“All right, don’t get excited.”
“You’re enough to—”
“Just don’t get excited. It’s not my fault I’ve got a headache.”
Andy left and went into the kitchen. Bud rinsed his face. He heard the water tap going in the kitchen, and then Andy’s voice calling, “Where’s the coffee?”
“In the cabinet,” Bud said patiently. He shook the water from his hands and took a towel from the rack. There was a peculiar odor to the towel. He sniffed at it, recognized the smell of vomit and quickly threw the towel into the hamper. He took a fresh one from the shelf, squeezed his eyes shut tightly and began drying his face. When he took the towel from his eyes, Andy was standing in the doorway again.
“I’ll use this pot. All right?”
“Use any damn pot you like,” Bud said.
“If I’m bothering you, I’m sorry. I’m awfully sorry, but you haven’t got the headache I’ve got, and your joints don’t ache all over. Someday you ought to try this, if you think it’s any fun.”
“I didn’t say it was fun,” Bud answered, taking his toothbrush from the rack.
“I can read it all over that haughty smug face of yours,” Andy said. “What the hell have you got to be so proud of, anyway? You’re sucking money out of the government, and you think—”
“Listen, this is still my house. If you don’t like it, you can damn well leave!”
“You think I’m crazy about this dump? I’ve slept in better flophouses in the worst cities in America! What the hell do you think you’ve got here, a palace?”
“Nobody said—”
“You make me sick. You think you’re a big shot, don’t you? Just because you took in a friend, just because you’re allowing me the extreme pleasure of sharing this dump with you. Well, get off that kick, Dick. Stop patting yourself on the back for something any goddamn human being would do!”
“Sure,” Bud said. “I see everybody scrambling to take you in. I see the mad rush in the street outside. There’s a real riot scene down there, everybody dying to lend Andy a helping hand.”
“No, not everybody,” Andy said.
“Not anybody, if you want to know the truth!” Bud snapped. “Not a living soul but Bud Sucker Donato!”
“It kills you to be doing this, doesn’t it?” Andy said. “It just tears the living guts out of you. When’s the last time you helped anybody but yourself, Big Heart? When’s the last time you gave a thought to anything but that own miserable hide of yours?”
“Look, Andy, cut it out. I don’t have to take this kind of crap from anybody, least of all you!”
“Why least of all me? What am I, some kind of cockroach that crawled out of the closet? Look at me, you bastard! Put down that toothbrush and look at me!”
Bud turned wearily.
“What am I, some kind of germ or something? Just because I’m an addict? What makes you any better than me? I’m a human being, too! You son-of-a-bitch, you owe me this apartment!”
Bud’s eyes opened wide. “I owe you this apartment? I owe it to you! Jesus Christ, that takes the—” He stopped suddenly. “Are you still harping on that three hundred you lent me? Is that what gives you the idea? I paid you back, pal, in spades.”
“I wasn’t even thinking of the loot. You’ve got a real high-type mind, College Boy. You’re concerned with a hell of a lot, all right. You’re concerned with Bud Donato, and that’s all, and everybody else be damned, everybody else go to hell.”
“And you can lead the parade,” Bud said heatedly.
“Sure, and you’ll be waiting there to greet us. And you won’t give a thought as to why you’re there. You’ll think you’re there, man, because you flunked a Milton exam. You won’t even suspect the real reason.”
“And what is the real reason, mastermind?”
“Because you don’t know why you owe me this apartment. You don’t know why, and brother I bleed for you.”
“All right, I owe you the apartment. Go make the coffee. I want to brush my teeth.”
“Sure, brush your teeth. And brush the taste out of your mouth while you’re at it. You must be one hell of a guy to live with, all right. How’d you manage it all these years? I can barely stand it, and I’ve only been here three days.”
“You can leave whenever you like.”
“Sure. You’d just love that, wouldn’t you? That would make things simple again, wouldn’t it? You’d have nothing to worry about then. You wouldn’t have to settle up with anybody, not even yourself. You’d tell yourself you offered your hand, and it was bitten. But I’m not leaving, Bud. I’m staying right here. I’m staying because you owe me a place to stay.”
“All right, all right, we’re all human beings, and I owe you—”
“No, we’re special human beings, you bastard! Somewhere back there we touched hands, and we touched minds, and we crossed lives. And maybe you can write that off the way you’d write off a bad debt, but you can’t do it if you’ve got anything in here.” He thumped his chest suddenly. “You owe something to every goddamn human being on earth, but you owe more to those you singled out.”
Bud put down the toothbrush and stared at Andy, startled by his sudden passion.
“That’s what,” Andy said, trembling. “That’s what.”
“Sure,” Bud said. “Go make the coffee.”
“In one ear and out the other. Mustn’t let any common sense filter in among all those notes for calculus, must we? Keep it all clear and clean for the important things in life, the college courses. Forget all about what you owe people! Hell, everybody else has forgotten it, why be any different?”
“Look, Andy—”
“You make me sick. Just shut up and leave me alone, will you? I’ll be out of here as soon as I land that job, and then you can—”
“Amen,” Bud said.
“Don’t vilify it, crumb,” Andy said, and he went back into the kitchen.
Bud began brushing his teeth. He could still smell the vomit in the bathroom, and the vomit made him feel suddenly ill, that and what Andy had said. What the hell had he meant? Touched hands, touched minds, crossed lives. Everybody crosses his life with someone else’s. That was nonsense, pure nonsense. Then why does it upset me? Well, it shouldn’t upset you. You’re doing all you can, aren’t you? You’ve given the rotten bum an apartment, haven’t you? Are you supposed to hold his hand for him now? What does he want you to do, hold him over the bowl when he vomits, the way Helen...
Yes, Helen did that.
Yes.
But who wants the smell of vomit on his hands? Who wants the smell of it in his house? Who wants Andy here, and what do I owe him, what the hell do I owe him? We walked out of each other’s lives, we left it all behind a long time ago, I’m not responsible for him any more, I never was responsible for him, you don’t have to be responsible for anyone else, why should you be, who the hell says you have to be?
What are you supposed to do, what the hell are you supposed to do? Throw everything over for somebody else? Forget you yourself exist, is that what he’s asking me to do? Who’s coming today? Who’ll be with him while I’m gone? Helen, Carol? No. He’ll... he’ll be alone. But he won’t go back to it, he won’t, and what do I care, why should I give a damn, these tests are important, I’ll get out of school next year, and if not that, what? The semester afterwards. But what if Andy flunks out? There’s no semester afterwards for him, there’s the same semester, year in and year out, if he flunks out, he won’t flunk out, hands touched, minds touched, lives crossed. Why don’t people touch each other? Except shaking hands. You shake hands, and you say, I am touching you, we are friends. You only touch friends. If you accidentally touch a stranger in the subway, she calls a cop if she’s a woman, and he punches you in the nose if he’s a man. Hands do not touch enough, and eyes do not meet enough, Jesus, but what am I supposed to do? Jesus, why did he have to come here, why did he have to pick on me? Because we were friends, and our hands touched, sure, put it in poetry, Andy, put it in flowery language and it sounds good as hell, but who’s going to take those tests for me? Who’s going to see everything he worked for shot to hell?