The heat of the day, such as it was, had already passed its peak and was abating. Sun’s heat felt good on bones as old as his.
Sing a hymn—no, you didn’t really have to do that any more—and get a meal. Eventually, he could still hope that it would be today, a wine bottle would appear.
Leaning against a lamppost, he fumbled to open his trousers’ frayed fly, discovered it already open, and drained discomfort from his bladder. If the cops saw him now they’d certainly take him in. There were a lot worse places than a Chicago cell in which to spend the night.
But no such luck today. He was going to have to go to the hymn-singers and get a meal, and then prowl after wine. Somehow, sometime, a bottle would appear.
A pawnshop window half-mirrowed the sidewalk’s heat, and his own ragbag figure’s shambling progress. His gray whiskers looked like fur glued on in handfuls decades past and unattended since. Behind the window’s armored grillwork were old musical instruments, radios, a tiny television with a dead dusty face. At the bottom of a short literary stack there was one thick, serious-looking volume, and something about that bottom book stirred vibrations deep in memory, roiled more sorely things already stirred by that last dream.
There had been books, yes, once there had been many books. Books revealing marvels ancient beyond guessing, and ancient marvels in themselves. And summer greenery as in the dream, and a young woman’s laughter…
… NO…
It didn’t matter. He had to cling to that. If he let himself panic now, over nothing, over what was dead and buried, it could finish him off. Really it didn’t matter now. Whatever his life had once contained of beauty, and of power, was all forgotten now. More than forgotten, buried and dead. He no longer wanted change, improvement, success. He no longer remembered what those things were. Now he wanted nothing at all beyond another bottle, or at least a share in one, and then to be left alone. The wine, the power, the sacrament. The Word of the Lord urged softly, in eternal pigheaded hope. The Lighthouse, the Salvation Army kitchen. And by now he was near enough to smell the soup.
At one time—it was so easy to lose track of the years, no, so difficult actually, but he’d managed it—at one time it really had been necessary to sing a hymn for them before they’d give you a handout. It was all handled differently now, more scientific and more merciful at the same time. Institutionalized love. The Work and the Word of the Lord going hand in hand… oh Lord, oh God, why is it still needful that I still be cursed with a functioning mind, or anyway one that sometimes functions? How many million bottles of wine are needed to work the miracle of deep forgetting?
For a moment he stood swaying on the streetcorner, arms raised, fingers spread as if to grasp and tear the sun.
… world without end, amen. The Street was a world truly without end within the world, going on infinitely echoing itself. As an empire it had outlasted many others. And he had seen a lot of the Street. A goddamned lot.
When he came out of the soup kitchen, having eaten, and having skillfully put off the clever overtures of the social worker, it was dark again. The sun was certainly down, the shadows cast by streetlights had grown out in their fixed places on pavements and the fronts of buildings. The sky was a starless blur above all lights. He was leaving a fresh young woman behind him disappointed, not the first time he’d done that, ha hahh.
The soup had evidently given him some kind of strength.
… now was that real laughter, somewhere?
Hardly. Only some of the usual noise made by the usual two-legged pigs of the Street. Though at the end there had sounded one true, wild note…
Get a meal, sing a hymn, get a bottle sometimes. Get busted, sleep in a cell, get out. Oh yeah, and fear the eventual return of winter. In winter life grew hard.
Get a bottle, then try for a safe place to sleep it off. The pitiful shelter of some flophouse with its chickenwire barricades at best. At worst—
Great God but death was coming, prowling the street in the next block. Feathers, seeing the dark-suited figure under a streetlight from a block away, recognized it instantly and knew an instant convulsion of terror. His ancient heart leaped up to pound savagely under his ribs. He instantly ceased his shuffling progress to nowhere, and stood leaning like an abandoned store dummy against the nearest building front. For all his immobility he was suddenly more awake, more alive, than he had been for years. With all the energy that he could muster, he willed himself unnoticeable, invisible. Meanwhile death in a dark elegant suit came pacing on in his direction. The seeking butcher, pale angular face brooding above a neat collar and red tie, stalked past Feathers not a body-length away, without a sign of being aware of him. Feathers did not breathe. He saw a worn gold ring on a white finger. The dark eyes in death’s wan countenance did not turn toward him. The moment passed with Feathers still invisible, and then the embodiment of death was gone.
He breathed again. He gasped, and sweated too. God, why did he cling so frantically to life, erect his flimsy chickenwire barricades of the mind, just to give the throatslitters a little more trouble in getting their hands on him? But cling to life he must, there seemed to be no choice.
Now he really had to get a bottle. He’d seen death on the streets before in recent days, but never so close. He needed a bottle, and then some place where he could rest.
Against a half-familiar storefront he let his legs give up their burden. His shaky knees folded, and he slid down to sit on the sidewalk. His once-strong hands caressed the solid, physical concrete, still warm from the sunlight of the day just past.
“Feathers?”
This was a new voice, one that did not sound as if it ought to be on the street at all. Its owner had somehow contrived to approach without being heard. The old man roused in surprise from his near-trance, noting with shaky relief that the newcomer was not in a black suit, even before he could get a good look at the man’s face.
The man standing over Feathers was no one he had ever seen before. Maybe one of the Street missionaries, except few of them were blacks. This man had skin the color of coffee heavy on the cream, features half African. Coatless, his dark shirt open at the collar, but well-enough dressed in the dirty dusk; in fact, dressed too well by far to be a genuine member of the Street himself.
The man was smiling at Feathers softly. He was of average build, and somewhere under forty. “I heard your friend over there call you by that name not long ago: ‘Feathers’. We could use another name if you don’t like that one.” His accent was not American Black, but not quite Standard American either. Maybe Caribbean?
“No friggin’ friend of mine. Who’re you? You’re no friggin’ friend either.” And all the while Feathers felt a weak relief that this was not dark death returned. Speech and thought, as they so often did, seemed to be springing from different founts inside his head, each going its own way almost unrelated to the other. He was being discourteous. Well, sometimes that was actually the best way to cadge a drink, and anyway most people deserved it.
“I could be your friend.” The stranger’s dark eyes were vaguely luminous. “I’ll buy you a drink. Where’s the best place?”
“Drink. All right. I’m your man.” Still sitting on the pavement, Feathers suspiciously eyed the street to right and left. The choice of a place did matter, because—“Not right here.” There was a tavern within spitting distance on his right. “If we go in here, all my goddam friends will see and come in after us. Bumming drinks. Leeches.”
“Okay,” agreed the stranger good-humoredly. “Where, then?”
“Place just around the corner. Down the side street.” Feathers’ feet had by now somehow become positioned under his center of gravity. Standing up was now possible, with a little help from the stranger’s hand, which felt stronger than it looked. Shuffling, leaning on a building now and then for balance and support, Feathers led the way around the corner.