He stared scowling a moment, bent forward a bit to catch some sign of life, and was on the point of approaching the figure when it moved in a curious way: shook like a man with a chill—slumped quiet—violently shook again. Slowly it dawned on Shine that maybe the bird was crying. And as he continued to stare and wonder on this unfamiliar sight, he became aware of something grasped in one of Merrit’s extended hands: a fairly large picture-frame, out of which the canvas had been burnt, leaving only a frayed, singed, marginal rim. Shine belabored his brain to catch an elusive memory of that frame, till it broke upon him that this was the one that had contained the likeness of Merrit’s mother; the one about which Mrs. Fuller had warned, “He’d die if he ever lost it.”
For what seemed a long time Shine stood looking, things romping through his brain. Linda struggling—no—resting comfortably. The Goddamned dickty—what happened? Fays got him—dirty sneaks—I mean they got him—look at this place. Merrit. There he is—what the hell—crying—Jesus—that picture of his mother—
Then Shine did what would have seemed to his associates an amazing, an unpardonable thing. There with the man he’d set out to punish alone, within his grasp, he stood silent, apparently undecided, made not a single move to strike. And after a while, slowly turned about and found his way out of the house.
It amazed Shine himself—amazed him and chagrined him. He felt rather glad of the darkness outside—it was a sort of balm for his shame. Hard boogy he was—yea—awful hard—the hardest boogy in Harlem. There he was, this dickty, this guy that—right there, crying to be crowned. And what does the hard guy do—the hardest boogy in Harlem? He gets a seasick feeling in the belly and turns around and sneaks out!
He mumbled excuses to himself as he wandered away down the street:
“Hell—I’ll get ’im later—Gee—y’ can’t hit a guy when he’s down—”
XXII
He was the first visitor to arrive on Ward VII the next afternoon. The odor of phenol and iodoform that had pervaded the clinic hovered here also. The beds were repellently white and orderly. There were only a few scattered patients—ugly women in bath robes and mules.
He found Linda seated beside a bed; a profusion of cotton and gauze was piled at one end of the bed, and from these Linda, with great concentration and delicate, mysterious precision was fashioning oblong pads which she stacked at the opposite end. Her back was toward him, and he stood for a moment behind her, looking; and if yesterday he had had strange emotions watching the unaware Merrit, today his feelings were past understanding watching the unaware Linda. Nothing seemed to be wrong with her, yet the sight of her sitting there in that clean, sparse, terrible place, bending so intently over her task, made his breath stop in his throat, so that he had to swallow it deliberately before he could speak.
“Hello, Lindy.”
She turned and looked up, half rose, sank back; the stars came out in her eyes, which consumed him in unbelieving astonishment, and she gave a little catching laugh. “Why—how’d you know I was here?”
He appropriated the chair beside the next bed and sat down.
“Didn’t you tell me to go to the hospital?”
She quickly sought the iodin stained place on his forehead, reached impulsively toward it, checked the motion. “No—’tisn’t s’posed to be touched, is it?”
“You—all right, Lindy?”
“Great. Going home today. Wasn’t any sense in them bringing me here anyhow. I wasn’t—I was only scared—I guess.”
“That all?”
“Well—I hurt my ankle—see?” She displayed a bandaged joint. “Not bad. Strapped. They’d transfer me to another ward if I wasn’t leaving so soon. How’d you know?”
“Doc in the clinic told me. Told me all about it.” There was silence. To relieve her embarrassment, evident by her averted face, he assured her, “He won’t pull nothin’ like that any more, Lindy.”
She was alarmed.
“You didn’t—didn’t—?”
“Nope. Not yet.”
“Don’t!”
“Don’t? Don’t what?”
“Don’t—you know. It’s all right. Really. You’ll get into trouble—”
“Trouble?”
“Please—”
“Listen, baby. Trouble ain’t half what I’d get into if—”
“But what’s the use? What good will it do?”
“He’s got it comin’ to him.”
“He’ll get it—without you gettin’ into trouble.”
“I ain’t go’n’ get in no trouble. It’s him that’s go’n’ get in trouble.”
She was silently distressed, and this reinforced his vengefulness as if he were witnessing her original pain instead of this that he himself was causing. He too was silent, far in the depths of a thwarted and now redoubled malevolence. Just let him get his hands on that half-white dickty cake-eater—he’d tear him apart slowly—he’d rip his yellow arms out—just let him get that close again—
But the vision of Merrit as he’d last seen him, limp and shuddering amid devastation, grew clear, whereupon, in spite of himself, this redoubled malevolence sagged.
Linda said, “Remember that morning in church what Father Tod said ’bout Joshua and the battle of Jericho? ’Bout people kidding themselves?”
“Yea. I can see that story all right ’bout the walls; that’s a good one. And I can see how people kid themselves. That’s easy. But I never did get the connection. Little too deep for me.”
“You’re the connection.”
“Me?”
“Uh-huh. There’s a wall around you. A thick stone wall. You’re outside, looking. You think you see yourself. You don’t. You only see the wall. Hard guy—that’s the wall. Never give in, never turn loose. Always get the other guy. That’s the wall.”
“Mean you don’t really b’lieve I’m go’n’ get this bird for what he done to you—?”
“No—no—no. He didn’t do anything. I mean—”
“Gee, Lindy—what’d you think of a guy that claim’ to be likin’ you and let a bird get away with anything like that?”
“He didn’t get away with anything, I keep
