The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(89)

Of course.

Kline nodded. He turned and looked at the woman. The two men had stopped talking. Kline smiled. Would you care to join us? he said.

She put her hand to her mouth. Oh, she said. I’m sorry.

Western looked at Kline. Kline drained his glass. Are you ready? he said.

I think so.

Kline put a five on the table. He’s going to say something, isnt he?

Yes.

Excuse me, the man said.

Kline smiled and rose. Western thought that the man would get up but he didnt. He and the other man watched warily as they passed.

Where are you parked?

I’m just down the street here. You need a ride?

No. I’m okay. What would you have done if the guy got up?

He wasnt getting up.

What if he did?

It’s a hypothetical question. It’s meaningless.

Interesting. What do you get out of this?

Out of what?

Jacking with me and my problems.

I should send you a bill.

Probably.

Maybe it’s not exactly you that’s interesting to me.

Yeah?

Or maybe I think that when your ship comes in you might hire me.

Dont hold your breath.

About you hiring me?

No. About the ship.

They walked past Jackson Square. The carriages in the street and the mules standing foot to foot. A windy day in the Quarter. A paper cup followed them down the street.

You dont think you’re coming unglued.

No. Maybe. Sometimes.

What are you going to do?

I dont know.

I wouldnt hang out at the bar.

I’m not. Dont worry.

They had reached Kline’s car. Western looked down Decatur Street. Maybe I could live a life of crime.

You said that.

However you imagine that your life is going to turn out you’re not likely to get it right. Are you?

I dont know. Probably not.

It’s not just that I dont know what to do. I dont even know what not to.

You sure you dont want a lift?

Western looked at him across the top of the car. I have to do something. I think I get that.

Kline didnt answer.

I thought more than once that if she wasnt schizophrenic then the rest of us were. Or we must be something.

Some things get better. I doubt this is one of them.

I know.

People want to be reimbursed for their pain. They seldom are.

On that cheery note.

On that cheery note.

He walked down the street and crossed the railroad tracks. The redness of the evening in the glass of the buildings. Very high a small and trembling flight of geese. Fording the last of the day in the thin air. Following the shape of the river below. He stood above the bank of riprap. Rock and broken paving. The slow coil of the passing water. In the coming night he thought that men would band together in the hills. Feeding their small fires with the deeds and the covenants and the poetry of their fathers. Documents they’d no gift to read in a cold to loot men of their souls.





VIII


The city was cold and gray. Gray stooks of snow along the curb. The date for registration at the university came and went. She’d not been out in days. Then weeks. Her brother sent her a television set and she sat looking at it still in the box. It sat there all day. Finally she set about unpacking it. She put on her robe and opened the door and got the television up in her arms and went down the hallway with it and knocked at the last door with the back of her hand. Mrs Grimley, she called. She waited. Finally the old woman cracked the door and peered out.

Let me in. This thing’s heavy.

What is it?

It’s a color television. Let me in.

The old woman swung the door open. A color television? she said.

Yes. She pushed her way past. Where do you want it?

Mercy, child. Where did it come from?

I think you won it. Where do you want me to put it? It’s getting heavy.

In the bedroom. My Lord. A color television? Come on back here. I cant believe it. What did they do? Deliver it to the wrong door?

Something like that. Where?

Right here, Darling. Right here. She patted the top of the dresser and scooped everything to one side. You are just a angel.

She hefted the thing up onto the dresser and stood back. Mrs Grimley had already undone the cord and was on the floor with it. Her rolled stockingtops under the hem of her housedress, the knobbly blue veins at the back of her knees. Color television, she called. You just do not know what the day will bring. She backed out wheezing and held up one hand to be assisted. All right, she said. Turn that thing on. Here. Let me do it. This calls for a drink.

I have to go.

Dont go, Darling. We’ll watch Johnny Carson. I’ve got a bottle of wine.

I have to. You enjoy.

The old woman followed her to the door, pulling at the sleeve of her robe. Dont go, she said. Just stay a little bit.

She stood at the bathroom sink and studied herself in the mirror. Gaunt and haunted. Her clavicle bones all but through the skin. She’d set out her bottles of pills on the counter. Valium. Amitriptyline. She unscrewed the caps and poured all the pills into an empty waterglass and dropped the bottles and the caps into the wastebasket. Then she filled the other glass with water and set the two glasses side by side and stood looking at them. She stood there for some time. She got her robe off the floor and went into the bedroom and sat at the little desk and took a folded paper out of a white envelope and opened it and sat reading it. She folded the paper and pushed it and the envelope across the desk and sat looking out the small window at the bleak winter trees. So perilously footed in the city. In the end she pushed back the chair and rose and went into the bathroom and flushed the pills down the toilet and drank the glass of water and went to bed.