Nelson Algren - A Walk on the Wild Side

Luke slapped him cheerfully on the back. ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, son. Smile , darn you, smile . Laugh and the world laughs with you, Boy. Look at this – in six weeks we’ll both be rich!’

He was dangling some sort of purple-feathered rubber in front of Dove’s eyes. ‘Whatever is it, boy?’

‘Look like a little kid’s balloon but for the feather,’ Dove guessed and inspected the device more closely, ‘only it can’t be no balloon because it’s hollow and couldn’t hold no air. I’m sure I never saw nothin’ to compare, Luke.’

Luke waved it like a purple flag. ‘It’s a contraceptive , son! Combines protection with pleasure,’ he flicked the foolish-looking feather on its obscene tip, gave it a joyous swing and twist and flung away the certificates in his other hand. ‘No more knockin’ ourselves out rappin’ doors for two bits. A buck apiece boy! One buck apiece! ’

Dove shook his head mournfully. ‘I wouldn’t have the common brass to knock on no lady’s door and show her one of them unnatural-lookin’ things, Luke.’ Dove told him, ‘I’d go plumb through the floor if she knew what it was – and if she didn’t know how could I sell it?’

Luke grew serious. ‘Distribution is my department, Red. But there’s room for a good man in plain condom mechanics. Later you advance to fancy work.’

‘How much do plain condom mechanics make?’ Dove asked with only mild interest.

‘Twenty cents a dozen – that would be about four dollars a day if you just take your own time, Red. And Gross buys your meals besides.’

‘Who’s Gross?’

‘Gross’ – Luke would have taken off his hat in reverence had he owned a hat – ‘Gross is the father of the O-Daddy.’

‘Never heard tell of that either,’ Dove admitted, ‘but four dollar a day is mighty good pay.’

Luke scribbled an address on a slip of paper, then recalled something and tore it up. ‘Ask a policeman,’ he suggested – ‘but never mention “Gross” to anything in uniform. Get it, boy?’

‘I get it, Luke. And I’m mightily grateful.’

‘Let a smile be your umbrella, Son. We’re finally around that corner. Business was never better. Weep and you weep alone.’

And left Dove to weep or laugh as he chose. ‘Always downhill and always merry,’ Dove thought as the little gin-head’s demented skip-and-hop step was lost in the brainless titter of the rain. And felt as if he’d not be hearing that foolish step in any weather again.

He never learned how the little man had come upon the address he handed Dove that day.

The room began to fill with a gray-green river light, the very color of sleep. Raindrips pinged faster into the pan. Dove slept with his head in his hands.

To dream of a room where buckets stood about to catch raindrops and men and women encircled a bed to watch a woman and a man. Above the girl’s head the gloom was smeared by light like a yellowing streak of shame and Dove saw she had one toenail painted green. And heard Fort’s voice toll and toll from some chapel below sleep – ‘Hasteth! Hasteth!’

In a robe once red and now faded to rose Terasina came toward him wearing dark glasses and extending her arms to find her blind way.

Then one raindrop pinged into a bucket, another and another. It saddened Dove to hear them fall because each time one dropped he lost a friend and he could not leave till the last of all fell. ‘Boy! Wheah’s mah pot?’ A big hand began shaking him.

Under the light the real Fort stood looking down.

‘Who poked the holes in my ceiling, Son?’

Dove looked at the dishpan. Its bottom was barely covered.

‘Luke thought if the rain leaked in we wouldn’t be held for the rent.’

‘A mighty weak thought,’ Fort decided.

‘I got a little inkle, Fort.’

‘You got a little what? ’

‘I got a little inkle Luke is fixin’ to move on.’

‘I couldn’t be more unconcerned, son. Made my rent this afternoon. Picked up six dollar in the rain ’n could of made eight with a mite of help.’

‘What line of work you followin’ now, Fort?’

Fort stood up and extended his right arm. Dove reached to shake it but Fort wouldn’t shake. ‘Can’t you see my sad condition?’ he asked softly.

Dove studied him carefully. ‘Your eyes look shut sort of,’ he decided.

‘Why, then lead me, goodbuddy,’ Fort asked without opening a lid. ‘ Lead me.’

Dove rose dutifully and led the big man once about the room.

‘Now that’s all there is to it,’ Fort took off his glasses and opened his eyes. ‘Now wasn’t that easy? ’

‘We had a blind Indian home name of Chicken-Eye Riley,’ Dove recalled, ‘Wore a tuckin’-comb. But he never went around with his eyes shut. Didn’t have to. He’d been gouged.’

‘Indians don’t have to fake it,’ Fort revealed resentfully, ‘all you got to be to get sent to a reservation these days is be some damned kind of Indian. The government’ll be given out pensions for bein’ Hebrew next. A white man don’t stand a chance no more if he’s poor.’ Fort suddenly left off complaining and used his executive-type voice – ‘You understand this is merely a temporary expedient until we get up a stake to get us into the oil business, goodbuddy?’

‘I don’t follow you, Fort.’

‘In Cameron County between Harlingen and Rio Hondo. Half a day’s hike from your own hometown. All we need to get it is to give the Sinclair man twenty dollar for a tankful of gas. He’ll furnish us cots and blankets out of his own attic. One of us takes care of the pump and the other buys up produce from the Mex farmers round about and wholesales it in the valley stores. The Sinclair man don’t have to know about the produce. So long as one of us is at the pumps when he calls is all that matters. You dig as good as you sell coffee to Negras, Red?’

Dove rolled up his eyes like a doll’s. ‘I can dig real good for I’m bedcord strong – what do I have to dig?’

‘Gas tanks, son – one on each side of the station! You dig one and I dig the other!’

‘To be part owner of a gas station,’ Dove offered dreamily, ‘I’d start to work before good day. I’ll dig ’em both sides.’

‘There’s a deal, goodbuddy.’

‘When do we start, Fort?’

‘Soon as you lead me around a couple days. Then I’ll lead you.’

‘What do I do when the policeman comes up ’n sees I’m not really blind?’

‘Never said you was,’ Fort explained, ‘all your sign says is “Help Me.”’

‘Don’t hardly seem fair after we whupped them so bad,’ it struck Dove.

‘Whupped policemen?’

‘No. Indians.’

‘Stop worrying about Indians. What you got to realize is the blind eye don’t reflect the light but yours do. That’s why you got to keep them shut. If you’re really blind you can go around with them open, people take one look and slip you a buck or two. Over and above that you get a state pension.’

‘I do?’

‘Not you. Really blind people.’

‘So do Indians. That’s why I figure to be a blind Indian must be the best deal a person could have. Still, this fellow back home didn’t have it none too good. In fact he spent all his weekends in jail.’

‘They’re strong for that firewater, or so I’ve heard,’ Fort agreed impatiently.

‘Weren’t firewater. It was a sow Riley was so strong for. He’d find his way to her guided solely by the sense of smell and his wife would come home and find him missing. She’d go down to the sty and put the flashlight on and there they’d be. That woman got so jealous of that beast she had Riley locked up every Friday night.’