The Accused, Harold R. Daniels [read out loud books txt] 📗

Mr. Gurney, I think you can establish your point without this sort of language.

Gurney: I’ll try, Your Honor. Now, Mr. Dodson, did you go to Providence, Rhode Island, with Morlock about two weeks before he was married?

Dodson: Yes. No. I should say he came with me. That would be more accurate. It was my idea.

Gurney: Had you been on any trips with Morlock prior to that time?

Dodson: No.

Gurney: What was the purpose of this… trip?

Dodson: It was a place to go. I didn’t have anywhere else to go over the holidays and Morlock didn’t either, as it turned out. I asked him to go with me.

Gurney: Where did you stay in Providence?

Dodson: At the Compton Hotel.

Gurney: Also your idea, I suppose.

Dodson: My idea.

Gurney: Did you have any definite plans for your… holiday?

Dodson: None in particular.

Gurney: No dates?

Dodson: No.

Gurney: You planned on a quiet holiday by yourselves?

Dodson: Not exactly.

Gurney: Actually you intended to pick up female companions, didn’t you?

Dodson: We hoped to meet some women, yes.

Gurney: Well, how did you do? Did you make any pick-ups the first night?

Dodson: No.

Gurney: No? What about an Audrey and Lucy Zonfrillo?

Dodson: There were two girls named Audrey and Lucy in a place we went to. We bought them drinks but we didn’t pick them up.

Gurney: You didn’t pick up Louise Palaggi that first night?

Dodson: No.

Gurney: It was later that you picked her up, then?

Liebman: I ask the Court to direct counsel to refrain from harping on the expression “pick up.”

Cameron: I suggest, Mr. Gurney, that you use another term.

*

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Alvin Morlock. Cross-examination of Thomas Dodson.

Morlock had no particular liking for Dodson. Dodson was older, in his early forties, Morlock supposed, and had long ago given up any idealism in his approach to being a teacher. Dodson was an out-and-out time server. He hated his subject and he actively detested his students. They returned the sentiment enthusiastically. Dodson was stocky and he affected suits with vests, the pockets of which he filled with all manner of pens and pencils in neat rows. His hair was thinning and he wore it parted on one side. The hair was also coarse and it matted together in strands so that the yellowish pink scalp appeared more naked than if he had been completely bald. He gave an impression of being a hearty good fellow, but Morlock suspected that it was more than partly a pose which he put away each evening along with the vest and pencils.

He had approached Morlock in the teachers’ rest-room the day before the school was to close for the Christmas holidays. Morlock was washing his hands. Dodson ran water in the adjoining basin and began to splash noisily.

“One more day,” he said between splashes. “Then we can forget this dump for ten days. Where are you going, Al?”

Morlock had made no plans. He had assumed that he would spend a part of the holiday with Paul Martin and had only that morning learned—and been a little hurt by the knowledge—that Martin was spending the entire vacation with his married sister in Baltimore. He said uncertainly, “Nowhere, I guess.” He added out of politeness rather than interest, “What are your plans, Dodson?”

Dodson dug his elbow into Morlock’s ribs and chuckled. “I’m not going to hang around here,” he said. “I’m going to get a room in a hotel I know in Providence. Been there before,” he added with another nudge and a leer. “Did you ever go up on Federal Hill?”

Morlock shook his head.

Dodson winked suggestively. “There’s places there—” He stopped abruptly. “By God, Al, you got to come with me!”

Morlock, faced with the prospect of a dull and lonesome ten days, was tempted to the point of wondering if even Dodson’s company wasn’t preferable to solitude. Seeing his indecision, Dodson pounced. “I tell you, Al, I’m the man that can show you around. They’ve got all these little clubs, you know, and stuff! My God, they hang around waiting to be picked up. Take a couple of guys like us—educated, professional men—we’re big shots to them. And we can get rooms and split the cost.”

Morlock said doubtfully, “I’d have to think about it.”

Dodson said scornfully, “Think, hell! We’ll just get in my car and go tomorrow night. We can be there by seven. You go in these places and order beer,” he said. “A dime. That’s all you have to spend while you look ‘em over. They’ve always got a juke box or a small band on weekends. I don’t mean bags when I say there’s stuff there just waiting to be picked up. Young stuff, I tell you. Nineteen and twenty. And some of them Eyetalian and Polack girls will knock your eye out. Knockers on ‘em like movie stars and they jump around wiggling their little butts…” Dodson paused, his eyes bright. “Treat you like a king.”

And Morlock, even as he despised Dodson, agreed to go along.

Half a dozen times in the next morning he was tempted to tell Dodson that he had changed his mind, but the recollected words, “young stuff,” held him back. Morlock convinced himself that he would find a decent girl among Dodson’s more promiscuous Circes. He told himself that he would content himself with a mild affair with such a girl, let Dodson go to whatever extremes he wished. Morlock had made such plans before. More often than not they had ended sordidly enough; nevertheless he still hoped one day to fall in love. He did not belabor the obvious fallacy that such emotion was hardly likely to be found in the companionship or the haunts of Dodson, History II.

Later, he took some pleasure in telling Paul Martin of his plans. Martin, a chemistry instructor, had the sort of aloof dignity that Morlock would like to have. He had more than once sheepishly realized that he was involuntarily imitating Martin’s mannerisms of speech. He admired Martin and he openly sought his friendship.

Martin asked, “Are you actually going to stay at a hotel with that—lump? You could have come to Baltimore with me, you know, if you had given me time to make arrangements.”

Morlock had the distinct impression that Martin had added the final phrase as a hasty hedge against the possibility that Morlock might be willing to change his plans.

“Why not?” he demanded. “Dodson is a good chap.”

Martin would have said “chap” instead of “fellow” or a simple “guy” and Morlock used the word self-consciously as a sort of defiance. He was as sophisticated as Martin, he felt.

Martin, acting as if he resented the whole business, walked away without further discussion.

*

Dodson drove to Morlock’s rooming house to pick him up. His car was an old LaSalle convertible. Rakish once, weary now. Like Dodson himself, Morlock thought; regretting again, now that the time had come, that he had agreed to the Providence adventure.

In the car Morlock worried aloud. “Suppose it got back to the college,” he said. “I don’t think Dean Gorham would stand for it.”

Dodson’s somewhat pathetic bad-boyishness was increasing in direct ratio to their distance from Ludlow. “Stand for what?” he snorted. “We’re just going to take a room in a hotel and go out for a good time. Even a teacher is entitled to a vacation.”

Morlock said uncertainly, “It isn’t just that. I mean if we got into any trouble. With the hotel, for instance.”

Dodson whooped delightedly and slapped Morlock’s thigh. “Hell,” he laughed, “We’re not staying at the Biltmore. The hotel we’re going to doesn’t care if you bring women up to your room. By God, if you haven’t got one of your own they’ll get one for you!”

Providence was twelve miles over the state line from Ludlow. Dodson drove the distance, not without skill, in less than half an hour and parked the old car in a public garage. “We’ll leave it,” he said, winking at Morlock. “I don’t want to be able to drive tonight. We’ll use, cabs.”

The hotel to which he led Morlock was on a side street, a red brick building with bars on either side. The lobby smelled of antiseptic. It was, Morlock admitted, clean enough. Dodson said as they entered, “Wait here, Al. I’ll register for both of us. What will we get—two adjoining singles?”

Morlock agreed and watched Dodson head for the desk, extending his hand in greeting to the desk clerk like an old and valued customer. He failed to note any similar reaction on the part of the desk clerk who appeared more bored than enthusiastic. Dodson, he supposed, could not help—what was the expression?—making a production out of his simplest act. He wondered what whimsical destiny had made Dodson a teacher rather than a salesman, say, or a bartender.

Dodson returned, waving two keys triumphantly. “All set,” he said happily. He glanced at Morlock’s suitcase. “Want me to get a bellhop?”

Morlock had seen no attendant in the lobby. He declined, and the two men rode the elevator to the third floor.

They ate in a small Italian restaurant on Federal Hill. “You’ll see what genuine Italian cooking is like,” Dodson had shouted, managing to convey contempt for all other cuisines. Actually the restaurant was dirty and smelly; the spaghetti flaccid and overcooked, its shortcomings poorly disguised with red, garlic-heavy sauce. Dodson ordered a bottle of Chianti with the meal. He seemed to enjoy playing the host, the worldly gourmet. He ate hungrily. Morlock ate little. He was amused by Dodson’s assumption of the role of host, which seemed a little ridiculous since they had carefully agreed in the hotel room to share all costs evenly. Still, Morlock was gradually awakening to the promise of the evening.

They sought a bar after Dodson had tried to order_ cafe Espresso_ from the waitress who had never heard of it and who looked at Dodson as if she thought he were a little crazy.

The bar they found was one of twenty in an area of a few blocks. It outdid its neighbors in the matter of neon and there was a canvas canopy leading from the sidewalk to what was designated a_ Ladies Entrance._ Dodson said confidently, “In here, Al. I’ll do the talking. You should have seen the chick I met here last time!”

Dodson, Morlock supposed, had a hundred expressions which could be defined as meaning women in various states of willingness and availability. “Chick,” was no more irritating than “stuff” or “bag.” All three made him uncomfortable, affecting him in much the same manner as the advertisements for soup and cake mix and soda pop that made a fetish out of leaving the_ a_ and_ d_ out of the conjunction_ and_ in the unshakable conviction that this indicated the unqualified approval * of the children who were supposed to speak in such a manner. Butter’ n eggs! Chicks ‘n stuff! He laughed at the thought, told himself not to be a stuffy damn fool and followed Dodson into the bar entrance.

They stepped down into a low-ceilinged room with a stamped tin ceiling. The place featured low lights—the brightest glow in the room came from a pin ball machine that stood in a far corner. The bar itself_ took_ up half of one wall and was interrupted by a set of three stairs leading upward toward the dance floor which had its own bar.

Dodson led the way to the bar in the low room, asking generously, “What will you have, Al?” which was unnecessary. They had already agreed to drink draught beer. (“Until we get a chance to look around and see what’s loose,” Dodson had said.) Morlock, looking around him, saw half