Hunger and Thirst (49 page)

“Oh.” She sounded pained. “Well, if you think you’d enjoy watching me run around like a chicken without a head …”

“I’ll stay out of your way,” he said, unable to stop himself. He didn’t care what she said. He didn’t want to be alone. Being alone was the most awful thing. There were long periods of time when he could be alone, when he actually craved solitude.

But then at times when he least expected it, at times when mental activity slowed down, the loneliness would come and he would be thrown into a panic at the thought of being alone with nothing to lose himself in, no activity to swallow up introspection.

The front screen door was open when he got there. He let it slap into its frame as he went in. She looked out from the kitchen.

“Hi,” he called.

“Hello,” she said.

She was at the sink scrubbing some white tennis shoes with a small brush.

“Washing out a few pairs of shoes?” he said.

“Getting the dirt off.”

He stood by the sink and watched her strong brown fingers hold the white rubber taut while she scrubbed suds into it. Water ran slowly from the faucet dribbling onto the white enamel.

Sally was wearing a wrinkled cotton dress. Her hair hung in damp wisps over her forehead. There was a line of sweat on her upper lip. Erick took out a handkerchief and dabbed at it.

“What are you
doing?”
she asked, irritably.

“Blotting your perspiration,” he said.

He sat down at the table and watched her, feeling a rising lack of ease. She said nothing. With his gaze he followed the line that ran from her right armpit to her waist, swelled out at her hip and then angled down to her calf. He looked at her well-muscled legs, her arched feet stuck into floppy white sandals. He looked up again. Her shoulders were very broad for a girl’s. She stood erect and firm.

“You’re a healthy looking creature,” he said.

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“You don’t speak clearly.”

“I said you’re a healthy animal.”

“Thanks.”

“Nothing.”

He leaned back against the wall disgustedly and watched her awhile. He drifted away for a moment, held by the heat and near silence and the sound of running water.

“Going to write me?” he asked.

“What?”

He hesitated. “Going to write me?” he said loudly.

“Why?”

“I have a crack in the wall of my room and I need some paper to stuff it with.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

She finished washing the shoes and walked out of the kitchen without a word. He wanted to leave. But he kept seeing his empty room and all the theatres closed and his friends gone. With a sigh he got up and went into her room, following like a mute.

A big steamer trunk stood open on the floor, drawers sagging out like cardboard tongues, dresses, suits and coats hanging inside. On the bed a large suitcase was flopped open half filled. She was putting the tennis shoes in a bottom drawer of the steamer trunk.

“You taking everything?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

He moved over toward her bed, accidentally kicking over a wastebasket filled with papers. He picked it up and set it down beside the bed.

“Be careful,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, taking off his shoes and putting his feet up on the bed. He sank back into the soft mattress.

“Boy, what a nice bed.”

Silence. He stared at the ceiling.

“Aren’t you going to write me, Sal?”

“You don’t want me to,” she said, folding skirts.

“Sure I do,” he said, after a brief pause, “Why should I ask you if I didn’t want you to?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

He failed to sound amused when he said, “You don’t love me anymore.”

“Why should I?”

“You got me. I’ve been trying to talk you out of it for the last half a year.”

“Maybe you did.”

“Oh. I see.” He fell back on the pillow and closed his eyes. He blew out a breath of air. “Here I come to see you and you insult me,” he said.

“You invited yourself.”

“Oh.”

“You’re lonely and you don’t know anybody.”

“Oh, I see.”

He opened his eyes and watched her putting blouses in her trunks grimly.

“What are you mad at, Sally?” he asked.

“I’m not.”

“You are too.”

She tightened her mouth and took some stockings out of a dresser drawer and started rolling them up.

“What have I done?” he asked.

He waited for her answer. It didn’t come. He fell back on the pillow. “All right.” He said.

She moved around the room quickly, pulling out drawers, irritably tossing clothes into the trunk and suitcase.

“When are you leaving?”

“I told you twice.” “I forgo?!”

She said nothing. He closed his eyes again, his ears following her quick jerky footsteps around the room. He smelled the overall perfume of the room. And thought of the first time he’d been in there, that Sunday in April. He thought of the time he’d stood in the doorway, watching her put lipstick on. She’d been wearing a blouse and slacks. When she turned out the light, he’d blocked her way and she pressed into him willingly and they kissed in the darkness, her hot wet lips teasing his, her stomach pressed tightly against him.

He sat up, threw his legs over the edge of the bed. Putting on his shoes, he stood up. He kissed her on the cheek.

“Goodbye,” he said coldly and left.

* * * *

The landlady called him to the phone in the morning. “Hello honey,” Sally said, “I’m about to leave.” “Oh. That’s nice.” “Did you just get up.” “Yes.”

“Erick, I’m sorry about last night. I was tired.” “I know.”

“Don’t say it like that, darling. I’ll write to you. You know I will. You answer me too, hear?” “All right.”

“Don’t work too hard this summer honey.” “No.”

“I’ll see you in September.” “All right.” “G’bye, honey.”

Afterwards, he sat on his bed and stared at the dust blobs on the floor and pushed his toes in them. He sat there half the morning, just staring.

* * * *

Two weeks after, she sent him a letter.

Dear Erick
, it read,
Golly how time slips by me. And how it must be dragging for you. I’ll bet you’ll be glad when you get home
.

Home, he thought. A couch in the livingroom, a sick, grasping mother, a cantankerous brother-in-law.

Let me pause right here and say how I know I’m a fool but I’d give anything to be with you today. I miss you so!

……………

I got that job in a day camp near home. I’m getting nice and brown. Swimming a lot
.

……………

I’ve been thinking of the swell times we had last year. Going dancing, walking together on the campus, the show. The sound of the bus stopping at the corner when you came to get me. The time at church when we went square dancing. All the wonderful talks we had. Yeah, (as you’d say) I miss you Erick. Darn It!

……………

Are you still writing? I want to read everything you do this summer!

I’m even writing poetry again. See, you inspire me! You never did tell me what you thought of that poem I put in your jacket
.

……………

Have to close now Erick. Missing you. And loving you. Sally
.

In August while he was home he got two more letters from her. One was just a recital of sunny information. Summer going too fast, darn it. Mother and Dad fine. Brother and wife well. My niece a darling … walking! Guess who I heard from? Do you ever see Leo in New York? Got a new dress, hope you like it, I think it’s slick.

The other letter was different. He read it seven times.

She must have written in at night, he imagined, when everybody was asleep. When the moon hung restively in the black sky. While the lazy rasp of crickets filled the night air. While frenzied bugs beat insane wings against the burning bulb until they perished. And there she sat writing.

I’ve been trying to convince myself, Erick, that I don’t want to see you anymore. But after I say it to myself I have no way of making myself believe it
.

I’m trying … so hard. Harder than I ever tried. I never had this happen before. Just like this. I’ve had small loves in the past but they never even came close to this
.

It’s been wonderful to know you … and terrible. I’ve loved you, hated you and sometimes … I was even afraid of you. Does that sound funny? You can be pretty awesome at times
.

But you can be so wonderful. Understanding, kind, a perfect companion. I don’t know where to turn. I want to stop loving you. It isn’t any use though. I know it. But, even knowing it, I find myself hoping. It’s such a terrible problem
.

Forgive me. I shouldn’t pour my troubles over your head. Sally
.

* * * *

Days passing uneventfully. Idle couching on beach sands. Dreamless sleep at night. A sluggish plodding through the hot days. Days and nights of reading. Arguing with his mother. Arguing with his sister and her husband. Yelling. Stalking out of the house, blind angry. Staying out until early in the morning. Coming back and finding his mother slumped over in a livingroom chair, sleeping fitfully, her grey hair straggling across her temples and forehead. Her awakening. Quiet, whispered recriminations. Arguing again. Her crying. Days dying. Endless retreats to Lynn’s home, seclusion in Lynn’s large quiet room. Talks. Hopeless lethargy of brain and body. Waiting for something. Return to her?

Thinking of her largess of affection.

He woke up from a fitful sleep. He put his wallet back into his pocket. Gently and carefully. Then he went to sleep again, his mouth hanging open. He dreamed that he fell in a lake and was sputtering and laughing and swallowing mouthfuls of cold, fresh water.

He woke up fourteen times from ten forty seven until twelve noon. The rest of the time, he slept, mouth sagging and dreamed a hundred different themes and variations on the process of drinking water.

One:
He wakes up and looks at the corner point of the table. It hurts his eyes. It looks as if it is going to poke him in the pupils. He closes his eyes quickly. He can still feel it there, close to his eyes, sharp, splintery. It is going to press against his tender eye balls, gouge and tear at raw flesh.

He turns his head quickly and faces the wall. The knob on the door to the old woman’s room sticks out, leaps out. It isn’t sharp but it will hit his eyeballs and stick to the dry flesh and, in pulling away, he will peel off part of the outside layer of his eyes.

He closes his eyes. Tight.

No good. The knob will pry them open. It will pry open the lids and punch his eyes with its hard porcelain bulk. He rolls his head to the side and looks up at the ceiling.

It is flat. There are no protuberances menacing his eyes. He draws in a hot, gasping breath.

I’m thirsty, he thinks. He sleeps.

Two:
He is awake.

His nose itches. He rubs it. His right ear lobe itches. He pulls it. His chin itches. He scratches it. The bristles of his beard have caught dust and pieces of fluff.

He rubs his chin. Eyes closed, he rubs his side of his neck. His left ear itches. He scratches it. His head is caked with itching dandruff. He scratches it, flaking it off, getting the crusty white particles under his nails, dislodging a white fluttering shower of them over his forehead and the pillow.

His shoulder itches. He scratches it. His temple itches. The hair hangs over his ears and tickles. The back of his skull itches with the coating of the dandruff. His nose itches. He scratches it. His chin and ears itch. He rubs them, first one, then the other, his hand moving around quickly. His eyes are still closed. He is half asleep.

The edges of his eyes feel coated with sleep. An eyelash irritates his pupil, his nostrils, caked with mucous, itch. His hand flees around, a harried worker, scratching and pulling and rubbing and plucking. His eyes and his ears and his chin and his neck and his skull all itch.

His nose itches.

Three:
He wakes up.

He waves the towel again. He waves it furiously, screaming inside him at the blind stupidity of the world. His throat is sore. It aches. He drops the towel. He goes to sleep again.

Four
. He wakes up and looks at his keychain.

He holds it up and counts the links—exactly one hundred. He swings the keys back and forth and listens to the tiny jingling. He look sat the key to the door of the room. He looks at the key to the door of the building. Useless. He drops the chain on the floor. It makes two sounds. The first when the keys clank down. The second when the chain flops down over the keys.

He closes his eyes and sleeps.

Five
: He wakes up and drags out his wallet and throws it—plop!—on the pillow that is on the magazine that is on the rug that is on the floor.

Then he goes back to sleep.

Six:
He looks at the change in his right side pocket.

He rests the coins on his chest and picks them up one at a time. There are three dimes. He looks at the head of Mercury on one side and the axe and bough on the other side. There are two nickels. He looks at Thomas Jefferson on one side and his home Monticello on the other side. He looks at the three coppery busts of Lincoln. 48 cents all together. When he had hocked his camera and cuff links he had had 58 cents. Now he has 48 cents. That is 10 cents less than 58 cents. 58 cents is more than 48 cents. It works out perfectly.

He throws the three pennies weakly against the old lady’s door. After the third penny she goes and locks herself in the bathroom.

He tries to throw the three dimes and two nickels out the small opening in the window. The nickels go through and land on the fire escape. He cannot tell whether they go through the land on the fire escape. He cannot tell whether they go through the openings and fall down into the street.

Then he goes to sleep, thinking that it is too bad there isn’t an opening instead of a roof because it might rain. He thinks as he goes to sleep that all architects are very stupid people.

Seven:
Half asleep, he takes out his handkerchief and wipes his face with it. Then he throws it down on the bed beside his body and goes to sleep.