Mr. Vertigo

by Paul Auster

  I shouted through the noise of the straining engine: “They’re catching up to us! Turn around and go forward! They’re close enough to shoot!”

  It was a rough call. We couldn’t go fast enough in reverse to get away, and yet the time it took to turn around would slow us down even more. But we had to risk it. If we didn’t increase our speed in about four seconds, we wouldn’t have a chance.

  Master Yehudi swung out sharply to the right, angling into a frantic, backwards U-turn as he shifted into first. The gears made a hideous, grinding noise, the back wheels jumped off the edge of the road and hit some stray rocks, and then we were spinning, flailing without traction as the car groaned and shook. It took a second or two before the tires caught hold again, and by the time we shot out of there with our nose pointed in the right direction, the guns were coughing behind us. One shell snagged a back tire, and the instant the rubber blew out, the Pierce Arrow lurched wildly to the left. The master rolled with it and never lifted his foot from the floor. Steering like a madman to keep us on the road, he was already shifting into third when another bullet came blasting through the back window. He let out a howl, and his hands flew off the steering wheel. The car bucked off the road, bounced onto the rock-strewn desert floor, and a moment later blood started gushing out of his right shoulder. God knows where he found the strength, but he managed to grab hold of the wheel again and give it another try. It wasn’t his fault that it didn’t work. The car was careening out of control by then, and before he could get us turned back toward the road, the left front tire skidded up the ramp of a large protruding stone and the whole machine tipped over.

  The next hour was a blank. The jolt flung me out of my seat, and the last thing I remember is flying through the air in the master’s direction. Somewhere between takeoff and landing, I must have clunked my head against the dashboard or steering wheel, for by the time the car stopped moving, I was already out cold. Dozens of things happened after that, but I missed them all. I missed seeing Slim and his men swoop down on the car and rob us of the strongbox in the trunk. I missed seeing them slash the other three tires. I missed seeing them open our suitcases and scatter our clothes on the ground. Why they didn’t shoot us after that is still something of a mystery to me. They must have talked about whether to kill us or not, but I heard nothing of what they said and can’t begin to speculate on why we were spared. Maybe we looked dead already, or maybe they just didn’t give a damn. They had the strongbox with all our money in it, and even if we were still breathing when they left, they probably figured we’d die from our injuries anyway. If there was any comfort in being robbed of every cent we had, it came from the smallness of the sum they walked off with. Slim must have thought we had millions. He must have been counting on a once-in-a-lifetime jackpot, but all he got from his efforts was a paltry twenty-seven thousand dollars. Split that into four, and the shares didn’t add up to much. No more than a pittance, really, and it made me glad to think about his disappointment. For years and years, it warmed my soul to imagine how crushed he must have been.

  I think I was out for an hour—but it could have been more than that, it could have been less. However long it was, when I woke up I found myself lying on top of the master. He was still unconscious, and the two of us were wedged against the door on the driver’s side, limbs tangled together and our clothes soaked in blood. The first thing I saw when my eyes blinked into focus was an ant marching over a small stone. My mouth was filled with crumbled bits of dirt, and my face was jammed flat against the ground. That was because the window had been open at the time of the crash, and I suppose that was a piece of luck, if luck is a word that can be used in describing such things. At least my head hadn’t gone through the glass. There was that to be thankful for, I suppose. At least my face hadn’t been cut to shreds.

  My forehead hurt like hell and my body was bruised all over, but no bones were broken. I found that out when I stood up and tried to open the door above me. If any real damage had been done, I wouldn’t have been able to move. Still, it wasn’t easy to push that thing out on its hinges. It weighed half a ton, and what with the strange tilt of the car and the difficulty of getting any leverage on it, I must have struggled for five minutes before clambering through the hatch. Warm air hit my face, but it felt cool after the sweatbox confines of the Pierce Arrow. I sat on my perch for a couple of seconds, spitting out dirt and sucking in the languid breeze, but then my hands slipped, and the moment I touched the red-hot surface of the car, I had to jump off. I crashed to the ground, picked myself up, and began staggering around the car to the other side. On the way, I caught sight of the open trunk and noticed that the money box was missing, but since that was already a foregone conclusion, I didn’t pause to think about it. The left side of the car had landed on a stone outcrop, and there was a small space between the ground and the door—about six or eight inches. It wasn’t wide enough to stick my head through, but by lying flat on the ground I could see far enough inside to get a glimpse of the master’s head dangling out the window. I can’t explain how it happened, but the moment I spotted him through that narrow crack, his eyes opened. He saw me looking at him, and a moment later he twisted his face into something that resembled a smile. “Get me out of here, Walt,” he said. “My arm’s all busted up, and I can’t move on my own.”

  I ran around to the other side of the car again, took off my shirt, and bunched it up in my hands, improvising a pair of makeshift mittens to protect my palms against the burning metal. Then I scrambled to the top, braced myself along the edge of the open door, and reached in to pull the master out. Unfortunately, his right shoulder was the bad one, and he couldn’t extend that arm. He made an effort to turn his body around and give me his other arm, but that took work, real work, and I could see how excruciating the pain was for him. I told him to stay still, removed the belt from my pants, and then tried again by lowering the leather strap into the car. That seemed to do the trick. Master Yehudi grabbed hold of it with his left hand, and I began to pull. I don’t want to remember how many times he bumped himself, how many times he slipped, but we both fought on, and after twenty or thirty minutes we finally got him out.

  And there we were, marooned in the Mojave Desert. The car was wrecked, we had no water, and the closest town was forty miles away. That was bad enough, but the worst part of our predicament was the master’s wound. He’d lost an awful lot of blood in the past two hours. Bones were shattered inside him, muscles were torn, and the last bits of his strength had been spent on crawling out of the car. I sat him down in the shade of the Pierce Arrow and then ran off to collect some of the clothing scattered about on the ground. One by one, I picked up his fine white shirts and custom-made silk ties, and when my arms were too full to hold anymore, I carried them back to use as bandages. It was the best idea I could think of, but it didn’t do much good. I linked the ties together, tore the shirts into long strips, and wrapped him as tightly as I could—but the blood came seeping through before I was finished.

  “We’ll rest here for a while,” I said. “Once the sun starts going down, we’ll see if we can’t stand you on your feet and get moving.”

  “It’s no good, Walt,” he said. “I’m never going to make it.”

  “Sure you will. We’ll start walking down the road, and before you know it, a car will come along and pick us up.”

  “There hasn’t been a car by here all day.”

  “That don’t matter. Someone’s bound to turn up. It’s the law of averages.”

  “And what if no one comes?”

  “Then I’ll carry you on my back. One way or another, we’re going to get you to a sawbones and see that he patches you up.”

  Master Yehudi closed his eyes and whispered through the pain. “They took the money, didn’t they?”

  “You got that one right. It’s all gone, every last penny of it.”

  “Oh well,” he said, doing his best to crack a smile. “Easy come, easy go, eh Walt?”

  �
��That’s about the size of it.”

  Master Yehudi started to laugh, but the jostling hurt too much for him to continue. He paused to get a grip on himself, and then, apropos of nothing, he looked into my eyes and announced: “Three days from now, we would have been in New York.”

  “That’s ancient history, boss. One day from now, we’re going to be in Hollywood.”

  The master looked at me for a long time without saying anything. Then, unexpectedly, he reached out and took hold of my arm with his left hand. “Whatever you are,” he finally said, “it’s because of me. Isn’t that so, Walt?”

  “Of course it is. I was a no-good bum before you found me.”

  “I just want you to know that it works both ways. Whatever I am, it’s because of you.”

  I didn’t know how to answer that one, so I didn’t try. Something strange was in the air, and all of a sudden I couldn’t tell where we were going anymore. I wouldn’t say that I was scared—at least not yet—but my stomach was beginning to twitch and flutter, and that was always a sure sign of atmospheric disturbance. Whenever one of those fandangos started up inside me, I knew the weather was about to change.

  “Don’t worry, Walt,” the master continued. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “I hope so. The way you’re looking at me now, it’s enough to give a guy the heebie-jeebies.”

  “I’m thinking, that’s all. Thinking things through as carefully as I can. You shouldn’t let that upset you.”

  “I ain’t upset. As long as you don’t pull a fast one on me, I won’t be upset at all.”

  “You trust me, don’t you, Walt?”

  “Sure I trust you.”

  “You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Sure, you know that.”

  “Well, what I want you to do for me now is climb back into the car and fetch the pistol from the glove compartment.”

  “The gun? What do you want that for? There’s no robbers to shoot now. It’s just us and the wind out here—and whatever wind there is, it ain’t much to speak of.”

  “Don’t ask questions. Just do as I say and bring me the gun.”

  Did I have any choice? Yes, I probably did. I probably could have refused, and that would have ended the matter right then and there. But the master had given me an order, and I wasn’t about to give him any lip—not then, not at a time like that. He wanted the gun, and as far as I was concerned, it was my job to get it for him. So, without another word, I scrambled into the car and got it.

  “Bless you, Walt,” he said when I handed it to him a minute later. “You’re a boy after my own heart.”

  “Just be careful,” I said. “That weapon’s loaded, and the last thing we need is another accident.”

  “Come here, son,” he said, patting the ground next to him. “Sit down beside me and listen to what I have to say.”

  I’d already begun to regret everything. The sweet tone in his voice was the giveaway, and by the time I sat down, my stomach was turning cartwheels, pole-vaulting straight into my esophagus. The master’s skin was chalk-white. Little dots of sweat clung to his mustache, and his limbs were trembling with fever. But his gaze was steady. Whatever force he still had was locked inside his eyes, and he kept those eyes fixed on me the whole time he talked.

  “Here’s how it is, Walt. We’re in a nasty spot, and we have to get ourselves out of it. If we don’t do it pretty soon, we’re both going to croak.”

  “That could be. But it don’t make sense to leave until the temperature cools off a bit.”

  “Don’t interrupt. Hear me out first, and then you’ll have your say.” He stopped for a moment to wet his lips with his tongue, but he was too low on saliva for the gesture to do him any good. “We have to stand up and walk away from here. That’s definite, and the longer we wait, the worse it’s going to be. Problem is, I can’t stand up and I can’t walk. Nothing’s going to change that. By the time the sun goes down, I’ll only be weaker than I am now.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

  “No maybes about it, sport. So instead of sitting around and losing precious time, I have a proposition for you.”

  “Yeah, and what’s that?”

  “I stay here, and you go off on your own.”

  “Forget it. I ain’t budging from your side, master. I made that promise a long time ago, and I intend to stick by it.”

  “Those are fine sentiments, boy, but they’re only going to cause you trouble. You’ve got to get out of here, and you can’t do that with me dragging you down. Face the facts. This is the last day we’re ever going to spend together. You know that, and I know that, and the faster we get it into the open, the better off we’re going to be.”

  “Nothing doing. I don’t buy that for a second.”

  “You don’t want to leave me. It’s not that you think you shouldn’t go, but it pains you to think of me lying here in this condition. You don’t want me to suffer, and I’m grateful to you for that. It shows you’ve learned your lessons well. But I’m offering you a way out, and once you think about it a little bit, you’ll realize it’s the best solution for both of us.”

  “What’s the way out?”

  “It’s very simple. You take this gun and shoot me through the head.”

  “Come on, master. This is no time for jokes.”

  “It’s no joke, Walt. First you kill me, and then you go on your way.”

  “The sun’s got to your head, and it’s turned you bonkers. You caught a bullet in the shoulder, that’s all. Sure it hurts, but it’s not as though it’s going to kill you. The docs can mend those things one, two, three.”

  “I’m not talking about the bullet. I’m talking about the cancer in my belly. We don’t have to fool each other about that anymore. My gut’s all mangled and destroyed, and I don’t have more than six months to live. Even if I could get out of here, I’m done for anyway. So why not take matters into our own hands? Six months of pain and agony—that’s what I’ve got to look forward to. I was hoping to get you started on something new before I kicked the bucket, but that wasn’t meant to be. Too bad. Too bad about a lot of things, but you’ll be doing me a big favor if you pull the trigger now, Walt. I’m depending on you, and I know you won’t let me down.”

  “Cut it out. Stop this talk, master. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Death isn’t so terrible, Walt. When a man comes to the end of the line, it’s the only thing he really wants.”

  “I won’t do it. Not in a thousand years I won’t. You can ask me till kingdom come, but I’ll never raise a hand against you.”

  “If you won’t do it, I’ll have to do it myself. It’s a lot harder that way, and I was hoping you’d spare me the trouble.”

  “Jesus God, master, put the gun down.”

  “Sorry Walt. If you don’t want to see it, then say your goodbyes now.”

  “I ain’t saying nothing. You won’t get a word out of me until you put that gun down.”

  But he wasn’t listening anymore. Still looking into my eyes, he raised the pistol against his head and cocked the hammer. It was as if he was daring me to stop him, daring me to reach out and grab the gun, but I couldn’t move. I just sat there and watched, and I didn’t do a thing.

  His hand was shaking and sweat was pouring off his forehead, but his eyes were still steady and clear. “Remember the good times,” he said, “Remember the things I taught you.” Then, swallowing once, he shut his eyes and squeezed the trigger.

  III

  It took me three years to track down Uncle Slim. For more than a thousand days I roamed the country, hunting the bastard in every city from San Francisco to New York. I lived from hand to mouth, scrounging and hustling as best I could, and little by little I turned back into the beggar I was born to be. I hitchhiked, I traveled on foot, I rode the rails. I slept in doorways, in hobo jungles, in flophouses, in open pastures. In some cities, I threw my hat on the sidewalk and juggled oranges for the passersby
. In other cities, I swept floors and emptied garbage cans. In still other cities, I stole. I pilfered food from restaurant kitchens, money from cash registers, socks and underwear from the bins at Woolworth’s—whatever I could lay my hands on. I stood in breadlines and snored through sermons at the Salvation Army. I tap-danced on street corners, I sang for my supper. Once, in a movie theater in Seattle, I earned ten dollars from an old man who wanted to suck my cock. Another time, on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, I found a hundred-dollar bill lying in the gutter. In the course of those three years, a dozen people walked up to me in a dozen different places and asked if I was Walt the Wonder Boy. The first one took me by surprise, but after that I had my answer ready. “Sorry, pal,” I’d say. “Never heard of him. You must be confusing me with someone else.” And before they could insist, I’d tip my cap and vanish into the crowd.