Pick-Up

by Charles Willeford

  “It was just an idea.” Helen was right and I was wrong. We were too far down the ladder to climb up now. I was letting my worry about money and Helen lead me into dangerous thinking. The only thing to do was keep the same level without going down any further. If I could do that, we would be all right. “Pass me the bottle,” I said.

  I took a good swig and I felt better immediately. From now on I wouldn’t let worry get me down. I would take things as they came and with any luck at all everything would be all right.

  It didn’t take much to mellow Helen. After two laced cups of coffee she was feeling the drinks and listening with intent interest to my story about Van Gogh and Gauguin and their partnership at Arles. Fingernails scratched at the door. Irritated by the interruption I jerked the door open. Mrs. McQuade stood in the doorway with a large package in her arms.

  “This package came for you, Mrs. Jordan,” she said, looking around me at Helen. “I signed for it. It was delivered by American Express.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. McQuade,” I said. “I’ll take it.” I took the package.

  “That’s all right. I—” She wanted to talk some more but I closed the door with my shoulder and tossed the package on the bed. Helen untied the package and opened it. It was full of women’s clothing.

  “It’s from Mother,” she said happily, “she’s sent me some of my things.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. Helen started through the package, holding up various items of clothing to show me how they looked. This didn’t satisfy her, and she slipped a dress on to show me how well it looked on her, removed it, and started to put another one on. I was bored. But this pre-occupation with a fresh wardrobe would occupy her for quite a while. Long enough for me to look around town for a way to make a few dollars. The half-pint was almost empty.

  “Look, sweetheart,” I said, “why don’t you take your time and go through these things, and I’ll go out for a while and look for a part-time job.”

  “But I want to show them to you—”

  “And I’ve got to pick up a few bucks or we’ll be all out of whiskey.”

  “Oh. How long will you be gone?”

  “Not long. An hour or so at the most.” I kissed her good-bye and left the house. I caught the cable car downtown and got off at Polk Street. There wasn’t any particular plan or idea in my mind and I walked aimlessly down the street. I passed the Continental Garage. It was a five-story building designed solely for the parking of automobiles. At the back of the building I could see two latticed elevators that took the cars up and down to the rest of the building. On impulse, I entered the side office. There were three men in white overalls sitting around on top of the desks. They stopped talking when I entered and I smiled at the man who had MANAGER embroidered in red above the left breast pocket of his spotless overalls. He was a peppery little man with a small red moustache clipped close to his lip. He looked at me for a moment, then closed his eyes. His eyelids were as freckled as the rest of his face.

  “What I’m looking for, sir,” I said, “is a part-time job. Do you have a rush period from about four to six when you could use another man to park cars?”

  He opened his eyes and there was suspicion in them. “Yes and No. How come you aren’t looking for an eight-hour day?”

  “I am.” I smiled. “I’m expecting an overseas job in Iraq,” I lied. “It should come through any day now and I have to hang around the union hall all day. That’s why I can’t take anything permanent. But the job I’m expecting is taking a lot longer to come through than I expected and I’m running short on cash.

  “I see.” He nodded, compressed his lips. “You a mechanic?”

  “No, sir. Petroleum engineer.”

  “College man, huh?” I nodded, but I didn’t say anything. “Can you drive a car?”

  I laughed politely. “Of course I can.”

  “Okay, I’ll help you out. You can start this evening from four to six, parking and bringing them down. Buck and a half an hour. Take it or leave it. It’s all the same to me.”

  “I’ll take it,” I said gratefully, “and thanks.”

  “Pete,” the manager said to a loosed-jointed man with big knobby hands, “show him how to run the elevator and tell him about the tickets.”

  Pete left the office for the elevators and I followed him. A push button worked the elevator, but parking the cars was more complicated. The tickets were stamped with a time-stamp and parked in time groups in accordance with time of entry. When the patron brought in his stub, it was checked for the time it was brought in and the serial number of the ticket. Cars brought in early to stay all day were on the top floor and so on down to the main floor. Patrons who said they would only be gone an hour or so had their cars parked down-stairs on the main floor. Five minutes after I left Pete I was on the cable car and on my way home. The fears I had in the morning were gone and I was elated. By a lucky break my part time job was solved. With the twenty-five a week coming in from Helen’s mother, plus another three dollars a day from the garage, we should be able to get along fine. And counting the half-hour each way to downtown and my two hours of work, Helen would only be alone three hours.

  I opened the door to our room and Helen was back in bed fast asleep. Her new clothes were scattered and thrown about the floor. Without waking her I picked them up and hung them in the closet. I wanted a shot but the little half-pint bottle was empty. I pulled the covers over Helen and lay down beside her on top of the bed. I napped fitfully till three and then I left. I started to wake her before I left, but she was sleeping so peacefully I didn’t have the heart to do it.

  Right after four the rush started and I hustled the cars out until six. It wasn’t difficult and after a few minutes I could find the cars easily. I looked up the red-haired manager at six and he gave me three dollars and I left the garage. Going down the hallway I spread the three dollars like a fan before I opened the door to our room.

  Helen was gone.

  There wasn’t any note so I assumed she was at Big Mike’s. She had probably forgotten about the ruckus with him the day before and he was the logical man to give her a free drink, or let her sign for one. I left the roominghouse for Big Mike’s. He hadn’t seen her.

  “If you haven’t found her by now,” he said, “you might as well forget about it, Harry.”

  “I did find her yesterday, Mike, I was with her till three this afternoon, and then I had to go to work.”

  “This isn’t the only bar in the neighborhood.” He grinned. “I wisht it was.”

  I made the rounds of all the neighborhood bars. She wasn’t in any of them and I didn’t ask any of the bartenders if she had been in them. I didn’t know any of the bartenders that well. At eight-thirty I went back to the roominghouse and checked to see whether she had returned. I didn’t want to miss her in case she came back on her own accord. She wasn’t there and I started to check the bars outside the neighborhood. I was hoping she hadn’t gone downtown, and I knew she didn’t have enough carfare to go.

  It was ten-thirty before I found her. She was in a little bar on Peacock Street. It was so dark inside I had to stand still for a full minute before my eyes became accustomed to the darkness. There was one customer at the bar and he and the bartender were watching a TV wrestling match. There were two shallow booths opposite the bar and Helen was in the second. A sailor was with her and she was wearing his white sailor hat on the back of her head. His left arm was about her waist, his hand cupping a breast, and his right hand was up under her dress, working furiously. Her legs were spread widely and he was kissing her on the mouth.

  I ran directly to the booth, grabbed the sailor by his curly yellow hair and jerked his head back, pulling his mouth away from Helen’s. Still keeping a tight grip on his hair I dragged him across her lap to the center of the floor. His body was too heavy to be supported by his hair alone and he slipped heavily to the floor, leaving me with a thick wad of curls in each hand. He mumbled something unintelligible and attempted to sit up.
His slack mouth was open and there was a drunken, stupefied expression in his eyes. I wanted to hurt him; not kill him, but hurt him, mutilate his pasty, slack-jawed face. Looking for a handy weapon, I took a beer bottle from the bar and smashed it over his head. The neck of the bottle was still in my hand and the broken section ended in a long, jagged splinter. I carved his face with it, moving the sharp, glass dagger back and forth across his white face with a whipping wrist motion. Each slash opened a spurting channel of bright red blood that ran down his face and neck and splashed on the floor between his knees. My first blow with the bottle had partially stunned him but the pain brought him out of it and the high screams coming from deep inside his throat were what brought me to my senses. I dropped the piece of broken bottle, and in a way, I felt that I had made up somehow for the degradation I had suffered at the hands of the Marines.

  Helen had sobered considerably and her eyes were round as saucers as she sat in the booth. I lifted her to her feet and she started for the door, making a wide detour around the screaming sailor. I opened the door for her and looked over my shoulder. The bartender was nowhere in sight, probably flat on the floor behind the bar. The solitary drinker was peering at me nervously from the safety of the doorway to the men’s room. The sailor had managed to get to his knees and was crawling under the table to the first booth, the screams still pouring from his throat. I let the door swing shut behind us.

  Helen was able to stand by herself, but both of her hands were pressed over her mouth. I released her arm and she staggered to the curb and vomited into the gutter. When she finished I put my arm around her waist and we walked up the hill. A taxi, coming down the hill on the opposite side of the street, made a U-turn when I signaled him and rolled to a stop beside us. I helped Helen into the cab. A block away from our roominghouse I told the driver to stop. When I opened the door to get out I noticed my hand was cut. I wrapped my handkerchief around my bleeding hand and gave a dollar to the hackie. The cold night air had revived Helen considerably, and she scarcely staggered as we walked the block to the house. As soon as we entered our room she made for the bed and curled up on her knees, pressed her arms to her sides, and ducked her head down. In this position it was difficult for me to remove her clothes, but before I finished taking them off she was asleep.

  By that time I could have used a drink myself. I heated the leftover coffee and smoked a cigarette to control my uneasy stomach. I looked through Helen’s purse and all I found was a crumpled package of cigarettes and a book of paper matches. Not a penny.

  What was the use? I couldn’t keep her. How could I work and stay home and watch her at the same time? I couldn’t make enough money to meet expenses and keep Helen in liquor if I parked a million cars or fried a million eggs or waited on a million tables. I was so beaten down and disgusted with myself my mind wouldn’t cope with it any longer. Sitting awake in the chair I had a dream, a strange, merging dream, where everything was unreal and the ordinary turned into the extraordinary. Nothing like it had ever happened to me before. The coffeepot, the cup, and the can of condensed milk on the table turned into a graphic composition, a depth study. It was beautiful. Everything I turned my eyes upon in the room was perfectly grouped. A professional photographer couldn’t have arranged the room any better. The unshaded light in the ceiling was like a light above Van Gogh’s pool table. Helen’s clothing massed upon the chair swirled gracefully to the floor like drapes in a Titian drawing. The faded gray wallpaper with its unknown red flower pattern was suddenly quaint and charming. The gray background fell away from the flowers with a three-dimensional effect. Everything was lovely, lovely . . .

  I don’t know how long this spell lasted, but it seemed to be a long time and I didn’t want it to end. I had no thought at all during this period. I merely sensed the new delights of my quiet, ordinary room. Only Helen’s gentle, open-mouthed snoring furnished the hum of life to my introspection. And then, like a blinding flash of headlights striking my eyes, everything was clear to me. Simple. Plain. Clear.

  I didn’t have to fight any more.

  For instance, a man is crossing the street and an automobile almost runs him down. He shakes his fist and curses and says to himself: “That Buick almost hit me!” But it wasn’t the Buick that almost hit him; the Buick was merely a vehicle. It was the man or woman driving the Buick who almost hit him. Not the Buick. And that was me. I was the automobile, a machine, a well-oiled vehicle now matured to my early thirties. A machine without a driver. The driver was gone. The machine could now relax and run wherever it might, even into a smash. So what? It could function by itself, by habit, reflex, or whatever it was that made it run. Not only didn’t I know, I didn’t care any more. It might be interesting, for that part of me that used to think things out, to sit somewhere and watch Harry Jordan, the machine, go through the motions. The getting up in the morning, the shaving, the shower, walking, talking, drinking. I. Me. Whatever I was, didn’t give a damn any more. Let the body function and the senses sense. The body felt elation. The eyes enjoyed the sudden beauty of the horrible little back bedroom. My mind felt nothing. Nothing at all.

  Helen sat up suddenly in bed. She retched, a green streak of fluid burst from her lips and spread over her white breasts. I got a towel from the dresser and wiped her face and chest.

  “Use this,” and I handed her the towel, “if it hits you again.”

  “I think I’m all right now,” she gasped. I brought her a glass of water and held it to her lips. She shook her head to move her lips away from the glass.

  “Oh, Harry, I’m so sick, so sick, so sick, so sick . . .”

  “You’ll be all right.” I set the glass on the table.

  “Are you mad at me, Harry?”

  “What for?” I was surprised at the question.

  “For going out and getting drunk the way I did.”

  “You were fairly drunk when I left.”

  “I know, but I shouldn’t have gone out like that. That sailor . . . the sailor who was with me didn’t mean a thing—”

  “Forget it. Go back to sleep.”

  “Harry, you’re the only one I’ve ever loved. I’ve never loved anyone but you. And if you got sore at me I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “I’m not angry. Go to sleep.”

  “You get in bed too.”

  “Not right now. I’m busy.”

  “Please, Harry. Please?”

  “I’m thinking. You know I’m not going to live very long, Helen. No driver. There isn’t any driver, Helen, and the controls are set. And I don’t know how long they’re going to last.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just that I’m not going to live very long. I quit.”

  Helen threw the covers back, got out of bed and rushed over to me. I was standing flat-footed by the table. My feet could feel the world pushing up at me from below. Black old cinder. I laughed. Cooling on the outside, fire on the inside and nothing in between. It was easy to feel the world turn beneath my feet. Helen was on her knees, her arms were clasped about my legs. She was talking feverishly, and I put my hand on her head.

  “What’s the matter, Harry!” she cried. “Are you going to try to kill yourself again? Are you angry with me? Please talk to me! Don’t look away like that . . .”

  “Yes, Helen,” I said calmly. “I’m going to kill myself.”

  Helen pulled herself up, climbing my body, using my clothes as handholds, pressing her naked body against mine. “Oh, darling, darling,” she whimpered. “Let me go first! Don’t go away and leave me all alone!”

  “All right,” I said. I picked her up and carried her to the bed. “I won’t leave you behind. I wouldn’t do that.” I kissed her, stroked her hair. “Go on to sleep, now.” Helen closed her eyes and in a moment she was asleep. The tear-streaked lines on her face were drying. I undressed and got into bed beside her. Now I could sleep. The machine would sleep, it would wake, it would do things, and then it would crash, out of control and destro
y itself. But first it must run over the little body that slept by its side. The small, pitiful creature with the big sienna eyes and the silver streak in its hair.

  As I fell asleep I heard music. I didn’t have a radio, but it wasn’t the type of music played over the radio anyway. It was wild, cacophonous, and there was an off-beat of drums pounding. My laugh was harsh, rasping. I continued to laugh and the salty taste in my mouth came from the unchecked tears running down my cheeks.

  THIRTEEN

  Dream World

  IN MY DREAM I was running rapidly down an enormous piano keyboard. The white keys made music beneath my hurried feet as I stepped on them, but the black keys were stuck together with glue and didn’t play. Trying to escape the discordant music of the white keys I tried to run on the black keys, slipping and sliding to keep my balance. Although I couldn’t see the end of the keyboard I felt that I must reach the end and that it was possible if I could only run fast enough and hard enough. My foot slipped on a rounded black key and I fell heavily, sideways, and my sprawled body covered three of the large white keys with a sharp, harsh discord. The notes were loud and ugly. I rolled away from the piano keyboard, unable to stand, and fell into a great mass of silent, swirling, billowing yellow fog and floated down, down, down. The light surrounding my head was like bright, luminous gold. The gloves on my hands were lemon yellow chamois with three black stitches on the back of each hand. I disliked the gloves, but I couldn’t take them off no matter how hard I tried. They were glued to my hands; the bright orange glue oozed out of the gloves around my wrists.

  I opened my eyes and I was wide awake. My body was drenched with perspiration. I got out of bed without waking Helen, found and lighted a cigarette. My mouth was so dry the smoke choked me and tasted terrible. The perspiration, drying on my body, made me shiver with cold and I put my shirt and trousers on.