Ironweed (1984 Pulitzer Prize) - William Kennedy [25]
“I went to the kid’s grave today,” Francis said.
“What kid?”
“Gerald.”
“Oh, you did?” she said. “Then that was the first time, wasn’t it? It must’ve been.”
“Right.”
“You’re thinking about him these days. You mentioned him last week.”
“I never stop thinkin’ about him.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
Francis saw the street that lay before him: Pearl Street, the central vessel of this city, city once his, city lost. The commerce along with its walls jarred him: so much new, stores gone out of business he never even heard of. Some things remained: Whitney’s, Myers’, the old First Church, which rose over Clinton Square, the Pruyn Library. As he walked, the cobblestones turned to granite, houses became stores, life aged, died, renewed itself, and a vision of what had been and what might have been intersected in an eye that could not really remember one or interpret the other. What would you give never to have left, Francis?
“I said, what’s got into you?”
“Nothin’s got into me. I’m just thinkin’ about a bunch of stuff. This old street. I used to own this street, once upon a time.”
“You should’ve sold it when you had the chance.”
“Money. I ain’t talkin’ about money.”
“I didn’t think you were. That was a funny.”
“Wasn’t much funny. I said I saw Gerald’s grave. I talked to him.”
“Talked? How did you talk?”
“Stood and talked to the damn grass. Maybe I’m gettin’ nutsy as Rudy. He can’t hold his pants up, they fall over his shoes.”
“You’re not nutsy, Francis. It’s because you’re here. We shouldn’t be here. We should go someplace else.”
“Right. That’s where we oughta go. Else.”
“Don’t drink any more tonight.”
“Listen here. Don’t you nag my ass.”
“I want you straight, please. I want you straight.”
“I’m the straightest thing you’ll see all week. I am so straight. I’m the straightest thing you’ll sweek. The thing that happened on the other side of the street. The thing that happened was Billy told me stuff about Annie. I never told you that. Billy told me stuff about Annie, how she never told I dropped him.”
“Never told who, the police?”
“Never nobody. Never a damn soul. Not Billy, not Peg, not her brother, not her sisters. Ain’t that the somethin’est thing you ever heard? I can’t see a woman goin’ through that stuff and not tellin’ nobody about it.”
“You’ve got a lot to say about those people.”
“Not much to say.”
“Maybe you ought to go see them.”
“No, that wouldn’t do no good.”
“You’d get it out of your system.”
“What out of my system?”
“Whatever it is that’s in there.”
“Never mind about my system. How come you wouldn’t stay at the mission when you got an invite?”
“I don’t want their charity.”
“You ate their soup.”
“I did not. All I had was coffee. Anyway, I don’t like Chester. He doesn’t like Catholics.”
“Catholics don’t like Methodists. What the hell, that’s even. And I don’t see any Catholic missions down here. I ain’t had any Catholic soup lately.”
“I won’t do it and that’s that.”
“So freeze your ass someplace. Your flower’s froze already.”
“Let it freeze.”
“You sang a song at least.”
“Yes I did. I sang while Sandra was dying.”
“She’da died no matter. Her time was up.”
“No, I don’t believe that. That’s fatalism. I believe we die when we can’t stand it anymore. I believe we stand as much as we can and then we die when we can, and Sandra decided she could die.”
“I don’t fight that. Die when you can. That’s as good a sayin’ as there is.”
“I’m glad we agree on something,” Helen said.
“We get along all right. You ain’t a bad sort.”
“You’re all right too.”
“We’re both all right,” Francis said, “and we ain’t got a damn penny and noplace to flop. We on the bum. Let’s get the hell up to Jack’s before he puts the lights out on us.”
Helen slipped her arm inside Francis’s. Across the street Aldo Campione and Dick Doolan, who in the latter years of his life was known as Rowdy Dick, kept silent pace.
o o o
Helen pulled her arm away