“I fooled you, didn’t I?” Charles laughed.
On the third of July, four months to a day, he was discharged. The cast had been removed. He now wore a strong back-brace with two steel bars flanking the spinal column and straps about his shoulders and thighs.
His perceptions had sharpened. He felt things more strongly. Situations that had been commonplace were now stark and ugly. He was more easily irritated. His reactions had become hard, abrupt and violent. His world had filled with blacks and whites, harsh purples, vivid greens, blinding yellows. There were no shades, no tints, no grays, no in-betweens. His emotions were either intense or non-existent.
He’d thought how wonderful it would be back in the world of healthy people. But everything seemed strangely different, as if the world had gone out of focus while he’d been away.
He was struck by the atmosphere of animosity that existed in the house. His parents’ incessant quarreling became insufferable. Before his accident those bitter family scenes had filled him with anguish. He’d shared their suffering, longed for their happiness. But now he felt only a harsh rejection, devoid of any tenderness or concern. He didn’t care whether they were happy or not. They were alive, and that was enough. Everybody was hurt. William was hurt—
terribly, irrevocably hurt. He, himself, was hurt. Goddammit, one didn’t have to cry and fight about it all the time, he thought. One didn’t have to make a goddamned spectacle out of every emotion. It seemed as if he floated in emotion. He wanted to get away from them, so he wouldn’t have to hear them, share in their bitterness and defeat, or even think about it.
He still had only partial use of his hand and required his mother’s help in dressing. And the doctors had instructed him to sit for an hour each morning in a tub of hot water. But once these chores were done he left the house only to return for dinner.
He was self-conscious about the brace and wore a jacket even on the hottest days. It held him abnormally erect. His face was tight from the discomfort and frustration. His posture was mistaken for a sign of arrogance, his expression for disdain and condescension. He shrank from the antipathy in people’s eyes. He avoided going places where he was known. He never went to visit any of his former friends.
When he began visiting the dentist he found temporary escape. He was a garrulous old man with a great curiosity concerning Charles’s background. He was fascinated by the stories of the southern Negro colleges. Sometimes they talked for hours.
Most afternoons Charles went to the movies, sitting alone in the obscurity of the loges, smoking an endless chain of cigarettes, absorbing the organ music, watching the fantasies unfold on the screen. And for a time he felt safe from the prying eyes. Nothing mattered then but the emotion which engulfed him. He could dream away his infirmity for an hour or two.
For a time the members of his club came to visit. He and Harvard took short walks in the park. Occasionally they went together to a show. But the old intimacy was lost. He found himself strangely intolerant of the fellows’ social life. He couldn’t bear to hear about the parties or the girls. There was little for them to talk about.
Finally he realized he didn’t like the people he had known. They stopped coming. He was relieved. He liked it best alone. He sat alone for hours in the park, half-relaxed, unthinking, just sitting there hidden from the world. There was a high, grassy knoll where no one ever came. He lay there, stretched on the grass, and watched the lake. He never tired of watching the constant ripple of the waves.
It soothed him. In the big expanse of water, like the world almost, nothing was permanent but change. Strangely, he liked the thought of that. A wave rose on the surface, took a million different contours as it rolled its six-foot span of life, and was gone; another took its place. Like all the countless people of the world, assuming the various shapes of life and then death.
He had always liked the night from the time he’d first discovered it. He had liked it then because of the difference in himself and in others too. Now he liked it because it hid him. At night no one could tell that he was infirm; no one could see the back-brace bulging from his jacket. And he could revel in the various wonders of the night—the lighted marquees of the theaters, spilling magic on the flower-gardened people; the long, amber necklace of the High Level Bridge across the inky Cuyahoga; railroad trains with their thousand yellow eyes gliding down the dark lakeshore; moonlight on the great expanse of water like ever-crumbling dreams. He was imbued by that moving, inarticulate awe of beauty given only to the very young.
And from it all he had to come back and listen to his parents quarreling bitterly. At such times he hated them.
He began walking until late at night, going far from the neighborhoods he had known. He liked to walk among the dwellings of the rich, past the old mansions hidden deep behind the night-black landscapes. Shaded lamps glowed cheerfully behind wide windows; here and there someone sat in a cone of light placidly reading, guarded by the shrubs and evergreens—sentinels in the outside darkness. From afar they seemed so peaceful, enveloped in serenity, impregnable to all the irritations and distractions that were his lot. He imagined the residents as happy and contented, filled with the joy of living. He felt it was wonderful to be rich, have all the things one wanted, nothing to worry about, and so many marvelous things to do to fill the lonely hours. He came to feel that by a tiny twist of circumstance he might have lived there too. Deep down it was the life he yearned for.
It made him discontent. He lost all liking for his own home. He became restless, slowly desperate in his loneliness.
His thoughts returned to girls, but to none he’d ever known. The summer’s heat and sexual urges boiled within him. His hot, naked stare bore into women, sought their lips and breasts and hips, undressing them. Walking down a quiet, sexless street, he’d pass a woman with firm breasts, and catch afire, unable to control the throbbing in his groins. He had to walk with his hands in his pockets to hide his agitation. And all the hippy, full-breasted girls about the neighborhood drove him frantic.
Finally, in desperation, he turned to Scovill Avenue. He’d been there often in the daytime. By day there were the aged and smoke-blackened churches, grubby stores, barbecue joints, pool halls, dismal tenements, funeral parlors, flanking on the filthy gutters, no different from another slum street. Deserted for the most part, it was pitiably forlorn. But at night it teemed with a sinister life as the wretched inhabitants crawled from their dark vermin-ridden holes to traffic in prostitution, mugging and murder.
He moved warily as one picking his way through hostile territory. His breath was short from tension, congested in his chest, his muscles taut. A vein throbbed in his temple.
“Wunna see uh girl, baby?” a hoarse, whiskey-thickened voice spoke indifferently in his ear.
He jumped, startled, wheeled about. Beside him loomed a hideous hag, her scarred, painted face twisted in a lewd grimace. The vile reek of her breath poured into his face, polluting his nostrils. He drew back, shaking his head, and hastened his stride.
“Go tuh hell den, you sissy li’l bastard!” the whore reviled, waking up the darkness. The shadows crawled with unseen life.
He heard a snicker slither through the gloom, a laugh, another whiskey voice, “You tell ‘im, Mayme.”
He shuddered beneath the scorn that flowed over him like filth. His impulse was to flee. But he couldn’t give up so easily. An ungovernable urge held him to his purpose. There must be some that he could bear. The fellows in his club who’d said they’d gone by way of Scovill couldn’t possibly have lain with these wretched hags.
Suddenly a beam of light struck across the street, catching a horde of cruising women and stealthy men in stark tableau. The next instant the street was deserted, as if the figures had dissolved instantaneously into the night. He found himself alone. A police squad car crept up beside him at the curb, its red light blinking, the spotlight searching down the street.
“Where you going boy?” an officer addressed him.
His heart stuck in his throat. “Just walking.”
“You don’t belong down here. You’ll get hurt.”
“Go over on Cedar,” another said. “Get some clean ass. This here’s filth.”
“You know Billie on Thackeray? She’s got some nice girls. Treat yourself big. Tell her I sent you—Monahan.”
“I’m not looking for a girl,” he denied. “I’m going to my father’s church.”
There was a moment of silence. “He’s going to church,” the second officer said.
“Don’t let me catch you on this street again,” said the first officer as the car moved off.
“No, sir.”
He hastened over to Thackeray, knocking at doors indiscriminately, asking for Billie. Some of the occupants invited him in, others chased him away. Finally he found the right house. Billie let him enter a pitch-dark foyer.
“Mr. Monahan sent me.”
“Mister?” She had a heavy masculine voice.
“Officer.”
“What you want?”
“I—well—I want to see a girl.”
“We don’t have no girls here.”
“Oh! Well, I—”
For a fleeting instant the light came on. He was blinded in the glare. Then it was darker than before.
“All right, baby.”
She ushered him into the living room. Soft light spilled on luxurious furnishings. It resembled his idea of an opium den.
“Set down, baby. You wanna buy a pint?”
She was a big, dark, thickset woman with a heavy mustache. Her blouse was open and he noticed hairs growing from between her breasts.
“Yes, I want—I want a pint.”
“It’s five dollars.”
He fished for the money. “I want a pretty girl—a nice girl,” he stammered.
She looked at him curiously. “All my girls are nice and pretty.”
After she’d gone there was no sound from the house or from the street. He felt entombed in a sense of unreality. He wondered what would happen when he went to bed. For a moment he was frightened, Then a young woman clad in a transparent negligee entered silently, bearing a tray with the whiskey and setup.
“My name is Margaret,” she said affectedly, giving him an artificial smile. “What might be yours?”
“Oh! Charles is mine,” he replied.
Placing the tray on the coffee table with an air of formality, she appeared astonishingly shy. “And how would you like yours?”
Dark curly hair fell about her shoulders. Her complexion was like coffee and cream; her eyes ringed with mascara. He could see the outline of her legs through the chiffon negligee. He thought her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“I—” he choked. “Just like yours.”
She mixed the drinks and came over and sat beside him, holding her glass with the little finger extended in what she thought was a gesture of refinement. Billie had instructed her to act like a nice girl. “You’re cute,” she said.
Her soft, perfumed contact heightened his excitement unbearably. He gulped his drink, coughed and strangled.
“Don’t rush, baby, we got all night.” Her voice seemed to caress him.
He stole another look at her and swallowed hard. “I’m ready now,” he blurted.
She laughed. “All right, baby.”
Upstairs in the perfumed blue room a soft pink light bathed her naked body. She screened herself with her hands. He throbbed with exquisite tension, his blood on fire. His fingers turned to thumbs; he couldn’t undo his buttons. She helped remove his shirt.
When she came to the brace she exclaimed, “Oh, your back’s hurt!”
“Not much,” he gasped, panting, throbbing as if he’d burst.
Before turning toward the bed, she said, “That’ll be five dollars, baby.”
He gave her ten dollars in his excitement. She smiled, then took him in her arms, embracing him with warmth. His body sealed against her velvet skin. At the instant of contact it was over. He was done, spent, finished. His face burned like frostbite; his blood congealed. What must she think of him? He felt miserably ashamed, mortified, unutterably chagrined. He wished he could die on the spot.
Though devoid of sensitivity, her sexual appetites were flagrant, intense, consuming. Frantic and trembling, she held him tight and forced her tongue into his mouth. He struggled to free himself. Locking her legs about him, she made a strange moaning sound and bit him on the lip. He thought she was trying to hurt him. “Don’t!” he screamed in terror, striking her blindly.
She threw him aside and sprang to her feet, blazing with an idiot’s rage at this greatest indignity to a whore. “Goddammit, you son of a bitch, I’ll kill you!” she mouthed, clawing at his face.
He turned to escape and wrenched his back. Pain and terror gripped him in blind panic. “Oh!” he sobbed. “Oh! Please!”
She hung over him, her long, polished fingernails gleaming in the dim light like bloody talons. “You dirty freak! I oughta have you shot for hitting me. I’m not the kind you can hit you son of a bitch!”
He raised his hands to ward her off. “I didn’t—I’m not—I couldn’t—” His mind groped dazedly for the words. “I mean I didn’t mean to hit you. I just—it just happened. I thought you—”
She was partly mollified. “If you wasn’t a cripple bastard I’d kill you. Get your clothes on and get out. If I told Billie you’d hit me she’d have you beat to death.”
He fumbled with his clothes, trembling with shame and terror. In his haste he couldn’t fasten anything. “I’m—I’m trying to hurry,” he pleaded.
She lit a cigarette and sat on the bed and watched him, smoldering with rage. Her mouth was brutal and in her eyes was a look of animal stupidity. He was afraid to look at her. His broken arm was useless.
Finally he got up courage to say, “If you—if you help me dress I’ll give you five dollars.”
She relented and took the money. She helped him strap on his brace and tied his laces. He shuddered at her touch, looking away.
“You’re a strange one,” she said curiously. “What kind of kick is that?”
He didn’t know what she meant. “Is what?”
“Is that all you ever do? Just—” she snapped her fingers “—and it’s over.”
He was ashamed to tell her but was afraid to keep silent. “I—I never did it before.”
She stopped helping him. “Oh!” Then she sat down and laughed until tears came into her eyes.
He worked with his buttons frantically.
“Look, baby, you don’t have to go. Mama’ll show you what it’s like.”
“I got to go,” he muttered desperately. “I got to go.”
“You can spend the night, baby. You got a lot to learn. And I’ll be nice.”
“No, I got to go. I can’t stay.”
“But you’ll come back?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll come back. But I got to go now.”
“Don’t go with any other girl now. Promise me.”
“Yes, yes, I promise. But, please, I got to go.” He was crying inside from shame and desperation. She buttoned his clothes and went with him to the door. She kissed him in the dark. He was trembling all over. “Come back and see me, baby,” she urged in a sensuous voice.
He ran down the stairs without looking back, and walked at a dizzy pace. His back ached unendurably. He shrank from the people he passed on the street. His chagrin became unbearable. He boarded a streetcar but couldn’t sit still. At the next corner he alighted, walked over to Euclid and slunk into a movie.
An all-girl orchestra was playing:
When day is done
And shadows fall
I dream of you…
His emotional turbulence quieted to a steady pulsation; his trembling slowly ceased. The picture came on and in the quiet darkness he devoured the youth and beauty of the heroine’s face. His stare never left the soft, mobile mouth, the tender smile, the expressive eyes, and the thousand exquisit
e movements of the facial planes. For a time he was lost in his spell of adoration. Then the picture ended.
He returned to the street, forced to face living people in this living world. He shrank from them as if he had leprosy. At last his thoughts caught up with him. Finally he admitted to himself that his accident had incapacitated him sexually. He felt that women could see it stamped on him. And the shame of having spent himself, his first experience, on such an ill-tempered prostitute made him, by the time he reached home, morbidly depressed.
His mother was waiting up for him. “Why must you stay out so late, son?”
For the first time, although vaguely realized, her color separated them as Cedar from Euclid, as himself from the heroine on the screen. But her scolding was brackish and cutting, and her worrying about him, picking at him for every little thing, always nagging, when it was herself, he thought, who’d done this monstrous thing to him, so enraged him that for a moment he couldn’t breathe. He hated her—God, if she knew how he hated her, he thought.
“You’re not well yet and Mother worries so when you stay out so late.”
“Goddammit, let me alone!” he exploded. She was shocked speechless, her old flaccid face falling into ruins.
He ran clumsily up the stairs and sat in the bathroom, sobbing bitterly. Finally he undressed and examined himself long and thoroughly. His back ached. Shame and fear combined in excruciating agony. He’d never be a man, he thought. And the shame of having revealed it to a senseless whore. How could he have done this to himself, gone to that den and bared his naked soul to a brutal prostitute? How could he have so debased himself?
For days he wouldn’t leave the house. He felt his shame and inadequacy as visible as a torch. He kept everyone on edge. His mother went about with a tight, grim look, sick with anxiety, but still she refused to speak to him. He wouldn’t apologize. She wouldn’t forgive him. But finally the shame quieted to passive resignation. He rationalized by telling himself that all the fellows visited prostitutes. And when the sexual urge returned he became frantic again. Now his incapacity took precedence over his shame. He pored through all the textbooks on physiology in the house, seeking information about the sexual act. He didn’t care what Marge was, he wanted her. But he could find no information to help in his dilemma. Finally he consulted his doctor. “I want to know if I can get married?” The doctor was alarmed lest he’d made an oversight in his diagnosis. “I’m sure your accident didn’t affect your spermatic cord. We found no evidence in our examination.”
The Third Generation Page 27
