Driscoll turned on his heel and went back into the big room. Hadley remembered that the shock had penetrated the haze of liquor. He remembered that he had stood there, and he had been able to see two men setting up a projector, and all he could think about was how he would tell Sarah and what she would probably say.
And, without transition, he was in the Times Square area on his way home. The sidewalk would tilt unexpectedly, and each time he would take a lurching step to regain his balance. The glare of the lights hurt his eyes. His heart pounded. He felt short of breath.
He stopped and looked in the window of a men’s shop that was still open. The sign on the door said Open Until Midnight. He looked at his watch. It was a little after eleven. He had imagined it to be much later. Suddenly it became imperative to him to prove both to himself and to a stranger that he was not at all drunk. If he could prove that, then he would know that Driscoll had fired him not for drinking, but for his opinions. And would anyone want to keep a job where he was not permitted to have opinions?
He gathered all his forces and looked intently into the shop window. He looked at a necktie. It was a gray wool tie with a tiny figure embroidered in dark red. The little embroidered things were shaped like commas. He decided that he liked it very much. The ties in that corner of the window were priced at three-fifty. He measured his stability, cleared his throat, and went into the shop.
“Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening. I’d like that tie in the window, the gray one on the left with the dark red pattern.”
“Would you please show me which one, sir?”
“Of course.” Hadley pointed it out. The man took a duplicate off a rack.
“Would you like this in a box, or shall I put it in a bag?”
“A bag is all right.”
“It’s a very handsome tie.”
He gave the man a five-dollar bill. The man brought him his change. “Thank you, sir. Good night.”
“Good night.” He walked out steadily, carrying the bag. No one could have done it better. A very orderly purchase. If he ever needed proof of his condition, the clerk would remember him. “Yes, I remember the gentleman. He came in shortly before closing time. He bought a gray tie. Sober? Perhaps he’d had a drink or two. But he was as sober as a judge.”
And somewhere between the shop and home all memory ceased. There was a vague something about a quarrel with Sarah, but it was not at all clear. Perhaps because the homecoming scene had become too frequent for them.
He dried himself vigorously on a harsh towel and went into the bedroom. When he thought of the lost job, he felt quick panic. Another one wouldn’t be easy to find. One just as good might be impossible. It was a profession that fed on gossip.
Maybe it was a good thing. It would force a change on them. Maybe a new city, a new way of life. Maybe they could regain something that they had lost in the last year or so. But he knew he whistled in the dark. He was afraid. This was the worst of all mornings-after.
Yet even that realization was diffused by the peculiar aroma of unreality that clung to all his hangover mornings. Dreams were always vivid, so vivid that they became confused with reality. With care, he studied the texture of the memory of Driscoll’s face and found therein a lessening of his hope that it could have been dreamed.
He went into his bedroom and took fresh underwear from the drawer. He found himself thinking about the purchase of the necktie again. It seemed strange that the purchase should have such retroactive importance. The clothing he had worn was where he had dropped it beside his bed. He picked it up. He emptied the pockets of the suit. There was a skein of dried vomit on the lapel of the suit. He could not remember having been ill. There was a triangular tear in the left knee of the trousers, and he noticed for the first time an abrasion on his bare knee. He could not remember having fallen. The necktie was not in the suit pocket. He began to wonder whether he had dreamed about the necktie. In the back of his mind was a ghost image of some other dream about a necktie.
He decided that he would go to the office. He did not see what else he could do. If his memory of what Driscoll had said was accurate, maybe by now Driscoll would have relented. When he went to select a necktie after he had shaved carefully, he looked for the new one on the rack. It was not there. As he was tying the one he had selected he noticed a wadded piece of paper on the floor beside his wastebasket. He picked it up, spread it open, read the name of the shop on it, and knew that the purchase of the tie had been real.
By the time he was completely dressed, it still was not eight o’clock. He felt unwell, though the sharpness of the headache was dulled. His hands were shaky. His legs felt empty and weak.
It was time to face Sarah. He knew that he had seen her the previous evening. Probably she had been in bed, had heard him come in, had gotten up as was her custom and, no doubt, there had been a scene. He hoped he had not told her of losing the job. Yet, if it had been a dream, he could not have told her. If he had told her, it would be proof that it had not been a dream. He went through the bathroom into her bedroom, moving quietly. Her bed had been slept in, turned back where she had gotten out.
He went down the short hall to the small kitchen. Sarah was not there. He began to wonder about her. Surely the quarrel could not have been so bad that she had dressed and left. He measured coffee into the top of the percolator and put it over a low gas flame. He mixed frozen juice and drank a large glass. The apartment seemed uncannily quiet. He poured another glass, drank half of it, and walked up the hallway to the living room.
Stopping in the doorway, he saw the necktie, recognized the small pattern. He stood there, glass in hand, and looked at the tie. It was tightly knotted. And above the knot, resting on the arm of the chair, was the still, unspeakable face of Sarah, a face the shiny hue of fresh eggplant.
The Big Blue
I walked down the length of the curved concrete pier at Acapulco, passing the charter boats getting ready to take off across the sparkling blue morning water after the sail and the marlin.
Pedro Martinez, skipper of the shabby-looking Orizaba, was standing on the pier coiling a line. I have gone out many times with Pedro during the season for the past five years. Other craft are prettier, but Pedro’s equipment is good, and he knows where the fish can be found. Pedro did not look happy. Not at all.
Lew Wolta sat in one of the two stern fishing chairs half under the canopy. He looked up at me, waved the half-empty bottle of beer in his big hand, and said, “What the hell kept you, Thompson?”
I had met Wolta the afternoon before. He and his friend, Jimmy Gerran, had stepped up to Pedro to sew him up for the next day at the same time I did. We had joined forces. I knew that Wolta had wanted the Orizaba because he had seen the four flags flying and the hard, lean, black bodies of the two sails on the tiny deck forward of the cabin.
When we had gone across the street to seal the bargain over a beer, I had begun to regret my quick decision. Wolta was a tall, hard, heavy-shouldered man in his late thirties with a huge voice, white teeth gleaming in a constant grin, and washed-out eyes that never smiled at all. He kept up a running chatter, most of which seemed designed to inflict hurt on the younger, frailer Jimmy Gerran, a quiet lad with a humble manner.
Over the beer, Wolta said, “Yeah, I ran into Jimmy up in Taxco, and it was pretty obvious that he needed somebody to get him out of his daze. Hell, I’ve never been in this gook country before, but I’ve got a nose for fun. Leave Jimmy alone and he’d spend all his time walking around the streets.”