“I always got the feeling... well, never mind. We’ll let it ride.”
“Let’s let it ride,” Bud agreed. “Come on, we still haven’t had breakfast.”
They went into the kitchen together and back to the refrigerator to pick up where they’d left off when the phone rang.
“No eggs,” Bud said.
“I never eat eggs in the morning, anyway,” Andy said.
“I do. I’d better run down for a dozen. Is there anything else we need? I wasn’t exactly expecting company.”
“Cup of coffee and a slice of toast is good enough for me,” Andy said.
“You should eat more than that.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to give it back again.”
“Well, I’ll get some eggs. I think a few quarts of milk, too. Do you still drink a lot of milk?”
“Not so much any more. Look, if you’re going on my account—”
“No, I want the eggs. I usually get breakfast near the school, but exams—”
“Oh, sure.”
“You’ll be all right while I’m gone?”
“Yes,” Andy said.
Bud looked at him for a moment. “Maybe you ought to come with me.”
“No, I’ll be all right.”
“You won’t—”
“No, don’t worry. I’ll be here when you come back.”
Bud nodded. “There’s a record player in the living room, and I’ve got some good Kenton. You like Kenton, don’t you?”
“Man, are you kidding? I love the lad.”
“Well, good, make yourself at home. I’ll be right back. I’m just going over to Columbus Avenue.”
“Fine. Take your time.”
Andy walked him to the door, and before he left Bud said, “Maybe you can get the coffee water going. I won’t be long at all.”
“All right, I will,” Andy said.
He left the apartment, and it took him three minutes to get to Columbus Avenue and another two minutes to get to the grocery store he usually bought at. There was one woman ahead of him in the store, and she took seven minutes to complete her purchase. It took him exactly four and a half minutes to get the eggs, the milk, and a loaf of rye bread. The walk back to the apartment took another five minutes. He could hear the record player as he started up the steps, and he thought it was a little too loud, and he told himself he’d have to remind Andy about playing it so loudly. “Artistry in Rhythm” was on the turntable, and he found himself whistling to it as he walked down the hall to his apartment. He threw open the door and went directly into the kitchen, not stopping to look into the living room, dropping the groceries on the kitchen table.
“Hey, Andy,” he called, “you’d better lower that.”
When there was no answer, he poked his head into the living room. “Andy?”
The record player was spinning at 78 r.p.m.’s, but no one was sitting in the living room listening to it.
He looked around the room quickly, panic starting inside him. He rushed to the bathroom and threw open the door.
“Andy?”
He went in quickly and pulled back the shower curtain. Andy was not in the tub. Andy was not in the apartment.
9
He was out.
He was out, and he could feel a feverish excitement within him. The fever had started with the Kenton records, the wildness of them stirring memories somewhere deep within him. The four walls had moved in on him, ready to crush him, and he had stood suddenly, unreasonably frightened, wanting to get out. He had felt small and insignificant, caught in the slashing power of the music, trapped within the four walls which were closing in on him, moving closer, and closer and closer until he had to run, run or be crushed. He had to be big again. He had to stop being so small the walls could crush him.
And now he was out, and he had the bag in his hands, and it was a good bag, and it would bring bread. And when he had the bread, he could cop. No, he mustn’t think of that. He was off the stuff, off it for good. Then why had he taken the bag from the closet? Why had he rushed to the closet and taken the bag when he knew he was off the stuff for good?
I’m going on a trip, he lied to himself.
I’m going on a trip to the moon. I’m growing as I walk. I’m getting taller and taller and taller, and I won’t need a rocket ship because pretty soon my head will be in the clouds, and then my nose will touch the moon, and I’ll nibble green cheese, and I’ll climb up there, dragging my long, long legs up through the atmosphere and the stratosphere and the any-sphere, and I’ll lay down in my bigness on the moon and just nibble green cheese and look down at the ants far below on earth and spit a big glob of spit at them.
They won’t be able to touch me up there until they build a rocket ship to catch me, or a space station or something, and then I’ll fool the bastards by going on to Mars. Will I gas those Martians. I’ll tell them earthside jokes, and they’ll give me a loincloth and the Martian equivalent of an opium derivative, and I shall blast my brains out every hour on the hour while the Martians come around me with their feelers. I’ll be the God who came from earth, and they’ll build me a shrine, and they’ll send Martian dancing girls whose skins are green to dance for me with their feelers.
But first I have to hock the bag.
Don’t argue with me, because I have to hock this mother-loving bag. What the hell use does Buddy-boy have for a leather bag like this one, anyway? Sitting in his closet, doing nothing. No good at all. It t’aint no good, it t’aint no good, a purse ain’t good if it’s got a hole in it. No hole in this goddamn bag, and no sense its sitting in the closet not going anywhere. Bags were made for trips, and this bag is now going on a trip.
Straight to the hock shop.
It has to go to the hock shop. It has to go, so shut your mother-loving tater trap and make your feet move. This bag is going to market, and then I will...
Will what?
Will whatever. And that’s enough for you, for now. I will whatever I want to, and nobody can stop me. I’ll climb Mt. Everest or I’ll go down to the bottom of the sea. Or I’ll head for the Union Floor, and maybe I’ll see somebody I know, and maybe he’ll ask me how would you like to blow with Harry James, or Stan Kenton, or T.D., and I will say what’s the salary, Sam? And then I will tell him to go to hell.
And in the meantime I’ll look for somebody else, because once I hock this bag, I’ll have loot, lots of loot, how much will the bag bring, five, ten, fifteen? No, not fifteen. Well, maybe fifteen, what the hell are you, a goddamn pessimist?
Say fifteen.
Okay, fifteen. Now what can we buy with fifteen crisp hot little bills?
Fifteen bills will buy a fairly decent alligator belt, you know, if you’re in the market for alligator belts. As it so happens, I am a most humane cat who could not stomach the idea of some poor horny alligator losing his skin to hold up my pants.
So I guess we won’t be able to buy an alligator belt, eh George? Well now, that’s a goddamn shame, and my heart bleeds for the alligator merchants, every last son of them. But what’re you gonna do, Jack, when a man belongs to the A.S.P.C.A., eh?
We’ll look for something else to buy. Must be dozens of things a man can buy with fifteen crisp juicy lettuce leaves.
Especially now that the man has kicked the habit.
It’s a grand wonderful feeling, all right, not having to worry about spending that fifteen bucks on anything illicit, provided it amounts to fifteen bucks, which it might not, you know. But no matter what it amounts to, it sure is a wonderful free feeling to know that no one and nothing is forcing me into spending that pile on H. Now there’s no better feeling in the world than that, all right, and there sure as hell must be a lot of worth-while things you can buy with fifteen bucks, and I’m sure I can think of some — given time — but in the meanwhile the important thing is to find the three balls and get rid of this bag. Once we get rid of it, we’ll have the dough, and then we can decide on how to spend it.