The Grass Harp (23 page)

The hotel was filled: not to mention the racing crowd, there was, the desk clerk told him, a medical convention. No, sorry, he didn’t know of a room anywhere. Maybe tomorrow.

So Walter found the bar. As long as he was going to stay up all night he might as well do it drunk. The bar, very large, very hot and noisy, was brilliant with summer-season grotesques: sagging silver-fox ladies, and little stunted jockeys, and pale
loud-voiced men wearing cheap fantastic checks. After a couple of drinks, though, the noise seemed faraway. Then, glancing around, he saw the cripple. She was alone at a table where she sat primly sipping crème de menthe. They exchanged a smile. Rising, Walter went to join her. “It’s not like we were strangers,” she said, as he sat down. “Here for the races, I suppose?”

“No,” he said, “just a rest. And you?”

She pursed her lips. “Maybe you noticed I’ve got a clubfoot. Oh, sure now, don’t look surprised: you noticed, everybody does. Well, see,” she said, twisting the straw in her glass, “see, my doctor’s going to give a talk at this convention, going to talk about me and my foot on account of I’m pretty special. Gee, I’m scared. I mean I’m going to have to show off my foot.”

Walter said he was sorry, and she said, oh, there was nothing to be sorry about; after all, she was getting a little vacation out of it, wasn’t she? “And I haven’t been out of the city in six years. It was six years ago I spent a week at the Bear Mountain Inn.” Her cheeks were red, rather mottled, and her eyes, set too closely together, were lavender-colored, intense: they seemed never to blink. She wore a gold band on her wedding finger; play-acting, to be sure: it would not have fooled anybody.

“I’m a domestic,” she said, answering a question. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s honest and I like it. The people I work for have the cutest kid, Ronnie. I’m better to him than his mother, and he loves me more; he’s told me so. That one, she stays drunk all the time.”

It was depressing to listen to, but Walter, afraid suddenly to be alone, stayed and drank and talked in the way he’d once talked to Anna Stimson. Shh! she said at one point, for his voice had risen too high, and a good many people were staring. Walter said the hell with them, he didn’t care; it was as if his brain were made of glass, and all the whiskey he’d drunk had turned into a hammer; he could feel the shattered pieces rattling in his
head, distorting focus, falsifying shape; the cripple, for instance, seemed not one person, but several: Irving, his mother, a man named Bonaparte, Margaret, all those and others: more and more he came to understand experience is a circle of which no moment can be isolated, forgotten.

THE BAR WAS CLOSING
. They went Dutch on the check and, while waiting for change, neither spoke. Watching him with her unblinking lavender eyes, she seemed quite controlled, but there was going on inside, he could tell, some subtle agitation. When the waiter returned they divided the change, and she said: “If you want to, you can come to my room.” A rash-like blush covered her face. “I mean, you said you didn’t have any place to sleep …” Walter reached out and took her hand: the smile she gave him was touchingly shy.

Reeking with dime-store perfume, she came out of the bathroom wearing only a sleazy flesh-colored kimono, and the monstrous black shoe. It was then that he realized he could never go through with it. And he’d never felt so sorry for himself: not even Anna Stimson would ever have forgiven him this. “Don’t look,” she said, and there was a trembling in her voice, “I’m funny about anybody seeing my foot.”

He turned to the window, where pressing elm leaves rustled in the rain, and lightning, too far off for sound, winked whitely. “All right,” she said. Walter did not move.

“All right,” she repeated anxiously. “Shall I put out the light? I mean, maybe you like to get ready—in the dark.”

He came to the edge of the bed, and, bending down, kissed her cheek. “I think you’re so very sweet, but …”

The telephone interrupted. She looked at him dumbly. “Jesus God,” she said, and covered the mouthpiece with her hand, “it’s long-distance! I’ll bet it’s about Ronnie! I’ll bet he’s sick, or—hello—what?—Ranney? Gee, no. You’ve got the wrong …”

“Wait,” said Walter, taking the receiver. “This is me, this is Walter Ranney.”

“Hello, Walter.”

The voice, dull and sexless and remote, went straight to the pit of his stomach. The room seemed to seesaw, to buckle. A mustache of sweat sprouted on his upper lip. “Who is this?” he said so slowly the words did not connect coherently.

“Oh, you know me, Walter. You’ve known me a long time.” Then silence: whoever it was had hung up.

“Gee,” said the woman, “now how do you suppose they knew you were in my room? I mean—say, was it bad news? You look kind of …”

Walter fell across her, clutching her to him, pressing his wet cheek against hers. “Hold me,” he said, discovering he could still cry. “Hold me, please.”

“Poor little boy,” she said, patting his back. “My poor little boy: we’re awfully alone in this world, aren’t we?” And presently he went to sleep in her arms.

But he had not slept since, nor could he now, not even listening to the lazy lull of the fan; in its turning he could hear train wheels: Saratoga to New York, New York to New Orleans. And New Orleans he’d chosen for no special reason, except that it was a town of strangers, and a long way off. Four spinning fan blades, wheels and voices, round and round; and after all, as he saw it now, there was to this network of malice no ending, none whatever.

Water flushed down wall pipes, steps passed overhead, keys jangled in the hall, a news commentator rumbled somewhere beyond, next door a little girl said, why? Why? WHY? Yet in
the room there was a sense of silence. His feet shining in the transom-light looked like amputated stone: the gleaming toenails were ten small mirrors, all reflecting greenly. Sitting up, he rubbed sweat off with a towel; now more than anything the heat frightened him, for it made him know tangibly his own helplessness. He threw the towel across the room, where, landing on a lampshade, it swung back and forth. At this moment the telephone rang. And rang. And it was ringing so loud he was sure all the hotel could hear. An army would be pounding at his door. So he pushed his face into the pillow, covered his ears with his hands, and thought: think of nothing things, think of wind.

AFTER SCHOOL I USED TO
work in the Valhalla drugstore. It was owned by my uncle, Mr. Ed Marshall. I call him Mr. Marshall because everybody, including his wife, called him Mr. Marshall. Nevertheless he was a nice man.

This drugstore was maybe old-fashioned, but it was large and dark and cool: during summer months there was no pleasanter place in town. At the left, as you entered, was a tobacco-magazine counter behind which, as a rule, sat Mr. Marshall: a squat, square-faced, pinkfleshed man with looping, manly, white mustaches. Beyond this counter stood the beautiful soda fountain. It was very antique and made of fine, yellowed marble, smooth to the touch but without a trace of cheap glaze. Mr. Marshall bought it at an auction in New Orleans in 1910 and was plainly proud of it. When you sat on the high, delicate stools and looked across the fountain you could see yourself reflected softly, as though by candlelight, in a row of ancient, mahogany-framed mirrors. All general merchandise was displayed in glass-doored, curio-like cabinets that were locked with brass keys. There was always in the air the smell of syrup and nutmeg and other delicacies.

The Valhalla was the gathering place of Wachata County till a certain Rufus McPherson came to town and opened a second drugstore directly across the courthouse square. This old Rufus McPherson was a villain; that is, he took away my uncle’s trade. He installed fancy equipment such as electric fans and colored lights; he provided curb service and made grilled-cheese sandwiches to order. Naturally, though some remained devoted to Mr. Marshall, most folks couldn’t resist Rufus McPherson.

For a while, Mr. Marshall chose to ignore him: if you were to mention McPherson’s name he would sort of snort, finger his mustaches and look the other way. But you could tell he was mad. And getting madder. Then one day toward the middle of October I strolled into the Valhalla to find him sitting at the fountain playing dominoes and drinking wine with Hamurabi.

Hamurabi was an Egyptian and some kind of dentist, though he didn’t do much business as the people here-abouts have unusually strong teeth, due to an element in the water. He spent a great deal of his time loafing around the Valhalla and was my uncle’s chief buddy. He was a handsome figure of a man, this Hamurabi, being dark-skinned and nearly seven feet tall; the matrons of the town kept their daughters under lock and key and gave him the eye themselves. He had no foreign accent whatsoever, and it was always my opinion that he wasn’t any more Egyptian than the man in the moon.

Anyway, there they were swigging red Italian wine from a gallon jug. It was a troubling sight, for Mr. Marshall was a renowned teetotaler. So naturally, I thought: Oh, golly, Rufus McPherson has finally got his goat. That was not the case, however.

“Here, son,” said Mr. Marshall, “come have a glass of wine.”

“Sure,” said Hamurabi, “help us finish it up. It’s storebought, so we can’t waste it.”

Much later, when the jug was dry, Mr. Marshall picked it up
and said, “Now we shall see!” And with that disappeared out into the afternoon.

“Where’s he off to?” I asked.

“Ah,” was all Hamurabi would say. He liked to devil me.

A half-hour passed before my uncle returned. He was stooped and grunting under the load he carried. He set the jug atop the fountain and stepped back, smiling and rubbing his hands together. “Well, what do you think?”

“Ah,” purred Hamurabi.

“Gee …” I said.

It was the same wine jug, God knows, but there was a wonderful difference; for now it was crammed to the brim with nickels and dimes that shone dully through the thick glass.

“Pretty, eh?” said my uncle. “Had it done over at the First National. Couldn’t get in anything bigger-sized than a nickel. Still, there’s lotsa money in there, let me tell you.”

“But what’s the point, Mr. Marshall?” I said. “I mean, what’s the idea?”

Mr. Marshall’s smile deepened to a grin. “This here’s a jug of silver, you might say.…”

“The pot at the end of the rainbow,” interrupted Hamurabi.

“… and the idea, as you call it, is for folks to guess how much money is in there. For instance, say you buy a quarter’s worth of stuff—well, then you get to take a chance. The more you buy, the more chances you get. And I’ll keep all guesses in a ledger till Christmas Eve, at which time whoever comes closest to the right amount will get the whole shebang.”

Hamurabi nodded solemnly. “He’s playing Santa Claus—a mighty crafty Santa Claus,” he said. “I’m going home and write a book:
The Skillful Murder of Rufus McPherson
.” To tell the truth, he sometimes did write stories and send them out to the magazines. They always came back.

IT WAS SURPRISING, REALLY LIKE
a miracle, how Wachata County took to the jug. Why, the Valhalla hadn’t done so much business since Station Master Tully, poor soul, went stark raving mad and claimed to have discovered oil back of the depot, causing the town to be overrun with wildcat prospectors. Even the poolhall bums who never spent a cent on anything not connected with whiskey or women took to investing their spare cash in milk shakes. A few elderly ladies publicly disapproved of Mr. Marshall’s enterprise as a kind of gambling, but they didn’t start any trouble and some even found occasion to visit us and hazard a guess. The school kids were crazy about the whole thing, and I was very popular because they figured I knew the answer.

“I’ll tell you why all this is,” said Hamurabi, lighting one of the Egyptian cigarettes he bought by mail from a concern in New York City. “It’s not for the reason you may imagine; not, in other words, avidity. No. It’s the mystery that’s enchanting. Now you look at those nickels and dimes and what do you think: ah, so much! No, no. You think: ah,
how
much? And that’s a profound question, indeed. It can mean different things to different people. Understand?”

And oh, was Rufus McPherson wild! When you’re in trade, you count on Christmas to make up a large share of your yearly profit, and he was hard pressed to find a customer. So he tried to imitate the jug; but being such a stingy man he filled his with pennies. He also wrote a letter to the editor of
The Banner
, our weekly paper, in which he said that Mr. Marshall ought to be “tarred and feathered and strung up for turning innocent little children into confirmed gamblers and sending them down the path to Hell!” You can imagine what kind of laughing stock he
was. Nobody had anything for McPherson but scorn. And so by the middle of November he just stood on the sidewalk outside his store and gazed bitterly at the festivities across the square.

AT ABOUT THIS TIME APPLESEED
and sister made their first appearance.

He was a stranger in town. At least no one could recall ever having seen him before. He said he lived on a farm a mile past Indian Branches; told us his mother weighed only seventy-four pounds and that he had an older brother who would play the fiddle at anybody’s wedding for fifty cents. He claimed that Appleseed was the only name he had and that he was twelve years old. But his sister, Middy, said he was eight. His hair was straight and dark yellow. He had a tight, weather-tanned little face with anxious green eyes that had a very wise and knowing look. He was small and puny and high-strung; and he wore always the same outfit: a red sweater, blue denim britches and a pair of man-sized boots that went clop-clop with every step.