Pick-Up

by Charles Willeford

  What a weird, mixed-up dream to have! I recalled each sequence of the dream vividly and it didn’t make any sense at all. Helen, still asleep, turned and squirmed under the covers. She missed the warmth of my body and was trying to get close to me in her sleep. I crushed my foul-tasting cigarette in the ash-tray and tucked the covers in around Helen. I turned on the overhead light and sat down.

  I felt calm and contented. It was time for Harry Jordan to have another cigarette. As though I sat in a dark theatre as a spectator somewhere I observed the quiet, studied actions of Harry Jordan. The exacting, unconscious ritual of putting the cigarette in his mouth, the striking of the match on his thumbnail, the slow withdrawal of smoke, the sensuous exhalation and the obvious enjoyment. The man, Harry Jordan, was a very collected individual, a man of the world. Nothing bothered him now. He was about to withdraw his presence from the world and depart on a journey into space, into nothingness. Somewhere, a womb was waiting for him, a dark, warm place where the living was easy, where it was effortless to get by. A wonderful place where a man didn’t have to work or think or talk or listen or dream or cavort or play or use artificial stimulation. A kind old gentleman with a long dark cloak was waiting for him. Death. Never had Death appeared so attractive. . . .

  I looked at Helen’s beautiful face. She slept peacefully, her mouth slightly parted, her pretty hair tousled. I would take Helen with me. This unfeeling world was too much for Helen too, and without me, who would care for her, look after her? And hadn’t I promised to take her with me?

  I crushed my cigarette decisively and crossed to the bed.

  “Helen, baby,” I said, shaking her gently by the shoulder. “Wake up.”

  She stirred under my hand, snapped her eyes open, awake instantly, the perfect animal. She wore a sweet, sleepy smile.

  “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but it’s time.” My face was as stiff as cardboard and it felt as expressionless as uncarved stone. I didn’t know and didn’t want to explain what I was going to do and I hoped Helen wouldn’t ask me any questions. She didn’t question me. Somehow, she knew instinctively. Perhaps she read the thoughts in my eyes, maybe she could see my intentions in the stiffness of my smile.

  “We’re going away, aren’t we, Harry?” Helen’s voice was small, childlike, yet completely unafraid.

  Not daring to trust my voice, I nodded. Helen’s trust affected me deeply. In that instant I loved her more than I had ever loved her before. Such faith and trust were almost enough to take the curse out of the world. Almost.

  “All right, Harry. I’m ready.” She closed her eyes and the sleepy winsome smile remained on her lips.

  I put my hands around her slender neck. My long fingers interlaced behind her neck and my thumbs dug deeply into her throat, probing for a place to stop her breathing. I gradually increased the pressure, choking her with unrelenting firmness of purpose, concentrating. She didn’t have an opportunity to make a sound. At first she thrashed about and then her body went limp. Her dark sienna eyes, flecked with tiny spots of gold, stared guilelessly at me and then they didn’t see me any more. I closed her eyelids with my thumb, pulled the covers down and put my ear to her chest. No sound came from her heart. I straightened her legs and folded her arms across her chest. They wouldn’t stay folded and I had to place a pillow on top of them before they would stay. Later on, I supposed, when her body stiffened with cold, her arms would stay in place without the benefit of the pillow.

  My legs were weak at the knees and I had to sit down to stop their trembling. My fingers were cramped and I opened and closed my hands several times to release the tension. I had taken the irrevocable step and had met Death half-way. I could feel his presence in the room. It was now my turn and, with the last tugs of primitive self-preservation, I hesitated, my conscious mind casting about for a way to renege. But I knew that I wouldn’t renege; it was unthinkable. It was too late to back out now. However, I didn’t have the courage and trust that Helen had possessed. There was no one kind enough to take charge of the operation or do it for me. I had to do it myself, without help from anyone. But I had to have a little something to help me along . . .

  I omitted the socks and slipped into my shoes. I couldn’t control my hands well enough to tie the laces and I let them hang loose. I put my jacket on and left my room, locked the door, and left for the street. It was dismally cold outside; there were little patches of fog swirling in groups like lost ghosts exploring the night streets. The traffic signals at the corner were turned off for the night; only the intermittent blinking of the yellow caution lights at the four corners of the intersection lighted the lost, drifting tufts of fog. Although it was after one, Mr. Watson’s delicatessen was still open. Its brightly colored window was a warm spot on the dark line of buildings. I crossed the street and entered and the tinkling bell above the door announced my entrance. Mrs. Watson was sitting in a comfortable chair by the counter reading a magazine She was a heavy woman with orange-tinted hair and a faint chestnut moustache. She smiled at me in recognition.

  “Hello, Harry,” she said. “How are you this evening?”

  “Fine, Mrs. Watson, just fine,” I replied. I was glad that it was Mrs. Watson instead of her husband in the shop that morning. I wanted to talk to somebody and she was much easier to talk to than her husband. He was a German immigrant and it always seemed to me like he considered it a favor when he waited on me. I fished the two one dollar bills out of my watch pocket and smoothed them out flat on the counter.

  “I think I’m getting a slight cold, Mrs. Watson,” I said, coughing into my curled fist, “and I thought if I made a little hot gin punch before I went to bed, it might cut the phlegm a little bit.”

  “Nothing like hot gin for colds.” Mrs. Watson smiled and got out of the chair to cross to the liquor shelves. “What kind?”

  “Gilbey’s is fine—I’d like a pint, but I don’t think I have enough here . . .” I pointed to the two one dollar bills.

  “I think I can trust you for the rest, Harry. It wouldn’t be the first time.” She dropped a pint of Gilbey’s into a sack, twisted the top and handed it to me. I slipped the bottle into my jacket pocket. My errand was over and I could leave, but I was reluctant to leave the warm room and the friendly, familiar delicatessen smells. Death was waiting for me in my room. I had an appointment with him and I meant to keep it, but he could wait a few minutes longer.

  “What are you reading, Mrs. Watson?” I asked politely, when she had returned to her chair after ringing a No Sale on the cash register and putting my money into the drawer.

  “Cosmopolitan.” Her pleasant laugh was tinged with irony. “Boy meets girl, loses girl, gets girl. They’re all the same, but they pass the time.”

  “That’s a mighty fine magazine, Mrs. Watson. I read it all the time, and so does my wife. Why, Helen can hardly wait for it to come out and we always argue over who gets to read it first and all that. Yes, I guess it’s my favorite magazine and I wish it was published every week instead of every month! What month is that, Mrs. Watson? Maybe I haven’t read it yet.”

  “Do you feel all right, Harry?” She looked at me suspiciously.

  “Yes, I do.” My voice had changed pitch and was much too high.

  “You aren’t drunk, are you?”

  “No, I get a little talkative sometimes. Well, that’s a good magazine.”

  “It’s all right.” Mrs. Watson’s voice was impatient; she wanted to get back to her story.

  “Well, good night, Mrs. Watson, and thanks a lot.” I opened the door.

  “That’s all right, Harry. Good night.” She had found her place and was reading before I closed the door.

  As soon as I was clear of the lighted window I jerked the gin out of the sack, tossed the sack in the gutter, and unscrewed the cap from the bottle. I took a long pull from the bottle, gulping the raw gin down until I choked on it and hot tears leaped to my eyes. It warmed me through and my head cleared immedi
ately. I crossed the street and walked back to the house. Sitting on the outside steps I drank the rest of the gin in little sips, controlling my impulse to down it all at once. I knew that if I tried to let it all go down my throat at once it would be right back up and the effects would be gone. I finished the bottle and tossed it into the hedge by the porch. My stomach had a fire inside it, but I was sorry I hadn’t charged a fifth instead of only getting a pint.

  I walked down the dimly lighted hall, unlocked my door and entered my room. It rather startled me, in a way, to see Helen in the same position I had left her in. Not that I had expected her to move; I hadn’t expected anything, but to see her lying so still, and uncovered in the cold room, unnerved me. Again I wished I had another pint of gin. I started to work.

  I locked the door and locked the window. There were three old newspapers under the sink, and I tore them into strips and stuffed the paper under the crack at the bottom of the door. I opened both jets on the two-ring burner and they hissed full blast. I sniffed the odor and it wasn’t unpleasant at all. It was sweet and purifying. By this time the gin had hit me hard, and I found myself humming a little tune. I undressed carefully and hung my clothes neatly in the closet. I lined my shoes up at the end of the bed. Tomorrow we would be found dead and that was that. But there wasn’t any note. I staggered to the table and with a piece of charcoal I composed a brief note of farewell. There was no one in particular to address it to, so I headed it:

  To Who Finds This:

  We did this on purpose. It isn’t accidental.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to put in the note and I didn’t sign it because the charcoal broke between my fingers. Leaving the note on the table I crawled into bed beside Helen and pulled the covers up over us both. I had left the overhead light on purposely and the room seemed gay and cheerful. I took Helen in my arms and kissed her. Her lips were like cold rubber. When I closed my eyes the image of the light bulb remained. I tried to concentrate on other things to induce sleep. The black darkness of the outside street, the inky San Francisco bay, outside space and starless skies. There were other thoughts that tried to force their way into my mind but I fought them off successfully.

  The faint hissing of the gas jets grew louder. It filled the room like a faraway waterfall.

  I was riding in a barrel and I could hear the falls far away. It was a comfortable barrel, well-padded, and it rocked gently to and fro, comforting me. It floated on a broad stream, drifting along with the current. The roar of the falls was louder in my ears. The barrel was drifting closer to the falls, moving ever faster toward the boiling steam above the lips of the over-hang. I wondered how far the drop would be. The barrel hesitated for a second, plunged downward with a sickening drop.

  A big, black pair of jaws opened and I dropped inside. They snapped shut.

  FOURTEEN

  Awakening

  THERE was a lot of knocking and some shouting. I don’t know whether it was the knocking or the shouting that aroused me from my deep, restful slumbers, but I awoke, and printed in large, wavering red letters on the surface of my returning consciousness was the word for Harry Jordan: FAILURE. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. Harry Jordan was a failure in everything he tried. Even suicide.

  The sharp little raps still pounded on the door and I could hear Mrs. McQuade’s anxious voice calling, “Mr. Jordan! Mr. Jordan! Open the door.”

  “All right!” I shouted from the bed. “Wait a minute.”

  I painfully got out of bed, crossed to the window, unlocked it and threw it open. The cold, damp air that rushed in from the alley smelled like old laundry. The gas continued to hiss from the two open burners and I turned them off. Again the rapping and the call from Mrs. McQuade: “Open the door!”

  “In a minute!” I replied. The persistent knocking and shouting irritated me. I slipped into my corduroy trousers, buckled my belt as I crossed the room, unlocked and opened the door. Mrs. McQuade and her other two star roomers, Yoshi Endo and Miss Foxhall, were framed in the doorway. It’s a composition by Paul Klee, I thought.

  I had always thought of Mrs. McQuade as a garrulous old lady with her hand held out, but she took charge of the situation like a television director.

  “I smelled the gas,” Mrs. McQuade said quietly. “Are you all right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Go stand by the window and breathe some fresh air.”

  “Maybe I’d better.” I walked to the window and took a few deep breaths which made me cough. After the coughing fit I was giddier than before. I turned and looked at Endo and Miss Foxhall. “Won’t you please come in?” I asked them stupidly.

  Little Endo, his dark eyes bulging like a toad’s in his flat Oriental face, stared solemnly at Helen’s naked figure on the bed. Miss Foxhall had covered her face with both hands and was peering through the lattice-work of her fingers. Mrs. McQuade examined Helen for a moment at the bedside and then she pulled the covers over the body and face. Pursing her lips, she turned and made a flat, quiet statement: “She’s dead.”

  “Yes,” I said. Just to be doing something, anything, I put my shirt on, sat down in the straight chair and pulled on my socks. A shrill scream escaped Miss Foxhall and then she stopped herself by shoving all her fingers into her mouth. Her short involuntary scream brought Endo out of his trance-like state and he grabbed the old spinster’s arm and began to shake her, saying over and over again in a high, squeaky voice, “No, no! No, no!”

  “Leave her alone,” Mrs. McQuade ordered sharply. “I’ll take care of her.” She put an arm around Miss Foxhall’s waist. “You go get a policeman.” Endo turned and ran down the hall. I heard the outside door slam. As Mrs. McQuade led Miss Foxhall away, she said over her shoulder: “You’d better get dressed, Mr. Jordan.”

  “Yes, M’am.” I was alone with Helen and the room was suddenly, unnaturally quiet. Automatically, I finished dressing, but my hands trembled so much I wasn’t able to tie my neck-tie. I let it hang loosely around my neck, sat down in the straight chair after I donned my jacket.

  Why had I failed?

  I sat facing the door and I looked up and saw the transom. It was open. It wasn’t funny but I smiled grimly. No wonder the gas hadn’t killed me. The escaping gas was too busy going out over the transom and creeping through the house calling attention to Harry Jordan in the back bedroom. How did I let it happen? To hold the gas in the room I had shoved newspaper under the bottom of the door and yet I had left the transom wide open. Was it a primeval desire to live? plain stupidity? or the effects of the gin? I’ll never know.

  In a few minutes Endo returned to the room with a policeman. The policeman was a slim, nervous young man and he stood in the doorway covering me with his revolver. More than a little startled by the weapon I raised my arms over my head. The policeman bit his lips while his sharp eyes roved the room, sizing up the situation. He holstered the pistol and nodded his head.

  “Put your arms down,” he ordered. “Little suicide pact, huh?”

  “No,” I replied. “I killed her. Choked her to death.” I folded my hand in my lap.

  The young policeman uncovered Helen’s head and throat and looked carefully at her neck. Endo was at his side and the proximity of the little Japanese bothered him. He pushed Endo roughly toward the door. “Get the hell out of here,” he told Endo. Leaving the room reluctantly, Endo hovered in the doorway. Muttering under his breath, the policeman shut the door in Endo’s face and seated himself on the foot of the bed.

  “What’s your name?” he asked me, taking a small, black notebook out of his hip pocket.

  “Harry Jordan.”

  “Her name?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Mrs. Helen Meredith.”

  “You choked her. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then you turned on the gas to kill yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “She doesn’t looked choked.”

  “There’s the note I left,” I said pointing to the table. He
crossed to the table and read my charcoaled note without touching it. He made another notation in his little black book, returned it to his hip pocket.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” he said meaninglessly. There was uncertainty in his eyes. “I’ve got to get my partner,” he informed me. Evidently he didn’t know whether to take me along or leave me in the room by myself. He decided on the latter and handcuffed me to the radiator and hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him. The radiator was too low for me to stand and I had to squat down. Squatting nauseated me, and I got down on my knees on the floor. There Was a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach and it rumbled, but I didn’t get sick enough to throw up.

  In a few minutes he was back with his partner. He was a much older, heavier policeman, with a buff-colored, neatly trimmed mustache and a pair of bright, alert hazel eyes. The older man grinned when he saw me handcuffed to the radiator.

  “Take the cuffs off him, for Christ sake!” he told the younger policeman. “He won’t get away.”

  After the first policeman uncuffed me and returned the heavy bracelets to his belt, I sat down in the chair again. By leaning over and sucking in my stomach I could keep the nausea under control. It was much better sitting down. The younger policeman left the room to make a telephone call and the older man took his place at the foot of the bed. He crossed his legs and after he got his cigarettes out he offered me one. He displayed no interest in Helen’s body at all. He lit our cigarettes and then smiled kindly at me.

  “You’re in trouble, boy,” he said, letting smoke trickle out through his nose. “Do you know that?”

  “I guess I am.” I took a long drag and it eased my stomach. “Relax, boy. I’m not going to ask you any questions. I couldn’t care less.”

  “Would it be all right with you if I kissed her goodbye?” That question slipped out in a rush, but he seemed to be easy-going, and I knew that after the police arrived in force I wouldn’t be able to kiss her goodbye. This would be my last chance. He scratched his mustache, got up from the bed and strolled across the room to the window.