Stanley Elkin - A Bad Man

“You don’t like me shooting off my big mouth, do you?” Mix said. “You don’t even like me walking along with you like this, right?”

Feldman said nothing.

There was a guard at the end of the corridor by a barred gate leading to the administrative offices.

“I asked you a question,” Mix said.

“All right,” Feldman said, “I’m a little nervous.”

“Stop here a minute,” Mix said.

Feldman looked up ahead at the guard and thought he recognized him. He stopped.

“Give me something,” Mix said. “Make a deal.”

Feldman stared at him.

“Give way, give way,” Mix said in a subdued voice. He was a pale man, and as he spoke he troubled to smile. He would trouble to smile, Feldman suspected, even at Hover. “You guys who don’t give way,” he said, “who hold on tight. Boy, every son of a bitch I ever met holds on tight. What am I supposed to do, jump overboard? Fuck that noise. You know what I’m here for? You know why I’m in this maximum-security rathole with the kooks and the killers and the kid-buggers and all the rest of you big time assholes? I’m a hat, coat and umbrella man. I work restaurants and theaters. Let me tell you, intermission is my busy season, ha ha. I steal from parked cars. Shit, everybody’s got an out. The restaurants have little signs, the garages do: ‘Not Responsible,’ blah blah. Only I’m responsible. Outless as the stinking dead. Who ever saw Mix’s sign? ‘Herb Mix Isn’t Responsible for Stealing Your Lousy Umbrella, Lady. Watch Your Frigging Hat, Sir. Do Not Blame Herb Mix.’ Well, I figure it different. I’m as entitled as any man born. You own a department store; I don’t. Who’s responsible for that little oversight? Why ain’t I rich, President, King? Why ain’t there broads lined up to kiss me? Where’s mine? Where does it say I have to be unhappy? Come on, come on, I’ve even got an ulcer. Everything I eat turns to poison.”

“What do you want?” Feldman asked.

“I don’t fix prices,” Mix said. “This is a new line with me. You don’t think the crappy fence would ask me what I thought a thing was worth.”

Feldman tried to remember if he and the guard had had any dealings. In the early days he had made certain mistakes, but surely the guards took into account a man’s newness.

“From the look on your face,” Mix said, “I’d say you know that feller. He’s got a quick temper. Look at that fucking red hair under his cap. That old Irishman sure hates the Jews.”

“All right,” Feldman said, “say what you want or leave me alone.”

“I’m a bad man,” Mix said. Feldman waited for him to go on. It was true, he thought; he could not make demands. He could only sneer his griefs and object and schnorr around for reasons. “I’m a bad man,” Mix said again, “and a heavy smoker, and I like my candy and my stick of gum, and most of the guys around here have radios and I don’t. Where’s my five bucks a month from the outside that the rest of you get? Is it my fault my old man’s a prick and pretends I ain’t alive? I’ve got expenses too, you know. And because I’m a bad man and still paying for this jerk suit”—he pointed to his costume, a satire on the new blends, which, dimly phosphorescent, shone on his pale wrists like fishskin—“I’m docked a buck a month in canteen chits.”

“I’m a bad man too,” Feldman said. “They dock me.”

“Fifty cents a month,” Mix said, ignoring him. “I could have asked for a buck.”

“It’s ridiculous for me to buy you off at all. Why should that guard kill me?”

“He’s seen your record,” Mix said. “He knows all about you.”

That was true, Feldman thought. He was wondering if he should offer Mix a quarter.

“Give me a dime,” Mix pleaded. “For two months.”

“You haven’t sense, Mix,” Feldman said. He turned away from him.

“I’ll tell,” Mix said. “I swear it.”

“I know that,” Feldman said quietly. He cupped his hands over his mouth. “Guard,” he called suddenly. “Guard. Guard .”

“What’s that racket?” the guard yelled.

“Hey, what is this?” Mix said.

“I’m on Warden’s Business,” Feldman shouted. “I’m Feldman the bad man and I’m on Warden’s Business.” He took out the warden’s flag and waved it furiously. “Feldman the bad man coming through here on Warden’s Business,” he called. “Feldman the bad man on his way to Records and Forms in the supply wing, to pick up requisitions for the canteen. No more requisitions in the canteen,” he yelled. Some civilians and other prison officials from the administrative offices stared at him from beyond the barred gate. Feldman continued to wave his flag and shout. “Feldman the bad man on Warden’s Business for Lieutenant Crease. Feldman the bad man on Get the Requisitions from Records and Forms in the Supply Wing Business. Coming through.”

“Cut out that screaming,” the guard roared.

Feldman marched toward him, waving his flag.

“All right, all right, I see it. Go on the hell through.” He unlocked the gate, and Feldman marched through. He looked back over his shoulder and winked at Mix, but the troubled man had turned away.

In trouble : These were the words of Feldman’s dream. He awoke. He sat up. In trouble . As in atmosphere . Or in China . It was an ambience, a dimension. Sure, he thought, the turd dimension. Something in nature. Something inside and mechanical. Something inside and not mechanical at all. Doom, he thought, the house struck by lightning, the wooden leg in flames, the poisoned heart.

Then why, he thought, why am I smiling?

He had been awakened by a noise. Was someone escaping? Was a cell open? Had a prisoner thrust his hands through the bars to catch a guard’s throat? Would he be made to run with them? He listened.

There was only the breathing in all the cells. It was a sustained, continuous sigh, the men’s breath going and coming like hissed, sibilant wind. Somewhere down the cellblock he heard a toilet flush. Someone wrenched up phlegm from a sour throat. In their sleep men turned uncomfortably on their narrow cots. Rolling, they groaned. He heard farts, coughs, the clipped, telescoped declarations of dreamed speech. No one was escaping. All cells were locked. They were cornered, all of them. No one could get in.

He lay back down again and tried to sleep. How long had he been there? Two months, three? Would they really let him out in only a year? They had to. That was the law.

“Who’s up?” a voice asked suddenly, timidly. “Is someone up?”

The words were clear; they had not sounded like a sleeper’s mutterings.

“Is there someone awake in here?” It sounded as if the man were testing, like a soldier poking with his rifle into the rooms and corners of an empty farmhouse.

Feldman remained silent. Why am I smiling? he thought.

“Dear God,” the voice said. The speaker, someone two or three cells away from Feldman, had slipped out of his cot. Apparently he was on his knees. “Forgive my mistakes, God. Help me to think of a plan to get out of this place.”

Then another voice spoke. “Dear God, forgive and forget. Wipe the slate. I need a chance. Give a guy a chance.”

Another: “God in Heaven,” the voice said, “see the children get an education.”

Men were awake throughout the long, dark cellblock.

“Get the rat who squealed, who turned state’s evidence, Lord.”

“Dearest Jesus of my soul, give me courage.”

“Give me brains, God.”

“ I want to go back to Kansas.”

“Make me lucky.”

“Dear God, look after my wife. See she stays true.”