Quickly he turned on the cold-water faucet, and then he adjusted the hot water so that he got a lukewarm mixture.
Well, he thought, this is it.
Well.
He sat on the floor beside the tub. His mind was peculiarly blank. He put his left wrist under the water. The water was just right, perfect.
He looked at the sharp cutting edge of the razor blade in his right hand.
Slowly he put his right hand into the stream of water and brought the blade down toward the veins on his left wrist.
He should not have left Andy alone in the apartment.
Walking to the subway kiosk, he knew that. He knew that, and he almost turned and went back, but he didn’t. There was studying to do.
Yes, studying.
Yes, studying, and the studying is important. I have to pass that test this afternoon. If I don’t pass that test this aft— Stop rationalizing.
I’m not rationalizing. Nothing’s going to happen to Andy. He’s too shot to move. He went out and got some herein on Monday, and he took it yesterday, and he feels lousy, and he’s sworn to St. Peter and all the angels that he won’t touch it again, and Helen chewed him out good, and besides Helen has the syringe. What difference does that make? He can go out and get another one, the same place he got the last one.
But he won’t.
He simply won’t, and there’s no sense torturing yourself with what he’ll do or what he won’t do, because he isn’t going to do anything. He’s going to lay on that bed and look up at that ceiling, and in a little while he’ll fall asleep. And he looked shot enough to sleep through the whole day, if not the whole week, provided he doesn’t have to vomit, in which case he’ll go right back to bed afterward, anyway.
So don’t worn- about Andy. You don’t have to worry about Andy.
Andy can take care of himself.
Sure.
Oh, sure.
Andy can certainly take care of himself, all right — that should be obvious to anyone who has a pair of eyes. Andy has been taking care of himself for a good long time now, and Andy has done one fine job of it. Andy has descended to one level above the crawling reptiles. So it’s obvious he can take care of himself.
He took care of himself fine yesterday.
He cut out of that apartment on Monday. He cut out and rounded up a bagful of heroin, and yesterday he took care of himself fine. All you have to do is leave Andy alone for a half hour, and he takes care of himself. On Monday he got the stuff and on Tuesday he shot it up. What’s he going to do for an encore, poor bastard?
He’s going to sleep.
Yes, that’s what we keep telling ourselves in these parts, mister. That’s what we keep telling ourselves, and that’s what we keep trying to believe — that Andy is going to sleep like an innocent babe on a Daumier breast, but we can’t rightly believe it, because the truth is we don’t know what the hell Andy will do next.
And we don’t care.
Well, that may sound a little callous. We do care, actually.
We just don’t care very much.
There’s a difference, you know. But don’t we care very much? And if we don’t care, why are we worrying about him? We aren’t ten minutes from the apartment, and he’s all we can think about, because we don’t know what that poor tortured son-of-a-bitch is going to do next, and we do care, we do care what he does, we do!
I have to study, oh, God, I have to study, I can’t worry about him.
He’ll be all right.
He’ll... be all right.
Bud slipped a dollar bill under the grilled window of the change booth and waited for his change. He pocketed all but a dime, inserted it in the slot, shoved through the turnstile, and went down to the platform.
The downtown express trains flashed by, loaded to the gunnels, carrying the workers crammed in like rolled anchovies. The uptown platform was not very crowded, but, as usual, the uptown train was a long time coming. He stood on the platform and watched the noisy express trains rumble past, and he tried not to think of Andy alone in the apartment. The platform was dim, a subterranean mole’s hole stretching the length of Manhattan. He paced the platform impatiently, momentarily distracted when a pretty blonde in a tight silk dress descended the steps and walked to the gum machine. She put in her penny and then stooped over to pick up the gum that clattered into the receiving slot, and he watched the way the silk tightened across her firm buttocks, and then he turned away from her and thought about Andy again.
Nothing would happen, he was sure of that.
You had to place some trust in the guy or he’d begin to feel like a vegetable. You had to assume he now knew what he was doing and what he shouldn’t be doing, and you had to express some faith or you’d defeat him from go. You had to assume he’d simply lie on that couch until he fell asleep. I wish I was dead.
What?
Hadn’t he said that? Wasn’t that what Andy had said? As I was leaving the apartment?
I wish I was dead.
A faulty use of grammar, lacking the subjunctive, I wish I were dead, were, was, the thought is the same, and the thought is suicidal.
Let’s not leap to conclusions, my friend. Lots of people say I wish I were dead, but hardly anyone means it. I’ve said it many times myself, I wish I were dead, and I certainly didn’t mean anything of the sort.
And Andy wasn’t feeling so hot, the headache and all, so naturally that was the thing for him to say. A most natural thing to say. The same thing you or I or that blonde, Jesus, but she’s stacked, would say under similar circumstances, not meaning a word of it, just an expression, just an old cliché, just a peculiar American colloquialism, nothing to it, hell, meant nothing at all.
But what is he going through right now, and does he feel it’s worth while, and might he really contemplate suicide, and contemplating it, might he not actually attempt suicide, alone in the apartment, alone, Jesus, he’s all alone and he said, I wish I was dead.
He heard the distant thunder of the approaching uptown train. The blonde walked close to the edge of the platform. At the other end of the station the red light turned green, and then the train came into view, its front lights piercing the blackness of the tunnel. The station rumbled as the train bore down on it. A newspaper lying on the platform flapped wildly and then was swept up against the trash basket. The blonde’s tight skirt pressed against her thighs and her legs as the train swept into the station, drowning all sound with its roar. The doors slid open.
He hesitated on the platform.
The blonde had already entered the train. She sat and crossed her legs and then took a copy of Baby and Child Care from her purse.
The door was closing.
He reached out and caught at the rubber guard on the door. The door resisted him for a moment. He shoved it back and then slid into the car. The conductor pressed his button, and the train lurched out of the station.
He sat down and spotted John Front almost instantly. He turned sideways on the seat, trying to hide, but Front had already seen him, and there was nothing to do but sit it through. Front rose from his seat and staggered up the length of the lurching train, wearing his usual loud sports jacket, his usual wide enameled grin.
“Donato! Hey there, Donato!” he said, and he staggered up the aisle and plopped his ample buttocks into the seat alongside Bud.
“Hello, Front,” Bud said.
“You got a test this morning?”
“No, this afternoon. I wanted to do some studying at the library.”
“Best place in the world for it, fellow,” Front said. “I’ve got a lulu at nine. History of the English Language. You ever take that course?”