BEN ZOOK
“Who are you?” Johnny asked as he sat staring at this strange little man.
“Ben Zook’s my name. What might be yours?”
“Johnny Thompson.”
“What was you doin’ on my island, Johnny?”
“Looking for a man.”
“Find him?”
“I—I’m not sure. I was trying to find out whether I had found him or not
when he hit me with a brick.”
“It probably was him,” said Ben thoughtfully.
For a moment the two of them sat staring away at the dark waters of the
lake. Then Ben spoke:
“Well, if your gyroscope’s workin’ sufficient well to let you navigate
without too much of a list to starboard, we might set sail. I’ve got some
coffee, and I guess there’s still a fire. It will do you good.”
“Yes,” said Johnny, struggling to his feet and standing there unsteadily,
“yes, I think it would. Lead on, friend. Sort of map out the route for
me, will you? I’m a stranger in these parts.”
“Thought you might be,” chuckled Ben. “Don’t have many visitors, I don’t,
an’ most of ’em’s what you’d call of an undesirable class—bums that’s
been run off the parks, mostly. Me—I’m no bum. I earn my living. I feed
the chickens.”
Johnny thought that a rather strange occupation in a city of three
million. Since he was too busy watching his steps over the irregular
surface of made land to give attention to other things, he let the thing
stand as it was for the present.
“Probably just a way of saying something else, I guess; hasn’t a thing to
do with real poultry,” was his mental comment.
In a surprisingly short time Johnny found himself nearing that side of
the island next to the lake, and a moment later was led to a spot where
red coals glowed in a sort of out-of-doors fireplace fashioned from
broken bits of brick.
“Here’s my house,” said Ben Zook, a touch of pride in his tone. “It’s not
everyone that lives in a brick house these days.”
At first Johnny thought he referred to the rude fireplace and was
prepared to laugh; but, as he turned about he caught sight of a dark,
cavern-like hole in the side of a great mound of clay. Even as he looked
his newly found friend lighted a candle. The mellow glow of this tiny
lighting plant revealed three walls of brick and mortar and a roof of
wood. The whole place was not over ten feet square, and the ceiling was
barely above his head. There were no windows and no door, but the end
next to the fire stood open and that served the place of both.
“What do you think of it?” asked Ben Zook.
“I think,” said Johnny heartily, “that had Robinson Crusoe come upon a
home like this on his island he would have wept for joy.”
“Why, so he would, Johnny, so he would!” exclaimed Ben, more than pleased
by this compliment to his extraordinary abode.
A half hour later, Johnny’s slight wounds having been quite skilfully
dressed by his surprising host and his spirits revived by a strong cup of
black coffee, the two sat staring out at the lake.
“Do men come out here often?” Johnny asked.
“Not so often. It ain’t safe crossing on the breakwater. I’ve got a sort
of flat bottomed boat I paddle across with every morning when I go over
to feed the chickens.”
There it was again. “The—the chickens?” Johnny stammered.
“Yes. I got a regular job. Don’t pay very big, but it keeps me, and
besides, when a chicken gets sick and looks like he’d die, they give him
to me. I bring ’em out here and dope ’em up. Then if they get all right I
take ’em back and sell ’em. I’ve got five chickens, a guinea hen and a
goose right now.”
“Where are these chickens you feed?” Johnny asked, more perplexed than
ever.
“Commission house. South Water Street. Come in by car loads and in crates
and have to be fed, you know. I feed ’em an’ water ’em. That’s my job.
An’ this island, it’s my chicken ranch. Roam all over it, my poultry
does, in the daytime. At night I shut ’em up. I’d like a better place,
where there was grass an’ shade, but seems like a fellow can’t save
enough for that. This here island, it don’t cost me nothin’. They just
let me stay here, the park folks do. An’ the house, it didn’t cost
nothin’ neither, only the price of a bag of lime. Sand came from the
lake; bricks I picked up from rubbish piles. Pretty neat, ’eh?” He
proudly surveyed his three walls.
“Pretty neat,” Johnny agreed.
“I like it best with the end open to the fire. It’s more healthy. But if
folks are goin’ to come out here at night, ’taint goin’ to be safe. I’ll
haf to build a door. Not folks like you, but that other fellow’s kind.
Seems like I’ve seen that man out here before.”
“Big man—with a stoop and a limp?” Johnny asked.
“That was him.”
“And a hooked nose?”
“Didn’t see his face.”
“What was he doing?”
“Standin’ with his back to the island and his face toward the city, an’
far’s I could tell he was standin’ there a shakin’ his big fists at the
city an’ a swearin’ fit to kill.”
“That was just what he would do if he is the man I think him to be,” said
Johnny, quietly.
“Would he now? What’d anybody do a crazy thing like that for?”
“You tell me,” said Johnny. “There are some like that.”
“Crooks and cranks,” said Ben. “Why didn’t you hit him first?”
“I did, but he had a hard head.”
“Hit him with a brick?”
“No, my fist.”
“Never do that to a crook, Johnny. They wouldn’t do that to you. Put ’em
to sleep with the best thing you can grab, then argue with ’em after they
wake up. Talk about honor among thieves; there ain’t none. They’re a low
lived lot, too lazy to work. Half of them have got heads like kids and
the other half are full of hop. A dirty bunch of low lifed cowards who
take knives and guns to rob people.
“An’ look at the stuff they write about ’em in them there paper books and
magazines. You’d think they was high class gentlemen down on their luck
and doin’ an honest turn by robbin’ some one just so as to get back on
their feet again, wouldn’t you? Or mebby goin’ in for it as a sort of
sporting proposition. Livin’ dangerously, they’d call it. Danger! It’s
their victim that gets the danger! Honor! Romance! Living dangerously!
Bah! Hit ’em first, that’s my motto!”
“And that,” said Johnny, rubbing his bruised head, “is going to be my
motto in the future.”
When the next opportunity presented itself Johnny did not forget this
resolve. He followed it through, and with the most astonishing results.
“Ben,” said Johnny a moment later, “I want to keep in touch with you.
That fellow may come back.”
“That’s what I been thinkin’ an’ I don’t like it.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. And if he did you’d want him taken care of.”
“Certainly would, Johnny, unless I could get close enough without him
seein’ me to take care of him with a brick.”
“Don’t do anything rash,” Johnny continued. “If he shows up, let me know.
I’ve got a room facing the water front. I’ll bet you can see that window
from the place where you work. There’s a door at the back of the
building. You’ll know the place; the first building to the right after
you cross Wells Street bridge. That back door isn’t locked. In a dark
corner behind the door is a small box with a slot in it. If that man
comes back you just hop right over there and slip an orange wrapper in
that box. There’s plenty of them in South Water Street. That will be a
message to me, and it won’t tell a thing to anyone else, even if they rob
the box.”
“All right, Johnny, I’ll do that.”
For a time they sat there staring at the lake. Then slowly their heads
drooped, and with arms crossed like their primitive ancestors, the
ape-men, they sat on this strange island so near and yet so far from a
great city, sat by the fire asleep, but ever ready at the slightest sound
to seize a club or a stone in defense of their lives and Ben Zook’s crude
home.