The Sunlight Dialogues (90 page)

It was, in plain truth, a dangerous situation. Walter Benson—or rather—that is—Walter Boyle?—was no psychologist, but he knew there was something wrong with him. The violent ups and downs alone were an indication. It was Marguerite’s fault, no question about it, and Nuper’s, and the Sunlight Man’s (in some obscure way), but the problem was not so much whose fault it was as what he was going to do about it.

He was trying to pace back and forth in the bedroom now, and it was difficult. The room was small, the double bed enormous. On one side the bed pressed up against the wall, on the other it stood only a foot and a half from the dresser. At the foot of the bed the highboy began, and it went halfway across the foot, then gave way to a four-by-six empty space, or a space that would have been empty except for the chair and the sewing machine. If he were more conscious of his surroundings just now, Benson would have moved something. But he was lost in anguished thought, so he merely squeezed between the dresser and the bed, went as far as the window, turned around and squeezed back toward the sewing machine, squeezed around behind it to the closet door, then turned back toward the sewing machine, the dresser and bed, the window.

He remembered very clearly the sense of wholeness and purity he had felt the night of the thunderstorm, sitting in the abandoned house and swearing he would change his life, but he also saw now, as he had not seen then, the other side of the nickel, so to speak. Shame, the loss of his worldly possessions, perhaps even prison. He shuddered.

He sat down on the bed abruptly and hunted through his bathrobe pockets for a Kleenex. He could find only one which had to be carefully unfolded and hadn’t a dry place anywhere. He blew his nose. He saw the corner of a
Parade Magazine
peeking out from under the bed and he reached for it and opened it up and sat perfectly motionless, as though he were back in jail, pretending to read it. Now his mind was a blank. He couldn’t read a word, but the pinked edge of the paper, the blurry, luminously red black print, the colored pictures steadied him. And then, for no reason, he was seeing once again the Indian boy and the Batavia Chief of Police, the pistol going
crack!
against the boy’s fat brown jaw. Benson’s hands shook. He remembered the guard with his head blown half off, slumping to the floor and reaching out slowly, out of all control, with the involuntary-looking movement of a penis or a snake. The opposition came suddenly clear to him—the violent, lawless bearded man, the violent policeman. It was, he saw with unspeakable clarity, a picture of his life. He, in the shape of Walter Benson, had been about to murder in cold blood the young man who had been toying with his wife’s affections!

He leaped to his feet and began to pace again, rubbing his nose painfully and gnashing his teeth and gesturing with his left hand. A man could not be both Benson and Boyle. It was more than confusing, it was immoral! He stopped in his tracks, struck by a thought even more telling. What had he ever gotten out of life anyhow, as Boyle? The men who cleaned the sewers got more money than Boyle, and got retirement pay when they were old. Even the Chief of Police would get retirement pay! His knees were suddenly weak and he had to sit down.

That moment Marguerite peeked in and said timidly, “Would you care for some tea, Walter?”

Instantly, his face squeezed shut and tears ran down his cheeks and he held out his arms to her. “Marguereed!” He wailed.

Her eyes grew round and she came in hurriedly with the tray. “My poor baby!” she exclaimed.

But he could not tell her what was troubling him. He hardly knew himself. Old age. Poverty. His terrible jealousy and something more than that, too, his awful sense of something wasted—a misspent youth, a betrayal of ideals. Waste.

“I don’d wan’ any tea,” he said. His mouth and eyes turned down and he sobbed and sobbed and clung to her hand. Afterward, he slept and she slipped downstairs to clean up a little bit.

When he awakened at suppertime he felt no better. He got out of bed, however, and put on his checkered light blue suit. He had a vague intention of drowning his miseries at a movie or walking in the park or looking through the bars of the locked-up Buffalo Zoo. Marguerite said nothing when he came out all shaved and dressed up. It was as if she’d expected it, more or less, and he tried to think if there was somewhere they usually went on whatever night this was (Wednesday? Friday?). But that was nonsense. Where did they ever go, he and Marguerite?

He stood in the kitchen with his head tipped back almost to his hump, taking nosedrops while Marguerite finished the cooking, then followed her in to the dining room while she set the table and laid out the napkins, looking up at him and smiling meekly from time to time. He carried in the food. When everything was ready she went to the foot of the stairs and called, “Oh Mr. Nuper! Dinner is served.”

There was some bumping and scuffing, and then he came bounding down the stairs, agile as a tiger, his curly long hair flopping around his ears, a cigarette in his mouth. He had an armload of signs with him, and the one on top said
BLACK POWER
. Benson frowned.

“You’re going out tonight, Mr. Nuper?” Marguerite said.

He nodded, almost bowed. “A meeting, yes.” He rubbed his hands. “Scalped potatoes!” he said.

“And Spam,” Benson said.

Marguerite looked at him, wounded. Just the same, it was Spam. Truth is truth.

2

Dinner was eventful.

Marguerite said, “What kind of meeting is it you’re going to, Mr. Nuper?”

“A demonstration, sort of,” Mr. Nuper said. He was leaning down way over his plate, sliding the scalloped potatoes in with his fork.

Benson pursed his lips and looked at him, and the paperback book that had been on the table came back into his mind. “Against what?” he said.

Something in his tone gave him away, so that Nuper said only, in a clipped sort of way,
“For,
not against.”

Benson squinted and wrinkled his nose. “For overthrowing the Goverdment, maybe? Throwing bombs into rich beople’s houses?”

“Not a bad idea,” Nuper said, grinning an instant, then scooping in potatoes and staring straight ahead of him at the wall between Walter and Marguerite.

Marguerite said, “Boys.”

“I dode believe in demonstrations, myself,” Benson said. He meant to leave it at that. He could feel the blood rising in his neck. He cut himself a small bite of Spam.

“I thought not,” Nuper said.

Benson flushed. “Because I’be rich? Because I’be got a little money in the bank?” It occurred to him that that was not exactly true.

Nuper glanced at him—just a flick of the eyes—then away. “Oh come on,” he said. “Let’s forget it.” It was a gesture of charity, Benson would know later. Nuper was a pro at this kind of thing, Benson merely a passionate ignoramus.

“Young people,” Benson sneered. He hunched his shoulders and cut his Spam into tiny pieces as if it were Nuper’s heart. “They think they ode the world. They think the whole world odes them a living. Eat, dring, add be merry, that’s all they do. Run aroudd half-naked and dance rock-n-roll and complain about the Goverdment and take drugs and have riots and whine about the Atom Bobb and play guitars—”

“Walter!” Marguerite said.

He chewed angrily.

There was a silence, and then both Nuper and Walter Benson spoke at once.

They both broke off, and each of them waited for the other one to speak first. They were both still staring straight ahead in white-hot fury, chewing, forking in the food.

“Would someone please pass the rolls?” Marguerite said.

They both reached. Nuper deferred.

Nuper said in a conciliating tone, “Actually, if one looks closely at the school districts in Buffalo—if one examines the character of each school—one makes the discovery that the schools are monolithic. That is to say, segregated. As the Supreme Court has stated in no uncertain terms, separate but equal is a logical contradiction. Do you believe a Negro child has a right to an education?”

Benson sulked.

“Well he’s not getting one in Buffalo, I’ll tell you that.”

“You’ll get hib killed, that’s what you’ll do with all your signs,” Benson said.

“Really,” Marguerite said. “Why can’t we eat supper in peace?” She was close to tears.

“The city’s been warned,” Nuper said. His eyes got a curious glint. It made you think of a man watching a building burning down.

“I dode know about all that. Pass the potatoes.”

“But it doesn’t keep you from talking.” Nuper smiled.

“I’be a peaceful man, and I live in a peaceful city. Add I’ll tell you something.”

“Sure, by keeping the nigger in his place.”

“I’m not against niggers—”

“Then how come you call them that?”

“You
called them—”

“Boys, boys, boys!” Her face was all pulled out of shape with grief and fright.

“I was imitating
you.”

“I haddn’t said it yed!”

“Well, you would have.”

Benson slammed the table with his fist. “There are ways add ways of doing these things. And the way you people dake, starting riots and getting wibben add children killed—”

“And men.” Again he sounded conciliatory, and it threw Benson off.

Benson said, “I’m for peace. I believe when a city has a probleb—”

“It should face it.” Nuper smiled and chewed.

“No.”

“It should
not
face it.” He leaned back and winked at Marguerite, and it was that, that horrible, sneaky, filthy—(words failed him)—
wink
that drove Benson wild. He leaped to his feet and slammed the table so hard his milk tipped over.

“You dode
care,
do you! You just dode
care.
It dode matter to you who’s ride or wrong, you just win whatever way you can. You’re like all of them. Irresponsible! What have
you
god to lose?
You
dode have to live here. You just cub in and stir up trouble and have your fun and then you’re gone, and we’re the ones do the cleaning up. Citizens like me. You cub here—” He spluttered, red-faced, eyes bulging. “You cub in—a city like Buffalo—you rile up—you, you rile up the niggers, the Negroes—you throw bobbs around and start frights in the street.” He stopped himself. He was shaking all over, and Nuper was sitting cool as a cucumber, eating his lettuce with sugar on it, and Marguerite was pushing back her chair with a look of witless grief and rage, leaving for the kitchen. Benson tried to make himself calm and, bristling, watched Marguerite leave.

Benson said, voice steely, “I dode like the way you argue.”

Again, Nuper smiled. His upper lip went out of sight and his teeth showed, teeth like some kind of an animal’s, tiny and yellow. After a moment he said, “I’m sorry I made you angry, Mr. Benson. And I’m sorry your wife—”

“Dode you talk to me about my wife,” Benson said. He spit the words out so fast, with such rage, that Nuper looked at him and went white for a moment.

“If I’ve offended—” he said.

Benson sat down and put his hands in his lap to hide the shaking. He was frightened. It wasn’t like him to speak out like that, lash out as if tomorrow would never come. He could give himself a heart attack that way, or get the neighbors down on him, and they might call the police, and the police might have a picture, or there might be some cop from out of town. … He sat with his shoulders tightly hunched, his hands pressed together tight between his knees.

After a long time Nuper said, “Mr. Benson, you have the wrong idea about me. Seriously.” He spoke gently, all apology. “I realize you don’t approve of my activities, any more than I approve of yours …”

Benson looked at him, alarmed.

“But I think you should judge me without prejudice. We must all follow the dictates of our conscience, don’t you agree?”

The names of towns came into Benson’s head. He tried to listen, in spite of them, to Nuper’s talk. He found himself concentrating on the way Nuper’s chin ran into his throat, the way his ears peeked through his thin, rumpled hair, the way his upper gums showed when he talked. His nose was really amazingly like a sheep’s.

“Mr. Benson, how do
you
explain the poverty of the Negro?”

Benson’s lips twitched inward but he said nothing.

“Be frank. Do you think it’s because they’re lazy, or stupid, or—as you say—irresponsible?” He held up his long yellow hand. “It’s all right, you don’t need to answer. Let me tell you something that may surprise you. I
agree
with you. You expect me to ask, ‘But what
made
them lazy and stupid and irresponsible?’ and you expect me to answer, ‘The system! Environment! And so on.’” Nuper leaned forward, smiling, showing his tiny teeth, his eyelids halfway lowered. “Well I say nothing of the kind. I say what every white man knows in his heart: it’s because
they’re closer to the ape!”
He sat back, triumphant, smiling broadly, with his lips pressed together.

Walter Benson stared, slightly confused.

When he was satisfied that he’d made his effect, Nuper raised his eyebrows into a long inverted V and opened his hands, the heels pointing inward. He looked, for an instant, like Jesus at the Last Supper. “I don’t like them, you see. I don’t like them at all. But I like them better than
civilized
people, if you understand my meaning.”