The three of them walked on down the hall, one young woman on each side of Saul.
“It’s been fun, kids,” said Vivian. “But soon I’m going to be moving out.”
“Oh?” Hildy, feeling vague alarm, looked across at her. “Where to?”
“Sometimes I wonder, how are you guys ever going to heat this place in the winter? This isn’t southern California, you know. It gets cold in these parts.”
Saul put in: “The old hot water system is still working. And there are a lot of fireplaces.” He turned to Hildy with a vague expression of concern. “We could think about having some baseboard electric put in, I suppose.”
“Don’t start that before the weekend,” his sister cautioned him. “By the way, Gregory tells me that the magician he wanted to get is coming.”
Saul said: “Fine. It looks like everyone we invited is going to be here.”
FOUR
At dawn he had been sitting crouched on the curb. His feet, in their broken, mismatched shoes, were braced in the littered gutter, as ready as they could be made for their part in a quick spasmodic effort at getting his body erect. When the morning sun started to get warm, the sense of desperation and impending peril faded, and he moved into a building’s shade and got his aged shoulder-blades against a solid storefront. It was not the shade he sought; such warmth as this northern sun could generate could never really bother him. It was the support he wanted. He was very tired. If he dared let himself lean back against anything during the night, he tended to go to sleep; if he slept he could not remain on guard, and it was imperative to remain on guard during the hours of darkness. Whenever he nodded off by night lately he came jolting awake, crying out through his old throat in nightmare’s helpless terror.
He found himself wondering, sometimes, why the prospect of his own murder could shake him so. His life had long been robbed of everything that would make it worth worrying about. But this wondering was no defense against night’s terror.
Now morning daylight lent his surroundings gritty reality enough for him to be able to rest in metaphysical security. As he allowed himself to sit leaning back against the building, his hands, stubby-fingered, the basically pale skin polished beyond grime, could be let down to rest one on each side of him on the Chicago sidewalk. During the warm June night just past his hands had stayed most of the time clutched round himself as if he might be cold, as if his own embrace could possibly protect him from the terror that walked—and flew, and crawled, for all he knew—by night. Now, in daylight brightness and warmth, and warmth, and with people nearby—even such people as the Street afforded—maybe now he would be able to get some sleep.
Even if dreams came before wine.
News of the killings, of the evil, blood-draining torture-slaughters of helpless old men, had in the past days traveled up and down the Street like wind. Borne somehow in alcoholic breath, in muttered half-words, in faces frightened into speechlessness. Even though you might think that none of the people here ought to be afraid of death…
His eyes closed, already drifting near sleep as he leaned back against the building, he heard a pair of feet in unmatched shoes approaching, slowing to a stop. Without bothering to open his eyes he could identify
their shuffle.
“Hey, Feathers?” called the expected voice.
Despite himself the man called Feathers sometimes remembered that in some dim lifetime before he’d hit the Street his name had been something else. But that didn’t matter, hadn’t mattered for a long time now. He smiled now with what teeth he had left, knowing what this approach meant. Already it seemed to him that he could taste the wine, and he opened his tired eyes with quiet joy, ready to listen.
As he had expected, his visitor now launched into a long, detailed and almost completely unnecessary explanation of a simple scheme of pooling coins from several contributors in order to obtain a bottle. To the organizer of the scheme its prospects appeared bright. The man called Feathers grew impatient well before the end of the explanation, but some people deserved to be treated with courtesy, and anyway he understood what the organizer himself perhaps did not, that listening patiently and sociably was really part of the payment for being allowed to participate without being cheated. And so Feathers listened, nodding with assumed patience whenever agreement seemed to be called for, and in the end he contributed half a dollar. It was his only money in the world, and he gave it in trust, having done business with the firm before. The agreement promised that sometime today he would share wine, and he could at least hope for enough that bad dreams would be again postponed.
Alone again, still sitting on the sidewalk with his back against the storefront, he watched a pair of drunken women reeling along the far side of the street. There was a sight offensive to morality. The two suddenly broke into a quarrel, letting out horrible sodden gasps and cackles … that women should be here at all was a terrible thing, and he could see that one of these had been lovely and young not long ago … never again … in pain, Feathers closed his eyes again, willing his thoughts elsewhere.
Today, as sometimes happened, the sleep that he had expected and yearned for refused to come. The day continued to pass anyway, as all days did. He waited for his investment in wine futures to bear fruit. Meanwhile he did his best to avoid thought. Just for variety he moved back to the curb and sat there for a while again. And then once more he shifted into shade, getting his back against a different building.
He dozed at last…
“Hey, Feathers? All I need now’s a quarter. One more fuggin’ quarter, man.”
“Got no more money.” Under the circumstances he considered that a courteous reply.
“You got a dime?”
He closed his eyes again. His bladder pained him lightly. Soon he would have to decide if it was worth the trouble of going into an alley before he voided. Yeah, he had lasted a long time on the Street. A long, long time. Still there had been a time in his life before the Street, when things were not like this. Not like this…
Had he perhaps been here for a million bottles? How many bottles a year would that be? Numbers had never been his strong point. But he was sure that his Street had run through many other towns beside this one, and many other years.
He opened eyes—awoke, perhaps?—to find himself still sitting alone, in shadows that had to be those of afternoon, shadows slowly lengthening. No wine in sight as yet. Well, he could be philosophical. In time another bottle would be his, one way or another. Bottles and people, he’d seen them come, he’d seen them go. Usually pretty thoroughly drained. Even if some men had amounted to something in previous lives, now on the Street they were all pretty much the same … pretty well drained…
He was ambushed unawares by delayed sleep, and dozed again, only to wake with a sharp start from some bright unbearable dream of youth and greenery, and hideous, monumental loss. For a moment there he’d been a long way from the goddam Street, but he didn’t think he could survive many more moments like that one.
Oh, God, it had been years since he’d last remembered … in memory he heard the last note of a woman’s laugh, biting now like a knife point.
It didn’t matter, it was all over, over, over, and none of it mattered now a goddam bit. But somewhere deep inside he was shaking.
Propelled into movement by a different feeling, an impulse that it took a little time to recognize as hunger, he tottered to his feet. There would be a bowl of soup or stew available somewhere, a sandwich maybe. He knew a couple of likely places to get a handout. Neither place was very far away, though getting there by shuffle would take some time. Time was one thing he had plenty of, baby. There had been a song about that. A year ago? Feathers knew he tended to lose track of years.
The heat of the day, such as it was, had already passed its peak and was abating. Sun’s heat felt good on bones as old as his.
Sing a hymn—no, you didn’t really have to do that any more—and get a meal. Eventually, he could still hope that it would be t
oday, a wine bottle would appear.
Leaning against a lamppost, he fumbled to open his trousers’ frayed fly, discovered it already open, and drained discomfort from his bladder. If the cops saw him now they’d certainly take him in. There were a lot worse places than a Chicago cell in which to spend the night.
But no such luck today. He was going to have to go to the hymn-singers and get a meal, and then prowl after wine. Somehow, sometime, a bottle would appear.
A pawnshop window half-mirrored the sidewalk’s heat, and his own ragbag figure’s shambling progress. His gray whiskers looked like fur glued on in handfuls decades past and unattended since. Behind the window’s armored grillwork were old musical instruments, radios, a tiny television with a dead dusty face. At the bottom of a short literary stack there was one thick, serious-looking volume, and something about that bottom book stirred vibrations deep in memory, roiled more sorely things already stirred by that last dream.
There had been books, yes, once there had been many books. Books revealing marvels ancient beyond guessing, and ancient marvels in themselves. And summer greenery as in the dream, and a young woman’s laughter…
…NO…
It didn’t matter. He had to cling to that. If he let himself panic now, over nothing, over what was dead and buried, it could finish him off. Really it didn’t matter now. Whatever his life had once contained of beauty, and of power, was all forgotten now. More than forgotten, buried and dead. He no longer wanted change, improvement, success. He no longer remembered what those things were. Now he wanted nothing at all beyond another bottle, or at least a share in one, and then to be left alone. The wine, the power, the sacrament. The Word of the Lord urged softly, in eternal pigheaded hope. The Lighthouse, the Salvation Army kitchen. And by now he was near enough to smell the soup.
At one time—it was so easy to lose track of the years, no, so difficult actually, but he’d managed it—at one time it really had been necessary to sing a hymn for them before they’d give you a handout. It was all handled differently now, more scientific and more merciful at the same time. Institutionalized love. The Work and the Word of the Lord going hand in hand … oh Lord, oh God, why is it still needful that I still be cursed with a functioning mind, or anyway one that sometimes functions? How many million bottles of wine are needed to, work the miracle of deep forgetting?
For a moment he stood swaying on the streetcorner, arms raised, fingers spread as if to grasp and tear the sun.
… world without end, amen. The Street was a world truly without end within the world, going on infinitely echoing itself. As an empire it had outlasted many others. And he had seen a lot of the Street. A goddamned lot.
When he came out of the soup kitchen, having eaten, and having skillfully put off the clever overtures of the social worker, it was dark again. The sun was certainly down, the shadows cast by streetlights had grown out in their fixed places on pavements and the fronts of buildings. The sky was a starless blur above all lights. He was leaving a fresh young woman behind him disappointed, not the first time he’d done that, ha hahh.
The soup had evidently given him some kind of strength.
… now was that real laughter, somewhere?
Hardly. Only some of the usual noise made by the usual two-legged pigs of the Street. Though at the end there had sounded one true, wild note…
Get a meal, sing a hymn, get a bottle sometimes. Get busted, sleep in a cell, get out. Oh yeah, and fear the eventual return of winter. In winter life grew hard.
Get a bottle, then try for a safe place to sleep it off. The pitiful shelter of some flophouse with its chickenwire barricades at best. At worst—
Great God but death was coming, prowling the street in the next block. Feathers, seeing the dark-suited figure under a streetlight from a block away, recognized it instantly and knew an instant convulsion of terror. His ancient heart leaped up to pound savagely under his ribs. He instantly ceased his shuffling progress to nowhere, and stood leaning like an abandoned store dummy against the nearest building front. For all his immobility he was suddenly more awake, more alive, than he had been for years. With all the energy that he could muster, he willed himself unnoticeable, invisible. Meanwhile death in a dark elegant suit came pacing on in his direction. The seeking butcher, pale angular face brooding above a neat collar and red tie, stalked past Feathers not a body-length away, without a sign of being aware of him. Feathers did not breathe. He saw a worn gold ring on a white finger. The dark eyes in death’s wan countenance did not turn toward him. The moment passed with Feathers still invisible, and then the embodiment of death was gone.
He breathed again. He gasped, and sweated too. God, why did he cling so frantically to life, erect his flimsy chickenwire barricades of the mind, just to give the throatslitters a little more trouble in getting their hands on him? But cling to life he must, there seemed to be no choice.
Now he really had to get a bottle. He’d seen death on the streets before in recent days, but never so close. He needed a bottle, and then some place where he could rest.
Against a half-familiar storefront he let his legs give up their burden. His shaky knees folded, and he slid down to sit on the sidewalk. His once-strong hands caressed the solid, physical concrete, still warm from the sunlight of the day just past.
“Feathers?”
This was a new voice, one that did not sound as if it ought to be on the street at all. Its owner had somehow contrived to approach without being heard. The old man roused in surprise from his near-trance, noting with shaky relief that the newcomer was not in a black suit, even before he could get a good look at the man’s face.
The man standing over Feathers was no one he had ever seen before. Maybe one of the Street missionaries, except few of them were blacks. This man had skin the color of coffee heavy on the cream, features half African. Coatless, his dark shirt open at the collar, but well-enough dressed in the dirty dusk; in fact, dressed too well by far to be a genuine member of the Street himself.
The man was smiling at Feathers softly. He was of average build, and somewhere under forty. “I heard your friend over there call you by that name not long ago: ‘Feathers’. We could use another name if you don’t like that one.” His accent was not American Black, but not quite Standard American either. Maybe Caribbean?
“No friggin’ friend of mine. Who’re you? You’re no friggin’ friend either.” And all the while Feathers felt a weak relief that this was not dark death returned. Speech and thought, as they so often did, seemed to be springing from different founts inside his head, each going its own way almost unrelated to the other. He was being discourteous. Well, sometimes that was actually the best way to cadge a drink, and anyway most people deserved it.
“I could be your friend.” The stranger’s dark eyes were vaguely luminous. “I’ll buy you a drink. Where’s the best place?”
“Drink. All right. I’m your man.” Still sitting on the pavement, Feathers suspiciously eyed the street to right and left. The choice of a place did matter, because— “Not right here.” There was a tavern within spitting distance on his right. “If we go in here, all my goddam friends will see and come in after us. Bumming drinks. Leeches.”
“Okay,” agreed the stranger good-humoredly. “Where then?”
“Place just around the corner. Down the side street.” Feathers’ feet had by now somehow become positioned under his center of gravity. Standing up was now possible, with a little help from the stranger’s hand, which felt stronger than it looked. Shuffling, leaning on a building now and then for balance and support, Feathers led the way around the corner.
When you turned this way the world changed quite a bit in just one block of gritty sidewalk. Proceeding a second block in this direction would have brought them to an alien country, whose horrified inhabitants would boot a Skid Row bum right out of their taverns. But Feathers had no intention of going that far. One block was just right. The corner tavern on the borderland would let him in, if he had
a companion who looked as if he could put down some money on the bar. And here the leeches were not likely to dare to follow.
In the doorway of the borderland tavern they were met by cooled air, the smells of stale beer and staler pizza. This atmosphere had a certain degree of class. It bore no noticeable traces of bad wine or old vomit. The people already in the bar, none of them with their clothes torn or their flies gaping, looked up coldly at Feathers when he entered. But he had judged correctly, they weren’t quite ready to throw him out on sight when he came in with someone better dressed.
“How about some food?” His soft-voiced benefactor, helping him get settled in a booth, was becoming solicitous. Maybe he was queer. It was a long, long time now since Feathers had felt the need to worry that anyone would approach him in that way. He doubted that was it.
The two of them sat facing each other in a dim plastic booth, and drinks, drinks, were on the way at last. The bar in this tavern had arranged on it the trimmings for serving food: paper napkins, mustard, salt and pepper, sharp pointed little plastic picks. A sign on the wall said SANDWICHES.
“I’m a reporter.”
“Like shit you are.”
“Oh?” Fierce insult appeared to have provoked no more than gentle amusement. “What am I, then?”
“How come you picked me to talk to? Buy drinks for?”
“There’s something about you. Something interesting.”
Wine was set before Feathers, a small portion of a wine-dark sea bounded in a glass. Plunging in shielded one from all else.
`The coffee-colored hands on the other side of the narrow table cupped a clear glass, holding what could be gin and ice cubes. Or maybe it was vodka. “We could go somewhere else if you’d rather. I have a car not too far away. I know a party where you’d be welcome. They have a lot of drinks just sitting there waiting. You know what good wine is like?”
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