Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07 (22 page)

 
          
 
The policeman took up a position behind the
two cameramen. "What seems to be the trouble?"

 
          
 
"That man up there. We want him
removed."

 
          
 
"That man up there seems only to be
leaning against a wall," said the officer.

 
          
 
"No, no, it's not the leaning, he— Oh
hell," said the cameraman. "The only way to explain is to show you.
Take your pose dear."

 
          
 
The girl posed. Ricardo posed, smiling
casually.

 
          
 
"Hold it!"

 
          
 
The girl froze.

 
          
 
Ricardo dropped his pants.

 
          
 
Click went the camera.

 
          
 
"Ah," said the policeman.

 
          
 
"Got the evidence right in this old
camera if you need it!" said the cameraman.

 
          
 
"Ah," said the policeman, not
moving, hand to chin. "So." He surveyed the scene like an amateur
photographer himself. He saw the model with the flushed, nervous marble face,
the cobbles, the wall, and Ricardo. Ricardo magnificently smoking a cigarette
there in the noon sunlight under the blue sky, his pants where a man's pants
rarely are.

 
          
 
"Well, officer?" said the cameraman,
waiting.

 
          
 
"Just what," said the policeman,
taking off his cap and wiping his dark brow, "do you want me to do?"

 
          
 
"Arrest that man! Indecent
exposure!"

 
          
 
"Ah," said the policeman.

 
          
 
"Well?" said the cameraman.

 
          
 
The crowd murmured. All the nice lady models
were looking out at the sea gulls and the ocean.

 
          
 
"That man up there against the
wall," said the officer, "I know him. His name is Ricardo
Reyes."

 
          
 
"Hello, Esteban!" called Ricardo.

 
          
 
The officer called back at him, "Hello,
Ricardo."

 
          
 
They waved at each other.

 
          
 
"He's not doing anything I can see,"
said the officer.

 
          
 
"What do you mean?" asked the
cameraman. "He's as naked as a rock. It's immoral!"

 
          
 
"That man is doing nothing immoral. He's
just standing there," said the policeman. "Now if he were doing
something with his hands or body, something terrible to view, I would act upon
the instant. However, since he is simply leaning against the wall, not moving a
single limb or muscle, there is nothing wrong."

 
          
 
"He's naked, naked!" screamed the cameraman.

 
          
 
"I don't understand." The officer
blinked.

 
          
 
"You just don't go around naked, that's
all!"

 
          
 
"There are naked people and naked
people," said the officer. "Good and bad. Sober and with drink in
them. I judge this one to be a man with no drink in him, a good man by
reputation; naked, yes, but doing nothing with this nakedness in any way to
offend the community."

 
          
 
"What are you, his brother? What are you,
his confederate?" said the cameraman. It seemed that at any moment he might
snap and bite and bark and woof and race around in circles under the blazing
sun. "Where's the justice? What's going on here? Come on, girls, we'll go
somewhere else!"

 
          
 
"France," said Ricardo.

 
          
 
"What!" The photographer whirled.

 
          
 
"I said France, or Spain," suggested
Ricardo. "Or Sweden. I have seen some nice pictures of walls in Sweden.
But not many
cracks
in them. Forgive my
suggestion."

 
          
 
'We'll get pictures in spite of you!" The
cameraman shook his camera, his fist.

 
          
 
"I will be there," said Ricardo.
"Tomorrow, the next day, at the bullfights, at the market, anywhere,
everywhere you go I go, quietly, with grace. With dignity, to perform my
necessary task."

 
          
 
Looking at him, they knew it was true.

 
          
 
"Who are you—who in hell do you think you
are?" cried the photographer.

 
          
 
"I have been waiting for you to ask
me," said Ricardo. "Consider me. Go home and think of me. As long as
there is one man like me in a town of ten thousand, the world will go on.
Without me, all would be chaos."

 
          
 
"Good night, nurse," said the
photographer, and the entire swarm of ladies, hatboxes, cameras, and make-up
kits retreated down the street toward the docks. "Time out for lunch,
dears. We'll figure something later!"

 
          
 
Ricardo watched them go, quietly. He had not moved
from his position. The crowd still looked upon him and smiled.

 
          
 
Now, Ricardo thought, I will walk up the
street to my house, which has paint peeling from the door where I have brushed
it a thousand times in passing, and I shall walk over the stones I have worn
down in forty-six years of walking, and I shall run my hand over the crack in
the wall of my own house, which is the crack made by the earthquake in 1930. I
remember well the night, us all in bed, Tomas as yet unborn, and Maria and I
much in love, and thinking it was our love which moved the house, warm and
great in the night; but it was the earth trembling, and in the morning, that
crack in the wall. And I shall climb the steps to the lacework-grille balcony
of my father's house, which grillwork he made with his own hands, and I shall
eat the food my wife serves me on the balcony, with the books near at hand. And
my son Tomas, whom I created out of whole cloth, yes, bed sheets, let us admit
it, with my good wife. And we shall sit eating and talking, not photographs,
not backdrops, not paintings, not stage furniture, any of us. But actors, all
of us, very fine actors indeed.

 
          
 
As if to second this last thought, a sound
startled his ear. He was in the midst of solemnly, with great dignity and grace,
lifting his pants to belt them around his waist, when he heard this lovely
sound. It was like the winging of soft doves in the air. It was applause.

 
          
 
The small crowd, looking up at him, enacting
the final scene of the play before the intermission for lunch, saw with what
beauty and gentlemanly decorum he was elevating his trousers. The applause
broke like a brief wave upon the shore of the nearby sea.

 
          
 
Ricardo gestured and smiled to them all.

 
          
 
On his way home up the hill he shook hands
with the dog that had watered the wall.

 
          
 
A wall collapses, followed by another and
another; with dull thunder, a city falls into ruin.

 
          
 
The night wind blows.

 
          
 
The world lies silent.

 
          
 
London was torn down during the day. Port Said
was destroyed. The nails were pulled out of San Francisco. Glasgow is no more.

 
          
 
They are gone, forever.

 
          
 
Boards clatter softly in the wind; sand whines
and trickles in small storms upon the still air.

 
          
 
Along the road toward the colorless ruins comes
the old night watchman to unlock the gate in the high barbed-wire fence and
stand looking in.

 
          
 
There in the moonlight He Alexandria and
Moscow and New York. There in the moonlight lie Johannesburg and Dublin and
Stockholm. And Clearwater, Kansas, and Provincetown, and Rio de Janeiro.

 
          
 
Just this afternoon the old man saw it happen,
saw the car roaring outside the barbed-wire fence, saw the lean, sun-tanned men
in that car, the men with their luxurious charcoal-flannel suits, and winking
gold-mask cuff links, and their burning-gold wrist watches, and eye-blinding
rings, lighting their cork-tipped cigarettes with engraved lighters. . . .

 
          
 
"There it is, gentlemen. What a mess.
Look what the weather's done to it."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir, it's bad, Mr. Douglas!"

 
          
 
"We just might save Paris."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir!”

 
          
 
"But, hell! The rain's warped it. That's
Hollywood for you! Tear it down! Clear it out! We can use that land. Send a
wrecking crew in today!"

 
          
 
"Yes, sir, Mr. Douglas!"

 
          
 
The car roaring off and gone away.

 
          
 
And now it is night. And the old night
watchman stands inside the gate.

 
          
 
He remembers what happened this same still
afternoon when the wreckers came.

 
          
 
A hammering, ripping, clattering; a collapse
and a roar. Dust and thunder, thunder and dust!

 
          
 
And the whole of the entire world shook loose
its nails and lath and plaster and sill and celluloid window as town after town
following town banged over flat and lay still.

 
          
 
A shuddering, a thunder fading away, and then,
once more, only the quiet wind.

 
          
 
The night watchman now walks slowly forward
along the empty streets.

 
          
 
And one moment he is in Baghdad, and beggers
loll in wondrous filth, and women with clear sapphire eyes give veiled smiles
from high thin windows.

 
          
 
The wind blows sand and confetti.

 
          
 
The women and beggars vanish.

 
          
 
And it is all strutworks again, it is all
papier-mache and oil-painted canvas and props lettered with the name of this
studio, and there is nothing behind any of the building fronts but night and
space and stars.

 
          
 
The old man pulls a hammer and a few long
nails from his tool chest; he peers around in the junk until he finds a dozen
good strong boards and some untorn canvas. And he takes the bright steel nails
in his blunt fingers, and they are single-headed nails.

 
          
 
And he begins to put London back together
again, hammering and hammering, board by board, wall by wall, window by window,
hammering, hammering, louder, louder, steel on steel, steel in wood, wood
against sky, working the hours toward midnight, with no end to his striking and
fixing and striking again.

 
          
 
“Hey there, you!"

 
          
 
The old man pauses.

 
          
 
"You, night watchman!"

 
          
 
Out of the shadows hurries a stranger in
overalls, calling:

 
          
 
"Hey, what's-your-name!"

 
          
 
The old man turns. "The name's
Smith."

 
          
 
"Okay, Smith, what in hell's the
idea!"

 
          
 
The watchman eyes the stranger quietly.
"Who are you?"

 
          
 
"Kelly, foreman of the wrecking
gang."

 
          
 
The old man nods. "Ah. The ones who tear
everything down. You've done plenty today. Why aren't you home bragging about
it?"

 
          
 
Kelly hawks and spits. "There was some
machinery over on the Singapore set I had to check." He wipes his mouth. .
. . "Now, Smith, what in Christ's name you think you're doing? Drop that
hammer. You're building it all up again! We tear it down and you put it up. You
crazy?"

 
          
 
The old man nods. "Maybe I am. But
somebody has to put it up again."

 
          
 
"Look, Smith. I do my work, you do yours,
everyone's happy. But I can't have you messing, see? I'm turning you in to Mr,
Douglas."

 
          
 
The old man goes on with his hammering.
"Call him up. Send him around. I want to talk to him. He's the crazy
one."

 
          
 
Kelly laughs. "You kidding? Douglas don't
see nobody." He jerks his hand, then bends to examine Smith's newly
finished work. "Hey, wait a minute! What kind of nails you using?
Singleheads! Now, cut that! It'll be hell to pay tomorrow, trying to pull 'em
out!"

 
          
 
Smith turns his head and looks for a moment at
the other man swaying there. "Well, it stands to reason you can't put the
world together with double-headed nails. They're too easy to yank out. You got
to use single-headed nails and hammer 'em way in. Like this!"

 
          
 
He gives a steel nail one tremendous blow that
buries it completely in the wood.

 
          
 
Kelly works his hands on his hips. "I'll
give you one more chance. Quit putting things back together and I'll play ball
with you."

 
          
 
"Young man," says the night
watchman, and keeps on hammering while he talks, and thinks about it, and talks
some more, "I was here long before you were born. I was here when all this
was only a meadow. And there was a wind set the meadow running in waves. For
more than thirty years I watched it grow, until it was all of the world
together. I lived here with it. I lived nice. This is the real world to me now.
That world out there, beyond the fence, is where I spend time sleeping. I got a
little room on a little street, and I see headlines and read about wars and
strange, bad people. But here? Here I have the whole world together and it's
all peace. I been walking through the cities of this world since 1920. Any
night I feel like it, I have a one o'clock snack at a bar on the Champs
Elysees! I can get me some fine amontillado sherry at a sidewalk cafe in
Madrid, if I want. Or else me and the stone gargoyles, high up there—you see them,
on top Notra Dame?—we can turn over great state matters and reach big political
decisions!"

 
          
 
"Yeah, Pop, sure." Kelly waves
impatiently.

 
          
 
"And now you come and kick it down and
leave only that world out there which hasn't learned the first thing about
peace that I know from seeing this land here inside the barbed wire. And so you
come and rip it up and there's no peace any more, anywhere. You and your
wreckers so proud of your wrecking. Pulling down towns and cities and whole
lands!"

 
          
 
"A guy's got to live," says Kelly.
"I got a wife and kids."

 
          
 
"That's what they all say. They got wives
and kids. And they go on, pulling apart, tearing down, killing. They had
orders! Somebody told them! They had to do it!"

 
          
 
"Shut up and gimme that hammer!"

 
          
 
"Don't come any closer!"

 
          
 
"Why, you crazy old—"

 
          
 
"This hammer's good for more than
nails!" The old man whistles the hammer through the air; the wrecker jumps
back.

 
          
 
"Hell," says Kelly, "you're
insane! I'm putting a call through to the main studio; we'll get some cops here
quick. My God, one minute you're building things up and talking crazy, but how
do I know two minutes from now you won't run wild and start pouring kerosene
and lighting matches!"

 
          
 
"I wouldn't harm the smallest piece of
kindling in this place, and you know it," says the old man.

 
          
 
"Might burn the whole goddam place down,
hell," says Kelly. "Listen, old man, you just wait right there!"

 
          
 
The wrecker spins about and runs off into the
villages and the ruined cities and the sleeping two-dimensional towns of this
night world, and after his footsteps fade there is a music that the wind plays
on the long silver barbed wires of the fence, and the old man hammering and
hammering and selecting long boards and rearing walls until a time finally comes
when his mouth is gasping, his heart is exploding; the hammer drops from his
open fingers, steel nails tinkle like coins on the pavement, and the old man
cries out to himself alone:

 
          
 
"It's no use, no use. I can't put it all
back up before they come. I need so very much help I don't know what to
do."

 
          
 
The old man leaves his hammer lying on the
road and begins to walk with no direction, with no purpose, it seems, save that
he is thinking to make one last round and take one last look at everything and
say good-by to whatever there is or was in this world to say good-by to. And so
he walks with the shadows all around and the shadows all through this land
where time has grown late indeed and the shadows are of all kinds and types and
sizes, shadows of buildings, and shadows of people. And he doesn't look
straight at them, no, because if he looked at them straight, they would all
blow away. No, he just walks, down the middle of Piccadilly Circus ... the echo
of his steps ... or the Rue de la Paix ... the sound of him clearing his throat
... or Fifth Avenue . . . and he doesn't look right or left. And all around
him, in dark doorways and empty windows, are his many friends, his good
friends, his very good friends. Far away there are the hiss and steam and soft
whispering of a caffe espresso machine, all silver and chrome, and soft Italian
singing ... the flutter of hands in darkness over the open mouths of
balalaikas, the rustle of palm trees, a touching of drums with the chimes
chiming and small bells belling, and a sound of summer apples dropped in soft
night grass which are not apples at all but the motion of women's bared feet
slowly dancing a circle to the chimes' faint chiming and the belling of the
tiny golden bells. There is the munch of maize kernels crushed on black
volcanic stone, the sizzle of tortillas drowned in hot fat, the whisk of
charcoals tossing up a thousand fireflies of spark at the blowing of a mouth
and the wave of a papaya frond; everywhere faces and forms, everywhere stirs
and gestures and ghost fires which float the magical torch-colored faces of
Spanish gypsies in air as on a fiery water, the mouths crying out the songs
that tell of the odd-ness and the strangeness and the sadness of living.
Everywhere shadows and people, everywhere people and shadows and singing to
music.