by Ed Lacy
October was a mild month and I dug up pails of clay and went to work. I was pushing myself, trying to knock out a major work in my first attempt... with the result I developed a very trite idea. I tried doing a small tableau to be called, Mankind, which would have as a base a woman on her stomach and trying to get up, and a man stepping on her back, then part of a leg and a high-heeled slipper on his back—with a section of a man's foot on the knee of this leg. Sure, it was obvious, a corny piece of cynicism, but for some reason I liked the idea and worked hard at it. Didn't bother with sketches or models, just started working on what I was certain would be a “masterpiece.”
October was a good month. I caught up on all the sleep I'd missed during the summer by not getting up till noon. I'd work all afternoon—long as the light held—then go down to the beach for surf casting. Evenings I'd listen to the radio, read, or drop in on the Alvins.
Tony and Alice Alvins were local people who had been influenced by the summer invasion of artists. Tony started doing some bad water-color abstractions, while Alice turned writer and, after doing a trashy novel, she threw it away and started a long book about the Long Island Indians— which was rather good, in spots. They had a comfortable all-year-round house and Tony worked at the Grumman Aircraft factory and made a good salary.
I guess they were glad to have me around: Sandyhook is pretty isolated and lonely in the winter. I'd drop in and bull with them about art, Paris, the Village, and the world in general. Tony had been a combat man, had a Purple Heart, and we often talked about the European towns we'd both been in.
It got so I'd barge in without ringing their bell, get a beer out of the icebox, thumb through their newspapers and magazines, even read Alice's novel over her shoulder as she typed. I'd bring them fish, and sometimes a bottle of rye.
There's such a thing as being too intimate and two petty things came up that ruined our friendship—for me, at least. One day when I was in their house and Alice was out shopping and Tony at work, I was searching through his desk for a pipe cleaner, when I came upon a Luger in one of the drawers. I admired the deadly beauty of the gun, left it where I'd found it. Later, when I casually mentioned it to Tony, he got angry, snapped, “Thought I had that hidden away. Don't see why you had to snoop around and...”
“Sorry. I wasn't snooping,” I said, stiffly. “Well, I don't like people to know about me having a gun.”
“I certainly won't go around blabbing about it I know it's against the law and...”
“I have a permit,” Tony said. “It's... the gun brings back a lot of unpleasant memories. I took it off a dead Nazi—guy I killed. The point is I might have captured the guy alive, but it was in my first combat and I was trigger-souvenir-happy... Well, forget it. Gun means things to me other people can't understand and... Just forget it.”
“Sure, I never saw it,” I said, still angry.
Several weeks later we were sitting around the table after I had helped them put away a duck supper and Alice was talking about the summer colony—some of the people had sent her cards from Mexico. She said, “They have money to travel, but out here they're nothing but spongers. They'll eat you out of house and home and never even think about reciprocating.”
I'm sure she didn't mean that as a dig at me, but it made me uncomfortable, as though I'd outlasted my welcome. From then on I only saw them once or twice a week, instead of every day, never stayed for supper or took a drink. Tony and Alice didn't seem to notice the difference, so maybe it was a hint.
My troubles started in November when Nature lowered the boom on me. It got so cold the water pipes busted and it cost me twenty bucks to have them fixed, and after that I had to keep the water running all the time and the noise drove me crazy. I'd spent far too much money—I had less than a hundred dollars left—so I began cutting down on everything, eating lots of starches and fish. I found a kerosene lamp in one of the empty cottages and used that to save electricity. My radio broke and I didn't bother to fix it. As it grew colder I became a hermit. I'd get up in the morning, force myself to leave the warm blankets. Not wanting to buy oil, I'd made a stove out of some tin cans and I'd run around the beach to find driftwood, and any frozen fish, then dash back to my shack and start the wood fire going.
I'd stuff the door and windows with paper to keep the cold out, and by early afternoon the place would be comfortably warm and I'd start working. By six it would begin to grow dark and I'd knock off. But I stayed in the shack, for to open the door would let out all my precious heat. I'd eat fish and a can of beans, then huddle around the kerosene lamp and read anything I could find—usually this old World Almanac, then climb into my bed, the stuffy air giving me a headache.
Actually I was bored stiff with myself. I knew my “masterpiece” was junk, but I wanted to finish it. The only thing that gave me any confidence was a piece I did of two dogs mounting each other. I saw them on the beach one day, did a quick sketch of them, and later did it in clay as a gag. I'd really caught their movements, and as it turned out, it was the best work I did during those months.
The damn weather turned colder and colder. The clay froze and I had to keep washing it down with a hot damp rag before it was workable. During the second week in December my armature broke and the figure dropped to the floor. Being hard and frozen, the clay broke into a million pieces and... that was that.
I felt trapped. I couldn't go back to New York—I didn't have enough money for carfare and a room, so I started working again, but everything went screwy. Most times I was so hungry I couldn't think of anything but food. Like a pregnant woman, I'd get a driving yen for a steak or a soda, or a drink, and sometimes I'd give in—go to the tavern, have a few shots, watch TV, feel warm and almost human again.
By Christmas I had less than $20 and spent a lot of time on the beach, bundled up in all the clothing I had, picking up frozen fish. I must have eaten fish and beans in every form possible, including a few I invented. I was sick of fish, of the cold, of myself, of being alone. The Alvins asked me over for Christmas dinner, and for some crazy reason I refused—and felt good about it.
I hung around my shack as though it was a jail. I felt completely frustrated, getting no place. Sometimes I told myself I had to start from scratch, remembered Bonard's long conversations about a sculptor knowing as much about the body as a doctor. I'd read my anatomy book, then spent long hours studying my facial muscles in the mirror, or feeling the muscles in my arms and legs... and often wondered if I wasn't going mad.
I'd put my money in a postal savings account, so I wouldn't piss it away. On December 31 I had a dollar and seventy cents in cash on me, and seven bucks in the saving account. It was rainy and windy, the water running in the sink seemed to be streaming through my brain, and I couldn't get the damn shack warm. While trying to find driftwood, 'I stopped and had a few beers. Then I drank some raisin wine I had aging, but it didn't do any good. I tried fooling with some clay but it was too cold to work. I was ready to admit I was licked... I wasn't a sculptor, I wasn't anything but a jerk.
While I heated a pan of water, so I could wash and shave and get out of there, my inner mind kept calmly telling me I had to stick it out, that all my life I'd run from things... that I really hadn't given myself a chance to see if I had any ability.
But I knew I couldn't take it any longer, at least not that night. New Year's Eve never meant a damn to me, but now I had this terrific longing to see people, to be around noise and lights, and I knew I'd really blow my top if I spent another hour in the gloomy shack. I washed and dressed and as I walked toward the road I passed Tony coming home with an armful of packages. He asked, “What time you coming over tonight?”
“Can't make it. Got something on in the city.”
“Oh. We were sort of counting on you—the three of us tying one on. How's the work coming?”
“Great! Happy New Year!” I said, walking on. The goddamn wind nearly tore me apart as I walked to the highway. I stood there, bending to the wind, when I saw th
is sleek roadster coming and gave it the thumb.
To my surprise it stopped. The driver was a young fellow wearing a tux and I sat down beside him, on my way to New York... to nothing.
I'd blacked out. Now, when I opened my eyes, for a time I didn't know where I was. I stared up at this old boxlike wooden private house and the little garage with the angular roof. All I could see was the ugly square of the house, the sharp roof of the garage. I wanted to see soft curves... it was horrible to realize these dull, conventional designs, this stupid scene, might be my final picture of our earth.
The pain was so absolutely complete it drowned out everything else; I didn't feel it—didn't feel a damn thing. The burning bullet hole in my stomach seemed like part of a different body, vaguely connected to the rest of me. I knew I was bleeding badly, hanging on to life by a thread, corny as that may sound. Only when you're dying nothing seems trite or real, or matters overmuch. In fact, it's difficult to believe you are dying or...
Logan asked, “What is this?”
I shut my eyes.
First the square house and now his face coming into focus—a face so average as to represent all the ugliness of life, a memo of all things banal. It was comical—after all these hustling years, I had to end up a horrid bloody mess in a Bronx back yard.
I still had one thing to do, see Elma again, explain it all to her. Elma baby, I gave it all I had, but it wasn't enough, not nearly enough to...
Hearing the rustle of clothing, I opened my eyes. Logan had his belt and tie off, was bending over me, blotting out the sky. He seemed to be fooling with my guts.
“Trying to get a tourniquet around your thighs,” he said. “Want you alive till the cops get here, so you can explain....”
“Listen,” I said, and it was a great big effort to speak. “Hell with cops. Get my... my... wife. Phone is... Sandyhook... 7... 3... 6. Riverhead operator... Long Island. Mrs. Elma Jameson. Have to... hurry.”
He straightened up. His face looked overbig as he shook his head slowly, repeating, “Mrs. Elma Jameson, Sandyhook.. L.I.?”
I tried to nod, gave that up.
Getting to his feet, he said, “Damn, this sure is...”
“Come on... hurry...!”
He said, “Yeah, that's best,” and left.
What does a dying man think about? Above the house I saw the sky all a clean blue, and the sun out somewheres. Elma be at the beach, take her at least an hour's fast driving to reach me. How could I explain all this to her? What would I say, what made sense? Elma, because I'm so wonderfully crazy in love with you I killed a man, tried to murder this private detective...?
That sounded so melodramatic I wanted to laugh. Oh God, my poor Elma, the headlines would crucify her. If I could only save her from that, or...
The dick was looking down at me again, the uninteresting lines of his clean-cut face. There was a change in his eyes, they held a different sort of puzzled look. He said, “Broke into this house, found a phone. Your wife's on her way. Damn it, why did you go for your gun? Guns are my line, what I'm good at—you didn't have a chance, Mr. Jameson.”
MISTER Jameson! This was a respectful dick, this goddamn snooping bird-dog who'd been sticking his nose into my life these last few months. The crummy things men do for money, for a job.
“If you only hadn't pulled a gun...?”
“Had to,” I told him, my voice like a distant echo. “You were closing the trap on me. Did... lot of trapping... when I was a kid in Kentucky. Used to catch... Will I last till Elma gets here?”
“You're bleeding like a pig but that tourniquet seems to be holding... some. I sure hope you last, Mr. Jameson, till she gets here—or the cops. Christ—the cops!” He began to sweat, it ran down his lean face in big glistening drops.
His wet face disappeared from view. I stared up at the wash-blue sky. Everything was so quiet and peaceful— the only sound was the steady throbbing of my heart, even that was a small sound.
My life was being pumped out in this forgotten Bronx alley... That was okay with me—only Elma would get here a few seconds before that marvelous little machine they called a heart, stopped.
The thought hit me hard.... Suppose I didn't die? That would be a worse mess... the trial, the chair... all be so stupid. Perhaps if I could get the tourniquet loose....
I tried to sit up, tried to raise my arms... a thick black wave washed over me....
... Kept washing over me, as though I was lying on a dark beach....
I heard somebody cursing, quick little cuss-words. I could hear them distinctly because everything else was so quiet... but the words sounded as though they were filtered through a heavy screen.
It took time to open my eyes. The air seemed a little thick, misty, smelted oversweet. I got Logan in focus. He was bending over me... doing something to my wrist... then he was smashing it and my wrist-watch against the cold stone sidewalk. He squatted beside me, asked, “Mr. Jameson, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Get this, I'm giving you a break and it can mean my neck. Remember this, Mr. Jameson, you got shot NOW, busted your watch when you fell. Got that, not a half hour ago but NOW, Mr. Jameson?”
“Yes,” I had to swallow a few times to clear the thick air out of my throat. It was an absurd comedy—he'd just shot me and he was so-so polite.
“Remember that. I'm calling the cops now, an ambulance, so...”
“I thought you... called...?”
“Mr. Jameson, guess you won't be in no shape to say much, but keep remembering you got shot now. I'm going to slip the cops a phony yarn. After I called Mrs. Jameson I fell off the chair in my excitement and ripped the phone out of the wall. It's just a silly enough yarn to hold up. Stupid me, an accident, see? I don't know where I'll find another phone around here, take me time. But I'm going now to phone the cops. I'm giving you a break. Want your wife to get here before the cops do. Then we'll see. Mr. Jameson, buddy, you got to understand how I'm sticking my neck out. I can be in a holy mess of trouble, real trouble, but I'm doing this for you. Understand?”
“Thanks,” I said, not knowing what he was talking about.
“All you got to do is hold on, live till Mrs. Jameson gets here. Mean, I couldn't say much over the phone and...”
“I'll live... till Elma comes,” I said, wishing he would go away. When you have minutes left in life, no point in wasting them talking to a stranger.
Something was wrong with Logan, he looked worried, still sweating. I could see him pretty clear through the thick air. He'd nothing to be afraid of, shot me in self-defense... that clumsy, long gun barrel.
I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, the lids were too heavy. As I closed them, he said something. I felt him walking away, feeling the jar of each of his steps on the stone—shaking me a bit.
I felt all soft and weak, terribly lazy. The only thing that kept me from drifting away on the dark wave was the throbbing of my heart, which seemed to nail me to the spot.
I wondered how long it would hold me there. “Elma, Elma,” I said to myself, and how beautiful the mere sound of her name was! “Darling... hurry... please.”
CHAPTER FOUR
NEW YEAR'S DAY WAS bright and sharp.
I awoke with the sun across our bed. I sat up and looked at my watch—it was 11 a.m. Why I should look at my watch the first thing, I don't know. Habit is no answer—I'd never been in a hurry to go any place. It took me a second to realize Elma wasn't in bed with me. Calling her name, I quickly ran my hand under the pillow—and felt ashamed— the money was still there.
“Taking a bath, Marsh,” she said.
I should have known she hadn't gone—her clothes were still on the chair, where I'd flung them. Getting out of bed, I stretched and went to the window. It felt fine to be standing in the nude, looking down at New York. I wondered why nobody had ever tried doing the skyscrapers in wire. Maybe some day I'd try it, although I hadn't worked in wire much.
The rain had changed to snow durin
g the night and there was still some clean white snow on the rooftops. Be muddy and slushy in the streets. Maybe I could find a shoe store open—or get a pair of rubbers in a cigar-store.
Pushing the bathroom door open, I waved to Elma and sat on the John... watching the graceful line the water made at her breasts, the curve of her hips and legs under the soapy water... the little islands her raised knees made. And of course the wonderful face, the odd eyes, the dark hair, and that big-mouthed smile.
Elma said, “Good morning. Good New Year's morning, honey.”
I went over and kissed her and she put a hot wet arm around my neck. I whispered, “Elma, we have a lot of talking to do.”
She smiled. “But not in the tub.” She knocked the stopper out with her toes, held out her hand. “I'll run your bath.”
I helped her stand up, took a towel and started to dry her. I must have been staring at her stomach, which seemed normally round, for she said, “Stop staring like an X-ray machine. He and/or she is in there. I'll start getting big about now.”