A Walk on the Wild Side (24 page)

Fort was back in the doorway. ‘Was two blocks down afore I missed ’em,’ he explained, picking up his blue sunglasses.

‘Sun aint bright,’ Dove observed, ‘fact is it look like we might have a little weather.’

Fort snapped his glasses on and left.

‘Weak eyes,’ Dove concluded as the first drums of the rain began. Began, and paused, and began again to a slow and funerary beat.

‘I would most likely be married and well-fixed by now, keepin’ my clothes in a sweetwood chest and taking the paper in the baseball season if I could but make words out of letters,’ Dove dressed himself in his daydream now wearing terribly thin, ‘with a girl who could read ’n write too.’ N little kids – I’d learn them how to do it my own self.’ Anything could happen to a man who could make words from letters.

The smells of coffee-and-banana dock, warehouse and orange-wharfed shore were borne into the room on the wash of a rain that had no shore at all. Beneath it banana boats were moving out to sea. Trailer and truck were bringing peanuts and grapefruit to town below it. Endless freights moved east, moved west, by plane, by boat, by passenger train. By highways dry and highways wet everyone but himself was getting to be a captain of something or other.

Everyone but one forgotten Linkhorn bogged down in a room where the blues came on and the old rain rapped this door then, like somebody’s grandmother seeking forever her long lost first born.

And it seemed to Dove that the sun had gone down the same morning that Terasina’s arms had last locked in love behind his neck, that her good thighs in love had last drawn him down and her good mouth had last loved his.

‘You were my onliest,’ he admitted at last, ‘but we only got to B. These days when I don’t get to see you are plumb squandered like the rest of all them letters. My whole enduren life you were the only human to try to see could I live up to the alphabet. Then I would of had a chance to rise like others.’

Luke came in on a skip and a grin and stood in the middle of the room drenched, drunk, hatless, the laces out of his shoes, the shirt out of his pants, the pants half-buttoned; the picture of a contented man.

‘Take off your jacket, Luke,’ Dove invited him, for the jacket was clinging to the skin.

Luke slapped his thigh and did his little joy-jig. ‘It’s all in people’s
minds
, boy – business is better than ever if you only let yourself
think
it is.’ And shook himself like a duck.

‘You’re soaking,’ Dove pointed out.

Luke turned stern. ‘What the hell
is
the matter with you, son? Opportunity is knocking the door down and you’re beefing about a little rain.’

‘You looked kind of damp is all I meant.’

‘Son, you been alone too much, brooding here by yourself. Smile, damn you, smile. Let a smile be your umbrella, boy.’

‘Reckon I am a mite fevery at that,’ Dove conceded. ‘Havin’ no breakfastes ’n thinkin’ of bygones give me the morning-wearies.’

Luke brought the flat of his palm down on the table so hard he almost lost his balance. ‘Why didn’t you
say
so, son?’ He began turning dirty plates over looking for something. ‘Where’s my check? I have a small check somewhere around here.’

‘Must be so small it’s not to be seen with the naked eye. Fact is, the landlady came up but she didn’t bring no check. She come up for to tell she wants three-thirty a week for the set of us.’

Luke stared at Dove unseeing while his brain, like a pinball machine, toted an unexpected score. His face lit triumphantly. ‘Chargin’ us for a place where the roof leaks so bad a man gets his bedclothes soaked in his sleep!’ He leaped on Fort’s bed, stabbed the ceiling with a jackknife and down he jumped again. Dove rushed the dishpan to the bed in time to catch the first raindrop.

The second drop preened its muscles a moment in preparation for the death-defying dive, then dropped dead center with a tiny
pingg
.

‘Man would be a fool to pay rent for a room where he’s like to catch his death by dew and damp,’ Luke sounded ready to sue. ‘Borrow me a half buck till Monday, Red?’

‘Ef ’n I had money I’d buy flour ’n shortenin’ for us to have a pan of poor-do gravy,’ Dove told him.

‘You like poor-do gravy, son?’

‘Mister, I like
any
kind gravy: red-eye gravy, pink-eye gravy, black-eye gravy, speckledly gravy and streakedy gravy, piedy gravy, calico gravy, brindle gravy, spotted gravy, white gravy ’n grease gravy,’ n skewball gravy. I can eat lavin’s ’n lashin’s of gravy. Ef ’n we had us flour ’n shortenin’ now I’d pour a little coffee in the pan too. Yes sir, I
do
like gravy.’

Luke slapped him cheerfully on the back. ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, son.
Smile
, darn you,
smile
. Laugh and the world laughs with you, Boy.
Look at this
 – in six weeks we’ll both be rich!’

He was dangling some sort of purple-feathered rubber in front of Dove’s eyes. ‘Whatever is it, boy?’

‘Look like a little kid’s balloon but for the feather,’ Dove guessed and inspected the device more closely, ‘only it can’t be no balloon because it’s hollow and couldn’t hold no air. I’m sure I never saw nothin’ to compare, Luke.’

Luke waved it like a purple flag. ‘It’s a
contraceptive
, son! Combines protection with pleasure,’ he flicked the foolish-looking feather on its obscene tip, gave it a joyous swing and twist and flung away the certificates in his other hand. ‘No more knockin’ ourselves out rappin’ doors for two bits. A buck apiece boy!
One buck apiece!
’

Dove shook his head mournfully. ‘I wouldn’t have the common brass to knock on no lady’s door and show her one of them unnatural-lookin’ things, Luke.’ Dove told him, ‘I’d go plumb through the floor if she knew what it was – and if she didn’t know how could I sell it?’

Luke grew serious. ‘Distribution is
my
department, Red. But there’s room for a good man in plain condom mechanics. Later you advance to fancy work.’

‘How much do plain condom mechanics make?’ Dove asked with only mild interest.

‘Twenty cents a dozen – that would be about four dollars a day if you just take your own time, Red. And Gross buys your meals besides.’

‘Who’s Gross?’

‘Gross’ – Luke would have taken off his hat in reverence had he owned a hat – ‘Gross is the father of the O-Daddy.’

‘Never heard tell of that either,’ Dove admitted, ‘but four dollar a day is mighty good pay.’

Luke scribbled an address on a slip of paper, then recalled something and tore it up. ‘Ask a policeman,’ he suggested – ‘but never mention “Gross” to anything in uniform. Get it, boy?’

‘I get it, Luke. And I’m mightily grateful.’

‘Let a smile be your umbrella, Son. We’re finally around that corner. Business was never better. Weep and you weep alone.’

And left Dove to weep or laugh as he chose. ‘Always downhill and always merry,’ Dove thought as the little gin-head’s demented skip-and-hop step was lost in the brainless titter of the rain. And felt as if he’d not be hearing that foolish step in any weather again.

He never learned how the little man had come upon the address he handed Dove that day.

The room began to fill with a gray-green river light, the very color of sleep. Raindrips pinged faster into the pan. Dove slept with his head in his hands.

To dream of a room where buckets stood about to catch raindrops and men and women encircled a bed to watch a woman and a man. Above the girl’s head the gloom was smeared by light like a yellowing streak of shame and Dove saw she had one toenail painted green. And heard Fort’s voice toll and toll from some chapel below sleep – ‘Hasteth! Hasteth!’

In a robe once red and now faded to rose Terasina came toward him wearing dark glasses and extending her arms to find her blind way.

Then one raindrop pinged into a bucket, another and another. It saddened Dove to hear them fall because each time one dropped he lost a friend and he could not leave till the last of all fell. ‘Boy! Wheah’s mah pot?’ A big hand began shaking him.

Under the light the real Fort stood looking down.

‘Who poked the holes in my ceiling, Son?’

Dove looked at the dishpan. Its bottom was barely covered.

‘Luke thought if the rain leaked in we wouldn’t be held for the rent.’

‘A mighty weak thought,’ Fort decided.

‘I got a little inkle, Fort.’

‘You got a little
what?
’

‘I got a little inkle Luke is fixin’ to move on.’

‘I couldn’t be more unconcerned, son. Made
my
rent this afternoon. Picked up six dollar in the rain ’n could of made eight with a mite of help.’

‘What line of work
you
followin’ now, Fort?’

Fort stood up and extended his right arm. Dove reached to shake it but Fort wouldn’t shake. ‘Can’t you see my sad condition?’ he asked softly.

Dove studied him carefully. ‘Your eyes look shut sort of,’ he decided.

‘Why, then
lead
me, goodbuddy,’ Fort asked without opening a lid. ‘
Lead
me.’

Dove rose dutifully and led the big man once about the room.

‘Now that’s all there is to it,’ Fort took off his glasses and opened his eyes. ‘Now wasn’t that
easy?
’

‘We had a blind Indian home name of Chicken-Eye Riley,’ Dove recalled, ‘Wore a tuckin’-comb. But he never went around with his eyes shut. Didn’t have to. He’d been gouged.’

‘Indians don’t have to fake it,’ Fort revealed resentfully, ‘all you got to be to get sent to a reservation these days is be some damned kind of Indian. The government’ll be given out pensions for bein’ Hebrew next. A white man don’t stand a chance no more if he’s poor.’ Fort suddenly left off complaining and used his executive-type voice – ‘You understand this is merely a temporary expedient until we get up a stake to get us into the oil business, goodbuddy?’

‘I don’t follow you, Fort.’

‘In Cameron County between Harlingen and Rio Hondo. Half a day’s hike from your own hometown. All we need to get it is to give the Sinclair man twenty dollar for a tankful of gas. He’ll furnish us cots and blankets out of his own attic. One of us takes care of the pump and the other buys up produce from the Mex farmers round about and wholesales it in the valley stores. The Sinclair man don’t have to know about the produce. So long as one of us is at the pumps when he calls is all that matters. You dig as good as you sell coffee to Negras, Red?’

Dove rolled up his eyes like a doll’s. ‘I can dig real good for I’m bedcord strong – what do I have to dig?’

‘Gas tanks, son – one on each side of the station! You dig one and I dig the other!’

‘To be part owner of a gas station,’ Dove offered dreamily, ‘I’d start to work before good day. I’ll dig ’em
both
sides.’

‘There’s a deal, goodbuddy.’

‘When do we start, Fort?’

‘Soon as you lead me around a couple days. Then I’ll lead you.’

‘What do I do when the policeman comes up ’n sees I’m not really blind?’

‘Never said you was,’ Fort explained, ‘all your sign says is “Help Me.”’

‘Don’t hardly seem fair after we whupped them so bad,’ it struck Dove.

‘Whupped policemen?’

‘No. Indians.’

‘Stop worrying about Indians. What you got to realize is the blind eye don’t reflect the light but yours do.
That’s
why you got to keep them shut. If you’re really blind you can go around with them open, people take one look and slip you a buck or two. Over and above that you get a state pension.’

‘I do?’

‘Not you.
Really
blind people.’

‘So do Indians. That’s why I figure to be a blind Indian must be the best deal a person could have. Still, this fellow back home didn’t have it none too good. In fact he spent all his weekends in jail.’

‘They’re strong for that firewater, or so I’ve heard,’ Fort agreed impatiently.

‘Weren’t firewater. It was a sow Riley was so strong for. He’d find his way to her guided solely by the sense of smell and his wife would come home and find him missing. She’d go down to the sty and put the flashlight on and there they’d be. That woman got so jealous of that beast she had Riley locked up every Friday night.’

‘I allow there was hell to pay in the pigsty when Riley got loose Monday morning,’ Fort conceded.

‘He never bothered her weekdays,’ Dove reported, ‘just when his wife weren’t well. He spent day after day in the domino parlor and seldom lost. He could tell every piece by running his fingers over it once.’

Fort sighed.

‘Either that or he couldn’t find her during the week. As I say, he was guided entirely by a sense of smell.’

Fort got him back on the main highway, ‘Don’t you go
gawking
. Just look straight ahead and keep saying “Who is it? Who is it? Who’s there? Who is it?”’

‘Who’s there? Who is it?’

‘That’s right. You’re learning.’

‘Who’s there? Who is it?’

‘You can open them now. I’m going to let you lead me until you get the hang of the thing,’ Fort promised. ‘Sunday morning in front of a Catholic church is worth from ten to fifteen dollars.’

‘That leak’ll be wide by morning if this rain keeps up,’ Dove judged. And blinked up to where the next drop clung, lost its grip and plunged, to become one with the eternal waters.

‘How would you like to eat at the best restaurant in town tonight, Tex? Set down at a white tablecloth right amongst the people who got this thing whipped and tell a waiter what to bring you?’

‘Thank you kindly all the same, but I lack the means to return the favor.’

‘Tell you what, Tex,’ Fort persisted, ‘you go on the blink with me and I give you my word of honor here and now, the day we get a stake we throw away the glasses. Think it over, son.’