All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [124]
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“Do you want the bread?” the old Mexican asked.
The Scholarly Attorney turned to him. “Yes, thank you. If it is convenient.”
The Mexican rose, went to the end of the counter, and took a largish brown paper bag full of something, and handed it to the other.
“Thank you,” the Scholarly Attorney said, “thank you very much, sir.”
“De nada,” the Mexican said, bowing.
“I wish you a good evening,” the Scholarly Attorney said, and bowed to the man, then to the woman, with an inclination of the head which again twitched the old recollection in me of the room in the white house by the sea.
Then I followed him out of the restaurant, into the street. Across the street lay the little park of trampled brown grass, now glistening with moisture, where the bums sat on benches and the pigeons cooed softly like an easy conscience and defecated in delicate little lime-white pinches on the cement around the fountain. I looked at the pigeons, then at the bulged-open bag, which, I observed, was full of bread crusts. “Are you going to feed the pigeons?” I asked.
“No, it is for George,” he said, moving toward the doorway that led above.
“You keeping a dog?”
“No,” he said, and led the way into the vestibule, and up the wooden stairs.
“What is George, then? A parrot?”
“No,” he said, wheezily, for the steps were steep, “George is an unfortunate.”
That meant, I remembered, a bum. An unfortunate is a bum who is fortunate enough to get his foot inside a softy’s door and stay there. If he gets a good berth he is promoted from bum to unfortunate. The Scholarly Attorney had, on several occasions before, taken in unfortunates. One unfortunate had popped the organist down at the mission where the Scholarly Attorney operated. Another unfortunate had lifted his watch and Phi Beta Kappa key.
So George was another unfortunate. I looked at the bread, and said, “Well, he must be pretty unfortunate if that’s what he’s got to eat.
“He eats some of it,” the Scholarly Attorney said, “but that is almost accidental. He uses it in his work. But some of it slips down, I am sure, and that is why he is never hungry. Except for sweets,” he added.
“How in God’s name does he use bread crusts in his work and the bread crusts slip down his throat?”
“Do not take the name of the Lord in vain,” he said. And added, “George’s work, it’s very clever. And artistic. You will see.”
I saw. We got to the top of the second flight, turned in the narrow hall under cracked skylight, and entered a door. There was what I took to be George, in one corner of the big, sparsely furnished room, sitting tailor-fashion on a piece of old blanket, with a couple of big mixing bowls in front of him., and a big piece of plywood about two feet by four lying on the floor by him.
George looked up when we came in and said, “I ain’t got any more bread.”
“Here it is,” the Scholarly Attorney said, and took the brown bag to him.
George emptied the crusts into one of the bowls, then stuck a piece into his mouth and began to chew, soberly and purposively. He was a fair-sized, muscular man, with a hell of a strong-looking neck, and the tendons in his neck worked and pulled slickly while he chewed. He had yellow hair, almost gone, and a smooth, flat face with blue eyes. While he chewed he just looked straight ahead at a spot cross the room.
“What does he do that for?” I asked.
“He’s making an angel.”
“Well,” I said. And just then George leaned forward over one of the bowls and let the thoroughly masticated bread drop from his mouth into the bowl. The he put another crust into his mouth.
“There is one he has finished,” the Scholarly Attorney said, and pointed at another corner of the room, where another piece of plywood was propped up. I went to examine it. At one end, the figure of an angel, with wings and flowing drapery, had been executed in bas-relief in what looked like putty. “That one is just drying,” the Scholarly Attorney said. “When it gets good and dry, he’ll color it. Then he’ll shellac it. Then the board will be painted