Ironweed (1984 Pulitzer Prize) - William Kennedy [17]
“Oh no. You’re in the beyond.”
“Honest,” said the young man. “Two bottles of beer.”
“Where did you get the money for beer?”
“A fella paid me what he owed me.”
“You panhandled it.”
“No.”
“You’re a bum.”
“I just had a drink, Reverend.”
“Get your things together. I told you I wouldn’t put up with this a third time. Arthur, get his bags.”
Pee Wee stood up from the table and climbed the stairs to the rooms where the resident handful lived while they sorted out their lives. The preacher had invited Francis to stay if he could get the hooch out of his system. He would then have a clean bed, clean clothes, three squares, and a warm room with Jesus in it for as long as it took him to answer the question: What next? Pee Wee held the house record: eight months in the joint, and managing it after three, such was his zeal for abstention. No booze, no smoking upstairs (for drunks are fire hazards), carry your share of the work load, and then rise you must, rise you will, into the brilliant embrace of the just God. The kitchen volunteers stopped their work and came forward with solemnized pity to watch the eviction of one of their promising young men. Pee Wee came down with a suitcase and set it by the door.
“Give us a cigarette, Pee,” the young man said.
“Don’t have any.”
“Well roll one.”
“I said I don’t have any tobacco.”
“Oh.”
“You’ll have to leave now, Little Red,” the preacher said.
Helen stood up and came over to Little Red and put a cigarette in his hand. He took it and said nothing. Helen struck a match and lit it for him, then sat back down.
“I don’t have anyplace to go,” Little Red said, blowing smoke past the preacher.
“You should have thought of that before you started drinking. You are a contumacious young man.”
“I got noplace to put that bag. And I got a pencil and paper upstairs.”
“Leave it here. Come and get your pencil and paper when you get that poison out of your system and you can talk sense about yourself.”
“My pants are in there.”
“They’ll be all right. Nobody here will touch your pants.”
“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