The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

by John Waters

  Then, as if it was his turn, Rory touched the hurt place and again all the pain left Moses.

  “What is going on?” Moses wondered after the pain had left again, but he was still too out of breath to say more and was sweating profusely.

  “I can see the bullet is trying to come out from your . . . hide,” the boy remarked.

  Moses tried to look down at his chest to see what Rory saw, but the effort tired him, and he lay back on the pillows under his head.

  “So you’re cool about the rubies from your Dad, ain’t you,” Moses managed to get out these words.

  “Rubies? I guess I have to get used to them,” Rory mumbled.

  “THE BULLET WILL be working its way out, Moses,” Dr. Sherman Cooke told his patient. The doctor had been summoned in the middle of the night to come at once for Moses Swearingen had taken a turn for the worse. Unlike many physicians, Dr. Cooke relished these midnight emergency house calls. He also relished, though he would be the last to admit it, that he got a great deal out of tending someone as unlike any of his other patients as Moses Swearingen.

  “I’m surprised at you, Moses,” Dr. Cooke was saying as he administered the hypodermic. “You boo-hoo and ki-yi more than any woman. Why, I bet Rory here could stand pain better than you.”

  Moses smiled a little at this last remark of the Doc.

  “By the way, Moe, where are these gems I’ve been hearing about for the last week or so? For the jewels are in your possession, I gather.”

  Moses leaned up on one elbow and stared at the doctor.

  “Do you know rubies, Doc?”

  Rory had been sitting quietly and observing everything. He had found the news that the bullet was working its way out evidently of more interest than the gems.

  “Rory,” Moses barked, “go fetch the present from your Dad for the Doc to see, will you.”

  Rory took his own good time before rising and going out of the room.

  “I wouldn’t have recognized the chap,” Dr. Cooke referred to the boy. “You’ve cleaned him up, got rid of his cowlick, and put some decent duds on him.”

  Rory entered with the package from his Dad and set it down on the counterpane beside Moses.

  “Open up the box and show ’em to the Doc,” Moses instructed the boy.

  Again Rory hesitated, and then in his own good time took out one of the panels containing some of the rubies.

  Dr. Cooke whistled at the sight of them, then chuckled and even slapped his thigh. Moses acted disgusted at the doctor’s reaction.

  “I almost wish my first wife was still alive,” Dr. Cooke remarked, squinting one eye and examining one of the larger of the rubies. “Looks genuine enough. But it could be just glass!” he sighed.

  “Glass, my eye,” Moses almost roared, for he felt almost free of pain.

  “You may scoff, Moe. But my first wife had costume jewels so splendid they fooled even the jewel experts.”

  The doctor held up another of the rubies to the light.

  “And even the greatest experts can be fooled in the matter of precious gems,” the Doc added.

  “I wager these are the real McCoy, Doc,” Moses muttered.

  “And what does Rory say to all of this,” Dr. Cooke gazed moodily at the boy. Rory looked brand-new to him now, and the gift of rubies somehow made him seem a complete stranger.

  “Whatever did Pete Driscoll do to be able to lay his hands on these jewels, will you tell me, Moe,” the doctor remarked.

  Both men were then silent for they felt an awkward reticence in mentioning the character of Peter Driscoll in the presence of his son.

  “Why don’t they look like the real thing,” Rory blurted out, an edge in his voice.

  Dr. Cooke gave a start at the boy’s remark for his voice was as new as his appearance, partly owing to the fact his voice was changing.

  “Are you addressing this remark to me, young man,” the doctor wondered. “Or to your benefactor here?”

  Rory made a kind of snorting sound at the Doc’s calling Moses his benefactor, then managed to say, “I guess I was asking both of you.”

  “They’re too beautiful,” Moses said, and he got up and took a seat in the rocking chair.

  “Too beautiful for what?” Dr. Cooke asked.

  “Why too beautiful to be anything but glass. I’ve read somewhere that fine glass imitations or what you called a moment ago costume jewelry can look niftier than the real thing.”

  Dr. Cooke now gave a snort.

  “I must say, Moe,” the doctor weighed his words now, “I have never seen anything to match them. But jewels, if they’re real, pose a problem, and if they’re not real, well, you have something else to worry about.

  “But, Moe, I want to go back to the bullet in your chest. Let me look at your chest again.”

  Before he departed, Dr. Cooke issued instructions both to Moses and Rory.

  “Now, boys, the bullet may come out sometime during the night,” he told them. “I want Rory here to stay with you, Moe, at all times.” The doctor hesitated, blinked, and then went on: “I recommend Rory sleep next to you so there will be no loss of time if the bullet begins to get dislodged. I am leaving a surgical instrument he can help retrieve the bullet with. It’s good you have a king-size bed so Rory can have plenty of room as he looks after you. I’ve left some extra pills also,” he pointed to a package on the big chiffonier.

  “Rory talks in his sleep, Doc.”

  Dr. Cooke guffawed at this remark. “I said I want him as near to you as can be in case the bullet begins to come out. You can’t dislodge the damned thing alone. Anyhow, hearing somebody talk in his sleep is better than having to sleep next to someone who snores. He don’t snore, does he?”

  “I haven’t heard him, Doc.”

  “Then let him share the bed with you until the emergency is passed.”

  Dr. Cooke now rose in all his six feet four inches, and grabbing his little black bag, gave Moses a look which was akin perhaps to a benediction.

  “Remember my instructions then,” the doctor sternly spoke to Rory. “And don’t leave my patient even for a minute. Do you hear? There is a chamber pot under the bed if you have to relieve yourself. Clear? Do not leave him for as much as a split second.”

  Rory’s face was a perfect blank, just as it had also been when Bess Byal had tried to get him to understand long division and common fractions.

  “Mind me now, Rory, or you will have to answer to me!”

  Rory muttered somewhat grumpily to the effect he would obey the doctor.

  THE DOCTOR HAD left one lamp burning near the bed, and Moses began to pile four or five pillows to rest his head on. He motioned to Rory to lie down half a bed’s distance away from him.

  “I hope you got by heart all the Doc told you,” he said and motioned to his chest, which, at the doctor’s instructions was left exposed.

  Later Moses Swearingen would recall not so much the moment the bullet had emerged as Rory’s almost uninterrupted talking in his sleep.

  The general subject of his whispering beside him seemed to enumerate Vesta Hawley’s roster of lovers, whose names were repeated so often Moses could tick them off by heart:

  Carl Gretzinger, soap salesman

  Bud Hotchkiss, life guard

  Elmo Larrabee, choir director

  Joel Sausser, mail clerk

  Hal Eoff, Railway Express delivery man

  “Will you lay off,” Moses would mutter piteously from time to time, begging for silence. He had forgotten if he ever knew that people who talk in their sleep, like sleepwalkers, can never hear what anyone awake and near them says.

  “Will you give a guy a break, for Christ’s sake?”

  He had no more said this than Rory heard Moses let out a war whoop, which he later said would have been loud enough to wake the dead.

  Twisting and turning, even frothing at the mouth, Moses tried to turn this way and that, but Rory took hold of him and pushed him down firmly so that he could keep his e
ye on the bullet hole.

  Then as Moses cried out as if a torch had been set afire on his bare flesh, he felt those strong pitiless young hands moving as if to touch his beating heart, and he heard an echoing cry come from the “sleeptalker.”

  Moses stared openmouthed at the boy who was holding the bullet now in his hand and brandishing it at Moses.

  “You mean it’s out, Rory?” Moses said in a voice totally unlike his own.

  Jumping up, Rory let Moses see the bullet close up as he held it in his right hand.

  “Do you aim to keep it?” Moses moaned, and he somehow was able to rise and get out of bed.

  “Can’t I?” Rory wondered, still holding the bullet in plain view for the sufferer.

  “What in hell do you want my bullet for?”

  “Well, ain’t I earned it by getting it out of you!”

  “I say again, what in hell do you want to keep my bullet for.”

  When there was no answer from Rory, Moses sighed as he sat in his armchair. This time though he was not taking morphine pills, he was drinking right out of the bottle of bootleg whiskey.

  “Keep the damned thing if you want to then. Guess you think you earned it, I reckon. Who knows, maybe you did.”

  “I WAS A fool ever to let those jewels leave my house,” Vesta was speaking to Dr. Cooke the next evening after his visit to Moe’s Villa.

  Frau Storeholder, at Vesta’s urging, was also in the same room with her and the doctor.

  For one thing, Vesta had observed tonight that Dr. Cooke was if anything more beguiled by her than ever before. His dippy behaviour tonight both pleased and annoyed Vesta. The fact she had “stolen” the thousand-dollar bills somehow—evidently—made him more admiring of her.

  He claimed he had come tonight only to report on his meeting with Moe.

  The doctor was somewhat appalled Vesta did not ask about Rory.

  “I believe Moe thinks the rubies are the real thing,” Dr. Cooke was saying.

  “A lot such a fellow as Moe Swearingen would know about gems,” Vesta scoffed. “I fear they’re no more genuine than Peter Driscoll was on the up-and-up. And do you think Peter would have sent his son anything worth even a half million if it had any market value. For you did know Peter Driscoll, didn’t you, Sherman?” she shot at him.

  Dr. Cooke winced at her tone.

  “Of course I knew Peter. Treated him very often.”

  Amazed at this retort, Vesta wondered, “May I ask you what ailed him that he came to you?”

  “His ears were full of wax,” the doctor quipped.

  Vesta made a sneering sound. Perhaps she hoped to hear her former husband had a more serious ailment.

  “You are quite right, Vesta,” the doctor sighed and looked at her with longing. “Pete Driscoll would never have sent anything through the mail as precious as rubies.”

  “But maybe he wanted a place to hide them in,” Frau Storeholder spoke all at once out of her deep silence—in fact both the doctor and Vesta thought she had been dozing as usual.

  “I never thought of that, Belinda,” Vesta spoke almost in a whisper. “Do you think Peter Driscoll was seeking a hiding place, Sherman?”

  Dr. Cooke dismissed the idea at first, but then Vesta noticed an expression of doubt, even uneasiness came over her suitor.

  “I looked carefully at all the rubies,” the doctor spoke now in his professional manner. “They are glass. Fine glass, but in my opinion, only glass. Very good workmanship. Worth something in their own right. But glass, Vesta dear.”

  The atmosphere had changed suddenly. Doubt was in all their minds, and that doubt had been created by the Doctor himself.

  “The whole town is talking about my neglect of Rory,” Vesta brought up this topic again. “Bess Byal was over the other day to say everybody is up in arms. But thank God the superintendent of schools will take no action. Yet people think Rory could hardly be in a place more unsuitable for a young boy than Moe’s Villa.”

  “Moe Swearingen may not be a gentleman,” the doctor said, “but he is far from being a bad sort. Not a bit of it.”

  The doctor as usual was annoyed that Frau Storeholder was present. He knew also that she was here because Vesta wished her to be and that she wished her to be here to punish him. And this thought made him more in love with Vesta than ever. Love forbidden is twice as powerful, he mused. And his for Vesta Hawley had never been so intense.

  ONE SNOWY AFTERNOON one of the young men who waited on Moses with such faithful attendance that he seemed to be everywhere at once entered the card room where Moses and Rory were playing a card game invented by Moses Swearingen himself.

  “A lady is asking to see you,” the attendant informed Moses.

  “A lady?” Moses wondered sarcastically.

  “Mrs. Hawley,” the young man stuttered a bit.

  Moses dropped his hand of cards and stared at Rory.

  “Tell her to wait in the front parlour,” Moses said after a pause in which he kept his eyes glued to his hand of cards.

  In the parlour Vesta Hawley was seated on a rickety straight-backed chair. She wore a half-veil and large gold earrings. She had only one glove, this on her left hand.

  “Yes,” Moses said.

  “Sit down, Mr. Swearingen.” Vesta Hawley addressed him as if he was entering her parlour.

  Moses hesitated a moment, grinned, then sat down on a faded settee.

  “I want to speak with my son,” she explained, and she fumbled in her purse and brought out a pack of cigarettes and stuck one in her mouth.

  “May I smoke,” she said although she had already lit her cigarette from a matchbox which she had found on the side table by her chair.

  Moses shrugged.

  “I supposed you wanted to discuss the gems,” he said, and rising he brought her an immense cut glass ashtray.

  Then he turned his back on her like a servant who, having given her the necessary attention, is about to leave.

  “I do want to see the rubies again, I confess,” she blew a ring of smoke toward him.

  Turning to face her he said, “But you’ve already had a look at them, and besides you turned them over to your son.”

  He walked closer to her now and looked at the burning end of her smoke.

  “At any rate, rubies or no rubies, you can’t very well refuse me from seeing my own flesh and blood.”

  “Flesh and blood,” he repeated as if he had never heard the phrase before.

  “You have no idea how upset this has made me. I never dreamed . . .”

  “Yes,” he prompted her when she stopped speaking.

  “How a man like Peter Driscoll. . . . Well, after all, you knew him, didn’t you?”

  Moses nodded in mock encouragement.

  “I can’t believe he could ever have acquired real gems,” she spoke with the cigarette tightly between her lips.

  “When I first set eyes on them, I had thought, you see, Moses, that . . .”

  “That they were marbles!”

  “All right. Marbles!” she snapped.

  “And do you mean to take them from Rory now if you’ve decided they’re maybe not marbles.”

  “No, no, no!” she raised her voice and got up and walked around the room, dropping cigarette ashes everywhere.

  “The whole thing has really stricken me. Yes, that’s the right word for it.”

  “You’ve always been very high-strung, Vesta.”

  “You say that as if it was my fault.”

  “I only speak from observing you.”

  “I wish we had never opened the box now. Actually as time passed I had forgotten Peter ever sent my boy a present. I was sure when it arrived it was of no consequence, considering where it came from.”

  “A present, though, from a boy’s dad is usually not something to be put away and forgotten, its value aside.”

  “I broke out in a cold sweat when I saw his handwriting on the package,” she confided, and put out her cigarette in the big ashtray. “Af
ter all Peter Driscoll had done to me, after all I had suffered at his hands. But no, I didn’t mean to hide the gift from Rory. I was ill at the time, very ill, and by the time I recovered I had all but forgotten about it—until you asked for Rory’s overcoat, and Frau Storeholder came across the forgotten gift package in the attic.”

  Moses consulted his large pocket watch.

  “Let me see him, Mr. Swearingen.” She was standing directly over him as she said this.

  He pointed to the open door leading to the card room.

  “Rory, my love,” Vesta cried as she entered the card room. She took him in her arms and kissed him several times in rapid succession.

  To Moe’s disgust he saw a wave of happiness sweep over Rory’s face.

  “You have no idea how I’ve missed you,” his mother went on. “I can see though that Mr. Swearingen has taken very good care of you. If I had his means, dear boy, I would see you wearing even better clothes than he has fitted you out with. Oh, I am grateful to him, no question about that. We have had hard times together, Moses,” she turned now to Swearingen. “Very hard times. I suppose I should have sold the mansion and lived in some little flat somewhere with my boy. Holding on to an ancestral property with no husband to depend on, oh, well, you have heard it all a thousand times I expect.”

  She wiped her eyes of tears with a delicately scented handkerchief and sighed.

  “I have been thinking, Rory, that if the gems are real, we might sell them, and if they are worth a fortune, we could buy back my mansion from the banks and the mortgage holders. Oh, I know some people say the rubies are not rubies,” she almost sobbed now. “Tell me what you think, Rory.”

  “I don’t know one jewel from another, Mama.”

  “Oh, my dear boy, when you say Mama, you have no idea how happy it makes me. Rory, your Dad never loved us. He deserted us. Do you think I neglected you on purpose? Think again. I love only you. You are my life, my all. The mansion is only something I have held on to so that one day I could leave it to you. But the mansion has been too heavy a burden for one woman to carry. Now, dear boy, let me see the rubies again, if you don’t mind.”

  “Shall your Mother see your rubies?” Moe said, but there was now little trace in his voice of his usual biting manner and sarcasm.