South Street (2 page)

“There’s enough people mindin’ your wife that one more ain’t gonna make no difference,” said the rat-faced man.

“You take that back, you little piece of pigeon shit,” shouted Rayburn, hauling himself off the bar stool and pulling his beret lower on his head.

“Look out,” warned Big Betsy. “Rayburn’s clearin’ for action.”

“Why?” said the rat-faced man, spreading his hands innocently. “I was only sayin’ what everybody knows.”

Metal flashed in the dimness. “You clean your mouth,” Rayburn said dangerously, “or I’ma clean your throat.”

“You ain’t gonna do shit,” said Leo, brandishing the carving knife he used to slice thick slabs of ham and beef for sandwiches. “You put that blade away, Rayburn, or I’ma haul off an’ let you alone. An’ Elmo, you keep your shitty mouth shut, or you get the hell outa ma bar.”

Rayburn slipped the razor back to wherever it had come from and sank onto the stool. “I’ma cut that mutha yet,” he muttered.

“
You
cut, Elmo,” Leo said. “Cut the hell outa here. You know damn well Rayburn could slice you three times while you was gettin’ up enough nerve to say shit to a monkey.”

Elmo gulped the rest of his beer and left quickly. Leo watched until he was out the door, then he stuck the knife savagely into a roast of beef. Rayburn glared at the empty doorway. “I could slice that mutha any time,” Rayburn said.

“I know it,” Leo told him, “but that simple nigger ain’t even worth the time it takes to hate him.”

“Humph,” said Rayburn, returning to his gin.

“He’s right about your woman, you know, Rayburn,” Leo said softly.

Rayburn looked up at Leo’s sagging jowls and clear soft eyes. “Yeah, Leo,” he said finally, “I know it. Fill me up again, hey?”

“Yeah,” Leo said, “sure.” He uncorked the bottle and poured the shot glass full. He looked down at Rayburn’s slumped shoulders, shrugged, and left the bottle standing uncorked on the bar.

Big Betsy the whore laughed loudly, and Leo glanced down at her. “Hey, Leo,” yelled Big Betsy, “this dude wants to know can he buy me a drink.”

Leo scrutinized the young man who sat next to Big Betsy. Leo had never seen him before. “What’ll it be?” Leo asked.

“The usual,” said Big Betsy.

“What’s the usual?” asked the young man.

“Scotch and milk,” said Big Betsy.

The young man made a face, looked at Leo. Leo shrugged silently. The young man smiled tightly. “Okay. One scotch and milk for the lady, and one plain scotch for me.”

“Water on the side?” Leo asked as he poured Big Betsy’s “scotch and milk” from the gallon carton that contained her private stock. The young man shook his head. Leo set up a shot glass full of scotch and Big Betsy’s drink and accepted a five-dollar bill. He went to the register and rang up one fifty, returned, and laid the change on the bar. The young man glanced at it, smiled, reached over and took a sip of Big Betsy’s drink.

“I got this ulcer,” Big Betsy explained. The young man mumbled something. Big Betsy’s loud laugh echoed over the blare of the jukebox. “Hey, Leo, didja hear that?” she guffawed, wiping greasy tears from her rheumy eyes.

“Nope,” said Leo disinterestedly.

“Whad he say?” asked the deaf wino.

“He said it musta been a plaid cow, ’cause there ain’t no other way there’s any scotch in this here glass. Haw, haw, haw.”

Leo looked uncomfortably at the young man, who gave him another tight smile. Leo went back to polishing glasses.

Rayburn reached out and poured himself another drink without looking at the bottle or the glass or Leo. He pushed a dollar bill across the bar in the general direction of the cash register. “Last drink,” he mumbled. Leo moved his bulk down behind the bar.

“It’s all right, Rayburn. Last drink’s on the house.”

Rayburn raised his head. His eyes sparkled behind a misty alcohol veil. “I pays for what I drinks,” he said.

“Sure, Rayburn, sure,” Leo said. He scooped the crumpled bill up in his hammy hand, went to the register, and rang up
NO SALE
. Rayburn, lost in his liquor, did not see that, and gathered up the dollar’s change Leo laid on the bar, dropping it into his pocket without looking at it.

“Haw, haw, haw,” bellowed Big Betsy the whore, “didja hear that, Leo?”

“Nope,” said Leo.

“He says he can fuck for free, but he’ll pay to talk.”

“That’s crazy,” Leo said.

“I’ll tell you what,” Big Betsy said to the young man, “you can talk all you want so long as you’re buyin’ drinks.”

“Okay,” said the young man.

“That’s crazy,” Leo said.

“Damn straight,” said Big Betsy. “Gimme some gin, Leo.”

“No more milk?” said the young man.

“Milk,” Big Betsy informed him, “is for babies. To shut up.”

Leo poured the gin and refilled the shot glass with scotch. He took a dollar fifty from the change on the bar and went to the register to ring it up. On the way he noticed Rayburn’s vacated stool and paused briefly to remove the used glasses, recork the bottle, and wipe a few drops of moisture from the bar top with his side towel.

“Haw, haw, haw,” laughed Big Betsy the whore from down the bar. “Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw.”

The street lay empty in the wee-hours-of-the-morning darkness. There was a chill in the air, and Rayburn pulled his jacket close about him, shuddering, shaking in alcoholic tremens. He had trouble standing, so he hauled himself over to a graffiti-covered wall and leaned against it, trying to hold his head up and his vomit in. The light on the corner changed, but there was no rush of rubber-tired wheels; there was no traffic. Just as the light was changing from yellow to red one lone car, a long pink Cadillac, careened through the intersection, raking its high beams across Rayburn’s slumping form, and vanished in a rush of wind and a blare of radioed soul music mingled with drunken voices. Rayburn watched it go, then he tottered into the alley and retched laboriously over some garbage cans.

When he had vomited he felt better. He fumbled in his pocket and found change, pulled it out, counted it, unbelieving. There was a dollar there. A dollar. He considered going back in for another drink but shook his head, shoved the money back into his pocket, and struggled back out to the curb. His flat nose wrinkled at an unfamiliar stench, and his eyes darted around erratically until they focused on the body of the cat, lying in the gutter. Rayburn fought down the urge to vomit again, turned right, and began to walk. Every few steps his sense of direction would give out, and he would stagger into a wall and bounce away, half spinning from the impact. He mumbled loudly as he struggled along, conversing with the grimy walls, the light poles, the cars parked at infrequent intervals along the curb. “I ain’t too anxious to be goin’ home,” he informed a dented Ford, “’cause you see, if I goes home, that bitch gonna give me a hard time for sure. I can hear it now. ‘Rayburn, you done gone an’ spent up all the money an’ didn’t give me nothin’.’ As if to say she wouldn’t a spent up all the money. Bitch.” He nodded for emphasis, stumbled on to a garbage can. “But,” he elaborated, “it’s possible, it is definitely possible, that the bitch ain’t gonna be there at all. I mean, it’s hard to know, you know? I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want the bitch to be there. I mean, it’s bad if she do be there, but it’s bad if she ain’t there, too, ’cause then I gotta wait for her to get back, an’ you know I think it all the time, maybe this time she ain’t gonna be comin’ back. Maybe she gone for good. Or maybe she done gone off with somebody an’ she’ll come tippin’ on in tomorrow with some shit about how she was out with that bitch sister a hers an’ she was too tired to come home. Lyin’ her damn head off. She knows I know she’s lyin’. Knows I ain’t gonna call her on it, ’cause if I do she’s liable to go right on an’ tell me all about it. Then what the hell am I gonna do? I mean, I
know
, but so long as she ain’t tole me nothin’ I don’t got to be believin’ it, you know?” The garbage can declined to reply. Rayburn launched an uncoordinated kick that did more harm to him than to the can, then hobbled, cursing, on down the street. Dark empty windows gazed at him blankly. Rayburn bounced off a wall, gyrated like a tightrope walker along the edge of the curb. “She’ll be back though,” he told the street. “Oh yeah, she be back, switchin’ her ass around like it was a goddamn flyswatter, wavin’ money in ma face. She say, ‘You ain’t got no money, baby? Workin’ in that damn bank, place where they
keeps
that money, an’ you ain’t got none yourself? What’s the matter with you? You ain’t much of a man, that’s all I got to say.’ An’ then by Jesus I’ll take the bitch in an’ fuck the hell right out of her. Make her forget whoever that bastard was, make her forget his damn name. Fuck him right out of her. Make her climb the damn walls. I can do it too, by God. Only”—Rayburn stopped and addressed the cluttered windows of a long-condemned junk shop—“only you wonder, you know what I mean? You got to be wonderin’ if she even knows who’s doin’ it to her. Maybe it don’t make no difference. Does it make a difference?” Rayburn got no answer and, after a few minutes, forgetting the question, turned east once again and moved on, feet scuffing the cracked sidewalk, past the deserted Salvation Army Mission Post, past the tobacco-juice-stained steps of tubercular rowhouses, his eyes glassed over and tired-looking. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and held himself for a minute, then tottered into the next alleyway and urinated inaccurately, watching the clear stream splash on the cobblestones and spatter droplets back on his legs, not moving, not reacting at all when the pressure diminished and the stream shortened and the urine dribbled onto his shoes. He zipped his pants and staggered out onto the street again, but now he had forgotten where he was going, so he just kept on walking, past the glittering facade of The Word of Life Church, with its fluorescent cross and flood-lit marquee assuring all and sundry that Jesus saved, past decaying houses and dilapidated stores, past the shadowy entrance beside one burned-out store that led to the apartment he called home. The light from the sign of the Elysium Hotel fell like a wide white bar across the street and the sidewalk in front of him; he moved close to the walls, trying to avoid the harsh light, moving on to the corner, across the street. And then he looked up and stopped, seeing the spire of the bank building rising, shining, puncturing the night sky. He stared up at it, swaying back and forth, then looked down suddenly to see a bus standing in front of him, door open, engine rumbling.

“C’mon, buddy,” shouted the driver. “I ain’t got all night. You gonna ride or you gonna piss in your pants?” Rayburn stared a second longer, then climbed aboard totteringly, hanging onto the handrail like a tired old lady. “C’mon, for Chrissakes. Ain’t you got a quarter?” Rayburn obediently fished out a quarter and dropped it into the fare box, fumbling for a minute as his erratic coordination made it difficult for him to get his hand over the slot. “Shees,” said the bus driver. “What the hell am I, crazy? Runnin’ around here with nuttin’ but drunks. Take a seat, buddy, before you fall on your ass. Shees!” Rayburn grasped one of the chromium stanchions and eased himself into a seat running lengthwise along the side of the bus. The light changed and the driver pulled away from the curb, working at the big steering wheel, grunting with effort. His stomach hung over the edge of the wheel like a pouting child’s lower lip. “Shees,” he muttered, “shees. One friggin’ fare all friggin’ night. Crazy.” Rayburn stared out the window at the swiftly passing panorama of alleys and bars and darkened storefronts with dim lights glowing in the windows above them, all dingy from the years of smog and dirt and people. “I bet this joker’s soused,” muttered the driver. “Hey, buddy, you drunk?”

“Say what?” said Rayburn.

“You drunk? If you’re drunk you gotta get offa here. Regulations.”

“Nah, shit,” said Rayburn, “I ain’t drunk.”

“Yeah?” said the driver, peering suspiciously in his rearview mirror. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” said Rayburn.

“I dunno, you look kinda beat.”

“I ain’t drunk, muthafucka,” Rayburn snarled. “If you thought I was drunk, whad you let me on for in the first place?”

“I gotta let you on,” the driver said. “It’s the law. An’ if you’re drunk, I gotta kick you off. That’s the law too.”

Rayburn looked at him. “Shit.” He went back to staring out the window.

“All right, okay, buddy, take it easy, take it easy, I was just askin’. Regulations. Hell, I don’t give a damn if a fella wants to get himself a little one tied on on Saturday night. Hell, I’d be tyin’ one on myself if I wasn’t out tryin’ to pick up a little spare change, you know what I mean?” Rayburn stared out the window. The driver stared in his mirror at the reflection of the side of Rayburn’s head. “I got this wife, see,” said the driver, waving one arm in the air and peeking in the mirror to see if Rayburn were paying any attention. “Chrissakes, I don’t know what I ever wanted to go an’ get married for. All she does is holler. I mean all the time.
All
the friggin’ time. A man works his fingers down to the knuckles an’ all he hears is, ‘O’Brien, I need a new vacuum cleaner.’ Shees, I just bought her a new vacuum cleaner. Or, ‘O’Brien, the kid needs new shoes.’ That kid must have fifteen pair a shoes already. You know what I mean?” He peered into the mirror, but Rayburn’s eyes were on the passing street. “Yeah,” said the driver, “an’ then here I am, ridin’ around in the middle of the night. An’ you know what s
he’s
doin’?
She’s
havin’ Mrs. Casey in to look at TV. While I’m out here bouncin’ bruises on my backside, she’s watchin’ TV an’ drinkin’ up my beer. I don’t know what I ever wanted to get married for, I swear I don’t. I was free and easy, I was, an’ then she comes along an’ gives me that, ‘No, no, not until we’re married.’ Okay, I says, so I married her. Come to find out I wasn’t even the first one. Can you beat that? Hey, buddy, can you beat that?” The driver stopped for a red light, turned in his seat to stare at Rayburn. “Shees. Saturday night. Nuttin’ but drunks what can’t even carry on an intelligent conversation. Shees!” He turned back and stamped on the accelerator in disgust.

“Haw, haw, haw,” laughed Big Betsy the whore. “Hey, Leo, didja hear that?”