by Howard Fast
He glanced sidewise at the guard, and saw that the guard was watching him, not Anna. Watching him. He threw a mock smile at the vision of Anna, but when it persisted, he pawed at it with his hands.
“Steady,” the guard said.
Clasping his hands together, he looked at her. She was dressed as she had been when he shot her. Under his intense concentration, she vanished, and again he put his head in his hands. Then it seemed to him that she had seated herself next to him, and was stroking his head.
“But you never loved me,” he whispered desperately. “I used to want to believe, but you never loved me, my Anna.”
He pressed his head to her stroking, nodded with it, became deliciously drowsy and warm. One part of him listened to the priest, giving the man absolution in the next cell; the other part of him knew only that the woman he loved was stroking his head; and the fact that he knew it was an illusion mattered not at all. He began to whisper.
“You know, my Anna, I die. I’m not afraid—but it will hurt. You be with me, my Anna—stay close with me—be with me—with me—with me.” Was he falling asleep?
Anna. When everything inside of him tightened, squeezed itself together, and sent a yearning pain all over his body, he knew it was his feeling for, Anna. He knew he was a cold man; he had been made that way. He was a hard, cold man, dried out, with love in him for only one thing; but that love was great. Even now, as he pictured it, he saw it growing, enveloping the entire cell, spreading over him.
He started, as if he were waking out of sleep. Anna was gone. Had Anna been there at all?
“What time is it?” he asked the guard.
“Nine-thirty.”
“Nine-thirty,” he repeated dully.
Now the man in the next cell was gone completely. Claus could hear him sobbing, beating his feet against the ground. Whispers up and down the block expressed sympathy or disgust; and then when the warden came, the whispers stopped.
All eyes followed the warden. Even Claus stumbled to the door of his cell and watched him. He went to the next cell, had the door opened, and went in. He was there for a few minutes, talking softly; and while he spoke the death house was so silent that Claus could hear the men in the various cells breathing. Then the warden went away, glancing neither to left nor to right.
The hush lasted a moment longer. Then someone cried: “What was it?”
“Who?”
“Hey, Dutch—you?”
The man in the next cell to Claus screamed; then he was crying again, hysterically; then he was pounding with his bare hands upon the door of his cell.
“Dutch, Dutch!”
Claus was weak, faint; he couldn’t answer.
“Dutch—they gimme a stay. Dutch, I ain’t goin’ tonight. Geesus Christ, Dutch, they gimme a stay. I ain’t goin’ tonight.”
“Yeah.”
He sat down on his bed, afraid; but he hadn’t been afraid like this before. Now he was alone; he would go alone. No abject fear in the next cell to give him courage. All by himself now—and into the dark.
“What time is it?” he asked the guard weakly.
THE CHILDREN were ready to sleep, Sasha in a nightgown that caught under her toes whenever she moved, Peter in pajamas, washing himself now. Peter gurgled and splashed water over himself. Other things were forgotten now. When his mother held out the towel for him, he fairly fell into it.
Mary took them to the bedroom and watched them pray. It was like a benediction to see them on their knees, blessing her in the sight of God. She put out the light, and then stood by the door of the bedroom. So easy to stand there—she could have stood there through the night.
She went into the living-room, sat down, and sat for a long time, just smiling. What would come tomorrow did not matter a great deal—because tonight she was happy. As if tonight had been sanctioned above all other nights, a night of hate and sorrow, of love and forgiveness and thanksgiving. And she didn’t hate.
She hated no one, not even Shutzey. Probably Shutzey would die, and that was her own doing; but she did not hate him any more. Nor was she regretful. It seemed to her now that she saw things in a broad sweep, the way she had never seen them before, a sweep of tomorrows that would come endlessly. A promise for Peter and Sasha, always for Peter and Sasha.
HE HAD two more drinks before he reached the hospital; and when he got there he knew that she was dead already, so he sat in the waiting room with his hat in his hands, twisting the hat and staring at the inside band and the lining. He read his initials over again and again. Three initials; it seemed to him that he had never been occupied with anything but reading those initials. He must have sat there for a long time.
—For a long time. Danny didn’t know how long it was when the nurse came over and asked him whether she couldn’t help him. First he gazed at her blankly; then he put his hat away carefully by his side and lit a cigarette. He plunged into the story, and he was half through with it when she told him that she would take him to his wife.
He looked at her and shook his head.
“You wait a minute,” the nurse said. She went away then, and in a little while she was back. “She’s doing nicely,” the nurse said. “You can see her if you want to.”
“All right,” Danny nodded.
Then he took his hat in his hand and followed the nurse. When they came into Alice’s room, he felt shy and afraid; he sat down by the bed and fumbled with his hat.
“Only a few minutes,” the nurse said. She went out and left them alone.
Alice reached out and took one of his hands. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I’m such a baby.” Then they couldn’t do much more than look at one another. He tried to think of what would be the right thing to say, but there wasn’t anything.
“They’ll only keep me here a day or so,” Alice told him. “I feel better already.”
“That’s nice.”
“I’m really not sick,” she explained. “But it’s best that I stay here for a little while, isn’t it, Danny? I mean that I’m not a nuisance to you here.”
He tried to say something, but all he could do was fumble with his hat, and finally it fell to the floor and lay between his feet. He looked at it perplexedly, and then he raised his eyes to her. She was smiling uncertainly.
“You’re no nuisance,” he said miserably.
“But I am. I didn’t try to help you, Danny. You came to me, and I never thought to myself that maybe you wanted me to help you. But I’m no good—not for anything. Now even the baby’s gone. Will you hate me very much, Danny, because the baby’s gone?”
“No.”
“You’re not saying that because you want me to feel better, are you? I mean—you’re not telling me that now, and afterwards you won’t feel that way at all? I feel like such a mess, Danny. And now I don’t know what to think. Only when you go away, then what will I do? You see how it is, I’m selfish, Danny. Before you came, I was crying—I was thinking about you going to prison. Oh, I’m afraid—”
“You shouldn’t cry,” he told her. “You shouldn’t cry. You have to get better.”
“Then I think about the baby.”
“You don’t think I care about the baby? Don’t you think I care about you at all?”
“I love you so much, Danny.”
“I know.”
“You’re not angry with me?”
“No, no—I’m not angry. I love you.”
“You won’t go away from me, Danny?”
“I won’t.” He was almost sobbing. “I swear I won’t, baby. I won’t go away. I’ll never go away.”
“But Timy—”
“To hell with Timy! I’ll fight Timy. I tell you I’ll fight Timy.” He tried a smile, managed it, gripped her hand between his. Then he let go of it self-consciously.
“I’m a God damn good lawyer,” he said. “I can fight Timy. He’s not God.”
“You won’t go away?”
“No, no. I’ll stay with you.” He wanted to kiss her, but something held him back
; in a way, he feared to touch her. He recalled that he should have brought flowers, and he promised himself that he would bring them the next day. He would bring lots of flowers, and they would make the place bright and cheery. But about Timy—
“What’s the matter?” she asked him.
“Nothing. Does it hurt? I don’t want anything to hurt you.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
He picked up the hat. The nurse had said only a few minutes, and already it was more than that. But she was looking at him in a way that made it almost impossible for him to go. He couldn’t stand to have her look at him like that, as if he were better than anything else she had ever known. He knew that he wasn’t; he knew that he wanted to get down by the bed and pour out his heart to her. But he couldn’t do that either; he couldn’t do anything except look at his hat.
“Danny,” she said.
“Yes?”
“You’ll come back tomorrow, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“All right.”
“I have to go now. The nurse said—”
“All right.”
He kissed her quickly. Outside, he began to think of Timy; and he realized that for the first time he hated him, deeply, fiercely. He pictured himself with his fingers in Timy’s fat pink throat, squeezing.
JESSICA went to Shutzey’s apartment, letting herself in with her key. It was a new apartment in another neighborhood, furnished with her own hands and Shutzey’s money. It was furnished in the modern way, just like she had seen in the movies. Shutzey had winced a little at the prices she paid, but she explained to him that you couldn’t get real class without paying the price. Anyway, he liked whatever she bought; and when she picked things out, he didn’t say much, only nodded at everything she selected.
He liked to stretch out in a certain white chair, light his pipe, and puff reflectively, while his eyes absorbed her. He felt respectable and he felt big, and to look at her slim clean-cut beauty was very comforting. The. fact that he could never get any nearer to her than the surface of her skin only served to enhance her in his eyes, and now and again he seriously thought of asking her to marry him. Not that he wanted a wife—but he wanted to be sure of her. She had pushed him into one thing after another, until he was out of his depth, and then for everything, he would turn to her.
She said, now: “I shouldn’t have let him go tonight. Suppose he gets it—He’ll stand there and fight. He won’t have enough sense to know what to do.”
She took off her coat, lit a cigarette, and sat down in Shutzey’s big chair. She noticed the stains he had made with his pipe on one of the white leather-covered arms. That was like him. A chair was only something for him to sit in and knock his pipe against.
A while later, she ground out the cigarette and glanced at her watch. It was after nine, and the way Shutzey had figured, he should be with her by half-past ten.
Then she mixed a cocktail, but she couldn’t drink it. She left it standing, and smoked more cigarettes. They filled the ash-tray by her side, and one burning end steamed slowly. She watched it, then ground it out. Then she felt cold, and went around the apartment closing windows. The clock said half-past ten. She went to the window, looked down into the street, turned back to the room and paced back and forth like an angry cat.
She thought of Timy and the saloon. What would Shutzey do if Timy made a pass at her, and Shutzey found out? One blow of his fist would crush Timy, the way a butcher’s club crushes in a steak. She always saw things like that as if they had already happened. She could see Timy on the floor, writhing, and Shutzey standing over him.
Or what would Timy’s body be like to her touch? Soft, probably, and sickening after a while. When Shutzey tensed his muscles with adolescent pride, the sudden swelling threw her from him, hurt her sometimes; and then he would smile with the sort of satisfaction nothing else gave him. There was nothing he enjoyed so much as showing off his muscles, rippling them for her, or raising her from the ground with one hand; and then wilting sheepishly when she raged at him for hurting her.
She lit another cigarette, walked with it to the window, dropped it, and watched its meteor-like flight. Then the phone rang, and she whirled back to the room.
She listened for a moment. “Yes,” she said, “he lives here…. His wife? No…. What? … No, I say I’m not his wife…. I’ll come.”
She put down the receiver very slowly, turned and looked into a round rimless mirror that hung over the couch. Then she watched her hands as she lit a cigarette.
“Geesus Christ,” she whispered.
The burning match hung between her fingers, burnt until it singed her skin. Then she dropped it to the carpet; then she put her fingers in her mouth, licked them, bit them, took them out and stared dully at the marks.
She stared at Shutzey’s chair.
Then she stumbled about, trying to find her coat.
IT WAS over for him at half-past ten. Claus stood up, walked to the door.
“Now take it easy,” the guard said.
He stepped out, felt that he was stepping over the edge of a tall building, gingerly put his foot into the corridor, glanced down where the door was. Behind that door, they were waiting. And with him in the corridor was the priest; he had come back.
“Take it easy,” the guard said again.
In every cell they were watching, their eyes glued to the bars; but nobody said anything. It was like a silent movie audience engrossed in a drama. The warden was there. He chewed his lips and fingered a cigarette.
He might have been terribly funny, if he were not tragic, the tall thin man, his fleshless head shaved clean, his glasses perched on the end of his nose. He stopped to adjust his glasses. He swallowed, and the lump in his throat bobbed up and down. He laid a finger against his long pointed nose, sneezed, and then let his hand fall limply to his side.
“Come on,” the guard said.
He was still curious enough to look at the man in the next cell, the one who had been granted a stay of execution, a little man with crossed eyes.
“Hell—I’m sorry, Dutch,” he whispered.
He began to walk, but it seemed to him that the cells were moving slowly past him, that he was standing still. Suddenly, his legs were limp; he had to stop and support himself on the guard for a moment. Then the cells began to move again.
There was an almost imperceptible pause as he passed a cell and saw the man in it. Some of them nodded. One said, “So long,” the others said nothing.
His mind worked in quick flashes, or else it was deliberately slow; and all in a flash, he thought, “They would speak to me—only they’re afraid. What do I look like?”
Then a blank. Perhaps it was only for seconds, but then his mind was blank; and when it awoke again he was at the door that led out—
“I’m not afraid, my Anna,” he said stubbornly. But his head dropped, and as he walked through the door he seemed to have lost many inches in height, for he was all stooped over and bent, an old, old man.
And after he passed, there was a great hush, a great, terrible hush that endured until the sudden dimming of the lights told of the rush of current.
IF THE passing of Shutzey was great, it was great only in the way that all deaths are great, and all lives and all births: but it was not remembered and it did not become legend, as the poet did.
Jessica looked at the body, lying in the police morgue, the face blue and cold, with just the trace of the mocking smile that had always marked him. If she thought of anything as the policeman spoke, she thought of the stark drama of his passing, as it had appeared to Shutzey.
—As his car swings over, blocking the truck that held a fortune in bootleg liquor. The truck is stained with the caked mud and dirt of a thousand miles travel. Lit up by a street lamp, it looms high in the narrow empty street. Shutzey leaps out, a gun in his hand, Snookie Eagen behind him.
“Get out!”
They run up to the truck, poke their guns into the black cab. T
hey hear someone say, “Let ’em have it”; but they never realize the full import of the words. A Thompson gun stabs out of the cab with bright little flashes. Snookie Eagen is crying like a woman; the sheer force of the blast hurls the massive body of Shutzey back into the street.
Maybe he realizes that he is shot all through the middle, or maybe he doesn’t realize anything. Snookie is dead in a little humped-up pile, but Shutzey struggles to his feet and begins to run. He doesn’t think about Mary White, or indeed that anyone has betrayed him. Reason is gone already; but the surging life of a man-beast is left; the man himself is dead.
He runs with slow, faltering steps, slower than a man walks, and the Thompson gun stabs after him.
The shock of the bullets throw him over again, four across his back, two through the heart. Yet he staggers up, on his knees, on his feet, turns around, and receives the last burst of bullets squarely in the chest. The mocking grin remained.
He is leaning forward at the end, and perhaps the bullets hold him erect. Then he sags; his knees go; one slug is lodged in his spine, yet the upper part of his body is stiff.
As he lies on the ground, a final burst sears his back, rips open his thighs….
The truck backs; it jolts half up on the curb, rolls back into the, street with a grinding of gears, and roars away into the night….
They told it to her. An officer said:
“Ain’t it funny as hell—the kind of dolls that go with them mugs.”
And another: “Them pimps are all the same. He didn’t have no business trying to hijack that truck.”
She went back up to the booking room, and the man on duty looked at her sleepily. “Sit down,” he said.
She sat down and lit a cigarette. She shook her head, pushed a stray wisp of hair out of her eye.
“I don’t have to stay here,” she said.
“You wait. The captain wants to talk with you.”
“All right.” It didn’t matter. She puffed the cigarette; she couldn’t stop thinking about how his body was all torn to pieces, all the different parts of his body, parts that she had learnt so well.