It tasted bitter and warm and made him gag. He turned his head to the left on the pillow and spit out what he could. Bright red spots spattered on the pillow case. His tongue hung out, blood flecked. It touched the warm edge of his lips. It touched the bristle on the edge of his upper lip and pulled back into the dark hot mouth again.
Then he turned his head back and stared again at the door.
This is my last warning.
Something swelled up into him. He grabbed out at the mirror and clutched it with his aching hand.
He hurled it against the door. It bounced off one corner and fell in pieces on his bed.
“Oh!” cried the old lady.
That’s it, that’s it, his mind encouraged savagely. He didn’t love her above all others now. He hated her, despised her. He’d drive her to save him. That’s it, get good and mad and call the superintendent. Go ahead, bust a gusset!
He heard her stamp heavily to her feet and waddle to the door of her room, the floor squeaking beneath her. She pulled open the door and thumped out into the hallway. She passed his door, muttering angrily to herself, “All right, if that’s the way you want it, we’ll soon see. We’ll soon see!”
He grinned then, overcome with relief. That’s it lady, dear old lady. Get so fucking mad you could chew nails. Go and tell the superintendent about the horrible drunk in room 27. Tell the landlord. Tell the police. Tell the fucking marines!
Sighing with relief, he sank back on the pillow and waited for the sound of her feet on the stairs. The blessed sound of her rescuing feet thumping down the musty staircase.
There weren’t any sounds of her feet on the stairs.
What?
He stopped breathing. What’s she doing out there? Why the hell isn’t she going down the stairs to tell the superintendent? For the love of God what held the old bitch back!
He waited.
Suddenly, he knew.
Knew how old she was, how ancient. How weak. How frightened. She ate in her room. There was no stove but she ate there, ate cold food all the time. She went out once in two weeks maybe to buy food for herself and her ugly cat. And that was an expedition. It was four long flights down to the superintendent’s room. And she had only milky white legs, weak and thickly veined. Stiff, dried up old stalks of legs and bad ankles and feet bones and the stairs were rickety and slanted and the bannisters shook.
He remembered the times he’d seen her going down the stairs. Slowly, inch by inch, her scrawny hands clamped tight on the bannister, a look of desperate concentration on her seamed face. On foot down, the next, onto the same step. And that way all the four flights, an agonizingly slow and laborious descent. He remembered standing on the top floor and watching her descend.
His face tightened. He hated her for being so old and weak. Hated her for not being able to afford a first floor room so she wouldn’t have to go down four flights to tell the superintendent. He completely ignored the fact that if she were living on the first floor he couldn’t possibly have thrown a glass against her door in the first place.
Like a dying man sinking below the waves, seeing, with his clouding eyes, the last preserver floating away from his outstretched grasp, he listened to the old woman come shuffling back past his door and along the hall rug. Without making a sound, he listened to her go into the bathroom and slam the door behind her irritably and slide the lock shut.
Finished.
Now she’d stay in there. Until the drunken man in the next room fell into an alcoholic stupor or went out in search of more drink. Until the sot next door stopped throwing things against the walls trying to crush the rats and snails and mice and bats that poured and flooded from his delirious brain.
That’s what she’d be thinking, sitting stiffly on the seat-down toilet, waiting and waiting and muttering half audible imprecations under her stale breath.
He closed his eyes suddenly and shut his right fist despite the pain it caused. He lay there listening to the rushing winds and whispers of traffic below, listening to the random discords of a city alive.
Only too late did he think—Why in hell didn’t I throw the glass through the window? It might have struck someone on the head and cut open their skulls and the police would have come. Even if it hadn’t hit anyone, the police probably would have come. Someone would have reported it.
Too late for that now.
Too Late.
That was the title of a book he’d never write.
His autobiography.
14
The door opened and Leonora came in.
“Leo! Thank God you’re here,” he cried.
She looked around the room.
“God, I’ve been scared,” he went on, “I threw the damn glass against the old lady’s door and she said she’d call the superintendent but the stairs were too steep and she was afraid to go down will you let me have glass of water please?”
“Erick, where’s my other stocking?”
“What? Never mind that for Christ’s sake. Give me some water and then run and get me some fried chicken and then call an ambulance.”
“I had the damn thing when I stripped. Where is it?”
“Will you stop that?”
“I must have kicked it under the bed.”
“Le-o!”
His head snapped around as he woke up.
She had disappeared. He could have sworn she was there.
“Leo?” He tried to call. He thought maybe she’d bent down to reach under the bed for her stocking. “Leo, if you’re looking for your stocking, please don’t. I’m too sick and hungry and thirsty for games? Leo?” The words ran all together into a gluey, phlegmy mass.
The room was empty.
He looked around. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve been here long enough. The urgency of it was overwhelming. It’s been—God!—almost two days. Two whole days with hardly any water and only that candy bar for food. I’ve got to get some help.
He dragged the sheet over and, gingerly, picked up a piece of glass.
He threw it against the old woman’s door. It hardly made any noise at all. I don’t care, he thought, you’ve got to go down those stairs. If it takes you an hour.
He listened. There was no sound. Was she asleep? The glass particle hadn’t made much noise. He picked up another one, a larger one and threw it. It broke in half and fell on the floor behind the bed. He couldn’t hear it fall.
Another piece. It ricocheted off the wood and flew out onto the rug. It bounced and landed on Ava Gardner’s stomach.
Only three pieces left. It was no good trying to get the old lady’s attention. He’d had to try something else.
But what?
He looked around.
The window. He’d have to try and throw the pieces of glass through the opening in the window and hope good fortune would let the pieces put out someone’s eyes so the police would come. It was the only thing left.
He had to twist his head painfully to the side to judge. He heard bones snapping in his neck and streaks of pain cutting through the flesh. He saw that he’d have to throw backhand.
He held up one piece. He aimed as well as he could and threw it.
It hit the window pane and bounced back onto the floor. He pressed his lips together and picked up the second piece. God, let it put out somebody’s eye or … he suddenly decided that God wouldn’t take kindly to such a notion. At least let it draw blood, he amended, anything. Just so they’ll call a cop and he’ll come up here and find me. Please?
His neck burned and ached as he twisted around again to see the window. He felt dizzy, the entire room seemed to be billowing out of proportion. It was standing sideways too.
He took a deep breath, held it tight in his body. He aimed again. Threw.
The piece bounced on the window sill and came to rest on the stone ledge outside.
“Damn it!” he croaked, almost crying. Furiously he grabbed up the last piece. It cut him but he ignored it. He reared back.
He
didn’t throw it.
He looked at the piece. His face was blank. His mind said, No, I mustn’t throw this last piece.
I may need it.
The idea made him shudder. He raised his hand again to throw it. He should throw it away, get rid of it. He didn’t know why exactly. But he suspected himself.
No, keep it, said his other mind. And, obediently, he placed the last, sharp, jagged piece of mirror on the table.
He looked around. He looked at the light, yellow-brown door that led to the old woman’s room.
God damn you, you dried up old bitch! his mind exploded unexpectedly. You’ve got to help me!
He grabbed at the pillow on his left and slung it weakly at her door. It thudded on the bed. He dragged it back and swung again. It seemed as if the pillow were stuffed with lead. It only rattled her door knob. He swung again, again, thudding the pillow against the door until he thought his arm was going to pull out of its socket.
His mind grew excited for a moment as he heard the old woman muttering vindictive to herself, clucking endless variations on statements about sots.
He planned to fling the pillow back over the right edge of the bed and then heave it completely over his body and crash it violently against the door. That should do it, he thought.
He flung it to the right. But, as he did, his fingers lost grip on the smooth pillow case. He clawed out frantically but the pillow dropped to the floor with a swishing sound and thumped down over the magazine.
He cursed feverishly and reached out his hand to grab it. He stretched as far as he was able but couldn’t reach it. His fingers trembled violently, long inches from the white pillow case.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
A wild, animal yell bubbled to his blood-spotted lips.
In a bestial rage he tried to tip over the table hoping that the crash would arouse the house. But mostly because he was out of his mind with fury and wanted to destroy something.
He couldn’t move the table. It was too heavy. He tried to jerk out the drawer but it stuck and he couldn’t move it. He threw back his hand and grasping a bar at the head of the bed he shook the bed frenziedly like a strapped-down madman. And he knew the terrible frustration that a violent man feels when he is confined and restrained. He shook and shook until the pain threatened to destroy him. The room began to heave and leap and blackness danced in front of his eyes.
Finally, exhausted, he lay breathing painfully, the air sucked in by his drying throat, expelled again in fitful rancid bursts.
His body ached. And he felt a great coldness creeping up his legs. Slowly, almost methodically, like a crawling glacier. The chill was at the bottom of his calves now.
He suddenly realized, with horror, that it was the cold that heat could not abate, the cold that marked the end.
If it should reach his heart …
He looked around in rising desperation and fear, his eyes haunted with terror. There had to be some way. He reached out and drew back the piece of mirror. The next moment he noticed the candy wrapper.
The inside wrapper was white. He jerked it to him. Then, quickly, without heeding the pain, he pricked his finger with the sharp glass edge. He squeezed out a drop of blood, pretending not to notice the terrible idea the sight of it gave him.
Quickly, using the point of the glass fragment for a pen, he put the paper on his chest and wrote HELP in jagged, uppercase letters. He crumpled the piece of paper into a ball. Then he realized that no one would open it, it would just be a scrap of paper in the street. But if it came down slowly. If it flew …
He unrolled the paper and, with shaking fingers, made an airplane of it, folding it anxiously, heart throbbing in his chest.
He waited until his arm was a little rested. Until it didn’t shake so.
Then he threw the airplane at the opening in the window.
It swooped up. His heart moved with it.
It hit the window glass and fluttered down onto the dusty floorboards.
A clicking, sucking sound filled his throat. He turned back to the left, his eyes frightened and wild. It was getting harder and harder not to fall completely beneath terror. Everything was failing! Wasn’t there one way in the world to save himself? He thought of himself the day before thinking that in all the millions of rich and various possibilities in the world, there were surely more than enough to save him.
But were there?
He pricked himself harder, turning the glass edge like a corkscrew into one of the gouges he had made before, wincing at the sudden, biting pain. HELP he wrote on the outside of the wrapper. He wrote it again on the cardboard base. HELP. The dark blood was hardly visible on the dark cardboard.
He folded the wrapper into an airplane and threw it at the window opening. It hit the sill. He folded the other one and threw it. It hit the sill. The three pieces of paper lay near each other on the dusty floor with HELP written on them in his blood.
A groan of defeat passed his lips. His arm collapsed at his side and tears of futility ran slowly from his eyes.
It was getting dark again.
Suddenly, he cursed himself for having pawned his radio. He might have played it loudly, thunderously, until everyone complained and looked into the matter and found him there.
But the radio was gone.
He closed his eyes and felt the tears spring out from under the lids and dribble over his cheeks and then run down onto the pillow case.
The radio had been the last to go.
15
At first it was hard.
He needed the money, yes. He couldn’t get a job and atrophy in what he chose to call “some den of nine to five”. That was well known to him.
But it was a hard step down. It jarred his sensibilities.
To sell things. Well, that’s what it amounted to. They called it pawning something but the men who ran the shops and the men who pawned that something knew that ninety nine times out of a hundred the time period would elapse without the redeeming of the article. How else explain all those somethings for sale in pawn shops? It was a sham; that’s what; a game. Like the old bum who always said in complete, if ridiculous dignity—Sir, I meant to get a haircut but I find myself a nickel short. It was a front, a neat proper covering for the festering wound.
So he had left home and was out of money. And wouldn’t work. He had to write full time. It was his excuse. And, in retribution for it, he was forced to prowl the streets and hand around the pawn shops, mostly the old man’s shop because it was the biggest one. At first pretending to look in at the window with a face that he hoped bespoke clearly—I buy— and not—I am going to sell for I am destitute.
He stood there in his long brown overcoat and wondered if he should go in and he thought—God why should it be so hard? Do you think that old bastard gives a single damn whether you’re selling your soul for whiskey or rent or anything? At makes no difference to him. It’s business to him. He doesn’t even know who you are. You’re a face in a million faces, one more fleck of drifting spume in the endless waves of men who come in each day, morning, afternoon and night, selling jewelry, clothing, furniture, anything for money. Sir, this is my only begotten child, what am I offered? He thought that. And decided that the old man would make an offer too. As little as possible, mind you.
So he prowled and watched and did no writing for the worries of lack. And cursed perpetually that his mother hadn’t owned a joint bank account with him and that he didn’t have her bank book now that she was dead. He knew that Grace wouldn’t give it to him. Oh, she might maybe, but not her husband. He’d do anything to thwart Erick. He hated Erick. Erick knew that for a fact.
But that didn’t help pay bills. And he had to pay them. Everything slowed but debts went on as fast as ever.
So, one day when the rent was due and he had only fifty eight cents, he went into the old man’s shop carrying his school ring in his pocket. He would rather have sold one of his suits or his overcoat or his books. But they were too bulky. People would see
him in the streets and know and their chuckling would reach his ears and he’d shake with rage as he knew their thoughts—He’s a bum and he’s going to sell his clothes or his books for liquor, for flesh. And their beady-eyed cruel chant would soar over the city like a diseased cloud—He’s gonna hock ‘em, hock ‘em, hock ‘em!
He went into the shop and looked around. The old man was in the back looking through his ledger. He had on the purple shirt with the stripes and the greasy silk tie. It was supper time. Erick had waited for a time when the shop was empty.
The old man looked up with fishlike eyes.
“What d’ya want?” he asked brusquely.
Erick swallowed. He knew he was blushing terribly. He never felt more embarrassed in his life. The entire thing seemed the most repugnant thing in the world. Through his mind raced thoughts—I’d rather be backing Germany than here. I’d rather be dead, I’d rather eat horse shit. He shivered and found himself ambling helplessly back toward the counter where the old man stood, drawn there as if by a magnet, unable to control his movements.
He tried to look blasé. He didn’t. His hands shook and were sweating in his coat pockets. Caught short old man, his alien mind injected to torture him, damned awkward situation, need taxi fare to my estate, what for this little bauble of a school ring of mine?
“Well?” Sharp and cutting. The voice made him shiver.
“I … I have a ring to …”
The old man extended his pop-veined claw and twitched it toward himself with a well-practiced gesture that clearly said—All right, let’s see the worthless thing.
His hand trembled badly as he held out the ring. And he suddenly thought of a dozen different reasons why he had to keep the ring and why it was imperative for him to leave the shop immediately. On the run.
The old man plucked the ring away and looked at it with a scowl.
Roughly, he tossed it back on the counter.
“What in hell am I supposed to do with a school ring?” he snapped, tilting his head and glaring at Erick, “With initials in it and the year of graduation. What in hell do you think I run, a charity house?”
Hunger and Thirst Page 20
