Epitaph For A Tramp Read Online Free PDF Page B

one small light on when I came up, sitting with her head on her chest and her arms dangling, looking like a thrown coat.
    I made myself a drink, spilling an inch and a half of Jack
    Daniels into a kitchen tumbler and taking it without ice. It had the same effect as a short carrot juice. I went out and sat across from her.
    You could hear the busses out on Third Avenue.
    “Why?” I said.
    She said nothing.
    “I thought it was good. Plodding, dull-witted old Harry, I thought nothing could be better. And all the while I—”
    “It is good. But I’m just—”
    “Good, yeah. It must be remarkable. You’re just what?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.” Her voice was ragged and she looked up at me. I stared at the rug.
    “You go away,” she said then.
    “Good God—three, four times in a year?”
    “It doesn’t matter. Whenever you do, the minute you’re gone, the minute I’m alone I start pacing. I start walking around this room as if I don’t belong here, as if I’m a stranger.” She was talking from very far away. “It’s as if something is pushing me. I’ve got to get out of here. Just out. And I can’t stop myself, I want to be with—with I don’t know who. It doesn’t make any sense and I can’t explain, I—”
    “How many times?”
    “Almost every time.” I heard her swallow. “You were in Phoenix four days. When you were in New Orleans it was five. And just now three when you were in Chicago. Almost every one of those nights.”
    I didn’t feel sore. I didn’t feel cheated or betrayed or outraged or anything else. I felt nothing. I was sitting there hearing her say all that and somehow it did not have anything to do with me. I knew it would have something to do with me later but it didn’t now. I got up and poured myself another drink and then I came back and sat there again.
    “The same guys? How many guys?”
    “They’re different each time. A different one each night, Harry. I see one and then they want to make dates but I won’t. It’s all confused, like if it’s only one night it’s not so bad, as if I’m not really doing anything wrong if I don’t let any of them get to mean anything. I go into bars and I meet them the way I did tonight and I… Oh, God in heaven, I—”
    She had her face in her hands. She was sobbing and saying, “Help me, help me.” She said it over and over. And four plus five made nine and three made the dozen. And tonight was thirteen. I stood up.
    “Harry, I’m sick. Something’s the matter with me. It’s all right when you’re here, when I’m with you, but the minute you’re gone I’m—”
    I went into the bedroom. I dug out a suitcase and opened it on the bed. She came into the doorway.
    “I’ll go,” she said. She had stopped crying. “It was your place before I came. I can stay with my mother and Estelle until I find someplace else.”
    I didn’t answer. I did not have a particularly distinct concept of the ethics involved in that kind of thing.
    “It will be easier that way,” she said. “I’ll take one bag. I can come back when you’re at the office and get the rest.”
    I went past her and into the living room. She did not take long. She came out with the suitcase and stood it near the door. She hung there like something wet on a hook.
    “It’s going to sound pretty silly, isn’t it? But I—I’m sorry, Harry.”
    “Forget it,” I said. “You told me all about it that first night on the beach, all about the other ones. I didn’t buy anything without a label on it.”
    I wasn’t looking at her. Outside they were running every bus on the line.
    “I deserve that and more,” she said. “But that was different,
    Harry. Before we were married I wasn’t hurting anyone but myself. I didn’t want to hurt you. Oh, dear God, I didn’t! I— ” Her voice broke. She was sobbing again with her head turned, softly now. “Harry, I love you, I—”
    “That’s swell,” I told her. “I’ll keep that