Tom frowned. “Not exactly loyalty. They have some courses here I want.”
Tide laughed. “I remember. You and the little green growing things that have to be protected from the dust and floods. Hell, on the reputation you’ll pile up at S.I.U. you will be able to grab a job where you can learn that gunk out in the field. Why keep hitting your head on the books?”
“Why didn’t your friend come to me?”
“Well,” Tide said slowly, “I told him that you might be a shade touchy. Why all the questions? You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”
“I... I guess I better think it over, Tide.”
“And while you’re thinking, just remember what those babies are going to do to you next Saturday without Tide Wallinger, that famous blocking back, to keep their greasy hands off you. Tomorrow I visit the dean with tears in my eyes.”
“Are you going to hang around town?”
“Until you make up your mind. If it’s yes, I contact a little man who gives me the roll which I pass on to you, maybe with a ten percent agent’s cut.”
“And what if it’s no, Tide?”
Tide shrugged. “Will it be no? Ask the little woman. Last time I saw her, she had a hungry look. Just a little beat.”
Tom clamped a lid on his anger. “I’ll let you know.” He got up heavily, walked out of Hogan’s and went home.
During dinner he said little to Carol Ann, but he watched her. Her gayety seemed forced. He felt uncomfortable, realizing that the proposition relayed by Tide was the first thing he had ever kept from her. And yet he wanted to make up his mind alone, without her aid.
As they sat at the table after dinner, she said, “Darling, I love to have you come home to dinner, and it was nice that Robertson let us arrange it this way to give us a little home life during the season, but I really think we could feed a horse cheaper. If you would please eat at the training table, darling, I think we would save over five dollars a week, at least. Probably more.”
“She’s getting tired of me,” Tom said mournfully.
“I hoped you wouldn’t find out.”
And so a joke was made of it. He wondered what had caused her to give up when she had fought for it so hard in the beginning of the season. After dinner when she handed him the letter, he knew.
It was from something called the Doctors’ Credit Bureau and it said in a very cold manner that their account in the amount of so-and-so had been turned over to the Bureau for collection as it had been inactive for over a sixty-day period and would Mr. Lamar please write immediately and tell them what he intended to do to pay off the amount owing.
He crumpled the letter and threw it toward the wastebasket. He felt bleak and cold. Before, he had shrunk when he thought of how Gunner Robertson would react to his leaving school just as the season was well under way. Now it did not matter too much about Robertson.
Nothing mattered except any move which would save them from further shame.
“That does it!” he said hoarsely.
“Does what, darling?”
“That puts us on a fine little easy street from here on in.”
He told her about the proposition and as he talked, she watched him with grave eyes, her clenched hand at her mouth, tapping her thumbnail against her teeth.
When he was quite through, she said calmly, “But it isn’t what we want!”
“Is this what we want?” he asked, making a gesture that included the flimsy apartment, the mud where there should have been grass, the look in Endry’s eyes.
“This is the way to get what we want, Tom. That other way is no good. No good at all.”
“But I can’t keep doing this to you, Carol Ann. I’m married to you. Remember? Don’t you think I want to buy you nice things? Don’t you think I want to see you without those two little worry wrinkles between your eyebrows? What the hell kind of a life is this for you and the kid?”
“It’s a good life because it leads to what we want, Tom. Can’t you understand that? We’ll get through somehow.”
“But will we? How long can we go without having fun? Wouldn’t you like to go dancing? Wouldn’t you like to eat out?”
“But it won’t last long, darling.”
“It’s been endless already and there’s nearly two more years of it. I’m damn well sick of it right now. I’m sick of this... this—” Again he made the gesture.
All of the fight suddenly went out of her. He saw the look of weary resignation. “Whatever you decide to do will be all right with me, Tom,” she said dully.
He stood up. “Oh, fine! You’re really thrilled, aren’t you?”
He walked out, slammed the door behind him. His anger lasted for about two blocks. Then he felt miserable. It was their first real quarrel, and it was heavy within him.
He made his rounds of the furnaces, walked heavily home. She was standing in the dark in the kitchen, looking out the window.
He went to her, put his big hands on her slim shoulders and turned her around, pulled her into his arms. She came willingly enough, and he felt her shake with the sobs she muffled against the front of his jacket.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he whispered.
“So am I. Maybe — maybe you’re right. Maybe we aren’t — aren’t strong enough, Tom.”
He kissed her, tasted the salt of her tears on her lips.
Gunner Robertson was a tall, grave man who dressed like a bookkeeper. His coat pocket bulged with pencils and pens. There was scurf on his dark shoulders and a somber look in his eyes. He was a strategist, a tactician of high order. His greatest delight came from engineering an upset through the use of a play so unexpected as to demoralize the opposition.
He sat behind his desk in the small office on the third floor of the gym. He held a broken pencil in his strong hands and, with a ridged thumbnail, he was picking the wood slowly away from the buried lead.
Tom Lamar sat in the straight chair across the desk. It was noon on Monday.
Robertson sighed. “You know, Lamar, I wouldn’t be happy coaching that kind of an outfit. Of course the pay is terrific. That would be nice. But I guess I’m partisan to lost causes. I like to get there lastest with the leastest, and still win.”
Tom flushed. “What coaching? Where?”
Robertson looked at him with amusement. “Why at S.I.U., lad! Where else? You and Wallinger are naturals for them. You fill the slots where they’re a shade weak, if an outfit like that can ever be weak. I listened to Wallinger’s little tale of woe. According to him he’s on the verge of a complete breakdown Poor boy. The coat he was wearing was so new I looked for the price tag. And now you, Lamar. Tch, tch, tch!”
Tom felt uncomfortable “I’m sorry I lied to you, sir, I should have known that I’d be better off telling the truth. I know you can raise hell with them through the proper channels, but that’s about all. They want the two of us or either of us. I... I’ve had it rough and their offer will straighten me out, me and the wife and kid.”
Robertson threw the pencil aside, swiveled the chair so he could look out the window “I don’t blame you. Lamar. It’s your life. Football isn’t too bad a career. I’ve liked it so far. You ought to make a good coach when you’re older.”
“That isn’t what I had planned to be.”
“That’s about all you’ll be trained for, Lamar.”
“I can’t think of myself in this. There are — other considerations.”
“I understand that, too. I’m not begging for anything, Lamar. But if it’s possible I would like to have you hang around until the Southern Mines game is over this Saturday. We won’t win, but I’d like to put a few dents in them.”