The Losers (21 page)

“Jesus,” Raphael said, feeling a sudden wrenching pity for Crazy Charlie and the abysmal emptiness of his life.

“Sad as hell, isn’t it?” Flood agreed. “A couple times there I almost broke down and cried while he was talking.”

“You?”

“Come on,” Flood protested, “I’m not
totally
insensitive, you know.”

“You could have fooled me.”

Later, when they had gone inside to have coffee, Charlie returned to his apartment. He put down his packages and began to talk animatedly.

Flood watched him intently through Raphael’s binoculars. “I think he’s going through the whole conversation again, word for word.”

“Why don’t you leave him alone?” Raphael said disgustedly, realizing that he had said it before.

“I didn’t hurt him.” Flood was still watching through the

binoculars. “For all I know, I might have done him some good. God knows how long it’s been since he actually talked to somebody.”

“That’s not the point. You’re
using
him—that’s the point.”

“Everybody uses people, Raphael.” Flood still had the binoculars to his eyes. “That’s what we’re here for. You used him for months and never even talked to him—didn’t even take the trouble to find out his real name. At least when I used him, he got something out of it. Here.” He shoved the binoculars at Raphael. “Go on and take a look at him. He’s genuinely happy. When did you ever do anything like that for him?”

Helplessly, feeling somehow furtive, Raphael took the binoculars and looked across the intervening space at Crazy Charlie’s broadly smiling face. He knew that what Flood had done was wrong, but he could not put his finger on exactly what it was that had made it wrong. And so he watched, and for the first time he began to feel ashamed.

Chicken Coop Annie had waddled out of her house to yell at her kids. Flood came down the street and stopped to talk with her.

On his rooftop Raphael knew that the meeting was once again deliberate and that it had been carefully staged for his benefit. He had even seen the brief flicker of Flood’s eyes as he had thrown a quick glance up to be sure that he was sitting there.

Chicken Coop Annie was wearing a tentlike wrapper that somehow accentuated rather than concealed the enormous nudity that lay beneath it. She giggled often as she spoke with Flood, her pudgy hands going nervously to the tangled wrack of her hair.

Flood eyed her boldly as they spoke, an insinuating smile playing about his lips, and Annie glowed, her eyes sly and her expression and gestures grossly coquettish.

They talked for quite a long while as Raphael watched helplessly from his rooftop. As Flood left, Annie raised her arms, ran all ten fat fingers through her hair, and shook her head with a movement that was somehow enormously sensual. When she walked back toward her house, her waddle seemed to become almost a conscious strut.

“Her name’s Opal,” Flood announced when he reached the rooftop.

“Really?”

“She has urges,” Flood said, leaning against the railing.

“I noticed. Are you two going steady?”

“Interesting idea. Maybe if she was a little cleaner …”

“Why let that bother you? If you’re going to wallow, why not go all the way?”

“Don’t be crude.” Flood suddenly laughed. “My God, she’s a big woman! You don’t realize it until you get up close to her. She’s like a monument. A woman like that could scare a whole generation of young men into monasteries.”

“Aren’t you getting tired of this game?”

“No, not just yet. The street still has enormous possibilities.”

And again, in bright and vivid morning air, Flood strode step for step with grim-faced Willie the Walker, deep in conversation, their words chopped and measured by the steady rhythm of their feet upon the sidewalk.

Sitting, Raphael watched them pass and turned away in disgust.

“Name’s George,” Flood informed Raphael later. “He had a heart attack ten years ago. His doctor advised him to get more exercise—suggested walking. That might have been the wrong thing to say to George.”

“How much longer are you going to keep this up?”

“The old boy covers fifteen miles a day,” Flood said, ignoring the question. “His doctor dropped dead three years ago, but old George keeps on walking. The only trouble with it is that it’s the only thing he’s got to talk about. He’s a walking city map. He talked at me for a solid half hour, reciting the street names from the river to the North Division Y.” He stopped and winced, shaking one foot. “Goddamn, my feet hurt.”

“Good.”

And again as Mousy Mary struggled down the street with two huge sacks of groceries, the ever-present Flood came to her aid with overwhelming gallantry. Suspicious at first and even apprehensive, she finally permitted him to carry one, then both. By the rime they reached her porch, they were chatting together as if they had been neighbors for years. Her runny eyes brightened, and her slack mouth trembled now and then into a fleeting and tenuous smile. They talked together for almost half an hour before Flood came back across the street and up the stairs to the roof.

“Would you believe that her name really
is
Mary?” he told Raphael.

“Whoopee.”

“They’re going to give her kids back this weekend. Somebody finally got smart enough to really sit down and
listen
to that mother of hen. I guess the old bag’s genuinely certifiable. They ought to fit her for a straitjacket.”

“I could have told you that. So, what are you proving by all of this?”

“Just verifying your theory. You know—scientific method, empirical data, independent observer, all that shit. A theory isn’t worth much if it isn’t subject to verification, right?”

“I think there’s also some question about the presence of the observer as a factor in the validity of the tests, isn’t there?”

“Shit!” Flood said disgustedly. “Next you’ll be talking about the noise in the woods.”

“Why not? It’d be a damn sight more useful than all these fun and games.”

“Oh no, Raphael. You’re not going to put me off the track
that
easy. I’m going to run down each and every one of your losers before I’m through. We’re going to have a good hard look at the face of reality—warts, pimples, and all—and nothing less than get-ring run down by a garbage truck is going to stop me.”

“That’s an interesting thought.”

“Be nice.”

And again, in conversation with Freddie the Fruit under the hard and watchful eye of Freddie’s girlfriend. Freddie, almost girlish, wriggled under the full impact of Flood’s charm. Even the girl thawed a bit, though her expression was still suspicious.

“Harold and Wanda,” Flood told Raphael. “He’s Harold, she’s Wanda.”

“Obviously.”

“Not entirely. A very tough broad, that one. She had a boyfriend named Douglas once. She’s got his name tattooed on her shoulder—D-U-G. Can you imagine carrying an illiteracy to your grave like that? Anyway, they’ve completely reversed the traditional male-female roles, and they’re really quite happy. He flirts with men to make her jealous, but he’s probably not very serious about it. It’s all part of a very elaborate game they play. Your original theory was an oversimplification this time. That’s a very subtle and complex relationship.”

“So?”

“I just thought you’d like to know, is all. After all, they’re your losers, not mine.” And Flood grinned, his dark eyes glittering in the sunlight.

And again on the porch with Sadie the Sitter, both of them lounging at their ease. “He drinks, of course,” Sadie told Flood. “I didn’t know that.”

“Oh, sure. He has for years now. Sometimes when he comes home, it’s all he can do to make it into the house, he’s so drunk.”

“Then why does
she
act as if they were so special?” Flood asked, playing the straight man.

Sadie smiled knowingly. “Her family had money. They’re the ones who set him up in business—and she never lets him forget it, let me tell you. That’s why he drinks, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“And the one next to her,” Sadie went on, pointing.
“She’s
always bustin’ a gut tryin’ to keep up. They spend all their time tryin’ to out-uppity each other. It makes me sick.”

“I don’t know why people have to be like that.”

“That’s all right. I’ll be comin’ into some money pretty soon.
Then
we’ll see who’s gonna outfancy who.”

“Good for you,” Flood approved.

Sadie nodded smugly and stuffed another handful of potato chips into her mouth. “Get the hell away from that rosebush, you little bastard!” she bellowed at one of the children she was watching.

“That woman is an abomination,” Flood told Raphael later. “I’m moderately immoral myself, but she’s not even human. She hates
everything.
Talking to her is like crawling into a sewer.”

“It was your idea,” Raphael pointed out. “Had enough yet?”

“What keeps her
alive?”
Flood exclaimed. “What keeps her from exploding from all that sheer, overwhelming envy. Oh, by the way, her name’s Rita. They call her husband Bob the Barber.”

“So?”

Flood shrugged. “I just thought you’d be interested.”

“What made you think I’d be interested? I could see what she is from here. I didn’t have to sit on her porch and let her spew on me to find out everything I needed to know about her.”

“I don’t see how she fits into your theory, though.”

“She’s a loser. You can smell it from here. There’s a catastrophe just around the corner—something crouching, waiting to pounce on her.”

“That’d be one helluva pounce.” Flood laughed. “Maybe it’s Jamesean—’Beast in the Jungle’ and all that crap. Maybe her catastrophe is going to be the fact that no catastrophe ever happens to her.”

“Aren’t we getting a little far afield? How much longer are you planning to play this little game?”

“Only as long as necessary, Angel,” Flood said with an infuriating blandness. “Only as long as necessary.”

Jimmy and Marvin were on the lawn of the house up the street laboring with Jimmy’s new car—a battered Ford in only slightly better shape than his old one. They had brought speakers out of the house and connected them to the car’s radio and had turned the volume all the way up. The mindless bawling they called music bounced and echoed off the front of the houses and shook windows from one end of the block to the other. As they worked they had to scream at each other to be heard over the noise, but that was not as important as the fact that the music attracted attention—that everyone knew that they were out there doing something important.

And then, inevitably, Flood came sauntering down the street, hands in his pockets and a cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth, though Flood rarely smoked. “Hey, man,” he said to Jimmy, who had just come out from under the gaping hood of the Ford to stare at him truculently, “what’s happening?”

Jimmy answered shortly, his face still suspicious, but his words were lost in a fresh blare of noise from the radio. Flood walked a few steps toward him, his face questioning, and Jimmy nervously backed up a step or two. Raphael had noticed that Jimmy’s mouth often got him into more trouble than he could handle.

“What’d you say, man?” Flood asked pleasantly. “I didn’t quite catch it.” He spoke quite loudly.

Jimmy mumbled something, his eyes down.

“I’m sorry,” Flood said over the music. “I still can’t hear you.” He went closer to Jimmy, who backed up a little farther.

“What’s the matter with it, man?” Flood asked Marvin, who was struggling under the hood with the stubborn guts of the sick car.

Marvin answered shortly and then began to swear as his wrench slipped and his knuckles smashed against the solidity of the engine block.

“Ouch,” Flood said, “I’ll bet that hurts like a son of a bitch. Did you check the coil?” He pointed at something under the hood and murmured some instructions.

“Jimmy,” Marvin shouted exasperatedly, “will you turn that fuckin’ radio
down?”

“What for?” Jimmy’s tone was still belligerent.

“Because I can’t hear myself think, for Chrissake.” Jimmy glowered at him.

Flood reached into the engine compartment and carefully disconnected a wire. The music stopped abruptly in midsquawl. The sudden silence was stunning.

“Sorry,” Flood said. “Wrong wire.”

“What the hell you think you’re
doin’,
man?” Jimmy screamed at him. He went to the side of the car and started to bang on one of the speakers.

Flood reattached the wire, and naked noise erupted into Jimmy’s face. The pasty-faced young man flinched visibly and stepped back a few paces. “Jesus!”

The music stopped again.

“Hang on,” Flood said. “I’ll get it.”

Jimmy approached the car again, and once again the full volume blasted into his face. “Aw, for Chrissake!” He climbed into the car and turned the radio off. “Hey, man,” he said to Flood, “quit fuckin’ around with my car, huh?”

“Shut up, Jimmy,” Marvin told him, still leaning into the engine compartment.

“What the fuck you talkin’ about?” Jimmy demanded. “It’s my goddamn car, ain’t it?”

“Okay.” Marvin straightened up.
“You
fix the bastard then.” He threw down his wrench.

“Come on, Marv,” Jimmy pleaded, “you know more about this than I do.”

“What’s the problem with it?” Flood asked.

“Son of a bitch runs like a thrashin’ machine,” Marvin replied. “Half the time it won’t start at all; and when it does, it sounds like it’s tryin’ to shake itself to pieces.”

“Timing,” Flood diagnosed. “You got a timing strobe?”

Marvin shook his head.

“Leon’s got one,” Jimmy offered hopefully. “You think you could fix it, man?” He looked at Flood with an almost sick yearning on his face.

“Shouldn’t be too tough. I’ll need that strobe, though.” “Lemme use your car, Marv,” Jimmy said. “I’ll go get it.” “Why not?” Marvin gave Jimmy his keys and then turned back to Flood. “Hey, man, what’s your name?” “Jake.”

“I’m Marvin. This is Jimmy. Let’s have a beer while we’re waitin’ for him to get back.”

“Don’t drink up all the beer, man,” Jimmy protested.

“Get some more. Pick up the strobe and go over to the store an’ get some more.”