Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe (86 page)

O Artemidorus, farewell!
 
 

36
 

In that enormous silence,
where pain and darkness met, some birds were waking.  It was
October.  It was almost four o'clock in the morning.  Eliza
straightened out Ben's limbs, and folded his hands across his body. 
She smoothed out the rumpled covers of the bed, and patted out the
pillows, making a smooth hollow for his head to rest in.  His
flashing hair, cropped close to his well-shaped head, was crisp and
crinkly as a boy's, and shone with bright points of light.  With
a pair of scissors, she snipped off a little lock where it would not
show.

"Grover's was black
as a raven's without a kink in it.  You'd never have known they
were twins," she said.

They went downstairs to
the kitchen.

"Well, Eliza,"
said Gant, calling her by name for the first time in thirty years,
"you've had a hard life.  If I'd acted different, we might
have got along together.  Let's try to make the most of what
time's left.  Nobody is blaming you.  Taking it all in all,
you've done pretty well."

"There are a great
many things I'd like to do over again," said Eliza gravely. 
She shook her head.  "We never know."

"We'll talk about it
some other time," said Helen.  "I guess every one is
worn out.  I know I am.  I'm going to get some sleep. 
Papa, go on to bed, in heaven's name!  There's nothing you can
do now. Mama, I think you'd better go, too--"

"No," said
Eliza, shaking her head.  "You children go on.  I
couldn't sleep now anyway.  There are too many things to do. 
I'm going to call up John Hines now."

'Tell him," said
Gant, "to spare no expense.  I'll foot the bills."

"Well," said
Helen, "whatever it costs, let's give Ben a good funeral. 
It's the last thing we can ever do for him.  I want to have no
regrets on that score."

"Yes," said
Eliza, nodding slowly.  "I want the best one that money
will buy.  I'll make arrangements with John Hines when I talk to
him.  You children go on to bed now."

"Poor old 'Gene,"
said Helen, laughing.  "He looks like the last rose of
summer.  He's worn out.  You pile in and get some sleep,
honey."

"No," he said,
"I'm hungry.  I haven't had anything to eat since I left
the university."

"Well, for
G-G-G-God's sake!" Luke stuttered.  "Why didn't you
speak, idiot?  I'd have got you something.  Come on,"
he said, grinning.  "I wouldn't mind a bite myself. 
Let's go uptown and eat."

"Yes," said
Eugene.  "I'd like to get out for a while from the bosom of
the family circle."

They laughed crazily. 
He poked around the stove for a moment, peering into the oven.

"Huh?  Hah? 
What are you after, boy?" said Eliza suspiciously.

"What you got good
to eat, Miss Eliza?" he said, leering crazily at her.  He
looked at the sailor: they burst into loud idiot laughter, pronging
each other in the ribs.  Eugene picked up a coffee-pot
half-filled with a cold weak wash, and sniffed at it.

"By God!" he
said.  "That's one thing Ben's out of.  He won't have
to drink mama's coffee any more."

"Whah-whah-whah!"
said the sailor.

Gant grinned, wetting a
thumb.

"You ought to be
ashamed of yourself," said Helen, with a hoarse snigger. 
"Poor old Ben!"

"Why, what's wrong
with that coffee?" said Eliza, vexed.  "It's GOOD
coffee."

They howled.  Eliza
pursed her lips for a moment.

"I don't like that
way of talking, boy," she said.  Her eyes blurred
suddenly.  Eugene seized her rough hand and kissed it.

"It's all right,
mama!" he said.  "It's all right.  I didn't mean
it!"  He put his arms around her.  She wept, suddenly
and bitterly.

"Nobody ever knew
him.  He never told us about himself.  He was the quiet
one.  I've lost them both now."  Then, drying her
eyes, she added:

"You boys go get
something to eat.  A little walk will do you good. And, say,"
she added, "why don't you go by The Citizen office? They ought
to be told.  They've been calling up every day to find out about
him."

"They thought a lot
of that boy," said Gant.

They were tired, but they
all felt an enormous relief.  For over a day, each had known
that death was inevitable, and after the horror of the incessant
strangling gasp, this peace, this end of pain touched them all with a
profound, a weary joy.

"Well, Ben's gone,"
said Helen slowly.  Her eyes were wet, but she wept quietly now,
with gentle grief, with love.  "I'm glad it's over. 
Poor old Ben!  I never got to know him until these last few
days.  He was the best of the lot.  Thank God, he's out of
it now."

Eugene thought of death
now, with love, with joy.  Death was like a lovely and tender
woman, Ben's friend and lover, who had come to free him, to heal him,
to save him from the torture of life.

They stood there
together, without speaking, in Eliza's littered kitchen, and their
eyes were blind with tears, because they thought of lovely and
delicate death, and because they loved one another.
 
 

Eugene and Luke went
softly up the hall, and out into the dark. Gently, they closed the
big front door behind them, and descended the veranda steps.  In
that enormous silence, birds were waking. It was a little after four
o'clock in the morning.  Wind pressed the boughs.  It was
still dark.  But above them the thick clouds that had covered
the earth for days with a dreary gray blanket had been torn open. 
Eugene looked up through the deep ragged vault of the sky and saw the
proud and splendid stars, bright and unwinking. The withered leaves
were shaking.

A cock crew his shrill
morning cry of life beginning and awaking. The cock that crew at
midnight (thought Eugene) had an elfin ghostly cry.  His crow
was drugged with sleep and death: it was like a far horn sounding
under sea; and it was a warning to all the men who are about to die,
and to the ghosts that must go home.

But the cock that crows
at morning (he thought), has a voice as shrill as any fife.  It
says, we are done with sleep.  We are done with death.  O
waken, waken into life, says his voice as shrill as any fife. 
In that enormous silence, birds were waking.

He heard the cock's
bright minstrelsy again, and by the river in the dark, the great
thunder of flanged wheels, and the long retreating wail of the
whistle.  And slowly, up the chill deserted street, he heard the
heavy ringing clangor of shod hoofs.  In that enormous silence,
life was waking.

Joy awoke in him, and
exultation.  They had escaped from the prison of death; they
were joined to the bright engine of life again. Life, ruddered life,
that would not fail, began its myriad embarkations.

A paper-boy came briskly,
with the stiff hobbled limp that Eugene knew so well, down the centre
of the street, hurling a blocked paper accurately upon the porch of
the Brunswick.  As he came opposite Dixieland, he moved in to
the curb, tossing his fresh paper with a careful plop.  He knew
there was sickness in the house.

The withered leaves were
shaking.

Eugene jumped to the
sidewalk from the sodded yard.  He stopped the carrier.

"What's your name,
boy?" he said.

"Tyson Smathers,"
said the boy, turning upon him a steady Scotch-Irish face that was
full of life and business.

"My name is 'Gene
Gant.  Did you ever hear of me?"

"Yes," said
Tyson Smathers, "I've heard of you.  You had number 7."

"That was a long
time ago," said Eugene, pompously, grinning.  "I was
just a boy."

In that enormous silence,
birds were waking.

He thrust his hand into a
pocket and found a dollar-bill.

"Here," he
said.  "I carried the damn things once.  Next to my
brother Ben, I was the best boy they ever had.  Merry Christmas,
Tyson."

"It ain't Christmas
yet," said Tyson Smathers.

"You're right,
Tyson," said Eugene, "but it will be."

Tyson Smathers took the
money, with a puzzled, freckled grin.  Then he went on down the
street, throwing papers.

The maples were thin and
sere.  Their rotting leaves covered the ground.  But the
trees were not leafless yet.  The leaves were quaking. 
Some birds began to chatter in the trees.  Wind pressed the
boughs, the withered leaves were shaking.  It was October.

As Luke and Eugene turned
up the street toward town, a woman came out of the big brick house
across the street, and over the yard toward them.  When she got
near, they saw she was Mrs. Pert.  It was October, but some
birds were waking.

"Luke," she
said fuzzily.  "Luke?  Is it Old Luke?"

"Yes," said
Luke.

"And 'Gene?  Is
it old 'Gene?"  She laughed gently, patting his hand,
peering comically at him with her bleared oaken eyes, and swaying
back and forth gravely, with alcoholic dignity.  The leaves, the
withered leaves, were shaking, quaking.  It was October, and the
leaves were shaking.

"They ran old Fatty
away, 'Gene," she said.  "They won't let her come in
the house any more.  They ran her away because she liked Old
Ben.  Ben.  Old Ben."  She swayed gently, vaguely
collecting her thought.  "Old Ben.  How's Old Ben,
'Gene?" she coaxed.  "Fatty wants to know."

"I'm m-m-m-mighty
sorry, Mrs. P-P-P-Pert . . ." Luke began.

Wind pressed the boughs,
the withered leaves were quaking.

"Ben's dead,"
said Eugene.

She stared at him for a
moment, swaying on her feet

"Fatty liked Ben,"
she said gently, in a moment.  "Fatty and Old Ben were
friends."

She turned and started
unsteadily across the street, holding one hand out gravely, for
balance.

In that enormous silence,
birds were waking.  It was October, but some birds were waking.
 
 

Then Luke and Eugene
walked swiftly townward, filled with great joy because they heard the
sounds of life and daybreak.  And as they walked, they spoke
often of Ben, with laughter, with old pleasant memory, speaking of
him not as of one who had died, but as of a brother who had been gone
for years, and was returning home.  They  spoke of him with
triumph and tenderness, as of one who had defeated pain, and had
joyously escaped.  Eugene's mind groped awkwardly about. 
It fumbled like a child, with little things.
 
They
were filled with a deep and tranquil affection for each other: they
talked without constraint, without affectation, with quiet confidence
and knowledge.

"Do you remember,"
Luke began, "the t-t-t-time he cut the hair of Aunt Pett's
orphan boy--Marcus?"

"He--used--a
chamber-pot--to trim the edges," Eugene screamed, waking the
street with wild laughter.

They walked along
hilariously, greeting a few early pedestrians with ironical
obsequiousness, jeering pleasantly at the world in brotherly
alliance.  Then they entered the relaxed and weary offices of
the paper which Ben had served so many years, and gave their stick of
news to the tired man there.

There was regret, a sense
of wonder, in that office where the swift record of so many days had
died--a memory that would not die, of something strange and passing.

"Damn!  I'm
sorry!  He was a great boy!" said the men.

As light broke grayly in
the empty streets, and the first car rattled up to town, they entered
the little beanery where he had spent, in smoke and coffee, so many
hours of daybreak.

Eugene looked in and saw
them there, assembled as they had been many years before, like the
nightmare ratification of a prophecy: McGuire, Coker, the weary
counter-man, and, at the lower end, the press-man, Harry Tugman.

Luke and Eugene entered,
and sat down at the counter.

"Gentlemen,
gentlemen," said Luke sonorously.

"Hello, Luke,"
barked McGuire.  "Do you think you'll ever have any sense? 
How are you, son?  How's school?" he said to Eugene. 
He stared at them for a moment, his wet cigarette plastered comically
on his full sag lip, his bleared eyes kindly and drunken.

"General, how's the
boy?  What're you drinking these days--turpentine or varnish?"
said the sailor, tweaking him roughly in his larded ribs. 
McGuire grunted.

"Is it over, son?"
said Coker quietly.

"Yes," said
Eugene.

Coker took the long cigar
from his mouth and grinned malarially at the boy.

"Feel better, don't
you, son?" he said.

"Yes," said
Eugene.  "A hell of a lot."

"Well, Eugenics,"
said the sailor briskly, "what are you eating?"

"What's the man
got?" said Eugene, staring at the greasy card. "Have you
got any young roast whale left?"

"No," said the
counter-man.  "We did have some, but we run out."