Midnight Cowboy

by James Leo Herlihy

  Joe’s thoughts on these matters were not well formed; he did not even know them as thoughts. And he knew Perry only as a man knows his fate when he is visited by it: in his blood. Perry was the visitor and Joe, with no real thought to cover the matter, knew himself to be the host waiting for the visitor to state in his own good time the nature of his visit.

  One night Perry turned unexpectedly to Joe and said, “What’s the story?” But he did not seem really to be asking a question. He did, however, keep his eyes on Joe.

  Joe shook his head. “Hell, man, I don’t know,” he said. But what he seemed to be saying was, “I am just waiting, that’s all I know.”

  On another night, in a similar way, out of the blue, Perry said, “Do you make the scene?” This was somewhat more of a question, but Joe was at a loss to answer it.

  “Make the scene,” he said, faking it, “yeah, that’s right, hell yes.” He had no notion of what he was talking about.

  On these few occasions when Perry did speak, his voice was deep and low, just a cut above a whisper and intimate as the grave.

  One morning at dawn he said, “Are you for real, Joe?” and then he left the table and went out of the place, clearly not expecting to be answered at all.

  And then one night he looked at Joe in that very first way, the long look of that first night.

  Joe was nervous. It was time. For something. He was desperately anxious to know what was expected of him. He puffed on his cigarette, stalling, hoping for inspiration. He laughed and wheezed and shook his head knowingly and tapped the table with his finger tips. And then, suddenly, almost involuntarily, he stopped all this false activity and sat still, simply looking at the man across from him. His eyes clearly said, Help me, but he had no idea any message at all was being transmitted.

  Perry nodded slightly. His eyes were sympathetic. Then the amusement in them became more pronounced than usual. And suddenly all that could be seen in them was the mystery that was nothing more or less than his own doom. He turned his gaze on the street once again.

  It happened that at this moment, as if by some outlandish plan, the revolving door was spinning. A small man in a green necktie and brown tweed sport jacket was coming toward their table.

  6

  The man was young, about thirty, but nearly bald, and he had a high naked-looking forehead and burning beady eyes that were enlarged many times over by the thick lenses of his spectacles. He looked like a mad young scientist in a silent movie.

  He stopped at the table where the two young men were seated. “Perry,” he said.

  Perry gave no sign of having heard his name spoken.

  “Please, Perry, do you know how many times it’s been this late?” His voice lapped the ear with something caramel-soft and caramel-sweet.

  A long ash fell from Perry’s cigarette onto his trousers. He brushed at it with his hand and went on smoking.

  “Please, I said, Perry.” No answer. “I just want to ask you if you know what time it is, that’s all.”

  He changed his tack: took a chair from the next table, placed it in such a way that it faced Perry, then sat down with a deliberateness calculated to suggest that he could outwait any human being alive, folded his hands on his lap, and commenced to stare.

  Perry after another long moment said to Joe, “Want some coffee?”

  Before Joe could answer, Perry turned to the third man without actually looking at him directly and said, “Marvin.”

  The man would not break his game of staring. “Yes, Perry.”

  “Marvin, two cups of coffee.”

  The movie scientist leaned forward, tilting his head in a way that indicated pleading. All his gestures had this quality of standing for something not quite felt. “Oh, Perry,” he said.

  “One black, Marvin, and one with cream.”

  Marvin, by pressing his lips together and raising his thin black eyebrows, acquired an imposed-upon look. He sighed and went to the counter.

  Joe smiled and said, “Hey, Perry, I bet you that fella’s a brother o’ yours, right?”

  “Wrong.”

  Returning with the coffee, Marvin placed both cups in front of Perry. Some aspect of the situation seemed to prohibit him from acknowledging Joe’s presence at the table.

  Perry said, “Serve my friend, Marvin.”

  Marvin slid one of the cups across the table toward Joe.

  “Thanks,” Joe said. “Thank you a lot.” He smiled at the big forehead and tipped an invisible hat to it, considering an absurd impulse to draw a picture on it.

  The man resumed his seat and his impassive stare and said nothing.

  “My friend thanked you, Marvin.”

  “He’s welcome, Perry. You’re welcome, sir.”

  Perry’s voice did not alter; it was a warm narcotic bath of sound: “His name is Joe, Marvin.”

  “You’re welcome, Joe.”

  A moment passed.

  Perry said, “Marvin.”

  “Yes, Perry.”

  Perry put his hand forward, still not looking at the man. He seemed to place a high, benedictory value on his eyes and would not squander them on unworthy subjects. “Let me see your billfold, Marvin.”

  “Oh, Perry, please.”

  Perry’s hand was still extended. “I meant immediately, of course, Marvin. I always mean immediately, unless I specify otherwise.”

  Marvin placed his billfold in Perry’s hand. “Oh, honestly,” he said.

  Perry counted the money. There were four one-dollar bills. “How much is in your pocket, Marvin?”

  “What pocket?” Marvin said, quickly removing a hand from the side pocket of his tweed jacket.

  “That pocket,” said Perry without pointing or even glancing in Marvin’s direction.

  Marvin then handed over a small wad of bills, which Perry held without counting. “How much is here?” he said.

  “Tch.” Marvin sighed. “Seventy,” he said.

  “You may have my portion then, Marvin.” Perry handed back the billfold. “And I will have yours.” He pocketed the seventy-dollar wad.

  “Now I’d like the car keys, Marvin.”

  “No! I absolutely refuse! Please, Perry.”

  “Excuse me, Marvin. I didn’t hear you. What did you say? You said something just now. Repeat it.”

  “Oh, how am I going to get home?”

  “What’s the matter, are your feet just killing you, Marvin?”

  “Oh, Perry, why are you doing this? Is it to impress your friend? I’m sure your friend is very impressed.”

  “I had planned,” said Perry, “to come to your home tomorrow afternoon. However, you’re behaving so poorly, Marvin, it may be necessary to adjust my plans.”

  “What time?” Marvin said. “Late afternoon or early afternoon or what tomorrow?”

  “The car keys, Marvin.”

  “I’ll give them to you, I’ll give them to you. But say what time.”

  “Are you suggesting a bargain, Marvin?”

  “Oooh!”

  “Don’t whimper. You’re whimpering, Marvin.”

  Marvin smiled and tried to laugh, but all he could manage was a twitch of the eyebrows and a few minor explosions of breath.

  Joe by now had completed plans for the drawing he would never be able to place on Marvin’s big blank forehead: a girl-child with long mascara’d eyelashes.

  Marvin took the car keys from his pocket and placed them on the table before Perry.

  “Here, take the things. Five o’clock?”

  “Thank you, Marvin, for the use of your car, and for all your other kindnesses. I may sometimes fail to show my appreciation, but you do have it, from the heart.” Perry rose from the table. “Come on, Joe.”

  Joe rose slowly from the table, confounded by what he had witnessed. He had the feeling that if Marvin would show his eyes everything would then be all right. But the spectacles clearly grew out of his face like flesh and horn and muscle and there was no removing them.

  Marvin got
up and grabbed Perry’s arm. Perry stood stock-still, holding the offended arm aloof from his body, his back to Marvin. “Remove your hand, Marvin. And sit back down.”

  These commands were executed at once.

  “What time then?” urged Marvin. “About five? Or after? Or what?”

  Perry now turned for the first time to the little man with the many-times-magnified eyes and bestowed upon him a long ambiguous gaze: It looked like contempt, but then again it looked like tenderness. “Sometime tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “Now I want you to sit still and stay that way till I’ve gone. Do you understand what I want?”

  “Tch.” Marvin sighed. “All right, Perry.”

  Perry would not remove his eyes until Marvin repeated what he had said, omitting the implication of resistance.

  “All right, Perry.” And, “Thank you!” he threw in for good measure.

  Perry went through the revolving door, and Joe followed close behind. As they passed the window, Joe looked in at the little movie scientist. It was eerie to see him sitting there, in motionless obedience, his thick glasses catching the light of the cafeteria at an angle that made them look like two high-powered flashlights following Perry’s departure.

  7

  They were in a parking lot, Perry leaning on the fender of a white MG, Joe standing before him, thumbs caught in his hip pockets, smiling uncertainly, wondering what in the world was about to take place. The night was cold and clear, and the stars, like the possibilities, seemed brighter and far more numerous than usual. Joe laughed. Perry smiled and looked at him and shook his head in the manner of one who is indulging a small child.

  “Joe,” he said. He made frequent and gentle use of a name, knowing that to its owner it is likely to be the most sacred word in the language, reaching not only the ear but the heart as well. “What’re you laughing for, Joe?”

  Joe shook his head, still smiling. “Beats me.” He laughed some more, trying still to pretend he understood everything and yet fully aware he was merely making a fool of himself.

  “We got to get you cooled, Joe, we got to get you tuned in. Would you like that?”

  “Yeah, hell yeah, that’s just what I need.”

  “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you, Joe?”

  “Well now, tuned in, that’s a—No, not exactly; I wouldn’t say I knew exactly.” He tried another little laugh, an immediate failure.

  “No, you don’t, Joe. You don’t know anything much. But that’s valuable. Otherwise you couldn’t learn. You want to learn, don’t you?”

  “Oh yeah, you bet I do, Perry.”

  “Well then, isn’t it a good thing you don’t know much?”

  Joe frowned, afraid to risk another laugh.

  “Do you trust me, Joe?”

  Joe nodded, quite vigorously. He meant for this nodding to express all of his respect and affection for Perry, and he went at it in earnest. And then he heard himself babbling something: “I sure do, Christ yes I do. But I’m just fairly new here in town, and uh—” He was trying to get some point over to this highly important new friend, but it wasn’t coming out at all right. “I just got to town here, I’m a stranger, I come in from—” No, that wasn’t it, not even close.

  “You don’t have to tell me where you came from, Joe. You’re here, aren’t you?”

  “I’m what? Here? Yeah I am, by God.” This was not the kind of conversation in which he’d learned to participate in the army. There it had been fairly safe to laugh and pull a certain face when you’d lost the thread, and that usually got you through. But with Perry here it was different: He kept pretty close track of things.

  “I’m going to help you, but I want you to relax and trust me. Now listen, have you got a room near here?”

  “A room! Yeah, I got a room in a hotel.”

  “Let’s go there then. Where is it?”

  “It’s got an O missing.”

  “Where? I mean, do we walk or do we drive?”

  “Either way, we can just—”

  “How far is it, Joe?”

  “I’d say it was a few blocks.”

  “Get in.”

  They parked the MG across the street from the place, walked past the desk clerk’s cubbyhole and up the stairs to Joe’s room.

  Perry sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I don’t see a radio, Joe.”

  “Radio? Nope, no. I don’t have a radio. Yet. I’m gonna get one, though.”

  “Make yourself at home, Joe. It’s your room, isn’t it? And you’re with a friend, so relax.”

  Joe sat on a straight-backed wooden chair. “It make a lot of difference in here to have a radio.”

  “Yes it would. It’s very bad not having one.”

  Joe said, “I believe I’d like to have me a transistor, you know about them and all?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Mm-hm, well, I’m saving for one.”

  “Starting when?”

  “Tomorrow.” A moment passed, then Joe said, “What I want, I want one with some power in here, not one of them little dinkies.” He looked around the place, scanning the dark walls quickly. “You understand what I mean?”

  “Exactly,” Perry said. “You want a radio with some power. You don’t want one of those little dinkies.”

  Perry placed a thin, hand-rolled cigarette in his mouth and lighted it. He sucked some smoke out of it, making a hissing sound, then held his breath and handed it to Joe. Joe tried to imitate Perry, but he gave away his inexperience by emitting the smoke at once.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing, Joe. You must learn from me and then you’ll know. Now—” he held the cigarette in the air between them—”this is not tobacco, Joe, this is a special cigarette, containing the dried leaves and flowers of a hemp known botanically as Cannabis sativa. It’s comparable to the high-powered non-dinky transistor radio you’re saving up for starting tomorrow. No, that’s not quite true. You and I are the radios, the Cannabis sativa is the, uh, juice, power….”

  He stopped talking and filled his lungs again, using sign language to get the technique across to Joe. Together they finished the cigarette and then they sat in silence for a few minutes and then they smoked another one. Joe got up to open the window. Perry told him not to. Then Joe realized he was enjoying his own movements in a new way, and this caused him to smile.

  “That stuff helps,” he said. “I believe it helps.”

  Perry took the tiny ends of the two cigarettes they had smoked and tore them to pieces, dropping the fragments into the sink and washing them down the drain. “Unlike tobacco, the butt of the Cannabis sativa must be disposed of entirely, Joe. There.”

  “Hey!” Joe said suddenly. “That was marijuana! That cigarette had marijuana in it!”

  “That’s right, Joe.”

  “Hell!” Joe was delighted. “No wonder I feel so nutty! You sure are one sneaky devil, Perry.” He went about the room testing his responses to movement, to seeing, to simply being, and he found them altered, heightened, and he felt more amused with himself than ever before.

  Perry lay back on the bed. He took a long while adjusting himself, and when he was spread out comfortably, ankles crossed, hands behind his head, he said, “You comfortable there, Joe?”

  “I’m fine,” Joe said. But suddenly he wasn’t fine at all. Something was wrong and he couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was as if some nameless threat were creeping silently into the room from under the door and through the cracks in the window and he was at a loss to stop it, or even describe it.

  “Is there anything you want, Joe?”

  “Oh no, no, I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re not fine, Joe.”

  “Huh?”

  “You need help.”

  “Do I?”

  “Oh, yes, definitely. And I, in concert with the Cannabis sativa, am here for just that purpose: to help you find out what you want and show you how to take it.”

  Joe felt as if his heart
were filled with air; it might burst, and painfully, dangerously; he pressed on it with the palm of his hand. That didn’t help at all. He picked up a book of matches and began to fool with it, trying to distract himself from the anxiety he felt. The matches were very real and definitely a relief; he bent them and twisted them and put them down and picked them up. Perry was still talking: