The Hunger and Other Stories

by Charles Beaumont

  Herbert smiled. He had “The Forbidden Embrace” in his hand. “Passed out. Sic transit gloria mundi!”

  “Did—did you do it?”

  “Ronnie, my friend! Am I the sort who would cheat you?”

  “Herbert, I have something to tell you.”

  “Yes, old man?”

  “I refuse to rob you of the experience—no, no, I insist: You kill him.”

  “Such self-sacrifice does not fail to move me. Yet, fair is fair. It’s quite settled—here’s the statue. If you hit him hard, it shouldn’t take more than one blow.”

  Ronald gulped loudly. “A toast, then!”

  “To the Well of Experience!”

  “To the Well of Experience!”

  The Scotch dropped several inches in the bottle.

  Ronald grasped “The Forbidden Embrace” in his hand and made a couple of tentative swipes in the air with it. His balance was disturbed and, sitting on the kitchen floor, he said: “Herbie, I just happened to think. I can’t kill him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not twenty-one yet.”

  “Coward!” Herbert shrieked, and snatched up the statue. “Sniveling, groveling petite bourgeois poupon!”

  He dashed through the door into the living room and advanced upon the old man, whose breathing was regular now.

  “Farewell!” Herbert cried, raising the statue.

  Then he lowered it. But, not on the old man’s head.

  “The Forbidden Embrace” crashed resoundingly through a stack of buckram-bound esoterica and fell to the floor. As did Herbert.

  He said “Shhh!” to no one in particular, saw that James Oliver Fogarty still slept undisturbed and crawled back into the kitchen, where Ronald was forcing the cork of a bottle of vin rosé.

  “I was assailed suddenly,” Herbert said, dribbling the wine into his half-glass of Scotch, tossing it off and grimacing thereafter, “with a thought. May I explain? Though the risk is infinitesimal, nay, minuscule, still we ought to be intelligent about this.”

  Ronald nodded without enthusiasm.

  “Now whereas I am of legal age and therefore subject to punishment as meted out by our savage and pagan society—you aren’t. We’ve got to cover ourselves, you know.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Very well: you must administer the coup d’état to our victim; it’s air-tight then. On the off chance of something’s going wrong, you merely plead juvenile delinquency.”

  Ronald stared at Herbert for a time. He sloshed some more wine into the glasses. “No,” he said.

  “No? No? Oh yes, I begin to get it now. You want to see me, Herbie, your oldest, dearest friend, fry in the chair! That’s what you want.”

  “No, Herbie, I don’t want that. Honest.”

  They were quiet, but for the staccato hiccup Ronald had developed.

  Herbert was scratching his head madly. “Look here,” he said, “we’re behaving like children. Like children! Let us be mature. Do we have weltanschauung, or don’t we? Are we ridden with the cheap morality of the herd, or aren’t we?”

  “Certainly.”

  “All right! Oh, Ronnie, we’ve reached a critical stage in our development as thinking people. An impasse, as it were. If we falter now, fail in our mission—think!—how then face ourselves? How exist with the awful knowledge?”

  “How?”

  “We would be worse than bourgeois; we would be common. We must have the courage of our lack of convictions! To the one side, intellectual freedom; to the other, slavery and eternal subjugation.”

  “Subjugation.”

  “Well—which is it, friend of four long years? When the balance hangs on the mere cracking of an old man’s skull, which will you have: freedom or slavery?”

  “More wine,” Ronald said.

  “Decide! The hour grows late, you must decide!”

  “Sure. Okay. But—you do it, Herbie: I’m nervous.”

  Herbert Foss summoned a glance of profound contempt. “Weakling!” he yelled. “You may consider our relationship at a finis. I will do the deed myself, and if I am caught, then I shall sit in the electric chair a far, far freer man than you, Ronald Raphael. And so shall I die: free, content in my own company. Drink your filthy wine!”

  Herbert’s face glowed a deep, burning red; tiny balls of sweat speckled his forehead, and some of the shoe polish had run from his hair in thin dirty lines down his sallow cheeks. His eyes were large, the pupils bloated and black: he trembled as he snapped his fingers under Ronald’s nose. Then he went back into the living room where the old man slept and he stopped trembling completely, for the first time.

  He walked over to the fallen statue, picked it up and tested it against his palm. It was very heavy. Heavy enough to crush the bone of any man’s skull, however thick, crush and drive the splinters of bone deep down; heavy enough to summon death quickly.

  Herbert didn’t tremble. He circled the snoring elder, then he sat down in the white campaign chair and reached for one of the glasses. The Scotch within had retained its unwatered light-gold lethal dignity.

  Herbert gasped and coughed. From the half-open door he could see Ronald, slumped on the floor like a wet cotton doll.

  He rolled the bright-beaded glass against his brow and stared at the old man. . . .

  Daylight limped into the big room and thrashed, sullenly. The gold walls, the black ceiling, the piles of books and records, the whole vast high-timbered, many-leveled apartment looked tremendously different in the cold morning rays.

  Sticky glasses littered the soiled rug, and several bottles lay overturned and empty: there was an oversweet smell pervasive, too, settled over everything like a heavy mildew.

  “I’ve gone blind!” Herbert Foss cried, but this was not so: his eyes had stuck together with sleep. He pried the lids apart.

  The blood on his hands had almost dried. But not quite.

  “Oh, God!”

  Ronald was curled up where he had fallen. At the outcry he raised his head and clamped his hands onto his ears. He moaned, softly.

  “Ronnie—” Herbert held up his crimsoned hands, then made a sudden leap from the chair: The cloth blazed white around the spots of dark red.

  He made a series of short animal noises, put his fingers to his temples, threw his head back and walked in a small circle twice around the room, eyes tightly clenched.

  “No,” Herbert said. “No. No. No.”

  At the fourth No his foot encountered the broken bottle by the fireplace: a square Scotch bottle, quite empty, splintered at the top, the shards and needles of glass brilliantly covered with wet red. A little trail of glass and blood led to the campaign chair.

  “Good God,” Herbert cried. “It’s all over the place!”

  Ronald was staring at the large overstuffed chair, however. He was seized, from time to time, by violent but short spasms.

  “Herbie—did we? I mean, did you?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t shout. If we did, you did it. I fell asleep—I remember distinctly.”

  “What about that blood all over you?”

  Herbert shuddered. Then he saw the broken Scotch bottle and rattled out a sigh of high relief. He examined the small cuts on his palm. “I tripped on that glass; I recall.”

  Ronald covered his eyes. “Oh, my head!” he wailed. “Don’t you understand—my head! Are you sure you didn’t club me by mistake?”

  The sentence had a sobering effect.

  Herbert began to shake with fair regularity, as they stood there, huddled, in the middle of the room.

  “Did you—did you see him?” he whispered.

  “Who?”

  “You know who.”

  “When?”

  “Just now. I’m having a bit of trouble with my eyes. Is he—here, with us—?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, look.”

  “I can’t seem to focus my eyes—Herbie, you look. You’re the leader, you’re—”

  Herbert
made fists of his hands, swallowed dryly and opened one eye, revolving his head at the same time.

  Then he opened the other eye.

  “Ronnie!”

  Ronald jumped at the sudden sound. He opened his eyes, and together they looked.

  Then, they went upstairs to the shelf that served as a bedroom and looked on the bed and under the bed and in the closet. They looked in the kitchen and in the pantry; in the hall closet; in the bathroom and, after some delay, behind the shower curtain.

  “Herbie, you don’t suppose—I mean, you couldn’t have done it and disposed of . . . the . . .”

  Herbert’s face, already white, turned whiter. “No,” he said. “No. No.”

  “Let’s check the car. Let’s check the car. I said, let’s—”

  “Shhh! All right.”

  They rushed out the back door and through the garden, peering behind palm trees as they hurried, until they had reached the garage.

  Whereat they stared, first at the open garage, immaculate, dark and empty; then at themselves, and back at the garage.

  “My Jaguar,” Herbert said, with immense simplicity, “is gone.”

  They rushed back to the apartment and stood still, except for the trembling.

  “The pictures!” Herbert said. “The Picasso! The Motherwell! The Mondrian!”

  “The Kuniyoshi,” Ronald said.

  “Where are they?”

  “Look!”

  The hall chiffonier sat disarrayed, the drawers, for the most part, empty, pulled out, some of them sprawled on the floor.

  “Oh, not Mother’s silver!” Herbert said.

  Slowly then, a bit like somnambulists, they marched through the apartment.

  And their words were full of wonder and disbelief.

  “Our clothes—all our clothes!”

  “Dad’s luggage!”

  “My ring—my emerald cuff links!”

  A large complacent Buddha smiled above its unlocked belly. The camouflaged strongbox lay open and empty.

  “Herbie, my shorts! My shorts are gone, the ones Carmencita gave me!”

  And then Herbert Foss and Ronald Raphael stopped looking. They sat down in the living room, the quiet, cold living room, and put their heads on their arms and stayed this way for a very long time.

  The Hunger

  Now, with the sun almost gone, the sky looked wounded—as if a gigantic razor had been drawn across it, slicing deep. It bled richly. And the wind, which came down from High Mountain, cool as rain, sounded a little like children crying: a soft, unhappy kind of sound, rising and falling.

  Afraid, somehow, it seemed to Julia. Terribly afraid.

  She quickened her step. I’m an idiot, she thought, looking away from the sky. A complete idiot. That’s why I’m frightened now; and if anything happens—which it won’t, and can’t—then I’ll have no one to blame but myself.

  She shifted the bag of groceries to her other arm and turned, slightly. There was no one in sight, except old Mr. Hannaford, pulling in his newspaper stands, preparing to close up the drugstore, and Jake Spiker, barely moving across to the Blue Haven for a glass of beer: no one else. The rippling red brick streets were silent.

  But even if she got nearly all the way home, she could scream and someone would hear her. Who would be fool enough to try anything right out in the open? Not even a lunatic. Besides, it wasn’t dark yet, not technically, anyway.

  Still, as she passed the vacant lots, all shoulder-high in wild grass, Julia could not help thinking, He might be hiding there, right now. It was possible. Hiding there, all crouched up, waiting. And he’d only have to grab her, and—she wouldn’t scream. She knew that suddenly, and the thought terrified her. Sometimes you can’t scream. . . .

  If only she’d not bothered to get that spool of yellow thread over at Younger’s, it would be bright daylight now, bright clear daylight. And—

  Nonsense! This was the middle of the town. She was surrounded by houses full of people. People all around. Everywhere.

  (He was a hunger; a need; a force. Dark emptiness filled him. He moved, when he moved, like a leaf caught in some dark and secret river, rushing. But mostly he slept now, an animal, always ready to wake and leap and be gone . . .)

  The shadows came to life, dancing where Julia walked. Now the sky was ugly and festered, and the wind had become stronger, colder. She clicked along the sidewalk, looking straight ahead, wondering, Why, why am I so infernally stupid? What’s the matter with me?

  Then she was home, and it was all over. The trip had taken not more than half an hour. And here was Maud, running. Julia felt her sister’s arms fly around her, hugging. “God, my God.”

  And Louise’s voice: “We were just about to call Mick to go after you.”

  Julia pulled free and went into the kitchen and put down the bag of groceries.

  “Where in the world have you been?” Maud demanded.

  “I had to get something at Younger’s.” Julia took off her coat. “They had to go look for it, and—I didn’t keep track of the time.”

  Maud shook her head. “Well, I don’t know,” she said, wearily. “You’re just lucky you’re alive, that’s all.”

  “Now—”

  “You listen! He’s out there somewhere. Don’t you understand that? It’s a fact. They haven’t even come close to catching him yet.”

  “They will,” Julia said, not knowing why: she wasn’t entirely convinced of it.

  “Of course they will. Meantime, how many more is he going to murder? Can you answer me that?”

  “I’m going to put my coat away.” Julia brushed past her sister. Then she turned and said, “I’m sorry you were worried. It won’t happen again.” She went to the closet, feeling strangely upset. They would talk about it tonight. All night. Analyzing, hinting, questioning. They would talk of nothing else, as from the very first. And they would not be able to conceal their delight.

  “Wasn’t it awful about poor Eva Schillings?”

  No, Julia had thought: from her sisters’ point of view it was not awful at all. It was wonderful. It was priceless.

  It was news.

  Julia’s sisters . . . Sometimes she thought of them as mice. Giant gray mice, in high white collars: groaning a little, panting a little, working about the house. Endlessly, untiringly: they would squint at pictures, knock them crooked, then straighten them again; they swept invisible dust from clean carpets and took the invisible dust outside in shining pans and dumped it carefully into spotless apple-baskets; they stood by beds whose sheets shone gleaming white and tight, and clucked in soft disgust, and replaced the sheets with others. All day, every day, from six in the morning until most definite dusk. Never questioning, never doubting that the work had to be done.

  They ran like arteries through the old house, keeping it alive. For it had become now a part of them, and they part of it—like the handcrank mahogany Victrola in the hall, or the lion-pelted sofa, or the Boutelle piano (ten years silent, its keys yellowed and decayed and ferocious, like the teeth of an aged mule).

  Nights, they spoke of sin. Also of other times and better days: Maud and Louise—sitting there in the bellying heat of the obsolete but steadfast stove, hooking rugs, crocheting doilies, sewing linen, chatting, chatting.

  Occasionally Julia listened, because she was there and there was nothing else to do; but mostly she didn’t. It had become a simple thing to rock and nod and think of nothing at all, while they traded dreams of dead husbands, constantly relishing their mutual widowhood—relishing it!—pitching these fragile ghosts into moral combat. “Ernie, God rest him, was an honorable man.” (So were they all, Julia would think, all honorable men; but we are here to praise Caesar, not to bury him . . .) “Jack would be alive today if it hadn’t been for that trunk lid slamming down on his head: that’s what started it all.” Poor Ernie! Poor Jack!

  (He walked along the railroad tracks, blending with the night. He could have been young, or old: an age-hiding beard dirtied his face and thr
oat. He wore a blue sweater, ripped in a dozen places. On the front of the sweater was sewn a large felt letter: E. Also sewn there was a small design showing a football and calipers. His gray trousers were dark with stain where he had fouled them. He walked along the tracks, seeing and not seeing the pulse of light far ahead; thinking and not thinking, Perhaps I’ll find it there, Perhaps they won’t catch me, Perhaps I won’t be hungry any more . . .)

  “You forgot the margarine,” Louise said, holding the large sack upside down.

  “Did I? I’m sorry.” Julia took her place at the table. The food immediately began to make her ill: the sight of it, the smell of it. Great bowls of beans, crisp-skinned chunks of turkey, mashed potatoes. She put some on her plate, and watched her sisters. They ate earnestly; and now, for no reason, this, too, was upsetting.

  She looked away. What was it? What was wrong?

  “Mick says that fellow didn’t die,” Maud announced. “Julia—”

  “What fellow?”

  “At the asylum, that got choked. He’s going to be all right.”

  “That’s good.”

  Louise broke a square of toast. She addressed Maud: “What else did he say, when you talked to him? Are they making any progress?”

  “Some. I understand there’s a bunch of police coming down from Seattle. If they don’t get him in a few days, they’ll bring in some bloodhounds from out-of-state. Of course, you can imagine how much Mick likes that!”

  “Well, it’s his own fault. If he was any kind of a sheriff, he’d of caught that fellow a long time before this. I mean, after all, Burlington just isn’t that big.” Louise dismembered a turkey leg, ripped little shreds of the meat off, put them into her mouth.

  Maud shook her head. “I don’t know. Mick claims it isn’t like catching an ordinary criminal. With this one, you never can guess what he’s going to do, or where he’ll be. Nobody has figured out how he stays alive, for instance.”

  “Probably,” Louise said, “he eats bugs and things.”

  Julia folded her napkin quickly and pressed it onto the table.

  Maud said, “No. Most likely he finds stray dogs and cats.”

  They finished the meal in silence. Not, Julia knew, because there was any lull in thought: merely so the rest could be savored in the living room, next to the fire. A proper place for everything.