Ann Petry

by Ann Petry

  He wouldn’t do anything to scare her. He would just be friendly and give her little presents at first. “Saw this in a store. Thought you’d like it, Mis’ Johnson.” Perhaps a pair of stockings. Yes, that would be it—stockings. Some of those long, mesh ones. Mis’ Greene who lived on the third floor worked downtown—she’d get them for him.

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have, Mr. Jones,” Lutie would say, and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “How about me seein’ if they fit?” That was it. Playfully. Not doing anything that would scare her.

  He leaned harder on the shovel imagining what it would be like. Seeing her there in his apartment with one of her long legs thrust forward—a bare, brown leg with red stuff on the toenails. And he would shake out the long stocking and pull it slowly over her foot. The soft brown skin would show through the meshes as he pulled the stocking up, up over the smooth flesh. He would lean nearer and nearer, as the stocking reached the rounded part of her leg where the fatness of the curve came, until he was pressing his mouth hot and close against that curve. Closer and closer so that he could nibble at it with his mouth, nibble the curve of her leg, and her skin would be sweet from soap and cool against the hotness of his mouth.

  He had to stop thinking about it. And as he stood there, he could see all those other women who had lived with him. Of the whole lot only one had been young and she had left at the end of three days. The rest of them had been bony women past fifty, toothless women past fifty, big ones and little ones—all past fifty. At that, none of them stayed very long. Three months, six months, and then they were gone.

  All except Min. Min had stayed two years. Talking, talking, talking. At first he had thought it was kind of cheerful to have her around. She kept the place from getting so deadly quiet. Now the sound of her voice shut Lutie’s voice out and he could never remember what it sounded like. Min’s voice would thrust it away from him the minute he started trying to remember.

  The thing for him to do was get rid of her. Min was probably the reason Lutie never even looked at him. Only sort of nodded when she went past. He should have thrown Min out that first night he saw Lutie. He remembered how her long legs had looked going up the stairs ahead of him. Just watching her like that he had wanted her so badly it was like a pain in his chest. Those long legs walking up and up in front of him, her rump moving from side to side as she walked. He remembered how his hand had cupped into a curve—unconsciously, uncontrollably, as he walked in back of her.

  And in the living room of the apartment he had stood there the light from the flashlight down at his feet so she couldn’t see the expression on his face as he fought with himself to keep from springing on her as she stood in the bedroom playing her light on the walls. She went into the kitchen and the bathroom and he made himself stand still. For he knew if he followed her in there, he would force her down on the floor, down against the worn floor boards. He had tried to imagine what it would be like to feel her body under his—soft and warm and moving with him. And he made a choking, strangled noise in his throat.

  “What’s that?” she had said. And he had seen the light from her flashlight waver from the trembling of her hand.

  He had scared her. He tried to speak softly so that the sound of his voice would reassure her, but his throat was working so violently that he couldn’t make any words come. Finally he said, “I cleared my throat, ma’am,” and even to his own ears his voice had sounded strange.

  After he had given her a receipt for the deposit she left on the apartment, he tried to figure out something he could do for her. Something special that would make her like him. He decided to do a special paint job in her apartment—not just that plain white paint she had ordered. So he put green in the living room, yellow in the kitchen, deep rose color in the bedroom, and dark blue in the bathroom. When it was finished, he was very proud of it, for it was the best paint job he’d ever done. He did something else, too. He scraped the paint from the windows, those long-dried spatters from his brush and then he washed them. The agent nearly caught him at it. Fortunately he had locked the door, but the man pounded on it and shouted for quite a while. “Hey, Jones! Jones! Where the devil is he?” He had stayed quiet inside holding the window cloth in his hand until the man went away.

  When Lutie came to get the keys, he got his first good look at her in daylight. Her eyes were big and dark and her mouth was rosy with lipstick. She had a small turned-up nose that made her face look very young and her skin was so smooth and so brown that he couldn’t stop looking at her.

  “You might have trouble with the door,” he had said. “I’ll show you how it works.” He couldn’t wait to see her face when she found out what a wonderful job he had done on the apartment. This way, too, he would again walk up the stairs in back of her. But she said, “You lead the way,” and stood and waited until he had to start up ahead of her.

  In the apartment she looked at the rooms, and at first she didn’t say anything until after she had looked in the bathroom, and then she said, “What awful colors!” He couldn’t help looking disappointed, but then she added with surprise in her voice, “Why, the windows have been washed. That’s wonderful.” And he had begun to feel better.

  Tonight she wasn’t home and the kid was upstairs by himself. Where could she have gone? Out with some man, he supposed. Some big-chested man like the kid’s father. Probably now at this moment they were alone together somewhere. Sweat broke out on his forehead and for the first time he became conscious of the heat from the furnace door. He put the shovel down and shut the door and walked away from the furnace. He had a sudden desire to see what the apartment looked like now that she had been living in it. It would be all right, he decided. She might even come home while he was up there and she would be glad he had stayed with Bub. That was it. He would go up and keep Bub company while she was out. And he would see how the place looked. He would see her bedroom.

  He walked up the stairs slowly, deliberately making himself go slow when what he wanted to do was to run up them. He stopped outside the door. There was a thin thread of light reaching out from under the door and the radio was going. Maybe she had come home while he was down in the cellar. In that case he would explain that he just came up to see if Bub was all right, he had thought Bub was up here alone——

  Bub opened the door a cautious crack in answer to his ring. When he saw Jones he opened it wide. “Hi, Supe,” he said and grinned broadly.

  “Thought I’d come up and see if you was all right.”

  “Come on in.”

  He walked into the living room and looked around. It smelt sweet with some faint fragrance that came from the bedroom. He looked toward it eagerly. That was the room he wanted to see most of all.

  “Your ma ain’t home yet?”

  Bub shook his head. “I been to the movies,” he said. “You shoulda seen it. This guy came out to the West and was going to be a lawyer. And he set up in business and a rich man who got his land crooked——”

  The boy’s voice went on and on and Jones forgot he was there. He was imagining that Lutie was curled up on the couch where the boy sat. He wouldn’t sit by her; he would stay where he was and talk to her. He wouldn’t scare her. He would be very careful about that—not make any sudden moves toward her.

  “Everything all right?” he’d ask.

  “Just fine.”

  “Brought you a little present,” and he would reach in his pocket and bring out some earrings—some long gold-colored hoops.

  “You want to fasten ’em on?”

  “I’m kinda clumsy,” he would say playfully. And then he would be beside her on the couch. Right beside her on the couch. He could pull her close to him, very close. So close she would be leaning against him. He looked down at his overalls. They had been blue once, but they had faded to a grayish-white from much washing. At least they’re clean, he thought defensively. But the next time he came up, he woul
d wear his good black suit and a white shirt. He would get Min to starch the collar.

  And then he remembered that he was going to get rid of Min. That would be easy. He would fix her so that she’d light out in a hurry and she wouldn’t come back. She and her carpet slippers and her whispering voice. He moved his shoulders distastefully. Why would he have to think about her here in Lutie’s apartment? He frowned.

  “You mad about somep’n?” the boy asked.

  Jones shifted uneasily in the chair, made an effort to erase the frown. Now what the hell had the kid been talking about—oh, yes, the movies he had seen. “Naw, I ain’t mad. Just thinkin’,” he said, and thought, I gotta keep him talking. Keep him busy talking. He took out a cigarette and lit it. “You only see one pitcher?” he asked.

  “Nope. Two of ’em.”

  “What’s the other one about? That fust one sounded good.”

  “Gangsters,” the boy said eagerly. “A man who arrested ’em. He pretended to be one, only he was really a cop. They had tommy guns and sawed off shotguns and——”

  That’ll hold him for a while, he thought. There must be some way he could get to look around in the apartment. He stood up abruptly. “Want a glass of water,” he explained, and started walking toward the kitchen before the kid could get up from the couch.

  But the kid got the water for him so fast that he didn’t get much chance to look around. He saw there were three empty beer bottles and a couple of Pepsi-Cola bottles under the kitchen sink. Even while drinking the water, his mind kept peering into the bedroom. What kind of bed did she sleep on? Perhaps he could open the closet door and just touch her clothes hanging there. They would be soft and sweet-smelling.

  Back in the living room the boy went on with his endless telling of the movie, and Jones thought there must be some way he could get to look in the bedroom.

  “Your ma need any extra shelves in her closet?” he asked suddenly.

  Bub stopped talking to look at the Super. What did he keep interrupting him for? He shook his head, “Naw,” he said indifferently. Then he picked up the thread of the story, “This guy that was really a cop——”

  Jones lit another cigarette. The ash tray was slowly filling up with butts. His throat and mouth were hot from the smoke. It seemed to him they must be raw inside and the rawness was beginning to go all the way down inside him.

  “Let’s you and me play some cards,” he said abruptly. “You kin get some matches for the stakes,” he suggested.

  He watched the kid go into the kitchen and he got up quickly and tiptoed toward the bedroom. He was almost inside the door when he heard Bub start toward the living room. He cursed the boy inside his head while he stood in the center of the room pretending to be stretching.

  “Pull your chair up, Supe,” Bub said. “We can play on top of this table.” He moved a bowl of artificial flowers that were on top of the blue-glass-topped coffee table in front of the couch.

  “Pull your chair up, Supe,” he repeated when the man didn’t move.

  Jones was staring at a lipstick that was on the table-top. It had been lying close to the bowl of flowers so that he hadn’t noticed it. The case was ivory-colored and there was a thin line of scarlet that went all the way around the bottom of it. He kept staring at the lipstick and almost involuntarily he reached out without moving his chair and picked it up. He pulled the top off and looked at the red stick inside. It was rounded from use and the smoothness of the red had a grainy look from being rubbed over her mouth.

  He wanted to put it against his lips. That’s the way her mouth would smell and it would feel like this stuff, only warm. Holding it in his hand he got the smell from it very clearly—it was sweet like the soap that round girl had used. The one who stayed three days and then left. He raised the lipstick toward his mouth and the boy suddenly reached out and took it out of his hand, putting it in his pants pocket. It was a swift, instinctive, protective gesture.

  “Mom thought she’d lost it,” he said, almost apologetically.

  Jones glared at the boy. He had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts he had forgotten he was there. And he had been holding the lipstick so loosely that the boy took it away from him without any effort. He hadn’t even seen him reach out for it. And he thought again of Bub’s father and that the boy had known there was something wrong about his lifting the lipstick toward his mouth. He was conscious of the loud ticking of a small clock that stood on a table near the couch. He could hear it going tick-tock, tick-tock, over the sound of the radio. He leaned forward aware that he had been silent too long.

  “Let’s get the game started,” he said roughly.

  He showed the boy how to play black jack. Bub learned the game quickly and started playing with a conservative kind of daring that made the pile of matches in front of him increase steadily. Jones studied him in the blue-glass table-top. There ought to be some way of getting that lipstick away from him. It would be good to hold it in his hands at night before he went to sleep so that the sweet smell would saturate his nostrils. He could carry it in his pocket where he could touch it during the day and take it out and fondle it down in the furnace room.

  When he stood outside on the street, he wouldn’t have to touch it, but he would know it was there lying deep in his pocket. He could almost feel it there now—warm against him. Mrs. Hedges could stare at him till she dropped dead and she wouldn’t know about it. The thought of her made him wish desperately that he could just once get his hands on her. Wished that just once she would come out on the street and stand near him. “She’s marked for somebody else.” Grinning like an ape when she said it and her eyes cold and unfriendly like the eyes of a snake. No expression in them, but you knew you weren’t safe. “Ain’t no point in you lickin’ your chops, dearie.” And her eyes boring into him, going through him, threatening him. Mrs. Hedges or nobody else was going to get Lutie away from him. He’d seen her first. Yes, sir. And he was going to have her.

  He lit another cigarette and, when he inhaled, he was aware that the dry hotness in his mouth and throat had gone all the way down him. He laid the cards he was holding down on the table. He had to have a drink of beer. Had to have it bad.

  “Hey, kid, go get me some beer and a pack of smokes”—he reached in his pocket and laid thirty-five cents on the table. “You kin keep the change.”

  As the boy slammed the door behind him, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. He was alone in the place as easily as that—just by sending the kid on an errand. He listened to the boy running down the stairs and then got up quietly and walked into the bedroom.

  He stood inside the room without moving. The sweet smell was stronger in here. It came from the side of the room. He fumbled for the light and hit his knee against a chest of drawers. And stood there for a moment rubbing the place and cursing. Then he turned on the light. The bed was covered with a flowered pink spread and the same kind of stuff was at the air shaft. Everything was so close together that he could look all around the room without moving.

  The sweet smell came from a can of talcum on the bureau. He picked it up and looked at it. She sprinkled this under her arms and between her legs—that’s how she would smell when he got close to her. Just like this. He opened the top of the can and sprinkled some of the powder in his hand. It lay there dead-white against the dark paleness of his palm. He rubbed his hands together and the sweet smell grew stronger in the room.

  He turned away abruptly. He mustn’t stay in here too long, the kid would soon be coming back. The way he ran down the stairs it wouldn’t take him any time to get to the store. Probably ran all the way to the corner. He wished that Lutie would come home while he was there. But the kid ought to come back now, he thought fretfully. She might not like it if she came home and found he had sent the kid out on an errand at night. What was keeping him so long? She’d probably be home any minute, now. Why hadn’t he told him to get
two bottles of beer? Given him enough money for two bottles and then she and him could have sat out in the living room on the couch drinking beer.

  He opened the closet door. It seemed to him that the clothes bent toward him as he looked inside—a blue dress, the coat she wore to work, a plaid skirt, some blouses. He looked closely at the blouses. Yes, there was the thin, white one he had seen one day when she came down the stairs with her coat open. It had a low round neck and the fullness of the cloth in the front made a nest for her breasts to sit in. He took it out and looked at it. It smelt like the talcum and he crushed it violently between his hands squeezing the soft thin material tighter and tighter until it was a small ball in his hands except the part where the metal hanger was near the top.

  Then he tried to straighten it out, patting it and smoothing and thinking that he must go quickly. Now. At once. Before the kid came back, so that no one would see the look on his face. He thrust the blouse back into the closet, closed the door, reached up and turned out the light.

  He hurried out into the living room intent on leaving before the kid came back. He paused in front of the open bathroom door. It wouldn’t hurt to look inside, to see how that blue color looked. There were white towels hung on a rack over the tub. He walked all the way into the small room trying to imagine how Lutie would look with water from the shower running down over her. Or lying there in the tub, her warm brownness sharply outlined against the white of the tub. The room would be hot from the steam of the water and sweet with the smell of soap. He would just be able to see her through the steaminess. Perhaps he could hold her next to him while he patted her body dry with one of those white towels.

  Why didn’t the kid hurry? He felt a sharp anger against him. She would be coming home at any minute now. She wouldn’t like it if the kid was out. He forced himself to look away from the tub and he was conscious that the thirst in him had become red-hot. He sat down on the toilet seat and buried his head in his hands. Instantly his nose was filled with the smell of the talc he had rubbed between his palms.