Clock Without Hands

by Carson McCullers

  "I don't know, but don't cry, Grandfather."

  For the Judge, who had not cried in all these years, was weeping for his son at last. The journey into the past which he had shared with his grandson had mysteriously unlocked his stubborn heart so that he sobbed aloud. A voluptuary in all things, he now sobbed with abandon and found it sweet.

  "Don't Grandfather," Jester said. "Don't Grandy."

  After the hours of remembrance, the Judge was living in the here and now again. "He's dead," he said. "My darling is dead but I'm alive. And life is so full of a number of things. Of ships and cabbages and kings. That's not quite right. Of ships and, and—"

  "Sealing wax," Jester prompted.

  "That's right. Life is so full of a number of things, of ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. This reminds me, Son, I've got to get a new magnifying glass. The print of the Milan Courier gets wavier every day. And last month a straight was staring me straight in the face and I missed it—mistaking a seven for a nine. I was so vexed with myself I could have burst out bawling in the back room of the New York Café.

  "And furthermore, I'm going to get a hearing aid although I've always maintained that they were oldladyish and did not work. Besides, one of these years I am going to get second senses. Improved eyesight, hearing, a vast improvement of all the senses." How this would come about the old Judge did not explain, but living in the here and now and dreaming of a more vivid future, the Judge was content. After the emotions of the evening he slept peacefully all through the winter night, and did not wake up until six the next morning.

  11

  WHO AM I? What am I? Where am I going? Those questions, the ghosts that haunt the adolescent heart, were finally answered for Jester. The uneasy dreams about Grown Boy which had left him guilty and confused, no longer bothered him. And gone were the dreams of saving Sherman from a mob and losing his own life while Sherman looked on, broken with grief. Gone also were the dreams of saving Marilyn Monroe from an avalanche in Switzerland and riding through a hero's ticker tape parade in New York. That had been an interesting daydream, but after all, saving Marilyn Monroe was no career. He had saved so many people and died so many hero's deaths. His dreams were nearly always in foreign countries. Never in Milan, never in Georgia, but always in Switzerland or Bali or someplace. But now his dreams had strangely shifted. Both night dreams and daydreams. Night after night he dreamed of his father. And having found his father he was able to find himself. He was his father's son and he was going to be a lawyer. Once the bewilderment of too many choices was cleared away, Jester felt happy and free.

  He was glad when the new term of school opened. Wearing brand new clothes he had got for Christmas (brand new shoes, brand new white shirt, brand new flannel pants), he was free, surehearted now that the "Who am I? What am I? Where am I going?" was answered at last. He would study harder this term, especially English and history—reading the Constitution and memorizing the great speeches whether they were required in the course or not.

  Now that the deliberate mystery of his father had been dispelled, his grandfather occasionally spoke of him; not often, not weeping, but just as though Jester had been initiated like a Mason or Elk or something. So Jester was able to tell his grandfather about his plans, to tell him that he was going to study law.

  "The Lord knows I never encouraged it. But if that's what you want to do, Son, I will support you to the best of my ability." Secretly the Judge was overjoyed. He could not help showing it. "So you want to emulate your grandfather?"

  Jester said, "I want to be like my father."

  "Your father, your grandfather ... we were like blood twin brothers. You are just another Clane off the old block."

  "Oh, I'm so relieved," said Jester. "I had thought about so many things that I could do in life. Play the piano, fly a plane. But none of them exactly fitted. I was like a cat always climbing the wrong tree."

  In the beginning of the New Year the even tenor of the Judge's life was abruptly shattered. One morning when Verily came to work she put her hat on the back porch hatrack and did not go into the front of the house to start the day's house cleaning as usual. She just stood in the kitchen, dark, stubborn, implacable.

  "Judge," she said, "I want them papers."

  "What papers?"

  "The govment papers."

  To his outraged amazement and the ruin of his first cigar, Verily began to describe social security. "I pays part of my salary to the govment and you supposed to pay a part."

  "Who's been talking all that stuff to you?" The old Judge thought probably this was another Reconstruction, but he was too scared to let on.

  "Folks was talking."

  "Now, Verily, be reasonable. Why do you want to pay your money to the government?"

  "Because it's the law and the govment is catching folks. Folks I knows. It's about this here income tax."

  "Merciful God, you don't want to pay income tax!"

  "I does."

  The Judge prided himself on understanding the reasons of Nigras and said with soothing firmness, "You have got this all mixed up. Forget it." He added helplessly, "Why, Verily, you have been with us close on to fifteen years."

  "I wants to stay in the law."

  "And a damn interfering law it is."

  The truth of what Verily wanted finally came out. "I wants my old age pension when the time comes for it."

  "What do you need your old age pension for? I'll take care of you when you are too old to work."

  "Judge, you're far beyond your three score years and ten."

  That reference to his mortality angered the Judge. Indeed the whole situation made him fit to be tied. Moreover, he was puzzled. He had always felt he understood Nigras so well. He had never realized that every Sunday morning when at dinner time he had said, "Ah, Verily, Verily, I say unto you, you will live in the Kingdom of Heaven..." he had not noticed how, Sunday after Sunday, that had irritated Verily. Nor had he noticed how much affected she had been since the death of Grown Boy. He thought he understood Nigras, but he was no noticer.

  Verily would not be side-tracked. "There's a lady will figure out them govment papers, pay me forty dollars a week, and give me Saturday and Sunday free."

  The Judge's heart was beating fast and his face changed color. "Well, go to her!"

  "I can find somebody to work for you, Judge. Ellie Carpenter will take my place."

  "Ellie Carpenter! You know good and well she doesn't have the sense of a brass monkey!"

  "Well, how about that worthless Sherman Pew?"

  "Sherman is no servant."

  "Well, what do you think he is?"

  "No trained servant."

  "There is a lady will figure out the govment papers, pay me forty dollars a week, and give me Saturday and Sunday free."

  The Judge grew angrier. In the old days a servant was paid three dollars a week and felt herself well paid. But each year, year after year, the price of servants had gone up so that the Judge was now paying Verily thirty dollars a week, and he had heard that well-trained servants were getting thirty-five and even forty. And even then they were scarce as hen's teeth these days. He had always been a servant-spoiler; indeed, he had always believed in humanity—did he have to believe in such high wages too? But, wanting peace and comfort, the old Judge tried to back down. "I will pay the social security for you myself."

  "I don't trust you," Verily said. He realized for the first time that Verily was a fierce woman. Her voice was no longer humble, but fierce. "This woman will figure out my govment papers, pay me forty dollars a week..."

  "Well, go to her!"

  "Right now?"

  Although the Judge had seldom raised his voice to a servant, he shouted, "Now, God dammit! I'll be glad to be rid of you!"

  Although Verily had a temper, she would not let herself speak. Her purplish, wrinkled lips just grimaced with anger. She went to the back porch and carefully put on her hat with the pink roses. She did not even glance around the kitchen where
she had worked for nearly fifteen years, nor did she tell the Judge goodby as she stomped away through the back door.

  The house was absolutely silent and the Judge was afraid. He was afraid that if he was left alone there in his own house he would have a stroke. Jester would not be back from school until afternoon and he could not be left alone. He remembered that as a little boy Jester would scream in the darkness, "Somebody! Anybody!" The Judge felt like screaming that now. Until the house became silent, the Judge never knew how necessary the voice of the house was to him. So he went to the courthouse square to pick up a servant, but times had changed. No longer could one pick up a Nigra in the courthouse square. He asked three Nigras but they were all employed, and they looked at the Judge as though he was out of his mind. So he went to the barbershop. He had a haircut, a shampoo, a shave and, to kill time, a manicure. Then when everything had been done for him at the barbershop, he went to the Green Room at the Taylor Hotel to kill some more time. He took two hours over his lunch at the Cricket Tea Room and then he went around to see J. T. Malone at the pharmacy.

  Rootless and dismal, the Judge passed three days in this way. Because he was afraid to be alone at home, the Judge was always on the streets of Milan or in the Green Room at the Taylor Hotel, at the barbershop, or sitting on one of the white benches of the courthouse square. At suppertime, he fried steaks for himself and Jester, and Jester washed the dishes.

  As servants had always been available to him as a part of his way of life, it never occurred to him to go to an agency. The house got dirty. How long this sad state of affairs would have lasted is hard to say. One day he went to the pharmacy and asked J. T. Malone if Mrs. Malone could help him out in finding a servant. J.T. promised to talk with Mrs. Malone.

  The January days were glossy blue and gold and there was a warm spell. In fact, it was a false spring. J. T. Malone, revived by the new turn of the weather, thought he was better and planned a journey. Alone and secretly he was going to Johns Hopkins. On that first fatal visit Dr. Hayden had given him a year or fifteen months to live, and already ten months had passed. He felt so much better that he wondered if the Milan GP's hadn't been mistaken. He told his wife that he was going to Atlanta to attend a pharmaceutical convention, and the secrecy and deceit pleased him so that he was almost gay when he set out on his northward journey. With a feeling of guilt and recklessness he traveled pullman, killed time in the club car, ordered two whiskeys before lunch and the seafood platter, although liver was the special on the menu.

  The next morning it was raining in Baltimore and Malone was cold and damp as he stood in the waiting room explaining to the receptionist what he wanted. "I want the best diagnostician in this hospital because the GP's in my hometown are so far behind the times I don't trust them."

  There followed the now familiar examinations, the wait for slides and tests, and finally the too-familiar verdict. Sick with rage, Malone took the day coach back to Milan.

  The next day he went to Herman Klein and put his watch down on the counter. "This watch loses about two minutes every week," he said pettishly to the jeweler. "I demand that my watch keep strict railroad time." For in his limbo of waiting for death, Malone was obsessed with time. He was always deviling the jeweler, complaining that his watch was two minutes too slow or three minutes too fast.

  "I overhauled this watch just two weeks ago. And where are you going that you have to be on strict railroad time?"

  Rage made Malone clench his fists until the knuckles whitened and swear like a child. "What the hell business is it of yours where I'm going! What the fuckin hell!"

  The jeweler looked at him, abashed by the senseless anger.

  "If you can't give me proper service I'll take my trade elsewhere!" Taking his watch, Malone left the shop, leaving Herman Klein to stare after him with puzzled surprise. They had been mutually loyal customers for close on to twenty years.

  Malone was going through a time when he was often subject to these fits of sudden rage. He could not think directly of his own death because it was unreal to him. But these rages, unprovoked and surprising even to himself, stormed frequently in his once calm heart. Once he was picking out pecans with Martha to decorate some cake or other when he hurled the nutcracker to the floor and jabbed himself viciously with the nut picker. On tripping over a ball that Tommy had left on the stairs, he threw it with such force that it broke a pane of the front door. These rages did not relieve him. When they were over, Malone was left with the feeling that something awful and incomprehensible was going to happen that he was powerless to prevent.

  Mrs. Malone found the Judge a servant, so he was rescued from the streets. She was nearly full Indian and very silent. But the Judge was no longer afraid to be alone in the house. He no longer wanted to call, "Somebody! Anybody!" for the presence of another human being consoled him so that the house with the stained glass window, the pier table with the mirror, the familiar library and dining room and parlor was no longer silent. The cook was named Lee, and the meals were sloven, badly cooked and badly served. When she served soup at the beginning of dinner, her thumbs were stuck a half inch into the sloshing soup. But she had never heard of social security and could neither read nor write, which gave the Judge some subtle satisfaction. Why, he did not question.

  Sherman did not altogether make good his threat of leaving the Judge, but the relation had much deteriorated. He came every day and gave him his injections. Then, sullen and looking put upon, he would idle in the library, sharpening pencils, reading immortal poetry to the Judge, fixing their noon toddies and so forth. He would not write any letters about the Confederate money. Although the Judge knew he was deliberately acting ugly and he was not getting a lick of work out of him, except for the injections, the Judge let him stay on, hoping things might change for the better. He would not even allow the old Judge the pleasure of bragging about his grandson and his decision to go into law. When he would mention the subject, Sherman would hum rudely or yawn like an alligator. The Judge often repeated, "The devil has work for idle hands." When the Judge said that, he looked directly at Sherman, but Sherman only looked directly back at him.

  One day the Judge said, "I want you to go to my office in the courthouse and look in the steel filing case under 'Clippings.' I want to read my clippings from the newspapers. Little as you know it, I am a great man."

  "The steel filing case under 'C' for 'Clippings,'" Sherman repeated, for he was delighted with the errand. He had never been in the Judge's office and he had yearned to.

  "Don't monkey around with my important papers. Just take the newspaper clippings."

  "I don't monkey around," Sherman said.

  "Give me a toddy before you go. It's twelve o'clock."

  Sherman did not share the noon toddy, but went straight to the courthouse. On the door of the office there was printed on the frosted glass a sign saying: CLANE & SON, ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW. With a little thrill of pleasure, Sherman unlocked the door and went into the sunny room.

  After taking out the file marked "Clippings," he took his time to meddle with other papers in the steel cabinet. He was not looking for anything in particular, just a born meddler, and he was mad that the Judge had said "Don't monkey around." But at one o'clock that afternoon, while the Judge was eating his dinner, Sherman found the folder which held the papers from Johnny's brief. He saw the name Sherman. Sherman? Sherman? Except for this Sherman, I am the only one I know of who has that name. How many Shermans are there in town? As he read the papers, his head swayed. At one o'clock that afternoon he found out that there was a man of his own race whom the Judge had had executed, and his name was Sherman. And there was a white woman who was accused of fucking the Negro. He could not believe it. Could he ever be sure? But a white woman, blue eyes, was all so otherwise than he had dreamed. It was like some eerie, agonizing crossword puzzle. And he, Sherman ... Who am I? What am I? All that he knew at that hour was that he was sick. His ears were waterfalls of disgrace and shame. No, Marian Anderson had n
ot been his mother, nor Lena Home, nor Bessie Smith, nor any of the honeyed ladies of his childhood. He had been tricked. He had been cheated. He wanted to die like the Negro man had died. But he would never fool around with a white person, that was for sure. Like Othello, that cuckoo Moor! Slowly he replaced the folder, and when he returned to the Judge's house he walked like a sick man.

  The Judge had just waked from his nap; it was afternoon when Sherman came back. Not being a noticer, the Judge did not notice Sherman's shaken face and trembling hands. He asked Sherman to read the files aloud and Sherman was too broken not to obey.

  The Judge would repeat phrases Sherman read, such as: A fixed star in the galaxy of Southern statesmanship. A man of vision, duty and honor. A glory to this fair state and to the South.

  "See?" the old Judge said to Sherman.

  Sherman, still shaken, said in a quavering voice, "You have a slice of ham like a hog!"

  The Judge, still wrapped up in his own greatness, thought it was some compliment and said, "What's that, boy?" For although the Judge had bought a hearing aid and a new magnifying glass, his sight and hearing were failing rapidly and he had not got second sight and the improvement of all his senses.

  Sherman did not answer, because having a slice of ham like a hog was one thing, but it was not insult enough for his life and the fucking blue eyes and who they came from. He was going to do something, do something, do something. But when he wanted to slam down the sheaf of papers he was so weak that he just put them limply on the table.

  When Sherman had gone, the Judge was left alone. Putting his magnifying glass close to the clipping, he read out loud to himself, still wrapped up in his greatness.

  12

  THE GREEN-GOLD of the early spring had darkened to the dense, bluish foliage of early May and the heat of summer began to settle over the town again. With the heat came violence and Milan got into the newspapers: The Flowering Branch Ledger, The Atlanta Journal, The Atlanta Constitution, and even Time Magazine. A Negro family moved into a house in a white neighborhood and they were bombed. No one was killed, but three children were hurt and vicious feeling mounted in the town.