The Lost Weekend

by Charles Jackson

  How long had it lasted? He couldn’t think of that now, mustn’t think of it, wouldn’t. He sat by the white fence looking up at the lighted windows. Wick would be alone with Mac. They were waiting for him. He buttoned his vest, stood up and shifted the pint to his hip-pocket, then felt to see if it bulged too much. It was all right if he didn’t button the jacket. He sat down again. Why the hell hadn’t he bought two pints, as he usually did, so that if one was taken away he would have the other? He always planted one in his side pocket, the bulk of it showing conspicuously, and protested with passion and outrage when it was discovered and taken—then retired in a huff to his room, there to produce the other pint from his hip and hide it. Where had he not hidden bottles in his time? In the pocket of his old fur coat in the closet, the coat he never wore; behind books, of course; in galoshes, vases, mattresses.

  His brother appeared in the bedroom window. He saw his shadow on the pane, and then the silhouette of his head and shoulders as he sat at the desk, his desk. He trembled with excitement but there was no need for fright. Wick was not looking out. He appeared merely to be sitting there, looking straight ahead at the front of the desk. He couldn’t be writing, for his head was erect. What was he doing there, what in thunder was he doing all this while?—for now he realized Wick had been there ten minutes, fifteen, there was no telling how long. The suspense was intolerable. His heart pounded, he ached to open the bottle and take a drink, but he did not dare move—though he knew he was invisible to his brother in the dark of the garden even if he should look out.

  He wanted to go in, he wanted now to go up and walk into the apartment and say, “See, here I am, I’m not out, I’m not wandering around God knows where, don’t worry, you don’t need to worry now”—but he couldn’t if his life depended on it. Or he wanted to toss a stone up against the window and shout, “Wick! Here I am, see? Out in the garden, sitting here on this bench, getting the air, please don’t worry, this is where I am, you can go on to the farm now, or you can wait a little while longer, just a few minutes more, and I’ll go with you.” He began to cry.

  It was probably a moment he would remember all his life long, with tears; or was he just being maudlin, now, in drink? No, it was a moment of awful clarity, it was too real for that, his heart almost died in ache for his brother and for himself, for the two of them together, and he wept as he had not wept since he was a child. Would nothing stop the weeping? His brother sat there above, so near him, so unaware that all the time he was sitting here below, watching, knowing that Wick was wondering where he was, wondering what to do about him, how to help—go or stay? He could not watch any more. He bent down and put his head on the bench and cried. He buried his face in his crossed arms to smother the sobs. He must stop. I won’t look again for minutes, minutes, he’ll be gone by then—and with an effort he quieted himself, shifted the bottle to his side pocket, lay over on the bench on his back, with closed eyes, and began to wait. When he looked up again, the windows were dark.

  At once, instinctively, automatically, he was wary. He sat up, alert. Was it a trick? Was Wick waiting for him there in the dark, waiting for him to walk in? He smiled. That would be easy to find out. With the caution of a burglar—feeling the excitement, the game of it—he tiptoed craftily across the garden, through the hall and to the front steps. The car was gone.

  In high spirits, completely happy now, he went upstairs. The cool evening air of the garden had freshened him and he looked forward to a drink. The moment he switched on the light he looked for the Scottie. The basket was empty. On the living room table there was a note:

  I’m so sorry. Please be careful. I’ve gone to the farm. I would like to leave Mac for you but I thought you might forget to feed him. If you want anything, call Helen. About Mrs. Foley’s money, it should be enough to take care of you till I come back. Do be careful, won’t you.

  Did Wick know that he was making him feel it just that much more because the entire message contained not so much as a syllable of reproach? Of course he did! But he wasn’t going to feel it, wasn’t going to allow himself to think of it—I can’t; I can’t think of that now, he said to himself. He had other problems at the moment: chiefly, money.

  It was seven-thirty. Wick had got a late start for the long drive to the farm but he couldn’t think of that, now, either. He took the wad of bills from his pocket and counted them. There was more than fifteen dollars. He would get more. He went into the kitchen for a glass, opened the pint and poured a drink.

  The problem of money. He knew that if he had money—was suddenly left a lot of money, or found it, or stole it—he would kill himself in a month. Well, why not, what difference did it make, that would be his own affair. If he wanted to drink himself to death, whose business was it but his own? But this way, with his rightful allowance coming to him through his brother, his younger brother at that—driblets handed out to him as if he were a child, not being able to get a suit pressed without finding out first if it was all right with Wick, not being able to tip in restaurants where Wick paid the check, charging everything, never paying cash, getting fifty cents a day for cigarette money—it made him wild to think of it, he would get money and more money, buy as many pints as he liked and still have more money to buy more. How? There were dozens of ways, he had never yet been unable to find a way, even a new way he had never tried before, except when he was physically unable to get up and go out. But he wouldn’t fall into that trap again; he’d have it in the house, bottles and bottles—for once be prudent enough to provide himself with a sufficient supply.

  After the second drink he was ready. Before he left, he went into the bathroom to see how he looked. He smiled in the glass. He looked all right—in fact he looked wonderful. “But don’t forget,” he said aloud, “you’re skirting danger.” He nodded in agreement with his reflection, smiled, winked, and switched off the light. He lifted his topcoat from the rack in the hall and reached for the doorknob. At that moment he heard the two women who lived in the front apartment come up the stairs with their dog. The dog stopped at his door and sniffed, and one of the women said, “Stop that, Sophie. Come here!” The dog ran down the hall and he heard the door to the apartment shut. He listened a moment more, then knew that now he could go out.

  Mrs. Wertheim’s laundry, in the middle of the block, was closed, but he could see the light on in the back of the shop and Mrs. Wertheim working there, alone, over the ironing board. He rapped on the glass. She looked up from the board, put the iron aside, hesitated, then came forward slowly, uncertain, peering to see who it might be. (This is the Student Raskolnikov.) He tapped again to reassure her. She came up to the glass and shielded her eyes with her hands. He smiled back. When she saw who it was, she nodded with her funny German bow and unlatched the door.

  “Guten abend, gnädige Frau,” he sang out, speaking loudly as he always did when addressing a foreigner.

  “Mr. Birnam, how do you do?”

  “I wonder if you can do me a favor, bitte?”

  “Okay? What is it?”

  “My brother’s gone away for the weekend and I find he’s taken the checkbook.”

  “Oh? Do you want a blank check?”

  “No, don’t bother, danke. Instead could you let me have a little money till Monday? Just for the weekend.”

  “Let’s see—how much?”

  “Oh, twenty dollars, bitte schön. That should be enough.”

  “Oh dear.” She smiled, but she frowned too, as if puzzled.

  “Okay, I guess I can, Mr. Birnam—only, are you sure it’s all right?”

  “Just till Monday, Mrs. Wertheim.”

  “I mean,” she said—and then seemed to change her mind. “One moment, please. Here, step in.” She went to the back of the shop, stood there a moment counting out some bills under the light while he waited in unbearable excitement, and returned. She handed him the bills, shaking her head ever so slightly in a puzzled frown.

  He took the money without looking at it and shoved i
t into his pocket. He smiled cordially at her. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Wertheim,” he said. “Mille fois,” and he turned back to the street.

  In the back of the cab that was rushing him down to the Village he smiled to himself—smiled in triumph. How easy it was. Poor Mrs. Wertheim—she wouldn’t have turned him down, of course. He knew Europeans enough to know that. He had played the aristocrat before the peasant—the peasant who never dared refuse the aristocrat anything; who expected nothing less; who felt it an honor to be imposed upon by that privileged charming irresponsible class; who kept himself and his family in lifelong debt to guarantee the artistocracy its birthright; who would have lost faith, perhaps, if he and his fascinating kind should settle down and become sober, industrious and productive, like themselves; who smiled indulgently, admiringly, even affectionately, at foibles which, in their own children, would have deserved nothing but a beating. This, for the brilliant moment, was his vision of himself and Mrs. Wertheim now that he had twenty more dollars in his pocket. “Jack’s, in Charles Street,” he called out, and sat back, pleased with the glimpse of high life he had given the grateful Mrs. Wertheim.

  This was absurd, of course; he knew it; the episode had meant no such thing; he knew it even as he daydreamed (Mrs. Wertheim had no use for him whatever, she only did it because of his brother); and he cursed this mocking habit of his which always made him expose his own fancies just as they reached their climax. There was never any pleasure in them beyond the second or two of their inception: they sprang into being, grew, and exploded all in the same moment, leaving him with nothing but a sense of self-distaste for having again played the fool. He didn’t mind playing the fool, that would have been all right—he minded knowing it, hated knowing it. It made him seem a kind of dual personality, at once superior and inferior to himself, the drunk and the sober ego. In neither role could he let go, be himself; in neither did he feel in control.

  What trick was it now, for instance, that was taking him on to Jack’s—when had the drunk suggested that? Or rather, the sober ego?—for he was well aware that when he was drunk he preferred to be and drink alone; only sober did he ever drink or begin drinking with others; and soon, certainly within the hour, he found some pretext to excuse himself from the company (temporarily, of course, he thought as well as they) and disappeared for the rest of the night or the week. Was it some vestige of social sense that took care of this, warning him to drink alone and so minimize the danger of trouble? Did some last scrap of pride intrude on his intoxication to remind him that he was never himself when drunk? He knew he wasn’t sober enough now to want to go to Jack’s and drink with others at the same bar, even if they were strangers. Why was he doing it, then? And why the Village—why Jack’s of all places in New York (he hadn’t been there since its fashionable days as a speakeasy)? He was wary, for the moment, as if he suspected a kind of trick; he felt a presentiment of trouble ahead, a premonition and hint of that danger he had warned himself about in the mirror; and then wondered: Was he only imagining this, dramatizing again, having fun?

  Jack’s had an upstairs as well as a downstairs bar. He walked through on the street level to the stairs at the back. Piano music drifted down the small stairway, and laughter. He ascended and came out into the upstairs bar. There wasn’t much of a crowd; perhaps it was still too early. Two young men, looking like football players, stood at the bar. He thought for a moment of standing there too, but instead went over to one of the small tables and sat down on the long bench that ran the length of the room. A waiter came and he ordered a gin-and-vermouth, suddenly sentimental about his favorite bar in Zurich, though he hadn’t drunk a gin-vermouth since he came home. The waiter asked if he might take his coat. No, he kept his coat on—with a bored air he said he was only going to stay a few moments. He permitted himself a few amiable words of French. To his surprise, the waiter pursed his lips like Charles Boyer and replied volubly, with such a super-Parisian accent that it sounded obscene—a series of nasty noises in the front of his mouth, as if he were mentally indulging in fellatio, pedicatio, irrumatio and cunnilinctus. This observation struck him as so comic that he had to turn his head away to hide his smile. Then he looked about the room, feeling apart, remote, above it all. He began to think of himself as a spectator making a kind of field-trip in sociology, and he believed the others, perhaps, might be wondering who he was. Tonight he would be aloof, detached, enjoying his anonymity.

  There were couples at some of the tables, a few fellows and girls. He studied them, and studied the football heroes at the bar. Their shoulders were wide and straight, so much like boards (another wonderful notion!) that it looked as if their necks were sticking out of pillories. He watched in turn the bartender, the waiters, the pianist.

  A fattish baby-faced young man—Dannie or Billy or Jimmie or Hughie somebody—sat at the tiny piano, talking dirty songs. The men and girls strained to anticipate the double-meanings; and when the off-color line was delivered, they stared at each other as if aghast and laughed hard, harder than the joke warranted, vying with each other in appreciation. There were songs called “The 23rd Street Ferry” and “Peter and the Dyke”; camping, queen, faggot, meat were words frequently played upon; the men and girls looked at each other and roared; the two athletes shifted uncertainly at the bar, not getting it; the baby-faced young man half-smiled, half-scowled about the room, his fat fingers rippling over the keys in a monotonous simple accompaniment like a striptease; he himself felt nothing but amused contempt for the cheap sophistication of the place—provincial, nothing short of it; and he ordered another gin-and-Italian.

  He was enjoying himself now. He speculated on how he appeared to the others. If anybody was wondering about him or looking at him, they must have decided that here was that rarity, an American who knew how to drink. He drank quietly and alone—an apéritif at that. He took his time, and did not bother with others. Obviously he was used to drink, had probably had it all his life, at home—wines at table, liqueurs after dinner, that sort of thing. Drink was no novelty to him—nothing to order straight, or in a highball, gulp down at once so you could order another, get in as many as possible between now and midnight.… This was the impression he believed he gave and was consciously giving. With money in his pocket, with several days to go before Wick came home, he had plenty of chance to play the solitary observant gentleman-drinker having a quiet time amusing himself watching other folk carouse, the while he sipped gin-vermouth which, for all they knew, might have been a Dubonnet or a sherry.

  A couple came in and sat down at the next table, on the bench beside him, another young man and a girl. He took them in, subtly, not staring, watching his chance to observe them unobserved, as if it were some kind of delightful game of skill. The girl took off her fur and put it on the bench with her handbag, between herself and him, not more than a foot-and-a-half from where he sat. He tried to place the kind of girl she was, mused on where she came from, what she did. It was a good enough fur—marten. He looked at the handbag. Brown alligator, with a large copper clasp, and a metal monogram in one corner: M. Mc. The young man wore a grey tweed suit, an expensive one, so rough and coarse that it looked as if small twigs were woven into it, chunks of rope and hemp, pieces of coal—he smiled with pleasure at such an idea. Isn’t that exactly the kind of suit he’d be wearing? he said to himself—and then smiled again, for of course he wouldn’t have said it if the young man hadn’t been wearing that kind of suit. He was delighted with this observation—it told him that his mind was working keenly and at the top of its bent, with that hyper-consciousness that lay just this side of intoxication. Well, he’d keep it this side, because he was having a good time, enjoying his own aloofness to the scene around him.

  He eyed the handbag again. What was in it? Lady-trifles, probably; immoment toys; God what marvelous expressions, what felicity, who else could have thought of them!—and suddenly, for an instant, he had a craving to read Shakespeare, rush home and sit down with Antony and Cleopatra and e
njoy the feast of language that was, perhaps, the only true pleasure in the world. But that was irrational, irresponsible: Shakespeare was there, would always be there, when he wanted him; the thing to do was appoint a certain period, regularly, perhaps two hours every day, every evening, why not, he had plenty of time, nothing but time—his eye went back to the handbag.

  M. Mc. Irish or Scotch? She was an attractive girl; black hair, beautiful fair complexion. Were they sleeping together? Was he nice to her? They probably didn’t begin to appreciate each other physically, they were too young. The young man would be carried away in his own excitement, she in hers, with no thought of each other’s sensations. Did he know what his body did to her? Did she forget herself long enough to prize his, did she lay her head on his stomach, feel his chest and thighs, was he big? The questions suddenly seemed important, they were all that mattered in the room—important, dangerous and exciting. He felt reckless and elated, larger than life. If she were not there, if the young man were alone, he would advance and find out a thing or two, amused at his own daring, amused at the young man’s shock. Or if the young man should go, leaving the girl, if she should look over and see him, let him speak to her, if he should move closer, if they should leave together, go home—how he would teach her what it was to be with a man! It was all one to him, for the moment he was like a god who could serve either at will. The handbag caught his eye and he puzzled about its contents.