Scott tensed suddenly as the heavy man leaned over, ignoring the highway. The man knocked in the lighter, then straightened up again, his shoulder brushing Scott's.
"So you live in the next town, mon cher," he said. "This is… fascinating news." Another leopard-growl belch. "Dinner with old Vincent," said the man. "Old Vincent." The sound that came from his throat might have indicated amusement. It might, as well, have indicated the onset of strangulation. "Old Vincent," said the heavy man sadly.
The cigarette lighter popped out and he snatched it from its electric cavity. Scott glanced aside as the man relit his dark-tipped cigar.
The man's head was leonine beneath the wide-brimmed fedora. Glows of light washed his face. Scott saw bushy eyebrows like awnings over the man's darkly glittering eyes. He saw a puffy nostriled nose, a long, thick-lipped mouth. It was the face of a sly boy peering out through rolls of dough.
Clouds of smoke obscured the face. "A most seemly boy, Od's bodkins," said the man. He missed the dashboard opening and the lighter thumped on the floor boards. "God's hooks!" The man doubled over. The car veered wildly.
"I'll get it," Scott said quickly. "Look out!"
The man put the car back in its proper lane. He patted Scott's head with a spongy palm. "A child of most excellent virtues," he slurred. "As I have always said-" He drew up phlegm, rolled down the window, and gave it to the wind. He forgot what he had always said. "You live around here?" he asked, belching conclusively.
"In the next town," Scott said.
"Vincent was a friend, I tell you," the man said remorsefully. "A friend. In the truest sense of that truest word. Friend, ally, companion, comrade."
Scott glanced back at the service station they had just passed. It looked closed. He'd better ride into Freeport and make sure he could get hold of someone.
"He insisted," the man said, "in donning the hair shirt of matrimony." He turned. "You comprends, dear boy? Do you, bless your supple bones, comprends?"
Scott swallowed. "Yes, sir," he said.
The man blew out a puff of smoke. Scott coughed. "And what," the man said, "was a man, dear boy, became, you see, a creature of degradation, a lackey, a serf, an automaton. A in short lost and shrivelled soul." The man peered at Scott dizzily. "You see," he asked, "what I mean to say, dear boy? Do you?"
Scott looked out the window. I'm tired, he thought. I want to go to bed and forget who I am and what's happening to me. I just want to go to bed.
"You live around here?" asked the man.
"Next town."
"Quite so," said the man.
Silence a moment. Then the man said. "Women. Who come into man's life a breath from the sewer." He belched. "A pox on the she." He looked over at Scott. The car headed for a tree. "And dear Vincent," said the man, "lost to the eye of man. Swallowed in the spiritual quicksand’s of-"
"You're going to hit that tree!"
The man turned his head.
"There," he said. "Back on course, Cap'n. Back in the saddle again. Back where a friend is a-"
He peered at Scott again, face aslant as though he were a buyer examining merchandise. "You are-" he said, purse-lipped and estimating. He cleared his throat violently. "You are twelve," he said. "First prize?"
Scott coughed a little at the cigar smoke. "First prize," he said. "Look out."
The man repointed the car, his laugh ending in a belch.
"An age of pristine possibility, my dear," he said. "A time of untrammelled hope. Oh, dear boy." He dropped a portly hand and clamped it on Scott's leg. "Twelve, twelve. Oh, to be twelve again. Blessed be twelve years of age."
Scott pulled his leg away. The man squeezed it once more, then reached back to the steering wheel. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," he said. "Still to meet your first woman." His lips curled. "That experience which is analogous to turning your first rock and finding your first bug."
"I can get off at-" Scott started, seeing an open gas station ahead.
"Ugly they are," stated the heavy man in the dark, wrinkled suit. "Ugly with an ugliness that worries the fringes of phenomena." His eyes moved, peering out at Scott over banks of crow-lined fat. "Do you intend to marry, dear boy?" he asked.
If I could laugh at anything these days, Scott thought, I could laugh at that.
"No," he said. "Say, could I get off at-"
"A wise, a noble decision," said the heavy man. "One of virtue, of seemliness. Women." He stared wide-eyed through the windshield. "Append them to cancer. They destroy as secretly, as effectively, as speak truth, O prophet, as hideously." The man looked at him. "Eh, boy?" he said, chuckling, belching, hiccupping.
"Mister, I get off here."
"Take you to Freeport, my boy," said the man. "To Freeport away! Land of jollities and casual obliterations. Stronghold of suburban ax-grindings." The man looked directly at Scott. "You like girls, my boy?"
The question caught Scott off guard. He hadn't really been paying attention to the drift of the man's monologue. He looked over at the man. Suddenly the man seemed bigger; as if, with the questions, he had gained measurable bulk.
"I don't really live in Freeport," Scott said. "I-"
"He's diffident!" The heavy man's heretofore husky chuckle suddenly erupted into a cackle. "O diffident youth, beloved." The hand again went to Scott's leg. Scott's face tensed as he looked up at the man, the smell of whisky and cigar smoke thick in his nostrils. He saw the cigar tip glow and fade, glow, fade.
"I get off here," he said.
"Look thee, young chap," said the heavy man, watching the road and Scott at the same time, "the night hath yet a measure of youth. It's only a trifle past nine. Now," his voice fell to cajoling, "in the icebox of my rooms there squats a squamous quart of ice cream. Not a pint, mind you, but-"
"Please, I get off here." Scott could feel the heat of the man's hand through his trouser leg. He tried to draw away but he couldn't. His heartbeat quickened.
"Oh, come along, young dear," the man said. "Ice cream, cake, a bit of bawdy badinage, what more could two adventurers like you and me seek of an evening? Eh?" The hand tightened almost threateningly.
"Ow!" Scott said, wincing. "Get your hand off me!"
The man looked startled at the adult anger in Scott's voice, the lowering of pitch, the authority.
"Will you stop the car?" Scott asked angrily. "And look out!"
The man jerked the car back into its lane.
"Don't get so excited, boy," he said, beginning to sound agitated.
"I want to get out." Scott's hands were actually shaking.
"My dear boy," the man said in an abruptly pitiful voice, "if you knew loneliness as I know it, black solitude and-"
"Stop the car, damn it!"
The man stiffened. "Speak with respect to your superior, lout!" he snapped. His right hand drew back suddenly and smashed against the side of Scott's head, knocking him against the door.
Scott pushed up quickly, realizing with a burst of panic, that he was no stronger than a boy.
"Dear boy, I apologize," the man said instantly, hiccupping. "Did I hurt you?"
"I live down the next road," Scott said tensely. "Stop here, please."
The man plucked out his cigar and threw it on the floor.
"I offend you, boy," he said, sounding as if he were about to cry. "I offend you with distasteful words. Please. Please. Look behind the words, behind the peeling mask of jollity. For there is utter sadness, there utter loneliness. Can you understand that, dear boy? Can you, in your tender years, know my-"
"Mister, I want to get out," Scott said. His voice was that of a boy, half angry, half frightened. And the horror of it was that he wasn't sure if there was more of acting or of actuality in his voice.
Abruptly the man pulled over to the side of the highway.
"Leave me, leave me, then," he said bitterly. "You're no different from the rest, no, not at all."
Scott shoved open the door with trembling hands.
"Good night, sweet prince,"
said the heavy man, fumbling for Scott's hand. "Good night and dreams of plenteous goodness bless thy repose." A wheezy hiccup jarred his curtain speech. "I go on, empty, empty… empty. Will you kiss me once? For good-by, for-"
But Scott was already out of the car and running, headlong toward the service station they had just passed. The man turned his heavy head and watched youth racing away from him.
Chapter Eight
There was a thumping sound, like that of a hammer on wood; like the sound of a huge fingernail tapping, falsely patient, on a blackboard. The tapping pounded at his sleeping brain. He stirred on the bed, rolling over on his back with a fitful toss of arms. Thump-thump-thump. He moaned. At his sides, his hands raised up a trifle, then dropped again. Thump. Thump. He groaned irritably, still not fully conscious.
Then the water drop burst across his face.
Gagging and coughing, he reared up on the sponge, hearing a loud squishing noise. Another drop splashed off his shoulder.
"What!" His brain struggling to orient itself, his wide-eyed, startled gaze fled around the darkness. Thump! Thump! It was a giant's fist beating at a door; it was a monster gavel pounding on a rostrum.
Sleep was gone. He felt his chest jerk with staggering heartbeats. "Good God," he muttered. He threw his legs over the side of the sponge.
They landed in lukewarm water.
He jerked his legs back with a gasp. Overhead the noise seemed to be coming faster. Thump-thump-thump! Breath caught in his throat. What in God's name…
Grimacing at the brain-jolting sound, he let his legs over the side of the bed again and let them sink in the warm water. He stood hastily, rigid hands clamped over his ears. Thump thump thump! It was like standing inside a fiercely beaten drum. Gasping, he lurched for the edge of the box top. He slipped on the water-slick surface, crying out as his right knee banged down on the cement. He pushed up with a groan, then slipped again.
"Damn it!" he screamed. He hardly heard his voice; the noise was almost deafening. Frantic, he braced his feet and, reaching up, lifted the box-top edge and ducked out under it.
He slipped again, crashing down on an elbow. Pain knifed up his arm. He started up. A drop of water slammed across his back, sending him sprawling again. He twisted over like a fish and saw the water heater leaking.
"Oh, my God," he muttered, wincing at the pain in his knee and elbow.
He stood up, watching great drops splatter off the box top and cement. The water ran warmly across his ankles; there was a minor waterfall of it flowing over the edge of the block, splashing on the cellar floor.
For a long moment he stood there indecisively, staring at the falling water, feeling the robe cling warm and wet to his body.
Then he cried out suddenly. "The crackers."
He lunged at the box top again, sliding and struggling for balance. He lifted the top and carried it over the bed, feet almost slipping out from under him all the way. He dropped it, then flung himself across the sponge, hearing water burst out from its swollen pores.
"Oh, nor
He couldn't drag the package up, it was so water-logged. Face wild with frightened anger, he tore it open, the soggy paper parting like tissue in his hands.
He stared at the water-soaked cracker bits moulded together into an ashen paste. He picked up a handful and felt the sodden drag of it, like day-old porridge.
With a curse he flung the dripping mass away. It flew over the edge of the block and splattered into a hundred pale scraps on the floor.
He knelt there on the sponge, oblivious now of the water that poured around and over him. His eyes were fastened to the pile of crumbs, his lips pressed into a blood pinched hating line.
"What's the use?" he muttered. His fists snapped shut like jaws. "What's the use?" A water drop fell in front of him and he took a savage punch at it, losing balance and toppling over, face first, on the sponge. Water flooded from the compressed honeycomb.
He jolted to his feet on the block, hard with fury.
"You're not going to beat me," he said, he hadn't the slightest idea to whom. His teeth jammed together and it was defiance and a challenge that he hurled. "You're not going to beat me!"
He grabbed up handfuls of the soggy cracker and carried it up to the dry safety of the first black metal shelf of the water heater. What good are soaked crackers? asked his brain. They'll dry he answered. They'll rot first, said his brain. Shut up! he answered.
He yelled it. "Shut up!" God! he thought. He flung a cracker snowball at the water heater and it spatted off the metal.
Suddenly he laughed. Suddenly the whole thing seemed hilarious, him four-sevenths of an inch tail, in a tent like robe, standing ankle-deep in lukewarm water and throwing soggy cracker balls at a water heater. He threw back his head and laughed loudly. He sat down in the warm water and slapped his palms at it, splashing geysers of it across himself. He pulled off his robe and rolled around in the warm water. A bath, he thought. I'm having my goddam morning bath.
After a while he got up and dried himself on what was left of the handkerchief around the sponge. Then he squeezed the water from the robe and hung it up to dry. My throat is sore, he told himself. So what? he said. It'll have to wait its turn.
He didn't know why he felt so exhilarated and stupidly amused. He was certainly in a fix. It was just, he guessed, that when things got so bad they were absurd, you couldn't take them straight any more; you had to laugh or crack. He almost imagined that if the spider came lumbering over the edge of the block now, he'd laugh at it.
He ripped up the handkerchief with teeth, nails, and hands, and made a flimsy robe of it, tying up the sides as he had done with the other robe. He put it on hastily. He had to get over to the sewing box.
Picking up the heavy pin, he threw it to the floor, then climbed down the cement block and retrieved it. I'll have to find another sleeping place now, he thought. It was amusing. He might even have to go up the great cliff face after that slice of dry bread. That was amusing, too. He shook his head as he jogged across the floor toward the carton, sunlight streaming through the windows over him.
It was like the time after he'd broken the contract. There were all the bills, the pitiless insecurity, the problems of adjustment. He'd tried to go back to work. He'd begged Marty, and Marty had reluctantly agreed. But it hadn't worked. It had got worse and worse until one day Therese had seen him trying to climb onto a chair and had picked him up like a boy and set him on it.
He'd screamed at her and gone storming to Marty's office; but before he could say a word Marty had shoved a letter across the desk at him. It had been from the Veterans Administration. The GI loan had been turned down.
And that afternoon, driving home, when the same tire had gone flat a second time, half a block from the apartment, Scott had sat in the car shrieking with laughter, so hysterical that he'd fallen off his special seat, bounced off the regular one, and landed in a laughter-twitching heap on the floor boards.
It was the way. Self defence; a mechanism the brain devised to protect itself from detonation; a release when things became wound up too tightly.
When he reached the carton, he climbed in, not even caring if the spider was waiting in there for him. He walked in long strides to the sewing box and found a small thimble. It took all the strength in him to push it up the hill of clothes and shove it out through the opening.
He rolled the thimble across the floor like a giant empty hogshead, the pin stuck through his handkerchief robe and scraping behind him on the cement as he moved.
At the heater he thought first of trying to lift the thimble to the top of the cement block, then realized it was much too heavy and pushed it up against the base of the block, where the torrent of water quickly filled it.
The water was a little dirty, but that didn't matter. He picked up palmfuls of it and washed his face. It was a luxury he'd not experienced for many months. He wished he could shave off his thick beard, too; that would really feel good. The pin? No, that wouldn't wor
k.
He drank some of the water and made a face. Not too good. Well, it would cool. Now he wouldn't have to climb all the way down to the pump.
Straining, he managed to drag the thimble a little bit away from the waterfall and let the quivering surface still itself. Then, propping the pin against the side of the thimble, he shinnied up its slanting length to the lip. There, amidst the faint spray, he looked into the mirror like water at his face.
He grunted. Truly, it was remarkable. Small, yes, a particled fraction of its former self; yet still the same, line for line. The same green eyes, the same dark-brown hair, the same broad taper of nose, the same jawline, the same ears and full lips. He grimaced. And the same teeth, though likely rotted after so long a time without being brushed. Yet they were still white; rubbing on them with a moistened finger had accomplished that. Amazing. He would be a poor testimonial for a toothpaste concern.
He stared a while longer at his face. It was unusually calm for the face of a man who lived each day with dread and peril. Perhaps jungle life, despite physical danger, was a relaxing one. Surely it was free of the petty grievances, the disparate values of society. It was simple, devoid of artifice and ulcer-burning pressures. Responsibility in the jungle world was pared to the bone of basic survival. There were no political connivings necessary, no financial arenas to struggle in, no nerve-knotting races for superior rungs on the social ladder. There was only to be or not to be.
He ruffled the water with a hand. Begone, face, he thought, you matter nothing in this cellar life. That he had once been called handsome seemed stupid. He was alone, with no one to please or cater to or like because it was expedient.
He let himself slide down the pin. Except, he thought, wiping spray from his face, that he still loved Louise. It was a final standard. To love someone when there was nothing to be got from that person; that was love.
He had just measured himself at the ruler and was walking back to the water heater when there came a loud creaking noise, a thunderous crash, and a glaring carpet of sunlight flung across the floor. A giant came clumping down the cellar steps.
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