“Am I dirty?”
“There’s mud on your coat, and see, here’s a grass stain on your hand. And your fingernails — you are a disgrace. Mrs. Freeman thinks so anyway.”
“I’m very, very sorry,” Gordon said. “Would you like some music?”
“All right.”
He turned the radio up a little. “There. How do you like that?”
“What did you get drunk for?”
“Oh, now. Oh, now, now, now.”
“I just wondered. I’ve never seen you drunk before either.”
“I am full of surprises.”
“Well, yes,” Ruby said slowly. “I guess you are.”
“I’m not going home.”
“Nobody said you had to.”
“That woman said I did. I said, no — I was very polite, though.”
Ruby laughed. “I’m sure you were.”
“You’re a funny girl. You sound so happy. Let me look at you.”
“No,” she said, quite sharply, turning her face away. “I haven’t any make-up on and my hair’s done up.”
“Well, I’m dirty. That makes us a pair. We’re a pair, aren’t we, Ruby?”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Well, but we are. We’re a pair. Both victims. Can’t fight back. Soft.” He felt something closing in his head, like a sliding door. He saw it closing, slowly and inexorably, and he reached out to stop it. “No character, will power.”
He put his head on Ruby’s shoulder and watched the door close.
“Chewy, chewy, chewy,” Gordon said, and went to sleep.
With her free hand Ruby switched off the headlights of the car and turned off the radio. She saw that Mrs. Freeman was still up, moving around the house, and she thought, with detachment, She will probably ask me to move. I’ll have to move again. Well, that’s all right.
She sat listening to the beat of Gordon’s heart and the ticking of the dashboard clock, until Mrs. Freeman came outside again. She was carrying a cup of coffee, and the flashlight. The steam rose from the coffee like mist.
“Well,” she said. “Well. I guess you know him, eh?”
Ruby nodded.
“I made some coffee. Here.”
“Thanks, thanks ever so much.”
“It will sober him up.” She stared at Ruby. There was hostility in her face, but a certain stoical tolerance too. Facts were facts, and she might disapprove of the fact of a drunken man outside her house, but there he was. “What will the neighbors think?”
“There’s no one up, no lights.”
“They’re probably all peeking out the windows. I have a hard enough time holding my head up.”
“I’ll move,” Ruby said. “I’ll move out tomorrow if you want me to.”
“It’s not your fault,” Mrs. Freeman said soberly. “My land, the things that happen. The things that happen that aren’t really anybody’s fault.” She sighed. “What’s his name?”
“Gordon.”
She went over to the other side of the car and, grasping Gordon’s left arm, she pulled him to a sitting position, saying his name over and over in a stern whisper: “Gordon. Wake up, Gordon. Gordon! Now you just sit up, Gordon.”
She shook him until his eyes opened. Then she held him upright while Ruby fed him the coffee. Whenever she saw a car approaching Mrs. Freeman switched off the flashlight and the three of them were left in the darkness.
They put him to bed on the studio couch in Mrs. Freeman’s dining room. He lay on his side, with his legs drawn up. His shirt stuck out from the ripped seam of his coat, and he slept with his cheek resting on his grass-stained, muddy hands. Ruby covered him with two blankets.
“Look like kids when they’re sleeping,” Mrs. Freeman said with a kind of bitter melancholy. “I guess he’ll be warm enough with two blankets. Anyway, it’s all I have.”
“He’ll be fine. I— it’s— it’s very nice of you — letting him stay.”
“I couldn’t do anything else.”
“It’s very nice of you not to be mad.”
“I am mad,” Mrs. Freeman said decisively. “I am mad. But I don’t know who at.”
She flung a look of disapproval at the sleeping Gordon, but Ruby stepped between her and the couch, as if to shield Gordon. “He wouldn’t put anyone out like this intentionally,” she said. “He never would. Something must have happened.”
“Something always does.” Mrs. Freeman pulled the chain hanging from the beaded chandelier. “Always. Well, no matter. There’s some coffee left, if you want some.”
“Yes, I would. Thanks very much.”
“We’ll have to drink it in the kitchen. We don’t want to wake him up. Who knows, he might come to life and want to dance and make whoopee. You can’t tell with drunks.”
“He’s not a drunk,” Ruby said stubbornly. “He hardly ever drinks. Something must have happened.”
The kitchen was cold and damp. Mrs. Freeman lit the gas oven and left the oven door open. Then she poured the coffee, and the two of them sat facing each other across the linoleum-covered table. The table had already been set for Mrs. Freeman’s solitary breakfast. None of the dishes matched — they were the surviving odds and ends of old sets, the remnants of the years. The salt shaker was shaped like an orange, the pepper shaker was silver plate, with some of the silver still clinging to its surface. Her cup was a shaving mug left behind by one of her tourists. Repeated washings in hot water had peeled away some of the lettering on it but it was still partly legible, Gr in s f El so, Texas. Her knife and fork belonged to her wedding present from her father, a set of silver, but the spoon didn’t match. It had been a gift from Robert several years ago. He had arrived home unexpectedly one morning, broke, without a suitcase, without anything: Carrie, it’s me. Now don’t be sore, Carrie, don’t be like that. Look, I brought you something, it’s a present, Carrie. He had wrapped the spoon up carefully in tissue paper and tied it with a broken shoelace. He watched her eagerly while she unwrapped it. I hope you like it, Carrie. You’re always saying we need some decent silver. The spoon bore the imprint “Hilton Hotels.” I knew you’d be pleased.
She picked up the spoon now and stirred some sugar in her coffee. She felt a savage anger welling in her stomach. It spread down her arm into her hand, making her stir the coffee violently.
“I don’t know who at,” she said, as if to herself. “In the daytime it’s all right. I write my letters and make the beds and do my work. I’m not bothered. It’s when the night comes on that I begin to worry. It’s funny out here — as soon as the sun goes down it gets cold. Not like back home where you could sit on the porch in the twilight and rock a bit. No, out here it gets cold right away, a kind of bleakness sets in. Such a change, all of a sudden, it makes you kind of scared that the sun’s not going to come out again the next day. I’m getting like all the other old fogies around here, I depend on the weather too much, like it’s a religion. It creeps up on you, gradual, and you get superstitious — like, if the sun shines, well, that’s good, there’s still plenty of life left in the old girl, that’s how you feel. Dying seems awfully far away when I go out into the back yard in the morning and the sun warms my head. I feel quite youthful and confident, like God was smiling at me.” She added curtly, “Downright heathenish. A graven image.”
She sipped her coffee, a cool and bitter syrup that soured at the base of her throat.
“So something must have happened,” she said. “Yes. It always does. Excuses, I know all the excuses there are in this world. He’s married, I suppose.”
Ruby said, “Yes.”
“And what’s to happen now?”
“I don’t know. It’s up to Gordon.” She traced the pattern of the linoleum with her forefinger. “He’s the one that has to figure things out. He’s got ties, other people to think about, and I haven’t.”