Nothing seemed real except the ten years with Antonapoulos.
In his half-dreams he saw his friend very vividly, and when he awakened a great aching loneliness would be in him.
Occasionally he would pack up a box for Antonapoulos, but he never received any reply. And so the months passed hi this empty, dreaming way.
In the spring a change came over Singer. He could not sleep and his body was very restless. At evening he would walk monotonously around the room, unable to work off a new feeling of energy. If he rested at all it was only during a few hours before dawn--then he would drop bluntly into a sleep that lasted until the morning light struck suddenly beneath his opening eyelids like a scimitar.
He began spending his evenings walking around the town. He could no longer stand the rooms where Antonapoulos had lived, and he rented a place in a shambling boarding-house not far from the center of the town.
He ate his meals at a restaurant only two blocks away. This restaurant was at the very end of the long main street and the name of the place was the New York Cafe. The first day he glanced over the menu quickly and wrote a short note and handed it to the proprietor.
Each morning for breakfast I want an egg, toast, and coffee--$0.15
For lunch I want soup (any kind), a meat sandwich, and milk --$0.25
Please bring me at dinner three vegetables (any kind but cabbage), fish or meat, and a glass of beer--$0.35
Thank you.
The proprietor read the note and gave him an alert, tactful glance. He was a hard man of middle height, with a beard so dark and heavy that the lower part of his face looked as though it were molded of iron. He usually stood in the corner by the cash register, his arms folded over his chest, quietly observing all that went on around him. Singer came to know this man’s face very well, for he ate at one of his tables three times a day.
Each evening the mute walked alone for hours in the street.
Sometimes the nights were cold with the sharp, wet winds of March and it would be raining heavily. But to him this did not matter. His gait was agitated and he always kept his hands stuffed tight into the pockets of his trousers. Then as the weeks passed the days grew warm and languorous. His agitation gave way gradually to exhaustion and there was a look about him of deep calm. In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.
2
ON a black, sultry night in early summer Biff Brannon stood behind the cash register of the New York Cafe. It was twelve o’clock. Outside the street lights had already been turned off, so that the light from the cafe made a sharp, yellow rectangle on the sidewalk. The street was deserted, but inside the cafe there were half a dozen customers drinking beer or Santa Lucia wine or whiskey. Biff waited stolidly, his elbow resting on the counter and his thumb mashing the tip of his long nose. His eyes were intent. He watched especially a short, squat man in overalls who had become drunk and boisterous. Now and then his gaze passed on to the mute who sat by himself at one of the middle tables, or to others of the customers before the counter. But he always turned back to the drunk in overalls. The hour grew later and Biff continued to wait silently behind the counter. Then at last he gave the restaurant a final survey and went toward the door at the back which led upstairs.
Quietly he entered the room at the top of the stairs. It was dark inside and he walked with caution. After he had gone a few paces his toe struck something hard and he reached down and felt for the handle of a suitcase on the floor. He had only been in the room a few seconds and was about to leave when the light was turned on.
Alice sat up in the rumpled bed and looked at him. ‘What you doing with that suitcase?’ she asked. ‘Can’t you get rid of that lunatic without giving him back what he’s already drunk up?’
‘Wake up and go down yourself. Call the cop and let him get soused on the chain gang with cornbread and peas. Go to it, Misses Brannon.’
‘I will all right if he’s down there tomorrow. But you leave that bag alone. It don’t belong to that sponger any more.’
‘I know spongers, and Blount’s not one,’ Biff said. ’Myself--I don’t know so well. But I’m not that kind of a thief.’
Calmly Biff put down the suitcase on the steps outside.
The air was not so stale and sultry in the room as it was downstairs. He decided to stay for a short while and douse his face with cold water before going back.
‘I told you already what I’ll do if you don’t get rid of that fellow for good tonight. In the daytime he takes them naps at the back, and then at night you feed him dinners and beer. For a week now he hasn’t paid one cent. And all his wild talking and carrying-on will ruin any decent trade.’
‘You don’t know people and you don’t know real business,’ Biff said. ‘The fellow in question first came in here twelve days ago and he was a stranger in the town. The first week he gave us twenty dollars’ worth of trade. Twenty at the minimum.’
‘And since then on credit,’ Alice said. ‘Five days on credit, and so drunk it’s a disgrace to the business. And besides, he’s nothing but a bum and a freak.’
‘I like freaks,’ Biff said.
‘I reckon you do! I just reckon you certainly ought to, Mister Brannon--being as you’re one yourself.’
He rubbed his bluish chin and paid her no attention. For the first fifteen years of their married life they had called each other just plain Biff and Alice. Then in one of their quarrels they had begun calling each other Mister and Misses, and since then they had never made it up enough to change it.
Tm just warning you he’d better not be there when I come down tomorrow.’
Biff went into the bathroom, and after he had bathed his face he decided that he would have time for a shave. His beard was black and heavy as though it had grown for three days. He stood before the mirror and rubbed his cheek meditatively. He was sorry he had talked to Alice. With her, silence was better.
Being around that woman always made him different from his real self. It made him tough and small and common as she was. Biff’s eyes were cold and staring, half-concealed by the cynical droop of his eyelids. On the fifth finger of his calloused hand there was a woman’s wedding ring. The door was open behind him, and in the mirror he could see Alice lying in the bed.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘The trouble with you is that you don’t have any real kindness. Not but one woman I’ve ever known had this real kindness I’m talking about’
‘Well, I’ve known you to do things no man in this world would be proud of. I’ve known you to--’
‘Or maybe it’s curiosity I mean. You don’t ever see or notice anything important that goes on. You never watch and think and try to figure anything out. Maybe that’s the biggest difference between you and me, after all.’
Alice was almost asleep again, and through the mirror he watched her with detachment. There was no distinctive point about her on which he could fasten his attention, and his gaze glided from her pale brown hair to the stumpy outline of her feet beneath the cover. The soft curves of her face led to the roundness of her hips and thighs. When he was away from her there was no one feature that stood out in his mind and he remembered her as a complete, unbroken figure.
‘The enjoyment of a spectacle is something you have never known,’ he said.
Her voice was tired. ‘That fellow downstairs is a spectacle, all right, and a circus too. But I’m through putting up with him.’
‘Hell, the man don’t mean anything to me. He’s no relative or buddy of mine. But you don’t know what it is to store up a whole lot of details and then come upon something real.’ He turned on the hot water and quickly began to shave.