Rich Man, Poor Man

“I suppose you’ll want to take some sort of holiday first,” Calderwood said. “I don’t blame you. What do you want—two weeks, a month?”

“I’ll be here at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” Rudolph stood up.

Calderwood smiled, a flare of unconvincing dentures. “I hope I’m not making a mistake,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

He was turning over his unfinished letter and picking up his fountain pen with his big, square hand, as Rudolph left the office.

As he went through the store Rudolph walked slowly, looking around at the counters, the clerks, the customers, with a new, appraising, owning eye. At the doorway, he stopped, took off his cheap watch and put on the new one.

Brad was dozing at the wheel in the sunlight. He sat up as Rudolph got into the car. “Anything new?” he asked, as he started the engine.

“The old man gave me a present.” Rudolph held up his hand to display the watch.

“He’s got a soft heart,” Brad said, as they pulled away from the curb.

“One hundred and fifteen dollars,” Rudolph said, “at the watch counter. Fifty dollars wholesale.” He didn’t say anything about reporting to work at nine o’clock in the morning. Calderwood’s was not overflowing country.

Mary Pease Jordache sat at the window looking down at the street, waiting for Rudolph. He had promised he’d come right home after the Commencement exercises to show her his degree. It would have been nice to arrange some sort of party for him, but she didn’t have the energy. Besides, she didn’t know any of his friends. It wasn’t that he wasn’t popular. The phone was always ringing and young voices would say, “This is Charlie,” or, “This is Brad, is Rudy in?” But somehow he never seemed to bring any of them home. Just as well. It wasn’t much of a home. Two dark rooms over a dry-goods store on a treeless, bare side street. She was doomed to live her life out over stores. And there was a Negro family living right smack across the street from them. Black faces at the window staring at her. Pickani

She lit a cigarette, her hand shaking, and brushed inaccurately at the ashes from former cigarettes on her shawl. It was a warm June day, but she felt better with her shawl.

Well, Rudolph had made it, despite everything. A college graduate, holding his head high, any man’s match. Thank God for Theodore Boylan. She had never met him, but Rudolph had explained what an intelligent, generous man he was. It was no more than Rudolph deserved, though. With his ma

She really ought to have done something special for this day. Baked a cake, gone down and bought a bottle of wine. But the effort of descending and climbing the stairs, making herself presentable for the neighbors … Rudolph would understand. Anyway, he was going to New York that afternoon to be with his friends. Let the old lady sit alone at the window, she thought with sudden bitterness. Even the best of them.

She saw the car turn the corner into the street, its tires squealing, going too fast. She saw Rudolph, his black hair blowing, young Prince. She saw well at a distance, better than ever, but close-up was another story. She had given up reading because it was too much of a strain, her eyes kept changing, no glasses seemed to help for more than a few weeks at a time, old eyes. She was under fifty, but her eyes were dying before her. She let the tears overflow.

The car stopped below her and Rudolph leaped out. Grace, grace. In a fine blue suit. He had a figure for clothes, slender, with wide shoulders and long legs. She pulled back from the window. He had never said anything, but she knew he didn’t like her sitting at the window all day peering out.

She stood up, with an effort, dried her eyes with the edge of her shawl, and hobbled over to a chair near the table which they used for eating. She stubbed out her cigarette as she heard him bounding up the steps.

He opened the door and came in. “Well,” he said, “here it is.” He opened the roll of paper and spread it on the table in front of her. “It’s in Latin,” he said.

She could read his name, in Gothic script.

The tears came again. “I wish I knew your father’s address,” she said. “I’d like him to see this, see what you did without any help from him.”

“Ma,” Rudolph said gently, “he’s dead.”

“That’s what he likes people to believe,” she said. “I know him better than anybody. He’s not dead, he escaped.”

“Ma …” Rudolph said again.

“He’s laughing up his sleeve right this minute,” she said. “They never found the body, did they?”

“Have it your own way,” Rudolph said. “I have to pack a bag. I’m staying in town overnight.” He went into his room and started to throw some shaving things and a pair of pajamas and a clean shirt into a bag. “You got everything you need? Supper?”

“I’ll open a can,” she said. “You going to drive down with that boy in the car?”

“Yes,” he said. “Brad.”

“He’s the one from Oklahoma? The Westerner?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like the way he drives. He’s reckless. I don’t trust Westerners. Why don’t you take the train?”

“What’s the sense in spending money for the train?”

“What good will your money do you if you’re killed, trapped under a car?”

“Ma …”

“And you’ll make plenty of money now. A boy like you. With this.” She, smoothed the stiff paper with the Latin lettering. “Do you ever think of what would happen to me if anything happened to you?”

“Nothing will happen to me.” He clipped the bag shut. He was in a hurry. She saw he was in a hurry. Leave her by the window.

“They will throw me on the garbage heap, like a dog,” she said.

“Ma,” he said, “this is a day for celebration. Rejoicing.”

“I’ll have this framed,” she said. “Enjoy yourself. You earned it. Don’t stay up too late. Where’re you staying in New York? Do you have the phone number, in case there’s an emergency?”

“There won’t be any emergency.”

“In case.”

“Gretchen’s,” he said.

“The harlot,” she said. They did not talk about Gretchen, although she knew he saw her.

“Oh, Christ,” he said. She had gone too far, and she knew it, but she had to make her position clear.

He leaned over and kissed her to say goodbye and to make up for the “Oh, Christ.” She held him. She had doused herself with the toilet water he had bought her for her birthday. She was afraid she smelled like an old woman. “You haven’t told me what your plans were,” she said. “Now your life is really begi

“Tomorrow, Ma. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. Don’t worry.” He kissed her again and she released him and he was gone, lightfooted, down the stairs. She got up and hobbled over to the window and sat down in her rocking chair, old lady at the window. Let him see her.