Ruttman turned and crossed the floor and went out of the room. Kerrigan sat there on the edge of the sofa, his hands gripping the camera. It felt like a chunk of white-hot metal, scorching the skin of his palms.
9
He walked slowly along Wharf, came onto Vernon Street, then walked west on Vernon toward home. The slimy water in the gutter was lit with pink fire from the evening sun, and he looked up and saw it big and very red up there, the flares shooting out from the blazing sphere, merging with the orange clouds, so that the sky was like a huge opal, the glowing colors floating and blending, and it was really something to look at. He thought, It’s tremendous. And he wondered if anyone else was looking up at it right now and thinking the same thing.
But as his gaze returned to the street he saw the dirty-faced kids playing in the gutter, he saw a drunk sprawled on a doorstep, and three middle-aged colored men sitting on the curb and drinking wine from a bottle wrapped in an old newspaper.
Under the vermilion glory of the evening sun, the vast magnificence of an opal sky, the Vernon Street citizens had no idea of what was up there, they scarcely bothered to glance up and see. All they knew was that the sun was still high, and it would be one hell of a hot night. Already the older folks were coming out of shacks and tenements to sit on doorsteps with paper fans and pitchers of water. The families who were lucky enough to have ice in the house were holding chunks of it in their mouths and trying to beat the heat that way. And a few of them, just a very few, were giving nickels to their children, to purchase flavored ice on sticks. The kids shrieked with glee, but their happy sound was drowned in the greater noise, the humming noise that was one big groan and sigh, the noise that came from Vernon throats, yet seemed to come from the street itself. It was as though the street had lungs and the only sounds it could make were the groan and the sigh, the weary acceptance of its fourth-class place in the world. High above it there was a wondrous sky, the fabulous colors in the orbit of the sun, but it just didn’t make sense to look up there and develop pretty thoughts and hopes and dreams.
The realization came to Kerrigan like the sudden blow of a hammer, putting him down on solid ground where a spade was never anything but a spade. He looked at the torn leather of his workshoes, the calloused flesh of his hands. He thought, You better wise up to yourself and stay out of the clouds.
His mouth hardened. His hand moved toward the pants pocket where he had the camera. He asked himself what he was going to do with it.
All right, he thought, it ain’t no problem. All you gotta do is find out where she lives and mail it to her.
But he could visualize her face as she opened the package and saw the camera. He could see her lips curved in contempt, and almost hear her saying to herself, He’s afraid to come here and ring the doorbell.
He wondered what would happen if he went up there to the uptown street where she lived, and actually rang the doorbell. Hell, he thought, what’s there to be scared about? Nobody’s gonna bite you. But damn it, you’d be out of place up there.