Lorrie Moore - 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories

As he came up to the front of a dark, wooden building, he heard someone move in the doorway. A heavy Negro in a leather jacket stepped out in front of him and said, “Just a minute there, man. Where you think you’re goin’?”

As Ralph tried to move around him, frightened, the man said, “Christ, man, that’s my feet you’re steppin’ on!”

Before he could move away the Negro hit him hard in the stomach, and when Ralph groaned and bent over, the man hit him in the nose with his open hand, knocking him back against the wall where he sat down in a rush of pain and dizziness. He had one leg turned under, trying to raise himself up, when the Negro slapped him on the cheek and knocked him sprawling onto the pavement. He was aware of a hand slipping into his pants-pocket over the hip, felt his wallet slide out. He groaned and tried to sit up again as the man neatly stripped his watch over his hand. He kicked the wet sack of broken glass, and then sprinted down the street.

Ralph got his legs under him again. As if from a great distance he heard someone yell, “There’s a man hurt over here!” and he struggled up to his feet. Then he heard someone running toward him over the pavement, and a car pulled up to the curb, a car door slammed. He wanted to say, It’s all right, please, it’s all right, as a man came up to him and stopped a few feet away, watching. But the words seemed to ball in his throat and something like a gasp escaped his lips. He tried to draw a breath and the air piled up in his throat again, as if there were an obstruction in the passage; and then the noise broke even louder through his nose and mouth. He leaned his shoulder against the doorway and wept. In the few seconds he stood there, shaking, his mind seemed to empty out, and a vast sense of wonderment flowed through him as he thought again of Marian, why she had betrayed him. Then, as a policeman with a big flashlight walked over to him, he brought himself up with a shudder and became silent.

3.

Birds darted overhead in the graying mist. He still couldn’t see them, but he could hear their sharp jueet-jueet . He stopped and looked up, kept his eyes fixed in one place; then he saw them, no larger than his hand, dozens of them, wheeling and darting just under the heavy overcast. He wondered if they were seabirds, birds that only came in off the ocean this time of morning. He’d never seen any birds around Eureka in the winter except now and then a big, lumbering seagull. He remembered once, a long time ago, walking into an old abandoned house — the Marshall place, near Uncle Jack’s in Springfield, Oregon — how the sparrows kept flying in and out of the broken windows, flying around the rafters where they had their nests, and then flying out the windows again, trying to lead him away.

It was getting light. The overcast seemed to be lifting and was turning light-gray with patches of white clouds showing through here and there. The street was black with the mist that was still falling, and he had to be careful not to step on the snails that trailed across the damp sidewalk.

A car with its lights on slowed down as it went past, but he didn’t look up. Another car passed. In a minute, another. He looked: four men, two in front, two in the back. One of the men in the back seat, wearing a hat, turned around and looked at him through the back window. Mill workers. The first shift of plywood mill workers going to work at Georgia-Pacific. It was Monday morning. He turned the corner, walked past Blake’s; dark, the Venetian blinds pulled over the windows and two empty beer bottles someone had left standing like sentinels beside the door. It was cold, and he walked slowly, crossing his arms now and then and rubbing his shoulders.

He’d refused the policeman’s offer of a ride home. He couldn’t think of a more shabby ending to the night than riding home in the early morning in a black and white police car. After the doctor at Redwood Memorial Hospital had examined him, felt around over his neck with his fingers while Ralph had sat with his eyes closed, the doctor had made two X-rays and then put Merthiolate and a small bandage on his cheek. Then the policemen had taken him to the station where for two hours he’d had to look at photographs in large manila folders of Negro men. Finally, he had told the officer, “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid everyone looks pretty much alike right now.” The man had shrugged, closed the folder. “They come and go,” he’d said, staring at Ralph. “Sometimes it’s hard to nail them on the right charge due to lack of proper identification. If we bring in some suspects we’ll have you back here to help identify.” He stared at Ralph a minute longer, then nodded curtly.

He came up the street to his house. He could see his front porch light on, but the rest of the house was dark. He crossed the lawn and went around to the back. He turned the knob, and the door opened quietly. He stepped onto the porch and shut the door. He waited a moment, then opened the kitchen door.

The house was quiet. There was the tall stool beside the draining board. There was the table where they’d sat. How long ago? He remembered he’d just gotten up off the couch, where he’d been working, and come into the kitchen and sat down… He looked at the clock over the stove: 7:00 A.M. He could see the dining room table with the lace cloth, the heavy glass centerpiece of red flamingos, their wings opened. The draperies behind the table were open. Had she stood at that window watching for him? He moved over to the door and stepped onto the living room carpet. Her coat was thrown over the couch, and in the pale light he could make out a large ashtray full of her cork cigarette ends on one of the cushions. He noticed the phone directory open on the coffee table as he went by. He stopped at the partially open door to their bedroom. For an instant he resisted the impulse to look in on her, and then with his finger he pushed open the door a few inches. She was sleeping, her head off the pillow, turned toward the wall, and her hair black against the sheet. The covers were bunched around her shoulders and had pulled up from the foot of the bed. She was on her side, her secret body slightly bent at the hips, her thighs closed together protectively. He stared for a minute. What, after all, should he do? Pack his things, now, and leave? Go to a hotel room until he can make other arrangements? Sleep on the extra bed in the little storage room upstairs? How should a man act, given the circumstances? The things that had been said last night. There was no undoing that — nor the other. There was no going back, but what course was he to follow now?

In the kitchen he laid his head down on his arms over the table. How should a man act? How should a man act? It kept repeating itself. Not just now, in this situation, for today and tomorrow, but every day on this earth. He felt suddenly there was an answer, that he somehow held the answer himself and that it was very nearly out if only he could think about it a little longer. Then he heard Robert and Dorothea stirring. He sat up slowly and tried to smile as they came into the kitchen.

“Daddy, daddy,” they both said, running over to him in their pajamas.

“Tell us a story, daddy,” Robert said, getting onto his lap.

“He can’t tell us a story now,” Dorothea said. “It’s too early in the morning, isn’t it, daddy?”

“What’s that on your face, daddy?” Robert said, pointing at the bandage.

“Let me see!” Dorothea said. “Let me see, daddy.”

“ Poor daddy,” Robert said.

“What did you do to your face, daddy?”

“It’s nothing,” Ralph said. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Here, get down, Robert, I hear your mother.”

Ralph stepped into the bathroom and locked the door.