The Fiend

(9)

After the noon lunchers departed and before the one o’clock lunchers arrived there was always a short lull in the cafeteria which Ben managed for the owner. Ben used this period to stand out in the alley behind the cafeteria and soak up a little sun and smoke his only cigarette of the day. Ben didn’t enjoy smoking but he became sick of food odors and he believed that smoking would dull his sense of smell.

He watched a flock of seagulls circling overhead, waiting for a handout. He thought what a fine day it was for the beginning of his new life. Charlie was engaged. Charlie and Louise were going to be married. Ben had told the good news to his employees and some of his regular customers, and though most of them didn’t even know Charlie, they were pleased because Ben was. The whole place seemed livelier. A wedding was in the air, it hardly mattered whose.

Ben leaned against the sunny wall, letting the smoke curl up through his nostrils like ether. He felt a little dizzy. He wasn’t sure whether it was from the cigarette or from the surges of happiness that had been sweeping over him off and on all morning. I’ll let Louise and Charlie have the house, Mother always planned it that way. I’ll get a little apartment down near the beach and buy a dog. I’ve always wanted a dog. I could have bought one years ago — Charlie would never have mistreated an animal, he’s crazy about animals — but I never got around to it. I don’t know the reason. Why, Charlie would cut off his right arm before he’d hurt a dog.

“Ben.”

At the sound of his name Ben turned, although he didn’t recognize the voice. It was a little boy’s voice, high and thin, not like Charlie’s at all. Yet it was Charlie running toward him, down the alley from the street. His clothes were disheveled and he was clutching his stomach with both hands as though he were suffering an acute attack of cramps. Ben felt the happiness draining out of him. All the pores of his skin were like invisible wounds from which his life was spurting.

“What’s — the matter, Charlie?”

“Oh God, Ben. Something terrible. She tried to kill me. A woman, a woman in a little blue car. I swear to God, Ben, she meant to kill me and I don’t even know her, I never saw her before.”

“Sshhh.” Ben looked quickly up and down the alley. “Keep your voice down. Someone might hear you.”

“But it’s true! I didn’t imagine it. I don’t imagine things like that, ever. Other things, maybe, but not—”

“Calm down and tell me about it, quietly.”

“Yes. Yes, I will, Ben. Anything you say.”

“Take a deep breath.”

“Yes.”

“Now where did this happen?”

Charlie leaned against the wooden rubbish bin. His whole body was shaking and the more he tried to control it, the more violently it shook, as though the lines of communication between his brain and his muscles had been cut. “I d-don’t remember the name of the street but it was over on the north side. I’d gone to Pinewood Park to eat my lunch.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Charlie repeated. “Well, for the fresh air. Sun and fresh air, they’re nice, they’re good for you. Didn’t you tell me that, Ben?”

“Yes. Yes. Now go on.”

“I was driving back to work and this little blue car was in front of me, with a lady at the wheel. She was going real slow like maybe she was drunk and trying to be extra careful to avoid an accident. Well, I passed her. That’s all I did, Ben, I just passed her.”

“You didn’t honk your horn?”

“No.”

“Or look at her in a way that she might have — well, misinterpreted?”

“No. I swear to you, Ben, I just passed her. Then I heard this terrible sound of gears and I looked around and she was after me. I stepped on the gas to get away from her.”

“Why?”

“What else could I have done? What would you have done?”

“Pulled over to the curb, or into a gas station, and asked the lady what the hell she thought she was doing.”

“I never thought of that,” Charlie said earnestly. “When someone chases me, I run.”

“Yes, I guess you do.” Ben wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Only a few minutes ago the sun had been like a warm, kindly friend. Now it was his enemy. It stabbed his eyes and temples and burned the top of his head where his hair was thinning, and the dry tender skin around his mouth. It imprisoned him in the alley with the smell of cooking food and the smell of Charlie’s fear.

He lit another cigarette and blew the smoke out through his nostrils to deaden them. It was when he threw away the spent match that he noticed the little plant growing out of a crack in the concrete a yard or so from where Charlie was standing. It was about six inches high. It was covered with city dust and some of its leaves had been squashed by the wheel of a car, but it was still growing, still alive. He was filled with a sense of wonder. The little plant had nothing going for it at all: seeded by accident out of garbage, driven over, walked on, unwatered, with no rain since March, it was still alive.

He said, “Everything’s going to be O.K., Charlie. Don’t worry about it. Things work out one way or another.”

“But what do I do now, Ben?”

“Get back on the job or you’ll be late.”

“I can’t use my own car.”

“What’s the matter with it?”

“Nothing,” Charlie said. “The engine’s running fine, only — well, here’s how I figure it, Ben. That woman, she couldn’t have anything against me when I don’t even know her. So it must be the car. She has a grudge against the former owner and she thought he was driving, not me. So it seems obvious what I’ve got to do now.”

“To you, perhaps. Not to me.”

“Don’t you see, Ben? Everything will be solved if I buy a new car. Oh, not a brand-new one but a different one so that woman won’t chase me again.”

If there was a woman, Ben thought, and if there was a chase. Maybe he invented the whole thing as an excuse to change cars again. “You can’t afford to buy a car now,” he said bluntly, “with the wedding coming up so soon.”

Charlie looked surprised as if he’d forgotten all about the wedding. “I have money in the bank.”

“You’ll be needing it to buy Louise’s ring, pay for the honeymoon, buy yourself some new clothes—”

“I’m old enough to make my own decisions,” Charlie said, kicking the side of the rubbish bin. “I’m an engaged man. An engaged man has to plan things for himself.”

Ben looked down at the little tomato plant growing out of the crack in the concrete. “Yes. Yes, I suppose he does.”

“Thank you, Ben. I really do thank you.”

“What for?”

“For everything. Even just for being around.”

“You’re an engaged man now, Charlie. I’m not going to be around much longer. You and Louise will be making a life of your own.”

One of the Mexican busboys came out into the alley and said something to Ben in Spanish. The boy spoke softly, smiled softly, moved softly. Ben gave him fifty cents and the boy went back inside.

Charlie had paid no attention to the interruption. His eyes were fixed on Ben’s face and his thin silky brows were stitched together in a frown. “You talk as if everything’s going to change between us. But it’s not. You’ll be living with Louise and me, we’ll be eating our meals together and playing cards in the evening the way we used to. Why should we let things change?”

“Things change whether we let them or not. And that’s good — it keeps us from getting bored with life and with each other.”

“But I’m not bored.”

“Listen to me, Charlie. I won’t be living with you and Louise, first because I don’t want to, and second, because Louise wouldn’t want me to, and third be—”

“Louise wouldn’t mind. She’s crazy about you, Ben. Why, I bet when you come right down to it, she’d just as soon marry you as marry me.”

Ben reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Goddam it, don’t you talk like that. It’s not fair to Louise. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” Charlie said in a whisper. “But I was only—”

“Sure, you were only. You’re always only. You know what happens when you’re only? Things get so fouled up—”

“I’m sorry, Ben.”

“Yeah. Sure. Well.”

“I only meant it as a compliment, to show you how much Louise likes you and that she wouldn’t mind at all if you lived with us.”

Ben took a deep drag on his cigarette. “I have to go back inside.”

“You’re not really mad at me?”

“No.”

“And it’s O.K. if I buy another car, say right after work?”

“It’s your money.”

“Wouldn’t you like to come along and give me advice on what make and model to get and things like that?”

“Not this time.”

Charlie heard the finality in his voice and he knew Ben meant not this time and not any time ever again.

He watched Ben go back into the cafeteria kitchen and he felt like a child abandoned in the middle of a city, in a strange noisy alley filled with the clatter of dishes and the clanking of pots and pans, and voices shouting, in Spanish, words he couldn’t understand.

I’m frightened. Help me, Ben!

Not this time. Not any time ever again.

The two Charlies walked, together but not quite in step, down the alley and into the street, the engaged man about to buy a new car, and the little boy looking for a little girl to play with.