The Kill-Off (10 page)

There was nothing else to do now, however; and when there is nothing else to do I do what there is nothing else to do.

Shaking and wobbling, I walked the several blocks through town, entered the dance pavilion and crossed the wide, waxed floor to the door of his office. He was bent over an account ledger, cursing and mumbling to himself now and then as he turned its pages. I waited, nervously, my hands twitching and trembling even as the leaves of an aspen.

Not many people will agree with me, but Mr. Pavlov is a very kindly, soft-hearted man. On the other hand—and everyone
will
agree with me on this—he is no fool. And the merest hint, intentional or no, that he might be will send him into an icy rage.

He looked up at last, took the tobacco cud from his mouth, and dropped it into a convenient gaboon. “What the hell you want?” he said, wiping his hand on his pants. “As if I didn't know.”

“Listen, listen, Mr. Pavlov,” I said. “Humiliated and embarrassed though I am, I find myself impelled to—”

He yanked open a desk drawer, took out a bottle and glass and poured me a drink. I gulped it, and extended the glass. He returned it and the bottle to the drawer.

“Tell you what I'll do with you,” he said. “I'll—no, you listen—listen for a change! You go back there in the john and wash up—and use some soap, by God, get me?—and I'll stake you to a square meal.”

I said, certainly, certainly, yessir: I could certainly use a good meal. “You can give me the price of the meal now, Mr. Pavlov. That will save time and time is money, and—”

“And the farmer hauled another load away,” said Mr. Pavlov. “Just keep on standing there, arguing with me, and you won't get nothing but a kick in the butt.”

He meant it; Mr. Pavlov always means what he says. I departed hastily for the washroom. After all, this was the best offer I had had all day—the meal, I mean, not the kick—and I had a notion that it might be improved upon.

I washed thoroughly: my hands, wrists and those portions of my face that were not covered by beard. It was probably as clean as I have been during the thirty years of my existence.

I returned to the office, where Mr. Pavlov complimented me reservedly.

“Looks like you got a few coats of rust off. Why don't you chop that damned hair and them whiskers off, too? Ought to, by God, or else buy yourself a bedsheet and sandals.”

“Listen, Mr. Pavlov,” I said. “I will do whatever you say. If you would like to give me the money for a barber—or a bedsheet and sandals—along with the price of a meal, I will—”

“I ain't giving you a nickel,” said Mr. Pavlov. “I'll take you to a restaurant and pay your check myself.”

I protested that he was being unfair: it was implicit in our agreement that I should spend the money on liquor. He grunted, studying me with thoughtfully narrowed eyes.

“Shut up a minute,” he said. “Goddammit, if I give you another drink, will you shut up and let me think?”

“Listen, Mr. Pavlov,” I said. “For another drink, I would—would—”

I broke off helplessly. What wouldn't one do when he is slowly being crucified?

I snatched the drink from his hand. I took it at a gulp, noting that he had left the bottle on the desk in front of him.

“Huh-uh,” he said, as I extended my glass. “Not now, anyways. I got something to say to you, and I want to be damned sure you understand.”

“Listen,” I said. “I understand much better when I'm drinking. The more I drink the more my understanding increases.”

“Shut up!” There was a whip-like crack to his voice. “Now, here's what I was going to say, and you'd better not repeat it, see? Don't ever peep a word about it to anyone. Suppose I was to give you something of mine. Kind of let you take it away from me. I mean, nobody would know that it was you that took it, but—Goddammit, are you listening to me?”

“Certainly, certainly, yessir,” I said. “If you were thinking about pouring a drink for yourself, Mr. Pavlov, I will take one, too.”

“Dammit, this is important to you,” he said. “There'd be a nice piece of change in it for you, and all you'd have to do is—” He broke off with a disgusted grunt. “Hell! I must be going out of my mind to even think about it.”

“You appear very depressed, Mr. Pavlov,” I said. “Allow me to pour a drink for you.”

“Pour one for yourself,” he snarled, with unaccustomed naivete. “Then you're gettin' the hell out of here to a restaurant.”

It was a quart bottle, and it was practically full.

I picked it up, and ran.

I hated to do it, naturally. It was not only ungrateful, but also shortsighted; in eating the golden egg, figuratively speaking, I was destroying a future hen. I did it because I could not help myself. Because it was another nothing-else-to-do.

When a man is drowning, he snatches at bottles.

I ran, making a wild leap toward the door. And I tripped over the doorsill, the bottle shot from my hands, and it and I crashed resoundingly against the ballroom floor.

I scrambled forward on my stomach, began to lap at one of the precious puddles of liquor.

Mr. Pavlov suddenly kicked me in the tail, sent me scooting across the polished boards. He yanked me to my feet, eyes raging, and jerked me around facing him.

“A fine son-of-a-bitch you turned out to be! Now, get to hell out of here! Get out fast, and take plenty of time about showing up again.”

“Certainly,” I said. “But listen, listen, Mr. Pavlov. I—”

“Listen, hell! I said to clear out!”

“I will, I am,” I said, backing out of his reach. “But please listen, Mr. Pavlov. I will be glad to assist you in a fake holdup. More than glad. You have been very good to me, and I will welcome the opportunity to do something for you.”

He had been moving toward me, threateningly. Now he stopped dead in his tracks, his face flushing, eyes wavering away from mine.

“What the hell you talkin' about?” he said, with attempted roughness. “You better not go talkin' that way to anyone else!”

“You know I won't,” I said. “I don't blame you for distrusting me after the exhibition I just put on, but—”

He snorted half-heartedly. He said, “You're crazy. Crazy and drunk. You don't know what you're sayin'.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “And I don't know what you said. I didn't hear you. I wasn't listening.”

I turned and left. I went out onto the boardwalk, wondering if this after all was not the original sin, the one we all suffer for: the failure to attribute to others the motives which we claim for ourselves. The inexcusable failure to do so.

True, I was not very prepossessing, either in appearance or actions. I was not, but neither was he. He was every bit as unreassuring in his way as I was in mine. And as you are in yours. We were both disguised. The materials were different, but they had all come from the same loom. My eccentricity and drunkenness. His roughness, rudeness and outright brutality.

We had to be disguised. Both of us, all of us. Yet obvious as the fact was, he would not see it. He would not look through my guise, as I had looked through his, to the man beneath. He would not look through his own, which would have done practically as well.

It was too bad, and he would be punished for it—as who is not?

And I was in need of more—much, much more—to drink.

Down at the end of the walk, a girl was standing at the rail, looking idly out to sea. I squinted my eyes, shaded them with my hand. After a moment, she turned her head a little, and I recognized her as the vocalist with the band.

She was clad in bathing garb, but a robe was draped over the rail at her side. It seemed reasonable to assume that the robe would have a pocket in it, and that the pocket would have something in it also.

I walked down to where she stood. I harrumphed for her attention and executed a low bow, toppling momentarily to one knee in the process.

“Listen, listen,” I said. “‘How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O, my princess. Thy—'”

I broke off abruptly, noting that her feet were bare. I glanced at her midriff, and began anew:

“‘Thy navel is like—'”

“You get away from me, you nasty thing, you!” she said. “Go on, now! I don't give money to beggars.”

“But who else would you give money to?” I said. “Not, surely, to people with money.”

“You leave me alone!” Her voice rose. “I'll scream if you don't!”

“Very well,” I said, and I moved back up the boardwalk. “Oh, verily, very well. But beware the night, madam. Lo, and a ho-ho-ho, beware the night.”

The warning seemed justified. Molded as she was, the night could hold quite as much danger for her as it did delight.

Ahead of me, I saw Mr. Pavlov come out of the pavilion and swagger away toward town. Studying him, his high-held head, the proud set of his shoulders, the hurt I had felt over his caution in talking to me was suddenly no more.

He had behaved thusly I knew—I
knew
—because he actually did not intend to perpetrate a fake holdup. He neither intended to nor would. He might think the contrary, go so far as to plan the deed. But he would never actually go through with it.

He was as incapable of dishonesty, of anything but absolute uprightness, as I was of sobriety.

He turned and entered the post-office building. I crossed to the other side of the street, continued on for another block and suddenly lurched, and remained lurched, against a corner lamppost.

People passed by, grinning and laughing at me. I closed my eyes, and murmured alternate threats and pleadings to the Lord World.

Halfway down the block, there was a grocery store. Mr. Kossmeyer, the lawyer who comes here every summer, was parked in front of it, loading some groceries into the back seat of his car.

I pushed myself away from the lamppost, and stepped down into the gutter. I walked down to where Mr. Kossmeyer was, and tapped him on the shoulder.

He jumped, cursed and banged his head. Then, he turned around and saw that it was I.

“Oh, hello, Ganny,” he said. “I mean—uh—Judas.”

“Oh, that's all right, Mr. Kossmeyer,” I laughed. “I know I'm not really Judas. That was just a crazy notion I had.”

“Well, that's fine. Glad you've snapped out of it,” Mr. Kossmeyer said.

“I'm really Noah,” I said. “That's who I really am, Mr. Kossmeyer.”

“I see,” he said. “Well, you shouldn't have to travel very far to round up your animals.”

He sounded rather wary. Disinterested. His hand moved toward the front door of his car.

“Listen, Mr. Kossmeyer,” I said. “Listen. I'm accepting contributions for an ark, materials or their monetary equivalent. Planks are a dollar each, Mr. Kossmeyer.”

“They ain't the only thing,” said Mr. Kossmeyer. “So is a quart of wine.”

He seemed a lot smarter than he used to be. Summer a year ago, I sold him a reservation to the Last Supper.

“Listen, Mr. Kossmeyer, listen,” I said. “All the world's a stage, and all the actors, audience; and the wise man casteth no stink bombs. Doesn't that stir you, Mr. Kossmeyer?” I said.

“Only to a limited degree,” said Mr. Kossmeyer. “Only to a limited degree, Noah. I feel nothing at all in the area of my hip pocket.”

“Listen, Mr. Kossmeyer, listen,” I said. “They've got a new resident out in The City of Wonderful People. They've got a man that's TRULY HUMBLE. He's TRULY HUMBLE, but he always acted like the snootiest, most stuck-up man in town. You know why he acted that way? You know why, Mr. Kossmeyer? Because he was so lonesome for company. The planks are really only ninety-eight cents, Mr. Kossmeyer, and I can bring back the change from a dollar.”

“A little more finesse,” said Mr. Kossmeyer. “A little more English on the cue ball.”

“Listen,” I said. “Listen, Mr. Kossmeyer. I'm thinking about digging him up, and putting him on television. There ought to be millions in it, don't you think so? A TRULY HUMBLE man, just think of it, Mr. Kossmeyer!”

“I think I'll drive you down to the library,” said Mr. Kossmeyer, “and lead you to the history section.”

“I could put falsies on him, Mr. Kossmeyer,” I said. “I could teach him to sing and dance. I could—listen, Mr. Kossmeyer, listen, listen. There's a couple of other new residents out in The City of Wonderful People. They're MOTHER AND FATHER, and they're the most wonderful of all. Listen, Mr. Kossmeyer, listen. They're DUTIFUL AND LOVING PARENTS, they're GODFEARING AND LOYAL, they're HONEST and KINDLY and STEADFAST and GENEROUS and MERCIFUL and TOLERANT and WISE and—”

“What the hell they got, for God's sake?” said Mr. Kossmeyer. “A tombstone or a billboard?”

“Listen, Mr. Kossmeyer,” I said. “Listen. It's the teensiest stone you ever saw. Not much bigger than a cigarette package. I figure that fellow who writes on the heads of pins must have done the inscription. It's practically impossible to read it, Mr. Kossmeyer. Virtually impossible. They've got all those virtues, yet no one can see them. You know why it's that way? You know why, Mr. Kossmeyer? Listen, listen, listen. It's supposed to be symbolic. It's symbolic, Mr. Kossmeyer, and I just remembered you can get a pretty good grade of plank for—”

“Listen, Noah, listen, listen,” said Mr. Kossmeyer. “Which is the shortest way to that building-supply store?”

I
guess I just don’t think no more. Not no real thinking, only little old keyhole kind.

Reckon you know what I mean. Reckon you know what it does to a body. May be a mighty big room, but you sure ain’t going to see much of it. And you keep looking through that keyhole long enough, nothing ain’t never going to look big to you.

Get to where that eye of yours just won’t spread out.

Used to think pretty tolerable, way back when, long long time ago. Back when Mr. Doctor was talking to me and teaching me, and telling me stuff. Seemed like I was just thinking all the time, and thinking more all the time. Big thinking. Almost could feel my brain getting bigger. Then, we comes here and that was the end of that and the beginning of the other.

Mr. Doctor stopped; stopped himself from pushing me on, and stopped me from pushing. Just wouldn’t do, he said. Got to be in a certain place, so I got to fit in that place. Don’t do nothing that would maybe look like I don’t belong in that place. Just sink down in it, and don’t never raise my head above it.

Too bad and he sure hates it, Mr. Doctor said. But that’s the way it’s got to be. And what good’s it going to do me, he said, filling my head full of a lot of stuff I wasn’t never going to use?

Guess he right, all right. Anyways, he stop with me. Me, I didn’t put up no fuss about it. Catch me arguing with Mr. Doctor. Never did it but the once, long long time ago, and maybe that used all my arguing up. Took all my fighting for the one battle, maybe. And maybe I just didn’t see no call to fight.

Don’t work up no sweat going down hill. Awful easy thing to do, and that little old keyhole at the bottom, it don’t bother you at all.

Can’t think no more. Ain’t got the words for it. Mr. Doctor, he tell me one time back when he was telling me things, he tell me the mind can’t go no farther than a person’s ’cabulary. You got to have the words or you can’t talk, and you got to have ’em or you can’t think. No words, no thinking. Just kind of feeling.

Me, I get hungry. I get cold and hot. I get scared, and sick. Mostly, I get scared and sick. Scared-sick, kind of together. And not doing no real thinking about it. Just feeling it and wishing it wasn’t, and knowing it’s going to go right on being. A lot worse maybe.

Because he, that boy, he acting nice now. He trying to pretend being friendly. And that boy, he act that way, you sure better watch out for him. He sure about to get you then.

He come out in the kitchen other night after supper. Right there with me before I know it. And he smile and sweet-talk, and say he going to help me with the dishes.

“Go ’way,” I said. “You lea’ me alone, hear?”

“Well, we’ll let the dishes go,” he said. “Let’s go in your bedroom, mother. I have something I want to talk to you about.”

“Huh-uh. No, suh,” I said. “You ain’t gettin’ me in no bedroom.”

“I’m sure you don’t mean that,” he said. “You’re my mother. Every mother is interested in her son’s problems.”

I go in the bedroom with him. Scared not to. He got his mind made up, and that boy make up his mind, you sure better not get in his way.

Meanest boy in the world, that boy. Just plain lowdown rattlesnake mean.

I get on bed. Get way back against the wall with my legs drawn up under me. He sit down on chair at side of bed. He takes out a cigarette, and then he looks at me, and asks if it’s all right he could smoke.

I don’t say nothing. Just keep my eyes on him, just watching and waiting.

“Oh, excuse me, mother,” he said. “Allow me.”

He stick a cigarette at me. He strike a match and hold it out, and me I put that cigarette in my mouth and puff it lit. Had to. Scared to death if I don’t, and scared if I do.

I take a puff or two, so’s he won’t go for me. Then, he start talking, ain’t watching me close, I squeeze it down in my fingers and let it go out.

“Now, it’s a money problem I wanted to discuss with you, mother,” he said. “Largely one of money. I don’t suppose you have a considerable sum you might lend me?”

“Huh,” I said. “Where I get any money?”

“I’d probably need several thousand dollars,” he said. “There’d be some traveling to do. I’d need enough to get reestablished, for two people to live on, for an extended period.”

“Why’n’t you go away?” I said. “How I get any money, I don’t draw no wages? You want money you knows who to go to.”

He look at me a little while. He look right on through my head it seem like, and I figure he’s really about to come after me. Figure I really make one big mistake in kind of talking back to him. But what else I do, anyhow? Can’t be nothing much but back-talk when you talk to him.

Can’t think no more.

Can’t do nothing, and can’t do something.

Scared if I do and scared if I don’t.

He go on looking at me, and I know my time really come. Then, he say, that’s perfectly all right, mother. Say he really didn’t expect me to have any money, but he thought he should ask. Say it might’ve hurt my feelings, him needing money and not giving his mother the ’tunity to help.

Crazy-mean, that boy. He nice and polite that way, he crazy-meaner than ever.

“But you’re quite right, mother,” he said. “I do know where to get it. Or, more accurately, I know where I could lay my hands on a large amount of money. The difficulty is that there is another person who needs it—who will need it, I should say. His situation is quite similar to my own, and it would place him in a position practically as difficult as mine if he didn’t have it. So under the circumstances—what do you think I should do, mother?”

“Huh?” I said. “What? What you talkin’ about, boy?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Please don’t feel I don’t trust you, mother; it isn’t that at all. It’s just that you might be placed in a very compromising situation if I gave you any details, spoke in anything but the most general terms. And I believe you can advise me quite as well on that basis. What’s your best opinion, mother? If you were in my place, would you feel justified in extricating yourself from an untenable position at this other man’s expense?”

What I think? Me—what
I
think? What I got to think with? Or listen with, or talk with?

That mean boy, I see him too well’n too close—plenty too close, a mean-crazy boy like him—but I sure don’t hear him. Might as well be talking a zillion miles away.

“Lea’ me alone,” I said. “Why you all the time devilin’ me? I ain’t done nothin’ to you.”

“Relatively,” he nodded. “Yes, I see. Relatively, you have done nothing. And, of course, you meant that as an answer to my question. You did mean it so, didn’t you, mother?”

“Fo’ God’s sake,” I said. “Fo’ God’s sake, jus’—”

“I suppose it’s always that way, don’t you, mother? It’s inevitable. There are certain rigid requirements for being one’s self, a tenable self. They may not be violated, despite any exigencies, regardless of the temptation and the nominal ease with which violations could be accomplished. Otherwise, he becomes another. And how, if he cannot cope with the problems of his own self—live in pride and contentment within its framework—can he dwell in that other? Obviously, he can’t. He loses identity. He may have been little, but now he is nothing. He doesn’t know what he is. Yes, you’re absolutely right, mother. I’m so glad you could advise me out of the background of your experience.”

Don’t know what he talking about.

Don’t want to know.

“Now, there’s another thing I wanted to ask you about, mother,” he said. “Since I can’t help myself—am past the point of help, let’s say—should I help this other man? Should I remove an obstacle in the path to the solution of his problem? I have nothing to lose. It would help him immensely. In fact, he might not be able to bring himself to do it. Or if he did, he might suffer from regrets. It might cast a pall over the goal he achieves by so doing. How do you feel about it, mother? Do you think I should help him or not?”

How do I feel? What he care? What do I think? Think nothing. Just think nothing.

Can’t.

Him, he might be talkin’ about killing someone, and I wouldn’t know it.

He look at me, one of them pretty-smooth eyebrows cocked up, them even pretty-white teeth showing; kind of smiling and kind of frowning. And I know he as mean-crazy as they come—you just look at that boy and you see he is. But for maybe a second or two I don’t see it. What I see is sort of a picture that all at once just popped up out of nowhere, that kinda seemed to wooze out of my eyes and spread itself over him. And me—I—I almost laugh out loud.

I think—thought,
“Why, my heavens, Hattie, what in the world has come over you? How can you be afraid of this fine young man, your son? What…?”

The picture go away, back wherever crazy place it come from. Me, she, the me that’d thought them words go back to the same place. Nothing but the regular me, now, and it don’t do no thinking. Don’t see nothing but through that bitty old keyhole. Just sees meanest boy that ever lived.

He been that way for years. I watch it coming on him. Oh, sure, he don’t do nothing with it for a long time. He wait until he big and strong. But I see it all right, he
let
you see it. He nice and polite all the time, but he let you see it; make you know what you can ’spect. Poke it right at you.

“Yes, mother?” he said. “Can you answer my question?”

“Go ’way?” I said. “How I know? I—me—”

“Why, of course,” he said. “Naturally, you wouldn’t know. It’s not something a person can advise another about, is it? The individual concerned has to make his own decision. Thank you, very much, mother. I can’t tell you what a comfort it’s been to talk over my problems with you. Now, I see you’re looking a little tired, so perhaps I’d better…”

He stand up. He put one knee on the bed, and start to lean over toward me. Smiling that pretty white-teeth smile, fastening on to me with them soft brown eyes. An’…

Knew I was going to get it then. He had been playing around, all politey and smiley, and now he going to do it. Something mean. Something bad. Had to be, because there couldn’t be no other be. Couldn’t think of no other. Couldn’t think no more but little old keyhole stuff.

Don’t know what I going to do. House almost in a block by itself, and I yell my lungs out and no one hear me. No good yelling. Couldn’t do it nohow, scaredysick as I was. Couldn’t do nothing nohow. Just ain’t nothing to do but wait, and hope he won’t be too mean. No meaner than I can stand.

Can’t move. Feel like I frozen, I that stiff and cold. Can’t hardly see nothing. Just kind of a white blur moving toward me, pushing right against my face. Then, I can’t really see nothing. Just feel something, sort of soft and warm, pressing me on the forehead.

It go away. I get my eyes open somehow, and he standing back on the floor again.

“Good-night, mother,” he said. “I hope you sleep well, and please don’t worry about anything. After all, there’s no longer anything to worry about, is there?”

He stand there and smile, and I figure he really going to get me now. He just been playing around so far, but now he through. Can’t scare me no worse, so now he going to get me.

He turn around and leave. He close the door real gentle-like. But, me, I ain’t being fooled. Ain’t going to get me out there where he probably hiding, all set and waiting for me. Just about bound to be.

Why he act like he do if he ain’t up to something? Why he make all that talk at me? Why he keep calling me mother and be so nicey-nice, and—an’ kiss me goodnight?

Huh! Me, I know that boy. Seen that meanness coming on him a long, long time. He up to something all right. Fixing to get me.

I hear front door open. Hear it close.

I hear his car starting up, going away.

And all at once, I just flop over on my face and cry. Because he
ain’t
got me, and he
ain’t
going to. Him or nobody else.

Can’t.

Just ain’t nothing to get.