Ironweed - William Kennedy [17]
“Can I have a cup of coffee?”
“If you found money for beer, you can find money for coffee.”
“Where can I go?”
“I couldn’t begin to imagine. Come back sober and you may have some food. Now get a move on.”
Little Red grabbed the doorknob, opened the door, and took a step. Then he stepped back in and pointed at his suitcase.
“I got cigarettes there,” he said.
“Then get your cigarettes.”
Little Red undid the belt that held the suitcase together and rummaged for a pack of Camels. He rebuckled the belt and stood up.
“If I come back tomorrow…”
“We’ll see about tomorrow,” said the preacher, who grabbed the doorknob himself and pulled it to as he ushered Little Red out into the night.
“Don’t lose my pants,” Little Red called through the glass of the closing door.
o o o
Francis, wearing his new socks, was first out of the mission, first to cast an anxious glance around the corner of the building at Sandra, who sat propped where he had left her, her eyes sewn as tightly closed by the darkness as the eyes of a diurnal bird. Francis touched her firmly with a finger and she moved, but without opening her eyes. He looked up at the full moon, a silver cinder illuminating this night for bleeding women and frothing madmen, and which warmed him with the enormous shadow it thrust forward in his own path. When Sandra moved he leaned over and put the back of his hand against her cheek and felt the ice of her flesh.
“You got an old blanket or some old rags, any old bum’s coat to throw over her?” he asked Pee Wee, who stood in the shadows considering the encounter.
“I could get something,” Pee Wee said, and he loosened his keys and opened the door of the darkened mission: all lights off save the kitchen, which would remain bright until eleven, lockout time. Pee Wee opened the door and entered as Rudy, Helen, and Francis huddled around Sandra, watching her breathe. Francis had watched two dozen people suspire into death, all of them bums except for his father, and Gerald.
“Maybe if we cut her throat the ambulance’d take her,” Francis said.
“She doesn’t want an ambulance,” Helen said. “She wants to sleep it all away. I’ll bet she doesn’t even feel cold.”
“She’s a cake of ice.”
Sandra moved, turning her head toward the voices but without opening her eyes. “You got no wine?” she asked.
“No wine, honey,” Helen said.
Pee Wee came out with a stone-gray rag that might once have been a blanket and wrapped its rough doubleness around Sandra. He tucked it into the neck of her sweater, and with one end formed a cowl behind her head, giving her the look of a monastic beggar in sackcloth.
“I don’t want to look at her no more,” Francis said, and he walked east on Madison, the deepening chill aggravating his limp. Helen and Pee Wee fell in behind him, and Rudy after that.
“You ever know her, Pee Wee?” Francis asked. “I mean when she was in shape?”
“Sure. Everybody knew her. You took your turn. Then she got to givin’ love parties, is what she called ‘em. but she’d turn mean, first love you up and then bite you bad. Half-ruined enough guys so only strangers’d go with her. Then she stopped that and hung out with one bum name of Freddy and they specialized in one another about a year till he went somewheres and she didn’t.”
“Nobody suffers like a lover left behind,” Helen said.
“Well that’s a crock,” Francis said. “Lots suffer ain’t ever been in love even once.”
“They don’t suffer like those who have,” said Helen.
“Yeah. Where’s this joint, Pee Wee, Green Street?”
“Right. Couple of blocks. Where the old Gayety Theater used to be.”
“I used to go there. Watch them ladies’ ankles and cancanny crotches.”
“Be nice, Francis,” Helen said.
“I’m nice. I’m the nicest thing you’ll see all week.”
Goblins came at them on Green Street, hooded spooks, a Charlie Chaplin in whiteface, with derby, cane, and tash, and a girl wearing an enormous old bonnet with a fullsized bird on top of it.
“They gonna get us!” Francis said. “Look out!” He threw his arms in the air and shook himself in a fearful dance. The children laughed and spooked boo at him.