Bullet Park (13 page)

The slums, the oldest part of the village, were down along the banks of the river. She never had any reason to go there. She had read in the paper that women were mugged and robbed in broad daylight. There were knife
fights in saloons. The rain was heavy that afternoon; the light narrow. All rain tastes the same and yet rain fell for Nellie from a diversity of skies. Some rains seemed let down like a net from the guileless heavens of her childhood, some rains were stormy and bitter, some fell like a force of memory. The rain that day tasted as salty as blood. So down into the slums went Nellie, down to Peyton’s funeral parlor. This was a shabby frame building with a peaked door—a stab at holiness under which the dead (murdered in knife fights) entered and departed for the black cemetery at the edge of everything. There was a door on the left leading, she guessed, to the rooms upstairs, and she opened this onto a bare hallway with a staircase.

The strangeness of this environment disturbed her deeply as if she inhaled, in the rooms of her own house, not only the buttressed proprieties but an essence that conditioned her chromosomes and lights. The alien reek of the hallway—the immemorial reek of such places-seemed to strip her of any moral reliability. She looked around for something familiar—a fire extinguisher would have served—but there was nothing in the hallway that belonged to her. Had one of the legendary rapists she read about in the evening paper approached her she would have been helpless. She was lost. She was frightened. Her instinct was to turn and go; her duty was to climb the stairs; and the division between these two forces seemed like a broad river without bridges-seemed to give her some insight into the force of separateness
in her life. She seemed to be saying goodbye to herself at a railroad station; standing among the mourners at the edge of a grave. Goodbye Nellie.

She had no role in this place and she felt it keenly. Census taker? Relief worker? An advocate for planned parenthood, distributing free pills? An adviser to unwed mothers? Lady bountiful dividing the proceeds from the church bazaar? She was none of these. She was a woman with a sick son, looking (at the advice of a thief) for a magician. I am a
good
woman, she thought. This foolishness was unintentional—compulsive—she seemed helplessly to ridicule herself. I’ve never once run over a squirrel on the highway. I’ve always kept seed in the bird-feeding station. She climbed the stairs. There was a window at the head of the stairs where someone had written on the dirty glass: “Sid Greenberg chews and smokes.” There were two doors off the hall. One had a sign saying: “The Temple of Light.” There was music beyond the door—singing—the voices compressed and funneled through a radio. She knocked and when there was no answer she called: “Swami Rutuola, Swami Rutuola …”

From behind the second door there was a loud sound of giggling—lewd or alcoholic—and then a woman imitated Nellie’s accent. “Oh Swermi Rutaholah, Oh Swermi Rutaholah …” A man joined in the giggling. They must have been in bed. “Oh Swermi …” the woman said. She was nearly helpless with laughter. Nellie knocked again and a man asked her to come in. She stepped into a room
where a light-colored Negro was tacking upholstery webbing onto a chair frame. There was a smell of shavings. Which came first, Christ the carpenter or the holy smell of new wood? There was an altar in the corner. A votive candle burned in a display of wax flowers. Wax flowers meant death—death and Chinese restaurants. “Welcome to the Temple of Light,” he said. The voice was high, definitely accented. Jamaican, she thought. The face was slender and one of the eyes was injured and cast. A war, an arrow, a stone? This eye, immovable, was raised to heaven in a permanent attitude of religious hysteria. The other eye was lively, bright and communicative. “I’m Mrs. Eliot Nailles,” she said. “Mary Ashton gave me your name. My son is sick.”

“Would you like me to come with you now?” he asked. The voice was a very light singsong.

“Oh yes,” she said, “if you could, if you think you can help him.”

“I can try,” he said. “I’ll just wash my hands. I don’t have a car and it’s most difficult to find a taxi in the rain.”

She described Tony’s trouble and some of its history as they drove back to her house. The accent, she decided, was not Jamaican. It was a rootless speech, aimed at fastidiousness or elegance. She took him up to Tony’s room and asked if he’d like a drink. “Oh no thank you,” he said, “I have something within me that’s much more stimulating than alcohol.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I would like to be sure that we won’t be disturbed.”

“I’ll make sure of that,” said Nellie and went down and poured herself another drink.

“My name is Swami Rutuola,” he said to Tony, “and I’ve come here to help you, or that’s what I hope to do. First I will tell you about my eye. When I was fifteen years old I had a most unfortunate impulse to steal a bicycle. It was a bright-red English Schwinn with three-speed gears. It was irresistible. I hid it in the cellar. When my father found it he beat me most severely and then went with me when I returned it. The father of the boy who owned the bicycle had no wish to prosecute me but my own father and mother insisted that I be taken to court. They were afraid I would become a thief if I were not punished. They were gentle people and I think I have finally come to understand them but they were very frightened of everything. I was sentenced to six months in the reform school in Livertown. Among the prisoners, as is so often the case, were some gangsters who operated a government within the prison government. They were exceedingly brutal and in order to protect myself I developed a limp. I thought that if I limped they would not subject me to their brutality but one day in the mess hall I forgot to limp and when they saw how I had deceived them they beat me up. I was two weeks in the infirmary and as a consequence of their savagery I lost the use of my left eye. I mention all of this because I have observed that when men and women talk with one another they count on communicating with their eyes almost as much
as they do with their voices and since one of my eyes has no means of communication some people find it very disconcerting. I will hold my head in the shadow while we talk so that you will not be perplexed by my bad eye, but before we do anything else I would like to tidy up your room. Godliness is next to cleanliness—is that what they say—or is it the other way around?”

“I think it’s the other way around,” Tony said.

The swami began to gather the clothing that hung on chairs and doorknobs. He found a laundry bag in the closet and stuffed the soiled linen into this. He hung a jacket on a hanger, treed Tony’s shoes, closed the closet door, and gave the chair cushions a shake. “Well that looks a little better, doesn’t it,” he said. “Another thing I would like to do is to burn some incense if you don’t object.”

“I’d like you to do everything you want to do,” Tony said, “but I don’t really like incense. Any kind of perfume. I never use after-shave lotion. I like to smell perfume on girls but I don’t like it when it’s all over the place. I don’t like the way department stores smell.”

“I think I know what you mean,” the swami said, “but this isn’t sweet or strong. It’s sandalwood. It has a clean smell.” He took a narrow stick of incense from his pocket and lighted it.

“That’s all right,” Tony said.

“I was born in Baltimore,” Rutuola said, “to poor people, but the hardships of my race are well known so I won’t bother you with them. I went to school until the
eighth grade and I can read very well but I cannot do much arithmetic. My father was a carpenter and when I was paroled from reform school I went to work for him. It was much later that I went to New York where I found a position with the New York Central. It was not a distinguished position. What I did was to clean the toilets in Grand Central Station eight hours a night, five nights a week. I mopped the floors and so forth but what I spent most of my time doing was wiping off the walls the writing people had put there. The walls are white and you can write on them easily and after a Saturday night those walls would absolutely be covered with writing. At first I was troubled by this and then I realized that these people wrote on the walls because they had to. They hated to have the writing erased as if it seemed to be some part of them. They’d carve their messages in the wooden doors with a knife. You couldn’t put them down as freaks because there were thousands of them and it gave me a very deep insight into how lonely and horny mankind is. So then one night—one morning, really—it was after three o’clock, it was closer to four—I was mopping the floor when this man came up to me and said help me, help me, help me, I think I am going to die. He was a well-dressed man but his face was very gray. So then I said a patrolman came through the concourse about now and I could go upstairs and get him and he could call an ambulance. But then he said don’t leave me, I don’t want to die alone, so then I said let’s go up to the concourse together then, I’ll help you. So then I took his arm and
we went up to the concourse very slowly—he was groaning—but when we got there there wasn’t any patrolman around, there wasn’t anybody around, and he said that he had to sit down and we sat down on some stairs. It was very gloomy and cold and bare and empty there but that great big colored picture that advertises cameras was lighted. It was a picture of a man and a woman and two children on a beach—a lake I guess—and behind them, way off in the distance, were all these mountains covered with snow. It was a beautiful happy picture but it seemed more beautiful because the concourse was so cold and bare and had nothing happy about it. So then I told him to look at the mountain to see if he could get his mind off his troubles. So then I said let us pray and he said he couldn’t remember any prayers and I realized I couldn’t remember many prayers myself so I said let’s make up a prayer and then I began to say valor, valor, valor, valor, over and over again and in a little while he joined me. So then I said some other words and he said them along with me and then he said that he felt better and after a little while he said he thought he’d take a cab to a hotel and get some sleep and he said goodbye and I never saw him again. A few weeks later I came out here to work with Mr. Percham who is my cousin and a carpenter.”

The rain lets up. Nailles comes home. Swallows and blackbirds hunt in the early dark. The wind is out of the northeast and coming up the steps he can distinguish the sounds made by the different trees as the wind fills them: maple, birch, tulip and oak. What good is this knowledge
for his son or himself? Someone has to observe the world. The steady twilight seems like a sustained note, perfect in pitch. Nellie tells him that the guru is upstairs but that he cannot be disturbed. Nailles drinks heavily and after dinner Nellie says she is going upstairs to lie down. She makes Nailles promise not to disturb the guru. He gives her a kiss and picks up a novel to bolster his self-control. “In the little town of Ostervogen in northern Denmark,” he reads, “the following events took place in 1869. One morning in January a young man could be seen walking down the main street. The polish and elegance of his boots and the cut of his clothing suggested that they had been bought in Copenhagen or Paris. He was bareheaded and wore on his left hand an enormous signet ring, engraved with the crest of the Von Hendreichs. It had snowed during the night and the roofs of the little village were white. Maidservants were sweeping the dry snow off the walks with brooms made of twigs. The young man—it was Count Eric von Hendreichs—stopped in front of the largest residence and consulted a heavy, golden pocket watch. A moment later the bells of St. Michael’s church rang eleven. As the last vibration of the bronze bells died on the cold air the young man ran lightly up the steps of the house and rang the bell. A maid wearing the apron and ribbons prescribed for servants at that time answered his ring, gave him a shy smile and dropped a deep curtsy. She was a pretty young woman but even the voluminousness of her costume could not conceal the fact that she was pregnant. He followed her down a dark hall to a large drawing
room where an old lady sat by a samovar. The young count greeted his hostess affectionately in French and accepted a cup of tea. ‘I can only stay a moment,’ he said. ‘I’m taking the stage to Copenhagen and the evening packet to Ostend.’ ‘Quel dommage,’ said the old woman. At her side was an embroidery frame and below this a gilded basket heaped with hanks of colored yarn. She reached into the basket, extracted a small ivory-handled pistol and shot the young count through the heart …”

Nailles slams this book down on a table and picks up another called
Rainy Summer
. He reads the first sentence: “It was a very rainy summer and the ashtrays on the tables around the swimming pool were always filled with rainwater and cigarette butts …” He throws this book across the room. The doorbell rings. Nailles opens it and sees his neighbor Mrs. Harvey. Why is her face wet, he wonders. Beyond her shoulder he can see stars in the sky. Can she be crying and why is she crying? It is his turn to cry. “Please come in,” Nailles says. “Please come in.”

“I don’t think I’ve been here since I solicited for the mutual fund,” she says. She is crying. “I’m soliciting again.” Red Cross, thinks Nailles, Muscular Dystrophy, Heart Trouble? “What is your cause tonight,” Nailles asks.

“The Harvey family,” she says. “I’m soliciting for Dads.” She laughs; she sobs.

“Please come in and sit down,” says Nailles. “Let me get you a drink.”

“Well it’s a long story,” she says, “but I guess I’d better tell it if I expect your help. I guess you know that Charlie’s a junior in Amherst. He went down to Boston and took part in a demonstration. He was arrested and spent a couple of nights in jail but they let him off with a fine and suspended sentence. Then two weeks ago the draft board changed his classification from student deferment to 1A. He was ordered to report for induction the day before yesterday. I mentioned the fact that he was going to be inducted when I was at the beauty parlor and the woman beside me—I don’t really know her—told me there was a psychiatrist in the village who makes a specialty in drilling young men in how to disqualify themselves for the army. He charges five hundred dollars. I thought of speaking to Dads about this but it seemed dishonest. Charlie doesn’t want to be a soldier but he doesn’t want to be a liar either. I mean it seems like killing yourself in order to avoid getting killed. Anyhow I didn’t mention this. He was supposed to report for induction on Thursday and on Wednesday Dads went to the savings bank and took out three thousand. It was all we had. He gave Charlie five hundred in cash and the rest in a certified check. We never once discussed his plans. After supper he went upstairs and packed a suitcase and came down and Dads drove him to the station. They didn’t say anything, they didn’t even say goodbye. Dads said he didn’t dare say goodbye because he would start crying. I suppose he’s in Canada or Sweden but we haven’t heard from him. Well a day later a man came to Dads’s office—a man from the government—and said
that he knew Dads had taken three thousand out of the bank in order to enable his son to emigrate. Dads and I thought our bank accounts were private but evidently not. He said that he wanted to see Dads at home so Dads took an early train today and the man drove over—the government man—from the county seat where his office is. He first accused Dads of assisting a draft evader and then he said he was going to make it short and sweet and he took a cigarette out of his pocket and put it on the table and said that Dads was under arrest for the possession of dangerous drugs. The cigarette was a marijuana but it was the first one Dads had ever seen. The man explained that he was after draft evaders because he had spent a year and a half in a POW camp in Germany, eating rats and mice. He wanted the younger generation to learn what it was all about. So then Dads called the lawyer here—Harry Marchand—and they all drove over to the county seat and Dads was arrested for the possession of drugs and put into jail. They set the bail at two thousand and because this is the end of the month we simply don’t have it so I’m going from house to house trying to raise it.”