Spawn of Hell

by William Schoell

  He’d lived on his savings, watching them dwindle dangerously. Still working, working, working, pursuing the odd job now and then without conviction. Then came the accident.

  It changed everything. It changed nothing.

  Now he was back to square one. Minus one friend. Friend? She’s been much more than a friend. And now she was dead. He began to wonder if he had really been the lucky one.

  He could still hear her voice. Light. Musical. Perfect diction. Her lips crafting words instead of speaking them. “Let’s go out to the country this afternoon, okay?”

  “I can’t. I’m busy,” he had said.

  “I know I promised never to disturb you when you were working. But it’s such a beautiful day. Are you sure you want to be cooped up like that? It’s so hot and stuffy in that apartment.”

  Oh, how she could work on him. So hard to resist. He was naturally lazy. “It’s not that bad. I’ve got the window open. There’s a breeze from the river.”

  “Watch out some burglar doesn’t come up the fire escape and crawl into your window.” A persistent fear.

  “What would he get?” A dollar in change?

  “Look, I’ll leave you alone. I don’t want to be selfish. But if you change your mind I’ll be home until three.”

  “What’s happening at three?”

  “If you don’t want to go for a drive, I’m going to the movies.”

  “What’s playing?”

  He didn’t remember what her answer had been. Had she answered? Maybe she had not had a specific picture in mind. Then he had said:

  “Give me half an hour to finish.”

  “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

  He had finished in half an hour. Then, while waiting for her to buzz him over the intercom in the downstairs hallway, he had idly doodled, then worked seriously on a sketch of her. That sketch of her, on the table. The last thing he had ever done. Before . . .

  But why think of it? Time to wipe away the cobwebs.

  Time to get what was left of his life back in order.

  He wondered: Did anyone know he was alive? A few people—her friends—had wanted to see him in the hospital, but he had instructed the nurse to tell the front desk that he wanted no visitors. In time they gave up trying. Of course, his father was sick himself and couldn’t make it, and David had told him not to worry. His father was lots worse off than he was, recovering from a stroke; the man would probably never be the same. David would have to call him later, tell him he was out of the hospital.

  His legs started throbbing as he went around the small studio apartment looking things over. They had said that that would happen occasionally; he would get used to it. But it made it hard to concentrate.

  The bed was a mess, just as he’d left it. One of the cupboard doors above the sink was wide open, revealing a few supplies of canned goods and detergent. The tattered blue rug that covered only half the floor looked worse than ever. The plaster on the walls was peeling.

  It was worse in the bathroom, which was so small he could barely turn around without bumping into something. Mildew had conquered and crowned itself king, and some of the tiles in the shower had fallen out of the wall and into the tub. It was impossible to see out of the grimy yellow window set high in the wall. He splashed some cold water on his face. He looked different in this mirror, because of its oddly curved and cracked glass which distorted his image, and the low light in the room, which created attractive shadows on his features. He didn’t look so pale.

  The phone rang. He went to the night table next to the sofa-bed and picked up the receiver in the middle of the third ring. He recognized the craggy voice on the other end of the line immediately. It was his father. He could picture him sitting up in bed, one of those cigars of his in his mouth—of course they wouldn’t let him smoke in the hospital—jowly and red-faced, with small black eyes peering out intensely from a field of flesh. How old now —sixty? Sixty-one? Forcibly retired from his job with a pharmaceutical company by illness.

  “I called the hospital,” his father said. “They told me you had been released.”

  “Ah, so that’s how you knew.” David sat down on the bed, wondering what they’d say to each other. Five minutes at least.

  “How are you feeling? I’m glad you’re out.”

  “Yeah—me, too. I’m okay. My leg hurts, but that’s life.”

  “Is it very bad?”

  “No. I won’t be able to jitterbug, but I was never much for that.” He let out a feeble laugh. His father did not respond. He sounded worried. Very worried.

  “You must need money.”

  “No, no,” David said quickly. “I’ll be all right. Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t have much, but if you need—”

  “No. No really. That’s okay. Now that I’m out of the hospital, I should be able to find work in a few days. And I’ve still got money in the bank.” He knew his father didn’t have much money. And his own hospital bills were tremendous.

  “Well, if you’re sure. Look, did you ever think about coming up here to live? The house is empty now, you could stay there. You could look for work in Hillsboro. Did you ever think about that? “

  “Dad, there are very few opportunities for artists in Hillsboro; this is the place—”

  “Are you still on that ‘artist’ kick?” Kick. It would always be a “kick” to his father, even when David was fifty years old. A kick.

  “I’m talking about real work,” the old man continued. “There are jobs up here. Hell, maybe you could even get work as an artist. There’s a lot less competition up in this neck of the woods for that sort of thing, y’know.”

  “Yes, I’m sure there is.” Oh boy, how he didn’t want the conversation to go in this direction.

  “It’s just a thought, y’know. If you have problems, you know you can come home.”

  “I know that, Dad. Thanks. But I’d rather take my chances down here; at least for a while.” Now it was coming, David thought in an instant, now he’d say: You’ve had ten years already.

  But he didn’t. Instead he said. “So, how was it in the hospital? Did they feed you properly?”

  They talked for several minutes on David’s stay in the sick ward, the food, the nurses, the care he’d received. And so on. Her name was never mentioned. David realized how much he needed someone to talk to, about her, about himself, about everything. But his father wasn’t the one. His father had his own worries, his own humiliations and defeats to nurse. Near the end of his life, he couldn’t worry that much about David’s, which was just beginning in comparison.

  “Well, time for me to take my medicine.” His father ended every conversation by saying “time to take my medicine,” regardless of the hour.

  “Thanks for calling, Dad.”

  “You’ll be okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be all right. Don’t worry.”

  “Okay then. I’ll speak to you again next week some time.” His father started to say something else, then paused, leaving the words hanging in the gap between them. David waited for him to continue. A few seconds later, the old man said, “I’m glad you’re going to stick it out down there. Y’know you’re always welcome, but— well, things are going kinda funny up here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just that—” He stopped suddenly. David could hear a woman’s voice through the phone, probably a nurse, walking over towards his father’s bed. She sounded as if she were scolding him. He heard a squeaking noise. She was wheeling in a tray, a lunch tray probably.

  “I’ve got to go now,” his father said. “I’ll call you next week just to see how you are.”

  “Next week. Fine. It was nice talking to you.”

  “Okay. Goodbye now.”

  “So long, Dad.”

  They both hung up.

  The walls of his apartment seemed to close in and David felt an almost physical loneliness surrounding him.

  He went out that night with a dollar
in his pocket that he had found tucked in the top drawer of the bureau. He had planned on going to the bank until he realized that it was already past three and his branch didn’t stay open any later. A look in his bankbook had told a depressing story. He had about seven days of living—not very comfortably—before he would begin to starve.

  A dollar would enable him to buy about three glasses of beer if he stuck to the Blarney Stones or similar Irish bars where the stuff was on tap. The singles bars offered big mugs for about seventy-five cents. There were few places where he could get a bottle of beer for a dollar or under.

  He wandered into a Blarney Castle on Seventy-ninth street and walked way down to the far end of the counter, past dozens of drunken old men, guzzling teenagers and dissipated middle-aged ladies whose noses were as red as the rouge on their cheeks. He hadn’t been in this place for over a year. He saw that a younger crowd was beginning to make its presence known, edging out the older alcoholics who spent nearly every waking hour hunched over a shot glass. The jukebox reflected this. There were fewer Irish standards and Frank Sinatra tunes and more disco numbers. He imagined that the younger people came in from the singles bars in the area for a respite, as well as for cheaper booze.

  He sat down on a stool that had seen better days; the red vinyl cover was ripped and oozing patches of white stuff. The seat to his left was empty. On the right was a woman of about forty-five, drinking herself straight down towards the floor. Her hair was the kind of red that one’s hair could be naturally. Her cheeks and eyes were puffy. She wore enough makeup to last most women a year. She looked at David while he waited for the bartender to notice him. David looked back, briefly. He hoped she wasn’t the talkative kind. He was not in a mood for conversation.

  The bartender sauntered down to where David sat and took his order for a glass of beer. The man was around David’s age, with a thick Irish brogue and a face that smiled even though there was nothing to laugh about. His hair was as dark as David’s. His mood couldn’t possibly have been.

  David waited for the man to bring him his beer. The lady beside him leaned over and said in a gravelly voice, “Got a cigarette, hon?”

  David patted his shirt pocket. He smoked occasionally, usually bumming from other people, now and then buying his own pack. “Sorry. None on me tonight.”

  “Oh,” she said, a glaze in her watery eyes. She turned away, then back. “Thank you anyway. I ‘predate it.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “You’re a nice fellow. You know that? A nice man. Anybody ever tell you that?”

  The bartender came with the beer and David gave him a quarter and a nickel he had found in his back pocket, saving the dollar for later.

  The bartender counted the change. “It’s thirty-five cents,” he said.

  David should have known. He took back the money, pulled the bill out of his pocket and handed it over. The bartender took off for the cash register.

  “Anybody ever tell ya? That you’re a nice man?”

  He figured it might be worse if he ignored her. “No. Nobody ever has. Why do you think I’m nice? I didn’t have a cigarette.”

  She had to think that one over. The bartender came back with the change before she had a chance to reply. “Here you go. Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “How’s it goin’, Jeannie?” the bartender asked the woman. “You feelin’ good today?”

  “Stick it right in here,” she said, pointing her thumb down towards and nearly into her half-filled scotch glass. “Then I’ll feel good. Stick it right in. I’ll lick it off for ya.”

  The bartender howled, delighted at her crudity. David suspected that they went through the same vulgar routine every evening like clockwork.

  “Just stick it right in there. It’ll feel good. It’ll make me feel good, too.”

  The barman looked down towards the front of the counter, capturing the attention of a pair of men holding court near the television set. “Jeannie’s making passes again, boys.”

  One of them hollered back: “Hey, Jeannie! Can I stick it in, too?”

  She leaned back for a better look at the guy, nearly falling off the stool in the process. “Awww you! What do I want with an asshole like you?”

  That drew guffaws from the rest of the patrons in the bar. David couldn’t help but smile, but he knew that he’d need at least ten beers before this place amused him. It was like a collection of the doomed, and he fit in perfectly. He raised the glass of beer to his lips and tasted it, cold and sharp and clear, while the man behind the counter and the woman next to him traded quips. He gulped down the whole glass and asked for another.

  A young lady pressed a button on the jukebox and soul music came on. Shaking her body to the beat of the song, the woman made her way to the booth in back where her friends were sitting. Friends. It had been a long time since David knew what it was like to have some.

  “Stick it in right there,” Jeannie continued. “All your two inches will fit right in there.”

  The barman doubled over with laughter again. “What’s the matter?” she said, scrunching up her face in mock puzzlement. “Don’t tell me you’ve only got one and a half?”

  This put the bar in an uproar again, temporarily drowning out the sound of the music. Jeannie began to wiggle to the beat—or at least tried to—and sang along with the vocalist. She turned to David. “I’ve heard this song a hunnert times and I still don’t know what she’s singin’. Do you?”

  David sipped the second beer, which the bartender had handed him. “Haven’t the slightest.”

  She squinted her eyes and leaned over towards him. If she had blown on a match it would have burned like a blowtorch. “Whatzat?”

  “I said I don’t know what she’s saying, either.” It was something about “My man done lost me,” or left me, or loves me, or something like that, over and over and over again. David didn’t object to disco, but he didn’t go out of his way to listen to it either.

  “Ah,” Jeannie said, waving her arm at him and turning away in disgust. “You can go to Hell.”

  David wondered what he’d said to offend her. Not that it mattered. She was in a half-fantasy land now, and any real or imagined slight was enough to turn her off. Who knows what she had imagined him saying to her; for that matter, who knows who she might have imagined him to be. An ex-husband, a dead paramour, a childhood friend from finishing school. Sure, she had gone to finishing school and it had finished her off.

  David finished the glass of beer quickly, then left the bar. He just wasn’t up to people like Jeannie tonight, or any other night for that matter. Maybe he’d have better luck at some other place. Maybe he’d be left alone. He wanted to sit in darkness, in shadows. The Irish bars were too well-lit, everything and everyone exposed, naked, sitting there at the mercy of anyone who wanted to put them under close scrutiny. David just wanted a beer, plain and simple. No company, no conversation, no drunkards breathing in his ear.

  He left the bar and walked over to Amsterdam Avenue. There was a little hole-in-the-wall a couple of blocks away, where the lights were kept low, and the bar emptied out when the late supper crowd went home. It was called Peg O’ Hearts. He’d been in there several times, whenever he wanted to be by himself, to think things over. He should have gone there earlier. He had enough left to get a small mug of beer.

  As he stepped inside, he was relieved to see that the bartender he liked was working that evening—the quiet one. They had another night barman who was more talkative than a parrot in heat. This guy tonight was a tall, good-looking fellow with longish blond hair. His routine never changed. He would come over, take your order, deliver it and make change, then retreat to the other end of the bar, where he would stand looking sullenly over the diminishing crowd in the restaurant section, or else watch something on the television set directly above his head. Tonight he seemed glummer and more listless than usual. Good; he’d be sure to leave David alone with his thoughts.


  The bar was an attractive place with a low wooden railing that separated the booze area from a room full of round wooden tables covered by red-and-white tablecloths. The bar counter was a deep rich brown. A low lavender glow bathed everything in a pinkish hue. Old-fashioned lamp lights hung over either end of the bar, and a huge mirror took up most of the space behind it, which was full of neatly stacked and organized liquor supplies.

  David got his beer and paid for it. Some fool put on a dreadful country-and-western tune in the jukebox which he managed to ignore. He sat there, sipping his drink, trying to figure out what to do with his life. He was crippled now. No use denying it. At least his hands hadn’t been affected. Although they might as well have been, as he wasn’t making any money with them. If only that greeting-card firm had looked at his work, or had at least accepted free-lance submissions through the mail. He sent out his stuff regularly to other firms, and had managed to get a few assignments, but his style usually didn’t “suit their present needs.” The problem was, he had no connections. No uncle to introduce him to the right people. No cousin on the staff of The New Yorker. His father wasn’t on the board of directors at Hallmark. It left him feeling bitter and untalented, although he knew he wasn’t.

  He was nearly at the bottom of his mug, and no closer to finding solutions to his problems, when he heard someone pulling one of the wooden chairs away from the counter. He turned and saw a statuesque brunette sitting down three chairs to the left, a tall, handsome man pushing the chair closer to the bar once she was firmly planted in its seat. They were a very well-dressed pair, looking as if they’d just come from the theater or a formal reception. Both had faces that could have easily graced the covers of fashion magazines. The man looked like the stereotypical male model. Granite jaw, sunken cheeks, Colgate teeth, formidable black eyes, straight, sleek nose, a mouth set in a brooding, almost petulant, sneer. The woman leaned in towards him as he took the chair next to hers, and he laughed, becoming more human as a smile lit up his face. He brushed a hand through wavy brown locks as the bartender approached, then lowered it to straighten his tie with a glimpse in the mirror.