The Intruder

by Charles Beaumont

  “I guess so.”

  “See you back here in about an hour?”

  “Maybe.”

  She got up and walked down the narrow aisle. The mirror threw back the reflection of an overdressed blonde. Vy looked away: all she needed was a scarlet letter sewn to her dress or a sign reading WHORE. Of course, that was good. People had to be able to pick you out from the crowds of normal women. . . .

  The cold February wind knifed into her. As she walked toward the taxi stand, she thought, I’ve got ten years left, maybe less. Then I’ll have to lower my rates. A year or two of that, and I won’t be able to give it away. No one will want Vy then. Look at Jewel. Poor old Jewel, she’s just about finished.

  What do you do when you’re finished and no one wants you?

  “James Hotel, please.”

  The cabbie nodded and they traveled, too fast, as always, too fast, through the frozen night. “A buck,” he said, and then he roared away and Vy stood facing the familiar hotel. It looked like a perfectly ordinary hotel, and there were hundreds of guests who thought it was, but the seventh floor was reserved. A dozen prostitutes kept permanent rooms there. The rent, plus a regular cut to the manager and the night clerks, came to fifty dollars a week. Then there were the doctor’s expenses, the bites taken by the bars, certain taxi drivers, “life insurance.” It was a hard way to live, at best. One slow week and you had to work overtime to break even.

  Maybe I should go to Cuba, she thought, as she walked inside the gray lobby, or Mexico—they say white girls make out all right there.

  “Is Mr. Taylor in?” she asked.

  The clerk was a thin, bored man named Alex. He smelled of perspiration and cigar smoke. “Heavy guy, blue suit, freckles?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Upstairs.” Alex returned to his paperback book.

  Vy straightened her clothes and entered the rickety, ancient cage-elevator. When the door closed, she thought of Sam Griffin. Just a customer, she told herself. Remember that. Be professional, be casual, be hard.

  She rapped on the door lightly. It was opened immediately by Sam, who looked even more cheerful than before. Perhaps a little frightened, but mostly cheerful. “Hi,” he said. “I was beginning to think maybe you’d forgotten about me.”

  He helped Vy with her coat and stepped back. “It was awful nice of you to come,” he said.

  She looked at the solid, honest bulk of him, at the trusting eyes that had the light of youth in them but also a certain deep sorrow behind the light, and she knew instantly.

  “This is your first time, isn’t it?” she said.

  Sam Griffin blushed. “How’d you guess that?”

  “You’re still dressed.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “With most of them, by the time I get here they’re lying on the bed naked. All ready.”

  “They are?” His eyes grew with wonder, and the blush deepened. He took a few steps toward her. “My God, you’re pretty, Miss Vy. I like that dress.”

  His voice was gentle and soft. Sometimes the young kids were that way, because they were scared, but this was different. Sam Griffin didn’t seem to be scared. He didn’t seem to be accusing her, either, but she felt the shame again. She felt the shabbiness of the room, the dirt in the carpet, the cheap lamp that hid these things and hid the things that showed in her face.

  “That’s nice, honey,” she said, and her voice sounded brittle. “You want to get started?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Not whatever I say, honey. It’s your money.” She turned away so that she would not have to see the hurt look that kept jumping into his eyes. “You pay in advance, by the way.”

  He put two tens and five ones on the bureau. She counted them and stuffed them into her purse.

  “Now it’s your show,” she said.

  Sam Griffin stepped closer to her and put his large hands on her face. “Wouldn’t you just like to talk a while?” he said. “I haven’t had anyone to talk to since I got to New York.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me. But remember, you only got an hour.”

  “Miss Vy, listen. I think I’m a pretty good judge of people. I deal with ’em all the time in my work. I can spot the hard ones and the dishonest ones and the sharp ones right off the bat; I can spot the good ones, too. When I seen you tonight, when I seen your eyes, I mean, I knew you were a good one. I got the idea that maybe you were a little bit like me—now, don’t laugh. I mean it. See, I sell things, too, and I work alone most of the time, like you, and I guess I’m pretty good at my job—but there’s something missing. I don’t notice it except when I’m all through for the day. But then I get to thinking about it, wondering what it is. Do you—know what I mean?”

  Vy said “No” very distinctly. “But you tell me all about it, if you want to. I’ll listen. I got nothing to do.”

  Sam paused a moment. Then he said, “What’s the matter? Don’t you like me to talk to you this way?”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  “You’re fighting me. Like customers do when they know they want to buy something from me but they’re afraid to part with the money. I’m only trying to be friendly. I thought we had something in common—”

  “Well, we don’t. We don’t have anything in common. And forget trying to be friendly!”

  “You don’t want me to talk nice to you?” Sam seemed to be honestly amazed.

  “No! Please, I—”

  Then he kissed her, and the sweet strength of him covered her and made her warm. She pulled away. “And don’t do that, either! Don’t do that!”

  “Why? Don’t you like me?”

  “That hasn’t got anything to do with it. You just don’t kiss prostitutes, it isn’t being done.”

  “I don’t like that word, Miss Vy.”

  “Well, that’s what I am, and don’t forget it. You’re just a little drunk, mister, and you’re lonesome and feeling sloppy. If you want to get laid, okay—but if you’re going to carry on like this, let’s forget the whole thing. You can have your money back.”

  The big man searched her eyes for a long time, then went to the bed and sat down. “I apologize,” he said. “Like you say, I was feeling sloppy.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I—” He looked over at her. “I want to be close to you.”

  “You want to get laid? I do a good job. Ask anybody.”

  He did not answer.

  “You want to watch me undress? Sometimes they do.”

  He sat still; then, slowly, he turned, and the expression on his face was new. Vy winked at him and took off her clothes, slowly. Her body was good, the breasts firm and erect, the hips large. “You like it?” she said, keeping the professional tone in her voice.

  Sam Griffin said nothing. He only stared. But not, she knew, at her body alone. He was staring at her.

  “Strip down, honey,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s the rule. Some customers have guns in their pockets. You get some queer ones.”

  “I don’t have a gun.”

  “I know. But strip down anyway. You’ll be more comfortable. You want me to help?”

  She began unfastening his shirt. His hands did not move toward her body. “Why are you acting this way?” he asked suddenly. “This isn’t you.”

  “It’s me, all right,” she said. “Come on, you want to feel the titty? Come on.” She placed his hand around her breast and felt the nipple swell against his palm. “You like that?” She started to pull at his trousers when Sam put his arms around her, tightly, and held her.

  “Don’t do that, mister. Come on. I want to get screwed. I want—”

  “Shut up!” He pulled away and shook her and said, “Shut up! That isn’t you talking. Didn’t I tell you, I know people. I know you. You’re afraid of being yourself. I don’t know why yet, but you are. Well, listen to me—I’m going to find out, I swear by God.”

  Vy tried, then, but sh
e was tired of fighting now and the strength of Sam Griffin overwhelmed her. The tears came and she did not try to halt them. They trailed down her face like acid, the burning sorrow and loneliness of all the years of her life.

  She put her head against Sam Griffin’s chest and wished that she could die there.

  After a long time, he said to her, “I’m going to see you tomorrow, Miss Vy. And the day after that. I’m going to keep on seeing you, and we’re going to get to know each other.”

  And he’d walked with her to her apartment that night, and she’d dreamed of the big, honest man. . . .

  Vy heard the door close, and she listened until the footsteps had disappeared and the room was still.

  She thought of Sam, and was, oddly, relieved. It was over now. She had been given five happy years, and she was grateful.

  Dear Sam, she thought. You didn’t really think it would happen, did you? She’s cured, you thought. My love cured her.

  But I knew. For five years I stayed beside you or in my room, alone, because I knew that sometime, somewhere, an Adam Cramer would show up, and that it would all end then.

  I’ve betrayed you. And I know that I could never make you understand that while it was happening, I loved you more than ever, and wanted you, and needed you. How could you understand that?

  But oh, Sam, I do love you! But it’s happened now and maybe it will happen again, and I could never bear to look at you and see the pain in your eyes.

  This way you won’t know.

  Forgive me. Please, God. Sam—forgive me!

  15

  Dear Max:

  I said I’d keep you posted, and so I shall. I am, as you know, a man of my word—when it’s convenient.

  As explained in previous letters, the phone calls worked very well indeed—and Mr. Shipman turned out to be a prize catch! We have more than enough for the work at hand, for I’d forgotten the “crackers” and “red-necks” who didn’t have telephones, also the outside fringe element, all of whom have joined up—

  But don’t let me get ahead of myself!

  The plan is still fairly vague, but it’s beginning to take on form; and pretty unique form, at that. One thing is certain, I have submerged the Adam Cramer you and I knew and loved (!)—Requiescat in Pace! A charming lad he was, full of wit and intelligence, but he don’t go so good here. His replacement would nauseate you: a gentle, courteous, polite young feller that talks the people’s talk, yes sir. Now I am like a bar mirror, in a way. The folks look at me and see themselves (and all their prejudices) in a soft, flattering light. I’m their idea of a smart, civilized, educated man. Since I think exactly the same way they do, they regain respect for themselves. And they love me for it!

  I know this isn’t entirely original. The Trattato di Sociologia Generale proved useful, oddly, if only in what I rejected from it; and Sorel’s syndicalism provides a nice little first-­attack theme—you know what I mean. (Syndicalism in the old sense is far from what I have taking shape, but ideas exist from which one can select. There is “peace” here, but I discovered a San-Andreas-fault of violence lying below. Recently a “scab” coal miner from a nearby town was buried alive when he refused to kowtow; and there have been other incidents. They take their groups seriously.)

  Anyway, belief is important: that, I think, is my first job—to believe deeply everything I say. At all costs, I must avoid intellectuality; except of the kind we discussed. I will not think of my “system”; later on, when it’s successful, I can, like Benito, order a philosophy to be delivered within two weeks, or else.

  Do you recall when we used to discuss the importance of public-speaking abilities? Well, we were wrong. I never excelled particularly at this sort of thing, yet my speeches have been enormously successful. You would not believe it. The first one whipped the crowd into a wonderful fury, and afterwards they shuffled about like Pavlovian dogs who have heard the dinner bell. A good many were roughnecks and hooligans and there were, of course, several impressionable children; but several of Caxton’s so-called “good people” were there, too, and their reactions were exceedingly gratifying. All were frustrated. Their blood was hot, and they wanted to do something—right now. When a car full of Negroes passed—I heard about this later: I was with my “sponsor,” Shipman, at the time—they stopped it, and the local sheriff had to be called!

  There are a few moderately intelligent foes with whom I shall have to contend, but by and large, Max, the town is with me. SNAP is flourishing, and it will not be long before we can ease into some action. It will be necessary to show the bad influence of the Negroes in the school (a simple matter, now, with SNAP treasury funds available for pay-offs) and then, rather than have the whites withdraw (my first thought) which would seem a bit defeatist, we will—

  He stopped writing; the heat began to press in upon him, and now that the pain was gone, he found that he was tired.

  He removed his clothes and fell, naked, upon the bed; almost immediately he dreamed of the girl in the stateroom who rotted at his touch, but now she looked like Ella, and the laughing people were Jeaness and the French girl and his father and, peculiarly, Max Blake. They hung on the hooks and laughed hysterically.

  Then the dream shifted, and he fell into a twilight state, conscious enough to realize that he was dreaming but unable to do anything about it, anything whatever, except watch.

  He saw the times that were lost, which he loved and missed because they were lost. Himself at six, squeezing his thin body between the sink and the wall and watching, with awe and with a deep warm pleasure, the ritual of his father shaving, asking “Will I ever be able to do that?” And his father, in one of those foolish, unfunctional, armless undershirts, looking so odd and different that way but still carrying the dignity of his light gray suit-and-vest, somehow, even with the gigantic moles and warts, like mushrooms, dangling from his pale skin, saying, “Of course, of course, now go away!”

  Himself at seven, in the evenings just before bedtime, when he would lie down on the floor, the upper half of him beneath the brown radio which sat high on carved stilts, and listen in this single world wholly his own. Never real, he thought, dreaming. I’ve made them up. I didn’t have a childhood. There was no brick house, no serpentine river, no Danny and Marty and me shooting at the used prophylactics that we called balloons because we thought they were balloons, what else could they be? And no dark sewer that went beneath the ground for a thousand miles, so far that you could lose sight of the opening; certainly no baseball in the streets before the fall of night, or rides on scarlet horses, or beds for sleeping . . .

  No, his life had begun at the age of twelve, when the sickness came like a thief and stole away the man who might have been and put a wrinkled mummy in his place.

  16

  The cars moved slowly, quietly, down the street and into the uphill gravel path. Seventy models, many bright and new and shining, many old and streaked with filth. A multicolored centipede, an endless creature inching forward, its hundred and forty eyes unblinking in the summer night.

  Within the cars were ghosts. All silent, sheeted white and capped with peaks of white, riding stiffly, sitting straight.

  The car in front, a Buick, slowed. A hooded figure turned the wheel, and next to him, a young man nodded, smiling slightly.

  “We won’t have to stop,” he said, “just keep it steady.”

  Up the grade, past all the lighted houses, across the dark fields, then to Simon’s Hill; the cars rolled on, their engines humming softly.

  Past the rotted wooden shack where Negroes sat on stools, drinking coffee, cola; eating pie;

  Past the first apartment;

  Past the tailor shop, the barbershop;

  —“Just keep it steady.”—

  Past the open windows, slowly, winding, tire treads snapping pebbles, deep internal springs in dry squeaks making rhythm.

  And the ghosts sat straight.

  “Hey, lookit,” said Stuart Porterfield. He’d finished his work and w
atched TV, and then he’d gotten kind of restless, kind of hungry: at The Huddle there were always friends. He poked Andrew McGivern’s shoulder.

  “What’s that?”

  “Out the window, there.”

  The small, dark man who had been talking of family life in a high-pitched voice put down his fork and squinted.

  “That’s the Klan,” said Porterfield.

  “You guess?”

  “Hell, yes. Look at the sheets, and all. That there’s the Klan.”

  The other customers had paused in their talk and all were staring now. The owner, French Rosier, a big, scarred man, wiped the palms of his hands on his spotted apron quietly.

  “What they gonna do?” asked Andrew McGivern.

  “I don’t know.” Stuart Porterfield shredded a paper napkin from an aluminum dispenser, touched his mouth and swiveled on the stool. “Christ, I don’t know what they gonna do.”

  “I tell you this,” said a husky young man, to no one, “if they on the Hill for trouble, I see to it they ain’t disappointed.”

  “You shut up, Glad Owens, now, you just shut up with all that,” said French Rosier. “Ain’t a damn thing happened yet.”

  “Maybe they’re kids,” a man on the last stool said, “having a little fun, you know.”

  “No,” the young man said. “They ain’t kids.”

  “How do you know? Where you get this inside informa-tion?”

  No one moved. They sat with their heads turned slightly, watching.

  “. . . twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine,” said Stuart Porterfield.

  “There sure a lot.”

  “Yeah.” Porterfield was rigid on the stool, the stained and yellowed cigarette close to his flesh, the clinging ash about to fall. Above the café’s grill a plastic radio made hissing sounds: the radio was cracked from all the times it had been dropped, and the cracks had spread, unhealed, the Scotch-tape bandages now curled and blistered, dropping. On the wall a cheap alarm clock ticked. A tinted photograph of a smiling man in uniform hung crooked: To my Dad, This is the life, Sandy.