Clock Without Hands (14 page)

At the Judge's household there were tears and disorder when they arrived. Verily was sobbing for her nephew and the Judge patted her with awkward little pats. She was sent home to her own people to mourn over that sudden noonday death.

Before the news came, the Judge had had a happy fruitful morning. He had been working joyfully; there had been none of the idle tedium that day, that endlessness of time that is as hard to bear in old age as it is in early childhood. Sherman Pew was panning out to his utmost expectations. Not only was he an intelligent colored boy who understood about insulin and the needles as soon as he was told and sworn to secrecy, he also had imagination, talked of diet and substitutions for calories, and so forth. When the Judge had impressed on him that diabetes was not catching, Sherman had said: "I know all about diabetes. My brother had it. We had to weigh his food on a teensy little balancing scale. Every morsel of food."

The Judge, who suddenly recalled that Sherman was a foundling, wondered a second about this information but said nothing.

"I know all about calories too, sir, on account of I am a house guest of Zippo Mullins and his sister went on a diet. I whipped the fluffy mashed potatoes with skimmed milk for her and made sucaryl jello. Yessireebob, I know all about diets."

"Do you think you would make me a good amanuensis?"

"A good what, Judge?"

"An amanuensis is a kind of secretary."

"Oh, a super-dooper secretary," Sherman said, his voice soft with enchantment. "I would adore that."

"Harrumph," said the Judge, to hide his pleasure. "I have quite a voluminous correspondence, serious, profound correspondence and little niggling letters."

"I adore writing letters and write a lovely hand."

"Penmanship is most indicative." The Judge added, "Calligraphy."

"Where are the letters, sir?"

"In my steel file in my office at the courthouse."

"You want me to get them?"

"No," the Judge said hastily, as he had answered every letter; indeed, that was his chief occupation when he went in the morning to his office—that and the perusal of the
Flowering Branch Ledger
and the
Milan Courier.
Last week there had come a day when not a letter of moment had been received—only an advertisement for Kare Free Kamping Equipment which was probably meant for Jester anyway. Cheated that there were no letters of moment, the Judge had answered the ad, posing trenchant questions about sleeping bags and the quality of frying pans. The static tedium of old age had troubled him so often. But not today; this morning with Sherman he was on a high horse, his head literally teeming with plans.

"Last night I wrote a letter that lasted to the wee hours," Sherman said.

"A love letter?"

"No." Sherman thought over the letter which he had posted on the way to work. At first the address had puzzled him, then he addressed it to: "Madame Marian Anderson, The steps of the Lincoln Memorial." If she wasn't right there, they would forward it. Mother ... Mother ... he was thinking, you are too famous to miss.

"My beloved wife always said I wrote the most precious love letters in the world."

"I don't waste time writing love letters. This long letter I wrote last night was a finding letter."

"Letter writing is an art in itself."

"What kind of letter do you wish me to write today?" Sherman added, timidly, "Not a love letter, I presume."

"Of course not, silly. It's a letter concerning my grandson. A letter of petition, you might say."

"Petition?"

"I am asking an old friend and fellow congressman to put my boy up for West Point."

"I see."

"I have to draft it carefully in my mind beforehand. They are the most delicate letters of all ... petition letters." The Judge closed his eyes and placed his thumb and forefinger over his eyelids, thinking profoundly. It was a gesture almost of pain, but that morning the Judge had no pain at all; on the contrary, after the years of boredom and endless blank time, the utter joy of having important letters to compose and a genuine amanuensis at his disposal made the Judge as buoyant as a boy again. He sat furrowed and immobile so long that Sherman was concerned.

"Head hurt?"

The Judge jerked and straightened himself. "Mercy no, I was just composing the structure of the letter. Thinking to whom I'm writing and the various circumstances of his present and past life. I'm just thinking of the individual I'm writing to."

"Who is he?"

"Senator Thomas of Georgia. Address him: Washington, D.C."

Sherman dipped the pen in the inkwell three times and straightened the paper very carefully, thrilled at the thought of writing to a senator.

"My Dear Friend and Colleague, Tip Thomas."

Again Sherman dipped the pen in ink and began to write with a flourish. "Yes, sir?"

"Be quiet, I'm thinking ... Proceed now."

Sherman was writing that when the Judge stopped him. "You don't write that. Start again. When I say 'proceed' and things like that, don't actually write them."

"I was just taking dictation."

"But, by God, use common sense."

"I am using common sense, but when you dictate words I naturally write them."

"Let's start at the very beginning. The salutation reads: My Dear Friend and Colleague, Tip Thomas. Get that?"

"I shouldn't write the get that, should I?"

"Of course not."

The Judge was wondering if his amanuensis was as brilliant as he first supposed, and Sherman was wondering privately if the old man was nuts. So both regarded each other with mutual suspicions of mental inadequacy. The work went badly at first.

"Don't write this in the letter. I just want to level with you personally."

"Well, level personally."

"The art of a true amanuensis is to write down everything in the letter or document, but not to record personal reflections or, in other words, things that go on in my mind that are more or less extraneous to the said letter. The trouble with me, boy, is my mind works too quick and so many random thoughts come into it that are not pertinent to any particular train of thought."

"I understand, sir," said Sherman, who was thinking that the job was not what he had imagined.

"Not many people understand me," the Judge said simply.

"You mean you want me to read your mind about what to write in the letter and what to not."

"Not read my mind," the Judge said indignantly, "but to gather from my intonations which is personal rumination and which is not."

"I'm a wonderful mind reader."

"You mean you are intuitive? Why so am I."

Sherman did not know what the word meant, but he was thinking that if he stayed on with the old Judge he would pick up a grand vocabulary.

"Back to the letter," the Judge said sternly. "Write after the salutation, 'It has recently come to my attention that..." The Judge broke off and continued in a lower voice which Sherman, who was reading the Judge's mind, did not write down. "How recently is recently, boy? One—two—three years? I guess it happened ten years ago."

"I wouldn't say recently in that case."

"You are quite correct," the Judge decided in a firm voice. "Start the letter on a completely different tack."

The gilt clock in the library sounded twelve strikes. "It's noon."

"Yea," said Sherman, pen in hand and waiting.

"At noon I interrupt my endeavors to have the first toddy of the day. The privilege of an old man."

"Do you wish me to prepare it for you?"

"That would be most kindly, boy. Would you like a little bourbon and branch water?"

"Bourbon and branch water?"

"I'm not a solitary drinker. I don't like to drink alone." Indeed, in the old days he used to call in the yardman, Verily, or anyone else to drink with him. Since Verily did not drink and the yardman was dead, the Judge was many times forced to drink alone, but he didn't like it. "A little toddy to keep me company."

This was the delightful part of the job that Sherman hadn't thought about. He said, "I'd be very pleased, sir. What measure drink do you like?"

"Half and half, and don't drown it."

Sherman bustled to the kitchen to make the drinks. He was already worrying about dinner. If they had the drink together and became friends, he would hate to be sent to the kitchen to have dinner with the cook. He knew it would happen, but he would hate it. He rehearsed carefully what he would say. "I never eat dinner," or "I ate such a hearty breakfast I'm not hungry." He poured the half and halfs, both of them, and returned to the library.

After the Judge had sipped his drink once and smacked his lips, he said, "This is ex cathedral."

"What?" Sherman said.

"That's what the Pope says when he's speaking frankly. I mean that nothing that I say to you now while we're drinking is in the letter. My friend Tip Thomas took to himself a helpmeet ... or is it helpmate. I mean by this, he took to himself a second wife. As a rule I don't approve of second marriages, but when I think about it I just think, 'Live and let live.' You understand, boy?"

"No, sir. Not exactly, sir."

"I wonder if I should overlook the second marriage and talk about his first wife. Talk in praise about his first wife and not mention the second."

"Why mention either one of them?"

The Judge leaned his head back. "The art of letter writing is like this; you first make gracious personal remarks about health and wives and so forth, and then when that's covered, you come plumb to the subject of what the letter is really about."

The Judge drank blissfully. As he drank a little miracle was happening.

When the telephone rang, the Judge could not understand all at once. J. T. Malone was talking to him, but what he was saying seemed to make no sense. "Grown Boy killed in a street fight ... and Jester in the fight?" he repeated. "I'll send somebody to get Jester at the drugstore." He turned to Sherman. "Sherman, will you go drive to Mr. Malone's drugstore and pick up my grandson?" Sherman, who had never driven a car in his life, agreed with pleasure. He had watched people drive and thought he knew how it went. The Judge put down his drink and went to the kitchen. "Verily," he started, "I have some serious news for you."

After one look at the old Judge's face, Verily said, "Somebody daid?" When the Judge did not answer she said, "Sister Bula?"

When the Judge told her it was Grown Boy, she flung her apron over her head and sobbed loudly. "And in all these years he never had his share of sense." She told this as though it was the most poignant and explicable truth about the unreasonable fact that was shattering her.

The Judge tried to comfort her with little bearlike pats. He went to the library, finished his drink and the drink that Sherman had left unfinished and then went to the front porch to wait for Jester.

Then he realized the little miracle that had happened. Every morning for fifteen years he had waited so tediously for the delivery of the
Milan Courier,
waiting in the kitchen or in the library, his heart leaping up when he heard that little plop. But today, after all these years, his time was so occupied he had not even thought about the paper. Joyfully, the old Judge limped down the steps to pick up the
Milan Courier.

S
INCE
livingness is made up of countless daily miracles, most of which are unnoticed, Malone, in that season of sadness, noticed a little miracle and was astonished. Each morning that summer he had waked up with an amorphous dread. What was the awful thing that was going to happen to him? What was it? When? Where? When consciousness finally formed, it was so merciless that he could lie still no longer; he had to get up and roam the hall and kitchen, roaming without purpose, just roaming, waiting. Waiting for what? After his conversation with the Judge, he had filled the freezing compartment of the refrigerator with calf liver and beef liver. So morning after morning, while the electric light fought with the dawn, he fried a slice of the terrible liver. He had always loathed liver, even the Sunday chicken liver that the children squabbled over. After it was cooked, smelling up the whole house like a stink bomb, Malone ate it, every loathsome bite. Just the fact that it was so loathsome comforted him a little. He swallowed even the gristly pieces that other people removed from their mouths and put on the sides of their plates. Castor oil also had a nasty taste, and it was effective. The trouble with Dr. Hayden, he had never suggested any cures, nasty or otherwise, for that... leukemia. Name a man a fatal disease and not recommend the faintest cure ... Malone's whole being was outraged. A pharmacist for close on to twenty years, he had listened to and prescribed for trillions of complaints: constipation, kidney trouble, smuts in the eye, and so forth. It he honestly felt the case was beyond him he would tell the customer to consult a doctor, but that was not often ... Malone felt he was as good as any bona fide M.D. in Milan, and he prescribed for trillions of complaints. A good patient himself, dosing himself with nasty Sal Hepatica, using Sloan's Liniment when needed, Malone would eat every living bite of the loathsome liver. Then he would wait in the brightly lighted kitchen. Waiting for what? And when?