James Purdy - In a Shallow Grave

“You’re not going to throw a man who gave his life for his country off his own land and into the road?” Daventry started in.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” She turned to me for an explanation of this speech from my applicant.

“Mr. Potter Daventry,” I introduced him.

She said “ How do you do ” very quickly and then turned her full attention to him, her back turned toward me now like a slammed door.

“Of course Garnet won’t be dispossessed, but he has to pay these back taxes, or he may . . . It’s gone to the courts, you see. I can’t begin to tell you how serious . . .”

There was more and more, but all I could do and all I remember is how much I admired Daventry, I don’t know why, I mean he had a stern beauty as he kind of made her quail before him, and almost promise to stop dispossession.

Finally though she was gone and away in a big shined Cadillac chauffeured by some snooty colored guy with a garrison cap. But her visit cast a pall over all of us.

“So that’s all I been waiting for,” I began, “I mean I think it is the one thing I lacked, getting dispossessed, as the old girl names it . . . And you, Quintus, would have to read aloud at a time like that, God damn it . . . Don’t you think she sees we’re a outlandish enough bunch as it is with­out you mumbling and jawing and mooning aloud over there all by yourself with a book, Jesus Christ!”

“That’s right,” Quintus countered, “go ahead and blame me for you not payin’ your taxes too, and get turned out in the road. Go on, go ahead. Blame me. When you know God-damned well she come here to fight with you, no matter what I done . . . I was engaged here to read and read I will, so don’t pull no stuff on me. I’ve been readin’ and I will read till I get good and ready to quit readin’ . . .”

Quintus went out slamming the back door, but not very hard, and I watched him go sauntering down toward the cliffs.

I went back into the sitting room and began to walk, sort of veering in the direction of the spinet desk, and sitting down there took out a sheet of very old scented vellum paper.

I felt Daventry’s breath on my face as he stole up to say, “I don’t want to be the bearer of any more messages to the Widow.”

I wheeled around. “You’ll do as you’re told, or you’ll get out! You shall bear messages for me, do you hear? . . . I have given an order. Your duties are known . . .”

His mouth, which I now saw was beautifully formed (my attention to it had been distracted before by the ab­sence of teeth in the upper jaw), trembled, and his blue eyes looked like they were smarting.

“All right, Garnet, I suppose if you say so . . .”

“I do say so. Dismissed.”

But when I turned my attention back to the scented sheet of stationery I couldn’t think of anything to say, and kept writing the same saluation again and again.

My Dearest Girl

My Dearest Girl

Since I could not think of anything to write to Georgina, and since I was too mad at Quintus for reading out loud when Mrs. Gondess had been paying her call to summon him for a reading, I began to leaf through a book on phre­nology which he had left face down on the big Turkey carpet. Without quite realizing it at the time I was the most upset I had been since I returned to the “land of the living.” I felt I would lose my own land and house. There was more to what old lady Gondess said than her polite little warnings delivered while her sheeny Cadillac waited outside with its motor running.

I had to smile at my plight at the same time, for whereas all my other buddies had turned to grass when they were blue, discouraged or pissed-off, here I who should be lying in the same grave with them, go and pick up when in dejec­tion some old book I can’t understand and read from it or have read from it until my nerves quiet down.

In this state of mind then I picked up the Guide to Phrenology, which was dogeared and with its spine broken and its pages badly foxed, and began the chapter

MAN AS A GLYPH

Man is little more than a glyph which punctuates space, but once gone is as unrecollectable as smoke or clouds.

There kneeling before me as I looked up from this sentence was Daventry. His hair was uncombed and hung al­most down to his shoulders, and his mouth was trembling violently.

“Think over your decision, Garnet. Do not send me . . .”

“I’ll send you to hell, I will,” I cried, mad still that I did not have anything to write in the letter.

“What are you here for,” I exclaimed, my voice rising to a wail, “but to deliver and fetch messages, huh? Answer me that one.”

“You mean to treat me then like a slave in bondage because of my sharing my secret with you?”

“You can earn your keep the same as Quintus. What’s so wonderful special about you that you can’t hoof two miles down the road to see the Widow or Georgina, as you called her the other day, with your new cosihood?”

“You see, Garnet, you’re egging me on with her, and then you’ll turn on me!”

“Turn, hell,” I said, somewhat peaceable again, “I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all. Matter of fact, too, I’ve run out of things to write to her. I’ve told her all I know, and she ain’t told me so much as a sigh of breath in return.”

Daventry was rubbing my feet, as I guess he feared I was about to have an attack, though actually it was only Quintus who was supposed to do this service for me.

“Supposing I write the letter for you then,” Daventry said, taking a rest from his rubbing.

“Yeah, supposin’ . . . Do you know how to write good letters?”

He nodded vigorously.

“Well, why in cruddy hell didn’t you tell me earlier? Are you, do you mean to tell me, an educated man?”

“I did go through college,” he admitted.

“Another of your well-kept secrets, huh? . . . And look here, I don’t believe that shit about you killing two men.”

“Suit yourself, Garnet.”

“By the by, do you know what a glyph is?” I sort of cooled off a bit and begun studying the paragraph in the phrenology book.

“No, but I can find out for you.” He was all cooperation and eagerness. And after a slight pause, rubbing my feet some more, he said, “ Don’t send me, Garnet, please please don’t. ”

“You have found favor in her eyes,” I half-quoted something to him in a whisper.

He shook his head, his eyes were full of salt tears.

“Supposing,” I said, standing up, “supposing, Daventry, you dictate the letter, and I will write it down this time.” I let him bawl for a while, and watching him cry was the beginning of maybe the second terrible thing that had hap­pened to me in recent days. As I watched him so helpless, so downcast and downhearted, so lonely and without peo­ple, and despite his lie about being through college, so young and actually very good-looking, I had a strange glow of tenderness like I had never had for any other person be­fore, not even my buddies who was blown to bits before my open eyes.

“A glyph ,” he said, through his choking grief, “a glyph, Garnet, must mean judging by the context of the sentence you have your finger on, a sign standing for something else.”

“That’s clear as mud.” I slammed the book shut.

I went over to an old card table, and took up a stenographers pad, and a sharp pencil. “All right, Daventry,” I said, “shoot!”

He mooned a while longer, not even bothering to wipe his face dry of his tears, he just let them dry on him like a three-year-old.

My Only Darling,

he began,

When I told you the last time you were all I had you did not believe me. Believe me now, dearest. Without you, without the knowledge you are there beyond the maple grove, in your beautiful white-pillared house, my days would be without sunshine or hope. I do not expect you to return my love, I owe you my life if you will let me tell you how I adore you. By grant­ing me this favor, you will have granted me all. Do not detain my messenger, dear girl, but read the message, if you like, in his presence, and then dismiss him. Yours, for all time, ever,