Midnight Cowboy

by James Leo Herlihy

  He held his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to Joe: “He’s dying to get you started tonight. I guess he’s up to here with orders, and nobody to send. You sure you want to?”

  Joe nodded with such vigor that the entire upper half of his body was used in the gesture.

  Into the telephone, Rizzo said, “Yes sir, three seventeen. Thank you sir, thank you very much.”

  Rizzo hung up the telephone. “He’s very excited to meet you already.”

  “W-w-what’ll I do? Just go on up?”

  “Room three seventeen. Let’s see how you look.” Rizzo stepped back, appraising Joe from head to foot. “Fine, you look fine. Now, I’m gonna have to have that other ten. Right?”

  “Listen, kid.” Joe handed Rizzo a ten-dollar bill. Then he took hold of his arm with both hands, one at the wrist, one at the elbow. “I want you to know I appreciate this, and furthermore, when things work out—well, I won’t forget you. You can bet your bottom dollar on that, and I mean it.”

  “Nah, you don’t owe me a thing. Look, I’m glad to help already.” With a flick of the finger, the money disappeared into Rizzo’s side pocket.

  “No, no,” Joe insisted. “I want to know where I can find you. ‘Cause, dammit, I’m gonna make this thing right with you. Now what’s your address?”

  “C’mon, quit it, will you?”

  “I want your address,” Joe insisted.

  “All right, I’m at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, now get your ass up there. He’s waitin’!”

  Joe released Rizzo’s arm. He closed his eyes and pressed his temples with his forefingers, saying, “Cherry Neverlin, Cherry Neverlin, Cherry Neverlin. I got it!” When he opened his eyes, he saw Rizzo passing through the glass door and scuttling toward the street at his usual breakneck speed.

  Joe used the mirror next to the elevator door. Finding himself somewhat pale, he leaned forward from the waist, dangling his head and arms toward the floor, hoping to bring some color into his face. Then he combed his hair, stuck in his shirt, fiddled for a moment with his cuffs, made a few reassuring clicks with his boots on the tile floor, smiled at himself and boarded the elevator.

  The minute the door opened, Joe began to feel like a small child. For the man in Room 317 was clearly some body’s father; he was the age of a father, old but not: really old, and he was wearing a fancy, cheap, worn-out bathrobe that looked like a long ago Father’s Day present.

  Mr. O’Daniel was fat, and the great sagging pouches in his face were those of a man on a diet or one who has recently been sick. His eyes were his most commanding feature. With dark-colored sacs below them and heavy brows above, they were the faded blue of an old sea captain, half blind from questioning the horizon. Standing there in his bathrobe with lips slightly parted and looking at Joe with these searching eyes, he might even have been a survivor of a shipwreck who has not yet heard the fate of his children: Are they alive? his eyes demanded. Are you one of them?

  Joe acted as if he were trying to answer some such question when he said, “How do you do, sir, my name is Joe Buck.”

  Mr. O’Daniel nodded. He repeated Joe’s name and nodded again. His eyes said, This is an ungodly hour to get home, but thank God you’re alive.

  Aloud, he said, “Joe Buck.”

  Joe felt he was being appraised and tried to squeeze a lot of worth into his face.

  “They tell me you’re a cowboy, is that the truth?”

  “No, sir.” Joe surprised himself by telling the truth. Then, somehow inspired to show a touch of humor, he added: “I’m no cowboy, but I’m a first-class fucker.”

  This didn’t earn the response he’d hoped for. Mr. O’Daniel was plainly shocked. “Son.” His voice was firm. “They’s no reason to use that kind of talk. Now come on in here.”

  Joe felt at once the dreariness of the room, noticed the dirty green walls, the single window giving on an airless airshaft, with the smell of dampness coming from it and of something that had died at the bottom of it.

  It never once occurred to him that Mr. O’Daniel would be staying in such a room out of poverty: Undoubtedly he had some sly motive relating to his profession.

  “But then again,” said the fatherly man, sitting on the edge of the bed, “why not? It seems to me you’re in the mood for plain talk. That’s why you come up here in the first place, or I miss my guess.”

  Joe said, “Yes sir.” He felt he only half understood what Mr. O’Daniel was getting at, but it seemed important, especially in view of that first blunder, to appear intelligent and agreeable.

  “You’re—uh.” Mr. O’Daniel was still appraising him. “You’re a little different than a lot of the boys’t come to me. With most of ‘em, they seem to be, well, troubled, confused. Whereas I’d say you knew exactly what you wanted.” The man’s voice had some old-fashioned element in it—a riverboat orator’s elongated vowels, a medicine man’s persuasion—but mostly he sounded like a plain person from Chillicothe or some such place.

  “You bet I do, sir.”

  “Well, I’ll bet you got one thing in common with them other boys: I’ll bet you’re lonesome!” Mr. O’Daniel seemed almost angry now. “Am I right? You’re lonesome, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I, uh …” Joe stalled for time. He wasn’t certain what was expected of him. “Not too. I mean, you know, a little.”

  “There! I knew it, didn’t I? That’s always the excuse: ‘I’m lonesome.’“ He mimicked a whining person. ‘“I’m lonesome, so I’m a drunk.’ ‘I’m lonesome, so I’m a drug fiend.’ ‘I’m lonesome, so I’m a thief, a fornicator, a whoremonger.’ Poop! I say Poop! I’ve heard it all. And it always boils down to lonesome, I was lonesome! Well, I’m sick of it, sick to death!”

  Suddenly Joe felt he had a grasp of the situation: the man was no doubt a whopper of a pimp, as Rizzo had promised, but he was also a little bit crazy. Joe wished he had been forewarned.

  “Now the Beatitudes is very clear,” said Mr. O’Daniel, looking at the ceiling and beginning to recite: ‘“Blessèd are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessèd are they that mourn …’“

  I wonder, Joe thought, if maybe he wouldn’t appreciate if I said a little something to bring his mind back to business, poor old fella….

  ‘“Blessèd are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ There!” said Mr. O’Daniel, proceeding like a man who has already proved his point and can now afford magnanimity: “Did you hear anything in there about the lonesome? Even one word? Oh, you heard about the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, and you heard about them that do hunger after righteousness. Sure you did. But.” He leaned forward on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, fingers woven together in a tense snarl of thick X’s, eyes aflame with confusion, looking at Joe. “You didn’t hear a purr, not a purrrrr! about the lonesome. And you know why? ‘Cause they’s no Beatitude for the lonesome. The Book don’t say they are blessed. Not once!”

  Mr. O’Daniel seemed to have worked himself up into another anger: “Lonesomeness is something you take! You take it! You hear me, dammit, I say you take it, you take it!”

  He sat straight up and hugged himself with both arms like a person taken with a sudden chill. The news had arrived, the word on those children in the shipwreck: All drowned.

  “They go do this, and they go do that, and they go do the other thing, and they live the life o’ Riley, and they whatnot, and they follow every little whim, and they think it’s fine fine fine, oh just fine—because they was Zone-some! Hm-mm. Hm-mm. Hm-mm. It’s not fine atall.”

  His voice was suddenly tired: The oration was over. Rising from the bed, he began to pace the room, speaking quickly and quietly: “Read Matthew five it’s all in Matthew five. Six won’t hurt you either, read Matthew six, now let’s get down to business. A cowboy, huh?”

  Happy to return to the matter at hand, Joe said, “Yes sir, I’m a cowboy.”

  “Well, we need cow
boys, we need everybody we can get.” Mr. O’Daniel looked him over again, then nodded. “A nice-lookin’ fella like you, young, strong, presentable, they’s no end to what you can do in this work.”

  Joe was relieved and grateful to be accepted. He burst into a smile and began to relax in the presence of this crazy, fatherly, important person.

  “Son, do you know what I think we ought to do?”

  “Whatever it is,” Joe said, “I’m ready.”

  “Yes, I believe you are.” A heavy hand fell upon Joe’s shoulder, and he was gripped by a pair of blue, moist, benign, searching, questioning eyes. “You know, I’ve got a hunch, Joe Buck. Just a hunch: But I think it’s gonna be easier for you than most.”

  “I got that same hunch, sir.” Joe nodded and smiled some more. “I think it’s gonna be like money from home.”

  “Money from home.” Mr. O’Daniel, impressed by this expression, repeated it over and over again. He looked at Joe as if he had discovered a major poet. “There, you see? That’s another part of your power, your strength. You put things in very earthy terms an ordinary man can understand. Son, I’m warnin’ you, I’m gonna use you! I’m gonna run you ragged! Are you ready for hard, hard work?”

  Joe made a fist and drove it into the air. Then he threw his hands up in a gesture that meant: What more can I tell you?

  Now Mr. O’Daniel was smiling, too. “You’re a wonderful boy,” he said. “And I think you and me’s gonna have us some fun, dammit! It don’t have to be joyless, you know, not atall. Now!” He put his hands up, like a politician waiting for attention. Then, speaking almost in a whisper, he said: “Why don’t we git right down on our knees? How does that strike you?”

  There followed a moment in which no word was spoken, no motion was made, no breath was taken. Joe knew now what he had begun to know at the moment the door of the room had been opened to him.

  The knowledge had been like something sickly green trickling slowly, irrevocably, into his bloodstream, too deadly to acknowledge. And now, even though he knew—and knew for certain—it was still too soon to act as if he knew.

  Therefore, after this long moment, he said, “Get down—where?” His lips were dry, his voice small and puny.

  Mr. O’Daniel said, “Right here. Why not? This is a church, isn’t it? Every square inch of this earth of ours is a church. I’ve prayed in saloons, I’ve prayed in the streets. I’m not ashamed to pray anywhere. You want to know something?”

  “What, sir?”

  “I’ve prayed on the toilet! He don’t care where. What He wants is that prayer!”

  Joe nodded, and not knowing what else to do, he decided to get down on his knees and pray awhile. But he couldn’t concentrate on it.

  8

  He reviewed in his mind the swindle that had taken place. It didn’t seem believable to him, so he went through it all again, and a third time. Then he heard Mr. O’Daniel’s words about getting Jesus into his heart and suddenly the reality of what had happened got through to him.

  He rose without a word and ran from the room, determined to right the situation. He didn’t even look back when Mr. O’Daniel called down the hallway after him: “Boy? Boy? Don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened, boy!” He didn’t wait for the elevator either, but ran down the stairs two at a time, and out onto 42nd Street, all the way over to Sixth Avenue and back again to Eighth, knowing even as he searched that the odds against finding Rizzo were overwhelming. Even as he was trying to remember the name of Rizzo’s hotel, he knew it was useless to do so. Joe didn’t want his twenty dollars back, not any more; what he wanted now was some kind of revenge that would make him feel less of a fool. Standing on Times Square, looking up Broadway toward Duffy Square, he had this fantasy:

  A grotesque little form wheels around the corner and slips into the doorway of a cigar store. Joe runs across the street and traps him there. Rizzo has no contrition whatever; instead he sneers at the man he has bilked. Joe takes out a knife and holds it up to Rizzo’s throat, intending to perform a neat, fatal slitting operation. But even in fantasy he cannot get the knife to penetrate the boy’s skin. He drops the knife and chokes Rizzo to death with his bare hands. The murder draws a crowd, the police come and—

  At this point the fantasy ended: Joe saw a photograph of himself on the front page of a newspaper. He stopped and blinked his eyes and looked at it again. He wasn’t imagining the newspaper, it was as real as his own boots, and there was the newsdealer with his little green shed and the stacks of newspapers. On the front page of one of the tabloids was a photograph of a young man being led away between two policemen. Joe thought, “It can’t be me, I didn’t kill nobody!”

  But there was the photograph.

  He bought a copy of the newspaper and hurried into the pizza place with it. Examining the photograph in this light he discovered that the young man, while close enough to himself in appearance to pass as a double, was in actuality someone else: a West Virginia mass murderer who had done in eleven members of his own family with a shotgun in a falling-out over a harmonica.

  Joe was considerably shaken by this experience of seeing his own likeness led away by the police in such an official-looking document as a newspaper. He left the restaurant in search of a mirror and found one on the front of the place.

  “Didn’t kill nobody,” he said to it. “Not gonna kill nobody.”

  He shook his head gravely at the image in the mirror, and then he walked away from it, hearing the clicking of his own heels: a distant sound now, and one without much meaning to him.

  A few minutes later, in his room, he looked into another mirror, the one over the bureau, and he studied his face as if he had just now met himself for the first time.

  Not the kind of person’t kills people, he thought. But in his eyes there was a question being asked. He saw the question, but he thought, no sir, not even rats. Not even Ratso. That’s what them fags called him, Ratso. Ratso Rizzo. To hell with Ratso Rizzo. That night he fell asleep with all the lights on.

  The next morning Joe experienced several awakenings from sleep, putting off the final one until afternoon. Even then he lay for a while in an imitation of sleep, unable to fool himself into thinking it was real.

  But that day and for the next several days he did enjoy a kind of somnambulism: walked and talked and performed all the ordinary creature functions—scratching, eating, going to the bathroom, etc., without actually using his head much at all. He knew his money was running out at a rate that made the matter urgent, but he did not truly feel the urgency at all, not even at the end of the following week when he received from the manager of the hotel a special note on the subject of his bill.

  In bed at night he dreamed of every form of peril imaginable: He was a passenger in cars gone berserk, an object of monstrous pursuits, a dweller in high, dangerous places, an exhausted swimmer in endless oceans. But in his waking hours he went about in this numb state, insulated from his own situation by layers and layers of unrelated thoughts and fantasies and tiny preoccupations.

  He wandered endlessly in and out of the side streets of Broadway, his head tilted toward the little transistor radio he held at his shoulder, feeling himself contained in some fragile safety by his participation in the unseen worlds of broadcasting. He liked talk stations best, and he often entered into the conversation.

  “Are you telling me,” he one day heard asked by a person of indeterminate gender and a very full nose, “that everything was simply falling off everything?” “No no no!” answered a petulant, pompous old man, “everything was not falling off everything. That would have been an earthquake syndrome! I’m talking about poltergeists, poltergeists!”

  “Know what I’m talkin’ about, genulman?” said Joe Buck. “I’m sayin’ shee-it! And I’m the boss.” Click. He switched stations.

  “Hear ye, hear ye,” said a singsong, thin, ancient voice, “next time you feel rheumatic or sciatic or any of the symptoms of old age, don’t complain. Just think of all those
who do not have the privilege of growing old in this wonderful world.” “Well!” said a candy-voiced man, “that’s a pretty doggone grand recipe for better living! What d’you say, folks, is that pretty doggone good for a great-grandmother?”

  “Oh yeah, hell yeah,” Joe said, speaking through the applause, “but don’t go ‘way, Granny, I want you to answer me somethin’ else. I heard a rumor about you, and I’ze wonderin’ if it’s any truth to it: Can you really take it standin’ up, honey? Is that so? Well, I’d say that was pretty doggone good for a great-gramaw, yesir-goddamree-bob.”

  And so on.

  One day at Riker’s a glob of catsup spilled onto his beige leather jacket and left an ugly stain. Joe set about developing certain ways of standing and walking that would conceal this flaw in his grooming. Then he conceived the notion of getting some more catsup and painting what would appear to be a deliberate design over the stain. He got as far as stealing some catsup and taking it into the men’s room of a cafeteria, but he was unable to decide upon a pattern. This indecision consumed the better part of an afternoon. It was typical of the kind of paralysis into which his mind had fallen.