John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

When his wife Marguerite entered his thoughts, cutting a large mimeographed paper into tiny, irritating scraps and smiling at something he couldn’t see, he realized he was asleep. “Thank God,” he thought, and was awake again for an instant, but only for an instant.

After that he heard nothing at all until, hours later, it seemed, the anarchist gave a kind of gasp, not loud but somehow chilling. “Go ahead,” he whispered, “touch it. It’s blood all right. Taste it. In remembrance of Me.”

“What’s he doing?” the younger Indian said. He sounded as if he’d been asleep.

“Opened up his wrist somehow,” the older one said. “It’s to prove how great he is.”

“It’s blood,” the bearded one said. He sounded wild now, angry, or maybe frightened. “Taste it, go ahead.”

“Is he killing himself?” the younger one said, growing interested.

The older one grunted.

“I could,” the Sunlight Man said, proudly. “I’d never bat an eye.” He laughed wildly, and Boyle thought, dead sure he was right: Faking. Why?

They said nothing. Boyle began to sweat.

“Mother Jesus, he really is loopy, you know that? I mean somebody must’ve spun him around too much in the swing.”

“Free, not loopy!” the Sunlight Man exclaimed. “Capable of gratuity!” He laughed with delight. “Also loopy, however. A difficult matter to define. A withdrawal from reason.”

“Yeah, sure,” the younger of the Indians said. “That’s neat. Keep it up.”

After a minute the bearded man’s laughter changed to whimpering. “It hurts,” he said. “Ow.” Finally he was quiet. Now Boyle could smell the blood. He wrung his fingers.

The older one said in the thick silence, “He is crazy.” He seemed to muse on it. In his mind, Boyle could see the older Indian lying on his back staring up into the dark, turning it over. “But also he’s pretending.”

In the morning they saw there was a long, clotted gash on the anarchist’s left arm, from his elbow to his wrist, and there was blood spattered on his already filthy trousers. He showed it off to the guard and did his shuffling dance and gave Walter Boyle the finger. Boyle turned away.

The guard was uneasy, probably about what the Chief would say. He said, “What happened? You, Boyle, you see it?”

“I was asleep,” he said.

“Since the day he was born,” the Sunlight Man yelled. He clapped his hands, his elbows going out, and leered at them. “Asleep since the day he was born.”

“Shut up, Mac,” the guard said. He went to get the Chief and, after that, the doctor. That afternoon they took the bearded one away. When he was leaving, he said, “I’ll be back, my friends. If I’m not, think of me when they’re strapping you into the chair.”

The one called Miller said, “You. Can it.”

The Chief of Police had his hand on his chin, and his eyes were narrowed to needles of icy blue.

They went out with the prisoner.

7

At ten-thirty that night the woman died. Nick and Verne Slater knew already by the time Luke Hodge came to tell them, the following morning. The guard had heard it on the radio and gave them the news with their breakfast. Luke stood with his hands in the pockets of his old bib-overalls and looked past them while he talked. He had a deep, resonant voice, like all the Hodges, but unlike the others he was thin, almost girlish, with big, lean ears, so that the voice was ridiculous, as though he had a loudspeaker in his chest. His ears stuck straight out from his deeply tanned, girlish face.

Verne said, “I guess that makes it worse for us?”

“Sorry,” Luke said.

Nick said, “Where’s your old man been? We need us a lawyer.”

He pretended to know nothing about it. He lifted his eyebrows, still looking past them and reached with two fingers for the Kents in his shirt pocket. “He’ll be in, probably. You know how he is. Busy all the time.”

“Like shit,” Nick said.

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “I didn’t even know he hadn’t been in.” He lit the cigarette and shook out the wooden match without offering them a smoke. Verne grew sullen.

“Nobody been here at all,” Verne said. “It’s more than a fucking week. You’d think the whole town was in Florida having vacation. I wouldn’t minded too much for my brother. But me, I’m just a baby.”

“I can see it must’ve been rough,” Luke said. He looked at his feet, the corner of his mouth drawn back, letting smoke out.

Nick said, “How come you came now?”

“I thought you’d want to hear.”

Nick nodded, squinting and snapping his fingernail lightly, again and again, at one of the polished nickel bars. “It must be unpleasant for you, having to tell us.”

Luke glanced at him for a second, then away. “Not too bad,” he said.

Nick smiled, fighting the fear building up inside. “No, not too bad, I guess.”

“Sorry,” Luke said, and this time it was not ironic. He’d pulled back inside himself; his face seemed to close up, and you might as well be standing in some other room.

Verne said, “Hey, look. Give a bastard a puff, will you?”

Luke stared right through him, deaf, and Verne looked surprised.

“It’s all right,” Nick said, touching Verne’s arm. Then to Luke: “There’s a guy says they’ll give us the chair. Is that true? Can they?”

“You’ll have to talk to Dad. I got no idea.”

“If he shows,” Nick said.

Again Luke swept his glance toward him and past, uneasy, and no doubt they were thinking the same thing. The deal was off. Ben Hodge had nothing to do with it now. There was no more question of waiting out the probation. And so Luke Hodge was out from under, it was done with.

Nick’s legs were unsteady. When Luke was scraping the cow manure off, Nick had leaned back on the whitewashed stone cowbarn wall and had laughed till he could hardly see. It wasn’t as if it would kill him, a little cow manure. And Luke had asked for it, he knew that himself. What about all those other times — running their asses off in the haylot to get in the bales before the rain came, or combining wheat till eleven at night because tomorrow there might be wind? But that had been back in the beginning. A lot had happened.

“Ok,” Nick said, “thanks for coming by.” Strange to say, he felt relieved, in a way, as if the breaking of the lifeline were not so much a failure of hope as a release into wide, calm drifting. He was on his own, with nobody to turn to. He was partly glad.

Still Luke didn’t leave. He said, talking to the floor, “Take it easy. I’ll tell the old man to come talk to you.”

“We’d really like that,” Verne said. “We really would enjoy it.”

Nick said nothing, exploring the weird sensation, a pleasant numbness of emotion. He felt taller.

Then, not looking at either of them, Luke relented and handed the pack of cigarettes and the matches through the bars and turned to go.

Nick ignored it. He went and sat on the pallet, after Luke was gone, and hung his head between his knees and waited for the feeling to die. Later he said, “I’ll tell you something. We got to break out.” He glanced over at the thief. Boyle seemed to be paying no attention, studying his paper.

“Don’t be crazy,” Verne said. “Just take it easy. The old man’ll fix it.” After a moment, “He’s done it before.”

“Just keep quiet, will you?” Nick said. “There is no old man. Christ, don’t you get anything?”

“Quiet as a mouse,” Verne said, eyes wide. “Watch me. — What you mean?”

It was at noon, when Salvador brought them their lunch, that they learned that the Sunlight Man had escaped. In the end cell, Boyle jerked his head around, pale, and smiled as though he were responsible for it all.