The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [118]
Several times a night he passes through the main room where forty or fifty men are sleeping uneasily on their iron cots, and he listens to the constant soft coughing and smells the harsh styptic formalin and the bodies of the old drunks, a crabbed smell, glum and soured. The hallways and the bathroom stink of disinfectant, and over the urinals there is almost always a drunk retching his liquor, holding dreamily to the porcelain near the flush lever. He closes the door and goes into the card room, where a few old men are playing pinochle around an old round table, the floor under them black with grease and cigarette ends. Red listens to their talk, mumbled and unfinished.
Maggie Kennedy was a fine figure of a woman, she said to me, now, what was it she said?
I told Tommy Muldoon he had no call to be running me in, and when I got done, he let me go I'll tell you that. They're afraid of me ever since I broke Ricchio's jaw, you know he was the precinct sergeant, back in, well, now wait a minute and I'll tell you the date, I broke his jaw with one punch back in a New Year's night eight year ago, 1924 it was, no, wait a moment back in 1933 that's closer to it.
The standing gag. Hey, you rummies, pipe down goddammit we got some paying guests in the next room. I'll run you out.
They're silent for a moment and then one of them says in his low mumbling voice, You ain't so smart, young feller, and ifen you don't shut your mouth I'll be obliged to whop you.
Come on down in the street, and I'll take you on.
Then one of them comes up to Red, and whispers to him, You better leave him alone 'cause he'll throw you down the stairs, the last night man he broke his neck.
Yeah. Red grins. I'm sorry I disturbed ya, pop, I'll be minding my manners.
You do that, son, and you and me won't have no trouble.
Across the street, they can hear a jukebox grinding in a barroom.
Back behind the night desk, Red turns on his radio and plays it softly. (THE LEAVES OF BROWN CAME TUMBLING DOWN.) One of the men awakens screaming. Red goes into the hall and quiets him, patting him on the shoulder and leading him back to his cot.
In the morning the bums dress hurriedly, and the big room is empty by seven. They hustle along the chill streets in the dawn, their caps pulled down to their eyes, and their old jacket collars scrounged around their necks. As if they were ashamed, they won't look at one another, and like automatons most of them line up in the alleys off Canal Street for the coffee they receive from soup kitchens. Red walks through the streets for a while before he catches the bus up to West 27th. The long night is always depressing.
He looks at his feet striding along. Nothing's worth a good goddam.
But back in their furnished room, Lois is cooking his breakfast on a hotplate, and the kid, Jackie, comes running up to him, shows him a new schoolbook. Red feels tired and happy.
Yeah, that's nice, kid, he says, patting him on the shoulder.
When Jackie has left for school, Lois sits down to eat breakfast with him. Since he has been working in the flophouse they have only their mornings together. At eleven she leaves for the restaurant.
The eggs dry enough for you, honey? she asks.
Yeah, swell.
Outside, in the new morning, some trucks are grinding by on Tenth Avenue. The traffic has an early-morning sound. Jesus, this is okay, he says aloud.
You like it, huh, Red.
Yeah.
She fingers her glass. Listen, Red, I went to see a lawyer yesterday about gettin' a divorce from Mike.
Yeah?
I can do it for a hundred dollars, a little more maybe, but should I, I mean whatthehell if nothing should come of it, maybe it'd be better not to.
I dunno, kid, he says to her.
Red, I ain't askin' you to get married, you