“F-f-for what, Bras? What did he get arrested for?”
“Oh—for killin’ people, an’ doin’ things like that! You know how it is, Monk. Sometimes the relatives or neighbors, or the wives and children of people that he killed would raise a rumpus—say he didn’t have no right to kill ’em—some such stuff as that! But it always come out all right—it always does!” cried Nebraska earnestly. “And why? Why because, like the old man says, this is America, an’ we’re a free country—an’ if someone gets in your way an’ bothers you, you have to kill him—an’ that’s all there is to it!…If you have to go to court an’ stand trial, you go to court an’ stand trial. Of course, it’s a lot of trouble an’ takes up your time—but then the jury lets you off, an’ that’s all there is to it!…I know my old man always says that this is the only country in the world where the poor man has a chance! In Europe he wouldn’t have the chance a snowball has in hell! And why? Why because, as my old man says, in Europe the laws are all made for the rich, a poor man never can get justice there—what justice there is is all for the kings an’ dukes an’ lords an’ ladies, an’ such people as that. But a poor man—why, Monk,” Nebraska said impressively, “if a poor man in Europe went an’ killed a man, almost anything might happen to him—that’s just how rotten an’ corrupt the whole thing is over there. You ask my old man about it sometime! He’ll tell you!…But, pshaw, boy!” he now continued, with a resumption of his former friendly and good-humored casualness, “you got nothing in the world to worry about! If any of that West Side gang comes back an’ tries to bother you, you let me know, and I’ll take care of ’em! If we’ve got to kill someone, we’ll have to kill someone—but you oughtn’t even to let it worry you!…And now, so long, Monk! You let me know if anything turns up and I’ll take care of it!”
“Th-thanks, Bras! I sure appreciate…”
“Pshaw, boy! Forget about it! We got to stick together on our side of town. We’re neighbors! You’d do the same for me, I knew that!”
“Yes, I would, Bras. Well, good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Monk. I’ll be seein’ you ’fore long.”
And quiet, steady, unperturbed, moving along at even steps, his calm, brave face and Indian eyes fixed forward, his baseball bat held firmly on his shoulder, the Cherokee boy moved off, turned right into his alley, and was lost from sight.
NEBRASKA CRANE WAS the best boy in the town, but Sid Purtle was poor white trash and a mountain grill. If Sid Purtle had been any good, his people never would have named him Sid. George Webber’s uncle had said that they were nothing but mountain grills no matter if they did live out upon Montgomery Avenue on the West Side of town; that’s all that they had been to start with, that’s what he called them, and that’s what they were, all right. Sid! That was a fine name, now! A rotten, dirty, sneering, treacherous, snot-nosed, blear-eyed, bitch of a name! Other rotten sneering names were Guy, Clarence, Roy, Harry, Victor, Carl and Floyd.