The Big Hunger Read online

  He came back to the house with his hands in his pockets. On the porch he lit a cigarette. For two or three minutes he leaned against the porch rail, smoke tumbling from his mouth. Then he flipped the cigarette and came inside.

  The men around the table stared at their plates. There was silence in the bedroom. Mingo sat down and poured a glass of wine. Uncle Julio touched his shoulder.

  “Sorry this happened, Mingo.”

  “Shut up,” Mingo said.

  He looked into each face, bitterness and suffering pouring from his hard eyes. They left him alone, drinking by himself at the large table, and retreated into the parlor, where they spoke in whispers. Mingo drank steadily, thoughtfully. In a little while the bedroom door creaked open and the silent women emerged. They stood around the table for a few moments, their anger gone, waves of tenderness and pity flowing from them and covering Mingo. Aunt Teresa went downstairs and returned with a bottle of brandy.

  “Try this, Mingo. I’ve been saving it.”

  He poured and drank. Aunt Louisa braved his despair to stand beside him, her fingers stroking his bright hair. “It’s hard, Mingo,” she said. “It’s very hard—I know.”

  He kept drinking, never speaking, the women holding their vigil over a dead love. Soon most of the brandy was gone and his head dropped to the table. They gathered him up, his feet dragging, and carried him into the bedroom. They removed his shoes and clothing and put him to bed. He slept heavily, moaning through troubled dreams. Aunt Louisa stroked his forehead.

  “He’s young,” she said. “He’ll get over it.”

  Suddenly he sat up in bed, his eyes reddened and wild, in a last siege of torment, his fists clenched. We were all present, the women around the bed, the men and children peering through the door

  “Clito!” he gasped. “Ah, Clito! Mother of God, why did you do this to me?”

  Then he sank back and fell into a heavy sleep. The women pulled down the curtains, darkening the room. They tiptoed out and the door was closed. The heartbreaking sound of Mingo’s voice was still with us. Everyone looked at Uncle Clito, who stood white-faced and alone. Aunt Rosa, hands on hips, stood before Clito, glaring at him. Suddenly she spat in his face. At once the women went wild, backing him into a corner.

  “Hypocrite!” Mama said.

  “Scandal-monger!” Philomena said.

  “I’ll tear his eyes out!” Louisa said.

  The men came to his rescue, dragging him out of the women’s clutches and pulling him to the front door. “Go on,” Papa told him. “Beat it, Clito, before you get hurt.” He pushed Uncle Clito through the front door with such force that the barber lost his balance, fell from the porch, and lay a moment in the snow. Then he got to his feet and walked down the street.

  After that, we were no longer afraid of Uncle Clito—none of us. Next time we needed haircuts, Mama told us to go to Joe’s Place, right across the street from Clito’s Shop.

  To Be a Monstrous Clever Fellow

  “To think of it,” Jurgen reflected,

  “that the world I inhabit is ordered

  by beings who are not one-tenth so

  clever as I am. I have often suspected

  as much, and it is decidedly unfair.

  Now let me see if I cannot make

  something out of being such a

  monstrous clever fellow.”

  —James Branch Cabell

  Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (1919)

  ON SATURDAY NIGHT, Eddie Aiken and I sat on the beach smoking cigarettes. The lights of Wilmington behind us were carelessly bright and varicolored, reflecting under them the moods of people hurrying nowhere in particular. Up the beach a hundred feet, in an open pavilion, a jazz orchestra was playing “Tiger Rag,” wild. The song reminded me of a Ben Hecht story about a famous anthropologist who searched remotely for primitive ways and customs; but lo, after a life gone grey and in his own home town the great professor found music and alleged dancing as unique as the ceremonial antics of any antediluvian clan of Fiji wild men. Then and there the savant’s researches terminated in a blaze of happiness, and forthwith he wrote the book which he had been contemplating for eight years.

  I told Eddie the story. He laughed with muzzled curiosity, saying, “Pretty good. Pretty good. But I don’t see the point. Let’s go up to the Majestic and stag some dances.”

  I was not a facile dancer. I was always too conscious of my partner, and too sensitive of my contortions before strange eyes.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I have to be on the docks early tomorrow.”

  “Just dance one or two,” Eddie said. “It’s only nine o’clock.”

  “Okay,” I agreed reluctantly. “But only one or two.

  We arose and brushed the white sand from our pants.

  Eddie pinched his sweater. “God, we’re both dressed like hell, though.”

  He was dressed in a white shirt with a black tie, a white sweater and black pants, much nicer than I was. I wore a white shirt and a dark red tie, my brown leather lumberjack, and brown pants.

  “What the hell,” I said, “are we mannequins?”

  “What’re they?”

  “People who walk in fashion parades.”

  We advanced on the Majestic. Across the harbor twinkled the lights of San Pedro. Between the lights and us the plane carriers Lexington and Saratoga lounged at anchor. They looked monstrous, black and cold. I thought of a story.

  The dance hall was packed. Colored lights flashed against wall mirrors. Crepe paper strips hung and waved in twisted loops from rafter to rafter. It was the usual type of hall, where admission was free and you paid ten cents a dance, the floor being vacated after each number. A white wicker fence two feet high surrounded the marble floor. Sailors, stevedores and their women, laborers and their wives, and wealthy tourists all struggled on the floor. We greeted a few friends and bored our way to the fence, where we watched the dancers, especially the women, clump past. The orchestra still blazed away at “Tiger Rag.” Spasmodically, one fellow howled, “Yippeee! Wahooo!”

  Eddie nudged me “A native-born Californian from Texas.”

  I felt tight and dry-mouthed; dance halls were places where women managed to be the suaver. I tried to think of a suitable descriptive adjective. Instead, my thought supplied me with a feeling of uselessness for descriptive adjectives, and I began to wish I had stayed home and done my thousand words. A girl in black satin, flaunting sleek hips, raced down the floor pulling her sweating partner after her. I followed her with my eyes, wondering what she did for a living and if she read Nietzsche. With such hips, I rambled, she had certainly not had children; but I would bet she was no virgin.

  “Come on,” Eddie said. “Let’s get goin’.”

  The stags were numerous. We fought our way through them to a small aisle that circled the floor, and walking along this aisle we watched the seated spectators at our right for unescorted women.

  “Oh boy,” Eddie said.

  Before us were two girls, solitary, and one was attractive, with red-brown hair; the other one was ugly. They smiled an invitation as we approached. Eddie beat me to the fairer one.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said. Eddie was a slick one, and an excellent dancer.

  I walked on. The ugly girl watched me pass by. Ten feet away I turned around. Our eyes clashed.

  “Oh God.”

  I walked on, faster. I tried to spin words explaining why I had looked back: “There was a fascination about her uncomeliness that, perforce, reverted my eyes in her direction.” And I thought the sentence well done indeed for such a short time in which to compose it.

  I walked down the aisle to the other side, where I saw two girls seated, one blonde, the other brunette. They leaned forward so that their heads were almost in each other’s laps, and both talked breathlessly. They were about twenty-five, probably married, I guessed.

  I straightened my tie and walked to them. I was too aware of my size, my smallness, to be suave, and I knew it, a mere p
hysiological disadvantage but impossible to ignore. The girls looked at me through their eyebrows, scarcely lifting their heads. Their jaws, chewing gum, chugged like pistons.

  I decided to ask the blonde, called myself a boob, and spoke.

  “May I have this dance?”

  The music was a slow fox trot.

  They stopped chewing simultaneously and stared at one another. The blonde examined her fingernails. They were very long.

  “I never dance with no strangers,” she said.

  She spoke to her friend as she polished her nails on her thigh.

  “Go ahead and dance with him, Elsie. He looks like a nice fella.”

  Elsie screwed her lips so that they pouted, and shook her head slowly.

  “Uh, uh,” she said. She made me angry.

  “You mean, ‘No, sir,’ don’t you?”

  She looked up at me.

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean. ‘No, sir.’”

  I walked away.

  “Hey, you!” the blonde yelled when I had gone ten feet.

  I returned to where she sat still polishing her nails.

  “I changed my mind. I guess you can have this one with me.”

  What kind of an egg did she take me for?

  “That’s very sweet of you,” I said, “and since this is a guessing game, I guess you can go to hell.”

  She bit her lips, squinted at me, and turned a lovely red. I tried to smile but it was hard. As I walked away I heard the blonde say to her friend, “I was never so insulted in all my life,” and I congratulated myself on my repartee. I remembered that Voltaire, Huneker, and George Jean Nathan were masters of the business, and I wondered how they would have dealt with her. Maybe not so obtuse, but surely words to the same effect. Then I called myself an ass, but for some time I walked about quoting from memory many things from Mencken’s American Credo.

  The orchestra began a very pretty German song, “Two Hearts in Three-Quarter Time.” I went to the floor to watch the dancers swing to the selection. It would be splendid, I thought, if I could sing the words to the song, but since I was wishing, I might as well be thorough and desire to know the whole language. So I reasoned. I told myself that I was an ape for admiring everything Teutonic, for no reason other than that the men I heeded most were German. I wondered what the blonde was saying. I thought of Nietzsche, reminding myself that I was not even sure I was pronouncing his name rightly, though I respected it as much as my own. I recalled Zarathustra: “Bitter is the sweetest woman,” and “Thou goest to woman? Do not forget thy whip.” I wondered if Nietzsche wrote such acidy words as platitudes. I had to forget Nietzsche if I wanted to have a decent evening. I vigorously told myself that at thirty-three Nietzsche would still influence me. “But,” I thought, “suppose Nietzsche should step off the floor and say, ‘Hi there, lad. Go outside and blow out your brains.’” I wondered how badly I would take it. The girl in black satin glided by and I forgot him and my mind spurted into a soliloquy on loving her. Sherwood Anderson, I remembered, had written that often to see a woman walk across the floor was a spectacle of pure beauty. He must have meant a woman in black satin; he must have meant something a little off the mark of beauty, the sheer aesthetic quality.

  The girl and her partner circled the floor three times. Not for a breath did I flick my eyes from her waist. The waltz ended, she disappeared in a throng at the entrance, and I had not so much as glanced at her face. If I saw her again, wearing a coat, I would not recognize her. And, I thought, according to the religion of my baptism, I had committed a mortal sin, and now I was ticketed for hell more than ever. I cursed all priests.

  As the floor cleared, rich bars of blue and gold light shot across the hall. The orchestra struck up a sentimental waltz, an old favorite, “Beautiful Ohio.”

  I looked for an empty seat where I could listen to the music fully relaxed, appreciating every note. Not far away I saw an empty seat, draped by a woman’s coat.

  “Is this your coat?” I asked the lady in the next seat.

  “Yes.”

  “Will you move it, please? I want to sit down.”

  “Why, I guess so.”

  She was a fat woman. My request vexed her, and I enjoyed her annoyance. I sat down with grand ease, hoping the woman would be the more irritated, but she heaved her broad back before my eyes, and all I saw was the nape of her heavy neck. I rested my head on the back of the seat, staring at the ceiling while the waves of song came across the hall.

  I thought: Sister Mary Ethelbert loved this song. She used to play it on the organ when I was in the fourth grade. She’s in a convent in Wyoming. She prays for me every night. This song always reminds me of her. Right at this moment she’s probably praying for me. And God, what a paradox, every time I think of her, I think of going to bed with her. What did Jurgen say? Now the tale tells—no. Not that. Oh yes. “There is no memory with less satisfaction in it than the memory of some temptation we resisted.” But that’s kind of vicious, with Sister Ethelbert. And she prays for me. And my mother’s home right now praying for me. And so is Father Benson in St. Louis, and so is Paul Reinert, and Dan Campbell. Why should they be priests? If they saw E. Boyd Barrett’s books, they’d burn them, but not read them. I should be home reading and writing. I’ll have to be up late tonight if I expect to write seven hundred words. I’ve got to write, write, write. I ought to get to bed early. The steel boats tomorrow. I hate the damn steel. It cuts my hands to ribbons. What the hell. I should feel lucky I have a job. Lucky? What the hell? Concepts of good and evil are merely means to an end. They are expedients for acquiring power. It takes a lot of guts to do what Nietzsche says, but by God, he’s right, and I’ll do it. Sister Mary Ethelbert was pretty. She thought I’d be a priest. So did my mother. Naked alone would I like to see them, for beauty alone should teach penitence. Now what does he mean by that? I don’t know. Like that kid in Sherwood Anderson who said, “I don’t know why, but I want to know why.” Anderson writes like an old muscle-bound farmer. Cabell writes the pretty lines, O Cabell, O Jurgen, Jurgen. A monstrous clever fellow. Right. For so the tale tells. Hah, Jurgen. I’m only young once. Now, why the hell did Nietzsche chase all over Europe for that Salome? Why not. He was only young once. I could still be a priest. I wonder if I’ll yelp for a priest on my death bed. Me. A coward? No. I’m a monstrous clever fellow I should be home now, instead of sitting here listening to this song. I’ve got to write and write and write. The song is pretty. Sister Ethelbert liked it.

  The song was ended and I sat erect. There was a girl at my right whom I had not noticed until now. Her legs were cased in serpentine gun powder hose, and they were of seductive curve, but the knees were bony and cadaverous. Her dress was of a dark felt material, and she wore a white waist with a dark sport jacket. Her teeth were big, sparkling with vigor, but not small enough for the lips to naturally conceal. Her hair was the color of copper wire stripped of its insulation. Imitation topaz beads hung from her neck, blending beautifully with her hair and brown eyes.

  Rising, I inclined toward her slightly. I tried to look amiable.

  “Will you dance this one with me?”

  “Why not?” she said. “It’s a keen tune.” The song was a slow fox trot.

  “Just a minute,” I said.

  She was standing when I returned from the ticket office.

  Her eyes were level with my forehead. We entered the gate, I gave the keeper a ticket, and we moved down the floor. She owned hard, sinewy legs, and they followed my floundering steps meticulously. My fingers, at the small of her back, moved like automatic piano keys as her muscles rose and fell. Her powder and rouge gave off a luscious odor. I sniffed it eagerly

  “Haven’t I seen you before? At Stanford?”

  She was a collegian. I would not tell her I was a longshoreman. I hoped she would not feel the calluses on my hands, and I relaxed the fingers of my left hand.

  “No doubt,” I lied, “for erudition is poured into me at that glorious institute.”


  She laughed.

  “You dance just like a Stanford man.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “Indeed!”

  You’re a damn liar, I thought.

  “Aye,” I said. “We sons of Leland are proficient with the nether limbs.”

  “You talk just like a prof.”

  “Indeed, and that is my position at Stanford.” I said this in an obviously joking tone.

  “Really, but you’re awfully young.”

  My God, she believes me. Indeed, I am a monstrous clever fellow, or better, she is a monstrous stupid wench.

  “I graduated last year. This is my first at teaching.”

  “What do you teach?”

  “Communism.”

  I was certain that I knew more about communism than she.

  “Oh, you old meanie. Communism’s against the law.”

  “What law?” I spoke, amazed. “Haven’t you heard of the Bill of Rights?”

  “Why, you know,” she said, timidly “I always thought it was against the law.”

  “Preposterous! Incredible!”

  “You must think I’m terribly dumb.”

  She was on the defensive. I could see Jurgen smiling.

  “Oh no. That’s not a serious mistake.” Then I spoke softly. “But you know, baby, Jehovah made no mistakes when He created you, did He?”

  We danced five successive numbers, and when we left the floor, she was calling me Professor. My name, I said, was Professor Cabell.

  We drank malted milks and sat in a darkened corner of the hall, almost behind the orchestra stand. Her name was Nina Gregg, and she attended a local junior college. But I soon grew tired of her stupidity, because there was no one to whom I could demonstrate it.

  I kissed her many, many times. It was great sport to kiss her. She had lips that were soft red masses, and they were sweet and sticky, clinging to mine as kisses should. She tossed her body carelessly and quite willingly, and I liked it very much, for I had never kissed a college girl before, and having sneered at the legendary ardor of coeds in books, I found this reality most delightful and surprising. When our lips cleaved, her arms were around my neck, and the fingers dug into the loose skin of my back.