The Day of the Locust

by Nathanael West

  “Why don’t you get rid of him?”

  “I was thinking about what you said about the license to keep chickens.”

  Tod understood what he wanted.

  “I’ll report them to the Board of Health tomorrow.”

  Homer thanked him, then insisted on explaining in detail why he couldn’t do it himself.391

  “But that’ll only get rid of the Mexican,” Tod said. “You’ll have to throw Earle out yourself.”

  “Maybe he’ll go with his friend?”

  Tod knew that Homer was begging him to agree so that he could go on hoping, but he refused.

  “Not a chance. You’ll have to throw him out”

  Homer accepted this with his brave, sweet smile. “Maybe…”

  “Tell Faye to do it,” Tod said.

  “Oh, I can’t”

  “Why the hell not? It’s your house.”

  “Don’t be mad at me, Toddle.”

  “All right, Homie, I’m not mad at you.”

  Faye’s voice came through the open window.

  “And when your throat gets dry, You know you’re high, If you’re a viper.” The others harmonized on the last word, repeating it. “Vi-paah…”

  “Toddle,” Homer began, “if…”

  “Stop calling me Toddle, for Christ’s sake!”

  Homer didn’t understand. He took Tod’s hand.

  “I didn’t mean nothing. Back home we call…”

  Tod couldn’t stand his trembling signals of affection. He tore free with a jerk.

  “Oh, but, Toddle, I…”

  “She’s a whore!”

  He heard Homer grunt, then heard his knees creak as he struggled to his feet.

  Faye’s voice came pouring through the window, a reedy wail that broke in the middle with a husky catch.

  “High, high, high, high, when you’re high, Everything is dandy, Truck on down to the candy store, Bust your conk on peppermint candy! Then you know your body’s sent, Don’t care if you don’t pay rent, Sky is high and so am I, If you’re a viper—a vi-paah.”

  23

  When Tod went back into the house, he found Earle, Abe Kusich and Claude standing together in a tight group, watching Faye dance with Miguel. She and the Mexican were doing a slow tango to music from the phonograph. He held her very tight, one of his legs thrust between hers, and they swayed together in long spirals that broke rhythmically at the top of each curve into a dip. All the buttons on her lounging pajamas were open and the arm he had around her waist was inside her clothes.

  Tod stood watching the dancers from the doorway for a moment, then went to a little table on which the whiskey bottle was. He poured himself a quarter of a tumblerful, tossed it off, then poured another drink. Carrying the glass, he went over to Claude and the others. They paid no attention to him; their heads moved only to follow the dancers, like the gallery at a tennis match.

  “Did you see Homer?” Tod asked, touching Claude’s arm. Claude didn’t turn, but the dwarf did. He spoke as though hypnotized.

  “What a quiff! What a quiff!”

  Tod left them and went to look for Homer. He wasn’t in the kitchen, so he tried the bedrooms. One of them was locked. He knocked lightly, waited, then repeated the knock. There was no answer, but he thought he heard someone move. He looked through the keyhole. The room was pitch dark.

  “Homer,” he called softly.

  He heard the bed creak, then Homer replied.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me—Toddie.”

  He used the diminutive with perfect seriousness. “Go away, please,” Homer said.

  “Let me in for a minute. I want to explain something.”

  “No,” Homer said, “go away, please.”

  Tod went back to the living room. The phonograph record had been changed to a fox-trot and Earle was now dancing with Faye. He had both his arms around her in a bear hug and they were stumbling all over the room, bumping into the walls and furniture. Faye, her head thrown back, was laughing wildly. Earle had both eyes shut tight.

  Miguel and Claude were also laughing, but not the dwarf. He stood with his fists clenched and his chin stuck out. When he couldn’t stand any more of it, he ran after the dancers to cut in. He caught Earle by the seat of his trousers.

  “Le’me dance,” he barked.

  Earle turned his head, looking down at the dwarf from over his shoulder.

  “Git! G’wan , git!”

  Faye and Earle had come to a halt with their arms around each other. When the dwarf lowered his head like a goat and tried to push between them, she reached down and tweaked his nose.

  “Le’me dance,” he bellowed.

  They tried to start again, but Abe wouldn’t let them. He had his hands between them and was trying frantically to pull them apart. When that wouldn’t work, he kicked Earle sharply in the shins. Earle kicked back and his boot landed in the little man’s stomach, knocking him flat on his back. Everyone laughed.

  The dwarf struggled to his feet and stood with his head lowered like a tiny ram. Just as Faye and Earle started to dance again, he charged between Earle’s legs and dug upward with both hands. Earle screamed with pain, and tried to get at him. He screamed again, then groaned and started to sink to the floor, tearing Faye’s silk pajamas on his way down.

  Miguel grabbed Abe by the throat. The dwarf let go his hold and Earle sank to the floor. Lifting the little man free, Miguel shifted his grip to his ankles and dashed him against the wall, like a man killing a rabbit against a tree. He swung the dwarf back to slam him again, but Tod caught his arm. Then Claude grabbed the dwarf and together they pulled him away from the Mexican.

  He was unconscious. They carried him into the kitchen and held him under the cold water. He came to quickly and began to curse. When they saw he was all right, they went back to the living room.

  Miguel was helping Earle over to the couch. All the tan had drained from his face and it was covered with sweat. Miguel loosened his trousers while Claude took off his necktie and opened his collar.

  Faye and Tod watched from the side.

  “Look,” she said, “my new pajamas are ruined.”

  One of the sleeves had been pulled almost off and her shoulder stuck through it. The trousers were also torn. While he stared at her, she undid the top of the trousers and stepped out of them. She was wearing tight black lace drawers. Tod took a step toward her and hesitated. She threw the pajama bottoms over her arm, turned slowly and walked toward the door.

  “Faye,” Tod gasped.

  She stopped and smiled at him.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said. “Get that little guy out of here.”

  Claude came over and took Tod by the arm.

  “Let’s blow,” he said.

  Tod nodded.

  “We’d better take the homunculus with us or he’s liable to murder the whole household.”

  Tod nodded again and followed him into the kitchen. They found the dwarf holding a big piece of ice to the side of his head.

  “There’s some lump where that greaser slammed me.” He made them finger and admire it.

  “Let’s go home,” Claude said.

  “No,” said the dwarf, “let’s go see some girls. I’m just getting started.”

  “To hell with that,” snapped Tod. “Come on.”

  He pushed the dwarf toward the door.

  “Take your hands off, punk!” roared the little man. Claude stepped between them.

  “Easy there, citizen,” he said.

  “All right, but no shoving.”

  He strutted out and they followed.

  Earle still lay stretched on the couch. He had his eyes closed and was holding himself below the stomach with both hands. Miguel wasn’t there.

  Abe chuckled, wagging his big head gleefully.

  “I fixed that buckeroo.”

  Out on the sidewalk he tried again to get them to go with him.

  “Come on, you guys—we’ll have some fun.”

>   “I’m going home,” Claude said.

  They went with the dwarf to his car and watched him climb in behind the wheel. He had special extensions on the clutch and brake so that he could reach them with his tiny feet.

  “Come to town?”

  “No, thanks,” Claude said politely.

  “Then to hell with you!”

  That was his farewell. He let out the brake and the car rolled away.

  24

  Tod woke up the next morning with a splitting headache. He called the studio to say he wouldn’t be in and remained in bed until noon, then went downtown for breakfast. After several cups of hot tea, he felt a little better and decided to visit Homer. He still wanted to apologize.

  Climbing the hill to Pinyon Canyon made his head throb and he was relieved when no one answered his repeated knocks. As he started away, he saw one of the curtains move and went back to knock once more. There was still no answer.

  He went around to the garage. Faye’s car was gone and so were the game chickens. He went to the back of the house and knocked on the kitchen door. Somehow the silence seemed too complete. He tried the handle and found that the door wasn’t locked. He shouted hello a few times, as a warning, then went through the kitchen into the living room.

  The red velvet curtains were all drawn tight, but he could see Homer sitting on the couch and staring at the backs of his hands which were cupped over his knees. He wore an old-fashioned cotton nightgown and his feet were bare.

  “Just get up?”

  Homer neither moved nor replied.

  Tod tried again.

  “Some party!”

  He knew it was stupid to be hearty, but he didn’t know what else to be.

  “Boy, have I got a hang-over,” he went on, even going so far as to attempt a chuckle.

  Homer paid absolutely no attention to him.

  The room was just as they had left it the night before. Tables and chairs were overturned and the smashed picture lay where it had fallen. To give himself a reason for staying, he began to tidy up. He righted the chairs, straightened the carpet and picked up the cigarette butts that littered the floor. He also threw aside the curtains and opened a window.

  “There, that’s better, isn’t it?” he asked cheerfully.

  Homer looked up for a second, then down at his hands again. Tod saw that he was coming out of his stupor. “Want some coffee?” he asked.

  He lifted his hands from his knees and hid them in his armpits, clamping them tight, but didn’t answer.

  “Some hot coffee—what do you say?”

  He took his hands from under his arms and sat on them. After waiting a little while he shook his head no, slowly, heavily, like a dog with a foxtail in its ear.

  “I’ll make some.”

  Tod went to the kitchen and put the pot on the stove. While it was boiling, he took a peek into Faye’s room. It had been stripped. All the dresser drawers were pulled out and there were empty boxes all over the floor. A broken flask of perfume lay in the middle of the carpet and the place reeked of gardenia.

  When the coffee was ready, he poured two cups and carried them into the living room on a tray. He found Homer just as he had left him, sitting on his hands. He moved a small table close to him and put the tray on it.

  “I brought a cup for myself, too,” he said. “Come on—drink it while it’s hot.”

  Tod lifted a cup and held it out, but when he saw that he was going to speak, he put it down and waited.

  “I’m going back to Wayneville,” Homer said.

  “A swell idea—great!”

  He pushed the coffee at him again. Homer ignored it. He gulped several times, trying to swallow something that was stuck in his throat, then began to sob. He cried without covering his face or bending his head. The sound was like an ax chopping pine, a heavy, hollow, chunking noise. It was repeated rhythmically but without accent. There was no progress in it. Each chunk was exactly like the one that preceded. It would never reach a climax.

  Tod realized that there was no use trying to stop him. Only a very stupid man would have the courage to try to do it. He went to the farthest corner of the room and waited.

  Just as he was about to light a second cigarette, Homer called him.

  “Tod!”

  “I’m here, Homer.”

  He hurried over to the couch again.

  Homer was still crying, but he suddenly stopped more abruptly than he had started.

  “Yes, Homer?” Tod asked encouragingly.

  “She’s left”

  “Yes, I know. Drink some coffee.”

  “She’s left.”

  Tod knew that he put a great deal of faith in sayings, so he tried one.

  “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

  “She left before I got up,” he said.

  “What the hell do you care? You’re going back to Wayneville.”

  “You shouldn’t curse,” Homer said with the same lunatic calm.

  “I’m sorry,” Tod mumbled.

  The word “sorry” was like dynamite set off under a dam. Language leaped out of Homer in a muddy, twisting torrent. At first, Tod thought it would do him a lot of good to pour out in this way. But he was wrong. The lake behind the dam replenished itself too fast. The more he talked the greater the pressure grew because the flood was circular and ran back behind the dam again.

  After going on continuously for about twenty minutes, he stopped in the middle of a sentence. He leaned back, closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep. Tod put a cushion under his head. After watching him for a while, he went back to the kitchen.

  He sat down and tried to make sense out of what Homer had told him. A great deal of it was gibberish. Some of it, however, wasn’t. He hit on a key that helped when he realized that a lot of it wasn’t jumbled so much as timeless. The words went behind each other instead of after. What he had taken for long strings were really one thick word and not a sentence. In the same way several sentences were simultaneous and not a paragraph. Using key, he was able to arrange a part of what he had so that it made the usual kind of sense.

  After Tod had hurt him by saying that nasty thing about Faye, Homer ran around to the back of the house and let himself in through the kitchen, then went to peek into the parlor. He wasn’t angry with Tod, just surprised and upset because Tod was a nice boy. From the hall that led into the parlor he could see everybody having a good time and he was glad because it was kind of dull for Faye living with an old man like him. It made her restless. No one noticed him peeking there and he was glad because he didn’t feel much like joining the fun, although he liked to watch people enjoy themselves. Faye was dancing with Mr. Estee and they made a nice pair. She seemed happy. Her face shone like always when she was happy. Next she danced with Earle. He didn’t like that because of the way he held her. He couldn’t see what she saw in that fellow. He just wasn’t nice, that’s all. He had mean eyes. In the hotel business they used to watch out for fellows like that and never gave them credit because they would jump their bills. Maybe he couldn’t get a job because nobody would trust him, although it was true as Faye said that a lot of people were out of work nowadays. Standing there peeking at the party, enjoying the laughing and singing, he saw Earle catch Faye and bend her back and kiss her and everybody laughed although you could see Faye didn’t like it because she slapped his face. Earle didn’t care, he just kissed her again, a long nasty one. She got away from him and ran toward the door where he was standing. He tried to hide, but she caught him. Although he didn’t say anything, she said he was nasty spying on her and wouldn’t listen when he tried to explain. She went into her room and he followed to tell about the peeking, but she carried on awful and cursed him some more as she put red on her lips. Then she knocked over the perfume. That made her twice as mad. He tried to explain but she wouldn’t listen and just went on calling him all sorts of dirty things. So he went to his room and got undressed and tried to go to sleep. Then Tod woke him up and wanted to come in and tal
k. He wasn’t angry, but didn’t feel like talking just then, all he wanted to do was go to sleep. Tod went away and no sooner had he climbed back into bed when there was some awful screaming and banging. He was afraid to go out and see and he thought of calling the police, but he was scared to go in the hall where the phone was so he started to get dressed to climb out of the window and go for help because it sounded like murder but before he finished putting his shoes on, he heard Tod talking to Faye and he figured that it must be all right or she wouldn’t be laughing so he got undressed and went back to bed again. He couldn’t fall asleep wondering what had happened, so when the house was quiet, he took a chance and knocked on Faye’s door to find out. Faye let him in. She was curled up in bed like a little girl. She called him daddy and kissed him and said that she wasn’t angry at him at all. She said there had been a fight but nobody got hurt much and for him to go back to bed and that they would talk more in the morning. He went back like she said and fell asleep, but he woke up again as it was just breaking daylight. At first he wondered why he was up because when he once fell asleep, usually he didn’t get up before the alarm clock rang. He knew that something had happened, but he didn’t know what until he heard a noise in Faye’s room. It was a moan and he thought he was dreaming, but he heard it again. Sure enough, Faye was moaning all right. He thought she must be sick. She moaned again like in pain. He got out of bed and went to her door and knocked and asked if she was sick. She didn’t answer and the moaning stopped so he went back to bed. A little later, she moaned again so he got out of bed, thinking she might want the hot water bottle or some aspirin and a drink of water or something and knocked on her door again, only meaning to help her. She heard him and said something. He didn’t understand what but he thought she meant for him to go in. Lots of times when she had a headache he brought her an aspirin and a glass of water in the middle of the night The door wasn’t locked. You’d have thought she would have locked the door because the Mexican was in bed with her, both of them naked and she had her arms around him. Faye saw him and pulled the sheets over her head without saying anything. He didn’t know what to do, so he backed out of the room and closed the door. He was standing in the hall, trying to figure out what to do, feeling so ashamed, when Earle appeared with his boots in his hand. He must have been sleeping in the parlor. He wanted to know what the trouble was. “Faye’s sick,” he said, “and I’m getting her a glass of water.” But then Faye moaned again and Earle heard it. He pushed open the door. Faye screamed. He could hear Earl and Miguel cursing each other and fighting. He was afraid to call the police on account of Faye and didn’t know what to do. Faye kept on screaming. When he opened the door again, Miguel fell out with Earle on top of him and both of them tearing at each other. He ran inside the room and locked the door. She had the sheets over her head, screaming. He could hear Earle and Miguel fighting in the hall and then he couldn’t hear them any more. She kept the sheets over her head. He tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t answer. He sat down on a chair to guard her in case Earle and Miguel came back, but they didn’t and after a while she pulled the sheets away from her face and told him to get out. She pulled the sheets over her face again when he answered, so then he waited a little longer and again she told him to get out without letting him see her face. He couldn’t hear either Miguel or Earle. He opened the door and looked out. They were gone. He locked the doors and windows and went to his room and lay down on his bed. Before he knew it he fell asleep and when he woke up she was gone. All he could find was Earle’s boots in the hall. He threw them out the back and this morning they were gone.