Jonah Man

by Christopher Narozny

  Don’t.

  He rolls his shoulders.

  Take the scenery in, Swainee, he says. Don’t miss a drop. This is your last ride.

  Slant Rock, New Mexico

  October 15, 1922

  Jonson falls down drunk onstage. The boy keeps on as if his father’s collapse were part of the act. Watching the boy from the wings, I think, You ought to be grateful.

  That night, I sit on my valise, ear to the wall, waiting for Jonson’s boy to take his nightly walk. My body aches from what I haven’t put in it. Sometimes my vision blurs, sometimes what I’m looking at comes in so clear my head reels back.

  Jonson is still drunk, or maybe drunk again. His words run on without any shape to them. I can feel the boy wanting to break away.

  There’s a knocking at Jonson’s door. The boy leaves, a woman enters. I go to the window, lean my head outside, watch the boy cross the street. I feel like I might be sick, like I might vomit up not only the contents of my stomach, but the stomach itself, bringing with it intestines, esophagus, pharynx. The desert air has turned cold. I hold still at the window, let the breeze cool my skin.

  I stand, pace the perimeter of the bed, bite at the inside of my cheeks to keep my teeth from quivering. The message on the call board told me to report in the morning. Jonson, no doubt, has been told to report before me.

  I can hear them now, laughing, working the bedsprings. Jonson must be feeding her liquor, or maybe something more.

  There won’t be time, I think. She will leave, and the boy will be back.

  I take the gun from my sock, drop it in my front left pocket, step into the hall. I stand beside Jonson’s door, listening. My body is breaking down, dissolving. My clothes are soaked through. One step more, I think. If not tonight, then never again.

  I reach for the knob, turn it slow. I have one foot inside Jonson’s room.

  II

  Jonson

  I

  From his window he could see the vacant plot where he’d buried her. A clearing in the weeds, three feet of copper pipe for a headstone. His son was crying behind him. Jonson glanced back, spotted thin lines of blood breaking through the hives.

  You’re going to leave scars, he said.

  He took a small pair of scissors from the window sill and knelt beside the basket.

  Easy now, he said.

  Straightening the boy’s fingers one at a time, he trimmed the nails halfway down.

  He lifted his son from the basket and laid him atop a faded blanket in the claw-foot tub that took up most of the apartment’s only room. The crying bounced around the basin, spiked abruptly upward. Jonson reached for the bottle and rag he kept beneath the tub. He soaked a swatch of cloth in brandy, wrapped the fabric around his finger, coated the boy’s gums. He drank some himself, then reached the fingers of his free hand into a small container of foundation left over from his stage career. He rubbed the tan make-up evenly over his son’s hives, caked it over the cuts and scabs. The boy fussed, slapped at his father’s hand, kicked at the blanket where it caught his feet.

  All right, now, Jonson said.

  He leaned back, surveying his work. The welts were covered over, but the boy’s face appeared sunburned, almost brown. Jonson loosened the drawstring on the final sack of his wife’s effects, those he had not been able to sell, rummaged through until he uncovered a small jar of white powder. He dusted the boy’s cheeks, lightened the skin by a full shade.

  That’ll do, he said, returning his son to the basket, packing a day bag for himself.

  A succession of trolleys carried them through narrow streets lined with jerrybuilt row houses, then outsized boulevards dotted with bistros and boutiques. An old woman paused over the basket to smile and coo. Johnson turned away, squinted out at the street, tried to still the bobbing derbies with his eyes.

  The final trolley let them off just shy of Ray’s building. A doorman with tassled epaulettes called upstairs, then let him pass. Jonson rode the elevator to the penthouse, rang a small ivory pushbutton, trailed a uniformed maid into a parlor done up in damask wallpaper and walnut wainscoting. She gestured to a leather Morris chair, pulled the door shut behind her.

  Friendly, Jonson said.

  He set his son on the floor, toured the room. There was a marble fireplace with steel doors and brass andirons, a collection of silver-plated samovars on the mantle above. A small oak desk housed a hooded typewriter with no ribbon or paper. It was a good while before Ray entered.

  Tell that lady who let me in she needs to dust the insides, Jonson said, balancing a small samovar on his palm.

  Please sit, Ray said.

  We have something to talk about?

  Sit.

  They sat in matching loveseats, Jonson’s son asleep between them, his basket filling the marble coffee table. Ray leaned forward, seemed to be counting the hives through the foundation.

  That’s just shit babies get, Jonson said.

  I’m not in the market.

  A loan, then, Jonson said. I already got people interested in my services.

  What people?

  A liner out of New York. Room and board plus cash in my sock drawer.

  How much are you asking?

  I got that doctor after me.

  How much?

  A grand.

  Is that all?

  You being sarcastic? My wife’s dead.

  You’d never pay me back.

  I could say I would.

  I know somebody who might be interested, Ray said. In the boy.

  He took a pad and pencil from his jacket pocket, wrote out a name and address, tore the sheet free. He offered it to Jonson, then pulled it back, set it on the table beside the basket.

  Are you sure this is what she would want? he asked. For you to pawn her child?

  Hers? I thought he was at least part mine, Jonson said. Maybe you know something I don’t.

  Don’t be an ass.

  Maybe he’s yours all along?

  If you want something, you’re going about it the wrong way.

  I want back onstage. Get me on a circuit and I’ll keep him.

  I can’t.

  Why?

  You’re not solo talent.

  Jonson plucked at the stitching of the arm rests with his fingernails and stared across the table. Ray was tallow-faced, sloe-eyed. Creases cut through his forehead like runnels. Jonson hesitated, then took up the sheet of paper.

  I hope you ain’t waiting on a commission, he said.

  He walked the thirty blocks to save on fare. The streets, empty at first, began to fill with vendors and school kids, then stock brokers, realtors, lawyers—bloated men in tailored suits who didn’t know what to make of him or the baby he was carrying. He set his son down at the center of a busy sidewalk, straddled the basket and shook out his wrists. People parted around him, seemed to quicken their pace.

  The skyscrapers gave way to row houses; the sidewalks began again to empty. The air was cold for late October but his undershirt clung to the small of his back and his forehead was damp. He set the basket on the concrete stoop, wiped sleep from his son’s eyes, stood studying the boy’s new home. The windows, set close together, appeared just wide enough to fit a child’s torso; the beige bricks were packed in around slight lines of mortar.

  He rang the bell, waited. An undersized boy of five or maybe six let him in, then turned and ran up the stairs. Jonson followed. Already he could hear a piano poorly played, a host of young voices blotting one another out. The woman Ray had mentioned stood sideways in a doorway off the third-floor landing.

  Mr. Jonson? she said. Ray sent word you’d be coming. I’m sorry to hear about your wife.

  She spoke like a singer. Like a woman who’d swallowed a lot of air.

  Thank you, ma’am, he said.

  Inside, there were children clinging to battered sofas and chairs, sitting cross legged on rugs, pressing against walls. Some were dressed in costumes, others in their bed clothes. A girl in pigtails fail
ed at handstand after handstand; two small boys helped a kid in his teens balance himself atop a unicycle. There were pancakes grilling in the adjoining kitchenette, dirty dishes stacked on a straw mat in the far corner. The woman clapped her hands, scattered the children to a back room.

  Leona, she said to the girl at the piano, keep an eye on those hot cakes. To Jonson she said, This is no place for a kid to get lonely.

  I can see that.

  Now, where’s your boy?

  Right here.

  She glanced at the basket.

  Him?

  Yes ma’am.

  Oh son, she said. Ray should’ve known better. Managers pay by the head. That ain’t a head yet.

  He comes from show stock.

  Bring him back in four or five years. I need kids who can sing, dance. At least talk and walk. Ray should’ve known better.

  Yes ma’am, he should have, Jonson said.

  Outside, he set the basket atop a garbage can, spit on his thumb and wiped the boy’s cheeks clean.

  Go on, he said. You can fuss all you want now.

  He stopped at a diner across from the doctor’s office, the restaurant where he’d eaten with Ginny after each of her visits. It was patronized by staff from the nearby hospital, decorated with finger paintings from the children’s ward. The waitresses’ uniforms looked to be made from the same material as a surgeon’s mask. Ginny would order breakfast food, even in the late afternoon—eggs sunny-side up, toast burnt. She’d break the yolks with the desiccated bread, leave the whites on her plate.

  Jonson took a seat by the window, ordered coffee and asked for a pen. He quieted his son with a sugar cube, sat watching the passersby, wondering how many of them would have done better than he had done, if there were some key he’d missed, something that appeared obvious to everyone but him.

  He opened his napkin on the table, started to write.

  Doctor—

  Its done for me in this world.

  Keep him safe.

  X

  He left money pinned under his empty coffee cup, walked as far as the door, then returned to the table and took back the tip. He stuffed the change in his sock, started across the street with his son.

  The doctor would be at the hospital all morning, interviewing patients, waking them to ask how they’d slept, pressing on their injured parts to make sure it hurt in all the right places. Jonson entered the lobby, set the basket against the office door, draped the napkin, writing-side up, over the handle. He crouched down, laid an open hand across the boy’s stomach.

  Sorry, he said. It just ain’t in me.

  He started for the train station with his wrist throbbing from the absent weight. He’d be in New York by next morning, would be sailing for Europe in two days time. He walked a half-dozen blocks, sat on the curb, told himself he had nothing to regret: he’d done what he could, hurt nobody. He tried and failed to push his mind forward.

  He stood, headed back.

  II

  The baby was laughing, slapping his hands together as though applauding whatever he’d found funny. Jonson transferred him from basket to basin, took a shoebox from under the tub, removed a razor blade, a small jar of peach puree, a tube of soporifics left over from the early stages of Ginny’s illness. The pills were dwindling: a week at most and they would be gone. He slid one out, set a spoonful of puree on the floor, held the pill between thumb and forefinger and scraped at its edge with the razor blade until a fine blue dust coated the puree. He returned the remainder of the pill to the tube, stirred the puree with the tip of his little finger, then offered the spoon to his son. Once the boy was asleep, Jonson dug what money he had out of his socks, set aside a ten-dollar bill and spread the rest between his back pockets. He shut the light, locked the door behind him.

  The pool hall was empty save for two men playing at a far table—brothers, their features near identical, separated by a half-dozen years or more. There were stickered valises and a damaged guitar case propped against the wall behind them; their clothes were crumpled, their shirttails untucked, their hair uncombed. The older wore a fedora hat with a string running brim to brim beneath his chin; the younger wore glasses made of two different colored frames soldered together at the nose. The older amused himself with trick shots he couldn’t execute, made fake bets, blamed the younger for every miss. The younger powdered his cue, took careful aim.

  Jonson wracked up an adjacent table. He broke, put a striped ball in a side pocket, banked three more, then cursed as he missed a straight-on shot. The brothers applauded.

  A good run, the older said.

  I’m out of practice, Jonson said. Wouldn’t mind someone to spar with.

  A wager? the older said.

  With you?

  Oh no, not me, the older said. He took off his hat, stuck it on his brother’s head.

  All right, Jonson said, setting a ten on the felt.

  We can cover that, the older said.

  The younger wracked up the balls, returned the hat to his brother.

  He don’t say much, Jonson observed.

  Can’t talk, the older said. He can hear, though. Perfect pitch. Can pick a tune out of the air and play it on your instrument of choice.

  And what do you do? Jonson asked.

  Me? I’m the laughs.

  He pulled a rust-colored flask from his back pocket.

  Want some?

  Only if he does.

  The mute smiled, took a sip and passed the flask to Jonson. Jonson tilted his head back, tasted something like kerosene cut with uncooked grains of rice.

  Home brew, the older said.

  Whose home?

  Jonson stepped to the table, pocketed a string of shots before his turn was up.

  You know, he said, moving aside, a third head might bump you up in the order.

  You looking to get back in?

  Might be.

  What are you offering?

  Song, dance, a little piano, he said. And I can deliver a line as good as anyone.

  We don’t have a lot of dialogue just now.

  I could add that dimension.

  True. It would have to be worth paying for.

  The mute banked the eight ball; Jonson placed a second ten on the table.

  Funny our paths never crossed before, the older said.

  Half my act died, Jonson said. Took her a good long time.

  The older drained the flask, slipped a second from his pocket, broke it in before passing it to Jonson. Jonson hesitated, felt his eyes strain to keep the balls in focus. He looked across the table, trying to determine if the mute was immune, or if the liquor was working on him, too. He took a sip, passed it on.

  Your turn, the older brother said.

  Jonson rushed his shot as though trying to outpace the alcohol. The mute stepped up, finished the game.

  All I got now is some ones, Jonson said.

  When the flask came back around, Jonson weighed it in his palm, found it no lighter than the last time he’d drank from it. A shard of pain cut through his chest. He wrapped his lips around the mouth, blocked the liquor with his tongue. Smiling, he passed the flask to the older brother, then picked up a cue stick and stove it across his head. The older stumbled, turned, came at Jonson. Jonson kicked out his knee, brought the splintered wood sideways down his face. The mute backed up; the attendant stepped out from behind his desk, club in hand.

  You got some hustlers here, Jonson said.

  That right?

  Tell him, mute, Jonson said.

  The mute said nothing.

  Oh, bullshit, Jonson said.

  He leaned down, grabbed the older by the hair, held the jagged end of the stick to his throat.

  Cash on the table.

  The attendant edged forward.

  You’re good where you are, Jonson said.

  The mute pulled a fistful of crumpled bills from his pocket, began counting.

  I want what I would have won, Jonson said, raising the stick. All right, the
mute said. All right.

  You see, Jonson told the attendant.

  He bent down, pocketed the flask on his way out.

  Five cents got him in for what was left of the shows, two cents more got him a bag of roasted peanuts. He sat alone in his row, savoring each nut, taking slow sips from the older brothers’ flask. He stared ahead, unaware of what was happening onstage—only that there was color, movement, sound—then a spate of stillness, quiet—then color, movement, sound again. He tongued the mouth of the flask, fingered the corners of the bag in search of a last nut.

  He stopped at a liquor store, emptied a fresh pint of whiskey before returning to his son.

  The window had fallen shut while he slept; the room smelled of vomit, shit, alcohol. Someone was shaking him. Jonson rolled onto his back, saw the old woman who managed the place standing over him, felt her bare foot on his chest, felt his temples pulsing in time to the baby’s screams.

  Out, she said. Out, out, out.

  What?

  Too many complaints.

  Now?

  Now.

  Let me get dressed, he said. Change my son.

  I’ll be in the hall.

  Jonson stood, looked the room over, realized that he had never bothered to look it over before. For him, it had been parts with no sum: a tub, a window, a wall bifurcated by a steel pipe. If he sat in the tub facing in one direction, he saw the door but not the window; if he sat facing the other direction, he saw the window but not the door. If he stood looking outside, he had no sense that he was standing with his back to a room that contained a tub, a door, a steel pipe.

  Come on now, the landlady called.

  A minute, Jonson said.

  He opened the window, relieved himself into the alley below.

  III

  All right, Ray said. All right. I think I’ve got something to keep you afloat.

  Room and board?

  You should be able to work it out with her.

  Her?

  Ray wrote a name and address on a slip of paper.

  A Madame?