CHAPTER THREE
The Madden boy was worried about his laundry. It was a week late, he couldn’t remember who was doing it for him, and besides he was having one of those moods that made him worry about little things. It was not so much the tragic lack of socks, he told Harvey Todd, but there were three shirts in it that belonged to Bob Stuart.
“I hate not returning people’s clothes,” he said. “I hate wearing them in the first place but this time I couldn’t help it. It’s maddening.”
Harvey never rose to the heights of hysteria, and this time he was almost phlegmatic. “It’ll be along,” he said. “Don’t forget, some of it was mine. I’ll help you yell when the time comes. Jesus, I’m late.” He slammed down his cup on the table, between a broken tumbler and an eggy plate, and hurried out of the door, carrying his hat.
“Canaille,” said Teddy humorously. “Cochon,” he added into the mirror, scowling fiercely.
“Señor?” asked a tremulous voice at the door. A little girl held out a huge bundle as he opened the screen. “Eighty-four cents,” she said. “My mother says she can’t find one sock. She send tomorrow.”
“Oh, yes? Well, tell her I’ll pay then.”
“Si, señor.” There was boredom and cynicism in her tone as she turned away. Teddy’s eyes narrowed; he thought of challenging her, but what was there to say? He shrugged and forgot it, sitting by the table and looking vacantly at the unopened bundle. The sun crept up his leg and his kneecap began to prickle pleasantly under the linen trousers. He sat still until the bundle blurred and moved gently out of itself, projecting a phantom bundle an inch away from its own crisp outlines, hovering a little above the shining top of the table on which it had lain. He dreamed; a good picture like this, with the checkered table-cloth and the spots of sunlight.... A fly bit him savagely on the ankle and he stood up.
The picture waiting for him must be finished today or he would hate himself. Last night he should not have stopped after working up to it all day. Had he gone on, it might have been really good. Could he ever do anything really good? Why couldn’t he get immersed, and forget people and money and his own fading flesh? He looked at the easel and felt that he would never see it as it should be; he almost wept from exasperation. There were so many interruptions. There was his own careless incompetence, and his eternal itching to see people and to have people love him, and there was money. Money.... A familiar panic began to rise. He seized a brush and set to work.
It wouldn’t go. He moved about distractedly, trying to clean up the room. The dirty plates were piled up in the sink; he made a few dabs at them and changed his mind. He looked apathetically at the stiff spotted table-cloth and hung up a leather coat that had slipped from its nail. Then he caught a glimpse of the painting from a new angle; a real feeling of interest persuaded him to get to work again.
Another hour was coaxed out of eternity. The sun crept farther into the warm house; out in the street was a growing rush of motorcars and sometimes a clatter of hoofs; the tap in the sink dripped with a cheerful chiming splash on the tumbled china. He whistled and painted. Beginning to feel cramped, he took a short walk around the room, keeping a wary eye on the canvas as if it might take flight with his spasm of energy. It was clear again; he saw just what he wanted and perhaps he could do it. But not just now.
“Stale,” he said aloud to his conscience, and his voice sounded choked and rusty in the empty room. He would do something else for awhile. Shave? The idea of putting on water to heat seemed impossible. Wait till later; plenty of water at Bob’s. He leaned to the mirror and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, wondering how he would look with a beard. Bob wouldn’t like it. That reminded him of the shirts and he untied the laundry, sorting it out and hesitating sometimes, sock in hand, between the two piles of segregated underwear, his own and Harvey’s. He always gave himself the benefit of the hesitation. But it meant nothing: Harvey would ravage his store at the first necessity.
The work impulse was quite dead. He felt relieved, as though he had flung a small morsel into the maw of his conscience, but otherwise there was no twinge of energy. He tied up Bob’s shirts and put the last unbroken record on the rickety little Victrola, borrowed one evening from Gin and still unreturned. They needed records: the Lennards had good records. Blake kept up pretty well; he probably just walked into a place and bought up everything. Pretty soft for him.
Well, one could make out by snuggling up to the big houses, riding in their cars and going to their parties and drinking their liquor. One smothered the occasional fever of hopeless malice. They couldn’t help being lazy and easily pleased and careless. If only they wouldn’t try to be critical about painting. There must be things they couldn’t have; there must be.
“When I am rich,” he thought, and then, “but if I never am?”
He paused with a clean towel in his hand, and looked around. The room was still the same, small and bare and cluttered and dirty. Outside the window was a blue mountain-peak beyond a broad dwindling stretch of juniper-dotted sand, but around his house there were other little low houses, mud houses sinking in the mud of the road. He turned slowly around, looking hopelessly at the yellow walls and at the tiny fire-place spilling pine ash out on the floor. The picture was shining wetly and tiny knobs of paint on the canvas shed tiny shadows. He frowned at it, stepped suddenly closer and examined it carefully.
The letter-box outside clanged in closing, and he heard the postman going away. More bills? Perhaps there would be something else: he decided to see. There was a letter from home, from Minnesota.
The very sight of the postmark sent a heavy lump to his chest. If he didn’t open it? If he dropped it into the gray ashes by accident, and waited until Harvey had burned it in the evening? Busy with the thought, he moved his hand up and down balancing it, weighing it. To open it would mean the day lost, with all his work ruined. He would read it and then flee from the close little room, searching madly all over town for someone—anyone—who knew nothing about Minnesota or families: someone rich and lazy and lucky and dumb; some stranger. Burn it; burn the next one and the next and the next. Burn it.
With a despairing glance at his mountain, a farewell glance, he tore it open and found a check for ten dollars, blotted a little and somehow nibbled at the edges. The letter was on blue-lined paper. From the little square sheets rose an almost visible feeling, like smoke; the room was steeped in Teddy’s guilt. And yet it was a nice letter.
“Dear Teddy,” his mother had written, innocently enough, at the old brown desk in the front room. “I don’t want to scold you in this letter because I know it is hard to find time to write when you are getting started, I thought that I would have to tell you that your father gets worried. I tell him not to be foolish as I am sure if anything had happened we would be notified right away. He worries about everything these days because business is not very good. We are very well except for a cold that has run through the family, I hope you are taking care of yourself, I can’t help thinking that you are too young to be so far away. Tommy’s report from school is a little better than it has been especially on spelling. There is not much news, the Dibbles are having a hard time with Kenneth, I am afraid he is a wild boy. Tommy saw him Saturday night with that girl at the drug store and they had been drinking. I am so sorry for Mrs. Dibble, I am sure if a son of mine acted like that it would kill your father. He was saying this morning he could probably speak to Mr. Larsen about your working in the store here, I tell him it is more likely the country that is the attraction out there, the picture you sent is very pretty. Please write even a postcard, your father worries. I enclose something to help out, you don’t need to mention it when you write because your father is worried about the business.
Lovingly, your
Mother.”
The Madden boy put the letter down on the table and walked around the room, thinking. The first few minutes were always the hardest. He reasoned with himself frantically, trying to get rid of that lump in his chest. He hated himself; more than that he hated his mother. It was not right to make him feel so guilty. It was not right. People don’t stay home. His father had not stayed home. He had run away to Minnesota; if he happened to marry and have children, why should they stay home?
Oh, forget it, forget it. There was the check, now. A boy in a book would send it back with interest. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t just send it back like that and hurt her feelings. The only frank, honest, brave thing to do was to keep it, in the face of all families, all feelings, all outworn nests and prisons. This was his city, these his mountains. Somewhere in America there was a woman who had borne him, but everywhere there were children being born. What about it? He asked his mother that. What about it? Oh, damn.
Someone threw a rock against the door. Furiously he tore it open and looked out.
“Oh,” he said, “it’s you. Come in.”
Blake Lennard, it was, sitting on a norse and wearing a huge Stetson. He looked light-hearted and absurd, but shy. He started to climb down.
“You’re up?” he said. “No one else seems to be. I’ve been riding all over town trying to find my way. What I thought was that maybe you would like to ride; there is another horse up at the house. I had it saddled in case I found anyone. I want to see what it’s like around here. Are you too busy?”
“Fine, no, come on in. I’ll be ready in a second.” The hysteria had departed. Until the next letter. Meantime there were all the playboys and the parties.
Blake stepped in, looking around with equal interest in everything, the bed with colored blankets tossed in the middle and the dusty bits of art.
“Is it yours?” he asked, looking at the picture. “I like it. Don’t you? It’s almost finished: weren’t you working on it? Didn’t I really interrupt?”
“No,” said the Madden boy, crushing a piece of paper and throwing it into the fire, “I wasn’t going to finish it. Chuck me that boot, will you?”