When they were a good way out on the lake, Artie stood up, complaining, “For crissake, Judd, you don’t know your paddle from your asshole,” and Judd insulted him back and started a scuffle. Before Morty knew what was happening, they were all in the water.
They saw the bastard come up thrashing. He glared at them, and with his mouth full, sputtered, “. . . on purpose!” and then went under, thrashing. They swam away. But Judd looked back, treading water. Morty was flailing, but keeping his head up.
Artie saw it, too. The whole damn thing was Judd’s fault, he swore. He’d heard the bastard wrong. “I don’t swim” didn’t mean “I can’t swim.”
Morty came ashore some distance from them, and they hurried over to him solicitously. Panting, he gasped out, “You did it on purpose. I know, you filthy degenerates!” His eyes were narrow, meaningful. He wouldn’t walk back with them, but trailed, slowly, by himself.
All day, they stuck to him. When they told the story of the accidental overturning of the canoe, he was silent. And that night he discovered he had to cut his visit short and return to Lansing.
Then the bastard wrote his letters.
He sent them to their brothers. One to Max Steiner, and one to James Straus. They were neatly typed, sanctimonious letters—“unpleasant as the subject may be, I feel it is my duty” and “by chance came upon an exhibition of unmentionable character” and “not my place to give advice but perhaps you are unaware of—”
Brother James brought it up on the tennis court, just before starting to play. “Say, Artie, what was your friend so sore about when he left here, that Kornhauser kid?”
“Why? Has Morty been telling any stories?”
“Well, he wrote me a letter.”
“That stinking little crapper. Sure he was sore. We took about forty bucks away from him, shooting craps, up in my room, Saturday night, so he got mad and the little bastard even tried to suggest the dice were loaded—”
James had on his knowing smile.
“Is that what he wrote about?” Artie demanded.
“Oh, it was some junk about you and Judd.” In the look James gave him, everything was included. All the things James had covered up for him—the swiped things, the dose. But he wouldn’t spill this either; James had to imagine himself a real guy, protecting his kid brother. “It’s all a dirty lie!” Artie exclaimed. “Morty’s just a dirty troublemaker!”
James said, “Listen, Artie, this is for your own good. That Judd’s a freak. You know, funny. Maybe you fellows had better not be seen so much together. People make up all kinds of stories. Maybe there ought always to be somebody with you if you go with him—”
“Why, that dirty-minded lousy— Why, for crissake I know what it is he made a story out of. Why, we were just horsing around.”
“You try to let Morty drown?” James asked coolly.
“Why, he fell out of the canoe. Why, that—” Their eyes met. Artie grinned. James shook his head, but could not hide the beginning of a smile as he thought of Morty flailing in the water.
It was lucky the letter hadn’t been sent to Lewis, because Lewis would have insisted it was a matter for Momsie and Popsie, a matter, Christ, affecting the family reputation. But James, Artie felt he could handle. James didn’t like trouble. He liked a good time himself. And he couldn’t have already told anyone, or he wouldn’t be bringing it up like this. Christ, if the family knew about this one, it would be worse than that time with the car accident.
Artie took it easy with James, giving him the boyish wink, and letting him win the set.
But that was a mark against Judd, Artie told himself, turning down 49th Street toward Judd’s house and casting quick glances right and left. Ha, that elderly woman walking her dog might be a secret police agent. He would give her the slip. And he curled his hand around the barrel of the automatic.
Judd’s fault, that time with Morty. First, being such a damn fool as to start playing around, with the door unlocked. Hell, he himself didn’t get any special kick out of it, but he let Judd play around just for the hell of it. Judd was the one who started all that stuff. And then, once Morty had seen them and once they had got him out in the canoe, and when they saw he had tricked them about not being able to swim, they ought to have held the tattler’s head under water. If you start something you should go through with it. If Judd hadn’t been so scared, scared pissless, Morty would have been taken care of right there.
Instead, they had let him leave. So he not only had the story to tell of catching them fooling around, but, even worse, about their trying to drown him. Morty told everybody he saw that summer. Then, instead of coming back to the frat in the fall, he had to spend a year in Denver, with TB—the reason he didn’t exert himself swimming.
Even with Morty Kornhauser away from the frat, Judd should never have insisted on coming to Ann Arbor. That was another mistake to charge up against Judah Steiner, Jr. First he had to go and make a whole issue of it with his brother Max, who had received the same kind of dirty letter as James. Instead of simply gabbing his way out of it, Judd had to make an issue, declaring that just for that, the family had to show they trusted him by letting him go to Ann Arbor even though Artie was there.
And then another mistake. Mr. Judd Steiner had to insist he wanted to get into the frat! Morty heard about it and wrote one of his letters from Denver: to Al Goetz, president of the chapter. “Do you want to have a real pair of perverts, right in the house?”
The president took Artie aside for a man-to-man talk. Hell, it was so bad, Artie even had to get James to come up, casually, like for a football game, but to remind Al Goetz of a thing or two. And hell, Al finally admitted everybody knew Artie was okay—why, Artie helled around in the Detroit cat houses with the rest of the boys; they knew he was regular. As James said, he’d even caught a dose at fifteen. But after James was gone, Al told Artie, Why not face the facts? The thing wasn’t only because of Morty’s tales. Judd simply was not well liked, so why make an issue of getting him in? “Oh, I know he’s your friend. You get along with him because you’re both brilliant young bastards. But let’s face it, Artie, there’d be more than one blackball. Why should he want to get his feelings hurt?”
At least—a point for the defense—Judd didn’t push it. He suddenly was against fraternities. He even made a Hebe question out of it. A principle.
The fact was, the Delts had taken him for a ride. For a couple of days he had the idea he was going to show up Alpha Beta by getting into a real gentile fraternity. Some Delt had made the mistake of inviting Judd over because of his being a genius prodigy and a millionaire too. But then they dropped him cold, and Judd suddenly made a principle out of it. He was against the idea of Jewish frats and non-Jewish frats. Being a Jew was simply an accident of birth. So now he was anti-fraternity. He would never join a Hebe frat either, on principle. Moreover, frat men were all a bunch of rubber stamps, Judd declared. They would come out a bunch of Babbitts. He would drop over to the house and spout this stuff, and some of the fellows would laugh, but a lot of them didn’t like it. They started telling Artie to keep his friend away from the place. On account of Judd, he’d almost become unpopular.
Artie walked a little faster. He thought of an idea that suddenly made him feel bubbly, even gay. He would go in through the basement and up the back stairs. He would give Dog Eyes the scare of his life.
Judd was sitting erect, unable to study. He detested being at the mercy of a physical need. It seemed never to leave him. Others didn’t have it so bad. Artie didn’t have it so bad. Those two years at Ann Arbor, near Artie, had nearly driven him crazy.
None of the coeds would put out. At least, not for him. The cat houses weren’t enough. He had to have it all the time—oversexed, he guessed.
And