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Roaldus Richmond
OCT 1 4 1940
GRAY EAGLE
Pe had in his eyes and faoe the look of an eagle, and now
his hair was gray. Ii. had been one of the greatest athletes
ever developed in town, and he had never really grown Up. At
forty-five he was still a big overgrown boy. Fe was always
sparring or rough -housing, exchanging grips of strencth, twist-
ing wrists, and slamming some unsuspecting victim on the back.
Standing six -feet tall and weighing two -hundred, he was still
quick -moving and fast.
"Now about some insurance?" he would say, "Want to buy
that insurance today? No? well I don't blame you. Fvery-
one I sell a policy to either dies, gets hurt or falls sick
right away. Say, you should've seen that game I handled Sat-
urday. This Romanivich is one of the finest punters I've seen
in a long time. Cool back there, and when he kicks Nom wham/
sixty, sixty-five yards. Only a sophomore too. You want
to watch that boy."
Dunkirk was an insurance agent and a good one. On Sat-
urdays in 'Cie fall he refereed high school and college foot-
ball games, he was happiest on those Saturlays. A natural
official, student and lover of the game, he dominated the field.
was married and had two sons. 1113 wife led a quiet
life, devoting herself to home and children and social circles,
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a placid existence far removed from the rollicking rounds pure..
sued by her husband. "Say, I saw my boy play his first game
the other day," Dunkirk said. "Only fifteen but he's big a
hundred..andi-fifty now. lie's got a lot to learn but he'll be
all right. They call him Young Eirk. Es vas playing against
boys seventeen or eighteen years old. You know I never got
such a thrill in ay life. I wouldn't have believed it. You
can't understand it until you see a kid otiour,own in there,
honest to Cod. After that game I was weak, limp as a rag.
Tired as if I'd been in there myself. that a feelingl"
Dunkirk's office was anything but pretentious. Obviously
his business contacts were all outside, The office was a
refuge, a place to work in private and perhaps have a few
friends up for cards or drinks. The open rot/a...top desk re-
vealed a mass of papers and envelopes stacked sheaf on sheaf.
A tlatmitmp desk bore many heel -prints, cigarette -soars, several
ashtrays overflowing with butts, and a litter of old newspapers
and magazines, A set of Indian clubs leaned in one corner, a
cuspidor occupied the other. The adjacent closet held a small
collection of empty ale and whisky bottles, a picture in a
shattered frame, a discarded overcoat and hat, and sundry other
articles. The windows, opening on a perking lot, were unwashed
and sooty. The back roof was scattered with corn and grain
where Dunkirk fed the pigeons.
"Sure MIAS my old cat Dempsey," he said. "Demo vas a
great old boy, and what a scrapperl Be liked the ladies too,
I guess. But he was getting old, I figure he crawled off and
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died somswhers. They say cats do like that. I should've had
a i-olicy on him. I do miss him though. say, you ought to have
seen how that oat hated to see me drinking. If he saw me take
a drink he'd come over and cuff my legs with his paw. Le had
a wicked left hook too, and some real claws an him. Yeah, we've
had some parties in this office. GUOSS you could tell, looking
at it. Lots of days we've gone without sating a thing but
Dempsey always got his. Good food too, liver, hamburg, stag*
scraps. I don't know where be came friss, just showed up hers
one day. .(:tayed six or eight years and than went off the same
way, must be dead or he'd come back. Dempsey liked it here.
Not much like my wife she won't even come into the plate*.
Can't blame her, but hell1 Lt's good enough for what I want.
"That's my dad's picture up there. Bs was bier than
any of us boys and we're all big onoug. Ue was a giant, a
c,reat man in this state too. lAurted with nothing, a lumber-
jack out in the wilderness. Studied law, oame here, and when
he died he owned half of this Uain Street and plenty of other
things. A two.fisted old ncotohman, a fighter, and an hpnest
lawyer if you oan imagine such a thing. can't today. but
Dad was. You ask anybody about Judo Dunkirk. Le was a square.
shooter, he never played along with the bi6.0money boys. In
fact he fought Ism like hell. he took the little guy's side
every time because he was a big man all the way.
"T:ad said once: 'I've got three big husky boys home. There's
Oray, he can take a football and run a hundred yards with it
right through eleven other men. There's Joe, and he can kick
a ball sixty-ssventy yards on the fly. And Kirk, he can,do
about anything on the field, But when the woodbox has to be
filled I have to fill itt'
°Fe had a lot more stuff than any of us got, that's a
cinch, I guess he was disappointed in us boys and he had a
right to be., He sent us all to prep school and college he
did get a kick out of our bell -playing all right. lit was sat-
isfied with us in that respect. There's a picture of us when
we were kids. Five little angel faces in a row, huh? And we
turned out to be a bunch of gorillas. Two others are in the
insuranee business, one's a lawyer and one a dentist, We all
went to different oolleges. Dad said one school wasn't big
enough for any two of us. Sure, we used to fight and we
still do. One night up here Gray and 1 were battling. Gray's
a lot bigger' than am, and strong!.'.' he's got arms and legs
like tree trunks, and he'e faster'n hell besides. He always
licks me. When we get tight together we always fight and I
always take a beating. This night we wrecked the place and
the cops came up to stop it. We stopped fighting, trew the
cops downstairs, and went right beck to slugt,ing again!, We
got away with a lot around !-,ere on account of Dad. 9ut lots
of people, including the cops, hate our guts. They never dared
to much about it though.
"Sure, Gray was an All-American at Cornell and he played
pro football, big league football. Five hundred bucks a game,
three or four games a week, Jesus Christi It ruined him though.
is never could adjust himoelf to living on a normal salary.
z.
Le Lot used to blowing money and he never got over it. I think
Ilsts a little punchisdrunk too1 from the awful drubbings he
took in the pro game. Great guy though, heart as big az all
outdoors. Never starts trouble but when it starts 104 QUtg
"Dartmouth was my school. T;Jerets a picture of my fresh.
man team. Bill Cunninghamla year. Thatts Bill right there".
ha got the job now, and can ha write sportsi Loft :Art..
mouth to join the navy. I did, I mean. I was in the navy two
years and never stepped on board a warship. Kept me on this
aid. to drill recruits. Lame thing happened to Gray in the
marines, and later his whole damn regiment was almost wiped
out at Belleau Wood. I was at dowport. Charlestown. L'ortamouth.
Then after the war I wont into the Naval Air Corps and was down
in Pensacola, Lillie I was in the Service m played ball with
a lot of big leaguers Tris Zpeaker. Wally iipp and that gliAg#
"I almost got mina down in Penaaoola when I got caught in
a typhoon. I flow with it and it carried me out to sea, forcing
me down, down, down. Christ, I was soared1 didn't know what
to do. Then saw the waves under me, °lose, breaking white.
I turned and the zoddamn wiagtip must've almost hit the water.
As soon as zot headed into the wind started rising, the
wind proeuure on the wings lifting me, sea? 3ut I sure lost
my head for awhile, Mist4r. You know what 1 thought of? I
thought of our backyard at home, the ashpile we used to play
on, tho 6reon Lill behind the haus.. And I knew I was never
going to see them again. Lucky, lucky for me and unlucky
for ny wife and the rest of the world, I guess The fine
gray head wont back as Dunkirk's booming laugh jarred through
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the room*
never :oined the Legion, never wanted to. I don't he-
liove ia it, it's nothing but a political organization* They've
Lad. Legion Commander::: right here that ,ere caught in the last
draft, only in uniform two weeks. Sla kers in war -time, big
heroes in peaceiPtims. To hell with that stuff, Mister. 1 was
home. on 1,?uve and one of them, who later became Eead of the
Legion, says: 'Is the navy safe? Is it a safe place to be, in
the navy?' 1 told him hell, it was ss:er there than at homes
especially unpopular us he wao around here* Ten days later he
showed up at ckmp. Now he's a big Legionnaire hero*" Dunkirk
coughed and spat at the cuspidor, his strong ruddy face register
in disgust*
"T was married in the Lervice, I lived in Boston, Lart-
ford and npringfield awhile before coming back home. I've been
here since except for tripe to football gamee, company convent-
ions, fishing trips to Maine, and thinga like that. Last time
we went to Mair e fly, of us took twenty-five quarts of laig a
Faig, and us only stayed a few days.
"ry father died seven years ago* They still talk about
him a lot around here. What a great man he was and what wash..
outs his sons are, you know. .other's still living but the
isn't very well. She's a real fine cultured lady 1 don't
know where she got such roughnecks for sons, honestly. Big
bard -drinking bruieers* Dad drank a lot but it never got him
down or interfered with his work; he could take it. My wife's
more like Mother. I guess they both get disgusted with me*"
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It was there in Dunkirk,* rugged faces the hawk -nose and
brown eagle.syes, that undying wildness that was in him. And
you thought surely he was a strange man to be an ins wanes agent.
"That's a battle too 4.- selling insuranee," be said, as
if he had read your thought. "You've got to keep fighting all
the time. You've got to drive yourself, build it up little
by little, make new contacts all the time." z. shook his hand-
some gray head. "I've slipped a lot in the last few years and
I know it. I used to make about five or six thousand a year,
but I let up, stopped driving, lost my grip. I know i &mild
*till make fifty or sixty dollars a week anyway if I'd work.
But I waste so much time, so goddamn much time. Stop in some
beer garden for one ale and get to talking football or baseball,
or prise -fighting or the war in 'Europe, and stay right there
drinking ale and talking. You know how it is. Or if I work
like hell for two weeks I get bored and dull, want some fun and
excitement. Well, after the football season settle down
and really grind."
Dunkirk was a great talker. he knew everybody in the
state, and for everyone he had some new and intimate approach
to conversation. Lometi.iing snatched from tbe past or promised
in the future, to make them feel that bold been waiting part-
icularly to see them.
Ruthless and powerful he was naturally much hated and
feared, yet there were many who liked him deeply. no had an
absolute disregard for conventions and public opinion is- and
sometimes for all lumen feelings. He had a deep-rooted faith
a.
in himself and his own strength and abilities.
"Yes, we sell to ttonecutters," he said. "But they have
to pay and pay well, Lots of them can't pass tha physical ex-
amination anyway. The poor baatards„ I feel sorry for them.
I've sold 4 good many policies to stonecutters. I paid off a
five -thousand dollar policy to a stonecutter just last week.
Ea was a hard one to sell too, didn't want to talk about it
at all. Never would've taken it if it hadn't been for his wife,
Bio family too, God, I don't know. That'll help them some
but what's five thousand with a family like that? All tone
kids. It's a hell of a thing all right. I wish it had been
fifty thousand was giving her. I told her so and 1 meant it.
'People think I'm a heartless brute, you know. I know it
and I don't Give a damn. But I do like to help people, if
can, Last Christmas I met this little guy in a ber Inint,
crying in his beer almost. Said he was going to commit suicide.
Pis wife wan sick, he had no. job, no money, nothing. And it
was Christmas, roll I felt sorry for him. I bought him a
bottle of wino to take to his wife and some whisky for himself.
act 1,,im a turkey and all the fixings and sent him home with
it. And I let him take ten bucks to. well, it madn me feel
preti:y good. I oleos I felt like Santa Claus or sorsthinc.
Firat of the year I got him a job, or helped to. n919 still
working and getting by all right now. But he doesn't come
around an:, more, and he never pair, me the ten. Well, what the
hell, I still foal pretty good about the whole thing*
'Did I toll you I saw my oldest boy play his first game?
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And I got the thrill of my llfe-time out of it. Yes, the high
school always has good teams, football and everything else.
These foreign kids make fine athletes. They're strong and tough
and quick, naturals most of them. Of course we get a lot of
them on account of the granite industry Italians, Scotch,
Irish, ?ranch Swedes and Spaniards too. The Italians make
good ball players, of course, plenty of fire and fight coupled
with natural strength and ability. Look at the Nops in the
big leagues, full of them an you know. We csn probably thank
granIta for our athletic eupreracyj I suppose, along with every-.
Viler else. The boys rank with the best in the state pract-
teeny every year.
"Say, how about that insurance now, want to take out some
more? What, you donot want it? Well, well, well." Dunkirk
shoe,: his great gray head with mock sadness, sprang up with
amazing speed, shadow -.hexed around the room for a minute, and
than halted and laughed his heavy lauzh. Yisteroll
he said. *row about a glass of ale?'