Miss Lonelyhearts & the Day of the Locust by Nathanael West Read Free Book Online Page A

failure drove him to the telephone. He left the city room and went into the hall to use the pay station from which all private calls had to be made. The walls of the booth were covered with obscene drawings. He fastened his eyes on two disembodied genitals and gave the operator Burgess 7-7323.
    “Is Mrs. Doyle in?”
    “Hello, who is it?”
    “I want to speak to Mrs. Doyle,” he said. “Is this Mrs. Doyle?”
    “Yes, that’s me.” Her voice was hard with fright.
    “This is Miss Lonelyhearts.”
    “Miss who?”
    “Miss Lonelyhearts, Miss Lonelyhearts, the man who does the column.”
    He was about to hang up, when she cooed, “Oh, hello….”
    “You said I should call.”
    “Oh, yes…what?”
    He guessed that she wanted him to do the talking. “When can you see me?”
    “Now.” She was still cooing and he could almost feel her warm, moisture-laden breath through the earpiece.
    “Where?”
    “You say.”
    “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Meet me in the park, near the obelisk, in about an hour.”
    He went back to his desk and finished his column, then started for the park. He sat down on a bench near the obelisk to wait for Mrs. Doyle. Still thinking of tents, he examined the sky and saw that it was canvas-colored and ill-stretched. He examined it like a stupid detective who is searching for a clue to his own exhaustion. When he found nothing, he turned his trained eye on the skyscrapers that menaced the little park from all sides. In their tons of forced rock and tortured steel, he discovered what he thought was a clue.
    Americans have dissipated their racial energy in an orgy of stone breaking. In their few years they have broken more stones than did centuries of Egyptians. And they have done their work hysterically, desperately, almost as if they knew that the stones would some day break them.
    The detective saw a big woman enter the park and start in his direction. He made a quick catalogue: legs like Indian clubs, breasts like balloons and a brow like a pigeon. Despite her short plaid skirt, red sweater, rabbit-skin jacket and knitted tam-o’-shanter, she looked like a police captain.
    He waited for her to speak first.
    “Miss Lonelyhearts? Oh, hello…”
    “Mrs. Doyle?” He stood up and took her arm. It felt like a thigh.
    “Where are we going?” she asked, as he began to lead her off.
    “For a drink.”
    “I can’t go to Delehanty’s. They know me.”
    “We’ll go to my place.”
    “Ought I?”
    He did not have to answer, for she was already on her way. As he followed her up the stairs to his apartment, he watched the action of her massive hams; they were like two enormous grindstones.
    He made some highballs and sat down beside her on the bed.
    “You must know an awful lot about women from your job,” she said with a sigh, putting her hand on his knee.
    He had always been the pursuer, but now found a strange pleasure in having the rôles reversed. He drew back when she reached for a kiss. She caught his head and kissed him on his mouth. At first it ticked like a watch, then the tick softened and thickened into a heart throb. It beat louder and more rapidly each second, until he thought that it was going to explode and pulled away with a rude jerk.
    “Don’t,” she begged.
    “Don’t what?”
    “Oh, darling, turn out the light.”
    He smoked a cigarette, standing in the dark and listening to her undress. She made sea sounds; something flapped like a sail; there was the creak of ropes; then he heard the wave-against-a-wharf smack of rubber on flesh. Her call for him to hurry was a sea-moan, and when he lay beside her, she heaved, tidal, moondriven.
    Some fifteen minutes later, he crawled out of bed like an exhausted swimmer leaving the surf, and dropped down into a large armchair near the window. She went into the bathroom, then came back and sat in his lap.
    “I’m ashamed of myself,” she said. “You must think I’m a bad woman.”
    He shook his head no.
    “My husband