[Tuesday-Wednesday] The Face of Your Father
I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding. The hangover wasn't bad enough to account for that, but I poured a little hair of the dog anyway while I tried to think back on what got me going. I couldn't get a handle on it, though. All that stuck with me were the feeling that something was wrong, and that I'd forgotten something I shouldn't have.
I wasn't so good with the computer things (even if I live forever -- an idea I try to avoid, no matter how it sometimes seems I might, just so I don't get sloppy -- I doubt I'll ever get good with them), but television, I could manage well enough, and I hadn't been liking what it'd been showing me, the last couple of days. Maybe that was what put the pit in my gut. If so, the Dietzes and Frankie Marks certainly would've put the capper on that.
After getting washed up and having a bite at the diner, I went to the office. I'd never had a secretary -- I didn't get that many cases, and didn't want the chance that something about my past would slip -- but a little investment with some of the money I'd taken here and there when I was living ahead of everyone else got me out of the usual gumshoe concern of Making Rent Or Else, and had allowed me to set up some extras.
I made sure all of the doors, windows, and shades were secured. In the inner office, I moved my chair to the side of the desk, pulled up the rug, and opened the trap door that let me down into a little hidey-hole. There wasn't much to it, other than some storage shelves, a work bench, and another door leading to a short passage into the sewers. I'd long decided that if I was ever needed to either clean up Hell like I cleaned up Jericho, or get out of town, I'd want to be more prepared.
Not everything I had on the shelves was strictly legal, but it's not like I really worried about that too much before. I went through it all, rechecking that everything worked. A few pairs of semi-automatics in shoulder holsters, like the guns I always carry with me, a few shotguns, a couple of Tommy guns (my tribute to Hickey, long may the coyotes have feasted on his carcass). There wasn't much I could do to check the hand grenades, but I didn't see any physical defects and they still had the same heft that I remembered. The boxes of ammo were all dry, and I packed some, along with a bunch of empty magazines, into a large gym bag to take home and load overnight.
I was just about to leave, when my foot kicked something under the bench. For a moment, I dismissed it as a stool, but then I remembered that I didn't keep a stool down here. I reached under it, and hauled out a steamer trunk. I'd forgotten I even had the old thing. Back in the old days, shortly before I'd gone on the run and ended up passing through Jericho, I'd gotten it buried, hidden out of sight. I did some checking, after I settled in Hell, and I consider it a minor miracle that whatever changes Chicago might've gone through over the decades, it'd survived, undiscovered and unmolested, waiting for me to dig it up. I'd put it down here, not really remembering what was in it, save for that it was important.
Now, I was curious enough to find out. I hauled it up into the office, wanting better light to work with. I pulled the key out of my pocket and popped the locks. The top third of the trunk was taken up by a blanket, old-fashioned and heavy and warm, just the way Mom had made it. Underneath that, on the right there were stacks of bills -- cash I'd gotten for jobs in Chicago -- and the papers and other evidence which, if the cops had ever gotten their hands on them, would've gotten me put away for those same jobs. Looking on the left, among other things, I spotted something wrapped in brown paper, an inch thick. A book, maybe. I pulled it out and realized that no, it was a picture frame. I untied the string and peeled off the paper, and there, staring up at me from behind the glass, was the face of my father. It was a good thing I was already sitting down, or else the shock would've knocked me flat on my ass. I stared back at him, and I remembered...
In the time that I knew him, I didn't like my father very much. He never hit my mother, and he only smacked me when I really deserved it, but the way that something ugly always seemed to be lurking behind his eyes made it clear that that was as much mercy as he still had left in him. To hear Mom tell it, he wasn't always like that. She actually didn't like talking about it much, but she told me once that he'd spent twenty-five years as some sort of lawman out West, before retiring and coming back to Providence to become the local mailman and raise a family. He'd gotten pulled into one last case not long after I was born, 'cause whatever they were looking for was in town and he knew it better than any of them. Something went wrong, and he came out of it with one arm nearly useless and a lot of scars, both on his body and in his mind.
All I knew for myself was that most of the time, Dad was the Big Bald Bastard, better off avoided if at all possible. Even if he had been a good man, he'd obviously never been a very nice man, except in the rare moment, as he had a knack for saying just the right thing to get under your skin and piss you off. I kept my head low and got through my childhood as quick as I could. As soon as I got out of school, I took the first chance I had to get away from home by joining the Army. Besides, war had just begun out in Europe the year before. We'd eventually call it "The Great War," like we'd never have another like it again. Events in the decades I was never around for proved that a lie, but at the time, all I knew was that it was only a matter of time before America got into the fight, and when that happened, I wanted to be there.
I got through the early parts of training without any real trouble. Finally, the day came when we began firearms training. Some of my friends' parents had guns, either for hunting or just because they felt safer with them, and they'd let me try them out enough to know that I was a pretty good shot. There were twenty of us in the training class, overseen by Sergeant Crenson, a veritable mountain of a man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair.
"Now LISTEN UP, MAGGOTS! Some instructors will be all cute and tell you, 'Don't call me sir, I work for a living,' but I'm not one of them! The Army has picked you to receive the benefits of my experience, and you will call me sir! Do you understand?"
As one, we replied, "YES, SIR!"
"All right! Now, I've read each and every one of your files, and I know that the Army thinks you will benefit from my teachings more than many of your fellow recruits might! However! I don't care how much shooting you might've ever done before, but before I actually let any of you actually touch one of these guns, I'm going to make sure you understand how to have the proper respect for the power we put in your hands! I want each of you to picture, in your minds, your father's face! Get a good, solid image, and make sure it has everything you admire, respect, and fear about him! I want it so that when you remember it, you know it's watching what you do, and when you forget it, you know it's deserted you out of shame for what you've done!"
He went on like that for a while, impressing upon us the qualities that our images should have, then had us get on with it. Apparently something in our faces showed about how we were doing, as he was making his way around, talking to each of us more quietly. Most of the guys did pretty well with it. I'd heard that one of our group had grown up in an orphanage, so I didn't know just what he was going to do. I guess he and Sgt. Crenson worked something out, though. Me, I had a problem: while there was plenty to fear in Dad's face, there was barely anything to respect, and almost nothing to admire.
"Having some trouble?"
I looked over at Sgt. Crenson, for whom my time had apparently come. "I'm trying, sir. It's just..."
He nodded, his expression more understanding than I expected. "Dad's not been the best guy to live around, has he?" I shook my head, puzzled. "I knew your father. Worked with him, even, a couple of times, back when he was a Pinkerton and I was in the Secret Service. Did he ever tell you about any of that?"
"No. No, sir, it wasn't considered something to be talked about."
Sarge looked down, saddened. "That's a shame. I think you'd have liked him a lot better, back in his prime. He was a bit of an ass, sometimes, but still a nobler man, in his way. Did you ever see a picture of him back then, at least? I know there used to be at least one fairly good one."
I searched back through my memories. It didn't take long to go through the few that involved family pictures, and sure enough, there was one time as a kid, when Mom showed me the very same photograph I was holding in my hands right now, in just the same frame. Taken just a few years before I was born, it showed him in a fairly nice suit, of a style worn out West. Instead of the intimidating bald head and permanent scowl, he had short dark hair headed for gray and a moustache and vandyke beard of the same color framing a look that was dignified yet showed slightly in the corners of his mouth that he'd rather be smiling.
"There it is," Sgt. Crenson said. "You got it. That's your father's true face, the one I always hope he'll remember himself. You work on that, and I'll finish with the others."
Sarge was right. It was a face I could admire, as well as respect and fear. I still didn't entirely understand the purpose of the exercise, but with the insight I'd just been given, I felt it only right to go along with it, and fixed the image in my mind. After a few more minutes, Sarge made his way back to standing in front of the firing range.
"All right! You now each have the image of your father in your mind, so we can begin!" He drew his pistol from the holster at his hip, holding it up for all of us to see, then turned to face the target at the far end of the range. Despite having his back to us, his voice was still strong and clear.
"You do not aim with your hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father." He brought his arm down, the gun coming to rest level with a line that would lead straight to the target. "You aim with your eye."
He put the gun up again. "You do not shoot with your hand. He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father." His thumb clicked the safety on, and then the gun came down again, aimed dead center, and the gun clicked as the trigger was pulled but prevented from firing by the safety. "You shoot with your mind."
A third time, he raised the gun, the safety clicking back off. "You do not kill with your gun. He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. You kill with your heart."
The gun dropped once more, but this time Sgt. Crenson did not hold back. Six shots rang out, three each in the head and over the heart.
"Understand, maggots?"
We most certainly did understand. Sergeant Crenson's methods seemed a bit unusual, compared with how everyone else was getting trained, but we were far and away the best shooters in the class. Other training followed, and by the time America joined in the Great War, we were ready to be shipped out. Usually, we'd serve in the trenches, just as any other soldier would, but occasionally one or more of us would be asked to undertake missions with a higher level of danger than could be left to the rank and file.
I served my country, and we helped win the war. When it was over, I returned home... and found out that Mom had taken ill and died, and Dad followed soon after, his heart crumbled under his grief. I'd been left everything, but they hadn't been able to get word to me while I was abroad. None of it mattered, though, if winning the war meant I'd lose my chance to patch things up with my family. I'd packed the steamer trunk with the few things that'd seemed worth keeping, sold everything else, and just started wandering, first wasting the money I had on moving around and keeping drunk, and then getting jobs wherever someone was looking for a shooter.
When Prohibition started, gangs created enough of a market that it wasn't hard getting work when I wanted it. The kill, the cash, the booze. I never got so far into any of it that it got me sloppy or crazy, but just enough to keep me occupied, so I'd never have to face what I'd run from, or what I'd let myself forget, except in those moments when a feeling I'd lost the instinct to identify pushed me to do something to help someone in need.
I shook my head, clearing out the cobwebs of the unexpected memories. I set aside the picture of my father and looked at what else had been in that part of the trunk. A few small boxes, containing the few medals I'd received from the war. A much smaller picture of my mother. A few books. Underneath all of that, I found a wooden box, with an old-fashioned gun belt coiled around it. Inside the box, nestled in crushed black velvet, rested a pair of revolvers framing a gleaming badge of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
Most of the trunk got repacked and put back in the hole. The pictures, I put in my coat pocket. I put the box and the belt into the bag; they'd need cleaning and maintenance, and I'd have to make sure I had bullets of the right caliber, in case I ever decided to use this final legacy from my father, whose face I would never forget again.
I wasn't so good with the computer things (even if I live forever -- an idea I try to avoid, no matter how it sometimes seems I might, just so I don't get sloppy -- I doubt I'll ever get good with them), but television, I could manage well enough, and I hadn't been liking what it'd been showing me, the last couple of days. Maybe that was what put the pit in my gut. If so, the Dietzes and Frankie Marks certainly would've put the capper on that.
After getting washed up and having a bite at the diner, I went to the office. I'd never had a secretary -- I didn't get that many cases, and didn't want the chance that something about my past would slip -- but a little investment with some of the money I'd taken here and there when I was living ahead of everyone else got me out of the usual gumshoe concern of Making Rent Or Else, and had allowed me to set up some extras.
I made sure all of the doors, windows, and shades were secured. In the inner office, I moved my chair to the side of the desk, pulled up the rug, and opened the trap door that let me down into a little hidey-hole. There wasn't much to it, other than some storage shelves, a work bench, and another door leading to a short passage into the sewers. I'd long decided that if I was ever needed to either clean up Hell like I cleaned up Jericho, or get out of town, I'd want to be more prepared.
Not everything I had on the shelves was strictly legal, but it's not like I really worried about that too much before. I went through it all, rechecking that everything worked. A few pairs of semi-automatics in shoulder holsters, like the guns I always carry with me, a few shotguns, a couple of Tommy guns (my tribute to Hickey, long may the coyotes have feasted on his carcass). There wasn't much I could do to check the hand grenades, but I didn't see any physical defects and they still had the same heft that I remembered. The boxes of ammo were all dry, and I packed some, along with a bunch of empty magazines, into a large gym bag to take home and load overnight.
I was just about to leave, when my foot kicked something under the bench. For a moment, I dismissed it as a stool, but then I remembered that I didn't keep a stool down here. I reached under it, and hauled out a steamer trunk. I'd forgotten I even had the old thing. Back in the old days, shortly before I'd gone on the run and ended up passing through Jericho, I'd gotten it buried, hidden out of sight. I did some checking, after I settled in Hell, and I consider it a minor miracle that whatever changes Chicago might've gone through over the decades, it'd survived, undiscovered and unmolested, waiting for me to dig it up. I'd put it down here, not really remembering what was in it, save for that it was important.
Now, I was curious enough to find out. I hauled it up into the office, wanting better light to work with. I pulled the key out of my pocket and popped the locks. The top third of the trunk was taken up by a blanket, old-fashioned and heavy and warm, just the way Mom had made it. Underneath that, on the right there were stacks of bills -- cash I'd gotten for jobs in Chicago -- and the papers and other evidence which, if the cops had ever gotten their hands on them, would've gotten me put away for those same jobs. Looking on the left, among other things, I spotted something wrapped in brown paper, an inch thick. A book, maybe. I pulled it out and realized that no, it was a picture frame. I untied the string and peeled off the paper, and there, staring up at me from behind the glass, was the face of my father. It was a good thing I was already sitting down, or else the shock would've knocked me flat on my ass. I stared back at him, and I remembered...
In the time that I knew him, I didn't like my father very much. He never hit my mother, and he only smacked me when I really deserved it, but the way that something ugly always seemed to be lurking behind his eyes made it clear that that was as much mercy as he still had left in him. To hear Mom tell it, he wasn't always like that. She actually didn't like talking about it much, but she told me once that he'd spent twenty-five years as some sort of lawman out West, before retiring and coming back to Providence to become the local mailman and raise a family. He'd gotten pulled into one last case not long after I was born, 'cause whatever they were looking for was in town and he knew it better than any of them. Something went wrong, and he came out of it with one arm nearly useless and a lot of scars, both on his body and in his mind.
All I knew for myself was that most of the time, Dad was the Big Bald Bastard, better off avoided if at all possible. Even if he had been a good man, he'd obviously never been a very nice man, except in the rare moment, as he had a knack for saying just the right thing to get under your skin and piss you off. I kept my head low and got through my childhood as quick as I could. As soon as I got out of school, I took the first chance I had to get away from home by joining the Army. Besides, war had just begun out in Europe the year before. We'd eventually call it "The Great War," like we'd never have another like it again. Events in the decades I was never around for proved that a lie, but at the time, all I knew was that it was only a matter of time before America got into the fight, and when that happened, I wanted to be there.
I got through the early parts of training without any real trouble. Finally, the day came when we began firearms training. Some of my friends' parents had guns, either for hunting or just because they felt safer with them, and they'd let me try them out enough to know that I was a pretty good shot. There were twenty of us in the training class, overseen by Sergeant Crenson, a veritable mountain of a man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair.
"Now LISTEN UP, MAGGOTS! Some instructors will be all cute and tell you, 'Don't call me sir, I work for a living,' but I'm not one of them! The Army has picked you to receive the benefits of my experience, and you will call me sir! Do you understand?"
As one, we replied, "YES, SIR!"
"All right! Now, I've read each and every one of your files, and I know that the Army thinks you will benefit from my teachings more than many of your fellow recruits might! However! I don't care how much shooting you might've ever done before, but before I actually let any of you actually touch one of these guns, I'm going to make sure you understand how to have the proper respect for the power we put in your hands! I want each of you to picture, in your minds, your father's face! Get a good, solid image, and make sure it has everything you admire, respect, and fear about him! I want it so that when you remember it, you know it's watching what you do, and when you forget it, you know it's deserted you out of shame for what you've done!"
He went on like that for a while, impressing upon us the qualities that our images should have, then had us get on with it. Apparently something in our faces showed about how we were doing, as he was making his way around, talking to each of us more quietly. Most of the guys did pretty well with it. I'd heard that one of our group had grown up in an orphanage, so I didn't know just what he was going to do. I guess he and Sgt. Crenson worked something out, though. Me, I had a problem: while there was plenty to fear in Dad's face, there was barely anything to respect, and almost nothing to admire.
"Having some trouble?"
I looked over at Sgt. Crenson, for whom my time had apparently come. "I'm trying, sir. It's just..."
He nodded, his expression more understanding than I expected. "Dad's not been the best guy to live around, has he?" I shook my head, puzzled. "I knew your father. Worked with him, even, a couple of times, back when he was a Pinkerton and I was in the Secret Service. Did he ever tell you about any of that?"
"No. No, sir, it wasn't considered something to be talked about."
Sarge looked down, saddened. "That's a shame. I think you'd have liked him a lot better, back in his prime. He was a bit of an ass, sometimes, but still a nobler man, in his way. Did you ever see a picture of him back then, at least? I know there used to be at least one fairly good one."
I searched back through my memories. It didn't take long to go through the few that involved family pictures, and sure enough, there was one time as a kid, when Mom showed me the very same photograph I was holding in my hands right now, in just the same frame. Taken just a few years before I was born, it showed him in a fairly nice suit, of a style worn out West. Instead of the intimidating bald head and permanent scowl, he had short dark hair headed for gray and a moustache and vandyke beard of the same color framing a look that was dignified yet showed slightly in the corners of his mouth that he'd rather be smiling.
"There it is," Sgt. Crenson said. "You got it. That's your father's true face, the one I always hope he'll remember himself. You work on that, and I'll finish with the others."
Sarge was right. It was a face I could admire, as well as respect and fear. I still didn't entirely understand the purpose of the exercise, but with the insight I'd just been given, I felt it only right to go along with it, and fixed the image in my mind. After a few more minutes, Sarge made his way back to standing in front of the firing range.
"All right! You now each have the image of your father in your mind, so we can begin!" He drew his pistol from the holster at his hip, holding it up for all of us to see, then turned to face the target at the far end of the range. Despite having his back to us, his voice was still strong and clear.
"You do not aim with your hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father." He brought his arm down, the gun coming to rest level with a line that would lead straight to the target. "You aim with your eye."
He put the gun up again. "You do not shoot with your hand. He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father." His thumb clicked the safety on, and then the gun came down again, aimed dead center, and the gun clicked as the trigger was pulled but prevented from firing by the safety. "You shoot with your mind."
A third time, he raised the gun, the safety clicking back off. "You do not kill with your gun. He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. You kill with your heart."
The gun dropped once more, but this time Sgt. Crenson did not hold back. Six shots rang out, three each in the head and over the heart.
"Understand, maggots?"
We most certainly did understand. Sergeant Crenson's methods seemed a bit unusual, compared with how everyone else was getting trained, but we were far and away the best shooters in the class. Other training followed, and by the time America joined in the Great War, we were ready to be shipped out. Usually, we'd serve in the trenches, just as any other soldier would, but occasionally one or more of us would be asked to undertake missions with a higher level of danger than could be left to the rank and file.
I served my country, and we helped win the war. When it was over, I returned home... and found out that Mom had taken ill and died, and Dad followed soon after, his heart crumbled under his grief. I'd been left everything, but they hadn't been able to get word to me while I was abroad. None of it mattered, though, if winning the war meant I'd lose my chance to patch things up with my family. I'd packed the steamer trunk with the few things that'd seemed worth keeping, sold everything else, and just started wandering, first wasting the money I had on moving around and keeping drunk, and then getting jobs wherever someone was looking for a shooter.
When Prohibition started, gangs created enough of a market that it wasn't hard getting work when I wanted it. The kill, the cash, the booze. I never got so far into any of it that it got me sloppy or crazy, but just enough to keep me occupied, so I'd never have to face what I'd run from, or what I'd let myself forget, except in those moments when a feeling I'd lost the instinct to identify pushed me to do something to help someone in need.
I shook my head, clearing out the cobwebs of the unexpected memories. I set aside the picture of my father and looked at what else had been in that part of the trunk. A few small boxes, containing the few medals I'd received from the war. A much smaller picture of my mother. A few books. Underneath all of that, I found a wooden box, with an old-fashioned gun belt coiled around it. Inside the box, nestled in crushed black velvet, rested a pair of revolvers framing a gleaming badge of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
Most of the trunk got repacked and put back in the hole. The pictures, I put in my coat pocket. I put the box and the belt into the bag; they'd need cleaning and maintenance, and I'd have to make sure I had bullets of the right caliber, in case I ever decided to use this final legacy from my father, whose face I would never forget again.