Ironweed (1984 Pulitzer Prize) - William Kennedy [27]
“Things ain’t been goin’ too good for Clara,” Jack said, turning off the phonograph.
“I’m still trottin’,” Clara said.
“Well you look pretty good for a sick lady,” Francis said. “Look as good as usual to me.”
Clara smiled over the rim of her wineglass at Francis.
“Nobody,” said Helen, “asked how things are going for me, but I’ll tell you. They’re going just wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“She’s drunker than hell,” Francis said.
“Oh I’m loaded to the gills,” Helen said, giggling. “I can hardly walk.”
“You ain’t drunk even a nickel’s worth,” Jack said. “Franny’s the drunk one. You’re hopeless, right. Franny?”
“Helen’ll never amount to nothin’ if she stays with me,” Francis said.
“I always thought you were an intelligent man,” Jack said, and he swallowed half his wine, “but you can’t be, you can’t be.”
“You could be mistaken,” Helen said.
“Keep out of it,” Francis told her, and he hooked a thumb at her, facing Jack. “There’s enough right there to put you in the loony bin, just worryin’ about where she’s gonna live, where she’s gonna stay.”
“I think you could be a charmin’ man,” Jack said, “if you’d only get straight. You could have twenty dollars in your pocket at all times, make fifty, seventy-five a week, have a beautiful apartment with everything you want in it, all you want to drink, once you get straight.”
“I worked today up at the cemetery,” Francis said.
“Steady work?” asked Jack.
“Just today. Tomorrow I gotta see a fella needs some liftin’ done. The old back’s still tough enough.”
“You keep workin’ you’ll have fifty in your pocket.”
“I had fifty, I’d spend it on her,” Francis said. “Or buy a pair of shoes. Other pair wore out and Harry over at the old clothes joint give ‘em to me for a quarter. He seen me half barefoot and says, Francis you can’t go around like that, and he give me these. But they don’t fit right and I only got one of ‘em laced. Twine there in the other one. I got a shoestring in my pocket but ain’t put it in yet.”
“You mean you got the shoelace and you didn’t put it in the shoe?” Clara asked.
“I got it in my pocket,” Francis said.
“Then put it in the shoe.”
“I think it’s in this pocket here. You know where it is, Helen?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“Look and see,” Clara said.
“She wants me to put a shoestring in my shoe,” Francis said.
“Right,” said Clara.
Francis stopped fumbling in his pocket and let his hands fall away.
“I’m renegin’,” he said.
“You’re what?” Clara asked.
“I’m renegin’ and I don’t like to do that.”
o o o
Francis put down his wine, walked to the bathroom, and sat on the toilet, cover down, trying to understand why he’d lied about a shoestring. He smelled the odor that came up from his fetid crotch and stood up then and dropped his trousers. He stepped out of them, then pulled off his shorts and threw them in the sink. He lifted the toilet cover and sat on the seat, and with Jack’s soap and handfuls of water from the bowl, he washed his genitals and buttocks, and all their encrusted orifices, crevices, and secret folds. He rinsed himself, relathered, and rinsed again. He dried himself with one of Jack’s towels, picked his shorts out of the sink, and mopped the floor with them where he had splashed water. Then he filled the sink with hot water and soaked the shorts. He soaped them and they separated into two pieces in his hands. He let the water out of the sink, wrung the shorts, and put them in his coat pocket. He opened the door a crack and called out: “Hey, Jack,” and when Jack came, Francis hid his nakedness with a towel.
“Jack, old buddy, you got an old pair of shorts? Any old pair. Mine just ripped all to hell.”
“I’ll go look.”
“Could I borry the use of your