Stanley Elkin - A Bad Man

“I’ve got—” Feldman said.

“It’s like this,” Munce said, “my wife saw this ad on the side of a bus. For finishing high school on home-study plan. A place in Chicago, and in her spare time she does all the lessons; they come through the mail. But she can’t buy the books that they want her to read — biology, English, big books and dear. What makes it so bad is she can’t get a card, or she’d go to the library and take them all out. But I’ve got a record, and that nixes the deal. Of course she could read them right there at the desk; they’d let her do that, but she’d have to stand up. She might use her sister’s, but that girl’s a bitch. They ain’t spoke for years, and my wife is too proud. If they only made up she could borrow the card and take out the books and study at home and get a diploma and then a good job.”

“I’ve got—” Feldman said.

“My daughter’s fifteen,” Case said, “and don’t know I’m here. We told her a lie to save her the shame. She just had turned six when they took me to jail. I made an arrangement with an old friend of mine, a guy off in Europe — Fred Bolton’s his name. Fred was a pal that I knew from the block. Smart as a whip, we knew he’d go far. A scholar, you know, but a regular guy. He won all the prizes and went off to Yale, where they paid his tuition and gave him free board. He got his degree and then left the States. He writes to my daughter and signs himself me. For years Fred has done this — a letter a month and often a gift. Once perfume from Paris and leather from Spain. She thinks we’re divorced, but she’s proud of her dad. But Fred has sclerosis and now he may die. There’s one chance in a million — you see, they’re not sure. It might just be a nerve. Fred always was jumpy, even in school. So they’ve taken a test and we’re waiting to hear. They’ve sent it to Brocher, a big man in the field. But Brocher’s in Russia, he defected last year. And Fred writes these books that the Communists hate. They might want him to die — then what will I do? Who’ll write my daughter? Who’ll save her the shame? How can we tell her I’m supposed to be dead? A girl needs a father — she’s only fifteen, and though she don’t see me it keeps up her heart. If only they’ll let Brocher look at the tests — if only they’ll tell him, okay, go ahead. Then if only the tests turn out to be good and they locate the nerve that’s bothering Fred, they can probably treat it, and in time he’ll get well — then maybe in time he can write her again.”

“I’ve got—” Feldman said.

“And send her those gifts, those prizes she loves—”

“I’ve got—” Feldman said, “the picture.”

“They say you listen,” a convict said to Feldman one evening, moving beside him.

Feldman had another image of the grapevine, pendent with talk, with talk about talk. “I’ve heard a few,” he said noncommittally, not looking up.

“I want to tell,” the convict said.

They were just outside the shower stalls, sitting on the benches that ran along the walls of what might have been a locker room if this had not been a penitentiary. Feldman was undressing. The room was damp, the stone floors clammy, mucoid. He remembered his own carpeted bathroom, the cut-glass decanters with their bright sourballs of bubble bath, and he felt like crying. (It was the toilet he missed most. He thought of his golden hamper. It was really beautiful, a piece of furniture practically. He thought of it stuffed with white shirts hardly soiled — he loved the generous reckless act of throwing shirts into the dirty clothes. The memory of his shower almost brought tears to his eyes. There were long rubber treads built right into the smooth tile floor of the shower stall. One wall was clear glass, much sexier than the milky glass of your ordinary shower. There were recesses along another wall for shampoos, soaps, rinses, and there were roll-out men’s and ladies’ razors on nylon cords that worked on the principle of a window shade. There were marvelous flexible tubes that pulled out of the wall, and cunning, splendid brushes and a nozzle complicated and delicate as something in a Roman fountain. The dancing waters, Feldman thought.)

“I’m Hover.”

“Pipe racks,” Feldman said, thinking aloud of the prison’s crude plumbing. “Drainpipes with rain water trickling out,” he said.

“ I want to tell,” Hover said.

“Listen,” Feldman said, looking up at a naked man. “I don’t want to hear about it.” He had not recognized Hover’s name. Now he placed him. The man had a legendary stupidity; he was someone the others tormented without mercy. Feldman had never been alone with him before.

Hover was an illiterate, but more than that he knew nothing, understood nothing. He was almost without memory. In the dining hall it was only with difficulty that he was able to match the number he was given with the one on his table. Several times Feldman had seen him, confused by the oversize numbers painted on the tables, hand his number to a prisoner to read it for him. Hover seemed to know the prisoner might lead him astray, and his expression at these surrenders was one of hope and terror. Feldman had heard that the man could not even recognize his own cell and had to be pushed into it each night. His cellmate beat him because he could not remember to flush the toilet. He could do no work, of course, and he usually wandered aimlessly through the corridors, lost, uncomprehending, unable to distinguish between the prisoners and the guards. He probably did not even know that he was in a prison, let alone why. (He used to walk into grocery stores when he was hungry and take fruit from the bins and eat it on the spot, the juice of oranges and lemons dripping down his hairless chest. Or he would bite into breads, and after someone had shown him what was inside an egg, crush it in his mouth. He could not button a shirt, but someone had taught him to put on a jacket, and someone else had gotten him a pair of flyless elastic pants. It was these clothes he wore in the prison.) Incredibly, he had not been placed into an institution for the insane. Feldman was sure the warden had asked for him, though he did not understand the strategics of it yet.

Hover moved closer to Feldman on the bench. He reached out and touched Feldman’s thigh.

“You mustn’t do that,” Feldman said, standing up.

“I want to tell,” Hover said indistinctly.

Ignoring him, Feldman moved into the shower room, and Hover followed. He stopped just inside and stared while Feldman adjusted the taps of a shower and moved under it. Hover was saying something, but he could not make it out in the big, resonant room. He could see that Hover was excited; the man pointed to the shower above his head and frowned.

“You have to turn it on,” Feldman said. “Turn it on. Turn on the water,” he shouted. “Wait. Here, I’ll do it for you.” He walked over to Hover, but the man jumped back clumsily, raising his fists in an obscure gesture of anger and fear.

“Hot,” he shouted, “hot.” He started to bring down his fists on Feldman’s shoulders, but Feldman pushed him away. He had no coordination, and his reactions were so slow that one might have done almost anything to him.

Hover stumbled awkwardly backwards. “What’s wrong with you?” Feldman demanded. “Did you think I was going to scald you? Is that what the others do to you?”

“Hot,” Hover whined. “Hot. Hot.”

“It’s not hot,” Feldman said, turning on the water. “Here. Feel it yourself. Put your hand out.”

“Hot,” he said, shaking his head.

“No,” Feldman said. “Tepid. Tepid.” He stuck his hand beneath the forceless spray.

“Hot,” Hover said again.

“All right,” Feldman said, “so it’s hot. Leave me alone then.”