Froggy stared at him until they heard the wall clock ticking. “Yes. I have a notion to bust you one right now. You God damn son of a bitch, Caroline is my cousin, and even if she wasn’t my cousin she’s one of the finest girls there is, Caroline is. You want to know something? When she told me she was going to marry you, I tried to stop it. I always hated you. I always hated your guts when you were a kid, and I hate you now. You never were any damn good. You were a slacker in the war—oh, I know how old you were. You could of got in if you’d tried. You were yellow when you were a kid and you grew up yellow. You chased around after that Polish girl till she had to go away or her father would have killed her. Then you put on some kind of an act with Caroline, and God help her, she fell for it. I tried to stop it, but no. She said you had changed. I—”
“You’re a dirty God damn one-arm bastard, and I wish you had that other arm.”
“You—don’t—have to wish it,” said Froggy, and he picked up the glass of water and threw the water in Julian’s face. “Come on outside. I’ll fight you with one arm.” Trembling with rage, Julian stood up, and then he felt weak. He knew he was not afraid; he knew he could not fight Froggy. He still liked him, for one thing; and for another, he could not see himself fighting a man who had only one arm.
“Come on. Anywhere you say,” said Froggy.
Julian wiped the water off his face with a napkin. “I don’t want to fight you.” He wondered, but did not turn his head to ascertain it, whether the men at the lawyers’ table had seen the incident. He heard some children playing in the street and he thought of horrible Saturday mornings at the dentist’s, when he was a kid and horses were being whipped and children were playing in the street and the car to Collieryville would be ringing its bell.
“Come on. Don’t stand there because I only have one arm. I’ll worry about that. Don’t you.”
“Go away. Beat it,” said Julian. “You’re showing off. You know I can’t fight you.”
“Come outside or by Jesus I’ll sock you in here.”
“No, you won’t. I won’t let you sock me in here, hero, and I won’t fight you outside. You think I’d give people the chance to say that about me? You’re crazy. Go on, beat it, General. The war’s over.”
“Yeah? That’s what you think. You’re right. I knew you wouldn’t fight. There isn’t a spark of manhood in you. I knew you wouldn’t fight. There isn’t a spark of manhood left in you, if there ever was one.”
“Run along, cousin. Go on home and count your medals.”
Froggy swung on him and Julian put up his open hand and the punch made a slight smack sound on his wrist, and hurt his wrist.
“Gentlemen!”
“Don’t be a God damn fool,” said Julian.
“Well, then, come on outside.”
“Gentlemen! You know the club rules.” It was Straight. He stood in front of Froggy, with his back toward Froggy, facing Julian. He certainly made it look as though he were protecting Froggy from an attack by Julian. By this time there was no doubt about the lawyers’ being in on the quarrel. They were all watching, and two of them were standing up. Julian heard one of them say something about “see what he did…one arm.” He knew they were doing just what everyone else would do who heard about this: they were taking for granted that he had socked Froggy. One stout man, whom Julian knew only as a lawyer face around the court house and Gibbsville restaurants during court terms, walked over and put his hand on Froggy’s shoulder. “Did he hit you, Captain Ogden?”
“Captain Ogden!” Julian laughed.
“We know all about him up the mountain,” said the stout man.
“Are you by any chance a member of this club?” said Julian.
“A member, and what’s more you never see my name posted,” said the man. “Don’t you worry about me being a member.”
Well, that was all right. It was a slap at Julian, who had been posted two or three times, but it also was a slap at Froggy, Carter, Bobby Herrmann and just about everyone else. It was no distinction to be posted at the Gibbsville Club; it could mean that you had not paid your bill six days after the bill was presented.
“Is this man a member, Straight?” said Julian.
“Oh, yes. Mr. Luck is a member.”
“Luck? Lukashinsky, if I know anything.”
“What’s that got to do with it? This is between me and you,” said Froggy.
“Not any more, it isn’t. No, Captain, it’s between me on the one side, standing here alone, and you and the Polack war veterans and whoremasters on the other side. I’ll stay where I am.”
“Hey, you!” said the lawyer.
“Aw,” said Julian, finally too tired and disgusted with himself and everyone else. He took a step backwards and got into position, and then he let the lawyer have it, full in the mouth. The man fell back and gurgled and reached fingers in his mouth to keep from choking on his bridgework. Another lawyer came over, another Polack whose name Julian never could remember. He had a club soda bottle in his hand.
“Put that down!” said Froggy. “He has a bottle!” He grabbed a bottle himself, and Julian got a water carafe. All through it Straight kept saying Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, and kept out of the way.
“Come on,” said Julian, to the man with the bottle. The man saw the carafe and hesitated. The other lawyers took the bottle away from him without a great struggle. The man could not keep his eyes off Froggy. He could not understand why Froggy had warned Julian.
“Go on out and get a warrant, Stiney,” called the lawyer whom Julian had socked. Julian hit him again, hit him in the hands, which were covering the sore mouth. He hit him again in the ear. Froggy grabbed Julian’s shoulder to pull him away, and Julian pulled up his shoulder so suddenly that it hit Froggy in the chin. The lawyer went down, not to get up for a while, and then Julian rushed Froggy and punched him in the ribs and in the belly and Froggy lost his balance and fell over a chair. Julian picked up the carafe again and hurled it at the man who had come at him with the bottle, and without waiting to see what it did, he ran out of the room, taking his coat and a hat off the hall rack. He hurried to the car.
“Hi, boy.” Someone called to him. Julian had his foot on the starter and he identified the greeter as Whit Hofman. Well, Whit was a son of a bitch, too. Whit probably hated him and had hated him for years, just as Froggy had done. The car jumped out of the snow and Julian drove as fast as he could to the quickest way out of Gibbsville. The worst of that drive was that the sun glare on the snow made you smile before you were ready.
Your home is the center of many zones. The first zone is your home, the second can be the homes around you, which you know only less well than you do your home. In the second zone you know where the rain-pipes have stained the shingles on the houses, you know where the doorbell button is, how much of a bedpost can be seen in an upstairs window; the length of slack taken up in the porch-swing chains; the crack in the sidewalk; the oil spots from the drip-pans in the driveway; the lump of coal, which you remember from the time it was not swept away, and its metamorphosis from day to day as it is crushed and crushed into smaller lumps and into dust and then all that is left of it is a black blot, and you are glad one day that it has been crushed and it no longer is there to accuse you of worry about your neighbor’s slovenliness. And so on.
The next zone is the homes and buildings you pass every day on your way to work. The tin signs outside little stores, the trees with the bark gnawed away by horses, the rope on the gates and the ancient weights, the places where the street ought to be repaired, the half-second view of the town clock tower between two houses. And so on.