Lee Read online

  He came out of the woods, staggering a few paces before he realized he was in the midst of someone’s game. There was a woman, as well as what looked like a businessman in colored shoes. Clearly, they considered him a derelict. Lee goggled, leaves sticking to his suit. The temptation to do something was more than he could bear: to stop and unbutton himself, to take out his organ and piss, and to do it all in sequence, all of which he certainly did.

  Five

  HE WAS IN BED WHEN A NOISE broke out, a giggling it seemed, that came from the “tea room.” Three hours he had waited for darkness, now suddenly he sprang up and went to the window. This opening was something magical, a wormhole as it were, that let him look at his pleasure into the year circa 1853. Sometimes he might stand for an hour, focused on a tableau with barn and plaid cow and bright blue river that scintillated now and again. He longed to hike out and plunge his hand into the stuff. The population apparently was thin, very thin; he almost never saw so much as a single individual step into view. Five million and no more—to his thinking that was quite enough, based upon what he knew, for a land mass of no matter what size. Always, he wanted a small population getting smaller, of a fine people getting finer.

  Giggling again, and still from the “tea room.” He felt a spasm at the base of his neck, followed by a headache that began spreading in a slow way, like a blotter in ink.

  It was his hatred. Never had he achieved that toleration said to be the final result of wisdom; in fact, he wanted nothing to do with it. What he did want was an advanced torture machine with the whole world attached. Instead, he hastened back to bed and lay with his feet propped up, so that the fluid might run back into his head again.

  From many indications he knew that it was time to tend to himself, lest he wished to end up with a beard, unwashed, his numerous illnesses out of control. He was starving, moreover, the product of his indifference. And there was a rash that worried him too—a pernicious infection that extended from feet to knees and that hitherto he had been trying to treat with butter and soap and even, once, with matches. As for licensed doctors, he would rather perish at once than put up with their patronizations. Also, he had hemorrhoids, so awful and long-neglected that he never allowed himself to think about them anymore.

  He rose painfully then, approaching the mirror at an angle, glanced quickly to learn at once whether the nightmare of old age had lifted or not. He still thought of himself as a young man, still good-looking behind the mask that had been clapped on him when he wasn’t aware. His old age was not like other people’s; they really were old, whereas he was but going through a test.

  He shaved, and then, seating himself, he proceeded to give himself a haircut. It was almost too tough for cutting. Moreover (as he noted with displeasure), his nerves seemed to be growing into the stuff, making of it an operation of some real pain. Outside, the crickets were loud now, owing to the moon, and no doubt would go on louder and louder till they collapsed; he knew them well. Night was strange in Alabama; a tree frog had taken up in the house itself, together with a giantsized insect grasping at the screen and looking back at Lee with two blue non-coordinated eyes.

  He still knew how to make himself presentable, with aid of his cane, his age, his gray-black suit. He liked to move slowly, casting severe glances that encouraged people to get out of his path. He had held on to his soul; they had not. The last thing he wanted now was to brush up against one or another of them accidentally.

  Below, the “guests” had all cleared away, leaving some dozen little tables with crystal, napkins, and coverings. And food! He could have thrived for months off their leavings. The waiters, meanwhile, were in the kitchen and behaving in a loud way. Quickly, Lee went around, gathering the tips while at same time snatching up slices of abandoned pork and turkey. One person had filled a plate to overflowing and then only dabbled at it while leaving behind giant prints of lipstick on food, napkin, and goblet. There were potatoes, good ones, and asparagus in cream—he had not had any of that in years—and wine. He regretted the lack of a jar to collect it in. There was pie with strawberries, including one wedge not half-consumed and so good that he could hear himself groaning. There was a waitress, a blond flitch in red uniform who, seeing the threatening look he gave, remained as in a dream. He had to eat quickly, before she woke and called to her colleagues. Under these circumstances, he concentrated on the pie.

  He remembered strolling out in dignity through a crowd of young people who let him through. They were weak; he had guessed from the start that none would do anything. Outside he found clear weather, a blue sea with cars instead of fish. His first notion was to veer off for the country and regions marked by the radio tower at the edge of town; instead, he found himself drawn by the city lights. In old times he had loved to go adventuring, depending upon it that the night would be full of girls. Now, based upon what he knew, the girls were, some of them, gone, and some old, and nothing worth mentioning to take their place.

  He turned and walked five blocks to where a moil of shoppers was clamoring to be let inside. To him, the most unsettling part was how shopping had taken over from play; here even the smallest were milling about, hollow-eyed, one actually cuddling up to a display window for warmth.

  He plowed on, working politely through a crowd that yielded only with greatest reluctance. He was the oldest there, a black element in a sea of pastel. For the first time since coming back, he began to experience, not loathing merely, but fear, the horror that he might be set upon and rent by innumerable small creatures with sharp teeth. That moment, he caught one looking back at him, a dead thing, the late twentieth-century itself in personal form, mouth hanging open.

  He wanted to vomit. Instead, he came out at the side, through an emergency exit that immediately set off bells.

  In his day he had been able to come downtown at late hours and find himself all alone; now the walks were full of a people that looked to him very unpredictable indeed. One had earphones, was chewing, had a bra designed to emphasize the nipple. Everywhere, it seemed to him, the female principle was in the ascendant, from literature to men fretting over clothes—one had only to compare the solemn peoples of the East with this candy of the West. Sixty years he had been away, time enough for the town to have become much, much better than it was. In fact, it was much, much worse. Suddenly he saw a horrible grinning cretin, and with him a wife who seemed constituted entirely out of makeup. He had to face it: Either these were not really valid times at all, or else his whole philosophy was in error. They believed they were living on the crest of history, to him it looked like Ottomite Egypt.

  More and more these days his thoughts were turning toward collecting together the good people and setting up a new-age monastery to be given over to agriculture and books. All his life he had wanted to be in the position of abbot and to have the authority to see to it that people lived out his theories instead of their own. Indeed, he had already laid out in his imagination the fields, sheepfold, and the bee glade where Judy would hold sway. And a book hoard, he would have the most amazing book hoard filled with the most amazing dark books, themselves filled with the most amazing . . . Suddenly he stopped, startled by an outbreak of giggling. There were cars in the street, one of them holding a boy and a pretty girl in jewelry. He could feel his gorge rising. Even so, he was ready to go his way, and he would have done so had not the boy rolled down the window and yelled out a short statement in which Lee could discern “fart” and “old.”

  He stopped. He simply could not believe it, and in his own hometown, someone who might well be the grandson of one of his hiking and fishing companions of long ago. He found himself plunging desperately into his pockets for the pistol, which he had come away without. Already the car was moving off easily into the traffic, as if all were over and done with and the episode forgotten. Instead, Lee put on speed, his eye fixed upon the car with its two antennae and evil shape. His plan was to go on forever if need be, until Time and his incredible patience gave him his chance.


  In truth, he had to move faster than he liked. Now, far from assisting him, the cane was becoming a positive nuisance, even at one point tippling over someone’s hat. He had read of Greeks able to make good speed at age of eighty, albeit in cities that were somewhat smaller than this. Here the ambiance was bad. However, two blocks more and he found himself even with the car and crowding at the window. They had not the slightest hint as to who he was or why it was he was hovering so near—this gave him the greatest pleasure. Perhaps the boy’s grandfather had been a friend of his; now, however, it was time for slaying. He took the cane, the girth of it. His hand had grown stronger over the years, and the black veins on it ought to have given pause to anyone tempted to offer insults.

  Nothing could be more satisfying than to come home in the guise of an old man and then to track down the rubbish that had grown up in his absence. He saw another old man across the road, more shabby even than himself, but obviously thinking the same thoughts; they looked at each other. His own eyes were weak (too much reading); the other’s, also, from too much drink. This precisely was the sort of material he needed for his longed-for dictatorship of the most embittered. Yet when he looked again, the man was gone!

  In this section the shops were closed, most of them, and the crowd, thin. The moon was high, his own special star. He saw a bald man sitting in an eatery, trying valiantly to squeeze the last drop of pleasure out of a bowl of broth. Shortly, he would be rising and, no doubt, returning home reluctantly to a wife who loved him not. Lee knew all about him indeed, even down to his high school ring and dirty magazines. This man, too, might be the offspring of someone he had once liked. Now he was yoked to a bad wife, which is to say one who loved her children more than her man. Suddenly Lee remembered the car, the thing having gone on another three blocks and just then come to a halt at a traffic light.

  He must move quickly, using his cane for an oar. One time, sixty years ago, he had come this way after a certain dance, trembling from having just kissed a certain girl; now the girl was gone, but he was trembling still. That instant, a cat came dashing up out of the alley and tried to eroticize itself on Lee’s leg. These primitive creatures had not evolved in any significant way since he was a child; Lee slapped at it with his stick, missing. The car now was traveling at a somewhat more leisurely pace while inside the two silhouettes seemed to be trying to simulate a loving couple from out of the 1950’s. He had to put on speed.

  He was coasting alongside his old school, now a ruin and so dark and pathetic that he had no doubt but that it was full of sleeping tramps and persons like himself having come back after long careers of wandering blindly in the cities of the North. Even so, it still had a dignity to it, from all the tremendous learning that had taken place. He had memories: a society with a structure to it, teachers and listening students—all in the Golden Age of Roosevelt, Silver Age of Truman.

  They were approaching the rich district (he should have guessed it from their faces). Never had he killed a rich man’s son as yet. Amusingly, they still had not the least indication that he was trailing along behind, black quantity that he was, with nothing to lose and no fear of the usual punishments. Now the car slowed and turned and then began to climb among pink and blue residences with big lawns, the kind he used to caddy for. He knew them! And knew how they had turned into mere annexes of what they owned! Historically speaking, he held The Age of Reason responsible for what he saw, and the rubbishy “Renaissance.” Certainly his cane was ready. Given his hardness, he almost had to feel pity for them; moreover, he had been practicing in his rooms.

  They rose in tandem, Lee eighty yards behind and walking fast. Below, the golf course looked like an ocean with boats bobbing in the tide. Even at this hour a few persons could be seen, always swinging on one of the illuminated tees. People were playing tennis too; he could see a fat man in white shorts—the Greeks would have puked. He had to remember that these were America’s favorite children, lest he find himself settling for mere contempt.

  The car had slipped into berth; he had to hurry. The home itself was a beauty, a meet place for a Nietzsche or Toynbee; instead, no doubt, there was a wretched little businessman holed up inside. Lee found himself stumbling down a driveway lined with tall shrubs on both sides.

  “Yes?”

  In his day one would have doffed his hat for an old man; now, it was “Yes?”

  “Lo!” said Lee. “I’ve come to beat the shit out of you.

  At first the boy smiled weakly, and then they looked at each other. He had expected it would be the boy; instead, it was the girl who first started for the house. Lee caught her immediately on the neck, exactly as he had practiced, whereupon she gave a little leap and then a little yell. It was easy. Also there was a sweet feeling in the cane, the girth of it. Now she was on the pavement, her face reflecting the first dim glimmering of understanding in all her young life.

  Always he had thought of himself as an educator, and like education, it seemed to him, one ought never to start unless prepared to go all the way with it. The boy seemed frozen; Lee kicked and then came down on his head. Blood. In some ways, he actually liked the kicking more. The churl was large, larger yet than Lee, but weaker too; also he gave in so easily. Lee had predicted he would. He observed the girl trying to crawl away, as if she had dreams of hiding in a bush. He let her get a few feet before stomping on her hand. (He was to remember forever the very distinctive feeling of a ring grinding under shoe.) He had not really thought to kill, but now that he was into it, and far from tired . . . Again the neck, it was this that made them shriek—neck, head, back, and buttock, and now each blow was on behalf on some great man the new age ignored.

  He could have taken possession of the house, but he turned and strode back indignantly to the street. It was a clear night, blue above and blue below and numerous white stars twinkling in the well. He saw a bat feeding in a halo of insects around one certain lamp that, apparently, was more attractive than the rest. A car came by in the slow way of the rich, with an invisible driver.

  He wasted five minutes waiting and watching in the woods. He might have slept, so mild was the weather. He could hear an owl and also crickets that were everywhere save in the twenty-four inch radius of where he stood. They were shrewd. Suddenly he took off, loping, cane flying, straight across the field.

  Six

  NOT UNTIL HE WAS IN HIS ROOM did he see he had broken his finger in the melee. Nothing so infuriated him as these problems of the body. Already one of his eyes had gone bad and was closing day by day, giving him a look of great astuteness. Then there were hemorrhoids, of course, and rashes, all clamoring for notice. One time his physical person had been an asset, a fresh new book straight off the press; now he had to run alongside to keep it from toppling over.

  He devised a splint from a coat hanger wire, and then taking his courage, he stretched the thing out till it again looked like the finger that in fact it was. There was pain, trivial compared to the matches.

  Old age! Nothing so wicked could have been arranged, he thought, unless it were in preparation for something very good. (He had never entirely rid himself of the hope that he might wake someday in a new place, with scope for new development). As for retribution, that was for the rich and those who had turned their backs on books; indeed, he thought of himself as in some measure assisting in these chastisements.

  It was late—time to manifest Judy and give his report. Though she sometimes chided him for his hardness (wherefore he durst not tell about the beating), yet he relied on her for her opinions. His hand trembled; one full minute and he could smell the stuff begin to boil. If he could go on with this, there was nothing in the whole pedestrian world he could not have accomplished.

  She came dressed in blue, with a scarf that he seemed to remember from the old days. He had expected a woman of forty; instead, grinning, she surprised him at twenty-five. His urge was to take her to bed, but he was unwilling to inflict himself on such a one.

  He was qu
ite happy. Going to the shelf, he took up one of the historians first; then, he changed his mind and reached for old querulous Hesiod instead. It was strange language, designed as of set purpose to keep the vulgar at bay. His eyes were so bad he had to have his wife take the book and stand off some ten feet away with it. Hesiod! He would rather dine on two lines of Hesiod than be served with the whole corpus of the Latin swill. In fact, he sometimes went to bed imagining he was Hesiod himself. Not that it had always been so easy to sleep in those days! Certainly not, not when earth was new and so much lay before it. He groaned, rolled, then sat up in bed. He was ready to fly to any Past, so long as it took him from every Present. Then, too, he was spoiled by books; the literature of the centuries had always seemed better to him than mere poor experience by the day. And in short, reality, truth, “life,” etc., etc., these all bored him to tears.

  He believed in a literal Hesiod, a Homer in the skin, and that he would as likely meet up with them where he was going as that he was going anywhere.

  Somehow, waking, he found himself on the floor with the enormous table towering over him. It took some effort to get to his feet, and even then he had to make a dash for it to keep from falling over. He was not unaware of the comedy he had been putting on these last years, not greatly unlike that child who used to roll in rain puddles for the neighbors to see.

  He went and prepared a pot of coffee. His scheme was to sit by the window. In fact, he had no more than settled before he saw the sun sticking up. One ray went east, flying over the ploughland and smiting the silo with a shaft of light—he could imagine all the world’s cows coming to attention with hope made new. This “sun,” never for a moment had he been taken in by the scientific explanation. One instant it was in a yellow mode; the next, so furry and gold that he thought of it as far advanced in decay. A bird blurted out suddenly, followed by a milk truck and a nice little man dressed all in white.