The Outsider (4 page)

Laughter seethed and Cross joined in to show his appreciation.

“Leave 'im alone,” Booker said. “He knows his own mind.”

“If he keeps up that drinking, he won't have no mind left,” Joe said emphatically. “And it'll kill 'im.”

“All right,” Cross said darkly. “Do I want to live forever?”

“You're nuts,” Joe said.

“It pleases me,” Cross said without anger.

“Okay,” Joe said.

“Sure; it's okay,” Cross said, opening the bottle and taking a long swig.

“Wheeew,” Joe whistled. “You can't
drink
like that, boy!”

“I
am
,” Cross said calmly.

“You gonna finish that bottle today?” Booker asked softly.

“Maybe. How do I know?”

“Ain't you gonna sleep?”

“If I can.”

“‘If I can',” jeered Joe. “Stop drinking and you
can
sleep.”

“I wouldn't sleep at all then,” Cross said.

“What's
eating
you, Cross?” Pink implored softly. “We've been your friends for six years. Spill it. We'll help you—”

“Skip it,” Cross said. “Am I complaining? You signed for my last loan and that took care of my Quadruple-A debts. That's enough.”

They laughed at how Cross could laugh at himself.

“There're some things a man must do alone,” Cross added.

The three men looked silently at Cross. He knew that they liked him, but he felt that they were outside of his life, that there was nothing that they could do that would make any difference. Now more than ever he knew that he was alone and that his problem was one of a relationship of himself to himself.

“We ain't your mama and your papa,” Joe sighed, forcing a sad smile. “We can't hold your hand, Big Boy. And you're a big boy, you know.”

“Yes, I'm a big boy,” Cross smiled bitterly.

“It's between you and Your Maker, your problem,” Joe said.

“Lucky Joe,” Cross murmured in a tone of envy.

“What do you mean?” Joe asked.

Cross rose, smiled widely for the first time, pointed his finger into Joe's fat, black, round face, and intoned: “‘And God made man in His own image…'”

Pink and Booker yelled with laughter. Joe passed his hand caressingly and self-consciously over his black face and looked puzzled. Cross demanded in a mockingly serious voice: “Did God really make
that
face? Is He guilty of
that?
If He did, then He was walking in His sleep!” Cross shook with laughter. “To blame God for making Joe is to degrade the very concept of God!”

Pink and Booker leaped to their feet and grabbed Joe about the waist.

“Did God really make you, Joe?” Pink demanded.

“Was God absent-minded when He cooked you up, Joe?” Booker asked.

Joe forced a smile, but underneath he was a little disturbed. Then he protested: “God made me, all right. He made my soul and He made my
body
too.”

“But why did He make your body so
fat
, Joe?” Cross asked.

“I just ate too much and got fat,” Joe replied sheepishly.

“But
God
gave you your appetite,” Pink told him.

“And the body reflects the soul,” Cross clenched it.

“Wow!” Pink screamed, covering his mouth with his hand. “I'm going home 'fore I laugh myself to death!”

They all rose except Cross; he still sat and smiled up at Joe.

“Go home and get some shut-eye, Cross,” Joe advised him.

“God won't let me sleep,” Cross said.

“God ain't got
nothing
to do with it!” Joe pronounced.

“Then who keeps me awake all day long?” Cross wanted to know.

“You, yourself,” Joe said.

“Maybe you're right,” Cross conceded.

“So long,” Pink said.

“See you, Crossy,” Joe said.

“'Bye, now,” Booker said.

“So long,” Cross mumbled, not looking at them as they filed out.

“Some guys,” Doc said from behind the bar.

“Yeah;
some
guys,” Cross repeated, staring at the floor.

Yeah; it was time to sleep. He felt dead. How long could he last like this? His eyes suddenly clouded with displeasure. He had promised to see Dot this morning, but he didn't want to talk to her, much less see her…That was all he needed: seeing Dot and having one of those long, hysterical, weeping arguments. He knew what Dot wanted to ask and the answer was no and it would always be no! Oh,
damn
that Dot! But if he didn't call her, she'd soon be coming to his room and they'd argue all day long. And that was the last thing he wanted. Yes; he'd better call her; he'd tell her he was sick, feeling too bad to see her. He rose, jammed the whiskey bottle into his overcoat pocket, went into the telephone booth, dropped a coin into the slot and dialed. Almost at once Dot's voice sang over the wire: “How are you, darling?”

She was waiting in the hallway by the phone, he thought.

“I feel like hell,” he growled.

“Have you eaten breakfast?”

“Naw; I just left the Post Office—”

“But honey, you got off from work at
four
o'clock and now it's nearly
six
. You've had plenty of time to eat.”

“I was in a bar,” he told her.

“Oh, God, Cross! You must stop
drinking
!”

“Do you think I can with what I've got on my mind?”

“Come over right
now
, hunh? I'll cook your breakfast—”

“Naw.”

“Why?”

“I don't want to.”

“You're mean! And you promised you'd see me this morning—”

“But I don't feel like it. I'm exhausted.”

“You mean you're too
drunk
!” she said savagely.

“So?”

“Oh, God, Cross! Why did I ever get mixed up with you?”

“I've told you how to get
unmixed
with me, haven't I?”

“Don't you say that to me again!”

“I
am
saying it!”

“Listen, come here now! I want to talk to you!”

“I'm tired, I tell you!”

“I don't care! You come over
now
!”

“You're crazy, Dot! Do you think you can make people do things they don't want to do?” he asked her earnestly.

He heard her suck in her breath and when her voice came over the wire again it was so shrill that he had to hold the receiver away from his ear.

“If you
don't
see me this morning, you'll be
sorry
! You hear? Whatever happens'll be
your
fault! You can't treat me this way! I won't
let
you! You hear? I said I won't
let
you! You made me a promise and I want you to keep it! Now, come over here. I've got something to tell you—”

“Dot—”

“No; no; let me talk—”

“Listen, Dot—”

“I said let
me
talk!”

“Oh, Goddammit, Dot!”

“Don't cuss me! Oh, God, don't cuss me when I'm like this! Can't you understand? Have a little pity—” Her voice caught in her throat. “I'll
kill
myself—”

“Dot—Don't go on like that—”

“You don't think I'll kill myself, but I will—”

“You're crazy!”

“I'll get you for that!” she shouted. “I
will
!”

“If you keep shouting at me, I'll hang up!”

“I
will
shout at you!”

He hesitated, then slammed the receiver on to the hook. Damn her! He was trembling. He'd not wanted to call her because he'd known that it'd go like this and he'd be unnerved for the rest of the day. He fumbled for the bottle and took a deep swallow. Yes; he had to get some sleep or go mad. He went out of the telephone booth and waved good-bye to Doc and kept on out of the door and walked along the snow-piled sidewalks. He caught a trolley and rode standing on the platform, swaying as much from the rocking of the car as from the influence of alcohol. He alighted in front of his apartment building, groped for his key, and let himself in. Fifteen minutes later he was undressed and in bed. He was so tired that he could scarcely feel the sensations of his body and he could not relax. He stared wakefully in the semi-darkness and wondered what he could do about Dot…

What a messy life he was living! It was crazy; it was killing him; it was senseless; and he was a fool to go on living it. What a stinking botch he'd made out of everything he had touched! Why? He didn't know. I could be teaching school, he told himself. He'd dropped out of the university right after he'd married Gladys and after that nothing had gone right.

He lay still, his bloodshot eyes staring blankly before him, and drifted into dreams of his problems, compulsively living out dialogues, summing up emotional scenes with his mother, reliving the reactions of his wife, Dot, and his friends. Repeatedly he chided himself to go to sleep, but it did no good, for he was hungry for these waking visions that depicted his dilemmas, yet he knew that such brooding did not help; in fact, he was wasting his waning strength, for into these unreal dramas he was putting the whole of his ardent being. The long hours of the day dragged on.

He twisted on his crumpled bed, reshaped his lumpy pillow until his head nestled into it exactly right; and, for the hundredth time, he closed his eyes and lay still, trying to purge his mind of anxiety, beseeching sleep. He felt his numbed limbs slowly shedding tension and for a moment he floated toward a world of dreams, seesawing softly between sleeping and waking. Then, convulsively, his entire body jerked rigidly to stem a fearful feeling of falling through space. His rebellious nerves twanged with a terror that his mind sought desperately to deny. He shook his head, his body seething with hate against himself and the world.

He checked his watch: two o'clock. A grey day showed through the curtained window and from the snowy street rose the din of traffic. Today was like yesterday and he knew that tomorrow would be the same. And it had been like this now for many months. Each morning he'd come from work and crawl wearily into bed and toss for hours, yearning for the mercy of a sleep that was not his and at last he realized that his search for surcease was hopeless. He sighed, stood, crossed to the dresser and took another pull from the bottle. At six o'clock he'd report to work and for eight long hours he'd sway upon his feet, drugged with fatigue, straining
against collapse, sorting mail like a sleepwalker. He moistened his lips with his tongue. He had not eaten all day and, as the alcohol deadened the raw nerves of his twitching stomach, he thought: I'll do it now; I'll end this farce…He hunched determinedly forward and his crinkled pyjamas bagged about his gaunt body and the muscles of his neck bulged. He'd not crawl like a coward through stupid days; to act quickly was the simplest way of jumping through a jungle of problems that plagued him from within and from without. A momentary dizziness swamped him; his throat tightened; his vision blurred; his chest heaved and he was defenseless against despair. He sprang to the dresser and yanked open a drawer and pulled forth his gun. Trembling, feeling the cold blue steel touching his sweaty palm, he lifted the glinting barrel to his right temple, then paused. His feelings were like tumbling dice…He wilted, cursed, his breath expiring through parted lips. Choked with self-hate, he flung himself on the bed and buried his face in his hands.

Broken thus in will, he relaxed for the first time in weeks; he could rest only when he was too drained of energy to fret further. At length he lifted his head and the fingers of his right hand pressed nervously against his lower lip, then tapped his knee as though to still the writhing of his spirit. He was despairingly aware of his body as an alien and despised object over which he had no power, a burden that was always cheating him of the fruits of his thought, mocking him with its stubborn and supine solidity.

Claimed at last by the needs of the hour, he proceeded to bathe and dress. Again he drank from the bottle and was grateful for the sense of depression caused by the alcohol which made him feel less of pleasure, pain, anxiety, and hope. Could he get through the night
without collapsing? Suddenly he was filled with an idea:
He would take the gun with him!
And if the pressure from within or without became too great he would use it; his gun would be his final protection against the world as well as against himself…And if he was ever so unlucky as to be found sprawled from nervous collapse upon some frozen sidewalk or upon the floor of the Post Office, it would be manfully better to let others see a bloody hole gaping in his temple than to present to the eyes of strangers a mass of black flesh stricken by stupor. His decision renewed his courage; if he had not thought of the gun, he doubted if he could have gone to work.

He pulled on his overcoat and stood hesitantly by the door; he knew now that even the gun sagging in his pocket did not convince him that he was fit to work. During the past month he had been absent so often on excuses of illness that he did not dare telephone and report himself on the sick list. He would master his tricky sensations; he would force himself to carry on till he dropped. He usually found that he did not really collapse even when he had the consciousness of being about to pitch forward on his face…

He yearned to talk to someone; he felt his mere telling his story would have helped. But to whom could he talk? To his mother? No; she would only assure him that he was reaping the wages of sin and his sense of dread would deepen. Could he talk to his wife with whom he was not living? God, no! She'd laugh bitterly and say, “I told you so!” There was Dot, his sweetheart, but she was not capable of understanding anything. Moreover, she was partly the cause of his present state. And there was not a single man to whom he cared to confess the nightmare that was his life. He had sharp need of a confidant, and yet he knew that if he had had an ideal confidant before whom he could lay his whole story, he
would have instantly regretted it, would have murdered his confidant the moment after he had confided to him his shame. How could he have gone on living knowing that someone else knew how things were with him? Cross was proud.