“Don’t stop,” Helène had said. “Please don’t stop.” Her bright hair was spread over the pillow.
But Richard Gordon had stopped and his head was still turned, staring.
“Don’t mind him. Don’t mind anything. Don’t you see you can’t stop now?” the woman had said in desperate urgency.
The bearded man had closed the door softly. He was smiling.
“What’s the matter, darling?” Helène Bradley had asked, now in the darkness again.
“I must go.”
“Don’t you see you can’t go?”
“That man——”
“That’s only Tommy,” Helène had said. “He knows all about these things. Don’t mind him. Come on, darling. Please do.”
“I can’t.”
“You must,” Helène had said. He could feel her shaking, and her head on his shoulder was trembling. “My God, don’t you know anything? Haven’t you any regard for a woman?”
“I have to go,” said Richard Gordon.
In the darkness he had felt the slap across his face that lighted flashes of light in his eyeballs. Then there was another slap. Across his mouth this time.
“So that’s the kind of man you are,” she had said to him. “I thought you were a man of the world. Get out of here.”
That was this afternoon. That was how it had finished at the Bradleys’.
Now his wife sat with her head forward on her hands that rested on the table and neither of them said anything. Richard Gordon could hear the clock ticking and he felt as hollow as the room was quiet. After a while his wife said without looking at him: “I’m sorry it happened. But you see it’s over, don’t you?”
“Yes, if that’s the way it’s been.”
“It hasn’t been all like that, but for a long time it’s been that way.”
“I’m sorry I slapped you.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. That hasn’t anything to do with it. That was just a way to say good-by.”
“Don’t.”
“I’ll have to get out,” she said very tiredly. “I’ll have to take the big suitcase, I’m afraid.”
“Do it in the morning,” he said. “You can do everything in the morning.”
“I’d rather do it now, Dick, and it would be easier. But I’m so tired. It’s made me awfully tired and given me a headache.”
“You do whatever you want.”
“Oh, God,” she said. “I wish it wouldn’t have happened. But it’s happened. I’ll try to fix everything up for you. You’ll need somebody to look after you. If I hadn’t of said some of that, or if you hadn’t hit me, maybe we could have fixed it up again.”
“No, it was over before that.”
“I’m so sorry for you, Dick.”
“Don’t you be sorry for me or I’ll slap you again.”
“I guess I’d feel better if you slapped me,” she said. “I am sorry for you. Oh, I am.”
“Go to hell.”
“I’m sorry I said it about you not being good in bed. I don’t know anything about that. I guess you’re wonderful.”
“You’re not such a star,” he said.
She began to cry again.
“That’s worse than slapping,” she said.
“Well, what did you say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I was so angry and you hurt me so.”
“Well, it’s all over, so why be bitter?”
“Oh, I don’t want it to be over. But it is and there’s nothing to do now.”
“You’ll have your rummy professor.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Can’t we just shut up and not talk any more?”
“Yes.”
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll sleep out here.”
“No. You can have the bed. You must. I’m going out for a while.”
“Oh, don’t go out.”
“I’ve got to,” he said.
“Good-by,” she said, and he saw her face he always loved so much, that crying never spoiled, and her curly black hair, her small firm breasts under the sweater forward against the edge of the table, and he didn’t see the rest of her that he’d loved so much and thought he had pleased, but evidently hadn’t been any good to, that was all below the table, and as he went out the door she was looking at him across the table; and her chin was on her hands; and she was crying.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
He did not take the bicycle but walked down the street. The moon was up now and the trees were dark against it, and he passed the frame houses with their narrow yards, light coming from the shuttered windows; the unpaved alleys, with their double rows of houses; Conch town, where all was starched, well-shuttered, virtue, failure, grits and boiled grunts, under-nourishment, prejudice, righteousness, inter-breeding and the comforts of religion; the open-doored, lighted Cuban bolito houses, shacks whose only romance was their names; The Red House, Chicha’s; the pressed stone church; its steeples sharp, ugly triangles against the moonlight; the big grounds and the long, black-domed bulk of the convent, handsome in the moonlight; a filling station and a sandwich place, bright-lighted beside a vacant lot where a miniature golf course had been taken out; past the brightly lit main street with the three drug stores, the music store, the five Jew stores, three pool-rooms, two barbershops, five beer joints, three ice cream parlors, the five poor and the one good restaurant, two magazine and paper places, four second-hand joints (one of which made keys), a photographer’s, an office building with four dentists’ offices upstairs, the big dime store, a hotel on the corner with taxis opposite; and across, behind the hotel, to the street that led to jungle town, the big unpainted frame house with lights and the girls in the doorway, the mechanical piano going, and a sailor sitting in the street; and then on back, past the back of the brick courthouse with its clock luminous at half-past ten, past the whitewashed jail building shining in the moonlight, to the embowered entrance of the Lilac Time where motor cars filled the alley.
The Lilac Time was brightly lighted and full of people, and as Richard Gordon went in he saw the gambling room was crowded, the wheel turning and the little ball clicking brittle against metal partitions set in the bowl, the wheel turning slowly, the ball whirring, then clicking jumpily until it settled and there was only the turning of the wheel and the rattling of chips. At the bar, the proprietor who was serving with two bartenders, said “ ’Allo, ’Allo. Mist’ Gordon. What you have?”
“I don’t know,” said Richard Gordon.
“You don’t look good. Whatsa matter? You don’t feel good?”
“No.”
“I fix you something just fine. Fix you up hokay. You ever try a Spanish absinthe, ojen?”
“Go ahead,” said Gordon.
“You drink him you feel good. Want to fight anybody in a house,” said the proprietor. “Make Mistah Gordon a ojen special.”
Standing at the bar, Richard Gordon drank three ojen specials but he felt no better; the opaque, sweetish, cold, licorice-tasting drink did not make him feel any different.
“Give me something else,” he said to the bartender.
“Whatsa matter? You no like a ojen special?” the proprietor asked. “You no feel good?”
“No.”
“You got be careful what you drink after him.”
“Give me a straight whiskey.”
The whiskey warmed his tongue and the back of his throat, but it did not change his ideas any, and suddenly, looking at himself in the mirror behind the bar, he knew that drinking was never going to do any good to him now. Whatever he had now he had, and it was from now on, and if he drank himself unconscious when he woke up it would be there.
A tall, very thin young man with a sparse stubble of blonde beard on his chin who was standing next to him at the bar said, “Aren’t you Richard Gordon?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Herbert Spellman. We met at a party in Brooklyn one time I believe.”
“Maybe,” said Richard Gordon. “Why not?”
“I liked your last book very much,” said Spellman. “I liked them all.”
“I’m glad,” said Richard Gordon. “Have a drink?”
“Have one with me,” said Spellman. “Have you tried this ojen?”
“It’s not doing me any good.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Feeling low.”
“Wouldn’t try another?”
“No. I’ll have whiskey.”
“You know, it’s something to me to meet you,” Spellman said. “I don’t suppose you remember me at that party.”
“No. But maybe it was a good party. You’re not supposed to remember a good party, are you?”
“I guess not,” said Spellman. “It was at Margaret Van Brunt’s. Do you remember?” he asked hopefully.
“I’m trying to.”
“I was the one set fire to the place,” Spellman said.
“No,” said Gordon.
“Yes,” said Spellman, happily. “That was me. That was the greatest party I was ever on.”
“What are you doing now?” Gordon asked.
“Not much,” said Spellman. “I get around a little. I’m taking it sort of easy now. Are you writing a new book?”
“Yes. About half done.”
“That’s great,” said Spellman. “What’s it about?”
“A strike in a textile plant.”
“That’s marvellous,” said Spellman. “You know I’m a sucker for anything on the social conflict.”
“What?”
“I love it,” said Spellman. “I go for it above anything else. You’re absolutely the best of the lot. Listen, has it got a beautiful Jewish agitator in it?”
“Why?” asked Richard Gordon, suspiciously.
“It’s a part for Sylvia Sidney. I’m in love with her. Want to see her picture?”
“I’ve seen it,” said Richard Gordon.
“Let’s have a drink,” said Spellman, happily. “Think of meeting you down here. You know, I’m a lucky fellow. Really lucky.”
“Why?” asked Richard Gordon.
“I’m crazy,” said Spellman. “Gee, it’s wonderful. It’s just like being in love only it always comes out right.”
Richard Gordon edged away a little.
“Don’t be that way,” said Spellman. “I’m not violent. That’s is, I’m almost never violent. Come on, let’s have a drink.”
“Have you been crazy long?”
“I think always,” said Spellman. “I tell you it’s the only way to be happy in times like these. What do I care what Douglas Aircraft does? What do I care what A. T. and T. does? They can’t touch me. I just
