“My wife,” Ralph said. “I found out.”
In the alley, he took out his wallet again, let his fingers number the bills he had left: two dollars—and he thought there was some change in his pocket. Enough for something to eat. But he was not hungry, and he sagged against the building trying to think. A car turned into the alley, stopped, backed out again. He started walking. He went the way he’d come. He stayed close to the buildings, out of the path of the loud groups of men and women streaming up and down the sidewalk. He heard a woman in a long coat say to the man she was with, “It isn’t that way at all, Bruce. You don’t understand.”
He stopped when he came to the liquor store. Inside he moved up to the counter and studied the long orderly rows of bottles. He bought a half pint of rum and some more cigarets. The palm trees on the label of the bottle, the large drooping fronds with the lagoon in the background, had caught his eye, and then he realized rum! And he thought he would faint. The clerk, a thin bald man wearing suspenders, put the bottle in a paper sack and rang up the sale and winked. “Got you a little something tonight?” he said.
Outside, Ralph started toward the pier; he thought he’d like to see the water with the lights reflected on it. He thought how Dr. Maxwell would handle a thing like this, and he reached into the sack as he walked, broke the seal on the little bottle and stopped in a doorway to take a long drink and thought Dr. Maxwell would sit handsomely at the water’s edge. He crossed some old streetcar tracks and turned onto another, darker, street. He could already hear the waves splashing under the pier, and then he heard someone move up behind him. A small Negro in a leather jacket stepped out in front of him and said, “Just a minute there, man.” Ralph tried to move around. The man said, “Christ, baby, that’s my feet you’re stepping on!” Before Ralph could run the Negro hit him hard in the stomach, and when Ralph groaned and tried to fall, the man hit him in the nose with his open hand, knocking him back against the wall, where he sat down with one leg turned under him and was learning how to raise himself up when the Negro slapped him on the cheek and knocked him sprawling onto the pavement.
3
He kept his eyes fixed in one place and saw them, dozens of them, wheeling and darting just under the overcast, seabirds, birds that came in off the ocean this time of morning. The street was black with the mist that was still falling, and he had to be careful not to step on the snails that trailed across the wet sidewalk. A car with its lights on slowed as it went past. Another car passed. Then another. He looked: mill workers, he whispered to himself. It was Monday morning. He turned a corner, walked past Blake’s: blinds pulled, empty bottles standing like sentinels beside the door. It was cold. He walked as fast as he could, crossing his arms now and then and rubbing his shoulders. He came at last to his house, porch light on, windows dark. He crossed the lawn and went around to the back. He turned the knob, and the door opened quietly and the house was quiet. There was the tall stool beside the draining board. There was the table where they had sat. He had gotten up from the couch, come into the kitchen, sat down. What more had he done? He had done nothing more. He looked at the clock over the stove. He could see into the dining room, the table with the lace cloth, the heavy glass centerpiece of red flamingos, their wings opened, the draperies beyond the table open. Had she stood at that window watching for him? He stepped onto the living-room carpet. Her coat was thrown over the couch, and in the pale light he could make out a large ashtray full of her cork cigaret ends. He noticed the phone directory open on the coffee table as he went by. He stopped at the par-daily open door to their bedroom. Everything seemed to him open. For an instant he resisted the wish to look in at her, and then with his finger he pushed the door open a little bit more. She was sleeping, her head off the pillow, turned toward the wall, her hair black against the sheet, the covers bunched around her shoulders, covers pulled up from the foot of the bed. She was on her side, her secret body angled at the hips. He stared. What, after all, should he do? Take his things and leave? Go to a hotel? Make certain arrangements? How should a man act, given these circumstances? He understood things had been done. He did not understand what things now were to be done. The house was very quiet.
In the kitchen he let his head down onto his arms as he sat at the table. He did not know what to do. Not just now, he thought, not just in this, not just about this, today and tomorrow, but every day on earth. Then he heard the children stirring. He sat up and tried to smile as they came into the kitchen.
“Daddy, Daddy,” they said, running to him with their little bodies.
“Tell us a story. Daddy,” his son said, getting onto his lap.
“He can’t tell us a story,” his daughter said. “It’s too early for a story. Isn’t it. Daddy?”
“What’s that on your face, Daddy?” his son said, pointing.
“Let me seer his daughter said. “Let me see, Daddy.”
“Poor Daddy,*’ his son said.
“What did you do to your face, Daddy?” his daughter said.
“It’s nothing” Ralph said. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Now get down now, Robert, I hear your mother.”
Ralph stepped quickly into the bathroom and locked the door.
“Is your father here?” he heard Marian calling. “Where is he, in the bathroom? Ralph?”
“Mama, Mama!” his daughter cried. “Daddy’s face is hurt!”
“Ralph!” She turned the knob. “Ralph, let me in, please, darling. Ralph? Please let me in, darling. I want to see you. Ralph? Please!”
He said, “Go away, Marian.”
She said, “I can’t go away. Please, Ralph, open the door for a minute, darling. I just want to see you. Ralph. Ralph? The children said you were hurt. What’s wrong, darling? Ralph?”
He said, “Go away.”
She said, “Ralph, open up, please.”
He said, “Will you please be quiet, please?”
He heard her waiting at the door, he saw the knob turn again, and then he could hear her moving around the kitchen, getting the children breakfast, trying to answer their questions. He looked at himself in the mirror a long time. He made faces at himself. He tried many expressions. Then he gave it up. He turned away from the mirror and sat down on the edge of the bathtub, began unlacing his shoes. He sat there with a shoe in his hand and looked at the clipper ships making their way across the wide blue sea of the plastic shower curtain. He thought of the little black coaches in the tablecloth and almost cried out Stop! He unbuttoned his shirt, leaned over the bathtub with a sigh, and pressed the plug into the drain. He ran hot water, and presently steam rose
He stood naked on the tiles before getting into the water. He gathered in his fingers the slack flesh over his ribs. He studied his face again in the clouded mirror. He started in fear when Marian called his name.
“Ralph. The children are in their room playing. I called Von Williams and said you wouldn’t be in today, and I’m going to stay home.” Then she said, “I have a nice breakfast on the stove for you, darling, when you’re through with your bath. Ralph?”
“Just be quiet, please,” he said.
He stayed in the bathroom until he heard her in the children’s room. She was dressing them, asking didn’t they want to play with Warren and Roy? He went through the house and into the bedroom, where he shut the door. He looked at the bed before he crawled in. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. He had gotten up from the couch, had come into the kitchen, had . . .sat . . .down. He snapped shut his eyes and turned onto his side as Marian came into the room. She took off her robe and sat down on the bed. She put her hand under the covers and began stroking the lower part of his back.
“Ralph,” she said.
He tensed at her fingers, and then he let go a little. It was easier to let go a little. Her hand moved over his hip and over his stomach and she was pressing her body over his now and moving over him and back and forth over him. He held himself, he later considered, as long as he could. And then he turned to h
er. He turned and turned in what might have been a stupendous sleep, and he was still turning, marveling at the impossible changes he felt moving over him.
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? Page 21
