Five Legs Read online

  “The trouble with people like Oswald.” Careful, because his friends are. Sudden flush for Susan (can I say it?) eagerly, yes eagerly looks up, she’s watching me. “People like Oswald, and mind you there are many of them in the world today, a great many. They don’t have any honest emotions. Honest responses.

  “Oh you’re so right Doctor Crackell.”

  “They have to, to dramatize everything until it’s no longer real.”

  “And that’s why he jumped out of your car, isn’t it?” Breathing through her mouth: her pausing lips and perfect teeth. Without, even without her body in my hall, she’s lovely. You’d have to say that there’s a finely sculptured mouth. And perfect teeth. “So impulsive and it would have been just as good to phone.” Yes.

  “Certainly Susan. I think that’s very apt. For example.” Authority tapping on the table. “He’s not here yet is he? And God knows when he’ll get away with all the questions they’ll probably want to ask.”

  “Maybe they’ll even want to take him back out to the accident.” Nasty, boy that’s a nasty thought! Broken body or even worse, alive perhaps with agony and jeez I wouldn’t like that very much. The dark blood seeping, clotting in the snow. No I wouldn’t, for.

  “Yes, and if that’s the case, none of us would have gotten here in time and maybe we wouldn’t even have made it to the. Church.” Susan I’m. I’m sorry. Quickly change direction as she thinks of him. “But Oswald, people like him don’t think of things like that, they dramatize, don’t they, they act impulsively but not with thought.” Careful! The Sears girl shifts and I guess the conversation. His rudeness was unforgivable, there’s no doubt about that and we’ll have to see what can be done; nevertheless. The conversation is. Unwise. Doctor Lucan Crackell turns, he turns and smiles at Miss Ann Sears; just like them, just like the both of them, she really is. “It’s the nature of the young, I suppose, heh.” Openly staring before she shrugs. She looks away. “Heh. And those of us entering middle age lose touch sometimes.”

  “Surely Doctor Crackell.” Her returning head and here we go, for chrissakes, leaning professionally with fingers resting lightly on my cup; how many frigging times have I heard? “Surely that’s why the impulsive young are a, a necessary component in any society.” Nodded sympathetically at arrogant faces because they’ve paid their fees? “Because without them you’d have no change, no progress.” And she really thinks she’s made a point, jeez! An original thought for chrissakes.

  “Well that’s certainly true to a point, Miss Sears, but . . .”

  “I don’t know much about philosophy or anything.” Susan’s effective voice. So Lucan leans back, that’s the thing. “But I do know there’s no excuse for being rude.” Give her hell that’s it, yes. “Every time I saw him he was rude.” Enveloped Lucan small with need, climbing into that sculptured mouth and pink with her tongue. Expanding softly, her perfect teeth about him as she talks, and I’d like her to swallow me right up, yes I would, enveloped and warm and easy and . . .

  On the day before my birthday Vera, you bought that bottle of champagne and hid it in the refrigerator and in the morning you woke me with an icy glass and we lay there drinking, hardly talking except to say how wonderful to drink champagne in bed early on the morning of your birthday, or any day, with a lover, with someone you love . . . Naked on my back, the body’s need: passive. So slow, how good her hand, oh God her hand! Gently among the gathering hairs and strength: the sun is hot and her soft mouth follows her hand and you’re so ugly Lucan, so lovelyugly, men are so threatening here and blondly shrouding my belly and thighs her hair.

  Nine. Be almost nine, a boyorgirl and what are you doing now, do you think of me? “Nobody’s fault really. I guess it’s just a matter of personalities, but I never. We never got along. That’s all.” Because of. Shit! My disgrace in this wretched town because of her and the job I’ll probably never get and still her hand, blunt-fingered, and the leaves. “Never liked his influence on Martin: he was so different, you know, when they got together.” You’re like her Susan, a little thinner perhaps, yes not so plump. Somewhat bonier there at the opening of your blouse, nevertheless. Delicate. Yes. Cross-legged, after carefully adjusting the crease and God these shoes are a mess! Delicate. Happier Lucan with this girl, this mere slip of a. It’s quite remarkable, it really is, she has the same. Perhaps. Drawn back her hair, not loose, but blonde like Vera’s with melted snow. What if we. What if I leaned and. Stupid embarrassed Lucan Crackell for jeez, what kind of a stupid . . . Wow! There is no. But the, yes, the chuckling, this day isn’t so bad. Brushing these few ashes from my chest, brush-brush, and I mustn’t forget the newspaper.

  Rising, “excuse me for a minute,” walking while I think of it, walking and good Lord! Stomping in all ruddy with snow. Four of them at least, no five and their laughter’s confidence: jostling out of coats, their cries, hello, hi there, while starkly, one is standing dazed and bruised or dirty on the cheek: a brutal shadow under empty eyes. There’s horror in the shadow of his hat; he’s ready to cry! Looking but not seeing as they strip him of his dirty coat, ten solicitously lead him past, they seat him. In my chair for chrissakes! With that stupid goddamn hat, what are they? Doing they can see my coffee there, they can. Boy! Some people, laughing and. Abruptly Lucan turns, demands the paper and I’m, I’m sure it’s the same one, but he doesn’t see me here because his eyes are on that ragged man. Hands on the streaky glass and underneath the lichee nuts and fortune cookies in their trays. Yes, some cigarettes and slowly he bends, pulling the lever: wow! Swoosh the trapdoor opens and I hurtle through his floor, crash into the waiting rowboat; terrible struggle, oh God, my strangled cries unheard as they stroke in the maze of pilings and unspeakable filth into open water and the moon: pressed cruelly, my face in this bilge­water, and I can only just see one savage silhouette. “That’s right, DuMaurier.” From two quarters, my change and. “Thanks.” Darkly to the waiting ship; and slowly to my coffee growing cold.

  “And Doctor Crackell, maestro, teacher and veritable pillar of southwestern Ontario’s academic community; do you remember me?” Cigarette holder as he talks and stands, presiding: silly old fool, heavy moustached.

  “Certainly, yes, I have visited your. But.” Show him, the arrogant. “But I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. Enquiring Lucan leans smoothly, polite my smile. “Mister?” Superior, that’s the. Laughter crackling from a blond, that meanfaced boy beside Susan.

  “Mister? Mister? Haaaaaa-hah-haaa! Man that kills me.” Glaring from face to face; avoiding me, his wolfish smile. “Hey Mister Max, do you have one, eh? Do you have a last name?”

  “You’ll excuse my young friend Doctor Crackell. He hasn’t worked for eighteen months, have you Willy?” Subsiding, the blond boy back into himself inserting a finger into his nose, he digs vigorously. “Apparently they’re not in the market for hairdressers with his background, but.” Brightly back to me. “In his own offensive way, the boy is right Doctor Crackell, my name is Max. Max and no more.” Slight bowing and turning up his palms; tight skull beneath his greying hair. “Eternal and humble student at life’s banquet for the intellect: at your service, sirrah!” Good God, what have I? What time is it and when can we escape this? Disengaging from his nose, the thumb and forefinger rolling together, they disappear beneath the table and in his hand, when it appears, a heavy-boled and leather covered pipe. Quickly Lucan at his watch, hot flushes and I better pop into the washroom. “Now let me introduce you to my companions first, and perhaps you’ve met at one of my evenings, this is Pat.” Lucan nodding to her incredibly white face, her midnight hair. “Pat you know is an artista: she paints and writes, don’t you Pat. Hmmmn. A lovely girl. And here we have our court psychologist. Jerry Benfield.” Round man rising, greasy, reflecting hair, his rings are hard in my hand.

  “How do you do Doctor Crackell, I’ve heard a great deal about you and it’s a pleasure, a real pleasure I’m sure, to meet you at last
.” Holding, squeezing and staring. He sits plumply, takes out a handkerchief, rubs his brow, wipes his hand and from here I can see that it’s a bruise alright, a growing ugly green, Who is he, for chrissakes, this ragged man; he really looks drunk or something, he. Slouching down.

  “You’ve recently met Willy, of course, he’s a. He’s an out of work hairdresser, but a man with . . .”

  “C’mon eh Max, quit buggin me eh? Jeez!” Stuffing tobacco into the pipe: easy self-consciousness, poised. “Hey!” Alert suddenly with open eyes. “Hey man, where’s Felix, wasn’t. Wasn’t that cat comin’ down with you?” Hazel, or pale at least, and staring into mine. Well ah, unwilling Lucan about to speak, when Ann.

  “He’s over at the police station Willy, he’s. No it’s not what you think, no: there was an accident, we passed a car. Why you, you must have passed it too?”

  “Did we!” Darting eyes to the ragged man, and his wolfish laugh. “Man I’m telling you, it was really something.”

  “I was, I was quite certain we were the first car on the scene.” Sticking a fresh cigarette into his holder and glancing, he’s glancing at Lucan Crackell sitting absurdly frightened now. “Apparently he’d just gone off the road, one of his wheels was still spinning, so we naturally assumed we were the first, we.” He, he for chrissakes? Who and what happened, was there any. Body hurt was there?

  “We thought the car was empty, thought the wreck was old was there anybody. Hurt?”

  “Well that’s an interesting story doctor.” Holder in under the ragged moustache, and considered flaring match go on, for heaven’s sake go on! “We stopped, of course, pulled over to the side of the road and right away.” Puff-puff for, what? “Right away, Willy here, saw the man in the back seat.” Rising, Lucan’s hair on the back of his neck, rising and.

  “He was all scrunched up at the back of the car, right against the back window. At first I thought, I thought it was just a bundle of clothes or something, but then I saw his face.” Without warning once again, Lucan rubbing the back of his neck and why didn’t we stop, why didn’t we?

  “To continue. When Jerry saw the poor fellow there, we all jumped out, haste haste we cried, but none of us could match the alacrity of Sweet William: he was out of our car and swarming over the wreck with amazing speed. You would have been astounded Doctor Crackell, simply astounded at the conduct of this boy. There he was on his knees, cool as cool, wrenching open the door and before you could say, John Diefenbaker, he’d scuttled inside on his lifesaving mission. It was then.” Bastard, shrewd eyes watching. Shrewd. Expansive hands and smoke about his head, he’s milking it, milking for all it’s worth! “It was then I heard the ticking sound, like a bomb or something, ticking away. The ignition, I cried, or we’ll all go up in a TERROR OF FLAMES! I’m telling, I’m telling you boys it was a suspenseful moment there on that winter road. It was the fuel pump I suspect, spewing fuel all over, indubitably, and as soon as Willy turned the key it stopped, but. But it’s a blessed thing that I heard it when I did!”

  “Willy, for goodness sake, what happened?” Ann you’re wasting, wasting yourself with frauds.

  “Well. Like I was in there and I could see this guy; he wasn’t moving at all and, man, I figured I’d crawled in there with a stiff and maybe Max was right and the whole goddamn thing would still blow up or something. Anyway. I was just deciding whether I oughta take his pulse, you know, see if he was getting cold or anything when I see his goddamn eyes are open! Man I damn near flipped and then he grabs my wrist and starts telling me about the lousy life of a travel-ling ­salesman.”

  “Dohnever travel.” Mumbling voice as shifting suddenly, this dirty­-bruised and stranger. “Don’t any of you ever nice people travel.” Good Lord, it? It is! “Eighteen years. Eighteen. And everyone of them god-for-say-ken.” Rubbing his hand across his voice, his fading voice. “Goin’ on nineteen.” Must be the one and, and they’ve brought him here, they’ve come directly here. On a day of mourning! WOW, just who, who do they think they are for chrissakes! Susan’s horrified and why not, shit when even Ann and Nancy stare? Bringing this, this. “Almost nineteen godforsaken years and then, last weekend . . .” Watery, eyes drift away: arms to the table top, his shaking head slumps down. “She had them put me in jail” comes his final voice.

  “Willy, persuasive as ever, finally dragged and coaxed him out: and here he is, poor sod, a veritable broken, a broken reed! Aaah such are the . . .”

  “What did he say, what did he say just then? About last weekend?”

  “Oh man that’s. He told me about it in the car.” Wooden kitchen match to his bloody leather pipe. “This’ll really slay you.” Acrid smoke and his sucking mouth, the bright flame flares and wanes. “It seems,” staring curiously into the coals, “It seems they had a party on Saturday night or something. Man, this is a, this is a terrible story. And sort of late on when everybody had been sloshing away at the old booze he goes into the kitchen, see, and there’s his wife with this other cat. Climbing all over her. He said he thought she was fighting him off, and when she sees her husband she calls for help. Elmer! His name’s Elmer or something. Help me! You know? So he tells the guy to get the hell out of his house, and he opens the door and everything, but the guy was pretty big and he refuses to go. Well. You know, what can you do? So he phones the cops. He had a couple of drinks while he was waiting for them and this big cat just sits there with his feet stretched out as if he owns the place. Elmer said it was really creepy: you know, all the people went home and his wife had gone upstairs to the bedroom, and the two of them just sat there, drinking and looking at each other.” Puffing, bending his neck and blowing clouds upon clouds above his head, smiling suddenly: “Then when the cops did arrive. Jesus! Before the poor bastard could open his mouth, the wife comes tearing downstairs screaming that he’s a drunk, get that, that Elmer here is a drunk and he’s embarrassing her, and all her friends had left because of his violent temper, he was dangerous and was gonna beat her up again; he oughta be locked up, a decent woman like her shouldn’t be left at the mercy of a poisoned mind. Boy! You know, on and on and she even cried a little, and the big cat just stands there nodding: he can’t go home and leave her in the hands of such an unstable person. The cops didn’t know what to do. They asked if she wanted to lay a charge and when the bitch said yes, they took the poor bugger away and locked him up in the tank on a drunk and disorderly charge.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Yeah Ann. You can imagine eh?” Humorously shaking his head. “A whole night in the tank with the memory of his wife and her tall dark and handsome lover standing there in his own goddamn living room with big drinks in their hands. And grinning, grinning like crazy. Eh? Man, I mean that’d really drive you wild, wouldn’t it?”

  “That’s really. Some people are so cruel.”

  “Mister Benfield is this man actually . . . do you mean to tell me.” Bravo Susan, well done! Can’t let them get away with this and Lucan leaning eagerly. “That this man was in that wreck?” I stare accusingly with her.

  “That’s right Miss. I’m afraid he was.”

  “But shouldn’t you, he, go to the police, what will the police say?”

  “I suspect they’ll, they’ll feel he should have gone directly to the station of course, but we. We rather felt he needed a cup of coffee first.” Just who, by God! I’d like to know, just who these people think. Scorning the law, totally oblivious to grief . . . “Furthermore we’ll be taking him over as soon as he’s had a chance to assimilate this extremely traumatic experience; one wouldn’t want to, to rush him you know. It mightn’t be. Wise.” Turning his ring and leaning back. “I recall one . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah. The poor guy needs a coffee, that’s all. He can’t go to the cops before he has a cup of coffee. Poor bastard!” Reaching his hand out he pats the resting arm: screwing him up, they’re certainly. Be charged with leaving the scene, he will, they’ll slap a charge o
n him so fast. “They’ll probably put you in jail again, won’t they?” Bloody selfishness, of this crew and jeez with a dead-beat life! “Man, he’s lucky though, thrown right back against the back window and there’s nothing broken, eh?”

  “I recall a similar case, drunken driving and the authorities . . .”

  “You should have seen the car, Doctor Crackell.” Quickly brushing at his large moustache. “After Willy shut off the ignition and immediate danger was abjured, I had the leisure to, to examine the machine while they were inside talking.”

  “Incarcerated the driver, waiting for him to sober up, and. And this is the interesting thing. He never did.” Collecting cripples for chrissakes! Encourag­ing all kinds of anti-social behaviour, they collect absurdities, they think. And I’ve nothing but scorn, Lucan Crackell opening his cigarettes and coughing, Jesus Christ! This basement room, these booths; fan’s greasy blades and faded lanterns meshed with streamers from the ceiling: bunched at the kitchen door, friends and waiters. Smooth skinned and drinking coffee in the juke-box noise. Another cup, I need one. Yes.

  Lonely rivers flow

  To the sea, to the sea,

  I’ll be coming home;

  Wait for me . . .

  “Front end horrifically destroyed so that a man would think, how can anyone be alive inside such a, Doctor Crackell, how can this fellow, I asked myself, possibly have survived the awesome collision between machine and growing life. That tree?” Waiter with more coffee and this is simply not the time. Or place. Even if and remote, the possibility, certainly extremely unlikely that I could ever enjoy. Sugar and pass it to Susan. “Yet there he was, amazing but true, lying in there chatting away to Willy. I stood awed, virtuably awed at the resiliency, yes that’s the word, resiliency; of this, the human body. There’s a lesson, as in all things, there’s a lesson here for those who see, for those who wish to use their. To see, and that is: man, if given half a chance man will prevail.” Slurping at his coffee bent, this fool. “Isn’t that so?” Moustache adjusted as he glares about the table at us all. “You’re very quiet Pat, and you’re the artista among us, the preceptive spirit. What do you think?”