The Listener Read Online Free PDF Page A

listening?
     
    “My children hate me! They have nothing to say to me. The girls avoid me; the boys are indifferent. But they are always with Merrill. I have no one. I hear them laughing with him, and talking, talking, talking. I’m so lonely! I’m so terribly lonely!”
     
    She stammered, sobbed, wept. “Merrill. Are you lonely? What did I ever give you but scorn? Merrill! Poor Merrill! Why were you so patient? Why did you not leave me long ago? What am I to you?”
     
    She went closer to the curtain, and it was within reach of her hand.
     
    “What am I to you, who’ve offended you so? Can you ever forgive me? Oh, God, can you forgive me?”
     
    Her shaking hand reached out and touched the button. The curtains stirred. She could see them through her tears. They blew as if in a slight wind. They separated, and a light shone out. Now the curtains rolled apart swiftly, and Mrs. Merrill Sloane stood and looked in silence. The light shone all about her.
     
    “Yes, yes,” she whispered, gazing at the man fully revealed to her. “You forgive. I hope Merrill will too.”
     
    She looked again and murmured. She walked through the rear exit, and she walked as a girl walks, running to someone who is waiting for her, and she is free, and full of joy and love. In the springtime.
     

SOUL TWO
     

The “Underprivileged”
     
‘Tis not in mortals to command success,
     
But we’ll do more, Sempronius — we’ll deserve it.
     
Addison
     
    “Well, it’s like this,” said Tab Shutts sullenly, clasping his callused hands together on his knees. “O.K. Listen. You can listen your head off, see if I care. Bet you never worked a day in your life. I know you guys, college grads. I never went beyond seventh grade. Maybe you don’t understand fellers like me, huh? Well, anyway, they say you listen. God damn it, who listens, anyways? Nobody I ever heard of. So, you listen. You’re goin’ to get an earful, mister. You and your college!
     
    “I never had a chance. First thing, after school, I get a job. Know what comes then? The goddamn Army, that’s what. But maybe I’d better tell you about my folks.
     
    “Dad never had a chance, neither. Worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. Then he fell in bed. That’s all. Eight of us kids. Don’t know how he got them, workin’ like that.” Tab grunted. “Mom worked too. Doin’ washin’. Could be they just passed in the doorway. What doorway? The whole place was full of us kids, doorways too.
     
    “The priest comes around and says, ‘Why aren’t the children in school?’ Mom says, ‘Father, they work around, just like Joe and me’. And the priest looks sad, and he’s no well-fed specimen, either. Thin and young, and pale like a ghost. And he says, ‘Our Lord worked around too’. Kind of silly, wasn’t he, the priest? Christ knew He was God, but what do we know? The priest says, ‘He was a carpenter’. Stupid answer.
     
    “My name ain’t really Tab. It’s Timothy. A saint. I ain’t no saint. Ain’t been to confession or Mass for years. What for? What’s a guy like me got to live for? Here I am, thirty-two, and putter around in a factory, can’t even operate a machine. There’s automation too. No use for us guys anymore. Where they goin’ to sweep us?” He chuckled. “Under the carpet? Maybe.”
     
    The soft white light beamed down on him, and he looked at it and shifted uneasily. “Oh, they tell us they’ll train us! They’ll make jobs for us. What do I need trainin’ for, at my age? All I want is just to work, like always, and earn a decent livin’. No fancy stuff. Hell, come to think of it, why work, anyways? Factory stiff. A nobody. Kids yellin’ for television, and I’m loaded up to here in debt for the refrigerator and the washin’ machine. Only fun I get is goin’ for a glass of beer and talkin’ with the other guys who got gripes too.
     
    “About my folks. Dad dies when I’m fourteen. Law says I got to go to school until