The Man Who Was Left Behind Read online

  Before he found the park, Mr. Mackenzie sometimes used to sit in the laundramats. Not for long, because he was in the way, with the women taking out the wet clothes and putting them into the dryers and trying to keep their children under control. But he liked to sit there for a while, knowing the street was there just outside and he could get out if he wanted to. He had been told to go from several laundramats. Even in the summer. But especially now in the cold weather, the supervisors kept an eye out for tramps who came in there to sit where it was warm. He’d been thrown out of this particular one at the beginning of October.

  He peered through the window. He began to cough and saw spots. He walked up to the glass and put his nose against it, cold, and leaned there, looking in and not seeing the superintendent. But somehow he no longer wanted to go inside as he had while passing.

  Next to him on the street stood two women, talking. They both had baby carriages with them and one held the hand of a little girl. Ap-yap-yak-ak they talked. Why did they have to shout like that? Throwing their arms around. People stare at a crazy person muttering and shouting through the streets, but what was the difference? Just that the crazy one is alone, and maybe that’s what the word meant.

  The mother of the little girl had a bandana over her head and her hair tied around silver things underneath it; small poppy rat eyes, a long lip, and one of those noses that looks as if it’s taking offence at what the face is directed towards. He noticed that the little girl was staring at him, sour-faced, the duplicate of the other. Suddenly she stuck out her tongue at him. He had to laugh. She stuck it out even farther and made it sound.

  “That’s a nice trick. Bet you learned that from your mother,” he said.

  The child tugged at her mother’s stretchy pants and started to yell, tears running down her mean little face, and the mother turned around, shrieking, “What the hell are you doing to my child you filthy bum you dirty old man stinking of liquor too quick Mabel call a cop you lousy—” and so on. The child yelled louder and buried her face in the trousers, wishing it was a skirt no doubt, for he could see that really she was gloating, shaking with satisfaction and glee in spite of the tears. Then the mother pressed her child’s head to her thigh, covering its ears with her hands, shouting at him. All those old army phrases of abuse, they hadn’t changed since nineteen fourteen. He moved off.

  He went to another bar, one he knew well. A daytime bar. At night it was so crowded you couldn’t sit down unless you came in early, and then it was difficult to get out, easier to stay there until you passed out.

  “Where’s Selwin?”

  “Off sick,” the bartender told him, snuffling. “Everybody’s got it. I’m just getting over it.”

  He had one drink, taking it slowly, seeing spots again and the back of his head tight at the top. He looked up at the painting, the pride of the bar. Lots of men came in to drink there because of the painting—one of the original old-style frontier bar types, a gigantic splayed nymph fully fifteen feet long and accompanied by cherubim and floral sprays. While he was looking at it a woman got up from the end of the bar and moved near him. Not right next to him, but leaving one stool in between in case he wasn’t interested.

  “Got a light?” she said. He lit her cigarette and she went on, “Haven’t seen you around here before.”

  “I’m here now and then. Not every day.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Murphy.”

  “Murphy, that’s an Irish name.”

  “Russian,” he said. “They changed it from Murkevitch.”

  “Oh yah, you don’t say. I never met anybody from Russian ancestry before. How about that.”

  “Drink?” he said.

  “Sure, thanks.”

  She was a big girl, her face too. Big nose, big mouth, big eyes, big black hair. But friendly. He’d have liked to buy her lunch but then she’d want to talk. First they ask you for your life story, better than a psychiatrist. And before you get out the essentials they’re telling you theirs, lock, stock, and barrel. How then they met this really nice boy, real nice and she really loved him, oh not like that, nothing dirty like that. Getting weepy which was bad, not getting weepy which was worse and made you think of all the men who’d kicked them in the teeth and what a miserable life.

  “My name’s Bubbles,” she said. “Guess why. For two very good reasons, that’s why.” She opened her mouth and laughed, leaning towards him so that he caught her perfume or perhaps deodorant like a brisk whiff of floor polish. Big teeth too, what they called tombstone teeth.

  “Want a sandwich?”

  “No thanks, I’m trying to keep it down.”

  He wanted to go, but a silence fell and became too long for him to break.

  “You live here?” she said.

  “That’s right. You don’t come from around here, do you?”

  “Nah, New Jersey.”

  “Long way away.”

  “You’re telling me.” She looked unfriendly all at once, slumping lower on the stool, thinking about New Jersey.

  He finished his drink and she said, “So what’s your line, pops?”

  “Import-export.”

  “Gee, you don’t say. What do you import and all?”

  “Import bananas, export poker chips. But I’m giving it up.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Trouble with the packing crew. Bananas are all right. It’s the chips that are putting me out of business. They keep packing them upside-down.”

  “Yah? Oh gee, hey, you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”

  She wanted another cigarette. After he’d lit it for her he kept looking at the flame of the match. Mexico. He couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  “Hey, look out, you’re going to burn yourself. Are you okay? Let me see.”

  “Fine, it’s fine. It’s just that I suddenly remembered something. I have to go.”

  He hadn’t remembered anything. He simply felt a need to go back to the park. On his way there he did remember that he’d meant to return the library book still in his room, and turned back. He then remembered several other things, such as telling Bessie that he would be in for lunch.

  He opened the door and there she was, waiting with her arms crossed.

  “Hello, Bessie.”

  “I got your dinner for you, Mr. Mackenzie. It’s cold. You take off your coat and come on into the kitchen. I’ll heat it up again.”

  “I’m sorry, Bessie. I just forgot. I had something to eat in town.”

  She set her jaw, taking a step back as he passed through the hall, and he thought: she’s smelled the whisky and she’s saying to herself sure, you had lunch all right, out of a bottle. She didn’t like him so much any more. It was mainly the liquor that made Spellman run off.

  “Save it for later,” he said. “I’ll eat it tonight.”

  “You sure you’ll be to home?” When he was drunk she did not call him “sir” where she could avoid it.

  “I’ll remember,” he said.

  Sad, she had enough troubles already. He felt a pang at seeing her liking for him go. But maybe it was just as well, maybe everyone should learn as soon as possible; about all men, black or white, and women and children too and the rest, like the way little girls learn to count the buttons on their coats to see who they are going to marry—rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief—and all the others, too, the ones who are organized, businessmen, unions, insurance companies, the internal revenue, the church, the government, put them all together and find out it’s no use counting on them. Because when it happens they won’t be there or it will be happening to them too, all over the world the management locking the doors to make sure nobody gets out without paying.

  “All right. You remember now, hear?”

  “I’ll write it down,” he said, and lurched up the stairs, holding on to the banister and coughing.

  “And Dr. Hildron call up on the telephone, about that coughing,” she called after him. “H
e say you get right down to his office this evening. Four o’clock. You write that down, too.”

  “All right,” he said, “all right,” and reached the top of the stairs, choking. He went into his room, closed the door and leaned against it, coughing with his head down and his hands up against his mouth. He felt something like a hollowness inside him and a knife going through it. The coughing stopped and he opened his eyes, all the room jumping with spots. He sat down at the table, put his head down on it, and waited until he remembered what he had come home for.

  The book. It was lying in front of his face. Plutarch. He hadn’t read it, just flipped through it, catching a sentence here and there. That was the way he read everything now. He put out his hand for it. What was that on his hand, had he bumped into something? It looked like blood. How did that get there? He got up and went into the bathroom, to the basin, and washed his hands. Then seeing himself in the mirror he washed his face and rinsed out his mouth. There was blood there, too. He picked up his watch, lying next to the toothbrush. It had not been running for eight months and he had not worn it for three. He put it in his pocket, deciding to set it as soon as he saw a clock, and remembering four o’clock. Then he sat down at the table again.

  He needed some paper but couldn’t find any. He found his pen and a bottle of ink and thought perhaps he would tear a sheet out at the end of the book. But they’d notice it at the library and there would be a fuss.

  I must do it now, he thought, otherwise I’ll forget. And he opened the drawer where Bessie put his shirts and untacked the lining paper, a good large sheet of it. He spread it out on the table, took up his pen, and wrote a will.

  He left something for Mitsy and something more for her child, enough money for Bessie to get a divorce and keep herself comfortably for the next five years. He went down a list of people, the names all crowding into his head at once as though he had remembered them all the time, people who had need of a small sum of money and would know exactly what to do with it. Then he left a fixed amount for flood relief, some more for disabled veterans, left the miscellaneous stocks and shares to be divided among relatives, writing down the names he knew and making provision for the ones he had forgotten or not been told of. That still left what young Bender would call a sizeable sum. He put it aside for the building of a new library, his old books to be installed in it. And then he thought of everything else in storage and started to deal with that. At the bottom he signed his name. He ought to have it done formally and witnessed, he supposed, but it was too much of a bother and he’d probably forget. Never mind, it would hold good as it was. He folded it up and put it in the pocket with his watch. Then he took up the book and went to the library.

  The wind was bitter and made his walking slow. Sit in the reading-room, that was another idea, except that the place had small windows and he didn’t like the thought that he couldn’t get out if he wanted to. He had seen old people sitting in there for the warmth, but they were not tramps, all the holes in their clothes had been darned. If he sat there, probably he’d be shooed out.

  It was the older woman behind the counter. He liked her better than the other one. She had grey hair and glasses and pudgy hands with normal fingernails. She took his Plutarch and he went over to the shelves. What he really wanted was a book that played to him like a tune, so that he did not feel his eyes scanning on the surface seeing nothing, or leaping from word to word making him turn the pages so quickly because he was finished with the ones that could not hold him there.

  He stood between the walls of books and tried to concentrate. His eye was doing the same trick with the titles that it did with the pages, gliding from left to right, from right to left, noticing the colours but not really reading. He must have stood there a long time because all at once the other one was there back from her lunch hour, standing against the shelves, her arms folded, showing the ribbed shapes of whatever wire contraption she was wearing underneath.

  “Something you want?” she said, raising her metal eyebrows and drumming the orange nails of one hand against her arm. She was wearing the pink sweater today. The mouse pin was there again, with its red eyes. He wondered if she had bought it herself or if someone had given it to her, if it might be a badge of something in her circle of friends, like a fraternity pin or some other token that young people wore to indicate the state of their emotions or opinions or ideals.

  “Looking for a book.”

  “Which one?”

  He stood for a moment longer, then seized one from the shelf and said, “This one will do.” When she stamped it with the date he saw that it was a copy of Xenophon and was quite pleased. He made himself promise not to stop on the steps outside and whip through the pages. Several times before he had done that with a book and in less than two minutes had the feeling that he had read it and wanted another one. Once or twice he had gone straight back into the library to get a different one. They didn’t like that at the desk.

  He put the book in his pocket and went to the park. The tree no longer suggested Mexico of its own accord, it looked like his hands, stiff, old, going numb in the cold weather. He had to will it into looking like a tropical tree. And then for a while he was with the flower beds and spice smells and the sunshine on them as they sat at their table and watched the people walk past through the green square.

  Then he was out again, sitting on his bench with the wind blowing his hair down into his face and the others walking in through the entrance. Elmie brought a bottle and Jumbo read them an account of a disaster at sea, a ship with a burning cargo that might explode at any moment. The Captain had been told to anchor it off the coast and the nearby townspeople had complained, since should the ship blow to pieces they might be in danger. They had already been advised to keep their windows open against a possible shattering of the glass. Keep their windows open in November.

  “Captain’s still on her,” Jumbo said. “Ain’t that a thing?” He stuffed the paper back inside his coat. Spats wanted to know if the Captain was really duty-bound to stay on his ship when it went down. Jumbo said yes, Elmie said he was supposed to stay on till the very last moment, but when the utmost tip started to go under he was allowed to jump off and swim away. But did they hold it against him afterwards? They talked the matter over.

  When the light began to fail, Mr. Mackenzie remembered that he had to buy a stamp, and stood up.

  “Coming along?” Jumbo asked.

  He shook his head and said, “Can’t. When will you be going?”

  “Tonight, tomorrow maybe, next week.”

  They stood up also and all four walked from the park, passing the guitar player and heading towards the post office.

  “I’ve got to buy a stamp,” he said and crossed the road, waving goodbye. They waved back and he thought: that’s probably the last time we’ll see each other.

  The post office was just about to close. He bought the stamp, came out, and remembered that he needed an envelope. He searched through his pockets and found the last month’s bill for electricity. Tearing the old stamp off, he crossed out his own name, readdressed it to Bender’s firm, and put the new stamp on it. Then he folded up the will and put it inside, tucked the flap of the envelope in to keep it there, and dropped it into the mailbox.

  He stood looking at the box, thinking that there was something he had meant to remind himself of. Off in the distance, coming through the crowd of people making their way home from work, a voice called, “Repent.” It came nearer, saying, “Repent, the hour is at hand,” and Mr. Mackenzie saw a man, looking doubtless much like himself, with long hair and a beard and carrying a large cardboard sign on a stick. Written on the board was the message: Prepare to meet thy doom. The man came closer, and because Mr. Mackenzie was the only person in the crowd whose eyes were not turned away, singled him out, looking straight at him and finally coming up and standing next to him, shouting, “Re-pent, re-pent, the day is nigh, repent.”

  “What for? I’ll be dead soon,” he said and barged away
into the crowd, thinking: what does he know about repentance—no more than I do or anyone else and that’s too much knowledge to have to live with anyway. No wonder they don’t look at him, a life of repentance would be a lifetime of hell, and if they believe in all that they’ll have the opportunity to do all the repenting necessary after death.

  He thought he would have a drink. He went to two or three bars and ended up in the one with the frontier nude. The megaphone system was playing conveyer-belt Dixie-land and it became very crowded so that he was squashed up against the corner, but when he had somewhere to sit down he preferred the crowd, which made it less likely that someone would speak to him. He could still see the exit, so that was all right. He got out his library book and turned over the pages, telling himself to do it slowly or else he’d have to exchange it the next day. He promised himself not to go through it all because he liked to have something to read before going to sleep.

  The pages went by and he followed Xenophon through Persia with the ten thousand. He saw them going through their hardships, trapped in a foreign country, being shot at by the Persian archers, pursued by the enemy cavalry, uncertain as to the direction in which they were travelling. He could almost smell the dust and the sunshine and see the column moving tightly-packed for protection through the brown hills, and all the time being full of fear. He seemed to be watching with them, for raiding parties attacking in the rear, for single enemy scouts that would appear on the hilltops indicating who knew what huge forces waiting to receive them and massacre every last one of them.

  Then came the cold and the snowstorm and all the men falling sick and dying, lying where they dropped in the snow, and all the heart went out of the ones who were still alive. Mr. Mackenzie began to cough.