Jack (Gilead #4)(84)

To expend some emotion, probably, he went halfway down the stairs and said to the desk clerk, “Somebody’s going to kill you one day.”

He didn’t look up, still sorting through the stack of mail. “Maybe so, but it won’t be you.”

True enough.

“By the way, here’s the other one.” He put a letter down on the counter. “You might want to read it first.” The envelope was sealed, there was no return address, the postmark said Memphis.

The desk clerk could not know what was in the letters. The envelopes were clearly intact. Still, it probably did matter which order he read them in. He used a key to tear open both envelopes, then took the letter from one of them. It began: Dear Mr. Boughton. So he glanced at the signature. Julia Miles. No need to read that one. The second began: Dear Mr. Boughton and was signed Delia Highfield. Why had he assumed they came from Della? The delicate female handwriting. He might have noticed differences if he had thought to look for them. As far as he was concerned, their case was made. He had relinquished his wife to them, for heaven’s sake, granting certain difficulties, for instance Della’s refusal to be relinquished. Neither sister nor aunt had done him the minor courtesy of providing a return address. So he could not tell Della that he would be gone from St. Louis. She might come to this damned flophouse asking after him and the clerk would tell her he was gone and then watch her dear face while she tried to compose herself. Jack could leave a letter for her, but clearly he could not be sure the clerk would give it to her.

He went down the stairs. The clerk glanced up from his newspaper. He said, “Boughton, you’re alarming me,” and went back to his newspaper. Jack walked around the desk, opened the drawer where mail accumulated, and grabbed the stack of letters, cards, scrawled scraps of paper, and took it all up to his room. Why? But there it was, scattered on his bed. First he sorted through to see if any of it was addressed to him, reasonably enough. There was an IOU he seemed to have signed, with no amount written in. There was a card that said, “Please! Please! Forgive me!” without an address or signature, and one that said, “I will die soon. I blame you.”

These were thoughts of the kind that more or less hung in the air in that establishment. He should have left there years ago. He might have been a different man if he had passed those years in a different atmosphere. That he had to remind himself that his adult life had not been purgatorial by accident was already a sign of progress. The thought of leaving that room was bracing. He was startled to realize that he felt less dread than anticipation. He would send a letter to what had been Della’s house, hoping someone would get it to her if she did not find it herself. He would leave a note with the desk clerk in the hope of comforting her a little if need be, assuming he would actually give her the note.

So, two notes to Della, one to Teddy. He tore the IOU to atoms. Then he undressed for bed, negotiated what he could in the way of comfort with the scanty blanket and thin pillow he had once shared with Della, his wife. She still felt a little bit present with him. That would end. He was doing right by her, her whole family would tell her that, or some version of it. He had not felt so morally certain, as his father would say, since he left college for St. Louis to spare his brother the perils of cheating for him. Now Teddy was a doctor and Della might still be a teacher, despite his pernicious influence. The best thing he could do in either case was to disappear.

It was also the worst thing. A chilling thought. He got up, got dressed except for his shoes, and lay down again. More than once he had heard his father say, “That little fellow just refused to be born. Ames and I were on our knees for days!” He didn’t say, “That little fellow almost killed his mother.” One bad act in the closing hours of his pre-existence, then who knows what. Her soul enfolding forever her little assassin. When he heard the story of his birth, the doctor down with pneumonia and the vet, smelling sweetly of carbolic acid, rocking those hours away on the front porch just in case, he sometimes wished he could have been left unborn. But that had been decided for him. His refusing birth, or attempting to refuse it, might have meant he suffered the kind of foreknowledge the unborn lose as they pass into the world. He had read about that somewhere and it seemed plausible to him. In any case, his mother lived to grieve over him, which was the better outcome, since her other children flourished and cherished her and altogether exceeded any mother’s hopes. His father would say of his fiercely recalcitrant son, He grew up as tall and fine as the rest of them. It was true, Teddy was his virtual twin. Their father would say, “These hands are not more like!” And once Teddy had asked, “Which one is the ghost?” That was when he was still showing up to Jack’s classes in Jack’s clothes, when he was learning to hang back, to smile almost sardonically, to loiter where anyone else would simply stay or wait, as if he had no good reason to be anywhere. It was frightening to watch. Next he would be lying or stealing, not just making hash of the honor code. Teddy should have been living his own estimable life. Jack was right to have vanished into St. Louis. Of course, there were all the other things that made it wrong.

Morning would never come.

But it did, and Jack set himself to preparing his departure. He went to Chez les Morts, where he did in fact find a valise, worn at the seams but respectable, and a newer shirt. He went back to his room and stuffed his earthly possessions into the bag. When he went to the studio to turn back the keys, he found the boss so shorthanded that he stayed and danced around for a few hours, which meant his trip was delayed to the next day. But the boss gave him a couple of dollars and several ladies kissed him goodbye, and that lightened his mood.