Jack (Gilead #4)(39)

It was a terrible thing. She would never forgive him. He had spared her having much better reasons for hating him than he had given her. What a life.

He loitered in that doorway, watching to see them leave, or her leave. Ah, Jesus, it was taking her such a long time to give up on him. But finally he saw her, walked her to her door, and left feeling less desolate than he had expected. He had been running their conversation through his mind. Not so bad, not so bad.

It was a mild night. He loosened his tie and folded his jacket over his arm. He took a shortcut down a side street, which he would never have done at night if he had been paying attention. And he heard that voice again, behind him. They were laughing. “Why, it’s the professor! I been wanting a word with you, son. If you could just stop there a minute. The boss tells me you owe him. He wants his money. I guess you better empty those pockets.”

Jack said, “What boss? Who’s—”

And the other man hit him in the belly, a blow that startled him because it was so deft and mean. He almost said, Wait, this isn’t the game! when he hit him again. He had to put his hand against a wall to keep from falling. He was carrying Teddy’s money, all of it he hadn’t spent on the tie and a shave. He took it out of his pocket and put it in the hand of the first man.

“This all?” the man said. “It better be.” Jack actually checked, found a few coins, and gave them to him.

The man laughed. “Okay, I guess we’re square for now.”

Then the other man hit him again, in the face this time. He must have been wearing a ring. Jack felt a cut on his cheekbone, a gouge. He couldn’t put his hand to it. Get blood on your hands and the next thing you know it’s on everything. They were walking away, the one saying to the other, “I can’t stand that guy. Something about him.”

“I know what you mean,” the other one said, and threw the change on the ground and shared out the bills.

His jacket was probably all right. He laid it down on a cellar door and put his hat beside it. In the dark he couldn’t tell what was ruined already. He untucked his shirt to blot his face with his shirttail, then lay down beside his jacket and hat and waited till his breath was back and he had stopped bleeding. And the thought that came to him first, looking up at the narrow sky, was Now I can’t go home, ever. He thought, I can’t see Della again, I can’t go to the library, I’ll have to close my lapels over my shirt the way bums do, and that was all terrible. But the way his father would sorrow over this unconcealable wound was the thought he could not bear.





* * *





So he went to Bellefontaine. He had managed despite his ribs to pick up the coins that damn fellow threw on the ground. It was enough for a couple of Hershey bars, anyway. He would wait on a bench till the day began, the gates opened, the little shop across from the entrance that sold gum and cigarettes and candy came alive. He would wince back at the clerk who winced at his bloodiness, to let him know that comment was not necessary. Then he’d join any stream of people passing through the gates, walk on to some secluded place by the lake, take off his shirt and sink it in the water with a stone to keep it in place, close his lapels bum-wise, lie down on a grave, and eat some chocolate. Jesus, what a life. Water would not rinse out a bloodstain, but one does what one can. He would hang the shirt on a bush or a headstone, but only after dark, because it alarms people somehow to see laundry done in public places. Raskolnikov. He could pretend he was the villain, hiding the proof of terrible guilt. That would chase people away and give him a minute or two to consider his options, how to shelter that quivering nerve of pride, which was always ready to heighten the misery of any occasion. No, better, he would find a bouquet, lay it on his chest, and be very still. If someone came close, he would sit bolt upright and stare. The kind of thing a child would think of, but it would also be likely to give him a minute or two, and it would be less likely to involve the police. He crouched by the water and washed his face with his hands, like the first man who ever lived and died would have done, exactly. No one saw him. He was careful of that. People find attention to personal hygiene in public disturbing. He’d have to sneak back to his room for his comb and razor. People are reassured by combed hair. His effects wouldn’t fill a paper bag. They might already be out on the curb.

The problem was to keep body and soul together until Teddy came with his stipend. That would be about a month, since winter was coming on, stirring his brother’s solicitude, he supposed. He found a grave old enough that there was little chance of his actually terrifying survivors, and he fell asleep.

His luck had never failed him entirely to this point. A big fellow in a greenish coverall with a patch on the pocket that said Bradshaw nudged him awake with the toe of his boot and asked him if he was looking for work. It was well before dawn and the question was whispered, which should have raised suspicions. But Jack was absorbing the surprise of realizing he had been asleep and only thought of this later. Bradshaw, who was struggling out of the coverall, said he hated having to plant a million damn bulbs, hated the whole damn thing, but had to keep this job till he found another one. So he’d give Jack a few bucks to pass for Bradshaw. “This place gives me nightmares,” he said. “I can earn better money on the docks any day. My brother-in-law got me this job, the son of a bitch. Steady work, he says. I could go nuts in here. I hate dead people.” In the excitements of new resolve, he took out a roll of bills and handed Jack one of them.