PAGE 6
The Tough Guy
by
“I’m gettin’,” said Buzz. He took his hat off the hook and wiped it carefully with the lower side of his sleeve, round and round. He placed it on his head, jauntily. He stepped to the kitchen, took a tooth-pick from the little red-and-white glass holder on the table, and–with this emblem of insouciance, at an angle of ninety, between his teeth–strolled indolently, nonchalantly down the front steps, along the cement walk to the street and so toward town. The two old people, left alone in the sudden silence of the house, stared after the swaggering figure until the dim twilight blotted it out. And a sinister something seemed to close its icy grip about the heart of one of them. A vague premonition that she could only feel, not express, made her next words seem futile.
“Pa, you oughtn’t to talked to him like that. He’s just a little wild. He looked so kind of funny when he went out. I don’no, he looked so kind of–“
“He looked like the bum he is, that’s what. No respect for nothing. For his pa, or ma, or nothing. Down on the corner with the rest of ’em, that’s where he’s goin’. Hatton ain’t goin’ to let this go by. You see.”
But she, on her way to the kitchen, repeated, “I don’no, he looked so kind of funny. He looked so kind of–“
Considering all things–the happenings of the past few hours, at least–Buzz, as he strolled on down toward Grand Avenue with his sauntering, care-free gait, did undoubtedly look kind of funny. The red-hot rage of the afternoon and the white-hot rage of the evening had choked the furnace of brain and soul with clinkers so that he was thinking unevenly and disconnectedly. On the surface he was cool and unruffled. He stopped for a moment at the railroad tracks to talk with Stumpy Gans, the one-legged gateman. The little bell above Stumpy’s shanty was ringing its warning, so he strolled leisurely over to the depot platform to see the 7:15 come in from Chicago. When the train pulled out Buzz went on down the street. His mind was darting here and there, planning this revenge, discarding it; seizing on another, abandoning that. He’d show’m. He’d show’m. Sick of the whole damn bunch, anyway…. Wonder was Hatton going to raise a shindy…. Let’m. Who cares?… The old man was a drunk, that’s what…. Ma had looked kinda sick….
He put that uncomfortable thought out of his mind and slammed the door on it. Anyway, he’d show’m.
Out of the shadows of the great trees in front of the Agassiz School stepped the Kearney girl, like a lean and hungry cat. One hand clutched his arm.
Buzz jumped and said something under his breath. Then he laughed, shortly. “Might as well kill a guy as scare him to death!”
She thrust one hand through his arm and linked it with the other. “I’ve been waiting for you, Buzz.”
“Yeh. Well, let me tell you something. You quit traipsing up and down in front of my house, see?”
“I wanted to see you. An’ I didn’t know whether you was coming down town to-night or not.”
“Well, I am. So now you know.” He pulled away from her, but she twined her arm the tighter about his.
“Ain’t sore at me, are yuh, Buzz?”
“No. Leggo my arm.”
“If you’re sore because I been foolin’ round with that little wart of a Donahue–” She turned wise eyes up to him, trying to make them limpid in the darkness.
“What do I care who you run with?”
“Don’t you care, Buzz?” The words were soft but there was a steel edge to her utterance.
“No.”
“Oh, Buzz, I’m batty about you. I can’t help it, can I? H’m? Look here, you go on to Grand, and hang around for an hour, maybe, and I’ll meet you here an’ we’ll walk a ways. Will you? I got something to tell you.”