Somebody in Boots. Nelson Algren
had to be filled out before this could be done—and when the commandant gave him a pencil and paper in the office Cass almost wished he had not asked at all. It had been so long since he had teamed to read and write that now it only came with an effort. But he labored manfully with the pencil, and succeeded in writing his name again, after a fashion. As the official led him to the head of the staircase that wound down into the basement, he warned that the shower was cold. Cass cared not a button. Not even the descent into the chill cellar could dishearten him.
To get under the shower he had to wait some minutes for his turn. An old man stood under the feeble stream, scrubbing painful old joints. Cass waited in the doorway for him to finish. The light was so dim, the old man’s belly was so large, that its navel looked to Cass like a small incurved tunnelling into gray flesh such as he had seen small mole-things make in gray earth.
There was one other in the tiny room—the louse-runner, a lank and pockmarked man of perhaps sixty years. Cass watched this delouser, and he began to feel ashamed that he would have to undress and be naked before such a man. The fellow had a shameless eye, and a searching manner. And Cass was ashamed to be naked before anyone, for he felt that others could read too much of his life in the scars of his body, in his rounded shoulders, his pigeon chest, in the thinness of his arms and legs. His blood was still unquiet from the shame he had felt at being unable to write more than his name when the commandant had given him the pencil.
The louse-runner was crouched now over the old man’s clothes like a vulture hanging over a dung-heap. Holding his hands before his face beneath the little light, he rose slowly, with deliberation, studying his cupped palms as he rose. They were running with lice. He kicked the bundle off to the side without taking his eyes from his hands, and the old man held his head wistfully to one side, like an intelligent parrot.
“Extryord’nary,” he piped, “extryord’nary.”
The louse-runner brushed him from under the shower and stretched his hands under the water, rubbing his palms like cymbals together, as though to crush to mere pulp whichever lice might be so fortunate as to escape death through drowning. Then he shouted over his shoulder to someone unseen, and a pimple-faced youth with black rubber gloves came tearing down the stairs, took up the bundle in over-nice fingers, and carried it away to be fumigated.
Cass began to undress then. Slowly. How sorry he felt for that old man! How ashamed he had looked! But what if he himself should be found to have lice on him? The very thought made him desire retreat, even at this late hour. Better go dirty or wash in some river somewhere than to risk such shame! He felt the louse-runner watching, and he undressed more swiftly. Why must the man stare so? Did he think he might be a girl?
No socks to take off, no underwear. Dirt was frozen on him. The flesh of his arms and chest was blue-white, hairless and goose-pimpled. How ashamed he was to be so ugly!
The shower was as cold as the commandant had warned him, but there was plenty of a strong brown soap; by diligent scrubbing he got most of the dirt off, albeit in the process his fingers became numb with cold. He felt the louse-runner looking closely again, as he scraped at his ankles. “Ah’d do some better if he’d quit a-lookin’ at me like as if ah was some cold-shouldered colt,” Cass thought to himself.
The ordeal finished, he was given his clothes. For a moment Cass had the illogical notion that the louse-runner was disappointed at not having encountered a single louse in his overalls. When he was dressed Cass asked him for a cap, for it was cold in the place. The louser brought the matter before the commandant, in the latter’s office. There the commandant placed the entire responsibility back onto the louser’s shoulders. After some rummaging then, in the depths of the office clothes-closet, Cass was awarded a cotton cap that fitted down snugly over both ears and shaded his eyes with a peak so large that it lent him the aspect of a frequently-defeated jockey.
Observing himself in it in a little cracked tin mirror hanging on the clothes-closet door, he said to the commandant, “God damn, don’t it look jest fine, mister?” The commandant stiffened, Cass became afraid, the man was standing up and pointing to a red and white card on the far wall. Helplessly Cass looked at him, wondering with increasing fright what thing he had said or done to provoke this man’s anger.
“Ah caint read all that, mister—them’s too lawng words.” The commandant read for him, still pointing with outstretched arm.
IF YOU MUST USE PROFANITY PLEASE STEP OUT IN THE ALLEY
Cass began to feel a little better, and under his breath cursed both commandant and louse-runner roundly.
Later he wandered past the old French graveyard on Basin Street, and strolled, for curiosity’s sake, in and out of stores on Canal. In the Southern Railroad depot he found a fountain where water ran cold as ice. Then he walked back to Canal, remembering the wharves. He found the Desire Street wharf deserted, hung his shoes on a beam, padded his cap into a pillow, and slept. When he woke the sun was beginning to slant, and the river had turned from brown to cold green. Cass rose refreshed, and resumed his strolling.
All that late November afternoon he walked New Orleans in unconcern, caring not in the least which way he wandered. He passed by houses great and tall, stone mansions with strong iron gates; gates which barred wide paths winding through pleasant lawns. He looked through windows and saw white walls with pictures hanging; dimly Cass envied those within. He came, too, to houses much like his own had been: poor, unpainted, wooden . . . He saw black children who played within sight and smell of unmentionable filth, in alleys where gray rats ran. He saw the clean children of the rich, that they were quick and bold. On Melpomene Street he saw a young Negress with a baby on her back, pawing in a garbage barrel like an angular black cat. All afternoon Cass wandered.
Then it began to grow dark, and he forgot all that had happened at home and all that he had been on the road, for the lights of New Orleans came on, and he had never seen any lights quite so bright.
The lights of the city! The sounds of the street! It was just as though somewhere a switch had been thrown, making all things of a sudden gay and brilliant and beautiful, just for him. Canal Street thronged with men and women, a thousand gay faces passed him by. Signs went on and off. Everyone was happy and laughing, everyone was talking, everyone hurried. The people were almost as he had imagined—but such lights he had not dreamed of. Cass had never heard such sounds. Green and blue and red the lights, flashing on and off and dancing; loud and soft and strange the sounds, all wonderfully confused. Directly above his head an orchestra blared through open windows into the southern night, and Cass stood long with neck upturned and mouth agape. And after a while he walked on, and he came to a quieter place. Signs went on and off. Then he came to a street where there were no signs.
Cass came to a street that lay all deserted and unlit by any lamp or little window-gleam, and he went down a walk so narrow that on it but one could pass at a time. And he felt that all houses here were evil and old, that all their shades were drawn for shame; and that though the street was deserted and dark, yet there were women behind the shades; and that though the street was so soundless, so sad, behind the curtains men were laughing. So he walked on, and walked always more softly.
A girl stepped out of a doorway he had not seen, hooked him by the arm and looked up smiling. A foolish smile, weak. Then she pursed her lips that were pale as death, and spoke in a blurred Alabama drawl. “Look daddy, y’all like to sleep with me tonight? Ah’m clean as cotton, daddy, an’ y’all kin take yo’ own good time.” They were almost to the corner, where streets were lit luridly. The girl spoke swiftly, urging him to walk slowly. “Y’all don’t have to pay me till yo’ see what yo’ gettin’. Don’t have to pay me till afterwhile, hon, if yo’ don’t want to pay me right off.”
She placed his hand on her breast, and he paused. Wonderingly Cass touched her, pressing her breast half fearfully. How soft that was! Cass had never touched a woman before; as in a haze now he remembered the dark girls in back of the Poblano Cafe. She drew him aside and let him explore her until she felt that he was aroused; then she led him back to the doorway from which she had hailed him. She led him easily. His heart began zig-zagging wildly, desire and daring sent warm waves through his flesh. Should he? Should he take the chance—without