. Here, too, he was popular. He jumped into the De Soto and laughed, “Le’s go to my place and drink up a storm.” I felt like telling Johnny that I didn’t feel so good, but it wouldn’t have made much difference if I had, he would only have slapped my back and said, Li’l ol’ drink fix that up fine, or Boy, how come you takin’ yawsef so seriously nowadays. And then he would break up into that beautiful, melodious unexpected laughter of his, that I could remember even after all these years.

We drove out to where he lived, an old and rather handsome south Illinois house with gables. A Caterpillar factory family owned the house, and Johnny had a room on the ground floor at the back. I parked the car and we went in. Johnny went through to his room without introducing me to the woman in the kitchen or her teen-age son. They seemed to accept Johnny as one of the family. He shut the door and said, “Waal, boy, le’s see if you c’n still drink.” He pulled a bottle of bourbon out of an old battered suitcase under his bed, brought out two glasses and we sat around with it. I really wasn’t very sure he did remember me, clearly. Memory worked in a funny way with Johnny, striking him about three weeks after every one else. Abstractions always had been beyond him; but when he did remember it was the color of your hat, how you felt on a particular day, that kind of thing.

“Waal,” he said, “passing through?” I said yes. He said, “As usual not knowin’ where.” I laughed and said yes. “Hell, boy,” he said, “when are you goin’ to settle down?” I said, When you do. He said, “I’m as settled now as I’ll ever be.” He drank off a slug of whiskey. After some silence he said, “Le’s find out what happened to everyone. How long you been out of touch?”

I said, A long time. He asked quietly, “Ever see any of ’em?” I said that by accident I had run into Tod, a few years ago, working in a G.E. plant in Schenectady, New York; he was writing off and on and had a woman somewhere in town. Johnny said he had lost complete touch with Tod. Matt, he said, was in prison, on a Smith Act charge. I said I had later news, that Matt’s lawyer had sprung him on an appeal. “No,” said Johnny, “I been keepin’ pretty good track. They tried to get him out on appeal, but the gov’mint lawyeh says Matt is dangerous to American institutions, so’s he’s theah all right. Alma may-ter. Leavenworth.

“I go to visit him,” Johnny said, “every month or so.” He opened his bureau drawer and took out a stack of letters. “We write.” I asked Johnny if they weren’t out for him too, and he smiled and said, “Who? Me? Ah’m too small fry.

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