Ed Lacy - Enter Without Desire

I'm sure she didn't mean that as a dig at me, but it made me uncomfortable, as though I'd outlasted my welcome. From then on I only saw them once or twice a week, instead of every day, never stayed for supper or took a drink. Tony and Alice didn't seem to notice the difference, so maybe it was a hint.

My troubles started in November when Nature lowered the boom on me. It got so cold the water pipes busted and it cost me twenty bucks to have them fixed, and after that I had to keep the water running all the time and the noise drove me crazy. I'd spent far too much money—I had less than a hundred dollars left—so I began cutting down on everything, eating lots of starches and fish. I found a kerosene lamp in one of the empty cottages and used that to save electricity. My radio broke and I didn't bother to fix it. As it grew colder I became a hermit. I'd get up in the morning, force myself to leave the warm blankets. Not wanting to buy oil, I'd made a stove out of some tin cans and I'd run around the beach to find driftwood, and any frozen fish, then dash back to my shack and start the wood fire going.

I'd stuff the door and windows with paper to keep the cold out, and by early afternoon the place would be comfortably warm and I'd start working. By six it would begin to grow dark and I'd knock off. But I stayed in the shack, for to open the door would let out all my precious heat. I'd eat fish and a can of beans, then huddle around the kerosene lamp and read anything I could find—usually this old World Almanac, then climb into my bed, the stuffy air giving me a headache.

Actually I was bored stiff with myself. I knew my “masterpiece” was junk, but I wanted to finish it. The only thing that gave me any confidence was a piece I did of two dogs mounting each other. I saw them on the beach one day, did a quick sketch of them, and later did it in clay as a gag. I'd really caught their movements, and as it turned out, it was the best work I did during those months.

The damn weather turned colder and colder. The clay froze and I had to keep washing it down with a hot damp rag before it was workable. During the second week in December my armature broke and the figure dropped to the floor. Being hard and frozen, the clay broke into a million pieces and... that was that.

I felt trapped. I couldn't go back to New York—I didn't have enough money for carfare and a room, so I started working again, but everything went screwy. Most times I was so hungry I couldn't think of anything but food. Like a pregnant woman, I'd get a driving yen for a steak or a soda, or a drink, and sometimes I'd give in—go to the tavern, have a few shots, watch TV, feel warm and almost human again.

By Christmas I had less than $20 and spent a lot of time on the beach, bundled up in all the clothing I had, picking up frozen fish. I must have eaten fish and beans in every form possible, including a few I invented. I was sick of fish, of the cold, of myself, of being alone. The Alvins asked me over for Christmas dinner, and for some crazy reason I refused—and felt good about it.

I hung around my shack as though it was a jail. I felt completely frustrated, getting no place. Sometimes I told myself I had to start from scratch, remembered Bonard's long conversations about a sculptor knowing as much about the body as a doctor. I'd read my anatomy book, then spent long hours studying my facial muscles in the mirror, or feeling the muscles in my arms and legs... and often wondered if I wasn't going mad.

I'd put my money in a postal savings account, so I wouldn't piss it away. On December 31 I had a dollar and seventy cents in cash on me, and seven bucks in the saving account. It was rainy and windy, the water running in the sink seemed to be streaming through my brain, and I couldn't get the damn shack warm. While trying to find driftwood, 'I stopped and had a few beers. Then I drank some raisin wine I had aging, but it didn't do any good. I tried fooling with some clay but it was too cold to work. I was ready to admit I was licked... I wasn't a sculptor, I wasn't anything but a jerk.

While I heated a pan of water, so I could wash and shave and get out of there, my inner mind kept calmly telling me I had to stick it out, that all my life I'd run from things... that I really hadn't given myself a chance to see if I had any ability.

But I knew I couldn't take it any longer, at least not that night. New Year's Eve never meant a damn to me, but now I had this terrific longing to see people, to be around noise and lights, and I knew I'd really blow my top if I spent another hour in the gloomy shack. I washed and dressed and as I walked toward the road I passed Tony coming home with an armful of packages. He asked, “What time you coming over tonight?”

“Can't make it. Got something on in the city.”

“Oh. We were sort of counting on you—the three of us tying one on. How's the work coming?”

“Great! Happy New Year!” I said, walking on. The goddamn wind nearly tore me apart as I walked to the highway. I stood there, bending to the wind, when I saw this sleek roadster coming and gave it the thumb.

To my surprise it stopped. The driver was a young fellow wearing a tux and I sat down beside him, on my way to New York... to nothing.

I'd blacked out. Now, when I opened my eyes, for a time I didn't know where I was. I stared up at this old boxlike wooden private house and the little garage with the angular roof. All I could see was the ugly square of the house, the sharp roof of the garage. I wanted to see soft curves... it was horrible to realize these dull, conventional designs, this stupid scene, might be my final picture of our earth.

The pain was so absolutely complete it drowned out everything else; I didn't feel it—didn't feel a damn thing. The burning bullet hole in my stomach seemed like part of a different body, vaguely connected to the rest of me. I knew I was bleeding badly, hanging on to life by a thread, corny as that may sound. Only when you're dying nothing seems trite or real, or matters overmuch. In fact, it's difficult to believe you are dying or...

Logan asked, “What is this?”

I shut my eyes.

First the square house and now his face coming into focus—a face so average as to represent all the ugliness of life, a memo of all things banal. It was comical—after all these hustling years, I had to end up a horrid bloody mess in a Bronx back yard.

I still had one thing to do, see Elma again, explain it all to her. Elma baby, I gave it all I had, but it wasn't enough, not nearly enough to...

Hearing the rustle of clothing, I opened my eyes. Logan had his belt and tie off, was bending over me, blotting out the sky. He seemed to be fooling with my guts.

“Trying to get a tourniquet around your thighs,” he said. “Want you alive till the cops get here, so you can explain....”

“Listen,” I said, and it was a great big effort to speak. “Hell with cops. Get my... my... wife. Phone is... Sandyhook... 7... 3... 6. Riverhead operator... Long Island. Mrs. Elma Jameson. Have to... hurry.”

He straightened up. His face looked overbig as he shook his head slowly, repeating, “Mrs. Elma Jameson, Sandyhook.. L.I.?”

I tried to nod, gave that up.

Getting to his feet, he said, “Damn, this sure is...”

“Come on... hurry...!”

He said, “Yeah, that's best,” and left.

What does a dying man think about? Above the house I saw the sky all a clean blue, and the sun out somewheres. Elma be at the beach, take her at least an hour's fast driving to reach me. How could I explain all this to her? What would I say, what made sense? Elma, because I'm so wonderfully crazy in love with you I killed a man, tried to murder this private detective...?

That sounded so melodramatic I wanted to laugh. Oh God, my poor Elma, the headlines would crucify her. If I could only save her from that, or...

The dick was looking down at me again, the uninteresting lines of his clean-cut face. There was a change in his eyes, they held a different sort of puzzled look. He said, “Broke into this house, found a phone. Your wife's on her way. Damn it, why did you go for your gun? Guns are my line, what I'm good at—you didn't have a chance, Mr. Jameson.”

MISTER Jameson! This was a respectful dick, this goddamn snooping bird-dog who'd been sticking his nose into my life these last few months. The crummy things men do for money, for a job.

“If you only hadn't pulled a gun...?”

“Had to,” I told him, my voice like a distant echo. “You were closing the trap on me. Did... lot of trapping... when I was a kid in Kentucky. Used to catch... Will I last till Elma gets here?”

“You're bleeding like a pig but that tourniquet seems to be holding... some. I sure hope you last, Mr. Jameson, till she gets here—or the cops. Christ—the cops!” He began to sweat, it ran down his lean face in big glistening drops.

His wet face disappeared from view. I stared up at the wash-blue sky. Everything was so quiet and peaceful— the only sound was the steady throbbing of my heart, even that was a small sound.

My life was being pumped out in this forgotten Bronx alley... That was okay with me—only Elma would get here a few seconds before that marvelous little machine they called a heart, stopped.

The thought hit me hard.... Suppose I didn't die? That would be a worse mess... the trial, the chair... all be so stupid. Perhaps if I could get the tourniquet loose....

I tried to sit up, tried to raise my arms... a thick black wave washed over me....

... Kept washing over me, as though I was lying on a dark beach....

I heard somebody cursing, quick little cuss-words. I could hear them distinctly because everything else was so quiet... but the words sounded as though they were filtered through a heavy screen.

It took time to open my eyes. The air seemed a little thick, misty, smelted oversweet. I got Logan in focus. He was bending over me... doing something to my wrist... then he was smashing it and my wrist-watch against the cold stone sidewalk. He squatted beside me, asked, “Mr. Jameson, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Get this, I'm giving you a break and it can mean my neck. Remember this, Mr. Jameson, you got shot NOW, busted your watch when you fell. Got that, not a half hour ago but NOW, Mr. Jameson?”

“Yes,” I had to swallow a few times to clear the thick air out of my throat. It was an absurd comedy—he'd just shot me and he was so-so polite.

“Remember that. I'm calling the cops now, an ambulance, so...”

“I thought you... called...?”

“Mr. Jameson, guess you won't be in no shape to say much, but keep remembering you got shot now. I'm going to slip the cops a phony yarn. After I called Mrs. Jameson I fell off the chair in my excitement and ripped the phone out of the wall. It's just a silly enough yarn to hold up. Stupid me, an accident, see? I don't know where I'll find another phone around here, take me time. But I'm going now to phone the cops. I'm giving you a break. Want your wife to get here before the cops do. Then we'll see. Mr. Jameson, buddy, you got to understand how I'm sticking my neck out. I can be in a holy mess of trouble, real trouble, but I'm doing this for you. Understand?”

“Thanks,” I said, not knowing what he was talking about.

“All you got to do is hold on, live till Mrs. Jameson gets here. Mean, I couldn't say much over the phone and...”