XIX

The fact that Linda had taken the job in Fred Merrit’s house as soon as it was available seemed to Shine, like the slap, a mere gesture of defiance, as a matter of fact rather complimentary and encouraging. But the fact that she stubbornly withheld her company and had done so now for two weeks seemed an unnecessary emphasis of her already defined position.

And because it was for him an entirely new experience, for which his knowledge of women contained no therapy, his own futile resentment rendered him daily more and more violent. He worked harder and played harder and knew that nothing ailed him; but with a stubbornness greater than Linda’s he refused to admit to himself that the girl had anything at all to do with the change. No mamma in this man’s world was tight enough to put it on him.

Bess, the great van, became a willing mistress, and from her he derived a sort of unconfessed consolation; took to driving her at top speed whenever conditions permitted: when traffic was light and fast and Bess was empty; literally hurled her, roaring like a fire truck, along Seventh Avenue’s asphalt; and when opportunity presented, took her over to the Speedway for a rattling headlong romp. On such occasions if Jinx and Bubber were present, they would exchange wise looks and apprehensive grimaces, and Bubber invited annihilation one day when, on narrowly missing a coal truck, he asserted that it just wasn’t good arithmetic for no three men to commit suicide over one woman.

But the zest with which Shine drove Bess did not give him sufficient relief, left him still unsatisfied, like the deep but ineffectual breathing of a man suffering acute air-hunger. Hence his whole behavior took on a reckless vehemence, and whether he laughed or cursed, worked, drank, or gambled, he did so to excess.

Ordinarily he used two belts around an upright piano to be hoisted; two belts surrounding the treacherous instrument near either lateral end, a cable joining either belt to a central metal ring. When the tackle was hooked into this ring and raised, the two short cables became the legs of an isosceles triangle, the apex of which was the ring and the base the top of the piano. This arrangement was absolutely proof against tilting and slipping.

Now however he decided, jes’ for meanness, to dispense with approximately half of this apparatus and used only a single belt about the middle of the piano. It pleased him then to stand off and dare the blam-blam thing to slip.

Ordinarily when he drank it was with a modicum of caution. No sense getting drunk down. The way to lick liquor was to hit it and run⁠—no man was lined with copper. Drop in on one of these new young doctors that had to write “scrips” to make it; or go to one of these drugstores that had prescriptions already written and could sell you the best rye right off at five or six bucks a pint. On thirty-five bucks you wouldn’t be able to do that but once a week, and so you’d be pretty sure to take it easy.

Now, however, he told himself he could drink anything anybody else could drink, and drink as much of it, too; sought out the venders of synthetic corn and gin and drowned himself in the pale stuff; and cursed to find that he awoke the mornings afterward without even so much as a headache.

Ordinarily, when he played blackjack in Pat’s back room, he played with a definite system: started with the minimum stake, doubled three rounds, then passed. Above all he never hit seventeen.

Now he played with no regard for rules or the laws of chance; doubled often five times straight, “stopped” the bank at every opportunity, and invariably hit a soft seventeen and usually a hard one as well.

None of these devices satisfied. Not a piano slipped, none of the liquor proved to be poison, and at the end of a week, his blackjack stood him eighty-six berries to the good.

In the midst of these exaggerated reflexes, an order came to the office of Isaacs’ Transportation Company for the removal of one load of valuable furniture from Fred Merrit’s country house to his residence on Court Avenue. Old man Isaacs was off duty, ill abed with a bad heart, otherwise Shine would have had the boss appoint a new foreman. Finding this impossible, he told himself that no girl’s presence was going to make him dodge a job any damn how.

There was, nevertheless, an unmistakable reluctance in his piloting of Bess this morning. Merrit’s place was only a dozen miles north of New York, but it took Bess two hours to get there. Once arrived, there was much palaver about the best way to negotiate the terrain.

“This place jes’ sprawls all over this hill,” observed Bubber. “Looks like a flock o’ hencoops. How we go’n’ git up yonder?”

The question was settled by uproarious but careful navigation of a steep side road which led to a plateau behind the flock of hencoops. Here they were greeted by Mrs. Arabella Fuller, who began at once to wheeze interminable directions.

Eventually, in spite of all Mrs. Fuller said, the load was on, each piece swaddled partly in quilting, and partly in that lady’s verbiage, which seemed to hover about it long after Bess was headed back townward:

“Yes⁠—that goes⁠—that’s a picture of his mother⁠—the onliest one he’s got, so be awful careful. I know he’d die if he lost it. Take care o’ that if you lose all the rest. Now be careful⁠—you’ll never care how you handle things and them table laigs’ll snap off if you sneeze at ’em⁠—that’s a genuine redwood table and you know them’s expensive⁠—look out f’ that vase!⁠—the way y’all handle things, anybody’d know they wasn’t yourn. Chile, that vase cost mo’ ’n yo’ foot⁠—if it break yo’ foot yo’ foot’ll git well, but if yo’ foot break it⁠—yes⁠—them’s chests and y’ needn’t think they ain’t valuable and that you can scrape ’em up bad as you please jes’ because they ain’t go not paint on ’em and got the hinges on th’ outside; they come from Siam or some them places Mr. Fred was where the folks is all colored but won’t admit it and you carry ’em by puttin’ two broomsticks through the sides, but deed I ain’t got no broomsticks f’ y’all to scratch up and break⁠—they have their own kings and queens and ev’rything jes’ like in the Bible, only I say colored folks ain’t got no business tryin’ to act white ’cause it always gets ’em into trouble⁠—where’s that other boy⁠—that big one come with y’all? Why don’t he turn in and help?⁠—he’s big enough⁠—ought to be ’shamed o’ hisse’f lettin’ y’all do all the work⁠—Ain’t we been had the worst summer rainin’ ev’ry day and look like it always had to ketch me outdoors with nothin’ on my head and you know what happens to this kind o’ hair when it gets wet⁠—”

“Whew-ee!” heaved Bubber. “Damn ’f that woman can’t talk d’ spots off d’ dice.”

“No lie. I ain’t got my breath back yet⁠—jes’ listenin’ to ’uh.”

“Yea⁠—and you tellin’ ’uh she could ride back with us if she wanted.”

“Who?”

“You?”

“When?”

“Didn’ you stop and tell ’uh to come on, less go⁠—we was finished?”

“Oh yea. But I swear I thought I was talkin’ to you. Y’all look like sisters. If you and her didn’ have d’ same grandaddy, somebody played a awful dirty joke on y’ both.”

The inevitable quarrel ensued, and this somewhat took their minds off Bess’s unusual jogtrot. If the trip out had been slow, the trip back was endless. For out of all that had reached his ears, Shine remembered only one part of Arabella Fuller’s dyspneic discourse, and this hummed in his mind as persistent and unvarying as the rumble of Bess’s innards:

“Go where, chile? Back to town with y’all? Deed I’ll have to stay out hyeh mos’ another week packin’ things f’ the winter. Y’all go right ahead, though⁠—Linda’s there and I done told ’er where to tell y’all to put ev’ything⁠—”

Linda living alone in the house with Fred Merrit, toper and dickty.

A piano is a malicious thing, the temporary dwelling of some evil spirit that follows you from one instrument to the next. Sooner or later that spirit catches you off guard and, using the instrument as its weapon, swiftly, viciously strikes. Either it gets you then and there or is itself permanently defeated.

Every man who enters this work thereby invites this pursuit. Both Jinx and Bubber had escaped for a time, but finally each had been caught. Bubber had lost a part of one foot. Jinx’s elbow had been crushed, leaving a permanent deformity. These injuries, however, did not materially hamper their work, and so Jinx and Bubber considered themselves fortunate; for, as the superstition had it, they now enjoyed immunity.

Shine had so far gone without a scratch, had never been caught off guard. It was Jinx and Bubber’s belief that he would probably go on escaping. What chance did any piano have at a steel man lined with cast-iron? Shine was just as hard toward things as toward people, no more vulnerable in the one case than the other, and though ordinarily he could afford to be more generous and genial than most men, who dared not thus risk imposition, still in a pinch he was known to be more unyielding than bedrock. Nothing fazed Shine. “Remember how he held on to that piano the day the roof broke?”

But today for the first time Shine’s preoccupation put him quite off guard; and so today his evil pursuer struck.

The piano was an elderly upright which Merrit kept because it had been his first luxury. It was to go to the front room on the third floor of the house, a room which had been set apart as a remote and private playground⁠—a combination of den, poker room and too-bad-party resort. The instrument stood alone and sullen at the edge of the cluttered sidewalk, aloof, superior, apart, permitting the lesser pieces to go first.

Shine likewise aloof and apart, refused to enter the house with the others. He saw Linda only once, when first she gave Jinx admittance, and although he did not allow himself to make frank observations, he was aware from many a covert glance that the girl had withdrawn into the inner regions, evidently as intent upon avoiding him as was he upon avoiding her.

The time soon came, however, when all but the piano had been removed. Shine’s active participation had so far consisted only in handing things down from the van. Now he must direct the hoisting and so lend a more active hand.

It was now that his brooding inadvertence combined with his recently assumed recklessness to make him do an unprecedented thing. During his two years of working with Jinx and Bubber he had not once trusted either of them to anchor hoisting tackle. But now, instead of going to the roof of the house to anchor the tackle himself, he ordered Bubber to do so in his place. He’d be damned if Linda should think he was trying to see her.

“Well⁠—what the hell’s holdin’ y’?” he inquired as Bubber hesitated, doubting that he had heard aright. Bubber turned slowly, shaking his head and meditating aloud:

“When that boogy gits evil he gits so evil. They’s so damn much of ’im.”

“Then come down and unsash that winder,” Shine commanded balefully, “and stand by to pull in, see?”

Jinx would have followed to check up on his confrère’s technic, but Shine halted him to give further orders.

“You keep them flat feet o’ yours right on the sidewalk and hold on to this guide rope. I’ll do the pullin’. When Squatty pulls in up there you can go up and help him take it down.”

So it was arranged, and presently Bubber, directed to the roof by the red-hottest mamma that had ever smiled upon him, was casting about for anchorage. A cylindrical airduct presented itself as the most likely object to use; it was well away from the front ledge of the roof; giving good purchase, it was of ample height and diameter, and it was apparently constructed of heavy cast-iron, cold, black, and shiny. As a matter of fact it was made of glazed mortar and had a hidden joint just below the roof.

To this duct Bubber made his major attachments, using many windings of line and an intricate system of knots; and for double security he carried the line ten feet further rearward to a chimney and around this wound the rest of it, fastening it uncompromisingly with a second complex of knots. When he tossed his tackle line over the edge, it was with the air of one who is sure that at least his end of the job has been well done.

Shine, on the sidewalk, had surrounded the uncovered piano with a girdle of quilting, and about this, somewhat loosely, had adjusted a single belt. Now he hooked the block into a ring fastened to the top of this belt. Then, with quite unnecessary vigor, he took hold and began yanking on the pulley. Jinx held the guide rope. The piano began to rise.

It rose in a succession of small, upward jerks, each epitomizing the vehement force that Shine imparted to the pulley line. That force, increased by the piano’s weight, extended to the anchorage on the roof, and the joint of the airduct in the floor of the roof felt and responded to each impulse from Joshua Jones’ inner conflict, heard and answered each wanton effort to vent through muscle what could not escape through mind. An even ascent that joint might have borne, a jerky one it could not; there was no question of whether it would snap, but simply of when.

Shine’s malevolent pursuer chose to decide this important question: the piano was just short of the end of its journey when the break came. Shine, getting a sort of satisfaction out of prodigious effort, gave an especially tremendous tug⁠—to find resistance vanish so suddenly that he pitched forward on his face still holding the line. He heard Jinx utter a terrified “Jesus!” and as he rolled over, instinctively attempting to clear the pathway of the falling instrument, he glimpsed it swaying above, knew that a second “safety” anchoring was all that gave him that instant’s doubtful grace, and heard a girl scream, “It’s slipping out⁠—! Quick⁠—it’s slipping out!”

The second anchorage held, but the initial drop had been enough to displace the soft girdle and belt from the center toward one end of the instrument. There was an instant’s hesitancy, as if to give direction, and abruptly the belt released the piano, which dropped like a live thing freed; plunged with a drive to crush and kill, like a beast pouncing on witless prey. The crash was like no other sound on earth⁠—explosion, groan, and whine⁠—thick wood, coarse metal, taut wires⁠—a noise that struck and shattered itself, then rose, spread, and hovered. It was as if a corner of hell had been blasted off and a thousand souls swarmed out, wailing.

Shine stood erect, looking dazedly about, touching an abrasion over one eye with exploratory fingers. And miraculous as a vision, Linda was before him, breathless with horror, apprehension, relief, with the effort of reaching him so quickly.

“Honey⁠—” she said, and found that nothing more would come.

“I’m all right⁠—Gee⁠—if you hadn’ ’a’ hollered⁠—”

“Oh⁠—” she managed, “I was at the window⁠—upstairs⁠—” and stood there a while in silence. Then because words failed, because something pinioned her arms that wanted to reach out to him, and because her eyes and throat mysteriously and ridiculously filled, she had a blank moment in which to realize how silly and impetuous she was, and another in which to be ashamed and take swift refuge in the house.

Shine on one side, Jinx on the other, looked down upon the wreckage. The piano lay half supine in a grotesque angular posture, its row of white keys gleaming like teeth, the lid of its keyboard sprung back and fixed, like the retracted upper lip of a creature that has died in agony.

Jinx gave forth a prayer of thanksgiving:

“It sho’ as hell meant to get y’⁠—but it’s long gone now.”

Shine remained silent and contemplative.

Bubber came down. He and Jinx ejaculated comments. Bubber came over to palpate Shine and ask how the hell he ever missed it. A small crowd was gathering. People were looking out of windows.

“Crazy as hell,” Shine muttered absently. “ ‘Honey’⁠—Well, I’ll be john-browned⁠—” His hand again touched the raw place over his eye. “Little cold water wouldn’t do it no harm⁠—” And following in Linda’s wake, he too entered the house.