“Far as I know, nope. Officially an accident. No witnesses to say otherwise.”
Officer Blake said, “You boys stay out here. And, Morris, you behave yourself.”
My father asked, “Is it okay if my son uses your bathroom, Cleve?”
“Sure,” the officer answered. He unlocked the metal door in the back wall and led my father through.
I didn’t have to use the bathroom. It had simply been a ruse to get inside the jail. I was afraid Doyle might make a point of it, but he didn’t seem at all interested.
Jake stood staring hard at Engdahl. Staring knives.
“What are you looking at, retard?”
“He’s not retarded,” I said.
“Yeah and your sister’s not a harelip and your old man’s not a friggin’ pussy.” He laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
I asked Doyle, “What did you mean about Bobby?”
He was tall and lean and looked tough as jerky. He wore his hair in a crew cut and his head was shiny with sweat from the heat of the night. He had ears every bit as big as Jake’s but he wasn’t the kind of guy anybody in their right mind would dare call Howdy Doody. He said, “You know him?”
“Yes.”
“Nice kid, right? But slow.”
“Slow enough he couldn’t get out of the way of that train,” Engdahl said.
“Shut up, Engdahl.” Doyle looked back at me. “You play on the tracks?”
“No,” I lied.
He looked at Jake. “You?”
“No,” I answered for Jake.
“Good thing. Because there are bums down there. Men not like the decent folks in New Bremen. You ever get approached by one of them men you come straight here and tell me. Ask for Officer Doyle.”
“You think that’s what happened to Bobby?” I was thunderstruck. It would never have occurred to me that his death wasn’t an accident. But then I wasn’t a trained policeman like Officer Doyle.
He began popping the knuckles of his fingers one by one. “I’m just saying you watch out for guys drifting along those tracks. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Goblins’ll get you if you don’t watch out,” Engdahl said. “They love tender meat like you and Retard.”
Doyle stood up. He walked to the cell and motioned Morris Engdahl to come to the bars. Engdahl drew his whole self onto the bench and pressed to the wall.
“That’s what I thought,” Doyle said.
The metal door opened and Officer Blake came out. My father followed. He supported Gus who was stumbling. Gus seemed drunker than Engdahl but there wasn’t a mark on him.
“You’re really letting him go?” Engdahl said. “That’s friggin’ unfair.”
“I called your father,” the officer said. “He told me a night in jail would do you good. Take it up with him.”
“Get the door, Frank,” my father said and then looked at the officer. “Thank you, Cleve. I appreciate this.”
“Keeps things around here simpler. But, Gus, you’ve got to watch yourself. The chief’s at the end of his rope with you.”
Gus grinned drunkenly. “He wantsa talk to me, tell him I’ll be happy to discuss it over a beer.”
I held the door and my father hauled Gus out. I looked back where Morris Engdahl sat on the hard bench. Now, forty years later, I realize that what I saw was a kid not all that much older than me. Thin and angry and blind and lost and shut up behind iron bars not for the first time or the last. I probably should have felt for him something other than I did which was hatred. I closed the door.
At the car Gus straightened up suddenly and turned to my father. “Thanks, Captain.”
“Get in the car.”
Gus said, “What about my motorcycle?”
“Where is it?”
“At Rosie’s.”
“You can get it tomorrow when you’re sober. Get in the car.”
Gus swayed a little. He looked up at the moon. His face was bloodless in the pale light. “Why does he do it, Captain?”
“Who?”
“God. Why does he take the sweet ones?”
“He takes us all in the end, Gus.”
“But a kid?”
“Is that what the fight was about? Bobby Cole?”
“Engdahl called him a retard, Captain. Said he was better off dead. I couldn’t let it pass.” Gus shook his head in a bewildered way. “So how come, Captain?”
“I don’t know, Gus.”
“Isn’t that your job? Knowing the why of all this crap?” Gus seemed disappointed. Then he said, “Dead. What’s that mean?”
Jake spoke up. “It means he won’t have to w-w-worry about everybody making f-f-f-fun of him.”
Gus eyed Jake and blinked. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s the reason. What do you think, Captain?”
“Maybe.”
Gus nodded as if that had satisfied him. He bent toward the open car door to get into the backseat but instead stood there making awful retching sounds.
“Ah, Gus. All over the upholstery,” my father said.
Gus straightened up and pulled his shirttail from his pants and wiped his mouth. “Sorry, Captain. Didn’t see it coming.”
“Get in front,” my father said. He turned to me. “Frank, you and Jake are going to have to walk home. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, sir. We’ll be fine. But could we have the tire iron from the trunk? For protection?”
New Bremen wasn’t at all the kind of town where you’d need a tire iron for protection but I nodded toward Jake, whose face had gone a little white at the prospect of walking home in all that dark, and my father understood. He popped the trunk and handed me the iron. “Don’t dawdle,” he said.
He climbed into the driver’s side. “You have to puke again, Gus, puke out the window. Understand?”
“I read you loud and clear, Captain.” He smiled gamely and lifted a hand to us as my father drove away.
Under the moon we stood on the empty square. The city jail was the only lit building we could see. On the opposite side of the green the courthouse clock bonged four times.
“It’ll be light in an hour,” I said.