The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown (free ebook reader TXT) 📕

Over the phone, Uncle Ambrose said, “Kid, how would you like to be a gun punk?”

I said, “Huh?”

“Hang on to your hat. You’re going to be.”

“I haven’t got a gun and I’m not a punk.”

He said, “You’re half right. But you won’t need a gun. All you’re going to do is scare a guy half out of his wits.”

“Sure it won’t be me that’s scared?”

“Go ahead and be scared. It’ll stiffen you up and help the act. I’ll give you some tips.”

I asked, “Are you really serious?”

He said, “Yes,” flatly, just like that, and I knew he was.

“When?” I asked him.

“We’ll wait till day after tomorrow, after the funeral.”

“Sure,” I said.

After I’d hung up, I wondered what the hell I was letting myself in for. I wandered into the living room and turned on the radio. It was a gangster program and I turned it off again.

I thought, I’d make a hell of a gun punk.

Now that I’d had time to think it over, I had an idea what he meant. I was really a little scared.

It was Friday evening, after the inquest. Mom was down at the undertaker’s, making final arrangements. I don’t know where Gardie was. Probably a movie.

I went to the window and looked out. It was still raining.

*

In the morning it had stopped.

It was still damp and misty, and it was a hot muggy dampness. I put on my best clothes, of course, for the funeral, and they stuck to me like they were lined with glue.

I’d put my suit coat on, just to be all dressed, but I took it off and hung it up again until nearer time.

I thought, a gun punk. Maybe my uncle is a little nuts. All right, maybe I’m a little nuts too. I’ll try it, whatever he wants.

I heard Mom getting up. I went out.

I stood looking at the outside of Heiden’s.

After awhile, I went in. Mr. Heiden was in his office, in his shirt sleeves, working with some papers. He put down a cigar and said, “Hello. You’re Ed Hunter, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I wondered—I just wanted to know if there’s anything I can do?”

He shook his head. “Everything’s set, kid. Not a thing.”

I said, “I didn’t ask Mom. Have you got pallbearers and everything?”

“Fellows from the shop where he worked, yes. Here’s the list.”

He handed me a slip of paper and I read the names. The foreman at the shop, Jake Lancey, was at the top of the list, and three other linotype operators and two hand-men. I hadn’t thought about the shop at all. It made me feel a little funny to find they were coming.

He said, “The funeral’s at two. Everything’s set. We’re having an organist.”

I nodded. “He liked organ music.”

He said, “Sometimes, kid, members of the family would father—well, take a last look and kind of say good-bye in private. Like now, and not file past the bier at the funeral. Maybe that’s why you came in, kid?”

I guess it was. I nodded.

He took me into a room just off one of the halls, not the one where the inquest had been, but one the same size off the other side of the main corridor, and there was a coffin on a bier. It was a beautiful coffin. It was gray plush with chromium trimmings.

He lifted the part of the lid that uncovered the upper part of the body, and then he went out quietly, without saying anything.

I stood looking down at Pop.

After awhile, I put the lid down gently, and went out. I closed the door of the little room behind me. I got out of the place without seeing Mr. Heiden again, or anybody.

I started walking east, then south. I walked through the Loop and quite a way out on South State Street.

Then I slowed down and stopped, and started back again.

There were a lot of florists’ shops in the Loop, and I remembered I hadn’t done anything about flowers. I still had money from my pay check. I went in one and asked if they could send out some red roses right away for a funeral that would be in a few hours. They said they could.

After that, I stopped for a cup of coffee and then went home. I got there at about eleven.

The minute I opened the door I knew something was wrong.

I knew by the smell. The hot close air was full of whiskey. It smelled like West Madison Street on Saturday night.

My God, I thought. Three hours till the funeral.

I closed the door behind me, and for some reason I locked it. I went to the door of Mom’s bedroom and I didn’t knock. I opened it and looked in.

She was dressed, wearing the new black dress she must have bought yesterday. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, and there was a whiskey bottle in her hand. Her eyes looked dazed, stupid. They tried to focus on me.

She’d put her hair up, but it had come down again on one side. Her face muscles had gone lax and she looked old. She was drunk as hell.

She swayed a little back and forth.

I was across the room and had the whiskey bottle before she knew what was happening. But after I had it, she made a grab at it. She got up to come after it and nearly fell. I pushed her and she fell back on the bed. She started to curse me, and to get up again.

I got to the door, took out the key and put it in on the outside. I locked the door on the outside before she got hold of the knob.

I hoped Gardie was home; she had to be home to help me. She could handle Mom better than I could. I had to have help.

I ran into the kitchen first and held the whiskey bottle upside down over the sink and let it gurgle out. It seemed to me that the first thing I had to do was to get rid of the whiskey.

Mom’s voice came from behind the locked door. She was cursing and crying and trying the knob. But she didn’t yell and she didn’t hammer; thank God she wasn’t loud.

The doorknob quit rattling as I put down the empty bottle on the sink.

I started for Gardie’s room and then there was another sound that stopped me cold.

It was a window going up. The window from Mom’s bedroom into the airshaft.

She was going to jump.

I ran back and got hold of the key to unlock the door. It stuck a little, but the window was sticking too. That window had always stuck, had always been hard to open. I could hear her struggling with it. She was just sobbing now, not cursing or crying.

I got the door open and got there just as she was trying to go through. She’d got the window open only a little over a foot and it had stuck there, but she was trying to crawl through.

I yanked her back and she reached for my face to scratch me.

There was only one thing. I hit her on the chin, hard. I managed part way to catch her before she fell too hard. She was out cold.

I stood there a minute, trying to get my breath back, and trembling, cold clammy wet with sweat in that hot and stinking room.

Then I went for Gardie.

She’d slept through it. Somehow she’d slept through it. It was eleven o’clock and she was still sound asleep.

I shook her and she opened her eyes and then sat up. Her arms