Stories of Erskine Caldwell (28 page)

That was an hour before, but she remembered very clearly that Don had looked her squarely in the eyes and said: “That was a long time ago. That’s not here and today.”

He had put on his coat and hat and left the house. She had wanted to run to the door and kiss him, but, even though he waited for her to come, he pretended he was looking for his gloves. She had let him go out without kissing him.

Virginia realized she had been crying for nearly an hour when she looked up at the clock. It was a quarter past eight.

“What does she have that I haven’t got? What does she give Don that I couldn’t give him?”

Before she had finished saying the words she realized that love could not be itemized that way. She knew she had to make herself believe that it was a circumstance that had to be either accepted or rejected. She was not willing to make a decision then.

At eight-thirty she looked at the clock again. It was just about the time Don would be walking into wherever it was he went. She did not know what part of town the place was, she did not know how many stories there were in the building, she did not know how many rooms there were in the apartment. She did not know anything for sure, except that the girl’s name was Lois, that Lois was two years younger than she, and that Lois had dark brown bobbed hair.

The phone rang. It was Edna. Edna and Harry wanted Don and her to go to the movies with them. She told Edna that Don was not at home, and that she was staying in that night. It was not that easy to fool Edna. Edna told her she was a fool to stay in and cry herself sick over Don. Virginia said good-by and hung up.

It was all right for Edna to think like that and to talk like that, but she was not Edna. She loved Don, and she wanted to keep him no matter what happened. All she needed was some means to keep herself together until the time when he came back to her. It might be worth it in the end, no matter if the world crumbled to the ground in the meantime.

At five minutes to nine, she studied the face of the clock. Don and Lois. It was the time when they would be saying things to each other, kissing each other, holding each other. Don and Lois. From eight fifty-five to nine o’clock they would be deciding whether to stay in that evening, or whether to go out and dance or see a show for a while first. Don and Lois.

“I wouldn’t mind it so much,” she said partly aloud, “if he were not giving her things that I want myself. I want every kiss, every touch, every look, every minute.”

No matter how hard she tried, she could not keep from looking at the clock again. What she saw was not numerals and time — she saw Don’s face.

“Oh, God!” she cried.

When her eyes closed, she felt a leaden feeling that compressed her mind and body as surely as if it had been tons and tons of lead pressing against her. Under such an unbearable weight, she could feel her anger rise up within her to fight it off. It was a dull, steady ache by then. She tried to push the weight from her, she tried to keep the anger from overriding her thoughts, but in spite of herself it overcame her like a dark cloud which she was powerless to push away. The cloud sank around her, dragging her down with it. By then she did not know whether she was sitting, standing, or walking. She had reached the point where, numbed by misery and aching, she did not know what she was doing. She could have committed murder then, and not have known what she had done.

She went to the closet for her hat and cloak, not fully aware of what was taking place. She could not feel herself move, but she remembered seeing the walls of the room and the hall slide past her.

On the way down, the elevator boy smiled and bowed, and said: “It’s a nice bright evening out, Mrs. Warner. I wish I had tonight off.”

“I’m sorry you don’t have it off, Frank,” she said.

By then she knew where she was. It was a pleasant sensation to feel herself coming down to earth so swiftly.

It was much cooler outside than she had imagined. The wind was sharp. Her cloak was a little light for such weather.

Two blocks down the street a man bumped into her accidentally. Both of them had their heads down against the wind, and when they ran together she almost lost her balance. She caught herself before he had a chance to help her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking off his hat.

She looked at him closely, studying his face from side to side. He looked about Don’s age.

“Where are you going?” she asked impulsively.

“Why — I — have an appointment.”

“A girl?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling a little.

She hurried on down the street as fast as she could. She did not look back even once, because she was afraid by then that the man might try to catch up with her.

A block or more farther on she saw a movie house. She ran until she was in the midst of the crowd. When she looked back then she could see nothing of the man, and she felt relieved. She bought a ticket and got inside as quickly as she could.

Her eyes saw that an animated cartoon was on the screen. She noticed that, before she could accustom her eyes to the semidarkness enough to find a seat. She sat down where the usher told her to sit down.

The audience was howling. Men, women, and children were laughing so loud that it was difficult to hear anything else. Virginia could not make herself laugh at first, but as the cartoon went on and on, she forgot herself and began laughing. It was only a few minutes more until she was laughing as loud as anyone else in the theater. The short picture came to an end. The mirth lingered with her for a while, and she could not keep from smiling. Out of the corners of her eyes she watched a man and a girl next to her holding hands. That was all right, too. She had not felt so good in more than two months. After having been one with Don for all those years, it gave her a pleasant feeling to know that she was alone in the world, laughing and tingling in a strange body that was so new to her that she had not had time to become accustomed to it. It was a feeling more pleasant than she had ever imagined.

The feature picture was nearly half over before she saw it. She did not know what she had been looking at during all that time, because when she tried to recall, she had no memory of anything other than the strange new feeling in her body.

Suddenly there flashed across the screen another woman. She had not followed the story long enough to know that the picture had another woman in it, but Virginia recognized her the instant she saw her. There was no doubt about it. It was a woman in love with a man who was about to leave his wife for her.

Everything came back to Virginia at the precise point where it had left off. She could feel the heightened continuation of her misery and anger and hopelessness. She could feel the thing surge through her as if it had been liquid. She was bursting with it. She could not bear it another moment.

“I hope she chokes,” she said in a loud voice.

Instantly there was a murmur of voices all around her. People as far ahead as eight or nine rows turned around and looked in her direction. The usher came down the aisle and flashed his light on her, asking her in a gentle way if she wished to leave the theater.

“I said, I hope she chokes to death!” Virginia said, louder, much louder than before.

At that moment the other woman on the screen turned and looked at Virginia. She was lovely to look at, but she was the other woman. Virginia could never forgive her for being that.

The usher had left in a hurry, and a moment later the manager came running down the aisle. She found herself being lifted out of her seat and carried up the aisle. The audience was in an uproar. Most of the people were standing up trying to get a glimpse of her in the semidarkness.

She was carried into a small room furnished like an office. The manager was dipping a towel in water, wringing it out, and applying it to her forehead. The two ushers were fanning her with newspapers.

“Do you feel better now, madam?” the manager asked, looking deeply into her face.

Virginia began to cry and laugh all at once.

“Get a doctor,” the manager said. “I don’t like the way she failed to come out of it.”

In what seemed like a mere moment the usher came back with a doctor. She closed her eyes when she saw his face.

“Just a slight nervous shock,” the doctor said later, getting to his feet and standing back to observe her.

All of twenty minutes had passed without her knowledge of time. She began to wonder if she had been lying on the couch in the manager’s office for five minutes or five hours.

Virginia sat up.

“I’m all right now,” she said, putting her feet on the floor.

“Have you been worrying lately over any matter?” the doctor asked professionally, stepping closer again.

“Don,” she said without a thought.

The doctor turned around, nodded to the manager, and went out. The manager nodded to the two ushers, and went out. The two ushers looked at each other, winked, and held the door open for her.

“I want a taxi,” she said, walking bravely but weakly through the door between them. “Get me a taxi right away. An orange-colored taxi!”

When she got home, Frank smiled, bowed, and said: “It has been a nice bright evening out, Mrs. Warner.”

She looked at Frank, stiff and erect in his green uniform.

“Has it?” she said.

He left her at her floor, waiting until she had found her key and let herself in.

The lights were on. She thought surely she would have turned them out when she left, no matter what her state of mind had been.

“Where have you been?” Don’s voice said from somewhere in the room.

Virginia threw her hat and cloak off and ran to the other end of the room. He was lying back in his chair, a frayed newspaper across his knees.

“What time is it, Don? Why are you here now? What did you come back for?”

“It’s about twelve,” he said. “Where have you been?”

She sank down on the floor beside him.

“I’ve had a disgraceful experience, Don,” she said, looking up at him.

“What did you do?”

“I went to a movie and talked out loud.”

“Loud enough for everybody to hear you?”

“Yes.”

“Did they put you out?”

“Yes.”

“Have to carry you out?”

“Yes.”

He laughed a little, looking down at her curiously and tenderly.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said, stroking her arm. “It happens all the time. No names are ever taken, and it never gets into the papers. Forget about it, Virginia.”

She looked at him in amazement, shaking her head from side to side.

“Does it really happen — to other people, Don?”

“Of course.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve seen it happen myself two or three times in my life, and I don’t go to movies often, either.”

“What do they — we — say?”

“The same thing you probably said, or a variation of it.”

“ ‘I hope she chokes’?”

“Exactly.”

Virginia laid her head on the arm of his chair. It was a relief to know that Don was not angry with her for having behaved in public as she did. She was so happy about it that tears came into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She brushed them away quickly so she could talk to him.

“I’m not going to ask you to give her up — for a while, Don,” she said calmly and slowly.

He sat up, to see her face better. “Are you talking about Lois?” he asked her.

“Yes, Don.”

“That’s awfully decent of you, Virginia,” he said, “What made you change your mind?”

“I didn’t change it. I think I’ve just found out that there has never been but one answer since the world began.”

“What’s that?”

“That it is natural for you to go to the most attractive person, and that the battle is between her and me. I’ve been fighting you all this time, trying to take you from her and bring you back to me. I know now that it is up to me to make you think I’m the most attractive. It’s a waste of time for me to fight you — it’s like calling up the wrong grocer and bawling him out for not delivering the coffee. What fighting is to be done will take place between her and me from now on — to prove which is the most attractive.”

He looked down at her, continuing to stroke her arm, and saw in her face something that he had known all their lives together. What he knew was that, no matter what happened to others in similar situations, no matter what happened to them temporarily, no matter what happened to her or to him separately, it was to be certain for them to come back together in the future on a foundation even more solid and firm than it had been in the beginning. The thing was so clear and satisfying to both of them that there was no need of either of them saying it. It was something they knew. It was a knowledge that the fulfillment was to be as inevitable as life itself.

(First published in
Harper’s Bazaar
)

I
DIDN’T STEAL
Lud Moseley’s calico horse.

People all over have been trying to make me out a thief, but anybody who knows me at all will tell you that I’ve never been in trouble like this before in all my life. Mr. John Turner will tell you all about me. I’ve worked for him, off and on, for I don’t know exactly how many years. I reckon I’ve worked for him just about all my life, since I was a boy. Mr. John knows I wouldn’t steal a horse. That’s why I say I didn’t steal Lud Moseley’s, like he swore I did. I didn’t grow up just to turn out to be a horse thief.

Night before last, Mr. John told me to ride his mare, Betsy. I said I wanted to go off a little way after something, and he told me to go ahead and ride Betsy, like I have been doing every Sunday night for going on two years now. Mr. John told me to take the Texas saddle, but I told him I didn’t care about riding saddle, I like to ride with a bridle and reins, and nothing else. That’s the best way to ride, anyway. And where I was going I didn’t want to have a squeaking saddle under me. I wasn’t up to no mischief. It was just a little private business of my own that nobody has got a right to call me down about. I nearly always rode saddle Sunday nights, but night before last was Thursday night, and that’s why I didn’t have a saddle when I went.