Thomas Wolfe, page 29
“What about the bushes, Luke?” yelled Mr. Halloran, the dairy-lunch magnate.
“Down in the bushes, that is where she gushes,” Luke answered amid general tumult. “All right, Major. You with the face. What am I offered? What am I offered?”
When there was no sale, he greeted incoming tourists at the station-curbing with eloquent invitations to Dixieland, rich, persuasive, dominant above all the soliciting babel of the car-drivers, negro hotel-porters, and boarding-house husbands.
“I’ll give you a dollar apiece for every one you drum up,” said Eliza.
“O that’s all right.” O modestly. Generously.
“He’d give you the shirt off his back,” said Gant.
A fine boy. As she cooled from her labors in the summer night, he brought her little boxes of ice-cream from town.
He was a hustler: he sold patent washboards, trick potato-peelers, and powdered cockroach-poison from house to house. To the negroes he sold hair-oil guaranteed to straighten kinky hair, and religious lithographs, peopled with flying angels, white and black, and volant cherubs, black and white, sailing about the knees of an impartial and crucified Saviour, and subtitled “God Loves Them Both.”
They sold like hot cakes.
Otherwise, he drove Gant’s car—a 1913 five-passenger Ford, purchase of an inspired hour of madness, occupant now of half Gant’s conversation, object of abuse, boast, and anathema. It was before every one owned a car. Gant was awed and terrified by his rash act, exalted at the splendor of his chariot, appalled at its expense. Each bill for gasoline, repairs, or equipment brought a howl of anguish from him; a puncture, a breakdown, a minor disorder caused him to circle about in maddened strides, cursing, praying, weeping.
“I’ve never had a moment’s peace since I bought it,” he howled. “Accursed and bloody monster that it is, it will not be content until it has sucked out my life-blood, sold the roof over my head, and sent me out to the pauper’s grave to perish. Merciful God,” he wept, “it’s fearful, it’s awful, it’s cruel that I should be afflicted thus in my old age.” Turning to his constrained and apologetic son abruptly, he said: “How much is the bill? Hey?” His eyes roved wildly in his head.
“D-d-d-don’t get excited, papa,” Luke answered soothingly, teetering from foot to foot, “it’s only $8.92.”
“Jesus God!” Gant screamed. “I’m ruined.” Sobbing in loud burlesque sniffles, he began his caged pacing.
But it was pleasant at dusk or in the cool summer nights, with Eliza or one of his daughters beside him, and a fragrant weed between his pallid lips, to hinge his long body into the back seat, and ride out into the fragrant countryside, or through the long dark streets of town. At the approach of another car he cried out in loud alarm, by turns cursing and entreating his son to caution. Luke drove nervously, erratically, wildly—his stammering impatient hands and knees communicated their uneven fidget to the flivver. He cursed irritably, plunged in exacerbated fury at the brake, and burst out in an annoyed “tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh,” when the car stalled.
As the hour grew late, and the streets silent, his madness swelled in him. Lipping the rim of a long hill street, tree-arched and leafy and shelving in even terraces, he would burst suddenly into insane laughter, bend over the wheel, and pull the throttle open, his idiot “whah-whahs” filling the darkness as Gant screamed curses at him. Down through the night they tore at murderous speed, the boy laughing at curse and prayer alike as they shot past the blind menace of street-crossings.
“You Goddamned scoundrel!” Gant yelled. “Stop, you mountain grill, or I’ll put you in jail.”
“Whah-whah.”—His laughter soared to a crazy falsetto.
Daisy, arrived for a few weeks of summer coolness, quite blue with terror, would clutch the most recent of her annual arrivals to her breast, melodramatically, and moan:
“I beg of you, for the sake of my family, for the sake of my innocent motherless babes——”
“Whah-whah-whah!”
“He’s a fiend out of hell,” cried Gant, beginning to weep. “Cruel and criminal monster that he is, he will batter our brains out against a tree, before he’s done.” They whizzed with a perilous swerve by a car that, with a startled screech of its brakes, balked at the corner like a frightened horse.
“You damned thug!” Gant roared, plunging forward and fastening his great hands around Luke’s throat. “Will you stop?”
Luke added another notch of blazing speed. Gant fell backward with a howl of terror.
On Sunday they made long tours into the country. Often they drove to Reynoldsville, twenty-two miles away. It was an ugly little resort, noisy with arriving and departing cars, with a warm stench of oil and gasoline heavy above its broad main street. But people were coming and going from several States: Southward they came up from South Carolina and Georgia, cotton-farmers, small tradesmen and their families in battered cars coated with red sandclay dust. They had a heavy afternoon dinner of fried chicken, corn, string-beans, and sliced tomatoes, at one of the big wooden boarding-house hotels, spent another hour in a drugstore over a chocolate nut-sundae, watched the summer crowd of fortunate tourists and ripe cool-skinned virgins flow by upon the wide sidewalk in thick pullulation, and returned again, after a brief tour of the town, on the winding immediate drop to the hot South. New lands.
Fluescent with smooth ripe curves, the drawling virgins of the South filled summer porches.
Luke was a darling. He was a dear, a fine boy, a big-hearted generous fellow, and just the cutest thing. Women liked him, laughed at him, pulled fondly the thick golden curls of his hair. He was sentimentally tender to children—girls of fourteen years. He had a grand romantic feeling for Delia Selborne, the oldest daughter of Mrs. Selborne. He bought her presents, was tender and irritable by turns. Once, at Gant’s, on the porch under an August moon and the smell of ripening grapes, he caressed her while Helen sang in the parlor. He caressed her gently, leaned his head over her, and said he would like to lay it on her b-b-b-b-breast. Eugene watched them bitterly, with an inch of poison round his heart. He wanted the girl for himself: she was stupid, but she had the wise body and faint hovering smile of her mother. He wanted Mrs. Selborne more, he fantasied passionately about her yet, but her image lived again in Delia. As a result, he was proud, cold, scornful and foolish before them. They disliked him.
Enviously, with gnawn heart, he observed Luke’s ministrations to Mrs. Selborne. His service was so devout, so extravagant that even Helen grew annoyed and occasionally jealous. And nightly, from a remote corner at Gant’s or Eliza’s, or from a parked automobile before the house, he heard her rich welling laughter, full of tenderness, surrender, and mystery. Sometimes, waiting in pitch darkness on the stairs at Eliza’s, at one or two o’clock in the morning, he felt her pass him. As she touched him in the dark, she gave a low cry of terror; with an uncivil grunt he reassured her, and descended to bed with a pounding heart and burning face.
Ah, yes, he thought, with green morality, observing his brother throned in laughter and affection, you Big Fool, you—you’re just a sucker! You show off and act big, my sonny, and spend your money bringing ice-cream for them—but what do you get out of it? How do you feel when she gets out of an automobile at two o’clock in the morning after grunting in the dark with some damned travelling-man, or with old Poxy Logan who’s been keeping a nigger woman up for years. “May I p-p-p-put my head on your breast?” You make me sick, you damned fool. She’s no better, only you don’t know beans. She’ll let you spend all your money on her and then she’ll run off with some little pimp in an automobile for the rest of the night. Yes, that’s so. Do you want to make anything out of it? You big bluff. Come out into the back yard. . . . I’ll show you . . . take that . . . and that . . . and that . . .
Pumping his fists wildly, he fought his phantom into defeat and himself into exhaustion.
Luke had several hundred dollars saved from The Saturday Evening Post days, when he went off to school. He accepted very little money from Gant. He waited on tables, he solicited for college boarding-houses, he was the agent for a tailor who made Kippy Kampus Klothes. Gant boasted of these efforts. The town shifted its quid, nodded pertly, and spat, saying:
“That boy’ll make his mark.”
Luke worked as hard for an education as any other self-made man. He made every sacrifice. He did everything but study.
He was an immense popular success, so very extra, so very Luky. The school sought and adored him. Twice, after football games, he mounted a hearse and made funeral orations over the University of Georgia.
But, in spite of all his effort, toward the end of his third year he was still a sophomore, with every prospect of remaining one. One day in Spring he wrote the following letter to Gant:
“The b-b-b-bastards who r-r-run this place have it in for me. I’ve been c-c-c-crooked good and proper. They take your hard-earned m-m-money here and skin you. I’m g-g-g-going to a real school.”
He went to Pittsburgh and found work with the Westinghouse Electric Company. Three times a week at night he attended courses at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He made friends.
The war had come. After fifteen months in Pittsburgh he moved on to Dayton where he got employment at a boiler factory engaged in the fabrication of war materials.
From time to time, in summer for a few weeks, at Christmas for a few days, he returned to celebrate his holidays with his family. Always he brought Gant a suitcase stocked with beer and whisky. That boy was “good to his father.”
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19
One afternoon in the young summer, Gant leaned upon the rail, talking to Jannadeau. He was getting on to sixty-five, his erect body had settled, he stooped a little. He spoke of old age often, and he wept in his tirades now because of his stiffened hand. Soaked in pity, he referred to himself as “the poor old cripple who has to provide for them all.”
The indolence of age and disintegration was creeping over him. He now rose a full hour later, he came to his shop punctually, but he spent long hours of the day extended on the worn leather couch of his office, or in gossip with Jannadeau, bawdy old Liddell, Cardiac, and Fagg Sluder, who had salted away his fortune in two big buildings on the Square and was at the present moment tilted comfortably in a chair before the fire department, gossiping eagerly with members of the ball club, whose chief support he was. It was after five o’clock, the game was over.
Negro laborers, grisly with a white coating of cement, sloped down past the shop on their way home. The draymen dispersed slowly, a slouchy policeman loafed down the steps of the city hall picking his teeth, and on the market side, from high grilled windows, there came the occasional howls of a drunken negress. Life buzzed slowly like a fly.
The sun had reddened slightly, there was a cool flowing breath from the hills, a freshening relaxation over the tired earth, the hope, the ecstasy of evening in the air. In slow pulses the thick plume of fountain rose, fell upon itself, and slapped the pool in lazy rhythms. A wagon rattled leanly over the big cobbles; beyond the firemen, the grocer Bradley wound up his awning with slow creaking revolutions.
Across the Square, at its other edge, the young virgins of the eastern part of town walked lightly home in chattering groups. They came to town at four o’clock in the afternoon, walked up and down the little avenue several times, entered a shop to purchase small justifications, and finally went into the chief drugstore, where the bucks of the town loafed and drawled in lazy alert groups. It was their club, their brasserie, the forum of the sexes. With confident smiles the young men detached themselves from their group and strolled back to booth and table.
“Hey theah! Wheahd you come from?”
“Move ovah theah, lady. I want to tawk to you.”
Eyes as blue as Southern skies looked roguishly up to laughing gray ones, the winsome dimples deepened, and the sweetest little tail in dear old Dixie slid gently over on the polished board.
Gant spent delightful hours now in the gossip of dirty old men—their huddled bawdry exploded in cracked high wheezes on the Square. He came home at evening stored with gutter tidings, wetting his thumb and smiling slyly as he questioned Helen hopefully:
“She’s no better than a regular little chippie—eh?”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-,” she laughed mockingly. “Don’t you wish you knew?”
His age bore certain fruits, emoluments of service. When she came home in the evening with one of her friends, she presented the girl with jocose eagerness to his embrace. And, crying out paternally, “Why, bless her heart! Come kiss the old man,” he planted bristling mustache kisses on their white throats, their soft lips, grasping the firm meat of one arm tenderly with his good hand and cradling them gently. They shrieked with throaty giggle-twiddles of pleasure because it tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tickled so.
“Ooh! Mr. Gant! Whah-whah-whah!”
“Your father’s such a nice man,” they said. “Such lovely manners.”
Helen’s eyes fed fiercely on them. She laughed with husky-harsh excitement.
“Hah-ha-ha! He likes that, doesn’t he? It’s too bad, old boy, isn’t it? No more monkey business.”
He talked with Jannadeau, while his fugitive eyes roved over the east end of the Square. Before the shop the comely matrons of the town came up from the market. From time to time they smiled, seeing him, and he bowed sweepingly. Such lovely manners.
“The King of England,” he observed, “is only a figurehead. He doesn’t begin to have the power of the President of the United States.”
“His power is severely limited,” said Jannadeau gutturally, “by custom but not by statute. In actuality he is still one of the most powerful monarchs in the world.” His thick black fingers probed carefully into the viscera of a watch.
“The late King Edward for all his faults,” said Gant, wetting his thumb, “was a smart man. This fellow they’ve got now is a nonentity and a nincompoop.” He grinned faintly, craftily, with pleasure at the big words, glancing slily at the Swiss to see if they had told.
His uneasy eyes followed carefully the stylish carriage of “Queen” Elizabeth’s well clad figure as she went down by the shop. She smiled pleasantly, and for a moment turned her candid stare upon smooth marble slabs of death, carved lambs and cherubim. Gant bowed elaborately.
“Good-evening, madam,” he said.
She disappeared. In a moment she came back decisively and mounted the broad steps. He watched her approach with quickened pulses. Twelve years.
“How’s the madam?” he said gallantly. “Elizabeth, I was just telling Jannadeau you were the most stylish woman in town.”
“Well, that’s mighty sweet of you, Mr. Gant,” she said in her cool poised voice. “You’ve always got a word for every one.”
She gave a bright pleasant nod to Jannadeau, who swung his huge scowling head ponderously around and muttered at her.
“Why, Elizabeth,” said Gant, “you haven’t changed an inch in fifteen years. I don’t believe you’re a day older.”
She was thirty-eight and pleasantly aware of it.
“Oh, yes,” she said laughing. “You’re only saying that to make me feel good. I’m no chicken any more.”
She had a pale clear skin, pleasantly freckled, carrot-colored hair, and a thin mouth live with humor. Her figure was trim and strong—no longer young. She had a great deal of energy, distinction, and elegance in her manner.
“How are all the girls, Elizabeth?” he asked kindly.
Her face grew sad. She began to pull her gloves off.
“That’s what I came to see you about,” she said. “I lost one of them last week.”
“Yes,” said Gant gravely, “I was sorry to hear of that.”
“She was the best girl I had,” said Elizabeth. “I’d have done anything in the world for her. We did everything we could,” she added. “I’ve no regrets on that score. I had a doctor and two trained nurses by her all the time.”
She opened her black leather handbag, thrust her gloves into it, and pulling out a small bluebordered handkerchief, began to weep quietly.
“Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh,” said Gant, shaking his head. “Too bad, too bad, too bad. Come back to my office,” he said. They went back and sat down. Elizabeth dried her eyes.
“What was her name?” he asked.
“We called her Lily—her full name was Lillian Reed.”
“Why, I knew that girl,” he exclaimed. “I spoke to her not over two weeks ago.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, “she went like that—one hemorrhage right after another, down here.” She tapped her abdomen. “Nobody ever knew she was sick until last Wednesday. Friday she was gone.” She wept again.
“T-t-t-t-t-t,” he clucked regretfully. “Too bad, too bad. She was pretty as a picture.”
“I couldn’t have loved her more, Mr. Gant,” said Elizabeth, “if she had been my own daughter.”
“How old was she?” he asked
“Twenty-two,” said Elizabeth, beginning to weep again.
“What a pity! What a pity!” he agreed. “Did she have any people?”
“No one who would do anything for her,” Elizabeth said. “Her mother died when she was thirteen—she was born out here on the Beetree Fork—and her father,” she added indignantly, “is a mean old bastard who’s never done anything for her or any one else. He didn’t even come to her funeral.”
“He will be punished,” said Gant darkly.
“As sure as there’s a God in heaven,” Elizabeth agreed, “he’ll get what’s coming to him in hell. The old bastard!” she continued virtuously, “I hope he rots!”
“You can depend upon it,” he said grimly. “He will. Ah, Lord.” He was silent a moment while he shook his head with slow regret.
“A pity, a pity,” he muttered. “So young.” He had the moment of triumph all men have when they hear some one has died. A moment, too, of grisly fear. Sixty-four.
“I couldn’t have loved her more,” said Elizabeth, “if she’d been one of my own. A young girl like that, with all her life before her.”
