Youngblood hawke, p.14
Youngblood Hawke, page 14
The front office of the grimy cement building had not changed much since those days. The old Underwood on which Hawke had pecked out a school newspaper at the age of nine still stood on a corner desk under a dusty cover. The smell of mimeographing ink, the stacks of mining magazines and business forms, the yellowing maps of mine workings on the wall, closed a circuit in Hawke's mind. He saw his father's face more vividly than he had since his death, the long jowly cheeks, the broad humorous mouth, thick glasses—Dad, Ira Hawke, the sweet-tempered failure. And all the humiliation came back to him of being one of the poor Hawkes at the high school, while his cousins Glenn and Eleanor ran with the wealthier kids, and got into the secret societies, and wholly outshone the big lout who read books and wrote poetry.
The inner office was all new: knotty pine panelling, red leather furniture, a huge mahogany desk, and a large bad oil painting of Mr. Will—frills that Uncle Will would have scorned. Three men were in the room. He recognized two: his cousin Glenn, much older and heavier, pouchy-eyed, with the battered good looks and weak, sullen expression of the bourbon soaker and woman chaser all of Hovey knew him to be; and one of Hawke's college friends, Scotty Hoag. Scott was an officer of this corporation now, having met Eleanor Hawke at the university and married her. The third man was short and white-headed, neatly dressed in gray, with a round merry face and twinkling blue eyes.
Scott Hoag was sitting on the desk top when Hawke and his mother came in. He jumped down and strode toward them. "Hey, Art! Talk of the devil. We just been arguing whether you would really make the trip down from New York for this. How the hell are you? What's all this about you getting a book published? Hi, Aunt Sarah, you must be right proud of this boy, he gonna put Hovey on the map."
Scott shook hands with Hawke. He looked very much the same as he had at the university, especially since he still wore the horsy clothes he had always favored. Scott was middle-sized, with a wiry body, small handsome sunburned features, a peculiarly long upper lip and a thread-thin mouth. He radiated the same good cheer which had made him a campus leader: the infectious grin, the warm voice, the gay eyes. Only his curly black hair, Hawke noticed, was going rather quickly; you could see glints of smooth pink on Scotty's head.
Glenn Hawke, slouching in the swivel chair behind the big desk, did not rise. He said with no trace of Scotty's cordiality. "Hello, Aunt Sarah. Hi, Art."
Scotty introduced the little white-headed man as his Lexington attorney, Urban Webber. "Don't get scared, Aunt Sarah, Urban's not the lawyer for Hawke Brothers in this little binness of yours. He and I are up here on real estate binness, and Glenn asked us to sit in on this meeting, if it's all right with you."
"I don't mind," said Mrs. Hawke. "Art and I have no lawyer with us, Harry Crain's laid up, but mainly we just want to know what Hawke Brothers intends to do. Plenty of time for lawyers later if it comes to that."
Scotty laughed. Mrs. Hawke sat stiffly on a red couch, without having been asked to sit down, and Hawke dropped beside her. There was a moment's silence, as the five people looked around at each other.
"Well, suppose I start," said Glenn with a squeak of his swivel chair, leaning forward and glowering at his aunt. "This shouldn't take long, Art, especially if you know the facts. I needn't tell you how shocked I was to get this call from Judge Crain. That Frenchman's Ridge mine was an old forgotten business, and we had damned poor luck with it, but good lord, aside from the implied accusation, how can anyone in his right mind think that we would go into an expensive operation like that if there was the slightest risk of trespass? It would have been insane. We had a certificate of title, naturally, in fact Urban Webber's office prepared it, as I recall. Anyway we've checked through everything. Maybe Harry Crain has too, by this time. Aunt Sarah, that old man Crewes sold you land in which the mineral rights were already gone. He sold them to the Battle Coal Company years before you bought the parcel, and we bought them in 1935, years before we went into Frenchman's Ridge. We checked your deed in the county office and it seems he didn't put in the restriction of the mineral rights. The old man was either falling apart or he just plain cheated you. We're sorry, but we're completely in the clear. You own the surface rights, the timber and all that. It's all pretty trashy. There isn't a doubt in the world that we had and still have the mineral rights. We don't owe you anything, Aunt Sarah, that's all there is to it. You've just found out twenty-five years late that the old fellow sold you a bill of goods."
Mrs. Hawke glanced at her son, who could think of nothing to say, since Glenn was telling the plain truth. She laughed. "Well, all I know is it's been my land for twenty-five years and now all of a sudden it turns out that it was all mined and nobody ever told me, and I had to find it out by myself stumbling over a tunnel."
Urban Webber said kindly, "It's just a lot of wilderness, Mrs. Hawke, and this firm owns the mineral rights to many thousands of acres out there."
"Which anybody can buy who'll make us a decent offer," Scott Hoag said. "Art, that stuff's all withering on the vine. You can't get the coal down to the railroad economically. I tell you, I feel funny in this binness, because the Frenchman's Ridge mine was my idea. It was just after I married Ellie. I suggested it to Mr. Will, and he thought it wouldn't work. I was still trying to talk him into it when he died. Well, I convinced Glenn to let me go ahead with it after that"—here Glenn Hawke laughed shortly and grumpily—"and that about finished me in the coal binness. I lost Hawke Brothers about a quarter of a million dollars."
Hawke said, "Scotty, the price of coal was way up in wartime. Hell, I was running a coal truck down from Edgefield in the summer of 1941, when I damn near killed myself. Trucks were going night and day. How could you lose?"
"Everything went wrong, Art, everything old Mr. Will warned me about. A long approach road, poorly graded, it kept washing out after every heavy rain, and I misfigured costs on truck transport by about twelve cents a ton, a few dumb things like that. About the only good thing was that I learned I wasn't a coal operator, and I got into another binness. I'm just on the board now, I show up once a year to air my wisdom." He turned to Mrs. Hawke. "Aunt Sarah, you ought to look at the books to satisfy yourself that we lost a fortune on that ridge. You're welcome to any time. I wish you had owned the mineral rights and kept us out of there, that's all I can say."
"Amen to that," said Glenn.
"Well, I wouldn't mind seeing those books," said Mrs. Hawke.
The white-haired Lexington lawyer said, "May I make a suggestion? Of course Mrs. Hawke should look at the books if she wishes. But it's irrelevant. She paid money a quarter of a century ago for what she thought was coal land, and she now finds the coal wasn't hers. She's very disappointed. This kind of grantor's fraud crops up all the time, especially in mountain areas. In similar cases I often recommend that the defrauded party be repaid what was originally paid for the land, plus expenses. That would be a reasonable and decent thing to do here."
Glenn Hawke was leaning forward holding up a finger. "It would not, and let me tell you why, Urban. Ordinarily I would say yes, sure, let's do that. But I know Aunt Sarah. We have a difficult family situation. Now Art, forgive me for putting this bluntly, but if we acknowledge we owe your mother anything, by giving her even a hundred fifty dollars—which is what she's on record as paying for the land in 1921—you know very well, all too well, that we'll never hear the last of it, and the town of Hovey won't, either. Once Hawke Brothers acknowledges an obligation of any kind the story'll be that we defrauded Aunt Sarah of millions of dollars. That's more or less the story anyway."
Mrs. Hawke said, "Ha! Don't worry, Glenn, I'm not selling all that coal for a hundred fifty dollars."
Scotty Hoag said cheerfully, "Look, Aunt Sarah, I think you'll only satisfy your mind by suing us. You're welcome to do that. It'll cost a lot of money, and you'll lose. It'll cost us money too. But you may as well go ahead and do it."
Mrs. Hawke said, "Well, the last thing I want to do is go to law, if I don't have to. I know the lawyers end up with all the money."
Urban Webber laughed, unoffended. Scotty said, "All right, Aunt Sarah, if you mean that, then how about this? I'll take the responsibility here to offer you one thousand dollars for a release. I'm doing it out of regard for your feelings, which I understand, and to avoid a lawsuit which nobody wants. It's the best you'll get, unless—"
Glenn Hawke said, "Hold on, just how are you taking the responsibility, Scott? A thousand dollars is money. Who pays this?"
Scotty said with a shade of impatience, "Glenn, I'm undertaking to recommend this to the board and to get it through. I know you've got this emotional family involvement, but it isn't sensible, Glenn, it isn't binness."
At this point Hawke intervened. "Scott, you're offering my mother a thousand dollars. You're also offering to let her examine your books if she wishes, to convince herself that the mining was a failure. Right?"
"That's it, Art, I just don't see a lot of bitterness and lawing over an absurd situation like this, where there's no money in it for anybody, it's all down the drain anyway."
Urban Webber smoothed his white hair, smiling. "I think Scotty is being Santa Claus, but it's in the spirit of the season."
"Mama, let's telephone Judge Crain," Hawke said. "Glenn, is there another office we can use?"
Without a word, Glenn Hawke got up and threw open a door into a room which Hawke recognized as his father's old office. Mine maps and blue topographical surveys were piled high on the two small desks. Hawke and his mother went in, and Glenn closed the door on them.
Hawke telephoned the old family lawyer and reported what had happened at the meeting. There was nothing fake about Judge Crain's laryngitis, he could hardly talk. "My God, a thousand dollars?" he rasped thickly. "Grab it. How did you talk them into it? Your mother has no claim, no claim at all."
When Hawke repeated this to his mother she said, "Well, how about that other thing, that quitclaim he says he bought for me?"
Hawke asked Judge Crain the question. The old man choked out, "Doesn't mean a damned thing. Crewes occupied that land and secured his title by undisputed adverse possession even if that patent still held good after it was forfeited to the state, which I doubt. You take the thousand. Get them to dictate and sign an agreement now if you can."
But Mrs. Hawke still hung back, when Hawke went to open the door. "Wait, wait, Art. Listen to me. They could have gotten to Harry Crain and bribed him, you know?"
Hawke was sickened by this, more because of what it revealed of his mother's mentality than because of the reflection on Judge Crain. "How long have you known him, mama? Thirty years? Forty years? He was co-executor of papa's will, for Christ's sake! If the whole world is in a criminal conspiracy against you, it's too goddamned bad, mama." He detected in his own voice the timbre of his father's exasperated tirades; a spooky effect, here in his father's office.
"Don't you swear at me, Arthur. It's your land. I'm doing this for you. Don't ever forget that." A wise grin crossed her face. "A thousand dollars would still be about nine hundred percent on my money, you know? All right. I guess there's nothing else to do."
The three men in the other room showed no surprise when Hawke said the proposition was acceptable. Glenn Hawke gave Scotty a sour, unfriendly grin like a sneer. Webber said a little drily, smoothing his hair, "I guess Harry Crain has looked into the law of this matter."
But when Hawke suggested executing an agreement then and there, Scotty Hoag shook his head. "There's no rush, Art, I'm not going back on my word. Urban and I have binness up in town now." He held out his hand to Mrs. Hawke. "Well, Aunt Sarah, we've got a deal, have we?"
She hesitated noticeably, then took the outstretched brown hand. "Well, it being Christmas and all I guess the best thing is to forget about lawsuits and settle up. I don't bear grudges, whatever anybody else thinks." She glanced at Glenn, who heaved an exasperated sigh.
Hawke's mother was unusually silent as they drove away from the coal company building. Hawke thought she might be sulking, or reliving old times, and he did not break in on her reverie. Finally with a little laugh she said, "It seems pretty shabby, dragging you down from New York just for this, Art. Just for a thousand dollars."
"I'm glad you did, ma. I should have come home for Christmas, anyway. And listen, a thousand dollars is money, like Glenn said."
"Not for the big money maker." She put her hand on his thick forearm, and they both laughed. She said, "It's just that by rights we should own half that company, Art, you know that. Uncle Will took advantage of his own brother at a bad time and bought papa out for a song. I thought I'd get our own back for sure this time. I thought I had them at last." She sighed. "I tell you, if you were a lawyer, I'd never take this settlement. Or if I knew a good lawyer. But I guess it's all for the best."
3
When they got home he climbed up to his old bedroom and went to work. He had brought his manuscript with him, and there was nothing else to do really, but listen to his mother talk. The treasure trove of millions had gone up in smoke; the talk about it, however, would continue for years, dwindling at last to one more episode in the grand oral epic of the world's persecution of his mother. There would be enough of that at dinner.
At first he could not get his mind on his novel. The dislocation, the abrupt change from Manhattan to Hovey distracted him. Had he actually grown up in this tiny attic room with one dormer window, with a roof so steeply sloped that he could only stand up straight in one place near the door? Had he managed to hunch himself day after day at this little desk when he was a high school boy six feet tall, and had he slept for ten years in that old iron bedstead, with black paint more than half flaked off in bubbles of rust? The bed took up nearly all the floor. A bureau, the desk, and the chair filled the rest. One corner of the bureau still rested on three of his old schoolbooks. He had shoved the furniture around in some forgotten fury, broken off a bureau leg, and propped the wretched thing up so. Cigarette bums notched the edge of the desk, and a broad inkstain covered one side and streaked down a leg. Gougings and carvings of a penknife mutely welcomed Youngblood Hawke, the author, on behalf of Art Hawke, the pimpled boy half out of his mind with frustrated ambition and bottled-up sex longing.
He lit a cigar, dismissed these thoughts, and took up his pen. Soon his miserable surroundings dissolved, he knew nothing but the world of his story, and he piled up an exceptional page count in a couple of hours. When he ventured downstairs Nancy had not yet come home, and his mother was out on her sick calls. Mrs. Hawke always had half a dozen invalided people whose lives she tried to lighten. For some reason she had worked out her time long ago so that she made her calls before dinner. He was glad the womenfolk weren't home. He could escape for a couple of beers before dinner. That had been his father's habit; the one thing Ira Hawke had held to in the face of his wife's perpetual nagging. Hawke had acquired the same taste at nineteen, and though in New York he hardly drank beer any more, he found himself now with a raging thirst for it.
He put on his duffle coat and all but ran down High Street, stepping springily and far with each stride. Along Main Street lights burned in store windows, and trucks were thundering through, but otherwise the quiet of suppertime lay on the town. When he reached the American Legion hall he went to the bar and poured three icy beers down his throat as though he were putting out a fire. Then all at once he felt absolutely wonderful. He was Sinclair Lewis, Thomas Mann, Honoré de Balzac, the home on Fifth Avenue was his already, and this visit to Hovey was but a touching comic interlude, the return of the great man to his humble origins. Some day he would put it all in a book, in one of the later novels, the row of twelve or fifteen panel-works which would capture twentieth-century America as enduringly as failing Athens had been caught in the plays of Euripides, the books he would write on the income from a million dollars—
"Hey Art, you ole sumbitch! How long you been here? Art! Come on over and join us."
The hall's red lights were so dim that for a moment he did not see the arm waving from a far booth, on the other side of the empty dance floor. Then he called uncertainly, "Scotty?"
"Doggone right! Come on, have a drink with the common people." As Hawke drew near, Scott Hoag added to the young man sitting with him, "Here's the sumbitch you want to interview, not me . . . Art, this here is Bert Crawley of the Gazette. He don't know Hovey's got itself a celebrity. He thinks this supermarket I'm putting up in Low Bend is news, for Chrissakes." Scotty pushed aside an enormous role of blueprints that lay on the table before him. "To hell with this. Art, what'll you have?"
Hawke said, "Old Crow, beer chaser."
"Holy cow," Scott said, waving to a waiter.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing, Art, only that's a man's drink. You a sensitive artist, I thought."
"Let's match drink for drink, Scott, for a few rounds," Hawke said.
Scotty laughed. "No, thanks. I remember you from college, fella."
Hawke had been friendly with only a few people at the University of Kentucky. Scott had been one of them. But then, Scotty Hoag had been almost everybody's friend. Nobody had known much about him; rumor said he was the son of a Louisville horse trainer. There was something coarse in his speech, but his geniality and energy were irresistible, and he had been top man in school politics. About the time he started dating Ellie Hawke, he had taken up with her big uncouth cousin who edited the literary journal, and Scott had often asserted at school that one day they would all be goddamn proud that they had known Art Hawke. Once Scott had gotten an extra appropriation out of the school council's funds for a special all-poetry issue of Arthur's magazine. That was the kind of thing he could do with ease.
Hawke said, "I seem to remember you held your own pretty good, Scott."
"I reckon we both got a hollow leg, Art, you got longer legs, is all."
The reporter, a scrawny young man of twenty-two in a badly fitting suit, pulled out a pencil and notebook. "Well, Mr. Hawke, is that true? You've had a book accepted?"
