The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

by John Waters

  GOD

  HOME BY DARK

  Every day his grandfather bought him a new toy of a cheap kind, and a little racing car made out of chocolate. The boy ate the racing car slowly and almost dutifully as he and his grandfather sat on the immense porch and talked about how the birds know when to leave for the South.

  “Have we ever been South?” the boy asked his grandfather, after he had finished the chocolate racing car and wiped his hands carefully on his cowboy handkerchief.

  “No,” the old man said. “Not since your parents died.”

  “Why don’t we go?” the young boy said.

  “There would be no reason to,” the old man replied.

  The birds that had been twittering on the huge lawn that surrounded the great white house in which he lived with his grandfather suddenly rose together in a flock as if hearing an inaudible signal, and disappeared into a clump of trees far off.

  “There they all go,” the boy told his grandfather.

  “There they go,” the old man repeated.

  “Are you glad they’re gone?” the young boy wondered.

  “They’re not really gone. Not South,” the old man told the boy. “It isn’t time yet—it’s only July.”

  “Oh, I knowed they hadn’t gone South,” the boy told his grandfather. “I saw them yesterday do it. They practice like this all day long. They twitter and twitter and twitter, then they all get silent and then zoom, they all fly off like they knowed it was time.”

  “Knew,” the grandfather corrected.

  “Yes, knew,” the boy nodded, and put his hand gently on his grandfather’s hand.

  “Birds are really strange creatures,” the old man admitted. “They remember always where to go, where to build their nests, where to return to. . . .” He shook his head.

  “They know to go South when it’s cold,” the boy agreed. “Except the sparrows. They stay all winter, poor little fellows. They are tough. They don’t have no more feathers than the other birds, yet they stay right on, don’t they?”

  The grandfather nodded.

  “Maybe, though, they do have more feathers and we can’t see them,” the boy added, thinking.

  “That could be,” the old man told his grandson, and he brought his cane up now painfully, and then pressed down with it with his hand.

  The boy waited a little for his grandfather to say something more, and the old man, sensing the boy’s need for words, said: “Did you like your chocolate racing car?”

  “It was sweet and bitter and sweet all at the same time, and then at the very end it was soapy.”

  “Soapy?” the grandfather wondered.

  The boy nodded.

  “Well, then there was something wrong with it,” the old man complained faintly.

  “No,” the boy said airily. “That’s the way the sweet and the bitter get after you have them both together. See,” he said pulling on his grandfather’s cane a little, “after you taste the sweet you taste the bitter and after you taste the sweet again you taste the sweet and the bitter, and it’s only soapy for a second?”

  “I see,” the grandfather nodded.

  “And then it’s all sweet!” The boy laughed, and he jumped up and down on the porch steps, making strange little sounds imitating nobody knew what.

  “And I lost a tooth!” the boy told his grandfather.

  “Cook told me,” the old man informed him.

  “Tonight when I go to bed, I am going to put it under my pillow and when I wake up in the morning do you know what is going to be under where I slept all night?”

  The grandfather smiled and shook his head.

  “A pot of gold,” the boy told him.

  “What will you do with it?” the grandfather asked.

  “I might turn into a bird and go South then,” the boy told him.

  “But you wouldn’t want to leave your old granddad and Cook,” the grandfather chided.

  The boy thought a moment and said, “I would fly back for supper.”

  “Well, it will be interesting to see your pot of gold tomorrow,” the old man agreed.

  “You really think I will get it then?” the boy asked.

  “All wishes like that come true,” the grandfather said somewhat gravely. “It’s because they’re a . . . a pure wish.”

  “A pure wish?” the boy wondered, scratching his nose. “What’s that?”

  “Well, like pure candy; you’ve had that, you know.”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Your chocolate racing car is pure candy,” the grandfather said, unsure this was so, and no conviction in his voice.

  “Oh,” the boy answered.

  “All you really wished for, you see,” the grandfather explained, “was to have your wish come true. You really hadn’t thought what you would do with your wish and your pot of gold.”

  “Yes,” the boy agreed, but his attention wandered.

  “So tonight when you go to sleep you must just think that you want the pot of gold, and that is all you want. And don’t wish for it too hard, you know.”

  “No?” the boy raised his voice.

  “Not too hard. That would frighten the good fairy away.”

  “The good fairy?” the boy wondered.

  “Yes. Who did you think brought your pot of gold?”

  “I thought,” the boy felt his way. “I thought . . . somebody dead.”

  “What?” the old man said, and he moved his cane again so that now it pointed down to the grass where the birds had gathered in a flock.

  “Cook didn’t really tell me who did bring it,” the boy said, studying the confusion on his grandfather’s face.

  “Yes,” the old man said absently, and then looking at his grandson he said, “well, it’s really the good fairy, I expect. Don’t you know about her?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Well, she is the one who’s supposed to bring the gold.” And the old man laughed rather loudly.

  “Do you believe in her?” the boy asked.

  “The good fairy?” the old man said, and he began to laugh again, but stopped. “Yes, I do,” he said after a pause and with a sleepy serious expression.

  The grandfather fished his heavy gold watch out of his vest pocket and looked at its face.

  “Seven P.M.,” he said.

  “Seven P.M.,” the boy repeated. “One hour to bedtime.”

  “That’s right,” the grandfather said, and he put his hand on the boy’s head.

  “Why don’t you want to go South?” the young boy wondered, suddenly.

  “Well,” the old man stirred in his chair. “Memories, I suppose, you know.” But then looking at his grandson he knew the boy did not know, and he said, “It’s a long story.”

  “You don’t remember why?” the boy asked.

  “When you’re older I will talk about it,” the old man began. “You see there’s so much explanation to it, and well, I’m very old, and it tires me out when I make long explanations.”

  “What is explanation—just telling everything, then?”

  “Yes,” the old man smiled. “And if I told you why I don’t want to go South why we’d be here for days!”

  “But we are anyhow!” the boy exclaimed. “We’re always just standing and sitting and standing and talking here or watching the birds.”

  The old man was silent.

  “Ain’t we?” the boy said.

  “Well, if I was a bird I would never go South,” the old man spoke almost as if to himself.

  The boy waited and then when his grandfather said no more he told him: “I would always come home at dark, I think, if I was a bird.”

  “Yes, sir, tomorrow,” the old man’s voice sounded, taking on warmth, “you’ll have your pot of gold!”

  “Hurray!” the small boy shouted, and he ran around the old man’s chair making sounds now that were those of a jet.

  “What will you buy me tomorrow?” the boy asked his grandfather.

  “But tomorrow
you will have your own pot of gold!” the grandfather told his grandson. “You’ll be rich!”

  “Will I, then?” the boy wondered.

  “Don’t you believe you’ll have it?” the old man interrogated.

  “No,” the boy said softly.

  “But you must believe,” the grandfather warned him.

  “Why?” the boy asked, looking closely into his grandfather’s face.

  “You must always believe in one thing, that one thing.”

  “What is that one thing?” the boy asked, an almost scared look on his face.

  “Oh, it’s hard to say,” the old man admitted failure again.

  “Not like going South now, don’t tell me again,” the boy complained.

  “No, this is even harder to explain than going South, but I will try to tell you.”

  The old man drew his grandson closer to him and arranged the collar of the boy’s shirt. He said: “There is always one thing a person believes and wants to believe even if he doesn’t believe it.”

  “Ahem,” the boy said, standing on only one leg.

  “Do you see?” the old man asked, his face soft and smiling.

  “Yes,” the boy replied, his voice hard.

  “All right, then,” the old man went on. “There is this one thing you want and you want it more than anything in the world. You see?”

  “Like the birds knowing where to fly, you mean?” the boy was cautious.

  “Yes,” the old man doubted this, and then said, “but more like your pot of gold.”

  “Oh,” the boy replied.

  “You want this one thing, and you have to go on believing in it, no matter what.”

  “Well, what is the thing?” the boy smiled broadly now, showing the place in his mouth where he had lost his tooth, which was a front one.

  “Only the person who knows can tell!” the grandfather said loudly as though this were a joke now.

  “But am I old enough to know?” the boy said, puzzled and surprised.

  “You’re old enough and you should tell me now,” the grandfather encouraged him.

  “So,” the boy paused, screwing his eyes shut, and he stood first on one foot and then on another. “I would like my father and mother both to be alive again, and all of us, including you, living South.”

  The old man opened his mouth and closed it again.

  “Isn’t that the right answer?” the boy said, worried.

  “Yes, of course,” the old man hurriedly agreed.

  “You don’t act like it was the right answer,” the boy complained.

  “Well, it is, anyhow. The only thing was—I was thinking about wishes that are about the future, you see.”

  “Oh,” the boy was disappointed. Then in a kind of querulous voice he said, “My wish wasn’t the future?”

  “It’s so hard to explain,” the grandfather laughed, and he roughed up the boy’s hair.

  “Well,” the boy said, “let’s talk about things we can tell each other.”

  The grandfather laughed.

  The light was beginning to die slowly in the trees, and a full rounded moon began to show in the near distance.

  Suddenly the boy said, Oh in a scared voice.

  “What is it?” the grandfather was concerned.

  “I think I lost my tooth,” the boy said.

  “You did?” the grandfather was even more alarmed now than the boy.

  “I did, I lost it.” He felt suddenly in his pockets.

  “When we were talking about the birds, you know, I throwed my hand out . . . and the tooth must have been in my hand.”

  “You threw your hand out. Well, then it’s in the grass,” the grandfather said.

  “Yes,” the boy agreed.

  The old man got out of his chair and his grandson helped him silently down the twelve steps that led to the long walk about which extended the immense lawn where the tooth had been thrown.

  They searched patiently in the long grass, which had needed cutting for some time.

  “It was such a little tooth,” the boy said, as though he realized this fact for the first time.

  The old man could not bend over very far, but his eyes, which were still keen, looked sharply about him for the tooth.

  “Oh, what shall I ever do!” the boy said suddenly.

  “But it will turn up!” the old man cried, but there was the same note of disappointment and fear in his voice, which, communicating itself to the boy, caused the latter to weep.

  “You mustn’t cry,” the grandfather was stern. “It won’t do at all!”

  “But the pot of gold and all!” the boy cried.

  “It doesn’t matter at all,” the grandfather said, and he touched the boy on the face.

  “But you told me it did.” The boy wept now.

  “I told you what?” the old man said.

  “You told me there was just that one thing you should want to believe in.”

  “But you’ve only lost your tooth,” the old man replied. “And we’ll find it. It isn’t lost forever. The gardener will find it when he comes.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid not,” the boy said, wandering about now picking up the grass by the handfuls, looking and watching about him in the fading light.

  “If we only hadn’t let Cook take the flashlight we might locate it with that,” the grandfather said, a few minutes later, when the light was quite gone.

  The boy now just stood in one place staring down at the grass.

  “I think we’ll have to give up the search for tonight,” the grandfather finally said.

  “But this is the only night I can have my wish!” the boy cried. “This is the ONLY night.”

  “Nonsense,” the grandfather told him. “Not true at all.”

  “But it is, it is,” the boy contradicted his grandfather, gravely.

  “How do you know?” the grandfather wondered.

  “My mother told me,” the boy said.

  “But you don’t . . . you don’t remember her!” the grandfather stared into the growing dark.

  “She told me in my sleep,” the boy said, his voice plain, unemphatic.

  The grandfather looked at his grandson’s face but the dark hid it and its expression from him.

  “Let’s go up the steps now,” the grandfather told him.

  The small boy helped the old man up the twelve steps, and at the last one the old man laughed, making fun of his fatigue.

  “Don’t ever get old now, don’t you ever do that,” he laughed.

  The grandfather sat down heavily in the chair, his cane thrown out as though commanding something, or somebody.

  “We’ll find your tooth tomorrow, or we’ll all be hanged,” the grandfather said cheerily. “And we won’t let Cook take our flashlight again, will we?”

  The boy did not answer. He stood as he stood every night beside his grandfather, looking out over the western sky, tonight half-seeing the red harvest moon rise.

  “I will buy you something different tomorrow,” the grandfather said, “so that it will be a real surprise. Do you hear?”

  The boy said yes.

  “You’re not crying now,” the grandfather said. “That’s good.”

  The boy nodded.

  “I’m glad you’re brave too, because a boy should not cry, really, no matter even . . . Well, he should never cry.”

  “But I don’t know what to believe in now,” the boy said in a dry old voice.

  “Fiddlesticks,” the old man said. “Now come over here and sit on my lap and I will talk to you some more.”

  The boy moved slowly and sat down on his grandfather’s lap.

  “Ouch,” the grandfather said playfully when he felt how heavy the boy was.

  “Just the two of us,” the old man said. “Just the two of us here, but we’re old friends, aren’t we. Good, good old friends.”

  He pushed the boy’s head tight against his breast so he would not hear the sounds that came out now like a confused and trackless torrent, mak
ing ridiculous the quiet of evening, and he closed his own eyes so that he would not see the moon.

  SCRAP OF PAPER

  Ihadn’t the slightest intention of pampering Naomi or condescending to her in any way; the wages I paid her were far in advance of their day when she came to me. I allowed her, for example, my own reading material, and many a time I have invited her to a bite of cake in my presence when she served me tea; all these things I repeat now because the rumor she has been circulating that I struck her for having faded my beautiful rose carpets from Portugal is quite beside the point; what I did to Naomi could never, not even in a court of law, be construed as striking. I merely slapped her. She deserved it, she admitted she deserved it. She faded my carpets, and she didn’t care. But that was not the real crisis, and it did not cause her to leave. Naomi had changed. She was not a double personality, as some people call it, not a bit of it; Naomi had simply become another woman from the pleasant, efficient, know-her-place, very attractive though black as the ace of spades girl I took in some twenty years ago.

  “You’re a woman of at least forty, though you lie to your men friends about your age!” I cried to her on that terrible April morning when she smashed the entire china closet before my eyes. “Why, oh why,” I went on, nearly beside myself, “did you fade that beautiful pair of carpets from Portugal? . . . You willfully and deliberately exposed them to that pitiless sunlight. . . .” Then she threw the beautiful Dresden teapot straight at me. . . . I was calm. I said, “Naomi, if that had hit me, you would have gone to death row. . . .”

  I paid her, of course, and never expected to set eyes on her again, but she returned. Wore a veil, and asked if she could bring her husband to visit. . . .

  “What sort of a young man did you marry, may I ask?” I said, and she did not evidently like the long stress I had put on the word young.

  “I married me a man, Mrs. Bankers,” she replied.

  “Naomi, my dear.” I raised my hand as a warning, for my fingers were resting near my emergency telephone. “Remember,” I said, “we are friends now.”

  Stung perhaps by the rudeness in her voice, I cried, “You are no more the Naomi who came to me in 1947 than you’re a water buffalo!” I knew I had chosen a poor comparison. I had been reading something about the animal in a picture magazine, and it came unexpectedly to mind.