In the Slammer With Carol Smith by Hortense Calisher Read Free Book Online Page A

light is normal, I leave. Behind me, the Club looks like one of those storerooms where some dumb occupational therapy has failed. But I know better. Here I am in a locked house, but I know a way out.
    When I go out through the shed there’s another decision to make. Who can be sure that a club with no membership will really die? So I did what we always did. I threw the bolts, one after the other, leaving them in the trial-and-error positions that most anyone could solve.
    I hike all the way up from the Village to the barrio. Not that I am to blame for what happened to her. But when one of us dies like that, everybody ought to take a little punishment.
    I’m out of practice though. Walking is our way of staying in the fog. Now my head is too clear for that. And I haven’t even taken my pill.
    One block to go, I meet up with Angel. He looks good these days; he’s in a ball team that plays in Central Park. Madre de Dios, he says; I guess I don’t look so good to him. ‘Watch it—’ he says before he runs off. ‘You got company.’
    What’s Mickens doing, tracking me down before she’s due? On the new bi-monthly schedule she’d put me on. Hinting that with her heavy case-load I can’t expect her to give me the one-to-one attention. And I know I’ll have to deal with her about the desk. Why’s she breathing down my neck? Then it hits me. She must have lined up a job. Wait ’til she sees her prospect. Smears from that stairway, a nail-hole in the sock. Dust-patches on elbows and knees. Cobwebs in the hair. Or droppings from the rafters.
    Then it strikes me. I’m in luck. Rest of the block, I drag my feet, rehearsing. Oh I’m ready, Miz M. Secretarial skills maybe a mite out-of-date. But I can get along in Spanish, for some firm needs that. Or maybe some nice office needs a go-for, for sandwiches. These days I button my blouses right, and both are washable—maybe a receptionist?
    This early, the Avenue is still a family place. Off-Track betting office not open yet, no men ganging around in front of our bar. Somebody’s on our stoop though, slumped. Worn out by us already? She didn’t seem the type.
    But hey. But—hey. This is not the SW. Or not any more.
    Don’t turn around, please. Stay where you left me. Don’t.
    She already has. It’s Daisy Gold.
    I knew just what to do. Why wouldn’t I of all people?
    ‘Daisy. Daisy,’ I say low. ‘Daisy.’ Just that. Her name.
    I know what else she’ll want though. A haven. Even if for starters she refuses it. A duck-blind, where the creature behind it is the duck. Even so, you have to test whether it’ll come where it wants to. I can’t help that what I say is what attendants say too. ‘Come along.’
    Even if you want to, sometimes you run. But she comes quietly.
    Four flights, poorly lit. You don’t see much, but it’s a long time to smell a person. I never did any dope. But the body don’t distinguish. Any way you choose not to clean it, it’ll respond. Months on the road get ingrained; Gold’s not there yet. Her flesh is only sad sour from being ignored, first by other people maybe, then by her. Girls in a dorm get that way—the shy, depressed ones. But the gym sweat can cover it, and the monthly rut.
    On the outside, a person long there can smell like a bear has moved in next to you. Even in the Club, one such person can fill a whole corner with vegetable evil. But that kind of stink is still part of the going world.
    Gold is on stoppage. Dusty hair fades into her dim sweater, with a little human leakage at the armpits. Some rose petals, if you dry them they only go bad, like the past they come from. On the ward, that’s all taken care of either way. I don’t see her there yet.
    On the road, certain body-hints are like measurements. A guy can knock a guy, saying he pees soda-water, meaning not as yellow as a jock. The blood odor can link women temporarily. And it is well known, even counted a blessing, that street routine can make the sex machinery