Part One-4
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You know what you do, Blount said drunkenly. *You just------’All right, Biff said very quietly. No, I t Now you just behave yourself.’
Biff went to the end of the ter aurned with two glasses ht beer. The drunk picked up his glass so clumsily that beer slopped down on his hands and messed the ter. Biff sipped his portion with careful relish. He regarded Blount steadily with half-closed eyes. Blount was not a freak, although when you first saw him he gave you that impression. It was like something was
deformed about him—but when you looked at him closely each part of him was normal and as it ought to be. Therefore if this difference was not in the body it robably in the mind. He was like a man who had served a term in prison or had been to Harvard College or had lived for a long time with fners in South America. He was like a person who had been somewhere that other people are not likely to go or had done something that others are not apt to do.
Biff cocked his head to one side and said, Where are you from?’
"Nowhere.’
*Now, you have to be born somewhere. North Carolina —Tennessee—Alabama—some place.’
Blounts eyes were dreamy and unfocused. Carolina, he said.
I tell youve been around, Biff hinted delicately.
But the drunk was not listening. He had turned from the ter and was staring out at the dark, empty street. After a moment he walked to the door with loose, uain steps.
Adios, he c<u>.9９ｌib?</u>alled back.
Biff was alone<u>.</u> again and he gave the restaurant one of his quick, thh surveys. It ast one in the m, and there were only four or five ers in the room. The mute still sat by himself at the middle table. Biff stared at him idly and shook the few remaining drops of beer around itom of his glass. Then he finished his drink in one slow swallow a back to the neer spread out on the ter.
This time he could not keep his mind on the words before him.
He remembered Mick. He wondered if he should have sold her the pack of cigarettes and if it were really harmful for kids to smoke. He thought of the way Miarrowed her eyes and pushed back the bangs of her hair with the palm of her hand.
He thought of her hoarse, boyish void of her habit of hitg up her khaki shorts and swaggering like a cowboy in the picture show. A feeling of tenderness came in him. He was uneasy.
Restlessly Biff turned his attention to Sihe mute sat with his hands in his pockets and the half-finished glass of beer before him had bee warm and stagnant. He
would offer to treat Sio a slug of whiskey before he left.
What he had said to Alice was true—he did like freaks. He had a special friendly feeling for sick people and cripples.
Whenever somebody with a harelip or T.B. came into the place he would set him up to beer. Or if the er were a hunchback or a bad cripple, then it would be whiskey on the house. There was one fellow who had had his peter and his left leg blown off in a boiler explosion, and whenever he came to town there was a free pint waiting for him. And if Singer were a drinking kind of man he could get liquor at half priy time he wa. Biff o himself. Thely he folded his neer and put it uhe ter along with several others. At the end of the week he would take them all back to the storeroom behind the kit, where he kept a plete file of the evening neers that dated back without a break for twenty-one years.
At two oclock Blouered the restaurant again. He, brought in with him a tall Negro man carrying a black bag.
The drunk tried t him up to the ter for adrink, but the Negro left as soon as he realized why he hadbeen led inside. Biff reized him as a Negro doctor racticed iown ever since he could remember.
He was related in some way to young Willie ba thekit. Before he left Biff saw him turn on Blount witha look of quivering hatred.
The drunk just stood there.
?Dont you know you t bring no nigger in a place where white men drink? someone asked him.
Biff watched this happening from a distance. Blount was very angry, and now it could easily be seen how drunk he was.
Im part nigger myself, he called out as a challenge.
Biff watched him alertly and the place was quiet. With his thiostrils and the rolling whites of his eyes it looked a little as though he might be telling the truth.
Im part nigger and wop and bohunk and k. All of those.’
There was laughter.
And Im Dutd Turkish and Japanese and Ameri. He walked in zigzags around the table where the mute drank his coffee. His voice was loud and cracked.
Tm one who knows. Im a stranger in a strange land.’
?Quiet down, Biff said to him.
Blount paid no attention to anyone in the place except the mute. They were both looking at each other. The mutes eyes were cold ale as a cats and all his body seemed to listen. The drunk man was in a frenzy.
?Youre the only one in this town who catches what I mean, Blount said. For two days now been talking to you in my mind because I know you uand the things I want to mean.’
Some people in a booth were laughing because without knowing it the drunk had picked out a deaf-mute to try to talk with. Biff watched the two men with little darting glances and listetentively.
Blount sat down to the table and leaned over close to Singer.
There are those who know and those who dont know. And for every ten thousand who dont know theres only one who knows. Thaf s the miracle of all time—the fact that these millions know so much but dont know this. Its like in the fifteenth tury when everybody believed the world was flat and only bus and a few other fellows khe truth.
But its different in that it took talent to figure that the earth is round. While this truth is so obvious its a miracle of all history that people dont know. You savvy.’
Biff rested his elbows on the ter and looked at Blount with curiosity. Know what? he asked.
"Dont listen to him, Blount said. Dont mind that flat-footed, blue-jowled, nosy bastard. For you see, when us people who know run into each other mats a. It almost never happens. Sometimes we meet each other aher guesses that the other is one who knows. Thats a bad thing. Its happeo me a lot of times. But you see there are so few of us.’
Masons? Biff asked.
Shut up, you! Else snatch your arm off a you black with it, Blount bawled. He hunched over close to the mute and his voice dropped to a drunken whisper. And how e? Why has this miracle of ignorandured? Because of ohing. A spiracy. A vast and insidious spiracy.
Obstism.’
The men in the booth were still laughing at the drunkwho was trying to hold a versation with the mute. Only Biff was serious. He wao ascertain if the mute really uood what was said to him. The fellow nodded frequently and his face seemed plative. He was only slow—that was all. Blount began to crack a few jokes along with this talk about knowing. The mute never smiled until several seds after the funny remark had been made; thehe talk was gloomy again the smile still hung on his face a little too long. The fellow was dht uny.
People felt themselves watg him even before they khat there was anything different about him. His eyes made a person think that he heard things nobody else had ever heard, that he khings no one had ever guessed before. He did not seem quite human.
Jake Blount leaned across the table and the words came out as though a dam inside him had broken. Biff could not uand him any more. Blounts tongue was so heavy with drink aalked at such a violent pace that the sounds were all shaken up together. Biff wondered where he would go when Alice turned him out of the place. And in the m she would do it, too—like she said.
Biff yawned wanly, patting his open mouth with his fiips until his jaw had relaxed. It was almost three oclock, the most stagnant hour in the day htThe mute atient. He had been listening to Blount for almost <q>?9９liｂ?</q>an hour. Now he began to look at the clock occasionally. Blount did not notice this a on without a pause. At last he stopped a to roll a cigarette, and thee nodded his head in the dire of the clock, smiled in that hidden way of his, and got up from the table. His hands stayed stuffed in his pockets as always. He went out quickly.
Blount was so drunk that he did not know what had happened.
He had never even caught on to the fact that the mute made no answers. He began to look around the place with his mouth open and his eyes rolling and fuddled. A red vein stood out on his forehead and he began to hit the table angrily with his fists. His bout could not last much longer now.
e on over, Biff said kindly. "Your friend has gone.’
The fellow was still hunting for Singer. He had never seemed really drunk like that before. He had an ugly look.
I have something for you over here and I want to speak with you a minute, Biff coaxed.
Blou<bdi>藏书网</bdi>nt pulled himself up from the table and walked with big, loose steps toward the street again.
Biff leaned against the wall. In and out—in and out. After all, it was none of his business. The room was very empty and quiet. The minutes lingered. Wearily he let his head sag forward. All motion seemed slowly to be leaving the room.
The ter, faces, the booths and tables, the radio in the er, whirring fans on the ceiling—all seemed to bee very faint and still.
He must have dozed. A hand was shaking his elbow. His wits came ba slowly and he looked up to see what was wanted. Willie, the colored boy i, stood before him dressed in his cap and his long white apron. Willie stammered because he was excited about whatever he was trying to say.
And so he were --lamming his fist against this here brick all.’
Whats that?’
Right down one of them alleys two d-d-doors away.’
Biff straightened bis slumped shoulders and arranged his tie.
What?’
And they means t him in here and they liable to pile in any minute------’
Willie, Biff said patiently. Start at the beginning a me get this straight.’
It this here s<big>9９ｌｉｂ.</big>hort white man with the m-m-mustache.’
?Mr. Blount. Yes>Well—I didnt see how it enced. I were standing in the back door when I heard this here otion. Sound like a big fight in the alley. So I r-r-run to see. And this here white man had just gone hog wild. He were butting bis head against the side of this brick wall and hitting with his fists. He were cussing and fighting like I never seen a white man fight
before. With just this here wall. He liable to broken his owhe way he were carrying on. Then two white mens who had heard the otion e up and stand around and look------So what happened?’
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