Part One-10

百度搜索 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter 天涯 或 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.

    sound. People stood silently in doorways or lounged on steps.

    They looked at Jake with yellow, expressionless faces. He stared back at them with wide, brown eyes. He walked jerkily, and now and then he wiped his mouth with the hairy back of his hand.

    At the end of Weavers Lahere was a vat block. It had once been used as a junk yard for old automobiles. Rusted pieaery and torn iubes still littered the ground. A trailer arked in one er of the lot, and near-by was a flying-jinny partly covered with vas.

    Jake approached slowly. Two little younguns in overalls stood before the flying-jinny. hem, seated on a box, a Negro man drowsed ie sunshine, his knees collapsed against each other. In one hand he held a saelted chocolate.

    Jake watched him stick his fingers in the miry dy and then lick them slowly.

    ?Whos the manager of this outfit?’

    The Negro thrust his two sweet fingers between his lips and rolled over them with his tongue. He a red-headed man, he said when he had fihat all I knon.’

    Wheres he now?’

    He over there behind that largest wagon.’

    Jake slipped off his tie as he walked across the grass and staffed it into his pocket. The sun was beginning to set in the west. Above the black line of housetops the sky was warm crimson. The owner of the show stood smoking a cigarette by himself. His red hair sprang up like a sponge oop of his head aared at Jake with gray, flabby eyes.

    "You the manager?’

    *Uh-huh. Pattersons my name.’

    I e about the job in this ms paper.’

    *Yeah. I dont want no greenhorn. I need a experienced meic.’

    I got plenty of experience, Jake said.

    What you ever done?’

    Tve worked as a weaver and loom-fixer. Ive worked in garages and an automobile assembly shop. All sorts of different things.’

    Patterson guided him toward the partly covered flying-jinny.

    The motionless wooden horses were fantasti the late afternoon sun. They pranced up statically, pierced by their dull gilt bars. The horse  Jake had a splintery wooden cra its dingy rump and the eyes walled blind and frantic, shreds of paint peeled from the sockets. The motionless merry-go-round seemed to Jake like something in a liquor dream.

    I want a experienced meic to run this ahe works in good shape, Patterson said.

    ?I  do that all right.’

    If s a two-handed job, Patterson explained. Youre in charge of the whole attra. Besides looking after the maery you got to keep the crowd in order. You got to be sure that everybody gets on has a ticket. You got to be sure that the tickets are O.K. and not some old dance-hall ticket. Everybody wants to ride them horses, and youd be surprised what niggers will try to put over on you whenthey dont have no money. You got to keep three eyes open all the time.’

    Patterson led him to the maery ihe circle of horses and pointed out the various parts. He adjusted a lever and the thin jangle of meical music began. The wooden cavalcade around them seemed to cut them off from the rest of the world. When the horses stopped, Jake asked a few questions and operated the meism himself.

    The fellow I had quit on me, Patterson said when they had e out again into the lot. I always hate to break in a new man. When do I start?’

    Tomorrow afternoon. We run six days and nights a week—beginning at four and shutting up at twelve. Youre to e about three and help get things going. And it takes about a hour after the show to fold up for the night. What about pay? Twelve dollars.’

    Jake nodded, and Patterson held out a dead-white, boneless hand with dirty fingernails.

    It was late when he left the vat lot. The hard, blue sky had blanched and in the east there was a white moon. Dusk softehe outline of the houses along the street. Jake did

    not return immediately through Weavers Lane, but wandered in the neighborhoods near-by. Certain smells, certain voices heard from a distance, made him stop short now and then by the side of the dusty street. He walked erratically, jerking from one dire to another for no purpose. His head felt very light, as though it were made of thin glass. A chemical ge was taking pla him. The beers and whiskey he had stored so tinuously in his system set in a rea. He was sideswiped by drunkenness. The streets which had seemed so dead before were quick with life. There was a ragged strip of grass b the street, and as Jake walked along the ground seemed to rise o his face. He sat down on the border of grass and leaned against a telephone pole. He settled himself fortably, crossing his legs Turkish fashion and smoothing down the ends of his mustache. Words came to him and dreamily he spoke them aloud to himself.

    ?Rese is the most precious flower of poverty. Yeah.’

    It was good to talk. The sound of his voice gave him pleasure.

    The tones seemed to echo and hang on the air so that each word souwice. He swallowed and moistened his mouth to speak again. He wanted suddenly to return to the mutes quiet room and tell him of the thoughts that were in his mind.

    It was a queer thing to want to talk with a deaf-mute. But he was lonesome.

    The street before him dimmed with the ing evening.

    Occasionally men passed along the narrow street very close to him, talking in monotoo each other, a cloud of dust rising around their feet with each step. irls passed by together, or a mother with a child across her shoulder. Jake sat numbly for some time, and <var>藏书网</var>at last he got to his feet and walked on.

    Weavers Lane was dark. Oil lamps made yellow, trembling patches of light in the doorways and windows. Some of the houses were entirely dark and the families sat on their front steps with only the refles from a neighb house to see by. A woman leaned out of a window and splashed a pail of dirty water into the street. A few drops of it splashed on Jakes face. High, angry voices could be heard from the backs of some of the houses. From others there was the peaceful sound

    of a chair slowly rog.

    Jake stopped before a house where three men sat together on the front steps. A pale yellow light from ihe house shone owo of the men wore overalls but no shirts and were barefooted. One of these was tall and loose-jointed.

    The other was small and he had a running sore on the er of his mouth. The third man was dressed in shirt and trousers.

    He held a straw hat on his knee.

    Hey, Jake said.

    The three men stared at him with mill-sallow, dead-pan faces.

    They murmured but did not ge their positions. Jake pulled the package of Target from his pocket and passed it around.

    He sat down otom step and took off his shoes. The cool, damp grou good to his feet.

    W now??Yeah, said the man with the straw hat. Most of the time.’

    Jake picked between his toes. I got the Gospel in me,* he said. I want to tell it to somebody.’

    The men smiled. From across the narrow street there was the sound of a woman singing. The smoke from their cigarettes hung close around them iill air. A little youngun passing along the street stopped and opened bis fly to make water.

    Theres a tent around the er and its Sunday, the small man said finally. You  go there and tell all the Gospel you want.’

    Its not that kind. Its better. Its the truth.’

    What kind?’

    Jake sucked his mustache and did not answer. After a while he said, You ever have any strikes here?’

    Once, said the tall man. They had one of these here strikes around six years ago.’

    What happened?’

    The man with the sore on his mouth shuffled his feet and dropped the stub of his cigarette to the ground. Well —they just quit work because they wawenty ts a hour. There was about three hundred did it. They just hung around the streets all day. So the mill sent out trucks, and in a week the whole town was swarming with folks e here to get a job.’

    Jake turned so that he was fag them. The men sat two steps

    above him so that he had to raise his head to look into their eyes. Dont it make you mad? he asked.

    How do you mean—mad?’

    The vein in Jakes forehead was swollen and scarlet.

    Christamighty, man! I mean mad—m-a-d—mad. He scowled up into their puzzled, sallow faces. Behind them, through the open front door he could see the inside of the house. In the front room there were three beds and a wash-stand. In the ba a barefooted woman sat sleeping in a chair. From one of the dark porches near-by there was the sound of a guitar.

    I was one of them e in orucks, the tall man said.

    That makes no difference. What Im trying to tell youis plain and simple. The bastards who own these mills are millionaires. While the doffers and carders and all the people behind the maes who spin and weave the cloth t hardly make enough to keep their guts quiet. See? So when you walk around the streets and. think about it and see hungry, worn-out people and ricket-legged young-uns, dont it make you mad? Dont it?’

    Jakes face was flushed and dark and his lips trembled. The three men looked at him warily. Then the man iraw hat began to laugh.

    Go on and snicker. Sit there and bust your sides open.’

    The men laughed in the slow and easy way that three men laugh at one. Jake brushed the dirt from the soles of his feet and put on his shoes. His fists were closed tight and his mouth was torted with an angry sneer. Laugh —thats all yood for. I hope you sit there and sil you rot! As he walked stiffly dowreet>.9９lib.</a>, the sound of their laughter and catcalls still followed him.

    The main street was brightly lighted. Jake loitered on a er, fondling the ge in his pocket. His head throbbed, and although the night was hot a chill passed through his body. He thought of the mute and he wanted urgently to go bad sit with him awhile. In the fruit and dy store where he had bought the neer that afternoon he selected a basket of fruit ed in cellophahe Greek behind the ter said the price was sixty ts, so that when he had paid he was left with only a nickel. As soon as he had e out of the

    store the present seemed a funny oo take a healthy man. A fees hung down below, the cellophane, and he picked them off hungrily.

    Singer was at home when he arrived. He sat by the window with the chess game laid out before him oable. The room was just as Jake had left it, with the fan turned on and the pitcher of ice water beside the table. There anama hat on the bed and a paper parcel, so it seemed that the mute had just e in. He jerked his head toward the chair across from him at the table and pushed the chessboard to one side.

    He leaned back with his hands in his pockets, and his face seemed to question Jake about what had happened since he had left.Jake put the fruit oable. For this afternoon, he said.

    The motto has been: Go out and find an octopus and put socks on it.’

    The mute smiled, but Jake could not tell if he had caught what he had said. The mute looked at the fruit with surprise and then undid the cellophane ings. As he hahe fruits there was something very peculiar in the fellows face. Jake tried to uand this look and was stumped. Then Singer smiled brightly.

    I got a job this afternoon with a sort of show. Im to run the flying-jinny.’

    The mute seemed not at all surprised. He went into the closet and brought out a bottle of wine and two glasses. They drank in silence. Jake felt that he had never been in such a quiet room. The light above his head made a queer refle of himself in the glowing wineglass he held before him—the same caricature of himself he had noticed many times before on the curved surfaces of pitchers or tin mugs—with his face egg-shaped and dumpy and his mustache straggling almost up to his ears. Across from him the mute held his glass in both hands. The wine began to hum through Jakes veins and he felt himself entering again the kaleidoscope of drunkenness.

    Excitement made his mustache tremble jerkily. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and fastened a wide, searg gaze on Singer.

    I bet Im the only man in this town thats been mad— Im

    talking about really mean mad—for ten solid long years. I damn near got in a fight just a little while ago. Sometimes it seems to me like I might even be crazy. I just dont know.’

    Singer pushed the wioward his guest. Jake drank from the bottle and rubbed the top of his head.

    You see, its like Im two people. One of me is an educated man. I been in some of the biggest libraries in the try. I read. I read all the time. I read books that tell the pure horuth. Over there in my suitcase I have books by Karl Marx and Thorstein Veblen and such writers as them. I read them over and over, and the more I study the madder I get. I know every word printed on every page. To begin with I like words.

    Dialectic materialism—Jesuitical prevarication— Jake rolled the syllablesin his mouth with loving solemnity—teleological propensity.’

    The mute wiped his forehead with a ly folded handkerchief.

    But what Im getting at is this. When a person knows and t make the others uand, what does he do?’

    Singer reached for a wineglass, filled it to the brim, and put it firmly into Jakes bruised hand. Get drunk, huh? Jake said with a jerk of his arm that spilled drops of wine on his white trousers. But listen! Wherever you look theres meanness and corruption. This room, this bottle of grape wihese fruits in the basket, are all products of profit and loss. A fellow t live without giving his passive acceptao meanness.

    Somebody wears his tail to a frazzle for every mouthful we eat and every stitch we wear —and nobody seems to know.

    Everybody is blind, dumb, and blunt-headed—stupid and mean.’

    Jake pressed his fists to his temples. His thoughts had careened in several dires and he could not get trol of them. He wao go berserk. He wao get out and fight violently with someone in a crowded street.

    Still looking at him with patient i, the mute took out his silver pencil. He wrote very carefully on a slip of paper, Are you Democrat or Republi? and passed the paper across the table. Jake crumpled it in his hand. The room had begun to

    turn around him again and he could not even read.

    He kept his eyes oes face to steady himself. Singers eyes were the only things in the room that did not seem to move. They were varied in color, flecked with amber, gray, and a soft browared at them so long that he almost hypnotized himself. He lost the urge to be riotous a calm again. The eyes seemed to uand all that he h<tt></tt>ad meant to say and to hold some message for him. After a while the room was steady again.

    You get it, he said in a blurred voice. You know what I mean.’

    From afar off there was the soft, silver ring of church bells.

    The moonlight was white on the roof  door and the sky was a gentle summer blue. It was agreed without words that Jake would stay with Singer a few days until he found a room.

    When the wine was fihe muteput a mattress on the floor beside the bed. Without removing any of his clothes Jake lay down and was instantly asleep.

    JL AR from the main street, in one of the Negro ses of the town, Doctor Be Mady Copeland sat in his dark kit alo ast nine oclod the Sunday bells were silent now. Although the night was very hot, there was a small fire in the round-bellied wood stove. Doctor<cite></cite> Copeland sat close to it, leaning forward in a straight-backed kit chair with his head cupped in his long, slender hands. The red glow from the ks of the stove shone on his fa this light his heavy lips looked almost purple against his black skin, and his gray hair, tight against his skull like a cap of lambs wool, took on a bluish color also. He sat motionless in this position for a long time. Even his eyes, which stared from behind the silver rims of his spectacles, did not ge their fixed, saze. Then he cleared his throat harshly, and picked up a book from the floor beside his chair. All around him the room was very dark, and he had to hold the book close to the stove to make out the print. Tonight he read Spinoza. He did not wholly uand the intricate play of ideas and the plex phrases, but as he read he sensed a strong, true purpose behind the words and he felt that he almost uood.

    Often at night the sharp jangle of the doorbell would rouse him from his silence, and in the front room he would find a patient with a broken bone or with a razor wound. But this evening he was not disturbed. And after the solitary hours spent sitting in the dark kit it happehat he began swaying slowly from side to side and from his throat there came a sound like a kind of singing moan. He was making this sound when Portia came.

    Doctor Copeland knew of her arrival in advance. From the street outside he caught the sound of an harmonica playing a blues song and he khat the music layed by William, his son. Without turning on the light he went through the hall and opehe front door. He did not step out on the porch, but stood in the dark behindthe s. The moonlight was bright and the shadows of Portia and William and Highboy lay blad solid on the dusty street. The houses in the neighborhood had a miserable look. Doctor Copelands house was different from any other building near-by. It was built solidly of brid stucco.

    Around the small front yard there icket fence. Portia said good-bye to her husband and brother at the gate and knocked on the s door.

    How e you sit here in the dark like this?’

    They went together through the dark hall back to the kit.

    You haves graric lights. It dont seem natural why you all the time sitting in the dark like this.’

    Doctor Copeland twisted the bulb suspended over the table and the room was suddenly very bright. The dark suits me, he said.

    The room was  and bare. On one side of the kit table there were books and an inkstand—oher side a fork, spoon, and plate. Doctor Copeland held himself bolt upright with his long legs crossed and at first Portia sat stiffly, too.

    The father and daughter had a strong resemblao each other—both of them had the same broad, flat he same mouths and foreheads. But Portias skin was very light when pared to her Fathers.

    It sure is roasting in here, she said. Seems to me you would

    let this here fire die down except when you cooking.’

    If you prefer we  go up to my office, Doctor Copeland said.

    I be all right, I guess. I dont prefer.’

    Doctor Copeland adjusted his silver-rimmed glasses and then folded his hands in his lap. How have you been since we were last together? You and your husband—and your brother?’

    Portia relaxed and slipped her feet out of her pumps. Highboy and Willie as along just fine.’

    William still boards with you?’

    Sure he do, Portia said. You see—us haves our own way of living and our own plan. Highboy—he pay the rent. I buys all the food out of my money. And Willie—he tends to all of our church dues, insurance, lodge dues, and Saturday Night. Us three haves our own plan and eae of us does our parts.tJAKSUINDoctor Copeland sat with his head bowed, pulling at his long fingers until he had cracked all of his joints. The  cuffs of his sleeves hung down past his wrists—below them his thin hands seemed lighter in color than the rest of his body and the palms were soft yellow. His hands had always an immaculate, shrunken look, as though they had been scrubbed with a brush and soaked for a long time in a pan of water.

    Here, I almost fot what I brought, Portia said. Haves you had your supper yet?’

    Doctor Copeland always spoke so carefully that each syllable seemed to be filtered through his sullen, heavy lips. No, I have en.’

    Portia opened a paper sack she had placed o table. I done brought a nice mess of creens and I thought maybe we have supper together. I done brought a piece of side meat, too. These here greeo be seasoned with that. You dont care if the collards is just cooked i, do you?’

    It does not matter.’

    You still do nair meat?’

    *No. For purely private reasons I am a vegetarian, but it does not matter if you wish to cook the collards with a pieeat’

百度搜索 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter 天涯 或 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.