26
In the autumn, at the beginning of his fifteenth year — his last year at Leonard’s — Eugene went to Charleston on a short excursion. He found a substitute for his paper route.
“Come on!” said Max Isaacs, whom he still occasionally saw. “We’re going to have a good time, son.”
“Yeah, man!” said Malvin Bowden, whose mother was conducting the tour. “You can still git beer in Charleston,” he added with a dissipated leer.
“You can go swimmin’ in the ocean at the Isle of Palms,” said Max Isaacs. Then, reverently, he added: “You can go to the Navy Yard an’ see the ships.”
He was waiting until he should be old enough to join the navy. He read the posters greedily. He knew all the navy men at the enlistment office. He had read all the booklets — he was deep in naval lore. He knew to a dollar the earnings of firemen, second class, of radio men, and of all kinds of C. P. O’s.
His father was a plumber. He did not want to be a plumber. He wanted to join the navy and see the world. In the navy, a man was given good pay and a good education. He learned a trade. He got good food and good clothing. It was all given to him free, for nothing.
“H’m!” said Eliza, with a bantering smile. “Why, say, boy, what do you want to do that for? You’re my baby!”
It had been years since he was. She smiled tremulously.
“Yes’m,” said Eugene. “Can I go? It’s only for five days. I’ve got the money.” He thrust his hand into his pocket, feeling.
“I tell you what!” said Eliza, working her lips, smiling. “You may wish you had that money before this winter’s over. You’re going to need new shoes and a warm overcoat when the cold weather comes. You must be mighty rich. I wish I could afford to go running off on a trip like that.”
“Oh, my God!” said Ben, with a short laugh. He tossed his cigarette into one of the first fires of the year.
“I want to tell you, son,” said Eliza, becoming grave, “you’ve got to learn the value of a dollar or you’ll never have a roof to call your own. I want you to have a good time, boy, but you mustn’t squander your money.”
“Yes’m,” said Eugene.
“For heaven’s sake!” Ben cried. “It’s the kid’s own money. Let him do what he likes with it. If he wants to throw it out the damned window, it’s his own business.”
She clasped her hands thoughtfully upon her waist and stared away, pursing her lips.
“Well, I reckon it’ll be all right,” she said. “Mrs. Bowden will take care of you.”
It was his first journey to a strange place alone. Eliza packed an old valise carefully, and stowed away a box of sandwiches and eggs. He went away at night. As he stood by his valise, washed, brushed, excited, she wept a little. He was again, she felt, a little farther off. The hunger for voyages was in his face.
“Be a good boy,” she said. “Don’t get into any trouble down there.” She thought carefully a moment, looking away. Then she went down in her stocking, and pulled out a five-dollar bill.
“Don’t waste your money,” she said. “Here’s a little extra. You may need it.”
“Come here, you little thug!” said Ben. Scowling, his quick hands worked busily at the boy’s stringy tie. He jerked down his vest, slipping a wadded ten-dollar bill into Eugene’s pocket. “Behave yourself,” he said, “or I’ll beat you to death.”
Max Isaacs whistled from the street. He went out to join them.
There were six in Mrs. Bowden’s party: Max Isaacs, Malvin Bowden, Eugene, two girls named Josie and Louise, and Mrs. Bowden. Josie was Mrs. Bowden’s niece and lived with her. She was a tall beanpole of a girl with a prognathous mouth and stick-out grinning teeth. She was twenty. The other girl, Louise, was a waitress. She was small, plump, a warm brunette. Mrs. Bowden was a little sallow woman with ratty brown hair. She had brown worn-out eyes. She was a dressmaker. Her husband, a carpenter, had died in the Spring. There was a little insurance money. That was how she came to take the trip.
Now, by night, he was riding once more into the South. The day-coach was hot, full of the weary smell of old red plush. People dozed painfully, distressed by the mournful tolling of the bell, and the grinding halts. A baby wailed thinly. Its mother, a gaunt wisp-haired mountaineer, turned the back of the seat ahead, and bedded the child on a spread newspaper. Its wizened face peeked dirtily out of its swaddling discomfort of soiled jackets and pink ribbon. It wailed and slept. At the front of the car, a young hill-man, high-boned and red, clad in corduroys and leather leggings, shelled peanuts steadily, throwing the shells into the aisle. People trod through them with a sharp masty crackle. The boys, bored, paraded restlessly to the car-end for water. There was a crushed litter of sanitary drinking-cups upon the floor, and a stale odor from the toilets.
The two girls slept soundly on turned seats. The small one breathed warmly and sweetly through moist parted lips.
The weariness of the night wore in upon their jaded nerves, lay upon their dry hot eyeballs. They flattened noses against the dirty windows, and watched the vast structure of the earth sweep past — clumped woodlands, the bending sweep of the fields, the huge flowing lift of the earth-waves, cyclic intersections bewildering — the American earth — rude, immeasurable, formless, mighty.
His mind was bound in the sad lulling magic of the car wheels. Clackety-clack. Clackety-clack. Clackety-clack. Clackety-clack. He thought of his life as something that had happened long ago. He had found, at last, his gateway to the lost world. But did it lie before or behind him? Was he leaving or entering it? Above the rhythm of the wheels he thought of Eliza’s laughter over ancient things. He saw a brief forgotten gesture, her white broad forehead, a ghost of old grief in her eyes. Ben, Gant — their strange lost voices. Their sad laughter. They swam toward him through green walls of fantasy. They caught and twisted at his heart. The green ghost-glimmer of their faces coiled away. Lost. Lost.
“Let’s go for a smoke,” said Max Isaacs.
They went back and stood wedged for stability on the closed platform of the car. They lighted cigarettes.
Light broke against the east, in a murky rim. The far dark was eaten cleanly away. The horizon sky was barred with hard fierce strips of light. Still buried in night, they looked across at the unimpinging sheet of day. They looked under the lifted curtain at brightness. They were knifed sharply away from it. Then, gently, light melted across the land like dew. The world was gray.
The east broke out in ragged flame. In the car, the little waitress breathed deeply, sighed, and opened her clear eyes.
Max Isaacs fumbled his cigarette awkwardly, looked at Eugene, and grinned sheepishly with delight, craning his neck along his collar, and making a nervous grimace of his white fuzz-haired face. His hair was thick, straight, the color of taffy. He had blond eyebrows. There was much kindness in him. They looked at each other with clumsy tenderness. They thought of the lost years at Woodson Street. They saw with decent wonder their awkward bulk of puberty. The proud gate of the years swung open for them. They felt a lonely glory. They said farewell.
Charleston, fat weed that roots itself on Lethe wharf, lived in another time. The hours were days, the days weeks.
They arrived in the morning. By noon, several weeks had passed, and he longed for the day’s ending. They were quartered in a small hotel on King Street — an old place above stores, with big rooms. After lunch, they went out to see the town. Max Isaacs and Malvin Bowden turned at once toward the Navy Yard. Mrs. Bowden went with them. Eugene was weary for sleep. He promised to meet them later.
When they had gone, he pulled off