Bookman

by Ed Baldwin

  That stopped me. There was a finality to it that seemed futile to resist. Besides I didn’t like the things he was saying about me. The guy who had bailed him out of the drunk tank not a year ago, and now I was not good enough to be his roommate.

  “Shit, Barney. I sure as hell don’t want to stay where I’m not needed. I wish you had said something before we left the house so I could get my clothes.”

  “I didn’t mean you had to get out today,” he said, defensively. “I just want you to start thinking about where you’re going to go.”

  “Turn around, asshole,” I said, hoping to inflict some damage on my way out.

  “Come on, Phil. Take a few days, find a place.”

  “I want my clothes now. Just turn around and let me get my things and you can be done with it, and you and your honey can live unmolested in privacy. Hell, maybe you can even find a church to go to tonight.” That made it easy for him. He took me back and I threw everything into the Chrysler. I was learning to travel light.

  After my $2 parking tab that night I had a grand total of $3 left. I began to think of options for the night. I cruised around the downtown area; fortunately I had a half tank of gas. Honey was out. She had let me visit with Phil a few times, but it was never cordial. I’m sure her family had finished off the job on our marriage that I had started. Paris had no doubt found a new benefactor and should have better sense than to let me back in again. I hadn’t seen Pat the last few days and had lost track of her boyfriend’s schedule on the river. My oil company credit cards were pretty well maxed out, so that precluded a night at the Holiday Inn on credit.

  Trying to control the panic, I turned up the radio and drove down Riverside Drive. Close to downtown, it ran along the bluff that overlooked the Mississippi. I pulled into the park midway between downtown and the Memphis Arkansas bridge and got out. The smell was typical for Memphis—some sulphur fumes wafting upstream from the refinery south of town, rotting vegetation along the river, some diesel exhaust from passing trucks and the barges warming up along the waterfront. There was also a rose scent from bushes growing along the parkway. It wasn’t an unpleasant night at all. I watched a couple barges maneuvering to meet in the narrow channel of a late, dry summer.

  With the radio playing softly on an R & B station, I watched the passing and contemplated my situation. There was really no place to go. Barney would probably loan me another $20 to keep my belly filled this week, but not enough to rent an apartment. The other salesmen had pretty well written me off; not much chance for a room for a few days there. Low on the list of things to consider was the possibility of my writing a couple orders in the next day or two. When verified, the branch manager would be willing to advance commission. Enough to get some walking around money and a night in a motel, anyway. Maybe a week at the King Cotton until things turned around a little bit.

  I was surprised at the depth of my depression. Here I was, a salesman, and formerly quite a successful one, and the first thing I think about when I need a few bucks is who to sponge off of rather than how to make it myself. This served only to deepen the pit I was in so I concentrated on the music and watched the river. The car was the only logical place to sleep for the night. I opened all the windows and stretched out on the seat, shoes off, feet hanging out the window toward the river. If a cop came by and hassled me I could say I was to meet my girl friend here when she gets off work. That sounded good.

  Twenty minutes into my rest, the sweat soaked back of my shirt sticking to the leather upholstery became intolerable. Air conditioning in Memphis in August is essential. I cranked up the Chrysler and rolled up the windows and swung out onto Riverside again, glad for the blast of dependable cold air from the dashboard.

  The bus station was air conditioned! The idea came only an instant before the realization of what that meant. Sleeping in the bus station is the quintessential bottom rung of the ladder for the bookman. All the tales of bookmen gone bad end in the bus station. So do all the comeback stories begin there, and there are plenty. Had I really sunk that far?

  “No!” was the answer, spoken out loud, over the fan of the air conditioner. I reasoned that it really didn’t count that I was going to spend the night in the bus station because I wasn’t really at the bottom. I still had a flashy car, even though there were a few delinquent payments I had to make soon. Weren’t all those guys in the stories completely without assets?

  I parked a block or so away and rummaged through my belongings in the trunk for my dop kit and clean shirt. These I put into a paper sack that had held a six pack at some time so as not to be so obvious, and left them on the front seat, in case an alternative should present itself before I got settled.

  “Your attention, please. Greyhound scenicruiser service for Tunica, Clarksdale, Greenville, Yazoo City, and Jackson, Mississippi is now boarding at Gate Five.”

  At this announcement a dozen people stood up and began arranging their belongings and moving toward the gate. Some shuffled along as if they had done this many times; others rushed as if the bus would leave if they weren’t there immediately. Two fat old colored ladies were in the former group shuffling along with their shopping bags; an old suitcase reinforced by a belt in one case, and duct tape in the other. They were so alike they might have been sisters, but they didn’t say a word to each other and probably weren’t even together. Sitting next to them, a white Marine, just out of boot camp, judging by his short hair and one stripe, snapped to attention from his seat and grabbed his suitcase rushing to the gate.

  The driver loaded each bag as the passengers handed him their ticket and boarded the bus. As each went out the door a blast of exhaust scented hot summer air blew into the waiting room. They announced the departure with the same recorded voice three more times before the bus finally pulled out.

  In its place came a bus from Little Rock. It unloaded its dozen or so passengers, including an Army private with one stripe and two fat old colored ladies. There was also a blonde with tight black pants who lingered around until all the other passengers had gotten their bags and departed. When the bus moved back to the garage for a wash job and refueling, she left with the driver.

  The snack bar was closing at midnight so I got a couple of doughnuts and some more coffee, eying the waitress in case I should get lucky and bunk with her, but her black boyfriend picked her up just as I was about to make my move. I went back out into the hot night to get my tooth brush, now that everybody who had been through when I came in had gone and it was getting to be bedtime.

  The men’s room was large enough to accommodate plenty of people down on their luck, and I noticed a couple of others in there tidying up before hitting the sack, or bench, as the case may be.

  I was thinking I had been in worse places while I was brushing my teeth when the guy standing next to me leaned over to the mirror and popped a pomegranate-size pimple on his cheek, then hocked a big green glob into the sink and walked off.

  Reality closed in. This night in air conditioned comfort had been more of a curiosity until then. It had been like a pickup point where you have to sit for a few hours and observe your fellow man, before being picked up and taken back into your own world. But tonight no one was going to come to take me back to my own world because this was it. The bottom.

  My bubble burst, I stowed my gear back in the paper sack I had brought it in and walked out to find a soft bench. The best one, farthest from the loud speaker and in a slightly less lighted area, was already taken by two men I had seen loitering around earlier. Like me, one was still wearing a tie.

  “Your attention, please. Greyhound scenicruiser service for West Memphis, Marion, Osceola, Blytheville, Arkansas, and St. Louis, is now loading at Gate Three.”

  These announcements were getting to be a pain in the ass. They were all recorded, probably by some professional announcer who had never been to Marion, and played four times for each departure and arrival. They mentioned the name of every podunk stop for the first 50 miles or so and then na
med the big city at the end as if that bus would not stop at any of the Lord knows how many little towns in between. Just as I would begin to fall asleep that same announcer would come back on with his, “Your Attention, please. Greyhound scenicruiser service to .. .” and wake me up. The other two didn’t seem to be bothered at all. Perhaps they had had more practice. That was a chilling thought.

  Just after the Two Ten to Little Rock left a policeman came into the station. The two other men sleeping on the bench somehow recognized his presence in their sleep, or maybe he always came in at the same time—whatever the reason, they disappeared. I lay there. After all, I wasn’t doing anything illegal.

  He looked like all the others I had seen, only a little better dressed, as police uniforms go. Middle-aged, heavy set, and carrying a billy club on a leather cord, he walked around the station sort of swinging his stick as he looked at each person and spoke to a few. When he got to me I pretended to be asleep. He nudged me with the club.

  “Hey buddy.”

  I opened my eyes.

  “You waitin’ for someone?”

  “No,” I said, with irritation in my voice, hoping he would just go away and leave a man some peace.

  “You got a ticket?”

  “No. I’m waiting for the cafe to open for breakfast.” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Out,” he said, still calm.

  I stood up, primarily to communicate more effectively at an eye to eye level. I had no intention of leaving.

  He stepped back and extended his arm toward the door, in case I had forgotten where it was.

  “Look, officer, I just came in here for a few hours to catch some sleep and then I’m off to work.”

  “Out,” he said, with a certain firmness that indicated perhaps running people out of the bus station was a regular occurrence for him.

  “Hey, I’m not bothering anybody,” I said, still believing he was going to listen to reason.

  “This ain’t no motel. Out.” With this I got a poke in the ribs with the billy club.

  Sometimes when you’re not in a great mood, and you’ve had too much coffee, or it’s late at night, some little physical bump, like running into a door or stubbing your toe on the dresser will set off an angry response. A sort of animal response, like a snarl from a sleeping dog. Sometimes, when you do this you fling a shoe into the closet or even break something just in that instant of primal irritation.

  That’s what he wanted. I jumped up to shove at the policeman an instant after the poke. The billy club had already retreated from my reach in a sort of low backhand position and he was shifting his weight to his left to avoid my shove. As soon as he saw it the club came back hard and fast across my ear. In intense pain I cried out and grabbed the ear, then looked at my hand, full of blood.

  The club was in his right hand and the weight of his considerable bulk had shifted to his right foot. With his back in full motion, he plunged his left fist low into my belly, doubling me over and making me completely helpless—clearly what he had intended from the moment he saw me as his wise-assed vagrant victim of the night. He wasn’t through.

  Now his weight shifted back to his left foot as the club, from a low forehand position, came up right into my nose. There was a smack that resounded through the entire station. All eyes were suddenly on us, as the previous few words had been quiet and had taken only a few seconds .

  My blood spattered on the floor for six feet behind me and I fell over backwards, dazed . The cuffs were on before I knew what was happening.

  Memphis has never been a place to piss off a policeman. They have a sort of tradition of being in control here that may bring out certain tendencies in individual police officers. This particular officer was old enough to have had a day shift, but must have preferred the middle of the night for some reason that had now become painfully apparent.

  “Up scum,” he said as he yanked me up by the handcuff chain and turned me around toward the door, his right hand guiding me by the back of my belt. The blood was now running down my leg inside my pants; the shirt was already saturated.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked, realizing the danger was over now that the climax of his game had played out.

  “You came for me,” he said without emotion. “Just protecting myself.”

  I was whisked off to the precinct station at John Gaston Hospital and was soon sitting there, still handcuffed and bleeding, waiting to answer questions for their report. Only after they were through getting all their information, did they take me to the emergency room and handcuffed me to a gurney to wait my turn in line.

  There were three men ahead of me. All were drunk and all had billy club injuries to the head. An intern sewed my nose back on and a medical student sewed up my ear. They packed my nose with vaseline gauze to stop the bleeding and hold the broken bone in place.

  The next stop was jail. There I was fingerprinted, photographed, and my possessions catalogued and locked up.

  “You get a call, buddy,” the desk sergeant said and indicated the pay phone on the wall.

  “I don’t have a dime,” I said, already ground so far into the dirt I could no longer appreciate the irony.

  “You get one,” he said without hesitation and tossed me some silver.

  I walked to the telephone and picked up the receiver. I must have held it a full minute at least, then slowly put it back and turned back to the desk sergeant. He looked at me and shook his head then looked back down at his paperwork.

  Who do you call when you are in jail at Four a.m. and have no money and no friends? You call your worst enemy. He can’t refuse you.

  “T.J.?”

  “Yes. Who is it?”

  “Phil.”

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m in jail.”

  “For what?”

  “Vagrancy and resisting arrest. They broke my nose and damn near tore my ear off. This is my only call.”

  “And you called me?”

  “There’s no one else.”

  A pause. “OK, I’ll be down.”

  Breakfast in jail is at dawn. It is served in a common area and those who have been assigned cells are let out to eat it. Those prisoners like myself who were not expected to be there for long were left in the common area. I had swallowed so much blood I wasn’t hungry. I just sat and watched the others eat their eggs and oatmeal. My nose was at least twice its former size and there was a bulky dressing falling off my ear. That medical student was going to need a little more practice in the bandage lab.

  There was all the oatmeal anyone would ever want, a whole pot of the stuff. Some of the prisoners seemed to really like the stuff and went back for seconds. The eggs were in relative shortage but everyone got a scoop who wanted one. Most put sugar on the oatmeal, some salt and pepper, there was no milk and no butter. One guy covered it with his coffee and ate it all.

  It took T.J. a couple hours to get there. He had shaved and was dressed for work. It was only 6:30 but we had already washed the dishes and cleaned up the area after breakfast. My name was called and I was led back out through the desk where I had checked in. My few belongings were returned to me and I signed papers indicating that I knew there were charges of resisting arrest and vagrancy against me. I was scheduled to meet the judge in two weeks.

  “Were you drunk?” Were the first words T.J. spoke after they returned my possessions and signed me out.

  “First sober night in two weeks,” I said with a wry look on my recently rearranged face. We headed out through the reception area to the parking lot and climbed into his new Cadillac.

  There are a few points in our lives when facade and self delusion vanish and we are naked to the world, and to ourselves. T.J. didn’t need to say I was scum, and he didn’t. I felt like it and I smelled like it.

  “Why’d the cop bust you up so bad if you weren’t drunk?” T.J. asked, coming right to the point.

  “Kicks, I think. For an instant just before the final s
wat with the billy club I saw a look in his eyes that was pure hatred. As soon as he’d splattered my nose all over the bus station he was just as docile and agreeable as a Sunday School teacher. It must have released something in him that had built up. Anyway, I now understand why you don’t see vagrants in the bus station.”

  “That’s what holds society together. It keeps a certain element under control.”

  “Yeah. A certain element like me,” I said as we pulled up in front of the Holiday Inn.

  He parked on the street and we went in. He paid for a week in advance then followed me to the elevator and up to the room. On the way he stopped at the ice machine and got one of those buckets full. In the room he took a towel and wrapped it around some ice and handed it to me. Then he called room service, ordered some eggs and ham for both of us, and then sat down in the chair, propped his feet on the bed and looked at me.

  “You are some piece of work,” he said with a genuine smile. “You are about as complete a fuck up as I’ve seen. I can’t think of anything you’ve left out.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I think I’m beginning to see myself a little more clearly now.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve seen truth.” I said confidently.

  T.J. found that quite funny. He didn’t say anything but his grin turned into a giggle and finally straight into a belly laugh.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’ve ridden the crest of sales, and I’ve felt the bottom too. I think I’ve figured out the difference.”

  “That should be illuminating,” he said, still trying to hold back a laugh.

  “The incredible thing about this business I’ve been in is the way your luck, or whatever it is can change. Last Summer I was riding high and now I can’t get anybody to listen to me. I admit, I haven’t worked as hard as I did then. It’s almost like I’ve been afraid to talk to people. I hate to start at that first door.”

  T.J. didn’t say a thing. He sat there with his arms crossed, still waiting to be illuminated.

  “Anyway, last Summer when Barney was in a slump, I thought he was just lazy. Dicking off instead of knocking on doors. Now I believe he was working, but without effect. It’s confidence, T.J.” I sat back hoping he understood so he’d get that smirk off his face. “Don’t you see? Now I go out and hit it hard for three or four hours and can’t get a decent presentation. No confidence.” Again I sat back, sure I’d covered everything and he understood.