The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [120]
The show-owner spent most of his time playing cards with himself in his trailer. His eyes were dull, with the pupils shrunken, and the skin of his neck hung in yellow, pulpy folds.
During the past few months Jake had had two raises in pay. At midnight it was his job to report to Patterson and hand over the takings of the evening. Sometimes Patterson did not notice him until he had been in the trailer for several minutes; he would be staring at the cards, sunk in a stupor. The air of the trailer was heavy with the stinks of food and reefers. Patterson held his hand over his stomach as though protecting it from something. He always checked over the accounts very thoroughly.
Jake and the two operators had a squabble. These men were both former doffers at one of the mills. At first he had tried to talk to them and help them to see the truth. Once he invited them to a pool room for a drink. But they were so dumb he couldn’t help them. Soon after this he overheard the conversation between them that caused the trouble. It was an early Sunday morning, almost two o’clock, and he had been checking the accounts with Patterson. When he stepped out of the trailer the grounds seemed empty. The moon was bright.
He was thinking of Singer and the free day ahead. Then as he passed by the swings he heard someone speak his name. The two operators had finished work and were smoking together. Jake listened.
‘If there’s anything I hate worse than a nigger it’s a Red.’
‘He tickles me. I don’t pay him no mind. The way he struts around. I never seen such a sawed-off runt. How tall is he, you reckon?’
‘Around five foot But he thinks he got to tell everybody so much. He oughta be in jail. That’s where. The Red Bolshevik.’
‘He just tickles me. I can’t look at him without laughing.’
‘He needn’t act biggity with me.’
Jake watched them follow the path toward Weavers Lane. His first thought was to rush out and confront them, but a certain shrinking held him back. For several days he fumed in silence.
Then one night after work he followed the two men for several blocks and as they turned a corner he cut in front of them.
‘I heard you,’ he said breathlessly. ‘It so happened I heard every word you said last Saturday night. Sure I’m a Red. At least I reckon I am. But what are you?’ They stood beneath a street light. The two men stepped back from him. The neighborhood was deserted. ‘You pasty-faced, shrunk-gutted, ricket-ridden little rats! I could reach out and choke your stringy necks--one to each hand. Runt or no, I could lay you on this sidewalk where they’d have to scrape you up with shovels.’
The two men looked at each other, cowed, and tried to walk on. But Jake would not let them pass. He kept step with them, walking backward, a furious sneer on his face.
‘All I got to say is this: In the future I suggest you come to me whenever you feel the need to make remarks about my height, weight, accent, demeanor, or ideology. And that last is not what I take a leak with either--case you don’t know. We will discuss it together.’
Afterward Jake treated the two men with angry contempt.
Behind his back they jeered at him. One afternoon he found that the engine of the swings had been deliberately damaged and he had to work three hours overtime to fix it. Always he felt someone was laughing at him. Each time he heard the girls talking together he drew himself up straight and laughed carelessly aloud to himself as though thinking of some private joke. The warm southwest winds from the Gulf of Mexico were heavy with the smells of spring. The days grew longer and the sun was bright. The lazy warmth depressed him. He began to drink again. As soon as work was done he went home and lay down on his bed. Sometimes he stayed there, fully clothed and inert, for twelve or thirteen hours. The restlessness that had caused him to sob and bite his nails only a few months before seemed to have gone. And yet beneath his inertia Jake felt the old tension. Of all the places he had been this was the loneliest town of all. Or it would be without Singer. Only he and Singer understood the truth. He knew and could not get the don