The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [125]
‘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’t-knows to see. It was like trying to fight darkness or heat or a stink in the air. He stared morosely out of his window. A stunted, smoked-blackened tree at the corner had put out new leaves of a bilious green. The sky was always a deep, hard blue. The mosquitoes from a fetid stream that ran through this part of the town buzzed in the room.
He caught the itch. He mixed some sulphur and hog fat and greased his body every morning. He clawed himself raw and it seemed that the itching would never be soothed. One night he broke loose. He had been sitting alone for many hours. He had mixed gin and whiskey and was very drunk. It was almost morning. He leaned out of the window and looked at the dark silent street. He thought of all the people around him.
Sleeping. The don’t-knows. Suddenly he bawled out in a loud voice: ‘This is the truth! You bastards don’t know anything. You don’t know. You don’t know!’
The street awoke angrily. Lamps were lighted and sleepy curses were called to him. The men who lived in the house rattled furiously on his door. The girls from a cat-house across the street stuck their heads out of the windows.
‘You dumb dumb dumb dumb bastards. You dumb dumb dumb dumb--’
‘Shuddup! Shuddup! The fellows in the hall were pushing against the door: .You drunk bull! You’ll be a sight dumber when we get thu with