Shine, on the sidewalk, had surrounded the uncovered piano with a girdle of quilting, and about this, somewhat loosely, had adjusted a single belt. Now he hooked the block into a ring fastened to the top of this belt. Then, with quite unnecessary vigor, he took hold and began yanking on the pulley. Jinx held the guide rope. The piano began to rise.
It rose in a succession of small, upward jerks, each epitomizing the vehement force that Shine imparted to the pulley line. That force, increased by the piano’s weight, extended to the anchorage on the roof, and the joint of the airduct in the floor of the roof felt and responded to each impulse from Joshua Jones’ inner conflict, heard and answered each wanton effort to vent through muscle what could not escape through mind. An even ascent that joint might have borne, a jerky one it could not; there was no question of whether it would snap, but simply of when.
Shine’s malevolent pursuer chose to decide this important question: the piano was just short of the end of its journey when the break came. Shine, getting a sort of satisfaction out of prodigious effort, gave an especially tremendous tug—to find resistance vanish so suddenly that he pitched forward on his face still holding the line. He heard Jinx utter a terrified “Jesus!” and as he rolled over, instinctively attempting to clear the pathway of the falling instrument, he glimpsed it swaying above, knew that a second “safety” anchoring was all that gave him that instant’s doubtful grace, and heard a girl scream, “It’s slipping out—! Quick—it’s slipping out!”
The second anchorage held, but the initial drop had been enough to displace the soft girdle and belt from the center toward one end of the instrument. There was an instant’s hesitancy, as if to give direction, and abruptly the belt released the piano, which dropped like a live thing freed; plunged with a drive to crush and kill, like a beast pouncing on witless prey. The crash was like no other sound on earth—explosion, groan, and whine—thick wood, coarse metal, taut wires—a noise that struck and shattered itself, then rose, spread, and hovered. It was as if a corner of hell had been blasted off and a thousand souls swarmed out, wailing.
Shine stood erect, looking dazedly about, touching an abrasion over one eye with exploratory fingers. And miraculous as a vision, Linda was before him, breathless with horror, apprehension, relief, with the effort of reaching him so quickly.
“Honey—” she said, and found that nothing more would come.
“I’m all right—Gee—if you hadn’ ’a’ hollered—”
“Oh—” she managed, “I was at the window—upstairs—” and stood there a while in silence. Then because words failed, because something pinioned her arms that wanted to reach out to him, and because her eyes and throat mysteriously and ridiculously filled, she had a blank moment in which to realize how silly and impetuous she was, and another in which to be ashamed and take swift refuge in the house.
Shine on one side, Jinx on the other, looked down upon the wreckage. The piano lay half supine in a grotesque angular posture, its row of white keys gleaming like teeth, the lid of its keyboard sprung back and fixed, like the retracted upper lip of a creature that has died in agony.
Jinx gave forth a prayer of thanksgiving:
“It sho’ as hell meant to get y’—but it’s long gone now.”
Shine remained silent and contemplative.
Bubber came down. He and Jinx ejaculated comments. Bubber came over to palpate Shine and ask how the hell he ever missed it. A small crowd was gathering. People were looking out of windows.
“Crazy as hell,” Shine muttered absently. “ ‘Honey’—Well, I’ll be john-browned—” His hand again touched the raw place over his eye. “Little cold water wouldn’t do it no harm—” And following in Linda’s wake, he too entered the house.
XX
That Shine should visit a hospital when he felt almost perfectly well meant that some decided difference had come about in him. The scramble which had delivered him from grave injury had had no more serious visible effect than to abrade his hands and forehead against the cement, but it marked a conscious internal change which first came to light when he followed Linda into the house. Shine, the disciple of hardness, would not in any imaginable situation have been guilty of a surrender like that. Now again the change appeared when he decided that maybe he’d better go on ’round to the man’s clinic and let one them doctors look him over—might even be some bones broke, who could tell?
He sat at one end of a white metal pew, an article of hospital furniture as uncomfortable in fact as it is in suggestion, and awaited his turn. Funny kid, Linda. Come runnin’ out there yesterday, scared clean white, then didn’ do a damn thing but turn around and go back. But “Honey—?” Yea. He fell for that. And when he went in the house for water—huh—she was like as if nothing had happened. Showed him the sink and let him wash his head and gave him a towel—but not another word. Honey. Yea. When he had stalled around as long as he could, he too said, “Well, honey—” And all she answered—didn’t need to be so tight about it, either—was, “You better go see a doctor and make sure you’re all right.” Damned if he would. But here he was—a whole day late, but here.
Since Harlem Hospital was in a state of transition, it happened that, of the two interns on the service, one was white with brown angora goat-hair and the other brown with black sheep’s wool. A blank white door opened, a patient was ejected and the white intern beckoned summarily to Shine.
Shine looked at him a moment then said: “I’ll wait for th’ other doctor.”
He settled back in his pew.
