The Alcoholics

by Jim Thompson

If it had been all, perhaps…But it wasn’t. There was one final bit of evidence in the damning case against man. And this, probably, was the worst of all; because it stripped all those years of meaning. It handed out shame and ugliness, exacted unquestioning submission and exchanged futility. No time of peace. No comfort and security, all the sweeter for past sacrifice and hardship.

  Yes, Mama was Mr. Leemy’s sole heir, as he had promised she would be, but his estate had never been the vast abundance that everyone supposed, and at the time of his death it was worse than worthless. He had lived it up, as the saying is. There were large, unpaid bills. Even the house and its furnishings were mortgaged to the hilt.

  She and Mama had been allowed to move into an old tenant shack at the rear of the main house, and the Doctors Warfield—Old Will and Young Will—the only people in town who had ever been nice to her and Mama—the doctors treated Mama for nothing and gave her, Lucretia, some after-school work at their office (and paid her twice what it was worth), and so she had managed to finish high school. A few weeks before Mama died.

  That was undoubtedly all for the best, as the doctors said. Mama was losing her mind. There was something incurably wrong with her insides.…

  …Josephine stared at Miss Baker, troubledly, her brow puckered in anxious concern. At the moment she would have given one of her unpaid week’s wages for some Long John the Conqueror Root, or, better still, a pinch of goofer dust. If a person ever needed a sprinkling of goofer dust, and needed it bad Miss Baker was undoubtedly it.

  Miss Baker was plenty mean, all right; she was a pure-evil eye. But, obviously, no one who looked as Miss Baker was looking—so poorly-pale, like some poor scared-sick chil’—could be responsible for her affliction. Plenty of folks had the evil eye put on ’em. Plain nice folks, they were, but someone made conjure against ’em and from then on, and until the hex was removed, well, those folks was in a bad way.

  Rather gingerly, Josephine touched Miss Baker’s arm. She was mightily afraid, but it was one’s bounden duty to assist innocent sufferers from the evil eye.

  She touched the nurse’s arm more firmly, then gently grasped her by the elbow and lowered her to the stool.

  “You be all right,” she said. “You gonna be all right, now, Miz Baker. You drink some nice, hot coffee.”

  Miss Baker looked blankly down at the cup.

  She took a scalding sip of coffee, and her eyes began to clear. Very pleasant, but it must be getting quite late. She would have to get dressed and something—something would have to be done with her hair. It…well, it seemed to be pulling, there at the back of her neck, and—it was pulling!

  Irritably, she brushed at it.

  Her hand came down on Josephine’s. It almost struck the knife with which Josephine had been about to remove a lock of hair.

  The coffee cup dropped from her startled fingers and into her lap. She jumped to her feet, screaming and streaming.

  “What are you doing? What were you doing to me!”

  “Nothin’,” said Josephine, seeing that the eye had reassumed its wicked reign. “Wasn’t doin’ nothin’,” she said, backing away. “No, ma’am, not me!”

  “You were, too! Don’t you suppose I—What are you holding behind you?”

  “Me? You mean me, Miz Baker?”

  “Jothephine! Let me thee your handth!”

  Josephine shrugged, her lower lip pushed out in injured innocence. She brought her hands around in front of her, and held them out.

  “Aw, right,” she mumbled, “you like to see han’s, there they is. Just plain ol’ han’s, seems like to me, but I ain’t arguin’. Don’t make me no min’. I just soon—”

  “That,” said Miss Baker, her cheeks crimsoning, “will be juth about enough, Jothephine! You were doing thumthing to—”

  “I don’t argue about nothin’,” said Josephine. “I show you my feets, you want to see ’em. All I ask is you stan’ right there so’s ’at coffee runs down on your shoes ’stead of my floor, an’—”

  Miss Baker looked down at her ruined uniform. She fled out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  Sorrowfully, for success had been in her grasp, Josephine reached behind her and removed the knife from its improvised holster of apron strings. Holding it to her mouth, she breathed a cleansing film of moisture onto the blade and polished it against her bosom. She took meat from the refrigerator, and began slicing it for lunch.

  Josephine sighed, her thoughts moving from the apparently hopeless project represented by Miss Baker, to the incredible density of Doctor Murphy’s mind. To the latest proof of that density. The condition of Susan Kenfield.

  That was somethin’—Josephine chuckled sourly—yes, sir, that was really somethin’. She wished Ol’ Mam had been with her, peering out through the kitchen serving-window, when they’d brought Miz’ Kenfield in. Ol’ Mam or Granny Blue Gum—Granny who was bat-blind and stone-deaf. Because it helped if you could see and hear, but you didn’t really have to. It was mostly the smell that you went by. That smell—and how could folks say it wasn’t there just because they couldn’t smell it?—that didn’t tell no lies.

  Josephine picked up a slice of meat, stuffed it into her mouth, and chewed reflectively. Maybe…huh-uh; her head moved in a silent but positive negative. They’d laugh at her. Didn’t want her to laugh, but they were always waiting for a chance to laugh at her. So let ’em find out for themselves. It sure wouldn’t be long until they did find out.

  Any old time now, Miz’ Kenfield would be poppin’ that baby.

  9

  Bernie Edmonds stepped back from the slightly opened door of the Holcombs’ double room, the thumb and forefinger of his right hand curved together in a symbol of success.

  “Gone on by,” he grinned. “Looks like he was headed for the terrace.”

  “I thought you were a little brusque with him,” said John Holcomb. “Didn’t you think so, brother?”

  “We-ell,” said Gerald Holcomb, “I suppose one might say Bernie was unnecessarily firm, but the young man has been succeeding reasonably well on his own. We don’t want to dull his incentive.”

  “True, oh, very true, brother,” said John, “and, of course, we had considerably more whiskey at the time we made our offer.” He chuckled and turned to Gerald. “Will you do the honors, brother? I’m afraid I haven’t enough left to divide.”

  “A pleasure, brother,” said Gerald.

  Rising, he undid the belt of his pajamas and let them drop to his knees. A full pint of whiskey was fastened to the inside of his right thigh with a strip of adhesive tape. He removed the tape, measured half of the whiskey into the glasses which Bernie had taken from beneath the bed, and readjusted the bottle and his pajamas.

  They toasted each other.

  They were friends. For the moment they were relaxed, comfortable. They were not three but one, and defenses were unnecessary.

  John Holcomb lifted one plump buttock from his chair, and rubbed it tenderly. “You get a shot in the tail yesterday, brother? From the nurse, I mean?”

  “Did I!” said Gerald. “What about you, Bernie?”

  “Huh-uh.” Bernie rolled his head. “Doc took care of me. I’ll tell you about that nurse…”

  He proceeded to tell them, his opinion being that no shots should be taken from Miss Baker in a position which prevented one from watching her. “Probably doesn’t get enough,” he concluded. “One look at a man’s ass and she loses control.”

  The brothers laughed. They raised their glasses again, and again each stole a glance at the remainder of his drink.

  There was no thought in any of their minds of complaining to Doctor Murphy about Nurse Baker’s roughness. El Healtho was far superior to any of the many other sanitariums they had patronized. Miss Baker, despite the occasional painfulness of her ministrations, was far superior to any of the establishment’s previous nurses. Finally, but foremost in importance, was the fact that alcoholics can be even less choosy than beggars; they seem to be born with
an abundance of tolerance for the defects of others, and they quickly acquire more. They have to.

  “Yes,” murmured John Holcomb, absently, “it must be very trying, this dealing with drunks day in and out. Can’t really blame a person for getting rough and tough.”

  “I don’t see why a really good man like Doc stays in the game,” said Gerald.

  “Well”—Bernie Edmonds revolved the whiskey in his glass—“it’s a kind of personal thing with Doc, sort of a crusade. You know—you didn’t know his father died of the booze?”

  “No!” said the brothers.

  “That’s right. Made quite an impression on Doc, and I can’t say that I blame him. The father, he was a doctor, too, and a pretty good one, but he’d been going downhill a long time. Lost all his practice, friends, money, and his wife had given up the ghost and died. Well, so he got on this last big toot, got the whole town down on him but good, and wound up in jail. They didn’t know anything about alcoholism in those days, of course. He was just a dammed ornery drunk, so into the jug he went until he snapped out of it. No treatment, no nothing. He’d been in four days when Doc, our boy, that is, fought and begged his way in, and he made such a fuss that they finally called in a doctor. Too late—if it hadn’t been too late in the beginning. Doc says they gave him enough morphine to coldcock a cow, and it didn’t have any more effect than baking powder. He went right on shaking. Shook himself to death.”

  “Figuratively speaking, of course?”

  “Literally. Ruptured himself inside, according to Doc; even unjointed a number of his bones.”

  “Well,” said John, “if Doc says so it’s so. He wouldn’t waste time trying to scare an alcoholic.”

  “It’s true, all right. Doc was sore at me when he told me, but I know it wasn’t a scare yarn. I’ve read of similar cases.”

  John said it was almost enough to make a man swear off reading.

  Bernie remarked that it was strange how talking could dry the membranes of a man’s throat.

  Gerald lowered his pajamas again, emptied the rest of the whiskey into their glasses and shoved the bottle under the bed. They toasted each other. As John lowered his drink, his eyes met his brother’s in tentative inquiry. Gerald nodded and took another small sip.

  By the way, Bernie…”

  “Yeah?”

  “How—uh—how are things going with you? How’s the job?”

  “I don’t,” said Bernie, “think I have one. Can’t say that I care, really. It was a pretty lousy job.”

  “What—uh—” John Holcomb squirmed, and suddenly grimaced with pain. “Damn that woman, anyhow!…Uh—brother and I don’t want to offend you, but if a small loan—”

  Bernie laughed shortly. “You haven’t been very successful in offending me in that department. But—I guess not. I’d rather not. I’d rather you didn’t tempt me.”

  “Oh, come, now,” said Gerald. “What’s a few dollars between—”

  “What would I do with it?” said Bernie. “What would I do with a few thousand? The same thing I’ve always done.”

  “Not always, Bernie.”

  “It seems like always. No, thanks very much, Holcombs, but no thanks…Now, if you can give me a job—and I don’t mean any old job; the kind that doesn’t matter whether you screw up or not, and you know it doesn’t matter, so…Jesus!”—he ploughed his fingers through his gray-white head—“how long it’s been since there was anything to do I cared about doing! Since I could feel important. Since I was anyplace where I didn’t feel watched, where even the janitor felt he had the right to smell my breath.”

  He gulped the rest of his drink, shuddered and hastily lighted a cigarette. He inhaled deeply, exhaled, laughed. “Next week,” he said, “East Lynne.”

  “As I was about to say, Bernie,” said John, “brother and I would like very much to have you with us, but it’s the agency’s policy—and no one regretted more than we the necessity to establish it—it’s our policy never to employ alcoholics. Never, no matter who they are.”

  “Wonderful!” chuckled Bernie Edmonds.

  “It’s not,” said Gerald seriously. “It’s simply one of those circumstances, such as you mentioned a moment ago, which is a certain way, regardless of whether it should be. Look at it this way. We hire an alcoholic for a responsible position, and he works out fine. We hire a half a dozen and they work out fine. But the seventh one—the seventh does not. In one day he loses us more—and this is no exaggeration, it’s happened—more than we can make in a quarter. He loses us more than the other six have earned for us. And we never know when one of the other six, or all of ’em, will pull the same stunt. We just can’t take the chance. Brother and I, ourselves, never go near the office when we’re drinking.”

  “Never,” John nodded. “That’s one reason…well, you see our position, Bernie. If we can’t trust ourselves—a point concerning which there is not the slightest doubt—how can we trust another alcoholic?”

  “Sure,” said Bernie. “I was only kidding about the job. I don’t know what in hell I’d do around an agency.”

  “Wait a minute, Bernie!” Gerald stood up. “Brother and I feel very badly about this. Isn’t there something we—?”

  “Can’t think of a thing,” said Bernie.

  “Why don’t you try another book? I’m sure if you can give us something to show around, ten thousand words, say, and an outline, we can get you an interesting advance.”

  Bernie paused. Several seconds passed, while the brothers watched him anxiously, and then he shook his head.

  “What would I write about? I don’t do fiction. I’m completely out of touch with the world scene—anyone or anything that could be built into a book…No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Think it over,” urged John. “Don’t be in too big a hurry to say no. There must be some way—”

  “Is there some way,” said Bernie, “to turn the clock back to about 1944? See you at lunch, gentlemen.”

  He winked at them, and, shoulders thrown back, carpet shoes slip-slapping jauntily, left the room.

  10

  Jeff Sloan had had a very bad morning. It might not have seemed so to others, but that has nothing to do with the case. Only the person affected has the right to judge the goodness or badness of his situation. Jeff would have described his as pretty damned lousy.

  He’d had one vitamin shot last night—a vitamin shot and something to make him sleep. That was all, and…well it was their place to see that he did take the antabuse, wasn’t it? It was their place to keep him from drinking. That was why he was paying thirty bucks a day. If he had to do it himself, why give them anything?

  He had come here to get squared away, and they weren’t doing a damned thing for him. Just keeping him here. Letting him louse around in a crummy old bathrobe.

  He couldn’t understand why this place had been recommended so highly, why his employers had insisted on sending him here. By God, he couldn’t understand it! It wasn’t as if there weren’t any other sanitariums for alcoholics. (And he wasn’t a real alcoholic, of course; always’d been able to handle the stuff.) There were plenty of ’em—places that guaranteed to cure you of drinking. And they didn’t charge any thirty bucks a day either!

  He pulled a chair back into an alcove, for a brisk breeze was sweeping in from the ocean. His robe drawn tightly around him, he hunched down in the chair, his normally good-humored countenance almost laughably peevish.

  He would have liked very much to obtain his clothes and check out of El Healtho, but to do so was impractical if not impossible. His employers would doubtless be phoning to inquire about his condition, and if he wasn’t here—if he was sufficiently recovered to leave here—they’d expect him back on the job. He wasn’t quite up to that yet. Moreover, Doctor Murphy quite likely would refuse to release him.

  He pondered this last probability, phrasing it mentally as a situation in which they locked you up in jail and charged you for staying there…Could they get away with it? Maybe.
Maybe not legally. But you weren’t in a very good position to kick up a fuss. Certainly, insisting on his release should not be done except in an extremity.

  The whiskey was dying in him. Black doubts—a fearful sense of insecurity he had never known before—edged into his mind. Was he really as good at his job as he’d boasted? Was he any good at all? Or were they just keeping him on out of pity?

  He laughed impatiently, irritably. Oh, hell. Everyone knew what Jeff Sloan could do. Ask anyone in the trade, and—But could he keep on doing it? What would he do if he couldn’t? He’d never done anything else. He wasn’t a copywriter or an artist or an accountant or anything like that. All he knew was how to get his teeth into an idea, and give it the old push—to throw it into ’em and make ’em like it. And—

  And he sure hadn’t gone over very big around here. First the Doc had brushed him off, and then Bernie and the Holcombs. And that could have been a brush-off from the Kenfield dame. She could have heard him coming, and pulled the sick act to duck him. She and the General, both. Something might have been said like, well, watch out for that Sloan character. He’ll bore you in spades.

  Jeff mopped his forehead with the sleeve of his robe. This was crazy. He was just feeling low. He was making a lot out of nothing. The thing to do was—was—

  Well, why not? What he’d thought about this morning? Murphy acted like one of those don’t-give-a-damn guys, like he didn’t care whether school kept or not. And a man like that was a good man to talk deal to. If he could just pin him down long enough to make a proposition, get him to set a figure, and then do a little talking and phoning around as soon as he got out of here…Well, that would show ’em. It would show Murphy.

  If—

  But—

  The alcoholic’s depressed mood pulls him two ways. While it insists that great deeds must be done by way of proving himself, it insidiously resists his doing them. It tells him simultaneously that he must—and can’t. That he is certain to fail—but must succeed.