The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

by John Waters

He wanted desperately to be rid of Claire and even as he had this feeling he felt more love and pity for him than ever before. As he sat there gazing at Claire, he knew he loved him more than any other being. He was almost sure that he would never feel such tenderness for any other person. And then this tenderness would be followed by fury and hatred and loathing, so that he was afraid he would do something violent, would strike the sick boy down and harm him.

  “Claire,” he said looking at him in anguish. “What are we going to do about this?”

  Claire moved his closed eyes vaguely. “Don’t know,” Claire replied.

  Fenton smiled to think that Claire did not ask what this was. Well, the boy was past caring, and it was plain enough what this was: this was everything that faced and surrounded them. It was plain, all right, what it was. Their trouble had made them both one.

  “What do you want me to do?” Fenton said, his desperation growing. “Tell me what to do.”

  “We can’t go away now, can we?” Claire said, and his voice was calmer but weaker.

  Fenton considered this, taking out from his pants cuff a cigarette butt which he had begun in the greatwoman’s house, lighting it swiftly with a kitchen match, and inhaling three powerful drags all at once.

  Claire opened his eyes slowly and stared at his brother, waiting for the answer.

  “No, we can’t go away anywhere,” Fenton said.

  “Isn’t there any place to go but here?” Claire asked.

  “This is as far as we can get. Anyhow for the winter. . . . We have to stick in here now.”

  Claire closed his eyes again.

  “Unless, of course, you want to go and live at Grainger’s with me,” Fenton said.

  “What would I do there in her big house?” Claire said angrily, his eyes opening and closing.

  “She would get a special room for you, where you could do anything you want. She could buy you anything you want, take you anywhere and show you anything. You would never know how happy you could be.”

  “What are you going to do there?” Claire wondered with surprise. . . .

  “I’m going to marry her.”

  “Marry?” Claire sat up briefly in bed, but his strength could not hold him up, and falling back flat, he uttered: “You’re not old enough.”

  “I’m more than old enough,” Fenton laughed. “You’ve seen me enough times to know that. I got to make use of what I have, too. She thinks I look like her old husband.”

  “I ain’t going to go there. . . . I ain’t going to leave this house,” Claire said.

  “Well, suit yourself,” Fenton said. “But I’m going over there. . . . The only thing is I don’t believe any of it. It’s a dream I keep having. Not one of those real pleasant dreams you have when you open a package and something beautiful falls out. In this dream even bigger more wonderful things seem like they’re going to happen, getting married to a rich woman and living in a mansion and dressing up like a swell and all that, but at the same time it’s all scary spooky and goddamned rotten. . . .”

  “It’s rotten, all right,” Claire said. “You don’t have to tell nobody that twice.”

  “Well, when there ain’t nothing else you got to stoop down and pick up the rotten. You ought to know that.”

  “Not me. I don’t have to pick it up if I don’t want to.”

  “Well, then you can stick here till you choke to death on it,” Fenton said passionately.

  They both stopped as if listening to the words he had just said. They contained enough of some sort of truth and the truth was so terrible they had to listen to it as though it were being repeated on a phonograph for them.

  “When do you aim on going?” Claire said suddenly, his voice older and calmer.

  “In a day or so,” Fenton warned him.

  “Well it could be sooner. . . . You don’t mind if I just stay here, do you?” Claire implored him.

  “There’s nothing to stop you staying here, of course,” Fenton said irritably, twisting the hair around his ear. “This house don’t have no owner, no tenants, nobody going to bother you but the spooks.” He hurried on, talking past the pain that registered on Claire’s face when he heard the words. “But I ain’t coming dragging my ass over here every day just to see how you are when you could be living like a king.”

  “You don’t need to come over and see me on account of I ain’t asking you to,” Claire said.

  “Well, then don’t be sorry if something happens to you. . . .”

  “Nothing ain’t going to happen and you know it,” Claire shouted. “Why would anything happen to me?”

  “Well, that’s because you don’t know nothing about cities is all,” he said. “Do you know how many murders are done right in this one town?”

  Claire did not answer for a moment and then said, “Those are rich people they murder. Like that old woman you’re going to move in with. She’s a likely murder person now. And you too if you get to be her husband.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Fenton said. “Most of the murders they do in this town are on bums, young boys and men that don’t have no home and come from nowhere, these they find with their throats cut and their brains mashed out in alleys and behind billboards. Damned few rich people are ever found murdered in this town.”

  “You think you can scare me into moving into your old woman’s house, don’t you?” Claire said. “Well, you can do to her all you want to, but I ain’t going to be there to watch you . . . fuck her.”

  “Now listen to that dirty-mouthed little bugger talk, would you. What would Mom think if she knew her religious little boy talked like a cocksucker?” He slapped Claire across the face. “. . . after all I done for you,” Fenton finished.

  “Go be with that old woman, why don’t you, and leave me alone,” Claire warned him. “I don’t need you nor her. I don’t need nobody.”

  “You’ll come bellyachin’ around trying to get in touch with me, you’ll come crawling like you always do some night when you get the shit scared out of you in this house, hearing the sounds that you can’t explain and maybe seeing something too. . . .”

  Claire could not control the look of terror that appeared at Fenton’s words.

  “Claire,” Fenton changed suddenly to a tone of imploring, “you got to listen to reason. You can’t live in this old house alone. . . . Something will happen to you. Can’t you see that. . . .”

  “Why will it?” Claire said, his terror abating a little, searching in himself for some secret strength.

  “Thing happen here. Everybody knows that. Now listen, Claire,” Fenton went on. “Grainger would be very good to you and you could be happy there with her, you don’t know how happy you would be. You haven’t ever been happy or comfortable before so you don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyhow, Claire, I can’t leave you here. I can’t leave you here. . . . I’d have to do something else first. . . .”

  “I don’t see why not,” he said. “I would rather be dead than go there.”

  “You would not rather be dead. You’re a tough little bastard and you would rather be alive and you know it. . . . I’m not going to leave you here, Claire. I’m going to take you with me and you may just as well make up your mind to it now. . . . Hear?”

  “You won’t even get to drag me because I’m not going. . . .”

  Fenton’s anguish grew. He knew he could not leave Claire and he knew Claire’s determination would be hard to break. He felt suddenly an uncontrollable urge of violence against this puny, defiant, impossible little brother. If he had only not taken him from West Virginia in the first place. Or if he had only died as the doctor had said he would a long time ago. He knew that he did want to go on to the “new life” with Grainger and Parkhearst. He wanted to change, he wanted to wear Russell’s clothes, he wanted the life that was just in sight and which Claire was now preventing. He knew that as long as there was Claire, whether he went with him or stayed in the house hardly mattered, because he knew that as long as there w
as Claire there was part of his old life with him, and he wanted to destroy all that behind him and begin all over again. Claire was a part of his old life, part of his disbelief in himself, the disbelief he could ever change and be something different. Claire did not even believe he could be married and love a woman. And though Claire was younger, he could exert this terrible triumph of failure over him.

  Whether Claire stayed in the old house or followed him to Grainger’s, he would exert a power of defeat over him.

  Then suddenly Fenton realized that he did not want Claire to come with him. He preferred him to stay in the old house. And at the same time he knew that if he stayed he would never have a moment’s peace. . . .

  There was no way out that he could see. He could only stand there staring at Claire with impotence and rage.

  “All right for you,” Fenton said at the end. “All I can say is watch out, watch out something don’t happen now to you.”

  A TENT PRODUCTION of Othello was to take place that night near Sixty-third Street, the young man who had approached Fenton was telling him, and as somebody was following him he would welcome Fenton’s company and protection.

  “Who is Hayden Banks?” Fenton wondered, looking at the handbill which described the dramatic spectacle about to take place.

  “Hayden Banks,” replied the young man, “is one of the greatest living actors. You are probably seeing him just before he is to gain his international reputation. London is already asking for him. Few actors can touch him. He is playing, of course, Othello himself. The costumes are by a friend of mine, and I will introduce you to a good many of the cast, if you like.”

  “I don’t know if I want that,” Fenton said.

  “You will go with me to the performance,” the young man said.

  Fenton did not say anything. He had to go somewhere, of course, there could be no doubt about that.

  “I wish you would come with me because I’m afraid of the man who is following me. Don’t look back now. You see, I’m in trouble,” he explained. “You look like a good kind of bodyguard for me and if you come with me I’m less likely to get into . . . trouble. . . . And I can’t disappoint Hayden Banks. This is the last night of Othello, but I have been afraid to go out all week because this Mexican is following me. I’m in awful trouble with him.”

  Fenton half turned around but he saw nobody in particular behind him, a crowd of people who all seemed to be following them.

  “I’ll go with you,” Fenton said. Then he looked at the young man carefully. He was the most handsome young man he had ever seen, almost as beautiful as a girl in boy’s clothes. He had never seen such beautiful eyelashes. And at the same time the young man looked like Grainger. He might have been Grainger’s brother. He almost wanted to ask him if he was Grainger’s brother, but of course Grainger could not have a brother. . . .

  “You don’t know what it is, being followed.”

  “What will he do if he catches you?”

  The young man stared at him. Fenton could not tell whether he was telling the truth or making this up, but there was a look of fear on his face that must be genuine at least.

  “I wish you wouldn’t use the word catch,” the young man said.

  “Are you afraid he will . . . hurt you,” Fenton changed kill to hurt before he spoke.

  “I’m afraid of the worst,” the young man replied. “And you’ll be an awfully good boy to come with me.”

  Fenton nodded.

  The young man signalled a taxi and, waiting, said, “Those are awfully interesting clothes you have on. I’ve never seen clothes like that before. They remind me of some pictures of my father, wedding pictures.”

  Fenton looked down at himself as though seeing the clothes on himself for the first time. “These are clothes of a friend of mine,” he explained.

  “Get in,” the young man urged as the taxi pulled up beside them. “Get in and don’t stare at the crowd like that.”

  “Was I staring?” Fenton said, like a man awakened from sleepwalking.

  “Staring into the crowd like that might incite him. You have an awful look when you stare,” the young man said, looking more carefully now at Fenton. “I hope I am going to be safe with you now. I don’t usually pick up people on the street like this. And maybe you don’t like Shakespeare.” He began to examine Fenton now more carefully that he felt free of the danger of being followed.

  Fenton could see that his anxiety was genuine, but even so the way he said things seemed womanish and unreal, a little like Parkhearst. Both these men said things as though nothing was really important except the gestures and the words with which they said them. When he listened to either this young man or Parkhearst, Fenton felt that the whole of life must be merely a silly trifling thing to them, which bored them, and which they wanted to end, a movie they felt was too long and overacted.

  “What is your name?” the young man said suddenly.

  Fenton told him and the young man replied, “This is the most interesting name I have ever heard. Is it your own?”

  Fenton looked down at his clothes and said it was.

  “My name is Bruno Korsawski,” he told Fenton.

  They shook hands in the dark of the taxi and Bruno held Fenton’s hand for many seconds.

  “You may have saved my life,” Bruno explained.

  Soon they reached a vast lot deserted except for a giant circus tent before which fluttered, propelled by a giant cooling machine, banners reading

  HAYDEN BANKS THE GENIUS OF THE SPOKEN WORD IN OTHELLO

  In addition to the angry puffing face of Hayden Banks on the posters was a picture of a rather old looking young man dressed, as Fenton thought, like a devil you might expect to see in an old valentine, if valentines had devils, but he lacked horns and a tail.

  Fenton remembered vaguely having read The Merchant of Venice and he had heard from someplace that Othello had to do with a black man who tortured a white woman to death. He felt a vague curiosity to see Hayden Banks, however. There was nobody around the huge empty tent tonight, and the whole scene reminded him of the conclusion of a county fair which he had seen in West Virginia.

  BRUNO KORSAWSKI WAS the kind of man who introduced all of his new friends to all of his old friends. His life was largely a series of introductions, as he was always meeting new people, and these new people had to be introduced to the old people. His idea of the world was a circle, a circle of friends, closed to the rest of men because of his world’s fullness. He had thought that Fenton would be one of his circle. However, the introductions did not go off too well.

  They went at once to the star’s dressing room. A purple sign with strange heavy tulips drawn on it announced MR. HAYDEN BANKS.

  “You dear!” Hayden cried on seeing Bruno. “You look absolutely imperial.”

  Mr. Hayden Banks did not really look human, Fenton thought, and it was not only the deformity of his makeup.

  “This is my friend Fenton Riddleway.”

  Mr. Banks bowed, and Fenton could not think of anything to say to him. . . .

  “Don’t you love his name?” Bruno said to Mr. Hayden Banks.

  “It’s incomparably the best I’ve heard,” Mr. Banks replied. “Uncommonly good. But you’ve got to forgive me now, I haven’t put on my beard yet, and without my beard I’m afraid some of you may mistake me for Desdemona.

  “It’s been so charming seeing you.” Hayden Banks held out his hand to Fenton, and then whispering in Fenton’s ear, he said, “You charmer you.”

  Fenton again could not think of anything to say, and in the hall Bruno said angrily to him, “You didn’t open your mouth.

  “I guess I’m used to people who talk well and a lot,” Bruno explained apologetically as they went to their seats, which were in the first row. “You see what influence can do for you.” Bruno pointed. “The best seats: compliments of Hayden Banks.”

  A small string orchestra was playing, an orchestra which Bruno explained was absolutely without a peer for its i
nterpretation of the Elizabethan epoch. “They stand untouched,” he stated, still speaking of the orchestra.

  Whether it was the nearness of the actors or the oppressive heat of the tent or the general unintelligibility of both what the actors said and what they did, Fenton became sleepy, and he could not control a weakness he had for breaking wind, which considerably upset Bruno, although nobody else in the small audience seemed to hear. Perhaps Fenton’s slumber was due also to the influence of the All Night Theater, and drama for Fenton was a kind of sleeping powder.

  When Hayden Banks made his appearance, there was a tremendous ovation from the first few rows of the tent, and for a while Fenton watched this tall bony man beat his chest with complete lack of restraint and such uncalled-for fury that Fenton was amazed at such enormous energy. He could think of nothing in his own life that would have allowed him to pace, strut and howl like this. He supposed it belonged to an entirely different world where such things were perhaps done. The more, however, the great Moor shouted and complained about his wife’s whoring, the more sleepy Fenton became. It was, however, something of a surprise to hear him fret so much about a whore and have so many rich-looking people nodding and approving of the whole improbable situation.

  “He kills Desdemona,” Bruno explained, watching Fenton doze with increasing displeasure.

  “Would you buy me a drink now?” Fenton asked Bruno during intermission.

  At the bar, the bartender asked Fenton if he was old enough, and Bruno said, “I can vouch for him, Teddy,” and exchanged a knowing look with the bartender.

  “There is one thing,” Bruno began to Fenton after he had nodded to literally scores of friends and acquaintances: “I wonder if you couldn’t control yourself a little more during the soliloquies at least.”

  Fenton knew perfectly well to what Bruno referred but he chose to say, “What are those?”

  “During the performance, dear,” Bruno went on, “you’re making noises which embarrass me since I am among friends who know me and know I brought you as a guest.”

  “My farts, then?” Fenton said without expression.

  “Brute!” Bruno laughed gaily.