Alone Against Tomorrow Part 26

Genesis refers to sin that coucheth at the door, or croucheth at the door, and so this was no new thing, but old, so very old, as old as the senseless acts that had given it birth, and the madness that was causing it to mature, and the guilty sorrow-the lonelyache-that would inevitably cause it to devour itself and all within its sight.

On the night that he actually paid for love, the night he physically reached into his wallet and took out two ten dollar bills and gave them to the girl, the creature took full and final shape.

This girl: when "good girls" talk about "tramps" they mean this girl and her sisters. But there are no such things as "tramps" and even the criminal never thinks of himself in those terms. Working-girl, entrepreneur, renderer of services, smarty, someone just getting-along...these are the ways of her thoughts.

She has a family, and she has a past, and she has a face, as well as a place of s.e.x.

But commercialism is the last sinkhole of love, and when it is reached, by paths of desperation and paths of brutalized, misused emotions-all hope is gone. There is no return from being so demeaned save by miracles, and there are no more miracles for the commonest among common men.

As he handed her the money, wondering why in G.o.d's name, why! the beast in the comer by the linen closet took its final shape, and substantiality, reality was its future. It had been called up by a series of contemporary incantations melded out of the sounds of pa.s.sion and the stink of despair. The girl snapped her bra, covered herself with dacron and decorum, and left Paul sitting stunned, inarticulate with terror in the presence of his new roommate.

It stared at him, and though he tried to avert his eyes (screams were useless), he stared back.

"Georgette," he whispered huskily into the mouthpiece, "listen...lis, listen to me, w.i.l.l.ya, for Christ's sake...st, stop blabbering for a second, w.i.l.l.ya, just, just SHUT UP FOR ONE G.o.dDAM SECOND! w.i.l.l.ya..." she finally subsided, and his words, no longer forced to slip themselves piecemeal between hers, left standing naked and alone with nothing but silence confronting them, ducked back within him, shy and trembly.

"Well, go on," he said, reflexively.

She said she had nothing further to say; what was he calling her for, she had to get ready to go out.

"Georgette, I've got, well, I've got this uh this problem, and I had to talk to someone, you were the one I figured would understand, y'see, I've uh-"

She said she didn't know an abortionist, and if he had knocked up one of his b.u.mmy-girls, he could use a G.o.ddam coat-hanger, a rusty coat-hanger, for all she cared.

"No! No, you stupid a.s.s, that isn't anything like what I'm scared about. That isn't it, and who the h.e.l.l do you care who I date, you tramp...you're out on the turf enough for both of us..." and he stopped.

This was how all their arguments had started. From subject to subject, like mountain goats from rock to rock, forgetting the original discussion, veering off to rip and tear with their teeth at each other's trivialities.

"Georgette, please! Listen to me. There's a, there's a thing, some kind of thing living here in the apartment."

She thought he was crazy, what did he mean?

"I don't know. I don't know what it is."

Was it like a spider, or a cat, or what?

"It's like a bear, Georgette, only it's something else, I don't know what. It doesn't say anything, just stares at me-"

What was he, cracking up or somed.a.m.nthing? Bears don't talk, except the ones on TV, and what was he, trying to pull off a nut stunt so he wouldn't have to pony up the payments the court set? And why was he calling her in the first place, closing with: I think you're flipping, Paul. I always said you were a whack, and now you're proving it.

Then the phone clicked, and he was alone.

Together.

He looked at it from the corner of his eye as he lit a cigarette. Hunkered down in the far corner of the room, near the linen closet, the huge soft-brown furry thing that had come to watch him, sat silently, paws folded across its ma.s.sive chest. Like some great Kodiak bear, yet totally unlike it in shape, the truncated triangle of its bloated form could not be avoided-by glance or thought. The wild, mad golden discs of its eyes never turned, never flickered, while it watched him.

(This description. Forget it. The creature was nothing like that. Not a thing like that at all.) And he could sense the reproach, even when he had locked himself in the bathroom. He sat on the edge of the tub and ran the hot water till steam had obscured the cabinet mirror over the sink and he could no longer see his own face, the insane light in his eyes so familiar, so similar to the blind stares of the creature in the other room. His thoughts flowed, ran, lavalike, then congealed.

At which point he realized he had never seen the faces of any of the women who had been in the apartment. Not one of them. Faceless, all of them. Not even Georgette's face came to him. None of them.

They were all without expression or recall. He had been to seed with so many angular corpses. The sickness welled up in him, and he knew he had to get out of there, out of the apartment, away from the creature in the corner.

He bolted from the bathroom, gained the front door without breaking stride, caroming off the walls, and was lying back against the closed slab of hardwood, dragging in painful gouts of air before he realized that he could not get away that easily. It would be waiting for him when he got back, whenever he got back.

But he went. There was a bar where they played nothing but Sinatra records, and he absorbed as much maudlin sorrow and self-pity as he could, finally tumbling from the place when the strings and the voice oozed forth:

Night's black agents Come for me.

They know my love's A twisted memory.

There was another place, a beach perhaps, where he stood on the sand, silent within himself, as the gulls wheeled and gibbered across the black sky, kree kree kree, driving him a little more mad, and he dug his naked hands into the sand, hurling great clots of the grainy darkness over his head, trying to kill those rotten, screaming harridans!

And another place, where there were lights that said things, all manner of unintelligible things, neon things, dirty remarks, and he could not read any of them. (In one place he was certain he saw the masked revelers from his dream, and frothing, he fled, quickly.) When he returned, finally, to the apartment, the girl with him swore she wasn't a telescope, but yeah, sure, she'd look at what he had to show her, and she'd ten him what it was. So, trusting her, because she'd said it, he turned the key in the door, and opened it. He reached around the jamb and turned on the light. Yeah, yeah, there he was, there he was, that thing there he was, all right. Uh-huh, there he is, the thing with the staring eyes, there he is.

"Well?" he asked her, almost proudly, pointing.

"Well what?" she replied.

"Well what about him?"

"Who?"

"Him, him, you stupid b.i.t.c.h! Him right there! HIM!"

"Y' know, I think you're outta your mind, Sid."

"M' name's not Sid, and don't tell me you don't see him, you lying sonofab.i.t.c.h!"

"Say lissen, you said you was Sid, and Sid you're gonna be, and I don't see no G.o.ddam n.o.body there, and if you wanna get laid allright, and if you don't, just say so and we'll have another drink an'

that'll be that!"

He screamed at her, clawing at her face, thrusting her out the door. "Get out, get outta here, g'wan, get out!" And she was gone, and he was alone again with the creature, who was unperturbed by it all, who sat implacably, softly, waiting for the last tick of time to detach itself and fly free from the fabric of sanity.

They trembled there together in a nervous symbiosis, each deriving something from the other. He was covered with a thin film of horror and despair, a terrible lonelyache that twisted like smoke, thick and black within him. The creature giving love, and he reaping heartache, loneliness.

He was alone in that room, the two of them: himself and that soft-brown, staring menace, the manifestation of his misery.

And he knew, suddenly, what the dream meant. He knew, and kept it to himself, for the meaning of dreams is for the men who dream them, never to be shared, never to be known. He knew who the men in the dreams were, and he knew now why none of them had ever been killed simply by a gun. He knew, diving into the clothes closet, finding the duffle bag full of old Army clothes, finding the chunk of steel that lay at the bottom of that bag. He knew who he was, he knew, he knew, gloriously, jubilantly, and he knew it all, who the creature was, and who Georgette was, and the faces of all the women in the d.a.m.ned world, and all the men in the d.a.m.ned dreams, and the ident.i.ty of the man who had been driving the car who had saved him (and that was the key), and he had it all, right there, right in his hands, ready to be understood.

He went into the bathroom. He was not going to let that b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the comer see him succeed. He was going to savor it himself. In the mirror he now saw himself again. He saw the face and it was a good face and a very composed face, and he stared back at himself smiling, saying very softly, "Why did you have to go away?"

Then he raised the chunk of steel.

"n.o.body, absolutely n.o.body," he said, holding the huge .45 up to his face, "has the guts to shoot himself through the eye."

He laid the hollow bore of the great blocky weapon against his closed eyelid and continued speaking, still softly. "Through the head, yeah sure, anybody. Or the guys with b.a.l.l.s can point it up through the mouth. But through the eye, n.o.body, but n.o.body." Then he pulled the trigger just as they had taught him in the Army; smoothly, evenly, in one movement.

From the other room came the murmur of breathing, heavily, stentorian, evenly.

Pennies, off a Dead Man's Eyes

IT WAS A SLOW FREIGHT in from Kansas City. I'd nearly emptied all the fluid from my gut sac. There were no weeds or water to fill it again. When the freight hit the outermost switching lines of the yards it was already dark. I rolled myself off the edge of the boxcar, hit running, went twenty feet fast and slipped, fell to my hands and knees, and tumbled over. When I got up there were tiny bits of white chalk stone imbedded in my palms; I rubbed them off, but they really hurt.

I looked around, tried to gauge my position in relation to the town, and when I recognized the spire of the First Baptist, set off across the tracks in the right direction. There was a yard bull running like crazy toward me, so I went dark and left him standing where I'd been, scratching the back of his head and looking around.

It took me forty minutes to walk into the center of town, through it, and out the other side, in the direction of Littletown-the n.i.g.g.e.r section.

There was a coal bin entrance to the All-Holiness Pentecostal Church of Christ the Master, and I slipped inside, smiling. In twelve years they hadn't repaired the latch and lock. The stairs were dim in the bas.e.m.e.nt darkness, but I knew my way the way a child remembers his bedroom when the light is out.

Across twelve years, I remembered.

There were the occasional dim rumblings of voices from upstairs, from the vestry, from the casket room, from the foyer.

Jedediah Parkman was laid out up there. Eighty-two years old, dead, tired, at the end of an endless road down which he had stumbled, black, poor, proud, helpless. No, not helpless.

I climbed the stairs from the bas.e.m.e.nt, laid my white hand against the dry, cracked wood of the door, and thought of all the weight of black pressing back on the other side. Jed would have chuckled.

Through a crack in the jamb I saw nothing but wan opposite; I carefully opened the door. The hall was empty. They'd be moving into the vestry now. The service would be beginning. The preacher would be getting ready to tell the congregation about old Jed, what a good man he'd been, how he always had enough heart for the stray cats and deadbeat kids he picked up. How so many people owed him so much. Jed would have snorted.

But I'd arrived in time. How many other stray cats had made it?

I closed the bas.e.m.e.nt door behind me, slid along the wall to the pantry door that opened into the small room adjacent to the vestry. In a moment I was inside. I turned off the light in the pantry, in case I had to go dark, then I crept to the door in the opposite wall. I opened it a sliver and peered into the vestry.

Since the bombing the chapel had been unuseable. I'd heard about it even in Chicago: seven had been killed, and Deacon Wilkie'd been blinded by flying gla.s.s. They'd made do the best they could with the vestry.

Folding chairs were set up in rows. They were filled with the population of Littletown. They were two deep around the walls. One or two white faces like mine. I recognized a couple of other stray cats. It'd been twelve years: they looked as though they were making it. But they hadn't forgotten.

I watched, and counted blacks. One hundred and eighteen. A few days ago, I'd been in Kansas City, there'd been one hundred and nineteen. Now the one hundred and nineteenth black man in Danville's Littletown lay in his casket, atop sawhorses, in the front of the room, surrounded by flowers.

h.e.l.lo, old Jed.

Twelve, it's been.

G.o.d, you're quiet. No chuckles, no laughs, Jed. You're dead. I know.

He lay, hands folded across his chest. Big catcher's mitt paws folded, calluses hidden-sweet Jesus, I could see flickering candlelight glinting off his nails. They'd manicured his hands! Old Jed would've screamed, doing a thing like that to a man bit his nails to the quick!

Laying up in a shallow box, neat black patent leather shoes pointing toward the ceiling; kinky salt- and-pepper hair flattened against the silk lining of the box (eighty-two, and that old man's hair still had black in it!) ; lay in his best suit, a black suit, clean white long-sleeve shirt and a yellow tie. On display.

Looking down at himself, for sure, from the Heaven he'd always believed was up there. Looking down at himself so fine, and smiling; puffing proud, yes sir!

On each of his eyes, a silver dollar.

To pay his way with the Man, across the River Jordan.

I didn't go in. Never intended to. Too many questions. Some of them might've remembered; I know the other stray cats would've. So I just laid back, and waited to talk to old Jed private.

The service was a brief one, they cried a decent amount. Then it was over and they filed past slowly. A couple of women did the big falling down trying to get in the box thing with him. Christ knows what Jed would've done with that. I waited till the room emptied out. Preacher and a couple of the brothers cleaned up, decided to leave the chairs till morning, shut off the lights, and went. There was silence and a lot of shadows, just the candles still doing their slow motion. I waited a long time, just to make sure, then finally I opened the door a bit more and started to step through.

There was a sound from the door to the outside, and I pulled back fast. I watched as the door opened and a tall, slim woman in black came down among the chairs toward the open casket. Veil over her face., My gut sac went total empty right then. Lining started to burn. I thought sure she'd hear the rumbling. Sprayed it with stomach juice and that would hold it for a while till I could get weed and water.

Burned.

I couldn't make out her face behind the veil. She walked up to the casket and stared down at Jed Parkman. Then she reached out a gloved hand toward the body, pulled it back, tried again and then held the hand motionless in the air above the cold meat. Slowly she swept the veil back over the widebrimmed hat.

I drew in a breath. She was a white woman. More than just ordinarily beautiful. Stunning. One of those creatures G.o.d made just to be looked at. I held my breath; breathing would release the sound of the blood in my temples, scare her away.

She kept looking at the corpse, then slowly she reached out again. Carefully, very carefully, she removed the coins from Jed's dead eyes. She dropped them in her purse. Then she dropped the veil, and started to turn away. She stopped, turned back, kissed her fingertips and touched the cold lips of the penniless dead one.

Then she turned around and left the vestry. Very quickly.

I stood unmoving, watching nothing, chill and lost.

When you take the money off a dead man's eyes, it means he can't pay his pa.s.sage to Heaven.

That white woman sent Jedediah Parkman straight to h.e.l.l.

I went after her.

If I hadn't keeled over, I'd have caught her before she got on the train.

She wasn't far ahead of me, but my gut was burning so bad I knew if I didn't get some gra.s.s or weeds in it I'd be in wicked shape. That happened once in Seattle. I barely got out of the emergency ward before they could X-ray me. Broke into the hospital kitchen, pumped about eight pounds of Caesar salad and half a bottle of Sparkletts water into my sac and wound up barea.s.s cold in a hospital gown, out on a Seattle street in the dead of winter.

Hadn't thought that for a second before I went over on my face, half a block from the Danville train station. Legs went idiot on me and over I go. Had just enough sense to go dark before I hit. Lay there, a car might run me over. No idea how long I was out, but not long. Came back and crawled on my belly like a reptile onto a patch of gra.s.s. Chewed, pulling myself on my elbows. Got enough in to get myself up, staggered the half block to the station, fen onto the water fountain stuck on the wall. Drank till the stationmaster leaned way over the ticket window, staring. Couldn't go dark, he was looking straight at me.

"You got business here, mister?"

I felt the lava juices subsiding. I could walk. Went up to him, said, "My fiancee, you know, a bad fight, she come down this way..." I let it wait. He watched me, wasn't giving away a little thing free.

"Look, we're supposed to be married next Thursday-I'm sorry I yelled at her. Half out of my, well, h.e.l.l, mister, have you seen her? Tall girl, all in black, wearing a veil?" Sounded like a description of Mata Hari.

Old man scratched at the beard he'd sprouted since he'd come on at noon. "She bought a ticket for KayCee. Train's 'bout to pull out."

Then I realized I'd been hearing the whoofing sounds of the train all this time. When my sac goes, everything goes. I started hearing and smelling and feeling the grain of the ticket counter under my hands.

And bolted out the door. Train was just getting ready to slide; express freight was almost loaded. Behind me, the stationmaster was bellowing. "Ticket! Hey, mister... ticket!"

"Get it by the conductor!" And I vaulted up onto the coach platform. The train edged out.