Take Me Home

by Fletcher Flora

  But of course there was. It was imperative to keep moving. She had read or heard that somewhere. It was imperative to fight off sleep with physical action, and it would help, also, if the air was clear and cold and not smotheringly warm, as the air in the apartment was. Her stomach settled, she went back into the bedroom aid stripped and began to dress for the street in the first necessary articles of clothing that came to hand. Finally dressed after what seemed an interminable time, although it was no more than a few minutes, she went out of the apartment and down by the stairs to the street, and she was feeling oddly remote and detached from all things around her, which had no shape or character, as if she were floating just out of contact, or were, perhaps, simply going to sleep on her feet.

  She began walking the streets without conscious direction, and she did not know how long she walked, or how far, except that it was a great distance and a long time. In the beginning the streets seemed to be broad and brightly lighted with many people on them, but later they became narrow and dark with hardly any people at all. Fragments stuck in her mind, places she had been and things she had seen, and she especially remembered afterward a very tall man in a blue and red uniform outside a swinging door, a bridge lighted at intervals by yellow bulbs above a giant whispering of black water, a stone bench in front of a cast-statue where she wished to sit and rest for a while but is not because she did not dare. And finally, after ages, she was on a narrow street outside an all-night diner, and she was absolutely too exhausted to walk any farther, and she desperately wanted something hot to drink.

  There was a dark, fat man behind the counter in the diner. He looked like a Greek, she thought. He put a cup of coffee in front of her and walked away down the counter, where he stood idly, and after a while a young man came in and sat down and began to talk with the Greek. She had finished her coffee by this time and was thinking that she would have to go, although she didn’t know where, and then, for the first time, she realized that she had no money, not even enough to pay for the coffee she had drunk, no money at all. Oddly enough, considering what had happened to her and what might yet happen, her inability to pay for the coffee assumed the dimensions of an enormous problem. It was somehow essential for the coffee to be paid for, and perhaps it was because she must demonstrate that she was clever enough to take care of herself after all, in spite of what Lila had said. She looked from the corners of her eyes at the young man sitting on the stool down the counter. He was a shaggy, unkempt young man, his black hair growing on his neck, but there was a lost and dogged quality in his rather gaunt face that seemed to suggest his own aberrations at odds with the world, and she had the strangest and most incredible feeling that it might be possible to be his friend.

  Acting with compulsive abruptness, she went down and asked him to pay for the coffee, but he was mean and chintzy after all, the son of a bitch, although he did claim later, after she had waited on the street for him to come out, that he had paid.

  She waited for him for two good reasons. She needed a place to rest and get warm, which he might have and share, and she continued to feel strangely, regardless of his meanness about the coffee, that the two of them, she and he, had a common denominator in a general way, although certainly not exactly. And so she had waited, and she had come home with him, and here she was, and the crazy part of it, the monstrous and ugly joke of it, was why in the world she had gone to all the trouble.

  Thinking she was dying, she had made herself live and had forgotten that living was not something she really cared to go on doing. Yes, it was funny, a great joke she had played on herself. Sitting on Henry Harper’s sofa, she lit the third of Henry Harper’s cigarettes and began to laugh at the joke. She laughed and laughed with a hard, internal laughter that shook her body and made her bind, but then she quit laughing and began to think calmly and rationally to determine if the joke might not yet be turned in her favor, the mistake of living corrected. What she should have done, of course, was to lie sensibly in her bed and let death come to her gently as it started, thanks to Lila, and it would have been all over by this time, the dying done, and she would not now have this day to live, nor any of the days after, but it was too late to think about that, what she should have done. What she had to think about now was what could yet be done, and it might be done very simply if only Henry Harper kept sedatives.

  It seemed reasonable to assume that he might, a fellow who worked all hours and clearly had trouble sleeping. There was time enough, too. Plenty of time. It was still very early, Henry Harper had not slept more than three or four hours at the most and would certainly go on sleeping hours longer, and by the time he wakened it would have been time enough. Even if it hadn’t, even if he wakened too soon, he would probably think that she was only sleeping naturally and would let her go on sleeping until it was too late. If only, to begin with, he had the sedatives.

  She got up and went into the bedroom. Henry Harper was lying as he had been before, face down across the bed with his arms outflung as it he were reaching in his sleep for the horizontal extremities of a cross. She went on into the little bathroom in the corner, where she looked carefully among other items for a bottle or a box that might contain what she wanted, but there was none. Sitting on the edge of the tub, she thought about using a razor blade on her wrist, for she understood that it could be done under water with little or no pain, but the idea was revolting and impossible, and then she saw the old-fashioned water heater in a corner with the gas ring underneath. She went back into the bedroom and opened its single window, and then she went in to the living room and opened its two, both of them overlooking the street, after which she returned to the bedroom and covered Henry Harper with a blanket that was folded at the foot of the bed. She did not think it was necessary, since time would not now be so important a factor, but she feared, nevertheless, that the cold air might waken him before she was ready, and it was just as well to take every precaution. In the tiny bathroom, she closed the door and stuffed toilet paper tightly in the cracks around it. This was meticulous work and took quite a bit of time, and it was with vast relief and satisfaction that she finally sat down on the floor beside the water heater and listened to the sound of gas pouring from two dozen holes into the room.

  It did not enter her mind, not once, that she was doing Henry Harper a very bad turn.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was determined by a distended bladder that she should not die. The bladder belonged to Henry Harper. Waking, he was aware first of the nagging discomfort that had broken his sleep, and then he was instantly afterward aware of the cold air coming in the open window. He could not remember having opened the window, and in fact he could remember, after a moment’s consideration, that he definitely hadn’t opened it. He had taken a last swallow from the bottle, and then he had lain down across the bed for a moment and had obviously fallen asleep, and in the meanwhile, while he was sleeping, someone lad opened the window and had covered him with a blanket, which was something else he could definitely remember not having done for himself. Then he thought of the girl in the other room who called herself Ivy Galvin and who was clearly in some kind of trouble, and he hoped that she didn’t start trying to be ingratiating about windows and blankets and things like that, for it would only make it more difficult to lack her out when the time came, which was not long off, but first, before doing anything else, he would have to get up and relieve the distension of his bladder.

  He threw the blanket aside and sat up on the edge of the bed and held his head for a moment in his hands. His temples throbbed, and his eyes felt sore and hot under granulated lids. With the index finger of each hand he pressed against his eyes until the pain became unbearable, and then he removed the pressure and felt for a moment afterward, in the abrupt departure of pain, an illusion of clarity and well-being. Rising in the moment of illusion, he went over to the bathroom door and tried to open it, but the door seemed to be stuck, resisting his effort. He tur
ned the knob as far clockwise as it would go and pulled again, and the door snapped open suddenly in a thin shower of tissue before a gust of gas. He saw Ivy Gavin sitting on the floor with her back against the tub in attitude of definitive peace, and in an instant the stuck door, the tissue, the gas and the girl all slipped into position in a significant relationship. He was always a little proud afterward, thinking back, of the decisiveness of his reaction. Lunging across the room, he closed the tap of the ring beneath the water heater, and almost in the same motion, with hardly a break or change of direction, he gathered up the girl and carried her into the bedroom. In his mind with fear and incipient anger was a small entity of compassion, the thought that she was so light, so very light, hardly anything at all in his arms.

  Laying her on the bed in the cold air from the window, he listened with sickening relief to the ragged and reassuring sound of her breathing, and as his fear diminished with the evidence that she was not dead and would not likely die, he became proportionately furious that she had, with no consideration of him whatever, placed him in a position that would have been, without the sheerest good luck of a distended bladder, extremely difficult if not disastrous. He wondered if there were anything more that he should do to help her, but he couldn’t think what it would be, unless it were to loosen her clothing so that she could breathe more freely, and after thinking about it for a few seconds, in a kind of deliberate retaliation to the dirty trick she had played on him, he removed her dress and slip entirely, holding her with one arm in a sitting position as he pulled them over her head. The thinness of her body, he saw now, as he had guessed last night on the windy street, was truly the thinness of small bones. She was incongruously delicate and strong, childish and mature, and there was in the center of his anger, as he looked at her, an aching core that was not anger at all. Reluctantly, he covered her with the blanket and sat beside her to watch and wait until she recovered consciousness.

  It seemed like a long time. It was very cold in the room because of the open window, and pretty soon he got up and put on his overcoat and sat down again. Later, when he felt that the gas was gone, or nearly so, he went over and closed the window, but the room stayed cold, although the radiator was hot, and so he went out into the other room and found the two windows there open also. He closed them and returned to the bed and sat down once more on the edge, and Ivy Galvin stirred and made a soft, whimpering sound and opened her eyes and immediately closed them again.

  “I’m sick,” she said.

  “It damn well serves you right,” he said.

  She retched and rolled off the bed onto her feet and started for the bathroom. After three steps, she sank slowly to her knees with her arms reaching blindly for support.

  She remained in that position, on her knees with her arms spread, and when he reached her and picked her up, her eyes were shut and her face reposed and her sickness apparently past. She was breathing quietly and deeply. Laying her on the bed and covering her again with the blanket, he stood looking down at her with a feeling of desperation. “Are you all right?” he said.

  She shook her head, not so much, he thought, in answer to his question as to indicate that she wanted him to leave her alone. Well, he would leave her alone, all right, if that was what she wanted. He would leave her alone gladly until she had recovered sufficiently to dress and get out and go wherever she had to go, and that would be the end of her, and good riddance. Turning away, he was reminded by his bladder that he had not yet done what he had got up to do, and so he went into the bathroom and did it. Then he went back through the bedroom into the living room and sat down at the table and looked at his stack of manuscript. He wondered dully if he would ever in the world get it finished, and if he did, in time, if it would be worth the finishing. After half an hour, he went back into the bedroom and found Ivy Galvin lying quietly on her back with her eyes open. Turning her head on the pillow, she stared at him with undisguised malice.

  “I suppose you think I ought to thank you,” she said.

  “Not at all,” he said. “You’ve made it perfectly clear from the beginning that you don’t believe in thanking anyone for anything.”

  “Why can’t you mind your own business?”

  “Well, I’ll be damned if you aren’t the most incredible female I’ve ever been unlucky enough to meet! I’d like to remind you, in case you’ve forgotten, that you’ve been imposing yourself on me in every way that suited you, and I don’t mind telling you that I’ve had enough. What the hell do you mean by trying to kill yourself in my bathroom?”

  “I can do as I please with myself. It’s not your affair.”

  “The hell it isn’t! And what was I supposed to do with you after you were dead? Dump you in the alley? Simply call the morgue to come and get you? By God, do you suppose a body is something that can be disposed of without any explanations or any trouble at all?”

  The malice in her expression was replaced by a kind of surprised acceptance of his point, and he had the impression, fantastic as it was, that she had not considered previously for a single instant the enormity of the consequences to him of what she had tried to do to herself.

  “I didn’t think of that,” she said.

  “Of course you didn’t. You never think of anyone but yourself.”

  “Well, don’t feel so abused about it. I’m not dead, thanks to your meddling, and it’s apparent that I’m in no danger of dying.”

  “Not because you didn’t try.”

  “Perhaps I’ll try again.”

  “All right. Better luck next time. Don’t think for a minute I care if you die or not, just so you do it somewhere else. When you get away from here, wherever you go, you can do as you like with yourself, whatever it may be.”

  “You’re a mean bastard, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t like women who try to leave their dead bodies in my bathroom, if that’s what you mean.”

  “All you can think of is the little bit of trouble it would have caused you. You don’t care in the least what may happen to me.”

  “That’s right. Not in the least.”

  “In that case, I’d better go away at once.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “I’m sorry I ever came.”

  “So am I.”

  “It would have been better to sleep in an alley.”

  “You can sleep in an alley tonight.”

  She had been lying quite still, only her eyes and lips moving, but now she sat up abruptly and turned back the blanket. Instantly she was still again, caught and fixed in rigidity as she stared down at her nearly naked body. After a few frozen seconds, she lay back, covering herself, and he realized from the harshness of her breathing and the crimson stains in her cheeks that she was exorbitantly furious.

  “Where are my clothes?” she said.

  “On the chair over there.”

  “Hand them to me.”

  “Why should I? Get them yourself.”

  “You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Not at all. You’re nothing much to look at, you know.”

  “If you know what’s good for you, you had better get out of here.”

  “It’s my room, and I’ll get out when I’m damn good and ready.”

  “I suppose it gave you a cheap thrill to take my clothes off when I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve had more pleasure taking the panties off a lamb chop.”

  “If you ever put your filthy hands on me again, I’ll kill you.”

  “No danger. I never want to see you again, let alone touch you.”

  His anger was at least equal to hers. She had imposed on him and put him in danger and was now accusing him unfairly of motives he hadn’t had, and he was confused, as well as angry, and desperately sick, besides, of her and her troubl
es, whatever they were precisely, and all he wanted was to be rid of her forever as quickly as could be. Retrieving her dress and slip, he threw them across the bed with a violence indicative of his anger.

  “Let me tell you something,” he said. “I’ve only tried to help you when you needed it, which was a bad mistake, for all I’ve had from you is abuse and trouble and nasty allusions to your precious virtue, for the love of God, and if you want to do me a good turn for the one I tried to do you, you will get dressed and go find a place to kill yourself where no one else will be involved.”

  He went out into the other room and sat down on the worn frieze sofa. He noticed in an ash tray the crushed butts of the three cigarettes Ivy Galvin had smoked, and he wondered if she had got up to smoke them in the night or if she had smoked them this morning after waking. He thought, wrongly, that she had probably smoked them in the night when she could not sleep for thinking about whatever it was that made her want to die, and he saw her suddenly with extraordinary vividness in his mind as she had not actually been, huddled alone in the dark in the room of a stranger that was the only place she could find in the end to go. Seeing her so, he felt his anger drain out of him, and he began to wish that he had not spoken to her with deliberate cruelty, or that he could, having spoken, take back what he had said. He cursed and closed his eyes and waited for her to come in, which she did about ten minutes later.

  “Could you give me a little money?” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “You could if you would.”

  “All right, then. I won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I only have a little, and I need it for myself.”

  “I suppose that’s so. You’re obviously very poor.”