listography: book notes (c.mccullers: the heart is a lonely hunter)

tuesday blue's listography » bookmark tuesday blue

laoise	educational (languages I want to learn)
	events
ayden	2024 (films)
valeyvonne	wishlist
	mood tracker (2024)

Audrey	deerna
Charlotte Sofia	elly
Elenie	furiousrose
EstroJen	helen
Frida	hollyowl
Isabel	jacqueline
L	jenz
Lydiane	k. e. bigelow
Monte	kaleigh
Pâquerette	katya
Rubab	laoise
Ryan	lunna
Sarah	memory
Stargazer Lily	miranda
Tara	moon
Vera	moute
aivin	ms. throatwob...
alexandrine	nicole
anjelica	nicolette
antoinette	nina
astromanalek	petra
ayden	raindropsonro...
berlingot	sandy says
bird	silhouetting
blousons	simmi
carina maree	speedtrials
cassie	tangles
chelsea	teresa
chriss	valeyvonne
clare	victoria carol
czar	withoutend

book notes (c.mccullers: the heart is a lonely hunter)

The one who always steered the way was an obese and dreamy Greek. In the summer he would come out wearing a yellow or green polo shirt stuffed sloppily into his trousers in front and hanging loose behind. When it was colder he wore over this a shapeless gray sweater. His face was round and oily, with half-closed eyelids and lips that curved in a gentle, stupid smile. The other mute was tall. His eyes had a quick, intelligent expression. He was always immaculate and very soberly dressed
...he stared at his cousin with a warning in his tight, pale face. (4)
In the dusk the two mutes walked slowly home together. At home Singer was always talking to Antonapoulos. His hands shaped the words in a swift series of designs. His face was eager and his gray-green eyes sparked brightly. With his thin, strong hands he told Antonapoulos all that had happened during the day.
These were the only places where they made customary visits. There were many parts in the town that they had never even seen.
The town was in the middle of the deep South. The summers were long and the months of winter cold were very few. Nearly always the sky was a glassy, brilliant azure and the sun burned down riotously bright. Then the light, chill rains of November would come, and perhaps later there would be frost and some short months of cold. The winters were changeable, but the summers always were burning hot. The town was a fairly large one. On the main street there were several blocks of two- and three-story shops and business offices. But the largest buildings in the town were the factories, which employed a large percentage of the population. These cotton mills were big and flourishing and most of the workers in the town were poor. Often in the faces along the streets there was the desperate look of hunger and of loneliness.
Singer lived in continual turmoil and worry. But Antonapoulos was always bland, and no matter what happened the gentle, flaccid smile was still on his face. In all the years before it had seemed to Singer that there was something very subtle and wise in this smile of his friend. He had never known just how much Antonapoulos understood and what he was thinking. Now in the big Greek's expression Singer thought that he could detect something sly and joking.
Charles Parker did not know much about the American language -- but he understood the American dollar very well, and he had used his money and influence to admit his cousin to the asylum without delay. (9)
He talked and talked. And although his hands never paused to rest he could not tell all that he had to say. He walked to talk to Antonapoulos of all the thoughts that had ever been in his mind and heart, but there was not time. His gray eyes glittered and his quick, intelligent face expressed great strain. Antonapoulos watched him drowsily, and his friend did not know just what he really understood. (10)
In the late afternoon they walked arm in arm down the street for the last time together. It was a chilly afternoon in late November, and little huffs of breath showed in the air before them. (10)
Just before the bus pulled away from the curb he turned to Singer and his smile was very bland and remote -- as though already they were many miles apart. (10)
The weeks that followed didn't seem real at all. (10)
More than anything he wanted to sleep. (10)
He tried to recount to himself certain things that had happened when he was young. But none of these things he tried to remember seemed real. (11)
But he could never become used to speaking with his his lips. It was not natural to him, and his tongue felt like a whale in his mouth. From the blank expression on people's faces to whom he talked in this way he felt that his voice must be like the sound of some animal or that there was something disgusting in his speech. It was painful for him to try to talk with his mouth, but his hands were always ready to shape the words he wished to say. (11)
Nothing seemed real except the ten years with Antonapoulos. In his half-dreams he saw his friend very vividly, and when he awakened a great aching loneliness would be in him. (...) And so the months passed in this empty, dreaming way. (11)
...then he would drop bluntly into a sleep that lasted until the morning light struck suddenly beneath his opening eyelids like a scimitar. (12)
He began spending his evenings walking around the town. (12)
...an alert, tactful glance. He was a hard man of middle height, with a beard so dark and heavy that the lower part of his face looked as though it were molded of iron. He usually stood in the corner by the cash register, his arms folded over his chest, quietly observing all that went on around him. (12)
Each evening the mute walked alone for hours in the street. Sometimes the nights were cold with the sharp, wet winds of March and it would be raining heavily. But to him this did not matter. His gait was agitated and he always kept his hands stuffed tight into the pockets of his trousers. Then as the weeks passed the days grew warm and languorous. His agitation gave way gradually to exhaustion and there was a look about him of deep calm. In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful of the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone. (12-13)
On a black, sultry night in early summer Biff Brannon stood behind the cash register of the New York Cafe. It was twelve o'clock. Outside the street lights had already been turned off, so that the light from the cafe made a sharp, yellow rectangle on the sidewalk. The street was deserted, but inside the cafe there were half a dozen customers drinking beer or Santa Lucia wine or whiskey. Biff waited stolidly, his elbow resting on the counter and his thumb mashing the tip of his long nose. His eyes were intent. He watched especially a short, squat man in overalls... (13)
The air was not so stale and sultry in the room as it had been downstairs. (14)
'I like freaks,' Biff said. (14)
His beard was black and heavy as if it had grown for three days. He stood before the mirror and rubbed his cheek meditatively. He was sorry he had talked to Alice. With her, silence was better. Being around that woman always made him different from his real self. It made him tough and small and common as she was. Biff's eyes were cold and staring, half-concealed by the cynical droop of his eyelids. On the fifth finger of his calloused hand there was a woman's wedding ring. The door was open behind him, and in the mirror he could see Alice lying in the bed. (15)
'The trouble with you is you don't have any real kindness. (...) Or maybe it's curiosity I mean. You don't ever see or notice anything important that goes on. You never watch and think and try to figure anything out. Maybe that's the biggest difference between you and me, after all.' (15)
Alice was almost asleep again, and through the mirror he watched her with detachment. (15)
When he was away from her there was no one feature that stood out in his mind and he remembered her as a complete, unbroken figure. (15)
'The enjoyment of a spectacle is something you have never known,' he said. (15)
Her voice was tired. (15)
The man was short, with heavy shoulders like beams. He had a small, ragged mustache, and beneath this his lower lip looked as though it had been stung by a wasp. There were many things about the fellow that seemed contrary. His head was very large and well-shaped, but his neck was soft and slender as a boy's. The mustache looked false, as if it had been stuck on for a costume party and would fall off if he talked too fast. It made him seem almost middle-aged, although his face with its high, smooth forehead and wide-open eyes was young. His hands were huge, stained, and calloused, and he was dressed in a cheap white-linen suit. There was something very funny about the man, yet at the same time another feeling would not let you laugh. (16)
But most of the time nobody was sure just what he was saying. Talk -- talk -- talk. The words came out of his mouth like a cataract. And the thing was that the accent he used was always changing, the kinds of words he used. Sometimes he talked like a linthead and sometimes like a professor. He would use words a foot long and then slip up on his grammar. It was hard to tell what kind of folks he had or what part of the country he was from. He was always changing. Thoughtfully Biff fondled the tip of his nose. There was no connection. Yet connection usually went with brains. This man had a good mind, all right, but he went from one thing to another without any reason behind it at all. He was like a man thrown off his track by something. (17)
A gangling, towheaded youngster, a girl of about twelve, stood looking in the doorway. She was dressed in khaki shorts, a blue shirt, and tennis shoes -- so that at first she was like a very young boy. (18)
'I'd like a pack of cigarettes, please. The cheapest kind.' (18) (first dialogue from Mick Kelly)
It was seldom that Biff ever discussed one customer with another. 'No, he don't,' he answered noncommittally. (19)
Blount leaned heavily on the counter. His brown eyes were wet-looking and wide open with a dazed expression. He needed a bath so badly that he stank like a goat. There were dirt beads on his sweaty neck and an oil stain on his face. His lips were thick and red and his brown hair was matted on his forehead. His overalls were too short in the body and he kept pulling at the crotch of them. (20)
The drunk picked up his glass so clumsily that beer slopped down on his hands and messed the counter. Biff sipped his portion with careful relish. He regarded Blount steadily with half-closed eyes. Blount was not a freak, although when you first saw him he gave you that impression. It was like something was deformed about him -- but when you looked at him closely each part of him was normal and as it ought to be. Therefore if this difference was not in the body it was probably in the mind. He was like a man who had served a term in prison or had been to Harvard College or had lived for a long time with foreigners in South America. He was like a person who had been somewhere that other people are not likely to go or had done something that other people are not apt to do. (21)
Blount's eyes were dreamy and unfocused. (21)
Biff was alone again and he gave the restaurant one of his quick, thorough surveys. (21)
Then he finished his drink in one slow swallow... (22)
He thought of the way Mick narrowed her eyes and pushed back the bangs of her hair with the palm of her hand. He thought of her hoarse, boyish voice and of her habit of hitching up her khaki shorts and swaggering like a cowboy in the picture show. A feeling of tenderness came in him. He was uneasy. (22)
...the half-finished glass of beer before him had become warm and stagnant. (22)
What he had said to Alice was true -- he did like freaks. He had a special feeling for sick people and cripples. (22)
Biff watched this happening from a distance. (23)
'And I'm Dutch and Turkish and Japanese and American.' He walked in zigzags around the table where the mute drank his coffee. His voice was loud and cracked. 'I'm the one who knows. I'm a stranger in a strange land.' (23)
The mute's eyes were cold and gentle as a cat's and all his body seemed to listen. (23)
'You're the only one in this town who catches what I mean,' Blount said. 'For two days now I been talking to you in my mind because I know you understand the things I want to mean.' (23)
'There are those who know and those who don't know. And for every ten thousand who don't know there's only one who knows. That's the miracle of all time -- the fact that these millions know so much but don't know this. It's like in the 15th century when everybody believed the world was flat and only Columbus and a few other fellows knew the truth. But it's different in that it took talent to figure that the earth is round. While this truth is so obvious it's a miracle of all history that people don't know.' (24)
'But you see there are so few of us.' (24)
...and his voice dropped to a drunken whisper. (24)
...then when the talk was gloomy again the smile still hung on (the mute's) face a little too long. The fellow was downright uncanny. People felt themselves watching him even before they know that there was anything different about him. His eyes made a person think that he heard things nobody else had ever heard, that he knew things no one had ever guessed before. He did not seem quite human. (24-25)
Jake Blount leaned across the table and the words came out as though a dam inside him had broken. Biff could not understand him any more. Blount's tongue was so heavy with drink and he talked at such a violent pace that the sounds were all shaken up together. (25)
It was almost 3 o'clock, the most stagnant hour in the day or night. (25)
The room was very empty and quiet. The minutes lingered. Wearily he let his head sag forward. All motion seemed slowly to be leaving the room. The counter, faces, the booths and tables, the radio in the corner, whirring fans on the ceiling -- all seemed to become very faint and still. (26)
A dozen onlookers and a poiceman all tried to crowd into the restaurant. Outside a couple of whores stood looking in through the window. It was always funny how many people could crowd in from nowhere when anything out of the ordinary happened. (27)
Biff noted this. He was thinking that in nearly every person there was some special physical part kept always guarded. With the mute his hands. The kid Mick picked at the front of her blouse to keep the cloth from rubbing the new, tender nipples beginning to come out on her breast. With Alice it was her hair; she used never to let him sleep with her when he rubbed oil in his scalp. And with himself? (29)
The black night sky was beginning to lighten and turn a deep blue with a new morning. There were but a few weak, silvery stars. The street was empty, silent, almost cool. (29)
The place was still not crowded -- it was the hour when the men who have been up all night meet those who are freshly wakened and ready to start a new day. The sleepy waitress was serving both beer and coffee. There was no noise or conversation, for each person seemed to be alone. The mutual distrust between the men who were just awakened and those who were ending a long night gave everyone a feeling of estrangement. (30)
He had wanted to talk to somebody about it, because maybe if he told all the facts out loud he could put his finger on the thing that puzzled him. The poor son-of-a-bitch talking and talking ant not ever getting anybody to understand what he meant. Not knowing himself, most likely. And the way he gravitated around the deaf-mute and picked him out and tried to make him a free present of everything in him. (-) Why? (-) Because in some men it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons -- throw it to some human being or some human idea. They have to. In some men it is in them -- The text is 'All men seek for Thee.' (32-33)
She breathed in the smoke slowly. The cigarette gave her a drunk feeling so that her head seemed heavy and loose on her shoulders, but she had to finish it. (-) M.K. -- That was what she would have written on everything when she was 17 years old and very famous. (35)
There was one special fellow's music that made her heart shrink up every time she heard it. Sometimes this fellow's music was like little colored pieces of crystal candy, and other times it was the softest, saddest thing she had ever imagined about. (35)
She stood in the middle of the empty room and stared at what she had done. The chalk was still in her hands and she did not feel really satisfied. (37)
He sat up quiet and still and his fat little hands held on to the sides. Ralph looked like a little Chinese baby with his square black bangs and his black eyes. (38)
She stuck the candy in the baby's warm, soft mouth. (38)
The long summer-time always gave Bubber the colic. He didn't have a shirt on and his ribs were sharp and white. The sun made him pale instead of brown, and his little titties were like blue raisins on his chest. (39)
'This is a funny thing -- the dreams I've been having lately. It's like I'm swimming. But instead of water I'm pushing out my arms and swimming through great crowds of people. The crowd is a hundred times bigger than in Kresses' store on Saturday afternoon. The biggest crowd in the world. And sometimes I'm yelling and swimming through people, knocking them all down wherever I go -- and other times I'm on the ground and people are trompling all over me and my insides are oozing out on the sidewalk. I guess it's more a nightmare than a plain dream --' (39-40)
In the hall there was the smell of cigarettes and Sunday dinner. (47)
'What all does God eat?' he asked. (50)
'But you haven't never loved God nor even nair person. You hard and tough as cowhide. But just the same I knows you. This afternoon you going to roam all over the place without never being satisfied. You going to traipse all around like you haves to find something lost. You going to work yourself up with excitement. Your heart going to beat hard enough to kill you because you don't love and don't have peace. And then some day you going to bust loose and be ruined. Won't nothing help you then.' (51)
...there was nothing but the noises that people made. She thought a long time and kept hitting her thighs with her firsts. Her face felt like it was scattered in pieces and she could not keep it straight. The feeling was a whole lot worse than being hungry for any dinner, yet it was like that. I want -- I want -- I want -- was all that she could think about -- but just what this real want was she did not know. (52)
She wished there was some place where she could go to hum it out loud. Some kind of music was too private to sing in a house cram full of people. It was funny, too, how lonesome a person could be in a crowded house. (53)
'God, I'm thirsty,' Jake said. 'I feel like the whole Russian army marched through my mouth in its stocking feet.' (54)
...and bit his lower lip until it was mottled and scarlet. (58)
The main street was quiet and hot, almost deserted. He had not realized until now that it was Sunday -- and the thought of this depressed him. The awnings over the closed stores were raised and the buildings had a bare look in the bright sun. He passed the New York Cafe. The door was open, but the place looked empty and dark. He had not found any socks to wear that morning, and the hot pavement burned through the thin soles of his shoes. The sun felt like a hot piece of iron pressing down on his head. The town seemed more lonesome than any place he had ever known. The stillness of the street gave him a strange feeling. When he had been drunk the place had seemed violent and riotous. And now it was as thought everything had come to a sudden, static halt. (58-59)
Jake dug his fist into his eye and rubbed it sleepily. (61)
The sun was beginning to set in the west. Above the black line of housetops the sky was warm crimson. The owner of the show stood smoking a cigarette by himself. His red hair sprang up like a sponge on the top of his head and he stared at Jake with gray, flabby eyes. (62)
The motionless wooden horses were fantastic in the late afternoon sun. They pranced up statically, pierced by their dull gilt bars. The horse nearest Jake had a splintery wooden crack in its dingy rump and the eyes walled blind and frantic, shreds of paint peeled from the sockets. The motionless merry-go-round seemed to Jake like something in a liquor dream. (62-63)
It was late when he left the vacant lot. The hard, blue sky had blanched and in the east there was a white moon. Dusk softened the outline of the houses along the street. Jake did not return immediately through Weavers Lane, but wandered in the neighborhoods near-by. Certain smells, certain voices heard from a distance, made him stop short now and then by the side of the dusty street. He walked erratically, jerking from one direction to another for no purpose. His head felt very light, as though it were made of thin glass. A chemical change was taking place in him. The beers and whiskey he had stored so continuously in his system set in a reaction. He was sideswiped by drunkenness. The streets which had seemed so dead before were quick with life. There was a ragged strip of grass bordering the street, and as Jake walked along the ground seemed to rise nearer to his face. He sat down on the border of grass and leaned against a telephone pole. He settled himself comfortably, crossing his legs Turkish fashion and smoothing down the ends of his mustache. Words came to him and dreamily he spoke them aloud to himself. (-) 'Resentment is the most precious flower of poverty. Yeah.' (-) It was good to talk. The sound of his voice gave him pleasure. The tones seemed to echo and hang on the air so that each word sounded twice. He swallowed and moistened his mouth to speak again. He wanted suddenly to return to the mute's quiet room and tell him of the thoughts that were in his mind. It was a queer thing to want to talk with a deaf-mute. But he was lonesome. (64)
The street before him dimmed with the coming evening. Occasionally men passed along the narrow street very close to him, talking in monotones to each other, a cloud of dust rising around their feet with each step. Or girls passed by together, or a mother with a child across her shoulder. Jake sat numbly for some time, and at last he got to his feet and walked on. (64)
Oil lamps made yellow, trembling patches of light in the doorways and windows. Some of the houses were entirely dark and the families sat on their front steps with only the reflections from a neighboring house to see by. A woman leaned out of a window and splashed a pail of dirty water into the street. A few drops of it splashed on Jake's face. (64-65)
He sat down on the bottom step and took off his shoes. The cool, damp ground felt good to his feet. (65)
The vein in Jake's forehead was swollen and scarlet. (66)
They drank in silence. Jake felt that he had never been in such a quiet room. The light above his head made a queer reflection of himself in the glowing wineglass he held before him -- the same caricature of himself he had noticed many times before on the curved surfaces of pitchers or tin mugs -- with his face egg-shaped and dumpy and his mustache straggling almost up to his ears. Across from him the mute held his glass in both hands. The wine began to hum through Jake's veins and he felt himself entering again the kaleidoscope of drunkenness. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and fastened a wide, searching gaze at Singer. (68)
'You see, it's like I'm two people. One of me is an educated man. I been in some of the biggest libraries in the country. I read. I read all the time. I read books that tell the pure honest truth. Over there in my suitcase I have books by Karl Marx and Thorstein Veblen and such writers as them. I read them over and over, and the more I study the madder I get. I know every word printed on every page. To begin with I like words. Dialectic materialism -- Jesuitical prevarication' -- Jake rolled the syllables in his mouth with loving solemnity -- 'teleological propensity.' (68)
'But what I'm getting at is this. When a person knows and can't make the others understand, what does he do?' (69)
'But listen! Wherever you look there's meanness and corruption. This room, this bottle of grape wine, these fruits in the basket, are all products of profit and loss. A fellow can't live without giving his passive acceptance to meanness. Somebody wears his tail to a frazzle for every mouthful we eat and every stitch we wear -- and nobody seems to know. Everybody is blind, dumb, and blunt-headed -- stupid and mean.' (69)
Jake pressed his fists to his temples. His thoughts had careened in several directions and he could not get control of them. He wanted to go berserk. He wanted to get out and fight violently with someone in a crowded street. (69)
He kept his eyes on the mute's face to steady himself. Singer's eyes were the only things in the room that did not seem to move. They were varied in color, flecked with amber, gray, and a soft brown. He stared at them so long that he almost hypnotized himself. He lost the urge to be riotous and felt calm again. The eyes seemed to understand all that he had meant to say and to hold some message for him. After a while the room was steady again. (-) 'You get it,' he said in a blurred voice. 'You know what I mean.' (69)
Doctor Copeland sat with his head bowed, pulling at his long fingers until he had cracked all of his joints. The clean cuffs of his sleeves hung down past his wrists -- below them his thin hands seemed lighter in color than the rest of his body and the palms were soft yellow. His hands had always an immaculate, shrunken look, as though they had been scrubbed with a brush and soaked for a long time in a pan of water. (72)
Doctor Copeland always spoke so carefully that each syllable seemed to be filtered through his sullen, heavy lips. 'No,' I have not eaten.' (72)
After the long day a heavy tiredness would come in him. But in the evening when he opened the front gate the tiredness would go away. There were Hamilton and Karl Marx and Portia and Little William. There was Daisy, too. (74)
'The Negro race of its own accord climbs up on the cross on every Friday,' said Doctor Copeland. (77)
'...none of us ever cares to talk like you. Us talk like our own Mama and her peoples and their peoples before them. You think out everything in your brain. While us rather talk from something in our hearts that has been there for a long time. That's one of them differences.' (78)
The tears went slowly down his cheek and the fire made them take on the colors of blue and green and red. (79)
Portia moved slowly around the kitchen in her stockinged feet and her father followed her with his eyes. For a while again they were silent. (-) With his eyes wet, so that the edges of things were blurred, Portia was truly like her mother. Years ago Daisy had walked like that around the kitchen, silent and occupied. Daisy was not black as he was -- her skin had been like the beautiful color of dark honey. She was always very quiet and gentle. But beneath that soft gentleness there was something stubborn in her, and no matter how conscientiously he studied it all out, he could not understand the gentle stubbornness in his wife. (79-80)
The feeling that would come on him was a black, terrible Negro feeling. He would try to sit in his office and read and meditate until he could be calm and start again. He would pull down the shades of the room so that there would be only the bright light and the books and the feeling of meditation. But sometimes this calmness would not come. He was young, and the terrible feeling would not go away with study. (81)
He settled himself at the table with his books by Spinoza and William Shakespeare and Karl Marx. When he read the Spinoza aloud to himself the words had a rich, dark sound. (90)
Doctor Copeland held his head in his hands and from his throat there came the strange sound like a kind of singing moan. He remembered the white man's face when he smiled behind the yellow match flame on that rainy night -- and peace was in him. (90)
...and he walked away thoughtfully without seeming to notice where he was going. (91)
Always she was busy with thoughts and plans. (97)
Early in the mornings it was a little cool and their shadows stretched out tall on the sidewalk in front of them. But in the middle of the day the sky was always blazing hot. The glare was so bright it hurt to keep your eyes open. (97)
In the night-time, as soon as the kids were in bed, she was free. That was the most important time of all. A lot of things happened when she was by herself and it was dark. (98)
There was something about her Dad's voice that she couldn't run away from. He was one of the biggest, tallest men in the whole town. But his voice was so quiet and kindly that people were surprised when he spoke. (99)
He only wanted real bad to talk to her. He tried to think of some way to begin. His brown eyes were too big for his long, thin face, and since he had lost every single hair the pale, bald top of his head gave him a naked look. (100)
That was when she realized about her Dad. It wasn't like she was learning a new fact -- she had understood it all along in every way except with her brain. Now she just suddenly knew that she knew about her Dad. He was lonesome and he was an old man. Because none of the kids went to him for anything and because he didn't earn much money he felt like he was cut off from the family. And in his lonesomeness he wanted to be close to one of his kids -- and they were all so busy that they didn't know it. He felt like he wasn't much real use to anybody. (101)
These nights were secret, and of the whole summer they were the most important time. In the dark she walked by herself and it was like she was the only person in the town. Almost every street came to be as plain to her in the night-time as her own home block. Some kids were afraid to walk through strange places in the dark, but she wasn't. (101)
The nights were wonderful, and she didn't have time to think about such things as being scared. Whenever she was in the dark she thought about music. While she walked along the streets she would sing to herself. And she felt like the whole town listened without knowing it was Mick Kelly. (102)
She learned a lot about music during these free nights in the summer-time. When she walked out in the rich parts of town every house had a radio. All the windows were open and she could hear the music very marvelous. After a while she knew which houses tuned in for the programs she wanted to hear. There was one special house that got all the good orchestras. And at night she would go to this house and sneak into the backyard to listen. There was beautiful shrubbery around this house, and she would sit under a bush near the window. And after it was all over she would stand in the dark yard with her hands in her pockets and think for a long time. That was the realest part of all the summer - her listening to this music on the radio and studying about it. (102)
There was something about speaking a foreign language that made her feel like she'd been around a lot. Every afternoon since school had started she had fun speaking the new Spanish words and sentences. (102)
The late afternoon had come and the sun made long, yellow slants through the window. If she took two hours over dressing for the party it was time to begin now. When she thought about putting on the fine clothes she couldn't just sit around and wait. Very slowly she went into the bathroom and shucked off her old shorts and shirt and turned on the water. She scrubbed the rough parts of her heels and especially her elbows. She made the bath take a long time. (106-7)
This was the first time she had ever worn an evening dress. (...) She stood in front of the mirror a long time, and finally decided she either looked like a sap or else she looked very beautiful. One or the other. (107)
She didn't feel like herself at all. She was somebody different from Mick Kelly entirely. Two hours had to pass before the party would begin, and she was ashamed for any of the family to see her dressed so far ahead of time. She went into the bathroom again and locked the door. She couldn't mess up her dress by sitting down, so she stood in the middle of the floor. The close walls around her seemed to press in all the excitement. She felt so different from the old Mick Kelly that she knew this would be better than anything else in all her whole life -- this party. (107)
There was so much commotion that Mick couldn't notice any separate face or person. She stood by the hatrack and stared around at the party as a whole. (108)
Some of the people were on the front porch and the sidewalk. She was glad to get out in the cool night air. After the hot, bright house she could smell the new autumn in the darkness. (110)
They were all dirty and in plain shorts or draggle-tailed knickers or old everyday dresses. They were just hanging around in the dark to watch the party. She thought of two feelings when she saw those kids -- one was sad and the other was a kind of warning. (110)
Then he put the leaf in his mouth and shadow-boxed for a few punches in the dark. (112)
She looked at Harry. The leaves against the streetlight made quick, freckly shadows on his face. He was excited. (112)
This was probably the first chance he had got to spiel these ideas out to somebody. But she didn't have time to listen. (113)
A bunch of girls were running down the street, holding their dresses and with the hair flying out behind them. Some boys had cut off the long, sharp spears of a Spanish bayonet bush and they were chasing the girls with them. __Freshmen in Vocational all dressed up for a real prom party and acting just like kids. It was half playlike and half not playlike at all. A boy came up to her with a sticker and she started running too. (-) The idea of the party was over entirely now. This was just a regular playing-out. But it was the wildest night she had ever seen. The kids had caused it. They were like a catching sickness, and their coming to the party made all the other people forget about high school and being almost grown. It was like just before you take a bath in the afternoon when you might wallow around in the back yard and get plenty dirty just for the good feel of it before getting into the tub. Everybody was a wild kid playing out on Saturday night -- and she felt like the very wildest of all. (-) She hollered and pushed and was the first to try any new stunt. She made so much noise and moved around so fast she couldn't notice what anybody else was doing. Her breath wouldn't come fast enough to let her do all the wild things she wanted to do. (115)
With her tennis shoes she would have landed like a cat -- but the high pumps made her slip and her stomach hit this pipe. Her breath was stopped. She lay quiet with her eyes closed. (-) The party -- for a long time she remembered how she thought it would be, how she imagined the new people at Vocational. And about the bunch she wanted to be with every day. She would feel different in the halls now, knowing that they were not something special but like any other kids. It was O.K. about the ruined party. But it was all over. It was the end. (-) Mick climbed out of the ditch. Some kids were playing around the little pots of flames. The fire made a red glow and there were long, quick shadows. One boy had gone home and put on a dough-face bought in advance for Halloween. Nothing was changed about the party except her. (-) She walked home slowly. When she passed kids she didn't speak or look at them. The decoration in the hall was torn down and the house seemed very empty because everyone had gone outside. In the bathroom she took off the blue evening dress. The hem was torn and she folded it so the raggedy place wouldn't show. The rhinestone tiara was lost somewhere. Her old shorts and shirt were lying on the floor just where she had left them. She put them on. She was too big to wear shorts anymore after this. No more after this night. Not any more. (-) Mick stood out on the front porch. Her face was very white without the paint. She cupped her hands before her mouth and took a deep breath. 'Everybody go home! The door is shut! The party is over!' (116)
In the quiet, secret night she was by herself again. It was not late -- yellow squares of light showed in the windows of the houses along the streets. She walked slow, with her hands in her pockets and her head to one side. For a long time she walked without noticing the direction. (116-7)
This was a very fine and secret place. Close around were thick cedars so that she was completely hidden by herself. The radio was no good tonight -- somebody sang popular songs that all ended in the same way. It was like she was empty. She reached in her pockets and felt around with her fingers. There were raisins and a buckeye and a string of beads -- one cigarette with matches. She lighted the cigarette and put her arms around her knees. It was like she was so empty there wasn't even a feeling or a thought in her. (117)
This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms held tight around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard. It might have been five minutes she listened or half the night. The second part was black-colored -- a slow march. Not sad, but like the whole world was dead and black and there was no use thinking back how it was before. One of those horn kind of instruments played a sad and silver tune. Then the music rose up angry and with excitement underneath. And finally the black march again. (-) But maybe the last part of the symphony was the music she loved the best -- glad and like the greatest people in the world running and springing up in a hard, free way. Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen. (118-9)
Once again she listened to the opening part of the music. Then the notes grew slower and soft and it was like she was sinking down slowly into the dark ground. (120)
The air had a smell in it like autumn. (120)
By October the days were blue and cool. Biff Brannon changed his light seersucker trousers for dark-blue serge ones. Behind the counter of the cafe he installed a machine that made hot chocolate. Mick was very partial to hot chocolate, and she came in three or four times a week to drink a cup. (...) He watched her as she stood before the counter and he was troubled and sad. He wanted to reach out his hand and touch her sunburned, tousled hair -- not as he had ever touched a woman. In him there was an uneasiness, and when he spoke to her his voice had a rough, strange sound. (121)
Why? Why was it that in cases of real love the one who is left behind does not more often follow the beloved by suicide? Only because the living must bury the dead? Because of the measured rites that must be fulfilled after a death? Because it is as though the one who is left steps for a time upon a stage and each second swells to an unlimited amount of time and he is watched by many eyes? Because there is a function he must carry out? Pr perhaps, when there is love, the widowed must stay for the resurrection of the beloved -- so that the one who has gone is not really dead, but grows and is created or a second time in the soul of the living? Why? (122-3)
'You know it's like I got to wear blinders all the time so I won't think sideways or in the past. All I can let myself think about is going to work every day and fixing meals and Baby's future.' (125)
There was a certain way Baby always held her head when people looked at her, and it was turned that way now. (126)
Biff's new growth of beard was blue against the pale skin of his face and his voice sounded tired. 'Don't you ever just think a thing through and find out what's happened and what ought to come from that? Don't you ever use logic? -- if these are the given facts this ought to be the result?' (127)
'He said he would come home about once a month and beat hell out of you and you would take it. But then afterward you would step outside in the hall and laugh aloud a few times so that the neighbors in the other rooms would think you both had just been playing around and it had all been a joke. That's what happened, so just forget about it.' (129)
In his mind he went through the motions of the ceremony. The church -- riding dirge-paced behind the hearse with Lucille and Baby -- the group of people standing with bowed heads in the September sunshine. Sun on the white tombstones, on the fading flowers and the canvas tent covering the newly dug grave. Then home again -- and what? (130)
The words of the two children at the slot machine were high and clear against the coarser voices of the men. (131)
Now the pleats had come out and the hem dragged loose around her sharp, jutting knees. She was at the age when she looked as much like an overgrown boy as a girl. (132)
With peaceful absorption Biff settled down to the details of the newspaper before him. He read steadily and with concentration, but from habit some secondary part of him was alert to everything around him. Jake Blount was still talking, and often he would hit his fist on the table. The mute sipped beer. Mick walked restlessly around the radio and stared at the customers. Biff read every word in the first paper and made a few notes in the margins. (133)
A dragnet for lost feelings. (134)
The days were chilly and treacherous. (135)
The kitchen was lifeless and cold. (136)
The fire-colored tears rolled down Portia's face. (138)
At last it was morning. The mill whistles blew for the first shift. The sun came out and brightened the clean saucepans hanging on the wall above the stove. They sat for a long time. Portia pulled at the rings on her ears until her lobes were irritated and purplish red. Doctor Copeland still held his head in his hands. (138)
They went out into the cool, blue autumn morning. (139)
Because of the tiredness in him he wanted sometimes to lie down on the floor and beat with his fists and cry. If he could rest he might get well. (...) But he could not rest. For there was another thing bigger than the tiredness -- and this was the strong true purpose. (140)
...he would become so blank that he would forget for a minute just what the purpose was. And then it would come to him again and he would be restless and eager to take on a new task. But the words often stuck in his mouth, and his voice now was hoarse and not loud as it had been before. He pushed the words into the sick and patient faces of the Negroes who were his people. (140)
'My people were brought from the great plains, and the dark, green jungles,' he said once to Mr. Singer. 'On the long chained journeys to the coast they died by the thousands. Only the strong survived. Chained in the foul ships that brought them here they died again. Only the hardy Negroes with will could live. Beaten and chained and sold on the block, the least of these strong ones perished again. And finally through the bitter years the strongest of my people are still here. Their sons and daughters, their grandsons and great-grandsons.' (140)
2 weeks had passed since William had been sent away. Portia was changed. Her hair was not oiled and combed as usual, her eyes were bloodshot as though she had partaken of strong drink. Her cheeks were hollow, and with her sorrowful, honey-colored face she truly resembled her mother now. (141)
'But hold up your shoulders, Daughter. Your carriage is bad.' (141)
Portia laced her nervous yellow fingers together. (142)
He sat in rigid silence, and at last he picked up his hat and left the house without a farewell. If he could not speak the whole long truth no other word would come to him. (148)
The small room was very neat. The sun lighted a bowl of purple grapes on the table. Singer sat with his chair tilted back and his hands in his pockets, looking out of the window. (149)
The first morning ale had a fine mellow taste. Jake gulped his share down quickly and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. (150)
The red corded vein in Jake's forehead swelled angrily. (152)
He gazed into the fire, and a flush from the ale and heat deepened the color of his face. The sleepy tingling in his foot spread up his leg. He drowsed and saw the colors of the fire, the tints of green and blue and burning yellow. 'You're the only one,' he said dreamily. 'The only one.' (152)
He was a stranger no longer. By now he knew every street, every alley, every fence in all the sprawling slums of the town. (152)
His squat, hard body pushed through the crowd with savage energy. Only his eyes did not share the violence of the rest of him. Wide gazing beneath his massive scowling forehead, they had a withdrawn and distracted appearance. (153)
If he stayed at home he restlessly walked the floor. He sat on the edge of the unmade bed and gnawed savagely at the broken, dirty ends of his fingernails. The sharp taste of grime lingered in his mouth. The loneliness in him was so keen that he was filled with terror. Usually he had a pint of bootleg white lightning. He drank the liquor and by daylight he was warm and relaxed. At 5 o'clock the whistles from the mills blew for the first shift. The whistles made lost, eerie echoes, and he could never sleep until after they had sounded. (153-54)
It eased him to push through the crowds of people. The noise, the rank stinks, the shouldering contact of human flesh soothed his jangled nerves. (154)
His long, powerful arms swung tense and awkward. (156-7)
The afternoon was soft and mild. They stayed indoors. (157)
The words swelled within him and gushed from his mouth. He walked from the window to the bed and back again -- again and again. And at last the deluge of swollen words took shape and he delivered them to the must with drunken emphasis... (157)
The fire shadows lapped against the walls. The dark, shadowy waves fell and all balance was gone. Alone Jake felt himself sink downward, slowly in wavelike motions downward into a shadowed ocean. In helplessness and terror he strained his eyes, but he could see nothing except the dark and scarlet waves that roared hungrily over him. Then at last he made out the thing which he sought. The mute's face was faint and very far away. Jake closed his eyes. (159)
On the wall a message was written in bright red chalk, the letters drawn thickly and curiously formed: Ye shall eat the flesh of the might, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth. (159)
Also he worked at part-time jobs. He grew up very suddenly and quit hanging around the back and front yards with kids. Sometimes she could see him reading the paper in his bedroom or undressing late at night. (162)
She sat down on the steps and laid her head on her knees. She went into the inside room. With her it was like there was two places -- the inside room and the outside room. School and the family and things that happened every day were in the outside room. Mister Singer was in both rooms. Foreign countries and plans and music were in the inside room. The songs she thought about were there. And the symphony. When she was by herself in the inside room the music she had heard that night after the party would come back to her. During the day sometimes, or when she had just waked up in the morning, a new part of the symphony would suddenly come to her. Then she would have to go into the inside room and listen to it many times and try to join it into the parts of the symphony she remembered. The inside room was a very private place. She could be in the middle of a house full of people and still feel like she was locked up by herself. (163)
'Ain't Baby cute!' said Bubber softly. (-) Maybe it was the hot, sunny day after all those rainy weeks. Maybe it was because their winter clothes were ugly to them on an afternoon like this one. Anyway Baby looked like a fairy or something in the picture show. She had on her last year's soiree costume -- with a little pink-gauze skirt that stuck out short and stiff, a pink body waist, pink dancing shoes, and even a little pink pocketbook. With her yellow hair she was all pink and white and gold -- and so small and clean that it almost hurt to watch her. (164-5)
Everything was quiet. The sun was behind the roofs of the houses and the sky in the west was purple and pink. On the next block there was the sound of kids skating. Bubber leaned up against a tree and he seemed to be dreaming about something. The smell of supper came out of the house and it would be time to eat soon. (166)
Then he called to Baby again -- in a soft, sad voice like he was calling a little kitty. 'Please, Baby -- come here, Baby--' (-) He was too quick for Mick to stop him. She had just seen his hand on the trigger when there was the terrible ping of the gun. Baby crumpled down to the sidewalk. It was like she was nailed to the steps and couldn't move or scream. Spareribs had his arm up over his head. (-) Bubber was the only one that didn't realize. 'Get up, Baby,' he hollered. 'I ain't mad with you.' (-) It all happened in a second. The three of them reached Baby at the same time. She lay crumpled down on the dirty sidewalk. Her skirt was over her head, showing her pink panties and her little white legs. Her hands were open -- in one there was the prize from the candy and in the other the pocketbook. There was blood all over her hair ribbon and the top of her yellow curls. She was shot in the head and her face was turned down toward the ground. (-) So much happened in a second. Bubber screamed and dropped the gun and ran. She stood with her hands up to her face and screamed too. Then there were many people. Her Dad was the first to get there. He carried Baby into the house. (-) 'She's dead,' said Spareribs. 'She's shot through the eyes. I seen her face.' (167)
The house was quiet as a church. (-) Baby looked like a pretty little doll on the bed. Except for the blood she did not seem hurt. (168)
Her Dad's footsteps stopped. 'It was deliberate,' he said. 'It's not like the kid was just fooling with the gun and it went off by accident. Everybody who saw it said he took deliberate aim.' (170)
Now that the sun was down the night was cold again like November. (171)
She could hear her Dad grinding his teeth together in a nervous way as they came up the steps. (172)
The front room looked tacky and she saw Mister Brannon notice everything. The mashed celluloid doll and the beads and junk Ralph played with were scattered on the floor. There was beer on her Dad's workbench, and the pillows on the bed where her Dad and Mama slept were right gray. (172)
Mister Brannon was very calm. He sat with his legs crossed. His jaws were blue-black and he looked like a gangster in the movies. He had always had this grudge against her. He always spoke to her in this rough voice different from the way he talked to other people. Was it because he knew about the time she and Bubber swiped a pack of chewing gum off his counter? She hated him. (172)
'It all boils down to this,' said Mrs. Wilson. 'Your kid shot my Baby in the head on purpose.' (172)
Mrs. Wilson was very nervous and her hand shook when she lighted a cigarette. (173)
Mrs. Wilson spoke hard-boiled. (174)
Portia's house was dark except for the checkered moonlight on the floor. As soon as they stepped inside they could tell there was nobody in the two rooms. Portia lighted the front lamp. The rooms had a colored smell, and they were crowded with cut-out pictures on the walls and the lace table covers and lace pillows on the bed. Bubber was not there. (176)
...and then suddenly she saw Bubber. The lights of the car showed him up in front of them very plain. It was funny. He was walking along the edge of the road and he had his thumb out trying to get a ride. Portia's butcher knife was stuck in his belt, and on the wide, dark road he looked so small that it was like he was five years old instead of seven. (178)
He hadn't said one word since they came into the house until he began to scream: 'Mick done it! I didn't do it. Mick done it!' There were never any kind of yells like the ones Bubber made. The veins in his neck stood out and his fists were hard as little rocks. (178)
She was awake a long time. In the dark she put her arms around him and held him very close. She touched him all over and kissed him everywhere. He was so soft and little and there was this salty, boy smell about him. The love she felt was so hard that she had to squeeze him until her arms were tired. In her mind she thought about Bubber and music together. It was like she could never do anything good enough for him. She would never hit him or even tease him again. She slept all night with her arms around his head. Then in the morning when she woke up he was gone. (179)
But he was a different kid -- George -- going around by himself always like a person much older and with nobody, not even her, knowing what was really in his mind. (180)
'I want to be like Moses, who led the children of Israel from the land of the oppressors...' (183)
'I hate the whole white race and will work always so that the colored race can achieve revenge for all their sufferings. That is my ambition.' (183)
The entries on him were written with more care than the others and in ink: 'thirteen years old -- past puberty. Unsuccessful attempt self-emasculation. Oversexed and hyperthyroid. Wept boisterously during two visits, though little pain. Voluble -- very glad to talk though paranoiac. Environment fair with one exception. See Lucy Davis -- mother washerwoman. Intelligent and well worth watching and all possible help. Keep contact. Fee: $1(?)' (184)
The kitchen was crowded with good things. Doctor Copeland stood in the doorway and his nostrils quivered with pride. (185)
The box contained nothing but junk -- a headless doll, some dirty lace, a rabbit skin. Doctor Copeland scrutinized each article. 'Do not throw them away. There is use for everything. These are the gifts from our guests who have nothing better to contribute. I will find some purpose for them later.' (185)
'...The life mission of Karl Marx was to make all human beings equal and to divide the great wealth of the world so that there would be no poor or rich and each person would have his share. This is one of the commandments Karl Marx left to us: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.'' (188)
'He believed in the holiness of the human spirit.' (189)
'What is the value of any piece of property, of any merchandise we buy in a store? The value depends on only one thing -- and that is the work it took to make or to raise this article. Why does a brick house cost more than a cabbage? Because the work of many men goes into the making of one brick house...' (189)
'Land, clay, timber -- those things are called natural resources -- man only develops them, only uses them for work. Therefore should any one person or group of persons own these things? How can a man own ground and space and sunlight and rain for crops? How can a man say 'this is mind' about those things and refuse to let others share them? Therefore Marx says that these natural resources should belong to everyone, not divided into little pieces but used by all the people according to their ability to work.'
'All that we own is our bodies. And we sell our bodies every day we live. We sell them when we go out in the morning to our jobs and when we labor all day. We are forced to sell at any price, at any time, for any purpose. We are forced to sell our bodies so that we can eat and live. And the price which is given us for this is only enough so that we will have the strength to labor longer for the profits of others. Today we are not put up on the platforms and sold at the courthouse square. But we are forced to sell our strength, our time, our souls during almost every hour that we live. We have been freed from one kind of slavery only to be delivered into another. Is this freedom? Are we yet free men?

sep 6 2020 ∞
sep 6 2020 +