Hunger and Thirst (8 page)

A man who had not should take by any means, fair or foul.

Fair or foul!

The words suddenly enraged him and his face contorted into a bestial snarl.

Words! He thumped the mattress with his fist and almost gagged in fury. It was almost frightening how quickly and powerfully temper came to him now.

Fair or foul, bah! What idiot glue kept that asininity in his skull? What inane retention was this, this never-ending devotion to the black and white? Why had he not purged himself of words long before this? Had he not seen the light, the better way? Was he not committed to action now instead of words?

That was the question, newborn and crowding.

Never mind.

He calmed himself. Even in rage, he could not choke all reason lest his plans fall through. It’s all right, he told himself. Better late than never. A cliché but true. That was the charm of clichés. If they became clichés they were usually estimable if not pluperfect generalizations.

It was all simple, simple and direct. That too was the charm of the new layer he’d reached. It made all things straight and simple. If you needed, said the new rule, you
took
. If you hungered, you
ate
.

And if you hated…

He lay there shivering excitedly as the church bells rang out hollow throated above the cacophony of traffic and the blowing spatter of the beginning rain.

Ding dong ding dong. Ding dong ding dong
. Pause. One… two… three… four (Lost beneath the screech of someone’s brakes)… five… six…

Seven o’clock, getting dark.

He raised up on an elbow and looked out through the window.

Far away he saw a building outlined against the dull, grayish sky. He saw a tiny water tank against the sky too and thought of the plow that stood against the sunset in Willa Cather’s book.

Below the water tank was a single light in one of the building windows. It is the engineer, said his casual brain, and he is working overtime in order to complete the blueprints for that highway which runs through the tiles in the bathroom. He saw the man in his shirtsleeves, thin lipped, drawing and checking, elbow deep in cluttering slide rules and T-squares and triangles and half-moon protractors.

Lowering his gaze, he watched an elevated train pull into the station. He saw lights in the windows, saw blurs and decided they were people. He squinted. They
were
people. He watched them interestedly. The world was new again. With each new layer, the outlook changed. And the world was reborn, repainted in different colors by a new, more interesting landlord.

Lights from windows on Third Avenue reflected on the roof of the elevated platform, forming blurry, fluted gold streaks. They reminded him of the wristbands on the pawnshop watches.

He smiled darkly and fell back on the pillow.

How simple.

He shook his head and chuckled softly. How very simple. How could he have missed it all these months, through this last year of trial? How could he have overlooked the obvious, the insensately tabooed masterpieces of will?

No matter. He had it now.

He heard another train rumble into the station. It shrieked out as it stopped and set his heart to violent beating. He felt it thudding his body against the bed.

Afraid? Asked his enraging mind.

No! he screamed back defensively, I’m not afraid! But screw your courage to the sticking point – the phrase emerged from the library of quotations in his mind.

He shut his eyes and thought of the pawn shop.

He thought of the little dumpy display case in front of the shop, like a glass island, filled with shiny cameras staring out a passers-by through unblinking eyes; lensed cyclops

He thought of the windows; hanging gardens of saxophones and clarinets and trumpets and guitars; music never to be heard. Typewriters, fishing reels, grindstones and barometers, violins and shotguns.

And the watches. Especially, he thought of the watches. Rows and rows of them hanging head down on their velvet beds with their shiny expansion bracelets or their cheap new leather bands.

The old man had wanted his watch there.

In that morgue for time pieces. For nine dollars. The watch his own mother had paid seventy five dollars for when he got out of the army.

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, his heart still thudding slowly and heavily.

My mother is dead, he told himself again and again, working himself into an even greater pitch of self justification. There is no place to go. There is no place to rest and there is no escape. I must do for myself what must be done. No one else cares.

Very well then!

His teeth clicked together and fury at a world shook him. He shut his eyes, lips tight, hands clenched at his sides. I’ll kill the old man, he thought suddenly, Oh God, how I’d love to do it. I’d like to be like Raskolnikov, I’d like to hide an axe underneath my coat and go into the shop and corner the old man and chop open his shiny, greasy head and cut up his brains into mincemeat!

Imagination without control. He trembled on the bed. Oh God, my temper! He cried within, I have to keep it checked! I can’t do anything if I lose my temper.

But the brief battle was quickly ended. He let himself go and lay shivering and smiling coldly and murderously.

“Why, of course,” he said.

And shuddered at the studied sound of venom in his voice. For a brief moment he was a complete and frightening stranger to himself. But then, like a well-taught actor, he caught up the script for his new role and became Hyde and relished it.

Of course
, he thought. The layers above are gone. They had fallen off the old, dirty robes. He was free of them, next to naked, cruel and powerful with a new strength of clear detachment, armed with the might of trapped animals and raging, desperate men.

He drew in a shaking breath that made his chest throb.

Tonight
, he pledged.

But I’ll be smart. I won’t murder the old man. No, that would be foolish. Why murder when it is such a great thing in the code? It puts a spotlight on the incident and, in the blackness, you might be picked out.

That’s it. It was decided. He’d think of killing the old man and enjoy the thinking. But he wouldn’t do it, actually. Beside the simple perils of it, he didn’t think it would be good for him. Not killing. It might cause a reaction in him that he wouldn’t be prepared for. He might break down, become panic-stricken. There was no point in that. It was the money he wanted anyway. He’d just lie here and think of chopping up the old man and driving the sharp blade edge over and over into his…

Again. The trembling. Almost, the sexual excitation. An ecstasy of committing unpunished violence. His organ was hard. His hand clutched eagerly at it, taut bent pieces of bone and flesh, white and bloodless. He began to tear open his pants.

He commanded himself then—no! I must not! It weakens resolve, it makes me think too much. It builds up the layers again. Oh, how clever a method nature had evolved for building up dispassion. He caught her at the game. It made him chuckle. He took his hands away. And went back to his plan.

Anyway, he thought, the old man will wish he were dead when his money is taken away. Yes, of course. What was there precious in the old man’s life that was worth the taking? Life must have been a hideous rack for the old man. He would be better off dead. Why should he be the instrument of release?

The case is clear, he told himself. But, inside, wondered if he were rationalizing, backing away from it.

No! It was
true
. There was no point in killing. As he had already calculated it was too great a risk.

He rolled on his stomach and laughed; a short brutal laugh that tore from his throat and sprayed itself around and hung in dripping vindictiveness from the walls.

He turned his head and, in the twilight dimness looked at the rose.

It was still new and fresh.

He had found it that afternoon. He had just come from the post office where he’d been buying some stamps. He saw the rose in the gutter, like a splash of blood it seemed at first. A crimson splash of blood.

He picked it up. It was broken off and its sap was oozing from the green stump. He looked at it, instinctively, smelled it. He didn’t notice the people watching. He had come to the point where he always walked alone.

The rose smelled sweet. The perfume of it went deep into his head. The petals were all curled around the center as though they concealed from sight some precious thing, embracing it in their soft, gentle folds.

Underneath, like the thick strands of a hula skirt, were the green fronds. And glued by spit or sap or hope was a tiny piece of decorative leaf. He had touched it, the delicate green needles all like silken threads and green lace.

“Beautiful,” he had whispered. And, somewhere in him, there was a tiny sense of resentment. For, through the months and years he had been building himself a picture of the world, painted in hues of dull unpleasant grey. And this sudden brightness, this sudden dash of beauty in the overall squalor seemed to destroy his picture, gave it falsity and showed the lie.

He took it to his room. The beauty of it overcame the inner feeling of dislike. It was instinctive. It was natural to take a flower to your room for decoration. So he had taken it and put water in the glass on the window table and set the rose to standing there in the sunlight.

Now he was looking at it.

What
is
it? he mused, once again caught up in the search for meanings and connections. What is it beyond a rose and a bit of delicate lacework? Why did I find it? Does it mean anything? When there is no one to give it to? came the thought. For what is a flower if there is no one to give it to?

He bit his lips and fought back the tears that, suddenly, wanted to fall.

“No!” he said hoarsely. And almost jumped up to hurl the glass and flower on the rug and crush them with raging feet.

Instead, he closed his eyes tightly, so tightly that it contorted his face, driving lines along the edges of his eyes and making ugly ridges and valleys on each side of his nose bridge.

Forget those thoughts, he commanded himself. And, once more, felt a strong resentment toward the rose which had broken his pattern and hated himself for bringing it up as an evidence of the broken pattern.

There is no love or beauty in the world! He demanded that it was the truth. The world is hard and cruel and mean. It is empty and fruitless. It is a neon sign glowing out its blatant insults to the night. It is a drunk lying dead in the gutter with the rain soaking into his white, flaccid face. It is hate and corruption and greed and hunger and thirst!

He lay very still, trying vainly to empty his mind of sickening thoughts,
all
thoughts. God, if only there were Ex-Lax for the brain, his mind ran on, some cathartic that would purge the aching swollen mind of all its stored up dung of thought. If only you could think it out and pull the cord and watch a whirlpool suck it down and be free to fill your mind again with food, with better, cleaner food.

But there was none of that, he thought.

The mind was a sponge. It sucked in and in and in. And never out until the hand of death crushed it in an icy fist and squeezed it dry in an instant.

Don’t fight it. He told himself to relax.

He relaxed. It’s simple, he thought, regimenting his body, wiping away unheeded tears. I need money, that’s all. I must have it. There’s no other point to debate. I need money and I’ll get it from the old man, the old man, the old man, the old man, the old…

* * * *

He got up from the bed and turned on the light.

It was nine thirty. The old man always stayed open late. He’d get there in a while. The shop was usually empty around ten.

He stood up sleepily on the patched rug, watching his shadow sway on the blue striped bedcover as the bulb swung in short choppy arcs overhead. The shadow of the radiator moved back and forth and the shadow of the rose moved on the white towel that was supposed to be a table cloth. The glass shadow seemed to get longer and shorter, longer and shorter.

Wearily he sank down on the bed. It squeaked. Squeak ahead mousie, spoke his slowly awakening brain. He licked his lips. It was such a dry room, such an airless room when there was no breeze coming in. He had to have a drink of water, his throat was parched.

He bent over with a grunt and slipped the shoes over his feet. They are old, those shoes, his mind observed in sleepy abandon. Look at them. They are caked with dirt and there are threads coming out at the seams and the sides are white where the shoes rub together as I walk.

He slanted his feet on their outside edges and looked at the heels. How can I walk so cockeyed, he wondered. The heels were like hills running from inner to outer edge.

He sat there staring at the shoes.

And began to wonder if his plan to rob the old man was just a dream. He had to concentrate very hard before he realized he had made up his mind before he went to sleep and not while he was asleep.

It took a little while for resolve to return. He had to go over all the arguments again in his mind, citing fact after fact that made it irrefutable he must rob the old man and leave town. He was angry with himself for going to sleep and making it necessary for him to stand up again in the court of his mind and argue his case through again in its entirety.

It was a waste of time.

Finally, he stood and walked to the door, opened it and went down to the bathroom. There he ran water from the sink faucet and threw it in his face. He looked up at himself in the mirror and made a face as he realized he’d forgotten his towel.

He pulled paper from the rack. “No waste, “he muttered drowsily. “That a boy, Palmer.”

He felt quietly assured now, somehow, pleased with himself. He watched himself rub his hands with the dry, antiseptic smelling paper and it seemed to him as though his hands were very strong looking and assured. He dried his face and wrinkled up his nostrils at the musty smell of the paper. Then he threw the paper down the toilet.