Five Legs Read online

  Hmmn. I know. Ah Bert, fine Bert with another frosted glass and the real world on the street seems far away. Just one more for I know her talk, I have lived it all. I was just like him and worse, oh shit . . . The surfacing past with Lucan’s face reflected in the mirror. And that’s why I can’t go back! On that fucking road in winter twice a week I drove with drink and despair because she’d gone. But I mustn’t think of that. Shaking his head he makes an effort to suppress familiar panic. They warned me but I couldn’t, there was no way. We warn you Crackell . . .

  Suddenly, violently. Horribly sick all over the floor and it’s splattered my goddamn shoes. Oh! Oh! Oh! Lucan stared numbly, through watery eyes, at the floor. My dinner there. Of pickled eggs and. Beer. Oh God! What a terrible mess. Pretend it isn’t mine, clean the old shoes and hot-foot it out of here before. That’s the ticket. Quickly he lurched away down the silent hall and. No. No. This will never do, for there’s nobody else who. That’s Crackell’s vomit, they’ll say. Who else would, it must be his, the drunken . . . Mop it up, that’s better, mop it up and nobody will ever know. You crafty cunning beast. Long rows of lockers in the basement gloom and there isn’t a mop. Or a cloth. Or even any paper to be seen. Just benches. And shadows from the mesh-protected lights. Angular shadows. What in this frigging world will I do? He stood despairing in its sour smell. Think. Think, for goodness’ sake. My shirt! That’s it, my shirt. He chuckled to himself as he struggled with his clothes. Hee-hee. Never let it be said that Lucan Crackell faltered. Good Lord but the suit-coat’s harsh on my skin! Hee. He chuckled again and began to mop and heard the women’s feet and voices down the hall. Oh Jesus! Oh. Desperately there on the knees. Desperately. Oh God that time! A most distressing thing. Young and thoughtless I presumed to fight the winter world; yet lost from her longing arms, all lost with the terror of their memory on my flesh, I joined the hollow baying chase. Jeez!

  The soap at first is slimy from the dish as Lucan slowly lathers up his hands. Back down that road to my misfortunes in the town. Two nights a week I went, to a stolid unresponsive class. English 102. Dear blessed Heaven, could I have seen! He carefully scrubs his knuckles and meticulously brushes the soap beneath his nails. Immaculate indeed, I’ll have to be.

  I guess you really wanted to do all these things too, when you were young Doctor Crackell, but you settled down didn’t you? I mean look at you now with a nice home, a good wife and a solid job. But Martin says he doesn’t want to settle down, he doesn’t want to teach forever. I don’t know how he expects us to live or anything and I can tell you I’m not going to raise a family on the terrible pay he’d get in England or wherever he wants to go over there. She sipped cautiously from her melting drink, she ran the tip of her tongue along her lips and reached for his cigarettes. He’ll just have to settle down won’t he. When we’re married I mean. He’ll have to accept his responsibilities as a man. Just like you did. Just like all men do. Reaching across the table he flicked the lighter’s flame and it glowed upon her face. She dragged it alight. There you are Susan. Good God! My elbow’s dragged good God! He jumped to his feet, he slapped and brushed. My drink on my lap. Ha. That was pretty careless, wasn’t it. Ha-ha. And it’s cold on my groin.

  An old man (figuratively speaking) in a windy month he rinses the basin, conscious of the ache returning in his head. Clean it out Lucan. He dries his hands, careful to refold the towel, and rolls down his sleeves. Two more pills, a bit of water and a calm mind, above all else a calm mind to rid me of this weakness that seems to have returned.

  Dismissed for drinking and I didn’t because of the swoosh and empty fall inside my head, drive back immediately. I remember. Couldn’t. So I walked in a driven snow-filled night and God how I walked. Solitary on long streets and wide in the numbing whiteness, the snow freezing in my hair and face, coating my chest and shoulders and I walked alone and away all dark and huddled. Pressed in my pockets, hard against my thighs, my hands were cold and twisted I recall, and the powdery snow was lifted in burning circles up my legs. Not a sound dear God as I passed among the street-light’s pale illumination; not a sound but the wind’s hush and the dry snow’s rise and fall.

  They know, the bastards, why I can’t and what’s in store when I drive down that road again to his uncle who is principal, his mother who smiled thinly at graduation and all the others in that dreadful town who know and maybe cherish the spectacle of my lost years. His fingers bumble out a cigarette, he holds it in dry lips and breathing in the lighter’s flame he sighs and blows the smoke against itself upon the glass. What reason though? What possible reason except perhaps to exorcise the lingerings of youth; to overcome what vestiges remain. Your past is clarified Lucan, and conquered now: it gathers dust neatly on the shelf. Hmmph. And now, what was only a dream at my night-bound desk. Hah! Or else. A plot, a plot dear God, a filthy plot to keep me in my place! He groans and deeply dragging feels the sharp smoke in his chest. The buzzing fly that slapped between the window panes, buzzed and slapped with glass on either side while curtains bellied in the room and their persuasive voices were patterns in the air. White circles smooth and the jigsaw shape upon the snow. Goddamnit! The watch that he slips on his wrist says nine-forty-three. I really must move, the past is coming on. So he brushes at the front of his pants, undoes the zipper and pulls his shirtfront tight, retrieves his cigarette from the basin’s lip and leaves the room.

  Leaning cosily on both pillows now she does not know the wind from the north and ancient land that searches and whispers about the town: she does not and she cannot know what the death of that boy might do.

  “Did you see his picture?”

  “Whose? Oh.” He feels the sick impatience, a gentle pressure in his bowels. “No, no I didn’t.”

  “Here.” She turns the pages and Lucan stands by the bed. And there it is. Grey and impersonal, the undistinguished face of a young man in graduation robes. The image of a thing that once for a moment was. “It’s not very good is it? But then he didn’t have the kind of face that photographs well.” Nor a face for memories. A wild and foolish thoughtless boy. There are english philosophy students, english and philosophy students — and then of course there’s Baillie. And ha we laughed at my gentle knowing truth. “They haven’t even caught the driver yet. Poor dear Susan.” She turns at the melting windblown flakes. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing. And his parents. The funeral should be an end, they should be allowed to forget and everything, but they won’t be able to now.” She sits for a moment in silence, and then: “It must have hit him awfully hard. Imagine. Crushing the fender of a car.”

  A brutal hollow sound and hurled by the rushing shadow, twisting in the air, his body struck and broken in the snow: the silence falls again in heavy flakes, settling on his jagged shape and the snows wax now incarnadine. “Jeez. C’mon Rose, it’s bad enough on a day like this.” A curious dwelling on facts is just what I don’t need now for my head. “I just wish I didn’t have to go down to the bloody funeral, that’s all. And the thought of all those people with a body in a church, I . . . oh boy.” At rest in the Blackburn Funeral Home, from. A last deep drag on the cigarette, a deep and aching drag until the tip is suddenly hot against my hand. Take care. A kind invitation to view the remains. “And when you come right down to it, I hardly knew the boy and you certainly couldn’t say we got along.” Oh dear sweet Heaven, for it’s too late now and I’ve got to go: look after me and my aching head, look after my impatient bowels. “I wouldn’t be going, if Howell wasn’t so frigging adamant.”

  “You make me so cross sometimes Lucan.” Her eyes unblinking in the room’s grey light move past me as they glance about the room, they rest upon my face and then move on again. “What would happen if everybody, if nobody came to the funeral?” Above all else a mind that’s calm, but she cannot see. She doesn’t see at all. “I’d be going with you, you know that, I feel just terrible about it, but somebody has to make-up this matinee.” She absently straig
htens the newspaper as it lies forgotten across her knees. And it’s warm enough in here, secure. “Certainly you have to go. And anyway Doctor Howell is sending you down because he wants you to represent the university. You said so yourself. You said it was a good sign remember? You said it meant you’ll get the new department and that’s what you want isn’t it?” A weightless unexpressive silence wells within him as he sits. Oh boy. You just don’t know. “I don’t understand you Lucan, it’s just a funeral and you’ve got everything to gain, but you act as if.” Hoo boy! You just don’t know, that’s all. This nausea pressing downward in my guts.

  “Alright. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said anything.” He shrugs his shoulders ruefully. “I only thought perhaps you’d . . .” Oh boy if you only knew the fears and passions of a soul in flux, the anguish of a soul that’s ventured past the easy life.

  “Now don’t be silly Lucan.” Her voice, her knowing voice is eminently reasonable. “There’s no need to feel like a martyr, there’s simply no . . .”

  “Look, let’s just forget it. You don’t understand and that’s that.” With thoughtless motherly unconcern you lounge about, presuming to understand the motives of my life. “The fact is, I don’t want to drive down to Stratford to his goddamn funeral and you can’t understand why. So let’s just forget it. Okay? I feel lousy enough today without all this. Okay?” Jesus.

  “Well I’m sorry if you don’t feel well Lucan.” She turns her hurt blank eyes to the window. Lost and distraught in the snow-wild night. Who would not weep? “But I must say if you had exercised a little control, if you hadn’t . . .” Awwh well, that tears it! When it’s only drink that saves me from that fearful crowd.

  “Now don’t go into that Rose. You know what those people do to me, you know and anyway that isn’t what I meant.”

  “You had far too much Lucan and it was perfectly obvious. Anyone could tell, the way you carried on. Showing off with that Whitefield woman . . .” Showing off? A Charleston, that’s all and so what if I did get carried away. A bit. God there’s nothing wrong in that. Showing off. Hah! And the thought of this day that was to come, that was the clincher, that was the wind-blown fear that drove me in circles through the room. Until. “They’re my friends Lucan, oh I know you don’t like them or anything, but they are my friends. And you made such a fool of yourself.” The injustice of this woman! A fool? Not by a long bloody shot. A bunch of cruds. Jeez! And she turns on me who in human desperation . . .

  “Don’t come after me Rose, just don’t come after me.” I’m not up to that with this evil head; for the lack of understanding is one thing, but this positive assault upon my life is another. And it’s intolerable.

  “Don’t come after you, what do you mean don’t come after you?” Rising sharply her voice with tears and woman’s anger. He lights another cigarette as her damp eyes stare. “I was so, so — embarrassed and now you say. Oh Lucan! Sometimes I don’t know what to think.” He turns abruptly from the bed, he turns in the morning light to find his tie. This unhappy woman. Let’s not make a scene Lucan, let us not give way to this depressing turn in the conversation but find your tie, put it on and escape downstairs for coffee. Before she cries and wins the day completely. “It wasn’t just the dancing Lucan, you know that, it was the way you talked to Blair. They wanted to hear how they sounded, that’s all, and it’s his tape recorder. So they could improve their parts. That’s all. It can make such a difference.” Her tears, her broken subdual tears are gathering and I’m in for it now. “Everyone heard you Lucan. Everyone. And it was their party, wasn’t it?” Her pale accusing face, with damp eyes swelling, regards me as I fix my tie; she waits but there is nothing I can say. Alright, come along now Teahouse. Haw-haw. This is your director speaking. With his goddamn bluff and tweedy face he stood and bawled for order and a reading of the second act. Pushing buttons, clunk, and winding tapes as people giggled how they simply couldn’t stand to hear themselves. Right in the middle of a fascinating chat with Billie Whitefield, you fine lush thing, and he shouts. Silence please! So I belched. And went in temporary silence for another drink. With his foot on the radiator Lucan brushes at his shoe with an old undershirt. Something about the extravagant demands of the actor’s ego. Or something. Hostile at any rate. Shouldn’t have oh God I know it was a silly thing, but it wasn’t the drink at all . . . it really wasn’t. She just can’t see or take on faith the extent to which this frozen day cuts out my liver and my lights. Haw-haw yourself you stinking catalytic crud. But I couldn’t go back, no not where their voices began to rise. And fall. So I sat in the kitchen. Lucan stares mournfully at his shoes. That’s all I can do and they’re not much better for it, I’m afraid. With toes all wrinkled and full of dust. Jeez. And their sides all cracked. He’s wrong, he’s wrong because he doesn’t know. Lucan he said, Martin’s better off dead than marrying her. Because of the drink, he’s wrong. You know how he wanted to travel and write and you bloody-well know that he couldn’t with her. But Hugo he had to settle down: have you read the crap he wrote? Wasting his time with that useless crowd.

  Lucan’s wife sits and stares with her face full of tearful visions so he puts on his waistcoat, with its rolled lapels, and does up the buttons. There’s nothing to be said dear Rose; you will not offer solace, therefore you have no place in this sad and, frankly dangerous return. He lays the watch-chain, with its fob at either end, across his belly and hears the telephone ring as he shrugs into his coat. Who would be and for what possible . . .

  “The phone’s ringing Lucan.”

  “Yes I know. I can hear it.” Jeez. He stalks to the door, into the hall and then downstairs. Ringing, ringing, who in hell would phone at this unearthly time? But at least it’s got me out of that room in time. Stop that frigging noise for the sake of my head and my pitiful nerves! “Hello.”

  “Hi Luke. It’s Hugo. How’s the old bean?”

  “Oh. Well. A bit ah, delicate you know.”

  “Don’t I just! Jesus. That was some do. One thing about that theatre crowd eh? They sure. I haven’t tied one on like that since well anyway, that’s what I’m phoning about. You know I was planning to go down to the funeral today? Well, I just can’t make it old son. I’ve got eyes like the behinds of two power driving eagles. Honestly don’t think I can make it with this wretched weather and all.”

  “Oh? Well that’s too bad Hugo.”

  “Yeah, well you know how it gets you sometimes.”

  “Sure do.”

  “I guess we’re getting old eh? Heh.” Impatient in my suit I wait with this goddamn thing in my hand as he goes on. Old! I wouldn’t feel too bad myself if I weren’t hung up between these worlds, suspended beyond the one sloughed off with the bright green time beyond my grasp. “Anyway, since I can’t make it, would you mind taking Felix Oswald with you?” Good blessed bloody hell, that’s all I need. “Promised to take him down and since he’s, since he was such a good friend, I mean he was probably one of his best friends. I’d hate to think he missed the funeral because of me.” Here on this morning that’s bad enough, he saddles me with, with. Cold silence spreading in my bowels. “I know you don’t like the guy, but hell, you know. What can he do?” And nausea’s wings against the stomach’s wall as his voice retreats, revolving in distant sounds above.

  I can not go on justifying my life to them all. And my life’s ploughed under in this world; the seeds are dead. The bastards! “Yeah, sure Hugo. No trouble at all.” And my horizon’s dark and sere. “Right, right. We’ll see you. Bye.” He hangs up the phone with an angry. Bang. Holy old bald-headed blue-eyed Jesus! I’m surrounded. Jeez. They retreat and disown this boy on every side. He climbs back up the stairs. The only one whose own poor life should be spared the ritual of his death, and to top it off I’m presented at this last inescapable moment with the living half of the dead one in that town. By all that’s jesus holy! He slaps his thigh and glares at the shadows on the stair; he snarls and curls his s
ensitive lip. He’ll sit cynically in my car and breathe all over us for chrissakes. His selfish idle breath.

  The night wind softened the tracks of cars before their lights were gone: they passed through circling flakes and scarcely disturbed the night’s white sound. Shocked from the sorrow of my youth I seemed to hear in that freezing world a yearning static call; a pale and yearning voice that called.

  “Who was that?” And from that burrowing time this life was yours.

  “Goddamn Hugo. Phoning to say he’s not going down because he’s hung-over, because.” This drive in the porous snow and the fog, this wet return on the Stratford road. Is to be avoided. “He’s not up to driving in this bloody mess of a day. That’s all.” He can stretch on his bed and stare at the window while I with my own poor life must drive. Lucan runs his fingers through his hair. “And he wants me to give Felix Oswald a lift down.” Oh the growing patterns of this day! “It makes me sick to . . . what do you think of that Rose? He knows my opinion of that guy, but he phones me at the last minute . . .”

  “It’s pretty typical of him isn’t it Lucan? I mean he’s a pretty selfish man, that’s all. I don’t know how Sarah puts up with it. Wasting his life and drinking the way he does.” Her voice suggests. Is that a crack? Is she getting at me again in this . . . Jesus, if I thought, if I . . . “He’ll be fired or killed on some drunk, you wait and see. If he’s not. You don’t know Lucan, what she has to put up with, you just don’t know what he’s like. He’s always out drinking somewhere.” What is she talking about for chrissakes? What do I care what he does, what earthly bloody interest is it to me? “How a man can have so little respect for.” Lucan stares at his talking wife and he groans a wild and silent groan. She really doesn’t understand! There is just no escaping the fact that my wife does not have the faintest idea of what is anguish in my life.

  Driving alone from the empty flat, driving alone between black trees in the night snow fields. Alone. Lost from her life and compelled by the fear of the years to come I rushed down this silent ice-torn road.