Temporarily, I was so absorbed in thought that I almost forgot my hangover. In a sense, I had reason to be grateful to Dutch Eaton and Joe Henderson. Yet I must confess that the emotion I felt for them was very far from gratitude.
Joe and Dutch, I thought. They had been on bad terms with one another for years. What would be the result, say, if Joe’s tires should be slashed on the same night that Dutch’s barn burned down?
“Lord World forgive me,” I murmured, “for their minds are even as those of a Paleolithic foetus, and I know all too damned well what I do.”
I had passed through the orchard by now, and arrived at the barnyard. Moving boldly but quietly, I went through the gate, crossed the barnyard and backyard, and entered the back door of the house.
No, there was no danger. I knew that, having visited the place several times before. Ralph would be away. Luane would be in bed, and her bedroom was on the front. As long as I was quiet, and no one can be more quiet than I, I could prowl the downstairs at will.
I stopped inside the door a moment, listening. Faintly, from upstairs, Luane’s voice drifted down to me as she talked over the telephone:
“…course, I hate to say anything either. Far be it from me to say a word about anyone, and you know it, Mabel. But a thing like that—a young girl lifting her skirts for a nigger—and that father of hers, always acting so high and mighty…”
I hesitated, feeling vaguely impelled to do something. Knowing that if anything could ever have been done, it was too late now. Pete Pavlov would soon hear the gossip. As soon as he ascertained its truth, he would act. And there could be no doubt about how he would act—what he would do.
I frowned, shrugged, and pushed the matter out of my mind; mentally disconnecting the vicious whine of Luane’s voice. I could not help the inevitable. On the other hand, I hoped, I could help myself to a drink; and my need for one was growing.
I opened the cupboard, a familiar section of it. I studied the several bottles of flavoring extract, my mouth watering. And then miserably, having noted the labels, I turned away. There was no end, apparently, to Ralph’s skimping. Since my last visit, he had substituted cheap, nonalcoholic extracts for the fine, invigorating brands he had previously stocked.
I looked through the other cupboards. I hesitated over a large bottle of floor polish: then, insufficiently intrigued by its five per cent alcoholic content, I turned away again. Finally, I lifted a trap door in the floor, and went down into the cellar.
I had no luck there, either. Ralph’s cider was freshly made—still sweet; and he had done his canning as expertly as he did everything else. Out of all the endless jars of fruit and vegetables, there was not a one that was beginning to ferment.
I went back up into the kitchen. Sweat pouring off of me, my nerves screaming for the balm of drink. I went through the connecting door to the front hall, and stood at the foot of the stairs.
There would be plenty to drink up there. Rubbing alcohol. Female tonic. Liniment. Perhaps even something that was made to be drunk. And if Luane would only go to sleep, if she would cease her poisonous spewing for only a few minutes…
But, obviously, she would not. Already she had another party on the wire, and when she had finished with that one she would immediately ring up another. And so on throughout the day. She would never stop—unless she was stopped. As well she deserved to be, aside from my crying need. But I could not envision myself now in the role of stopper, and being unable to I could not act as such.
Another day, perhaps. Some other day, or night, when thirst and hopelessness brought me here again.
I left the house. I retraced my steps through the orchard, and walked toward town, turning eventually into the alley that ran behind Doctor Ashton’s house.
Doctor Ashton would not be at home at this hour, nor would he assist me if he was. As for his son, Bobbie, who doubtless was also away, I had accepted his help but once, and that once was more than enough. I still shuddered when I recalled the experience. What he gave me, that angel-faced phlegmatic fiend, I do not know. But it practically removed my bowels, and nausea shook me like a terrier-shaken rat for the ensuing three days.
I could look for nothing, then, from Ashton or his son. But the Negro woman, Hattie, would be at home; she never went anywhere. And doubtless out of superstition—a kind of awe of the so-called insane—she had given me drink several times in the past.
I knocked on the back door. There was a sluff-sluff of house slippers, and then she was standing at the screen, looking out at me dully.
“Go ’way,” she said, before I could speak. “Go ’way and stay ’way. Don’t want no more truck with you.”
I read the tone of her voice, the reason behind her attitude. At least, I believe I did. I told her she was completely mistaken if she believed I was bad luck.
“Listen, listen, Miss Hattie,” I said. “You see this caul in my left eye? Now, I’m sure you know that a man with a caul in his eye—”
“I knows you an’ ’at eye bettah be moving,” she said. “You an’ it want to go on keepin’ company. Get now, you heah me? Get along, crazy man!”
“Please,” I said. “Please do not refer to me as crazy. I have a document in my pocket, signed by the state’s chief psychiatrist, certifying to my sanity. Now, surely, and even though our mental hospitals are crowded to twice their capacity, he wouldn’t have declared me sane if—”
“Okay,” she cut in flatly. “Okay. You stays right there, an’ I gives you a drink, awright.”
She turned away from the screen. I could not see what she was doing, but I heard water gushing into what apparently was a large flat pan.
Hastily, I got off the steps and moved back into the yard. “Listen, listen,” I said. “You don’t need to do that. I’m leaving right now.”
She came to the door again, eyes sparkling in malicious triumph. She said that I had better leave, and stay left.
“But you had better not,” I said. “Listen, listen, Miss Hattie. Leave the house at no time. Particularly do not leave it at night. Great evil will befall you if you do.”
A trace of fear tightened the contours of her off-ivory face. “Huh! What make you think I goin’ anywhere?”
“Listen, listen,” I said. “Because it is so written that you may, and that great and dreadful evil will result. So it is written. But listen, listen. If I had a drink—a very large one—I could doubtless change the writing.”
I had been too eager. She let out a grunt of relief and unbelief, and returned to the kitchen.
I continued on my dreary, drinkless way.
Frequently, or I should say occasionally, I have had some success at the courthouse. There are always a number of loafers around; also, needless to say—and if you will excuse the redundancy—the county office-holders. So I went there today, hoping to amuse them as I sometimes had in the past. To titillate and entertain them with my wisdom, and thus obtain a few coins. Alas, however! Alas, and verily, and lo. Seldom have I been appreciated less than on this day, the day when my need was greatest.
I was chased out of office after office. I was brushed aside, cursed out, elbowed and shoved along by one loafer after another.
…I had been unwilling to call on Pete Pavlov, except as a last resort, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it was quite a long walk across town to the beach area; an almost intolerable walk for one in my condition. For another, I had called upon him so often in the past that further appeals would not only be embarrassing, but were apt to prove fruitless.
There was nothing else to do now, however; and when there is nothing else to do I do what there is nothing else to do.
Shaking and wobbling, I walked the several blocks through town, entered the dance pavilion and crossed the wide, waxed floor to the door of his office. He was bent over an account ledger, cursing and mumbling to himself now and then as he turned its pages. I waited, nervously, my hands twitching and trembling even as the leaves of an aspen.
Not many peo
ple will agree with me, but Mr. Pavlov is a very kindly, soft-hearted man. On the other hand—and everyone will agree with me on this—he is no fool. And the merest hint, intentional or no, that he might be will send him into an icy rage.
He looked up at last, took the tobacco cud from his mouth, and dropped it into a convenient gaboon. “What the hell you want?” he said, wiping his hand on his pants. “As if I didn’t know.”
“Listen, listen, Mr. Pavlov,” I said. “Humiliated and embarrassed though I am, I find myself impelled to—”
He yanked open a desk drawer, took out a bottle and glass and poured me a drink. I gulped it, and extended the glass. He returned it and the bottle to the drawer.
“Tell you what I’ll do with you,” he said. “I’ll—no, you listen—listen for a change! You go back there in the john and wash up—and use some soap, by God, get me?—and I’ll stake you to a square meal.”
I said, certainly, certainly, yessir: I could certainly use a good meal. “You can give me the price of the meal now, Mr. Pavlov. That will save time and time is money, and—”
“And the farmer hauled another load away,” said Mr. Pavlov. “Just keep on standing there, arguing with me, and you won’t get nothing but a kick in the butt.”
He meant it; Mr. Pavlov always means what he says. I departed hastily for the washroom. After all, this was the best offer I had had all day—the meal, I mean, not the kick—and I had a notion that it might be improved upon.
I washed thoroughly: my hands, wrists and those portions of my face that were not covered by beard. It was probably as clean as I have been during the thirty years of my existence.
I returned to the office, where Mr. Pavlov complimented me reservedly.
“Looks like you got a few coats of rust off. Why don’t you chop that damned hair and them whiskers off, too? Ought to, by God, or else buy yourself a bedsheet and sandals.”
“Listen, Mr. Pavlov,” I said. “I will do whatever you say. If you would like to give me the money for a barber—or a bedsheet and sandals—along with the price of a meal, I will—”
“I ain’t giving you a nickel,” said Mr. Pavlov. “I’ll take you to a restaurant and pay your check myself.”
I protested that he was being unfair: it was implicit in our agreement that I should spend the money on liquor. He grunted, studying me with thoughtfully narrowed eyes.
“Shut up a minute,” he said. “Goddammit, if I give you another drink, will you shut up and let me think?”
“Listen, Mr. Pavlov,” I said. “For another drink, I would—would—”
I broke off helplessly. What wouldn’t one do when he is slowly being crucified?
I snatched the drink from his hand. I took it at a gulp, noting that he had left the bottle on the desk in front of him.
“Huh-uh,” he said, as I extended my glass. “Not now, anyways. I got something to say to you, and I want to be damned sure you understand.”
“Listen,” I said. “I understand much better when I’m drinking. The more I drink the more my understanding increases.”
“Shut up!” There was a whip-like crack to his voice. “Now, here’s what I was going to say, and you’d better not repeat it, see? Don’t ever peep a word about it to anyone. Suppose I was to give you something of mine. Kind of let you take it away from me. I mean, nobody would know that it was you that took it, but—Goddammit, are you listening to me?”
“Certainly, certainly, yessir,” I said. “If you were thinking about pouring a drink for yourself, Mr. Pavlov, I will take one, too.”
“Dammit, this is important to you,” he said. “There’d be a nice piece of change in it for you, and all you’d have to do is—” He broke off with a disgusted grunt. “Hell! I must be going out of my mind to even think about it.”
“You appear very depressed, Mr. Pavlov,” I said. “Allow me to pour a drink for you.”
“Pour one for yourself,” he snarled, with unaccustomed naivete. “Then you’re gettin’ the hell out of here to a restaurant.”
It was a quart bottle, and it was practically full.
I picked it up, and ran.
I hated to do it, naturally. It was not only ungrateful, but also shortsighted; in eating the golden egg, figuratively speaking, I was destroying a future hen. I did it because I could not help myself. Because it was another nothing-else-to-do.
When a man is drowning, he snatches at bottles.
I ran, making a wild leap toward the door. And I tripped over the doorsill, the bottle shot from my hands, and it and I crashed resoundingly against the ballroom floor.
I scrambled forward on my stomach, began to lap at one of the precious puddles of liquor.
Mr. Pavlov suddenly kicked me in the tail, sent me scooting across the polished boards. He yanked me to my feet, eyes raging, and jerked me around facing him.
“A fine son-of-a-bitch you turned out to be! Now, get to hell out of here! Get out fast, and take plenty of time about showing up again.”
“Certainly,” I said. “But listen, listen, Mr. Pavlov. I—”
“Listen, hell! I said to clear out!”
“I will, I am,” I said, backing out of his reach. “But please listen, Mr. Pavlov. I will be glad to assist you in a fake holdup. More than glad. You have been very good to me, and I will welcome the opportunity to do something for you.”
He had been moving toward me, threateningly. Now he stopped dead in his tracks, his face flushing, eyes wavering away from mine.
“What the hell you talkin’ about?” he said, with attempted roughness. “You better not go talkin’ that way to anyone else!”
“You know I won’t,” I said. “I don’t blame you for distrusting me after the exhibition I just put on, but—”
He snorted half-heartedly. He said, “You’re crazy. Crazy and drunk. You don’t know what you’re sayin’.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “And I don’t know what you said. I didn’t hear you. I wasn’t listening.”
I turned and left. I went out onto the boardwalk, wondering if this after all was not the original sin, the one we all suffer for: the failure to attribute to others the motives which we claim for ourselves. The inexcusable failure to do so.
True, I was not very prepossessing, either in appearance or actions. I was not, but neither was he. He was every bit as unreassuring in his way as I was in mine. And as you are in yours. We were both disguised. The materials were different, but they had all come from the same loom. My eccentricity and drunkenness. His roughness, rudeness and outright brutality.
We had to be disguised. Both of us, all of us. Yet obvious as the fact was, he would not see it. He would not look through my guise, as I had looked through his, to the man beneath. He would not look through his own, which would have done practically as well.
It was too bad, and he would be punished for it—as who is not?
And I was in need of more—much, much more—to drink.
Down at the end of the walk, a girl was standing at the rail, looking idly out to sea. I squinted my eyes, shaded them with my hand. After a moment, she turned her head a little, and I recognized her as the vocalist with the band.
She was clad in bathing garb, but a robe was draped over the rail at her side. It seemed reasonable to assume that the robe would have a pocket in it, and that the pocket would have something in it also.
I walked down to where she stood. I harrumphed for her attention and executed a low bow, toppling momentarily to one knee in the process.
“Listen, listen,” I said. “‘How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O, my princess. Thy—’”
I broke off abruptly, noting that her feet were bare. I glanced at her midriff, and began anew:
“‘Thy navel is like—’”
“You get away from me, you nasty thing, you!” she said. “Go on, now! I don’t give money to beggars.”
“But who else would you give money to?” I said. “Not, surely, to people with money.”
“You
leave me alone!” Her voice rose. “I’ll scream if you don’t!”
“Very well,” I said, and I moved back up the boardwalk. “Oh, verily, very well. But beware the night, madam. Lo, and a ho-ho-ho, beware the night.”
The warning seemed justified. Molded as she was, the night could hold quite as much danger for her as it did delight.
Ahead of me, I saw Mr. Pavlov come out of the pavilion and swagger away toward town. Studying him, his high-held head, the proud set of his shoulders, the hurt I had felt over his caution in talking to me was suddenly no more.
He had behaved thusly I knew—I knew—because he actually did not intend to perpetrate a fake holdup. He neither intended to nor would. He might think the contrary, go so far as to plan the deed. But he would never actually go through with it.
He was as incapable of dishonesty, of anything but absolute uprightness, as I was of sobriety.
He turned and entered the post-office building. I crossed to the other side of the street, continued on for another block and suddenly lurched, and remained lurched, against a corner lamppost.
People passed by, grinning and laughing at me. I closed my eyes, and murmured alternate threats and pleadings to the Lord World.
Halfway down the block, there was a grocery store. Mr. Kossmeyer, the lawyer who comes here every summer, was parked in front of it, loading some groceries into the back seat of his car.
I pushed myself away from the lamppost, and stepped down into the gutter. I walked down to where Mr. Kossmeyer was, and tapped him on the shoulder.
He jumped, cursed and banged his head. Then, he turned around and saw that it was I.
“Oh, hello, Ganny,” he said. “I mean—uh—Judas.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Kossmeyer,” I laughed. “I know I’m not really Judas. That was just a crazy notion I had.”
“Well, that’s fine. Glad you’ve snapped out of it,” Mr. Kossmeyer said.
“I’m really Noah,” I said. “That’s who I really am, Mr. Kossmeyer.”