Hunger and Thirst (25 page)

“You
hear
me?” she said. She knocked again, pettishly.

“Yes!” he called.

It was loud. Thank God! his mind cried gratefully. I’ll be saved, oh God, I’ll be saved!

“You just watch your step,” warned the old lady, “I’ll call the superintendent. You just have a little consideration for an old woman, that’s all.”

“Please! Help me!”

“Never mind your funny sounds. I know you love your liquor and I know you think I’m just a funny old woman. I’m just a funny, dumb, old woman. I know, I know. But you’re not as clever as you think.”

“Please!
” He couldn’t understand what she meant about the liquor. Unless …

“If my husband was alive he’d take the whip to you. Sot.”

She thought he was the drunk!

In her mind there wasn’t any young man in the next room. There was no young man in the world. To her mind, her living mind encased in a living body, he had been eradicated. In her mind she had gone past him and now was knocking on the door to the drunk’s room. He hadn’t lived there long enough. She didn’t know him.

“Help!”

He couldn’t believe it. He thought he was going crazy. He began to have the hideous sensation that he was dead and calling back from the grave, inaudible to all those living.

“Huh.” The old lady was grumbling to herself.

He tried to reach for the bottom part of the glass so he could hurl it through the transom glass. This was no dream. He wasn’t dead. He had felt the glass. It was only that he had to cope with a senile, depleted mind. Maybe if he scared the wits out of her …

He stretched his arm, trying desperately to reach the jagged piece of glass.

“This is my last warning,” she said, “And if you don’t think I can have you put out of this house, you just
try
it! That’s all, you just
try
it!”

God! The glass bottom! The glass bottom! It was inches from his fingers. He stretched, stretched, whimpering. Come here!

The old lady started back down the hall.

“Wait!” he cried in a gurgling voice. His brain snapped over. Pull the bed cover, idiot! He jerked at it and the glass bottom came into reach. He clamped his fingers over it spasmodically and pitched it at the transom as hard as he could.

It didn’t reach.

And the sound of it bouncing off the upper part of the door was nullified by the slamming of the old lady’s door. He cried out in anguish, then sobbed, his face curled into a pathetic mask.

He lay there, chest lurching at odd moments. His stomach hurt from the irregular, jerking sobs.

He felt a gnawing pain in his right hand and held it up before his eyes.

In each place where he had gripped the broken glass bottom there was a blood-oozing gouge. He looked at them, mouth parted, a look of revulsion on his face.

Then something clicked in his brain. Like a machine part he heard it.

He clamped the hand on his lips suddenly and sucked wildly at the blood.

There wasn’t much. The wounds were already coagulating. He bit at them to open them and he sucked at the dribbles of blood.

It tasted bitter and warm and made him gag. He turned his head to the left on the pillow and spit out what he could. Bright red spots spattered on the pillow case. His tongue hung out, blood flecked. It touched the warm edge of his lips. It touched the bristle on the edge of his upper lip and pulled back into the dark hot mouth again.

Then he turned his head back and stared again at the door.

This is my last warning
.

Something swelled up into him. He grabbed out at the mirror and clutched it with his aching hand.

He hurled it against the door. It bounced off one corner and fell in pieces on his bed.

“Oh!” cried the old lady.

That’s it, that’s it, his mind encouraged savagely. He didn’t love her above all others now. He hated her, despised her. He’d
drive
her to save him. That’s it, get good and mad and call the superintendent. Go ahead, bust a gusset!

He heard her stamp heavily to her feet and waddle to the door of her room, the floor squeaking beneath her. She pulled open the door and thumped out into the hallway. She passed his door, muttering angrily to herself, “All right, if that’s the way you want it, we’ll soon see. We’ll soon see!”

He grinned then, overcome with relief. That’s it lady, dear old lady. Get so fucking mad you could chew nails. Go and tell the superintendent about the horrible drunk in room 27. Tell the landlord. Tell the police. Tell the fucking marines!

Sighing with relief, he sank back on the pillow and waited for the sound of her feet on the stairs. The blessed sound of her rescuing feet thumping down the musty staircase.

There weren’t any sounds of her feet on the stairs.

What?

He stopped breathing. What’s she doing out there? Why the hell isn’t she going down the stairs to tell the superintendent? For the love of God what held the old bitch back!

He waited.

Suddenly, he knew.

Knew how old she was, how ancient. How weak. How frightened. She ate in her room. There was no stove but she ate there, ate cold food all the time. She went out once in two weeks maybe to buy food for herself and her ugly cat. And
that
was an expedition. It was four long flights down to the superintendent’s room. And she had only milky white legs, weak and thickly veined. Stiff, dried up old stalks of legs and bad ankles and feet bones and the stairs were rickety and slanted and the bannisters shook.

He remembered the times he’d seen her going down the stairs. Slowly, inch by inch, her scrawny hands clamped tight on the bannister, a look of desperate concentration on her seamed face. On foot down, the next, onto the same step. And that way all the four flights, an agonizingly slow and laborious descent. He remembered standing on the top floor and watching her descend.

His face tightened. He hated her for being so old and weak. Hated her for not being able to afford a first floor room so she wouldn’t have to go down four flights to tell the superintendent. He completely ignored the fact that if she were living on the first floor he couldn’t possibly have thrown a glass against her door in the first place.

Like a dying man sinking below the waves, seeing, with his clouding eyes, the last preserver floating away from his outstretched grasp, he listened to the old woman come shuffling back past his door and along the hall rug. Without making a sound, he listened to her go into the bathroom and slam the door behind her irritably and slide the lock shut.

Finished.

Now she’d stay in there. Until the drunken man in the next room fell into an alcoholic stupor or went out in search of more drink. Until the sot next door stopped throwing things against the walls trying to crush the rats and snails and mice and bats that poured and flooded from his delirious brain.

That’s what she’d be thinking, sitting stiffly on the seat-down toilet, waiting and waiting and muttering half audible imprecations under her stale breath.

He closed his eyes suddenly and shut his right fist despite the pain it caused. He lay there listening to the rushing winds and whispers of traffic below, listening to the random discords of a city alive.

Only too late did he think—Why in hell didn’t I throw the glass through the window? It might have struck someone on the head and cut open their skulls and the police would have come. Even if it hadn’t hit anyone, the police probably would have come. Someone would have reported it.

Too late for that now.

Too Late
.

That was the title of a book he’d never write.

His autobiography.

The door opened and Leonora came in.

“Leo! Thank God you’re here,” he cried.

She looked around the room.

“God, I’ve been scared,” he went on, “I threw the damn glass against the old lady’s door and she said she’d call the superintendent but the stairs were too steep and she was afraid to go down will you let me have glass of water please?”

“Erick, where’s my other stocking?”

“What? Never mind that for Christ’s sake. Give me some water and then run and get me some fried chicken and then call an ambulance.”

“I had the damn thing when I stripped. Where is it?”

“Will you stop that?”

“I must have kicked it under the bed.”

“Le-o!”

His head snapped around as he woke up.

She had disappeared. He could have sworn she was there.

“Leo?” He tried to call. He thought maybe she’d bent down to reach under the bed for her stocking. “Leo, if you’re looking for your stocking, please don’t. I’m too sick and hungry and thirsty for games? Leo?” The words ran all together into a gluey, phlegmy mass.

The room was empty.

He looked around. I’ve got to get
out
of here. I’ve been here long enough. The urgency of it was overwhelming. It’s been—God!—almost two days. Two whole days with hardly any water and only that candy bar for food. I’ve got to get some help.

He dragged the sheet over and, gingerly, picked up a piece of glass.

He threw it against the old woman’s door. It hardly made any noise at all. I don’t care, he thought, you’ve got to go down those stairs. If it takes you an hour.

He listened. There was no sound. Was she asleep? The glass particle hadn’t made much noise. He picked up another one, a larger one and threw it. It broke in half and fell on the floor behind the bed. He couldn’t hear it fall.

Another piece. It ricocheted off the wood and flew out onto the rug. It bounced and landed on Ava Gardner’s stomach.

Only three pieces left. It was no good trying to get the old lady’s attention. He’d had to try something else.

But what?

He looked around.

The window. He’d have to try and throw the pieces of glass through the opening in the window and hope good fortune would let the pieces put out someone’s eyes so the police would come. It was the only thing left.

He had to twist his head painfully to the side to judge. He heard bones snapping in his neck and streaks of pain cutting through the flesh. He saw that he’d have to throw backhand.

He held up one piece. He aimed as well as he could and threw it.

It hit the window pane and bounced back onto the floor. He pressed his lips together and picked up the second piece. God, let it put out somebody’s eye or … he suddenly decided that God wouldn’t take kindly to such a notion. At least let it draw blood, he amended,
anything
. Just so they’ll call a cop and he’ll come up here and find me. Please?

His neck burned and ached as he twisted around again to see the window. He felt dizzy, the entire room seemed to be billowing out of proportion. It was standing sideways too.

He took a deep breath, held it tight in his body. He aimed again. Threw.

The piece bounced on the window sill and came to rest on the stone ledge outside.

“Damn it!”
he croaked, almost crying. Furiously he grabbed up the last piece. It cut him but he ignored it. He reared back.

He didn’t throw it.

He looked at the piece. His face was blank. His mind said, No, I mustn’t throw this last piece.

I may need it.

The idea made him shudder. He raised his hand again to throw it. He should throw it away, get rid of it. He didn’t know why exactly. But he suspected himself.

No, keep it, said his other mind. And, obediently, he placed the last, sharp, jagged piece of mirror on the table.

He looked around. He looked at the light, yellow-brown door that led to the old woman’s room.

God damn you, you dried up old bitch! his mind exploded unexpectedly. You’ve
got
to help me!

He grabbed at the pillow on his left and slung it weakly at her door. It thudded on the bed. He dragged it back and swung again. It seemed as if the pillow were stuffed with lead. It only rattled her door knob. He swung again, again, thudding the pillow against the door until he thought his arm was going to pull out of its socket.

His mind grew excited for a moment as he heard the old woman muttering vindictive to herself, clucking endless variations on statements about sots.

He planned to fling the pillow back over the right edge of the bed and then heave it completely over his body and crash it violently against the door. That should do it, he thought.

He flung it to the right. But, as he did, his fingers lost grip on the smooth pillow case. He clawed out frantically but the pillow dropped to the floor with a swishing sound and thumped down over the magazine.

He cursed feverishly and reached out his hand to grab it. He stretched as far as he was able but couldn’t reach it. His fingers trembled violently, long inches from the white pillow case.

“Aaaaaaaah!”

A wild, animal yell bubbled to his blood-spotted lips.

In a bestial rage he tried to tip over the table hoping that the crash would arouse the house. But mostly because he was out of his mind with fury and wanted to destroy something.

He couldn’t move the table. It was too heavy. He tried to jerk out the drawer but it stuck and he couldn’t move it. He threw back his hand and grasping a bar at the head of the bed he shook the bed frenziedly like a strapped-down madman. And he knew the terrible frustration that a violent man feels when he is confined and restrained. He shook and shook until the pain threatened to destroy him. The room began to heave and leap and blackness danced in front of his eyes.

Finally, exhausted, he lay breathing painfully, the air sucked in by his drying throat, expelled again in fitful rancid bursts.

His body ached. And he felt a great coldness creeping up his legs. Slowly, almost methodically, like a crawling glacier. The chill was at the bottom of his calves now.

He suddenly realized, with horror, that it was the cold that heat could not abate, the cold that marked the end.

If it should reach his heart …

He looked around in rising desperation and fear, his eyes haunted with terror. There had to be
some
way. He reached out and drew back the piece of mirror. The next moment he noticed the candy wrapper.