“It’s useless,” Ingram said, but he was still smiling. “It’s shot to pieces.”
“I could have told you that.”
Ingram sighed and turned around to look at Earl. “You know, I don’t understand you.”
“Well, so what? What difference does that make?”
“You might be the last man I see on this earth,” Ingram said. “That makes a difference. You’re like a magazine serial story I may not have a chance to finish.”
“So what don’t you understand?” Earl was limping back and forth in front of the fireplace, staring at Ingram with tense, irritable eyes. “Am I some kind of a freak? Do I have two heads or something?”
“Why didn’t you make something of yourself, that’s what I can’t figure out. You’ve a lot of good stuff in you. How come you never used it?”
“What do you know about it? You don’t know me at all, Sambo.”
“I’ve got eyes and ears.” Ingram smiled. “You’re not the smartest guy in the world, of course, but that’s not too important.”
“I get along. I always did okay.”
“You don’t have to pretend with me. You probably couldn’t fool me if you wanted to.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“We’ve been through something, that’s all. I got a chance to know you pretty well.”
“You don’t know a damned thing about me. Get that into your skull.” Earl’s voice rose angrily. “Stop worrying about me.”
“You know me, don’t you? Why can’t it work the other way round?”
“What the hell do I know about you?”
“You know you can trust me. How many people do you know that well? Enough to trust, I mean?”
“I didn’t have any choice,” Earl said, looking away from Ingram. “I had to trust you.”
“Sure. And it turned out okay. You know, it might not be a bad idea if there was a law to make people trust one another. Everybody would probably be surprised how well things turned out.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Okay, I’m crazy. But how come you never settled down to a good job? With your Army record and everything, you could have made something of yourself.”
“Christ, I don’t know,” Earl said impatiently. “Nobody knows things like that.” He limped back and forth in front of the fireplace, suddenly filled with a weary despair. “Nothing ever worked, that’s all. I kept striking out. That just happens. Look at any Skid Row. You’ll see people wandering around with eyes like balls of glass. What happened to them? You think they know?” Earl stopped and pounded his fist on the table. “Like hell they do. They’ll tell you about a mother or father, or a girl maybe, but they can’t tell you about themselves. They don’t know what happened, they just don’t know. That’s why stories and movies are always about heroes. The life of a bum doesn’t make any sense. It’s just—” He shook his head with futile anger. “It’s just a mess.”
“But you’re no broken-down derelict,” Ingram said. “You’re a big healthy man. You could have been a construction worker or truck driver or a lumberjack or something. Or maybe got in with a veterans’ organization — with your record they could have used you for a showpiece.”
“Ah, cut it out,” Earl said wearily. “I was no good, that’s all. And I knew it. That was the toughest thing. I knew it.”
“Lots of people think that about themselves. Go into a bar where they’re playing the blues and you’ll find plenty of them. That’s why the blues got sung in the first place. They aren’t for heroes and good guys. They’re for people in a mess.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Earl was trying anxiously to organize his feelings into words. He knew it was important to be honest now; this was a chance to drive the thing into the open. He had never made the effort before; some guilty fear had always restrained him. “Now listen! I knew I was no good,” he said, speaking slowly and quietly. “I don’t mean I was a drunk or a deadbeat or anything like that. What I did had nothing to do with it. What I did might be good, but I was no good.” Earl swore under his breath, infuriated by the futility of his words. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. Finding what he wanted to say was like picking up a pin with gloves on — a frustrating, hopeless task. “You understand?” he said desperately. “The stuff I’m made of is no good. That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m put together with bargain-basement junk. That’s the feeling I can never shake. Don’t you see what I mean?”
“It doesn’t make sense. Why should you think that?”
“You don’t understand. You’re not listening to me.” Earl sat on the edge of the sofa and stared anxiously at Ingram. “Take a car that’s put together with cheap, worn-out parts. And filled up with watered gas and dirty oil. What’s going to happen to it? It’s going to break down, fall to pieces. You can tinker with it, and keep it washed and polished, but it’s never going to be any good. That’s what I’m like. I always knew that about myself.” Earl was breathing slowly and heavily. “I knew it. Sometimes I’d look at my hands and think about it. I’d see the skin and the veins and the hair, and I’d realize that none of it was any good.” He stared at Ingram in a silence that was broken only by the feeble snores of the old man in the corner. The coldness and stench of the big bare room seemed to force them closer together, compressing them into a single unit of humanity. Earl’s tension and fear lessened; he felt at ease with Ingram suddenly, understanding him, and depending on him for understanding. They were both in the same mess, he realized. Not just in trouble... it was more than that. They were alive and they were alone, he thought, but something helped him to realize that these terms meant pretty much the same thing; one stemmed inevitably from the other. There was no terror in this knowledge; the real terror was not knowing that everybody faced the same problem. That everybody was alone. Not just you...
“You see, Sambo—” He hesitated. “You mind me calling you Sambo?”
“It’s as good a name as any.”
“Well—” Earl stared at his grimy hand, studying the dirt-rimmed nails, and the hair coiling strongly on the brown skin. “I always knew I was no good. Because I knew where I came from. I knew my old man.” There was pain in the admission, but no shame; it was just a hard, bitter fact.
“That’s a load to carry,” Ingram said. “But hell, you and your old man are two different people. He’s him. You’re you.”
“I know,” Earl said thoughtfully. “I just figured that out. And you told me I was dumb.”
“Not dumb,” Ingram said, shaking his head. “Just not smart. There’s a big difference. Let’s have a drink on it, okay?”
As he was looking for Earl’s glass Crazybone came in from the kitchen humming softly under her breath. “The fox hunters are coming,” she cried merrily. “I just saw one of their hounds in the meadow. Oh, there’s a fine sight.” She pirouetted slowly, patting the back of her head with both hands. “The gentlemen in their red coats, and the ladies so calm and fine leaping over the fences.” She laughed shrilly. “Sometimes the ladies fall on their fine round tails, too. Oh, dearie me, it’s a sight.”
The old man stirred under the blankets. “You’ve woke me,” he muttered petulantly.
“I better let Lorraine come down,” Ingram said. “We’ve been gabbing here more than an hour.”
Crazybone stared at the parts Ingram had removed from the radio. “Won’t do you no good to fix it,” she said, shaking her head firmly. “She’ll just break it again.”
“Who?” Ingram said.
“The woman. She’s bad-tempered and destructive, qualities you don’t find in true ladies. Ladies are sweet and gentle.”
“What’s she talking about?” Ingram said to Earl.