The Outsider (13 page)

“There is one thing, by God,” she roared, “that you are going to do! You are going to
respect
me. You can't send a filthy, stinking little tart like that to talk to me.
You can be sure I gave your bitch a hot welcome, and she won't forget it, not soon!” Gladys groped for words, her mouth open. “And while I'm on it, let me settle one more question. You'll
not
get a divorce. For a rotten slut like her,
never
! That's the way I feel and I'm not ashamed of it! If you can be dirty, then so can I! Keep on living with her, but if she asks you to make her respectable, tell her you can't! Take your Dorothy and fuck her and let her give you a litter of bastards. That's all she's fit for, and you, too, it seems! Is that clear?”

Her hysterical tirade made him ashamed for her. The satisfaction she was deriving from it was obscene.

“Look, I'm not going to argue with your feelings,” he clutched at words to stem the tide, striving to be judicious, balanced. “Let's arrange something. I'm supporting you and the children—”

“And by the living hell, you'll keep
on
!”

“Okay. I agree. But your welfare depends on my job—”

He jerked as she burst into a gale of cynical laughter. “So, you've been to the Post Office?” she asked. “They put the fear of God into you, hunh? That's why you came crawling to me…”

Cross froze. Had she already told the postal officials about the possibility of his being convicted of rape? He had come to bargain with her, but if she had already talked, the game was all but lost.

“What are you talking about?” he asked quietly.

“Cross, are you stupid?” There was a mocking pity in her tone. “I must protect myself…That little whore of yours had not been gone from here an hour before my lawyer and I had gone to the Post Office—”

“Why?”

He knew why she had gone, but he wanted to know how far she had gone. Maybe his job was already lost!

Gladys spoke quietly, as though she were a school teacher explaining a complicated problem to a dullard. She came to within a few feet of Cross and sat.

“Cross, you really cannot expect me to think of you and your troubles,” she said. “You're intelligent and you know what you're doing. I had to act in my own defense. I went straight to the Postmaster and told him that your Miss Powers was about to charge you with rape—”

“Did she tell you that?” Cross asked, feeling that his chair was whirling him round.

“Of course she did,” Gladys informed him with a smile. “Do you think she's informing you of her moves against you? The Postmaster knows, of course, that you cannot marry the girl…And if you are convicted, you're ruined. Now, the Postal Inspector has your case, see?”

Cross had no will to gainsay her; he knew that she was summing up his situation accurately.

“Cross, you must not be naïve,” she continued. “There's nothing that Miss Powers can do but charge you, unless she's willing to live with you and bear your child…And I doubt if she loves you that much.” She paused, lit a cigarette, eyeing Cross the while. “Now, there are some rather disagreeable things I must say to you.” She lifted her left hand and with her right hand she pulled down the little finger of her left hand and said: “Number One: You're signing this house over to me at once. Number Two: You're signing over the car to me. Number Three: You're going to the Post Office tonight and borrow eight hundred dollars from the Postal Union on your salary. I've already made the arrangements with the Postal Inspector. He's okayed it. I want that money to clear the titles of both the house and the car.” She stood, lifted her hand to bar his
words. “I know you want to say no,” she said. “But you can't. Cross, understand this: so far as I'm concerned, you're
through
! I'm squeezing you like a lemon. If you
don't
do what I'm asking, in the morning I shall keep an appointment with Miss Powers. She,
I
, and her lawyer will go to the 49th Street Police Station and I will help her bring charges against you. I'm not justifying my actions. I'm not apologizing, see? I'm just telling you. That's how things stand between us, Cross.”

He was willing to sign over everything, but he did not want to borrow the money; it would mean indebtedness for him for two years to come. And he could use that money to try to bribe Dot…

“They may not let me have the money,” he said.

“Mr. Dumb,” she said scornfully, “if the Postal Union thought you were going to be indicted for rape, they'd not let you have the money, for you'd have no job. I led them to believe that the girl would abort the child, that you'd pay her off…I made sure with the Postmaster that your job was safe, and the Postal Union has been told that it's all right…”

“But the girl can
still
charge me,” Cross protested without strength. “What game's this you're playing?”

“
My
game,” Gladys said.

“The eight hundred dollars,” he was pleading now, “could keep the girl and I could make payments to you—”

“I don't give a damn about that girl,” she snapped. “What happens between you and her is your business!”

Gladys was using Dot to drag money from him and at the same time betraying Dot! Cross wanted to close his eyes and sleep this nightmare away.

“If you get eight hundred dollars, you'll not help the girl?”

“Hell, no! Why should I? Let that bitch rot!”

He was properly trapped. There was nothing more to say. This was a cold and vindictive Gladys created by him. He rose and moved toward the door.

“What's your answer?” she asked.

“Okay. I'll get the money. I'll phone you tonight.”

“Oh, there's one other thing,” she said, opening the door for him. “Is your life insurance paid up?”

“Hunh?” His voice sounded far away. “Yes; yes…”

“Have you changed the beneficiary?” she asked.

“No; why should I?”

“I just wanted to know,” she said.

He felt as though he were already dead and was listening to her speak about him. He went out and did not glance back. He was so depressed that he was not aware of trampling through the deep snow. About him were sounds that had no meaning. When he came fully to himself, his feet were like two icy stumps. I must have fever…He paused and stared around him. He was tired. Oh, God, I got to get that money for Gladys…He looked about for a taxi. Oh, there's the “L”…He ran for the entrance, stumbled up the steps of the “L”, fished a dime from his pocket, paid, and rushed to the platform just as a Loopbound train slid to a stop. He found a seat, fell into it, and sat hunched over, brooding.

His seeing Gladys had compounded his problems. If he obeyed her, he was lost; and if he did not obey her, he was lost. Yet, because he could not make up his mind to ditch it all, he had to follow her demands.

Before reaching Roosevelt Road the “L” dipped underground. Cross rose, swaying with the speed of the train, and traversed each coach until he came to the first car whose front window looked out upon a dim stretch of tunnel. He leaned his forehead against the glass and stared at the rushing ribbons of steel rails whose glinting surfaces vanished beneath his feet.

When his station arrived, he got off and went toward the Post Office, a mass of steel and stone with yellow windows glowing, a mass that rose sheerly toward an invisible sky. The night air was still; it had begun to grow a little warmer. It's going to snow again, he thought idly. Yes, he'd see about the loan right now, but he'd not work tonight. He hungered for sleep. He flashed his badge to the guard at the door and went inside. Where's that Postal Union office? Yes; there on the right…He pushed open the door and saw Finch, the union secretary, sitting quietly, his hat on, chewing an unlighted cigar and holding a deck of soiled playing cards in his hands. Cross approached Finch's desk and for a moment they stared at each other. He suddenly hated Finch's whiteness, not racially, but just because he was white and safe and calm and he was not.

“Damon, hunh?”

“Yes.”

“I was waiting for you,” Finch said. “Sit down.”

Cross obeyed. He did not want to look at Finch; he knew that the man knew his troubles and it made him ashamed; instead, he stared stupidly at the pudgy, soft fingers as they shuffled the cards.

“You look like an accident going somewhere to happen,” Finch commented.

“I'm under the weather,” Cross confessed. “I want to renew that eight-hundred-dollar loan I had last year—”

“Oh, yes.” Finch looked up. “Your wife's been in.”

White fingers took the cigar from thin lips and a brown stream of tobacco juice spewed into a spittoon. Finch replaced the cigar, chewed it, and settled it carefully again in his jaw.

“You colored boys get into a lot of trouble on the South Side,” Finch gave a superior smile. “You must have a hot time out there every day, hunh?”

Cross stiffened. His accepting Finch's sneering at his racial behavior was a kind of compound interest he had to pay on his loan.

“Is the loan possible?” Cross asked.

“The Postmaster said it's all right,” Finch said, finally stacking the cards and flinging them to one side, as though ridding himself of something unpleasant. “Half of my time's spent taking care of you colored boys…What goes on on the South Side?”

Cross cleared his throat to control himself. “I don't know,” he mumbled. “I'm offering my house as security—”

“I'm ahead of you, Damon,” Finch said. “On the strength of your wife's plea, I've had the papers all drawn up. Boy, you've got a good wife. You ought to take care of her—”

“I do,” Cross mumbled.

“If you did, you wouldn't be in this mess,” Finch said. He pushed the contract toward Cross. “Here, sign…”

Cross signed clumsily, his nervousness letting a blob of ink smear blackly across the page. He fumbled with a blotter to soak it up.

“Let me do that,” Finch said, taking the blotter from Cross. “Looks like a chicken with dirty feet ran over this contract.” He handed Cross a carbon copy of the contract, then opened a drawer and pulled forth a sheaf of vouchers. “How do you want this? A check or cash?”

“Cash. I'd like the money tonight.”

“Why not? It's your money.”

Finch initialed a voucher for cash and flipped it at Cross.

“Okay. Get going,” Finch said, yanking his thumb toward the door.

Cross stood and wanted to spit at the man. He edged forward and opened the door.

“Shut the door when you go out,” Finch called, picking up his deck of cards and beginning to shuffle them again.

“Yes; of course,” Cross said.

He pulled the door softly shut and sighed. Well, that was done. Then he stiffened. One of the Assistant Postmasters was bearing down upon him, his grey eyes intent on Cross's face.

“Damon, just a moment!”

“Yes, sir,” Cross answered, waiting.

The Assistant Postmaster pointed a forefinger at Cross. “Damon, don't ever again come to this Post Office on an errand like this. If it hadn't been for your wife, I wouldn't touch this stink with a ten-foot pole. Look, you had one loan and paid it. Do the same with this. We're here to handle the mails, not emotional dramas. Now, this eight hundred ought to settle your little business, hunh?”

“Yes, sir,” he lied; it would only settle the claim of Gladys, but it would not help him with Dot. “Let me explain, sir…”

“Don't tell me about it. I don't want to know.”

“I'd like the night off, sir,” Cross said. “I'll take it out of my vacation days.”

“And what other service can I render you?” the Assistant Postmaster asked with mockery.

“I'm ill,” Cross said peevishly.

“You look it,” the Assistant Postmaster said. “Okay. Take it. But I know a guy called Damon who's going to find the Post Office a hard line to walk from this out.”

Cross bit his lip, turned away and descended the stairs
to the cashier's office of the Postal Union and presented his voucher.

“Cash, eh?” the teller asked, smiling. “What're you going to do with all that money? Buy the Tribune Tower?”

Cross pretended that he had not heard. He pushed the pile of fifty-dollar bills into his wallet, sought a telephone booth and dialed Gladys.

“I got the money,” he told her.

“I want it first thing in the morning,” she said flatly.

“I'll bring it by at noon.”

“All right.”

He made for the exit, showed his badge to the guard and stepped into the street. It was snowing again; fat, white flakes drifted lazily down from a night sky. An “L” train rattled past overhead. He sighed, feeling relieved. He had to be careful and not let a pickpocket rob him of the money. He put his badge, the duplicate copy of the loan contract into the pocket of his overcoat and stuffed his wallet into his shirt, next to his skin. His job now was to head off Dot.

Diving into a subway, he paid his fare and, two minutes later, when a train roared up, walked into the first coach and sank into a seat, closing his eyes. The train pulled into motion; he opened his eyes and noticed that another Negro, shabbily dressed, of about his own color and build, was sitting across the aisle from him. The movement of the coach rocked some of the tension out of him, but not enough to let him relax. Restlessness made him rise and go to the front window and stand looking at the twin ribbons of steel rails sliding under the train. A moment later, when the train was streaking through the underground, darkness suddenly gouged his eyes and a clap of thunder smote his ears. He was spinning through space, his body smash
ing against steel; then he was aware of being lifted and brutally catapulted through black space and, while he was tossed, screams of men and women rent the black air.