Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe (77 page)

He was wearing ragged
from the affair and its consequences.  He felt that he was being
unfairly dealt with, but as the hammering went on he drew his head
bullishly down and held his tongue, counting the hours until his
holiday should end.  He turned silently to Ben--he should have
turned nowhere.  But the trusted brother, frayed and bitter on
his own accord, scowled bitterly, and gave him the harsh weight of
his tongue.  This finally was unendurable.  He felt
betrayed--utterly turned against and set upon.

The outbreak came three
nights before his departure as he stood, tense and stolid, in the
parlor.  For almost an hour, in a savage monotone, Ben had tried
deliberately, it seemed, to goad him to an attack.  He had
listened without a word, smothering in pain and fury, and enraging by
his silence the older brother who was finding a vent for his own
alien frustration.

"--and don't stand
there scowling at me, you little thug.  I'm telling you for your
own good.  I'm only trying to keep you from being a jailbird,
you know."

"The trouble with
you," said Luke, "is that you have no appreciation for
what's been done for you.  Everything's been done for you, and
you haven't sense enough to appreciate it.  Your college
education has ruined you."

The boy turned slowly on
Ben.

"All right, Ben,"
he muttered.  "That's enough, now.  I don't care what
he says, but I've had enough of it from you."

This was the admission
the older one had wanted.  They were all in very chafed and ugly
temper.

"Don't talk back to
me, you little fool, or I'll bat your brains out."

The boy sprang at his
brother like a cat, with a snarling cry.  He bore him backward
to the floor as if he were a child, laying him down gently and
kneeling above him, because he had been instantly shocked by the
fragility of his opponent and the ease of his advantage.  He
struggled with such mixed rage and shame as those who try quietly to
endure the tantrum of a trying brat.  As he knelt above Ben,
holding his arms pinned, Luke fell heavily on his back, uttering
excited cries, strangling him with one arm and cuffing awkwardly with
the other.

"All right,
B-B-Ben," he chattered, "you grab his legs."

A free scrimmage upon the
floor followed, with such a clatter of upset scuttles, fire-irons,
and chairs, that Eliza was brought at a fast gallop from the kitchen.

"Mercy!" she
shrieked, as she reached the door.  "They'll kill him!"

But, although being
subdued--in the proud language of an older South "defeated, sir,
but never beaten"--Eugene was doing very well for his age, and
continued to chill the spines of his enemies with strange noises in
his larynx, even after they had all clambered panting to their feet.

"I f-f-f-fink he's
gone crazy," said Luke.  "He j-j-jumped on us without
a word of warning."

The hero replied to this
with a drunken roll of the head, a furious dilation of the nostrils,
and another horrible noise in his throat.

"What's to become of
us!" wept Eliza.  "When brother strikes brother, it
seems that the smash-up has come."  She lifted the padded
arm-chair, and placed it on its legs again.

When he could speak,
Eugene said quietly, to control the trembling of his voice:

"I'm sorry I jumped
on you, Ben.  You," he said to the excited sailor, "jumped
on my back like a coward.  But I'm sorry for what's happened. 
I'm sorry for what I did the other night and now.  I said so,
and you wouldn't leave me alone.  You've tried to drive me crazy
with your talk.  And I didn't," he choked, "I didn't
think you'd turn against me as you have.  I know what the others
are like--they hate me!"

"Hate you!"
cried Luke excitedly.  "For G-g-god's sake!  You talk
like a fool.  We're only trying to help you, for your own good.
Why should we hate you!"

"Yes, you hate me,"
Eugene said, "and you're ashamed to admit it. I don't know why
you should, but you do.  You wouldn't ever admit anything like
that, but it's the truth.  You're afraid of the right words. 
But it's been different with you," he said, turning to Ben.
"We've been like brothers--and now, you've gone over against
me."

"Ah!" Ben
muttered, turning away nervously.  "You're crazy.  I
don't know what you're talking about!"  He lighted a
cigarette, holding the match in a hand that trembled.

But although the boy had
used a child's speech of woe and resentment, they knew there was a
core of truth in what he had
said.

"Children,
children!" said Eliza sadly.  "We must try to love one
another.  Let's try to get along together this Christmas?what
time's left.  It may be the last one we'll ever have together."
She began to weep:  "I've had such a hard life," she
said, "it's been strife and turmoil all the way.  It does
seem I deserve a little peace and happiness now."

They were touched with
the old bitter shame: they dared not look at one another.  But
they were awed and made quiet by the vast riddle of pain and
confusion that scarred their lives.

"No one, 'Gene,"
Luke began quietly, "has turned against you.  We want to
help you--to see you amount to something.  You're the last
chance--if booze gets you the way it has the rest of us, you're done
for."

The boy felt very tired;
his voice was flat and low.  He began to speak with the
bluntness of despair: what he said had undebatable finality.

"And how are you
going to keep booze from getting me, Luke?" he said.  "By
jumping on my back and trying to strangle me?  That's on a level
with every other effort you've ever made to know me."

"Oh," said Luke
ironically, "you don't think we understand you?"

"No," Eugene
said quietly.  "I don't think you do.  You know
nothing whatever about me.  I know nothing about you--or any of
you.  I have lived here with you for seventeen years and I'm a
stranger.  In all that time have you ever talked to me like a
brother?  Have you ever told me anything of yourself?  Have
you ever tried to be a friend or a companion to me?"

"I don't know what
you want," Luke answered, "but I thought I was acting for
the best.  As to telling you about myself, what do you want to
know?"

"Well," said
Eugene slowly, "you're six years older than I am: you've been
away to school, you've worked in big cities, and you are now enlisted
in the United States Navy.  Why do you always act like God
Almighty," he continued with rankling bitterness.  "I
know what sailors do!  You're no better than I am!  What
about liquor? What about women?"

"That's no way to
talk before your mother," said Luke sternly.

"No, son," said
Eliza in a troubled voice.  "I don't like that way of
talking."

"Then I won't talk
like that," Eugene said.  "But I had expected you to
say that.  We do not want to be told what we know.  We do
not want to call things by their names, although we're willing to
call one another bad ones.  We call meanness nobility and hatred
honor.  The way to make yourself a hero is to make me out a
scoundrel.  You won't admit that either, but it's true. 
Well, then, Luke, we won't talk of the ladies, black or white, you
may or may not know, because it would make you uncomfortable. 
Instead, you can keep on being God and I'll listen to your advice,
like a little boy in Sunday School.  But I'd rather read the Ten
Commandments where it's written down shorter and better."

"Son," said
Eliza again with her ancient look of trouble and frustration, "we
must try to get on together."

"No," he said. 
"Alone.  I have done an apprenticeship here with you for
seventeen years, but it is coming to an end.  I know now that I
shall escape; I know that I have been guilty of no great crime
against you, and I am no longer afraid of you."

"Why, boy!"
said Eliza.  "We've done all we could for you.  What
crime have we accused you of?"

"Of breathing your
air, of eating your food, of living under your roof, of having your
life and your blood in my veins, of accepting your sacrifice and
privation, and of being ungrateful for it all."

"We should all be
thankful for what we have," said Luke  sententiously. 
"Many a fellow would give his right eye for the
chance
you've been given."

"I've been given
nothing!" said Eugene, his voice mounting with a husky flame of
passion.  "I'll go bent over no longer in this house. 
What chance I have I've made for myself in spite of you all, and over
your opposition.  You sent me away to the university when you
could do nothing else, when it would have been a crying disgrace to
you among the people in this town if you hadn't.  You sent me
off after the Leonards had cried me up for three years, and then you
sent me a year too soon--before I was sixteen--with a box of
sandwiches, two suits of clothes, and instructions to be a good boy."

"They sent you some
money, too," said Luke.  "Don't forget that."

"I'd be the only one
who would, if I did," the boy answered.  "For that is
really what is behind everything, isn't it?  My crime the other
night was not in getting drunk, but in getting drunk without any
money of my own.  If I did badly at the university with money of
my own, you'd dare say nothing, but if I do well on money you gave
me, I must still be reminded of your goodness and my unworthiness."

"Why, son!"
said Eliza diplomatically, "no one has a word to say against the
way you've done your work.  We're very proud of you."

"You needn't be,"
he said sullenly.  "I've wasted a great deal of time and
some money.  But I've had something out of it--more than
most--I've done as much work for my wages as you deserve.  I've
given you a fair value for your money; I thank you for nothing."

"What's that! 
What's that!" said Eliza sharply.

"I said I thank you
for nothing, but I take that back."

"That's better!"
said Luke.

"Yes, I have a great
deal to give thanks for," said Eugene.  "I give thanks
for every dirty lust and hunger that crawled through the polluted
blood of my noble ancestors.  I give thanks for every scrofulous
token that may ever come upon me.  I give thanks for the love
and mercy that kneaded me over the washtub the day before my birth. 
I give thanks for the country slut who nursed me and let my dirty
bandage fester across my navel.  I give thanks for every blow
and curse I had from any of you during my childhood, for every dirty
cell you ever gave me to sleep in, for the ten million hours of
cruelty or indifference, and the thirty minutes of cheap advice."

"Unnatural!"
Eliza whispered.  "Unnatural son!  You will be
punished if there's a just God in heaven."

"Oh, there is! 
I'm sure there is!" cried Eugene.  "Because I have
been punished.  By God, I shall spend the rest of my life
getting my heart back, healing and forgetting every scar you put upon
me when I was a child.  The first move I ever made, after the
cradle, was to crawl for the door, and every move I have made since
has been an effort to escape.  And now at last I am free from
you all, although you may hold me for a few years more.  If I am
not free, I am at least locked up in my own prison, but I shall get
me some beauty, I shall get me some order out of this jungle of my
life: I shall find my way out of it yet, though it take me twenty
years more--alone."

"Alone?" said
Eliza, with the old suspicion.  "Where are you going?"

"Ah," he said,
"you were not looking, were you?  I've gone."
 
 

33
 

During the few remaining
days of his holiday, he stayed almost entirely away from the house,
coming for a brief and mumbled meal, and late at night, for bed. 
He waited for departure as a prisoner for release.  The dolorous
prelude to a journey--the wet platform eyes, the sudden radiation of
hectic warmth, the declarations of love at sound of the whistle--left
him this time unmoved.  The tear-ducts, he was beginning to
discover, had, like sweat-glands, dermic foundations, and were easily
brought to a salty sparkle at mere sight of a locomotive.  He
had, therefore, the somewhat detached composure of a gentleman on his
way to a comfortable week-end, who stands in a noisy crowd, waiting
for the ferry.
 
 

He gave benediction to
the words in which he had so happily defined his position as
wage-earner.  They stated and confirmed an attitude, and in some
measure protected him against the constant betrayals of sentiment. 
During the Spring he worked stupendously at joining activities,
knowing that here was coin whose ring they could hear.  He wrote
conscientiously each item of his distinctions; his name found its way
back more than once to the indulgent Altamont papers.  Gant kept
the clippings proudly, and gave public readings when he could.

The boy had two short
awkward letters from Ben, who was now stationed one hundred miles
away, in the tobacco town.  At Easter, Eugene visited him,
staying at his lodgings, where again his unerring destiny had thrown
him into the welcoming arms of a gray-haired widow.  She was
under fifty--a handsome silly woman, who prodded and teased him as
she would an adored child.  She addressed him--with a loose
giggle--as "Old Curly-Head," at which he fetched out his
usual disgusted plea to his Maker.  "O my God!  Listen
to this!"  She had reverted to an astonishing romping
girlhood, and would exercise her playfulness by leaping suddenly upon
Old Curly-Head, dealing him a stiff dig in the ribs, and skipping
away with a triumphant "Hah!  Got you that time!"