“And we did wonderful things in the daytime too.”
“You know I rather like the dark. In some ways it is an improvement.”
“Don’t lie too much,” she said. “You don’t have to be so bloody noble.”
“Listen to it rain,” he said. “How is the tide now?”
“It’s way out and the wind has driven the water even further out. You could almost walk to Burano.”
“All except one place,” he said. “Are there many birds?”
“Mostly gulls and terns. They are down on the flats and when they get up the wind catches them.”
“Aren’t there any shore birds?”
“There are a few working on the part of the flats that only comes out when we have this wind and this tide.”
“Do you think it will ever be spring?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It certainly doesn’t act like it.”
“Have you drunk all your drink?”
“Just about. Why don’t you drink yours?”
“I was saving it.”
“Drink it up,” she said. “Wasn’t it awful when you couldn’t drink at all?”
“No, you see,” he said. “What I was thinking about when you went downstairs was that you could go to Paris and then to London and you’d see people and could have some fun and then you’d come back and it would have to be spring by then and you could tell me all about everything.”
“No,” she said.
“I think it would be intelligent to do,” he said. “You know this is a long sort of stupid business and we have to learn to pace ourselves. And I don’t want to wear you out. You know—”
“I wish you wouldn’t say ‘you know’ so much.”
“You see? That’s one of the things. I could learn to talk in a non-irritating way. You might be mad about me when you came back.”
“What would you do nights?”
“Nights are easy.”
“I’ll bet they are. I suppose you’ve learned how to sleep too.”
“I’m going to,” he told her and drank half the drink. “That’s part of The Plan. You know this is how it works. If you go away and have some fun then I have a good conscience. Then for the first time in my life with a good conscience I sleep automatically. I take a pillow which represents my good conscience and I put my arms around it and off I go to sleep. If I wake up by any odd chance I just think beautiful happy dirty thoughts. Or I make wonderful fine good resolutions. Or I remember things. You know I want you to have fun—”
“Please don’t say ‘you know’”
“I’ll concentrate on not saying it. It’s barred but I forget and let the bars down. Anyway I don’t want you just to be a seeing-eyed dog.”
“I’m not and you know it. Anyway it’s seeing-eye not seeing-eyed.”
“I knew that,” he told her. “Come and sit here, would you mind very much?”
She came and sat by him on the bed and they both heard the rain hard against the pane of the window and he tried not to feel her head and her lovely face the way a blind man feels and there was no other way that he could touch her face except that way. He held her close and kissed the top of her head. I will have to try it another day, he thought. I must not be so stupid about it. She feels so lovely and I love her so much and have done her so much damage and I must learn to take good care of her in every way I can. If I think of her and of her only, everything will be all right.
“I won’t say ‘you know’ all the time any more,” he told her. “We can start with that.”
She shook her head and he could feel her tremble.
“You say it all you want,” she said and kissed him.
“Please don’t cry, my blessed,” he said.
“I don’t want you to sleep with any lousy pillow,” she said.
“I won’t. Not
Stop it, he said to himself. Stop it right now.
“Look,
“We really are.”
“We’ll work everything out fine.”
“I just don’t want to be sent away.”
“Nobody is ever going to send you away.”
But walking down the stairs feeling each stair carefully and holding to the banister he thought, I must get her away and get her away as soon as I can without hurting her. Because I am not doing too well at this. That I can promise you. But what else can you do? Nothing, he thought. There’s nothing you can do. But maybe, as you go along, you will get good at it.
A Man of the World
THE BLIND MAN KNEW THE SOUNDS OF all the different machines in the Saloon. I don’t know how long it took him to learn the sounds of the machines but it must have taken him quite a time because he only worked one saloon at a time. He worked two towns though and he would start out of The Flats along after it was good and dark on his way up to Jessup. He’d stop by the side of the road when he heard a car coming and their lights would pick him up and either they would stop and give him a ride or they wouldn’t and would go on by on the icy road. It would depend on how they were loaded and whether there were women in the car because the blind man smelled plenty strong and especially in winter. But someone would always stop for him because he was a blind man.
Everybody knew him and they called him Blindy which is a good name for a blind man in that part of the country, and the name of the saloon that he threw his trade to was The Pilot. Right next to it was another saloon, also with gambling and a dining room, that was called The Index. Both of these were the names of mountains and they were both good saloons with old-days bars and the gambling was about the same in one as in the other except you ate better in The Pilot probably, although you got a better sizzling steak at The Index. Then The Index was open all night long and got the early morning trade and from daylight until ten o’clock in the morning the drinks were on the house. They were the only saloons in Jessup and they did not have to do that kind of thing. But that was the way they were.
Blindy probably preferred The Pilot because the machines were right along the left-hand wall as you came in and faced the bar. This gave him better control over them than he would have had at The Index where they were scattered on account it was a bigger place with more room. On this night it was really cold outside and he came in with icicles on his mustache and small pus icicles out of both eyes and he didn’t look really very good. Even his smell was froze but that wasn’t for very long and he started to put out almost as soon as the door was shut. It was always hard for me to look at him but I was looking at him carefully because I knew he always rode and I didn’t see how he would be frozen up so bad. Finally I asked him.
“Where you walk from, Blindy?”
“Willie Sawyer put me out of his car down below the railway bridge. There weren’t no more cars come and I walked in.”
“What did he put you afoot for?” somebody asked.
“Said I smelled too bad.”
Someone had pulled the handle on a machine and Blindy started listening to the whirr. It came up nothing. “Any dudes playing?” he asked me.
“Can’t you hear?”
“Not yet.”
“No dudes, Blindy, and it’s a Wednesday.”
“I know what night it is. Don’t start telling me what night it is.”
