The Best American Noir of the Century

Clark’s will handle any kid and you can leave the love out of it so long as you lay the money on the line. Then the brat is taken care of so far as his parents are concerned, and he has the prestige of a fancy Clark uniform.

There wasn’t another school in the state that would have taken me, public or private, after looking at my record. But when old man Clark had dough-ray-me clutched in his right fist he was blind to records like that. Well, that’s the kind of a bunch we were.

Well, as I say, I was watching this glutton stuff eggs down his gullet which he thought was a smart thing to do even though he got a bellyache afterward, when the guy on my right said:

“I see Tommy Smith is going to hang.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s rotten, ain’t it?”

“Rotten?” he replied. “It’s wonderful. It’s what that rat has coming to him.”

“Listen,” said I, “one more crack like that and I’ll smack your stinking little face in.”

“You and how many others?” he said.

“Just me,” I said, “and if you want to come outside I’ll do it right now.”

The kid who was table captain yelled: “Hey, you two pipe down. What’s the argument anyway?”

“They’re going to hang Tommy Smith,” I said, “and I think it’s a dirty rotten shame. He’s as innocent as a babe in the woods.”

“Ha-ha,” said the table captain, “you’re just bothered about Marie Smith.”

“Skirt crazy! Skirt crazy!” mumbled the guy stuffing down the eggs.

I threw my water in his face, then I got up, facing the table captain and the guy on my right. “Listen,” I said, “Tommy Smith is innocent. I was there an hour before the murder happened, wasn’t I? What do you loudmouthed half-wits think you know about it? All you morons know is what you read in the papers. Tommy didn’t do it. I should know, shouldn’t I? I was right there in the house before it happened. I’ve been around there plenty since. I’ve talked to the detectives.”

I sat down, plenty mad. I sat down because I had seen a faculty officer coming into the dining room. We all kept still until he walked on through. Then the table captain sneered and said:

“Tommy Smith is a dirty stinker. He’s the one that killed his father all right. He stuck a knife right through his back!”

“A lie! A lie!” I screamed.

“How do you know it’s a lie?”

“Well, I — I know, that’s all,” I said.

“Yeah, you know! Listen to him! You know! That’s hot. I think I’ll laugh!”

“Damn it,” I said. “I do know!”

“How? How? Tell us that!”

“Well, maybe I did it. What do you think about that?”

“You!” shouted the table captain. “A little fourteen-year-old wart like you killing anybody! Ha!”

“Aw, go to hell,” I said, “that’s what you can do. Go straight to hell!”

“A little wart like you killing anybody,” the table captain kept saying, and he was holding his sides and laughing.

* * *

All that Monday I felt pretty bad thinking about Tommy, what a really swell guy he had been, always laughing, always having a pat on the back for you. I knew he must be in a cell up in San Quentin now, waiting, counting the hours, maybe hearing them build his scaffold.

I imagine a guy doesn’t feel so hot waiting for a thing like that, pacing in a cell, smoking up cigarettes, wondering what it’s like when you’re dead. I’ve read some about it. I read about Two Gun Crowley, I think it was, who went to the chair with his head thrown back and his chest out like he was proud of it. But there must have been something underneath, and Crowley, at least, knew that he had it coming to him. The real thing must be different than what you read in the papers. It must be pretty awful.

But in spite of all this I had sense enough to stay away from Marie all day. I could easily have gone to her house, which was across the street from the campus, but I knew that she and her sister, Ruth, and that Duff Ryan, the young detective who had made the arrest — because, as he said, he thought it was his duty — had counted on the commutation of sentence. They figured they’d have plenty of time to clear up some angles of the case which had been plenty shaky even in court. No, sir. Sweet Marie would be in no mood for my consolation, and besides I was sick of saying the same things over and over and watching her burst into tears every time I mentioned Tommy’s name.

I sat in the study hall Monday evening thinking about the whole thing. Outside the window I could see the stars crystal clear; and though it was warm in the classroom I could feel the cold of the air in the smoky blue of the night, so that I shivered. When they marched us into the dormitory at eight-thirty, Simmons, the mess captain, started razzing me about Tommy being innocent again, and I said:

“Listen, putrid, you wanta get hurt?”

“No,” he said, then he added: “Sore head.”

“You’ll have one sore face,” I said, “if you don’t shut that big yap of yours.”

There was no more said, and when I went to bed and the lights went off I lay there squirming while that fat-cheeked Pushton staggered through taps with his bugle. I was glad that Myers had bugle duty tomorrow and I wouldn’t have to listen to Pushton.