Free Some Came Running by James Jones

“His name is William Howard Taft Dillert. He was born in 1912.”
    “But you don’t never want to call him that,” Hubie grinned. “Specially Howard. That’s what his mother calls him.”
    “See, they’re from down around Florence, Alabama,” Dewey grinned. “That’s why the nickname. His sister use to work in a plant in Birmingham and took the family there. Then she moved up here to Parkman to work for Sternutol Chemical and brought them here. Now the other brother works for Sternutol, too. ’Bama came along with him for a visit and just stayed.”
    “They don’t much like it, either,” Hubie said. “That was ten years ago. I don’t bet there’s fifteen people in town knows what his real name is. Countin his family. Dewey just happen to go up the same day he did to register for the draft, is how he found out.”
    “He hates that name like poison,” Dewey grinned.
    “Dillert’s a good old Southern name,” Dave said.
    “Yeah, but William Howard Taft isn’t,” Dewey said. “’Bama says his old lady sure would’ve done him a big favor if she’d only waited six months to have him.”
    “Yeah, at least Woodrow Wilson was a good Democrat,” Hubie said.
    Dave laughed. It was the first real laugh he’d had all day, and it was a short one. And immediately it had stopped he felt exhausted, depleted. He felt as though if it hadn’t stopped he might go on laughing and laughing until it turned into crying hysterics. The kind where you lie on the floor weeping and listening to yourself and wondering why. Thinking about it now, he felt it bubbling up in him, and he choked it off.
    “Well, I’ve got to go,” he said. “Got to get cleaned up to go out to Frank’s tonight. You tell ’Bama thanks for all that beer and stuff.”
    “We see you down at Smitty’s later,” Dewey said. He looked at his watch. “My girl’ll be gettin off at the brassiere factory before long. We’re gonna meet her here.” He grinned. “She gets two weeks’ pay today.”
    “Yes,” Dave said, “sure.” He nodded and got up and went toward the door. He felt too full of beer, and he was hungry for food again already. But he couldn’t stay here and eat. He had to get out.
    He went out and turned the other way from ’Bama, down the hill away from the square toward the hotel. It was still dribbling snow, and this surprised him.
    He thought that had been a long time ago. Before all this life had started rushing back at him, from all sides, zeroing on him, like a man standing in the middle of a maze of railroad junctions, trains shooting at him from first this side and then that side, whistling past, and the blinding lights, and the smell of coal smoke and vitality.

Chapter 4
    T HE STREETS WERE almost deserted. Not busy at all.
    It was strange he didn’t remember the day the old man left or the day he returned, but it didn’t work like that. It worked like this: One day they discovered he was missing, but they didn’t know how long because sometimes when he got drunk enough he just slept at the shop the welding shop, which was really a converted shack of a garage and they never bothered him there, though sometimes the fire went out on him, and he would almost freeze, but this was rare because it was rare for him to get drunk like that, but still it was enough for them not to realize he was missing, no farewell note, no good-byes, just suddenly began to realize he was missing; then they started living their lives without him being there; a long time later when they had about got used to it he suddenly reappeared they began to see him on a street or in a store silent irascible and morose finally they realized he was back to stay they never spoke to him and he never spoke to them.
    Not for a long time anyway.
    Of course, by then, they all knew the story. Their father had run off with the wife of the family doctor and a large part of the doctor’s savings. Five years later, Old Man Herschmidt came back. Minus the