The old guy didn't have a chance. All he could do was shield his head
with limp arms and moan, while this other fellow--a young, husky
six-footer--gave him a vicious, cold-blooded beating.
"Hey, there!" I yelled indignantly. "Cut it out!"
But the kid kept belting away, as if he were methodically working out on
a fifty-pound training bag. Finally, the old man sagged to the pavement.
Then this hoodlum began to kick him.
I'm not a hero. I'm a newspaper man whose job it is to look at things
objectively. But I know right from wrong.
My one punch caught the young bruiser back of the ear and spilled him on
the ground. He lay there for a moment, then rolled over. Even by the
street light, it was easy to see his eyes were glassy.
It gave me lots of satisfaction. I'm not a big man--just compact--but I
take care of myself. I don't drink or smoke and I exercise regularly.
The result is I can handle myself in the clinches.
The kid sat up and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. I could see
now that he was a college boy. The red sweater with the terrycloth
border and the white pants with a shortened left leg were a dead
giveaway.
"Listen here," I said roughly, "you nuts? Beating up an old man!"
He appeared to be desperately searching for an explanation--something to
say. Then, abruptly, without having uttered a sound, he reeled away and
shambled hurriedly down the street.
My first inclination was to give chase. But the old man groaned and I
turned to help him. That was when I had it--a virtual brain storm.
This whole episode, I could see, was a perfect answer to the damnable
criticisms leveled at my series on juvenile delinquency. More than that,
it was an absolute vindication!
* * * * *
Barely an hour ago, I'd had to sit at a meeting and take it on the chin
from twenty of the town's leading lights who designated themselves The
Committee for the Protection of Youth. The outfit was, of course,
politically inspired. It had obviously been started by the Mayor and his
gang as a means of torpedoing Jones, the publisher of my paper. Jones,
you see, had become politically ambitious himself.
Since I was the star on Jones' team, they piled on me. Some of the nicer
things said about my articles were that they constituted filthy
muckraking, were a pattern of irresponsible lies, and were designed
principally to smear the incumbent politicos. The children of the town,
they cried, were being sacrificed to ruthless ambition.
It wouldn't have been so bad if Jones had stuck by me. But he cut and
ran. Discretion, he had whispered to me from behind a pudgy hand, was
the better part of valor. Then he told them he would discontinue the
articles.
Now I had first-hand proof of a particularly brutal bit of delinquency.
A cruel assault on a poor, helpless old man! Furthermore, I was the hero
of the incident!
Bending down to see how seriously the old man had been hurt, I asked,
"What happened, Pop? Was he trying to rob you or something?" He didn't
answer.
[Illustration]
I looked around for help, but the street was deserted. The best thing, I
decided, was to take him home. There Nan, my wife, could patch him up
while I found out what had happened. I bent down again and pulled him to
his feet. He staggered. I put one steadying hand on his shoulder and
gripped his wrist with the other. My spine went cold.
It was his flesh. Not so much that it felt like rubber--but the chill.
Here we were in the middle of a heat wave, the thermometer nudging
ninety, and the old guy's wrist is like an icicle!
For a second, it threw me. Then I thought of shock. That might explain
it. And Nan, having been a nurse, would be the one to know.
I started the old man walking. "See if you can make it to my house," I
urged. "It's just around the corner."
Nan switched on the porch light when she heard us on the steps. Opening
the door, she drew back with a little shriek. The old man was pretty
gruesome-looking at that. But it wasn't just his blood-covered face and
matted white beard.
There was something spiderish about him. He was angular, and dark, and
skeletal. His eyes, deep-set and brooding, seemed to crouch under his
shaggy, jutting brows.
"Take it easy, honey," I said. "The old guy just needs some patching
up."
* * * * *
She recovered quickly and helped him into the house. After we'd eased
him into the easy chair by the fireplace in the living room, she turned
to me, worried. "Were you in an accident?"
I gave her the story and she looked at me sharply, but didn't speak. She
went into the bedroom and came back with blankets and medicine bottles.
Tucking the blankets around the old man's legs, she said, "But I don't
understand why you were walking. You went to the meeting in Jones' car.
Why didn't he bring you back?"
I didn't answer. The old man had closed his eyes and his breathing was
becoming very shallow. "Look at him," I said. "Is he all right?"
"He's sleeping. Why don't you answer my question?"
"Jones didn't bring me home because I had words with him and walked away
in a huff."
"Over the meeting?"
"Partly." I explained about the meeting and how Jones had back-tracked
when the going got rough. "After all, it was his idea to build
circulation with sensational articles and to use them to attack the
present administration. But when there's a showdown, he acts like a
scared rabbit. And that's what I told him."
"I'm glad," Nan said, her face brightening. "What did he say to that?"
"He gave me a lot of bull about it being a mistake to pick on people's
children and how we should stick to old standbys like red-light
districts and dope trafficking."
Nan slapped the iodine on the table. "Some nerve! What did you tell
him?"
"I told him he was jerking the rug from under me and that I'd be damned
if I'd write a bunch of warmed-over tripe. Then I walked away."
"You finally quit!"
Until then, I don't think I'd ever realized just how much Nan hated my
work. Of course, off and on, we'd really had some knock-down drag-outs,
but I'd never considered them serious. Oh, we often talked about my
going into teaching physical ed. It had been my intention ever since
college. Some day I'd actually do it.