44
“HOW MUCH LEFT?” HERBIE SAID, as we drove away from the drugstore.
“How much what?”
“Money,” Herbie said.
I shrugged, and handed him all the dimes I had, and the few dollar bills the drugstore hadn’t been able to change.
“You’re in luck,” Herbie said. “Fifteen dollars.”
“Why am I in luck?”
“Make your next left, and the left after that.”
I followed his directions, and came to the E-Z Car Rental. Lowest Rates on Compacts and Other Fine Cars.
I parked. “What are we doing?”
“Getting a new car,” Herbie said. “They’ll take fifteen dollars here as a deposit.”
We got out and went inside and talked to H. Lewis, Prop. It turned out he wouldn’t take fifteen dollars as the deposit. He would take fifty dollars, and not a penny less.
“We don’t have fifty dollars,” Herbie said patiently.
“That’s it, then,” Mr. Lewis said, behind the counter.
“Come on,” Herbie said. “Give us a break.”
“Sorry.”
“Come on. We’ll leave the VW with you.”
Mr. Lewis looked out the window at Herbie’s VW. “Probably hot,” he said.
“Come on,” Herbie said. “Who’d steal a VW?” The man squinted at him. “Look,” Herbie said, “I’ve got the registration for it and everything. It’s not stolen. Give us a car for fifteen.”
“No.”
“Come on, Mister, we got dates tonight, and if we don’t get there…”
“Use your VW.”
“We can’t. It’s overheating. It’ll blow out on us if we drive any farther.”
The man sighed. We both tried to look as pitiable as possible. Finally he said, “Where’re the girls from?”
“What girls?”
“Your dates.”
“Oh. Currier College.”
Mr. Lewis sighed. His face softened. He looked at me, then at Herbie, and he smiled.
“Currier College, eh?” His smile got broader.
“Yeah,” we both smiled. “Currier College.”
“Heh, heh, good old Currier,” he said, beginning to chuckle and shake his head with memories.
“Yeah, right, good old Currier,” we both said, chuckling.
He was laughing openly now. “No wonder you want a bigger car,” he said. “Got to have a bigger car.”
“Yeah, right, got to be bigger.” He was laughing and shaking his head as he gave us the keys. “I remember how it was, I sure do,” he said. Herbie started filling out the forms. “Just remember, boys, no stains on the back seat. I don’t want to see any stains.”
45
FORTY-THREE CRESCENT DRIVE IN Ackley was not in a run-down neighborhood, but it wasn’t spiffy, either. The house was small. There was a faded, red, 1956 Ford sedan in the driveway, and Murphy’s Narc Special, the green one, parked in the street out front.
Down the street some kids were playing stickball. The Murphy house was quiet. As the evening grew darker, a small boy of five or six came out and rode his bicycle around the house, down the drive, and into the street. As we watched, he joined the stickball game.
We were parked a couple of houses up, in what Herbie called our “inconspicuous” car, a canary-yellow Corvair with one front headlamp knocked out. It was all we had been able to get for fifteen dollars but at least, as he kept saying, it wasn’t the VW.
About half an hour passed. It was now quite dark. Pretty soon Murphy came out, his jacket off, his tie loosened. In one hand he held his dinner napkin. He came out into the street and looked up and down, then whistled once, shrilly.
He waited, looking up and down. He whistled again.
And then his son came back, pedaling furiously, and I thought, That poor, scared kid, with an old man like that. And the kid streaked up the drive, jumped off his bike, and ran up to his father, who bent over and scooped him up, and hugged him while the kid beamed, and they both went inside.
“Well, he can’t be all bad,” Herbie said.
“Don’t be a sucker,” I said.
We waited another hour. I got to thinking about the writer who said you are what you pretend to be. I’d thought about that and decided it was wrong, that you became what you were least afraid of becoming; and that was a much more dangerous thing, because it was much more basic and much more subtle. You are what you are least afraid of becoming…
I’d had some good times with that theory. It had led me to believe that no one could even imagine what it was that he really wanted unless he first lost the fear of his own imagination. And he couldn’t begin to do that without an opportunity. I mean, you can’t expect the president of Dow Chemical to suddenly go out and join the peace marchers. He simply hasn’t got time to think about such things. He’s the president, for Christ’s sake—all he wants to know is if the marches are hurting the sale of Saran Wrap. And in the same light, you can’t expect Huey Newton to join the police force next chance he gets, because it’s not exactly his trip.
So I devised a little scheme whereby everyone in the country, for one day out of each month, had to assume the role of the person or persons whose station and intellect he feared most. It was quite delightful, figuring out what everyone’s role would be. J. Edgar Hoover spent the day stoned in a commune in Arizona. Spiro Agnew had to hawk copies of Muhammed Speaks in front of Grand Central Station. Radical student politicos took over the police departments of the nation. Lester Maddox shined shoes in Watts. Walter Hickel dropped acid in the Grand Canyon. Julius Hoffman served Panther breakfasts to school children in S.F. And Richard Nixon was allowed to do anything in the world that he wanted to do, so long as he did it right.
“Oh-oh,” Herbie said.
I sat up straighter in the seat. It was quite dark now; the street and the neighborhood were completely silent. Murphy was coming out of his house. He had his jacket back on, but no briefcase. And no other baggage.
I frowned as I watched. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Herbie.
Murphy got into the red car, backed out, and headed down the road, with us behind.
46
HE WENT NORTH AND TURNED off at the Roxbury exit. That was a little bit of a surprise, but not much. Roxbury was as good a place as any.
While I drove, I said to Herbie, “You got the Baggies?”
“Yeah.”
“And the piece?”
“Yeah. All set.” Then he giggled.
“What’s funny?”
“I’m nervous,” Herbie said.
I was nervous, too. We could get really fucked up doing this cops-and-robbers riff.
Murphy turned onto Mass Avenue, still going north. He drove past the hospital, then turned right on Columbia.
“Maybe he’s getting a little action,” Herbie said, and giggled again.
“Will you cut that out?” I said.
“Sorry.”
Murphy drove up Columbia. He went straight past the hookers without even slowing down.
Herbie said, “Slow down.”
“Why?”
“I want to look.”
“Shit, Herbie.” I kept going, right after Murphy. He went up five blocks, and turned right again, onto a side street, where he parked. I parked and watched as he got out of his car, walked around to the back, opened the trunk, and removed a large suitcase.
“Far out,” I said, to no one in particular.
Herbie started to get out of the car to follow Murphy, but I pushed him back. “My turn,” I said. I got out and followed him down the street a short distance, then watched as he climbed the steps of one of the old brownstones. He kicked aside some broken glass, which clinked down the steps to the sidewalk. I paused a moment, then followed him up, my shoes making a crunching sound on the glass.