Clock Without Hands (7 page)

Malone was remembering the doctor's hands and arms. "It's true that Hayden has very thin and hairy arms."

The Judge almost snorted: "Don't be silly, J.T., hairiness has nothing to do with it." Malone, abashed, was more willing to listen to the Judge's reasoning. "The doctor didn't tell you that out of meanness or spite," the Judge went on. "It's just the logical, human way of contaging bad things away from yourself. The minute I saw him today, I knew what had happened. I knew that look of a mortally sick man ... looking sideways, his eyes averted as though ashamed. I have seen that look many a time at Johns Hopkins where I was a perfectly well, ambulatory patient who knew every soul at that hospital," the Judge said truthfully. "Whereas your eyes are straight as a die, although you're thin and ought to eat liver. Liver shots," he said almost shouting, "aren't there things called liver shots for blood trouble?"

Malone looked at the Judge with eyes that flickered between bewilderment and hope. "I didn't know you were in Johns Hopkins," he said softly. "I suppose you didn't bruit it around because of your political career."

"Ten years ago I weighed three hundred and ten pounds."

"You've always carried your weight well. I've never thought of you as a fat man."

"Fat man: of course not. I was just stout and corpulent ... the only thing, I would just have falling-out spells. It worried Miss Missy," he said with a glance at his wife's portrait on the wall across from him. "She even spoke about doctors ... harped on the subject, in fact. I had never gone to a doctor in my adult life, feeling instinctively that doctors meant either cutting or, just as bad, diet. I was close friends with Doc Tatum who used to fish and hunt with me, but he was in a different category ... otherwise I just let doctors alone and hoped they would leave me alone. Except for the falling-out spells I was in the pink of health. When Doc Tatum died I had a terrible toothache ... I think it was psychosomatic, so I went to Doc's brother who was the best mule doctor in the county. I drank."

"Mule doctor!" His faith in the Judge's reasoning echoed with a sick dismay. The old Judge did not seem to notice.

"Naturally, it was the week of Doc's funeral, and what with the wake and cortege and all, my tooth hurt like an electric bell ... so Poke, Doc's brother, just drew the tooth for me ... with novocain and antibiotics which he uses for mules anyhow, as their teeth are strong and they are very stubborn about anybody fooling with their mouths and very sensitive."

Malone nodded wonderingly, and as his disappointment still echoed, he changed the subject abruptly. "That portrait is the living image of Miss Missy."

"Sometimes I think so," the Judge said complacently, as he was one of those persons who felt that anything he owned was greatly superior to the possessions of others ... even if they were identical. He added reflectively:

"Sometimes when I am sad or pessimistic I think that Sara made a bad mistake with the left foot ... at my worst moments it sometimes resembles a kind of odd tail."

"I don't see that at all, sir," Malone said comfortingly. "Besides it's the face, the countenance that matters."

"All the same," the Judge said passionately, "I wish my wife's portrait had been painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds or one of the great masters."

"Well that's another story," Malone said, looking at the badly drawn portrait done by the Judge's elder sister.

"I have learned not to settle for the cheapest, homemade product ... especially when it comes to art. But at that time I never dreamed that Miss Missy was going to die and leave me."

Tears brightened the dim, old eyes and he was silent, for the garrulous old Judge could never speak about his wife's death. Malone was also silent, remembering. The Judge's wife had died of cancer and it was Malone who had filled the doctor's prescriptions during her long illness, and he often visited her—sometimes bringing flowers from his garden or a bottle of cologne as though to soften the fact that he was delivering morphine. Often the Judge would be lumbering bleakly about the house, as he stayed with his wife as much as possible even, Malone thought, to the detriment of his political career. Miss Missy had developed cancer of the breast and it had been removed. The Judge's grief was boundless; he haunted the halls of the city hospital, harrying even doctors who had nothing to do with the case, weeping, questioning. He organized prayers at the First Baptist Church and put a hundred dollars in her envelope every Sunday. When his wife returned home, apparently recovered, his joy and optimism were boundless; also, he bought a Rolls-Royce and hired a "safe, colored driver" for her daily airings. When his wife knew she was ill again she wanted to spare her husband the truth, and for a while he went on with his joyous extravagant ways. When it was apparent that his wife was failing, he didn't want to know and tried to deceive both her and himself. Avoiding doctors and questions, he accepted the fact that a trained nurse had become a member of the household. He taught his wife to play poker and they played frequently when she was well enough. When it was obvious that his wife was in pain, the Judge would tiptoe softly to the refrigerator, eat without tasting what he ate, thinking only that his wife had been very sick and was just recovering from a serious operation. So he steadied himself to his secret everyday grief, and would not let himself understand.

The day she died was a frosty day in December, with a cloudless blue sky and the sound of Christmas carols chiming in the icy air. The Judge, too dazed and worn to cry properly, had a terrible case of hiccups which let up, thank God, during the reading of the funeral service. Late that winter's day, when the ceremonies were finished and the guests were gone, he went alone in the Rolls-Royce to the cemetery (he sold the car the week afterward). There, as the first frosty stars were appearing, he poked the newly laid cement of the grave with a walking stick, pondered over the workmanship of the job, and very slowly went back to the car driven by the "safe, colored driver," and there exhausted, he went to sleep.

The Judge gave a final look at the portrait before he turned his brimming eyes away. A purer woman never lived.

After a proper time of mourning, Malone and the rest of the town expected that the Judge would marry again; and even he himself, lonesome and grieving as he rattled around the enormous house, felt a feeling of unknown expectancy. On Sunday he dressed very carefully and attended church, where he sat demurely on the second pew, his eyes glued to the choir. His wife had sung in the choir and he loved to watch the throats and bosoms of women when they sang. There were some lovely ladies in the First Baptist's choir, especially one soprano whom the Judge watched constantly. But there were other church choirs in the town. With a feeling of heresy, the Judge went to the Presbyterian church where there was a blond singer ... his wife had been blond ... whose singing throat and breasts fascinated him, although otherwise she was not quite to his taste. So, dressed to kill and sitting on one of the front rows, the Judge visited the various churches of the town and watched and judged the choirs, in spite of the fact that he had very little ear for music and was always singing off key and very loudly. No one questioned him about his changes of churches, yet he must have had some guilt for he often would declare in a loud voice, "I like to be informed about what goes on in various religions and creeds. My wife and I have always been very broad-minded."

The Judge never thought consciously of marrying again; indeed, he often spoke of his wife as though she were alive. Still there was this hollow yearning that he tried to fill with food or alcohol or watching choir ladies. And there had begun a veiled, subconscious search for his dead wife. Miss Missy was a pure woman, and automatically he considered only the pure. A choir singer, only choir singers attracted him. Those requirements were not too hard to fill. But Miss Missy had also been an excellent poker player, and unmarried, pure choir singers who are also canny poker players are somewhat rare. One evening about two years after Miss Missy's death, the Judge invited Miss Kate Spinner for Saturday night supper. He also invited her elderly aunt as a chaperon and planned the supper with the forethought that was exactly like his wife's. The supper started with oysters. This was followed with a chicken dish and a curry of tomatoes, currants and almonds stewed together which was one of Miss Missy's favorite company dishes. Wine was served at each course and brandy followed the ice cream dessert. The Judge fidgeted over the preparations for days, making sure that the best plate and silver were used. The supper itself was a keen mistake. To begin with, Miss Kate had never eaten an oyster and was deadly afraid of having to eat one when the Judge tried to coax her. The unaccustomed wine made Miss Kate giggle in what seemed to the Judge a somewhat suggestive manner which obscurely offended him. On the other hand, the old maiden aunt said she had never touched a drop of spirits in her life and was surprised that her niece would indulge. At the end of that dismal supper, the Judge, his hopes shaken but not yet gone, brought out a new deck of cards to have a game with the ladies. He had in mind his wife's slender fingers ringed with the diamonds he had given her. But it materialized that Miss Kate had never held a card in her life, and the old aunt added that, to her, cards were the entrance to the devil's playground. The party broke up early and the Judge finished the bottle of brandy before he went to bed. He blamed the fact that the Spinners were Lutherans and not quite expected to be in the same class as those who attended the First Baptist Church. So he consoled himself and soon his natural optimism returned.

However, he did not go so far afield in his broadmindedness about sects and creeds. Miss Missy had been born Episcopalian, changing over to First Baptist when they were married. Miss Hettie Peaver sang in the Episcopal choir and her throat was pulsing and vibrant as she sang. On Christmas the congregation stood up at the Hallelujah passage ... year after year he was fooled by this passage, sitting there like a ninny until he realized that every soul had stood up and then trying to make amends by the loudest singing in the church ... but this Christmas the Hallelujah section came and went unnoticed as the Judge craned his neck at Miss Hettie Peaver. After church he scraped his feet and invited her and her aged mother to Saturday night supper the following week. Again he agonized over preparations. Miss Hettie was a short stout woman of good family; she was no spring chicken as the Judge well knew, but then neither was he, pushing seventy years old. And it was of course not a question of marriage as Miss Hettie was a widow. (The Judge had automatically in this unconscious search for love excluded widows and, of course, grass widows, as he had held it as a principle that second marriages were most unbecoming for a woman.)

That second supper was quite different from the Lutheran one. It turned out Miss Hettie adored oysters and was trying to get up nerve to swallow one whole. The old mother told a story about when she cooked an all-oyster dinner ... raw oysters, scalloped oysters and so forth, which the old lady named in detail ... for the business partner of Percy, "my beloved spouse," and how it turned out that the partner couldn't eat oysters at all. As the old lady drank her wine, her stories grew longer and more tedious and the daughter would try to change the subject with little success. After dinner when the Judge brought cards, the old lady said she was too blind to make out the cards and she would be perfectly satisfied just finishing her port and looking at the fire. The Judge taught Miss Hettie blackjack and found her an able pupil. But he so much missed Miss Missy's slender hands and diamond rings. And another thing, Miss Hettie was a little buxom to his taste and he could not but compare his wife's slender bosom to her somewhat hefty form. His wife had had very delicate breasts, arid indeed, he never forgot that one had been removed.

On Valentine's Day, sick with that hollow feeling, he bought a five-pound box of heart-shaped candy, much to the interest of J. T. Malone, who made the sale. On the way to Miss Hettie's house he reconsidered judiciously and walked slowly home. He ate the candy himself. It took two months. However, after some other little episodes like this that came to nothing, the Judge devoted himself solely to his grandson and his love for him.

The Judge spoiled his grandson beyond reason. It was the joke of the town that once at a church picnic the Judge had carefully picked the grains of pepper out of his small grandson's food, as the child did not like pepper. When the child was four years old he could recite the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-Third Psalm, thanks to his grandfather's patient coaching, and it was the old man's delight when townspeople gathered to hear this prodigy perform. Absorbed in his grandson, his hollowness of grief diminished, as well as his fascination for choir ladies. In spite of advancing age, which indeed the Judge did not admit, he went early every morning to his office in the courthouse—walking the morning way, being driven back at noon for a long midday dinner, and being driven back for the afternoon work hours. He argued vociferously in the court house square and in Malone's drugstore. On Saturday night he played poker in a game held in the back room of the New York Café.

All these years the Judge had as his motto: "Mens sana in corpore sano." His "stroke" did not alter this as much as would have been supposed. After a cantankerous convalescence, he returned to his usual ways; although he went to the office only in the morning and did little but open his diminishing mail and read the
Milan Courier,
the
Flowering Branch Ledger
and, on Sundays, the
Atlanta Constitution,
which infuriated him. The Judge had fallen in the bathroom and had lain there for hours until Jester, sleeping his sound boy's sleep, finally heard his grandfather's cries. The "little seizure" had happened instantaneously so that the Judge had at first hoped that his recovery would come about with the same instant speed. He would not admit it was a true stroke—spoke of "a light case of polio," "little seizure," etc. When he was up and around, he declared he used the walking stick because he liked it and that the "little attack" had probably benefited him as his mind had grown keener because of contemplation and "new studies."