The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [42]
But all the time--no matter what she was doing--there was music. Sometimes she hummed to herself as she walked, and other times she listened quietly to the songs inside her. There were all kinds of music in her thoughts. Some she heard over radios, and some was in her mind already without her ever having heard it anywhere.
In the night-time, as soon as the kids were in bed, she was free. That was the most important time of all. A lot of things happened when she was by herself and it was dark. Right after supper she ran out of the house again. She couldn’t tell anybody about the things she did at night, and when her Mama asked her questions she would answer with any little tale that sounded reasonable. But most of the time if anybody called her she just ran away like she hadn’t heard. That went for everybody except her Dad. There was something about her Dad’s voice she couldn’t run away from. He was one of the biggest, tallest men in the whole town. But his voice was so quiet and kindly that people were surprised when he spoke.
No matter how much of a hurry she was in, she always had to stop when her Dad called.
This summer she realized something about her Dad she had never known before. Up until then she had never thought about him as being a real separate person. A lot of times he would call her. She would go in the front room where he worked and stand by him a couple of minutes--but when she listened to him her mind was never on the things he said to her. Then one night she suddenly realized about her Dad. Nothing unusual happened that night and she didn’t know what it was that made her understand. Afterward she felt older and as though she knew him as good as she could know any person.
It was a night in late August and she was in a big rush. She had to be at this house by nine o’clock, and no maybe either.
Her Dad called and she went into the front room. He was sitting slumped over his workbench. For some reason it never did seem natural to see him there. Until the time of his accident last year he had been a painter and carpenter. Before daylight every morning he would leave the house in his overalls, to be gone all day. Then at night sometimes he fiddled around with clocks as an extra work. A lot of times he had tried to get a job in a jewelry store where he could sit by himself at a desk all day with a clean white shirt on and a tie.
Now when he couldn’t carpenter any more he had put a sign at the front of the house reading ‘Clocks and Watches Repaired Cheap.’ But he didn’t look like most jewelers--the ones downtown were quick, dark little Jew men. Her Dad was too tall for his workbench, and his big bones seemed joined together in a loose way.
Her Dad just stared at her. She could tell he didn’t have any reason for calling. He only wanted real bad to talk to her. He tried to think of some way to begin. His brown eyes were too big for his long, thin face, and since he had lost every single hair the pale, bald top of his head gave him a naked look. He looked at her without speaking and she was in a hurry.
She had to be at that house by nine sharp and there was no time to waste. Her Dad saw she was in a hurry and he cleared his throat ‘I got something for you,’ he said. ‘Nothing much, but maybe you can treat yourself with it.’
He didn’t have to give her any nickel or dime just because he was lonesome and wanted to talk. Out of what he made he only kept enough to have beer about twice a week. Two bottles were on the floor by his chair now, one empty and one just opened. And whenever he drank beer he liked to talk to somebody. Her Dad fumbled with his belt and she looked away. This summer he had gotten like a