The Early Ayn Rand (68 page)

“Mr. Cameron,” said Roark softly, “sit down.” His strong hands closed over the old man’s forearms, forcing him gently down upon a pile of planks. Cameron did not resist; he sat, looking up, muttering feebly: “That’s funny . . . very funny . . . I know someone who looks just like you. . . .”

Then Roark noticed the men who stood watching him curiously. Among them, he saw Darrow, a lanky, stooped, elderly giant with an impassive face; and the contractor’s chief estimator, a muscular individual with his hands in his pockets, a pale, puffed face, a dab of mustache in the too wide space between his nose and mouth. He knew the contractor’s estimator; Cameron had thrown him out of his office two weeks ago, concluding the last of his too frequent visits.

“What’s happened here?” Roark asked.

“Oh, what the hell!” said the estimator. “Darrow’s been calling your place all morning and then
this
shows up all of a sudden!” He jerked his thumb at Cameron.

“What were you calling about? Where’s the trouble?”

“Well, Roark, I don’t know if you can do anything about it . . .” Darrow began, but the estimator interrupted him.

“Aw, what the hell! We got no time to waste explaining to punk kids!”

Roark was looking at Darrow.

“Well?” Roark asked, and the question was a command.

“It’s the concrete,” said Darrow impassively. “The penthouse, the elevator machinery-room floor arches. It’s running under test. It won’t stand the load. I told the bastards not to pour it in this weather. But they went right ahead. Now it’s set. And it’s no good. What are you going to do about it?”

Roark stood, his head thrown back, looking at the gray shadow of the penthouse among the gray clouds far away. Then he turned to the estimator.

“Well?” Roark asked.

“Well, what?” the estimator snapped, and added, his voice whining: “Aw, we couldn’t help it!”

“Talk fast,” said Roark.

“Aw, what the hell! We were behind schedule and the boss was stepping on us and the old man’s sniveling about all the dough this thing’s costing him as it is, and so we figured we’d save time, what the hell, nothing’s ever happened before, and anyway you know how concrete is, it’s a killer, you never can tell how the damn stuff will set, it’s not our fault, it can happen to anybody, we couldn’t help it. . . . And anyway, if your damn drawings weren’t so damn fancy, we could’ve . . . A good architect’d know how to fix it up, even if . . .” His voice just petered out before the eyes that faced him.

“Well, what’s the use of bellyaching now?” the estimator snapped as Roark said nothing. “I say, let it go. It’ll stand all right. If Darrow here wasn’t so damn finicky . . . And anyway, it’s a fine time to be getting soused on us! What can you expect with the kind of fine architect we got around here?”

“Look, Roark,” Darrow said quietly, “the work’s held up. Someone’s got to decide.”

Behind them, Cameron burst into laughter suddenly, a high, monotonous, senseless, agonized laughter. He was still sitting there, on the planks, and he looked up, and his face seemed contorted, even though not a muscle of it moved.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, staring at Roark, his eyes stubbornly insistent and disturbed. “That’s what I want to know, what you’re doing here. You look funny. You look damn funny. I like your face, do you know that? Yes, I like it. Look, get out of here. You should be home. You should be home and in bed. You don’t feel well. Look, don’t worry about what you see here, about this . . .” He waved his arm vaguely at the building. “It’s no use. It’s absolutely no use. It doesn’t matter. Also they have a drill in there. You don’t see it, but that’s because they’re clever, they’ve hidden it. What do you want to get hurt for? It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“There!” said the estimator triumphantly. “See?”

Cameron sat, breathing heavily, wisps of steam trembling from his open mouth up into the frozen air, his stiff, cold fingers convulsed on the edge of a plank, and he looked up at the men.

“You think I’m drunk, don’t you?” he asked, his eyes narrow and sly. “You damn fools! All of you, the red-headed one in particular! You think I’m drunk. That’s where you’re wrong. This is the time when I’m sober. The only time. And then I can have peace. Otherwise, I’m drunk always. Drunk all the time. Seeing things that don’t exist. Me, I drink to stop the DT’s. I drink to see clearly for once. To know that it doesn’t matter . . . Nothing. . . . Not at all. . . . It’s so easy. Drink to learn to hate things. I’ve never felt better in my life.”

“Pretty, ain’t it?” said the estimator.

“Shut up,” said Darrow.

“God damn you all!” the estimator screamed suddenly. “We wouldn’t have had any trouble if they’d hired a real architect! That’s what happens when people get charitable and pick out a worthless bum who’s never been any good, an old drunk who . . .”

Roark turned to him. Roark’s arm went back and down, and then forward slowly, as if gathering the weight of air upon the crook of his elbow; it was only a flash, but it seemed to last for minutes, the movement stopped, the taut arm motionless in speed, and then his knuckles shot up, to the man’s jaw, and the estimator was on the ground, his knees bent, upturned, his hand on his cheek. Roark stood, his legs spread apart, his arms hanging indifferently by his sides.

“Let’s go up,” said Roark, turning to Darrow. “Get the superintendent. I’ll tell you what’s to be done.”

They went inside the structure, behind them Cameron staring stupidly ahead and the estimator scrambling slowly to his feet, dusting himself, muttering to no one: “Aw, what the hell, I didn’ mean no harm, what the hell, you can’t do that to me, you son of a bitch, I’ll get you canned for this, I didn’ mean no harm . . .”

The construction superintendent followed Roark and Darrow to the elevator, silently, reluctantly, glancing dubiously at Roark. The elevator—a few planks with a precarious railing—shot upward along the side of the building, swaying, shuddering, its cables creaking. The pavements dropped below them, the tops of automobiles descending softly down into an abyss till only flat little squares remained, flowing evenly through the thin channels of streets; the windows of houses streamed down, past them, and roofs flashed by, as flat breaks in the stream, as pedals pressing the houses down, out of the way of their flight. The superintendent picked his teeth thoughtfully; Darrow held on to the wooden railing; Roark stood, his hand closed about a cable, his legs apart, and looked at the structure, at the layers of floor arches flying past.

Twenty floors above the pavement, they stepped out onto a gray mat of concrete in the open cages that were to be the penthouse. “You can see,” Darrow was saying, “it’s worse than the tests showed.”

Roark saw it at once, the odd gray color of the concrete, not the healthy, normal gray of the floors below; he could hear it with his eyes, the cry of warning, the alarm bell rising from the cold, hard, flat stretch of gray under his feet. It was as a disease written upon the skin of this thing he loved, this thing delivered suddenly to his care, and he stood over it as a doctor too sure of the symptoms when he had not wanted to be sure. He ran his fingers over the cold edge of a column encased in that treacherous gray; softly, absently, as if caressing the hand of a precious patient in sympathy, in understanding, in reassurance, to give comfort and to gain it in return.

“Well, Mr. Roark?” the superintendent asked. “What’s going to happen?”

“Just this,” said Roark. “When you get your elevator machinery up here, it will go straight through this, straight down to the basement.”

“But, Jesus! What’re we going to do now?”

Roark walked away from the two men, who stood watching him; he walked slowly, his eyes taking in every column, every beam, every foot of space, his steps ringing hard and hollow against the naked concrete. Then he stopped; he stood, his hands in his pockets, his collar raised, a tall figure against the empty gray sky beyond, one strand of red hair fluttering under his old cap. It was up to him, he thought, and each hour counted, each hour adding to that cost that stood as a monster somewhere, leering at them all; to do it over, to remove that concrete—it would mean two weeks of blasting to destroy one day’s work, of blasting that might shake the building to its roots, if it could stand the strain at all. He would have to let the concrete remain, he thought, and then he would have to devise supports for these floors—when so little space was available, when every foot of it had been assigned to a purpose in the strict, meticulous economy of Cameron’s plan. To devise it somehow, he thought, and to change nothing, not to alter one foot, one line of the building’s silhouette, of its crown, of its proud profile, that had to be as Cameron had wished it to be, as each clear, powerful, delicate line rising from the ground demanded it to be. To decide, he thought, to take that into his hands, Cameron’s work, to save it, to put his own thoughts irrevocably into steel and mortar—and he was not ready for that, he could not be ready. But it was only one part of him that thought this, dimly, not in words and logic, only as a twisted little ball of emotion in the pit of his stomach, a ball that would have broken into these words had he stopped to unravel it. He did not stop. The ball was only driving on the rest of him, and the rest of him was cold, clear, precise.

He stood without moving for a long time. Then he seized a piece of board from the ground and a pencil from his pocket. He stood, one foot resting on a pile of planks, the board on his knee, his hand flashing in swift, straight jerks, the outlines of steel supports rising on the wood. He sketched for a long time. The two men walked to him, stood watching his hand silently from behind his shoulder. Then, as the scheme became clear, it was the superintendent who spoke first, to gasp incredulously: “Jesus! It’ll work! So that’s what you’re driving at!” Roark nodded and went on.

When he had finished, he handed the board to the superintendent, saying briefly, unnecessarily, because the crude, hurried lines on the board said everything: “Take the columns you have stored down below . . . put supports here . . . see? . . . and here . . . you clear the elevator shafts like this, see? . . . and here . . . clear the conduits . . . there’s the general scheme.”

“Jesus!” said the superintendent, frightened and delighted. “It’s never been done that way before.”

“You’re going to do it.”

“It’ll hold,” said Darrow, studying the sketch. “We may have to check some of these beams of yours . . . this business here, for instance . . . but it’ll hold.”

“The owners won’t like it,” said the superintendent, as a regretful afterthought.

“They’ll take it and keep their damn mouths shut,” said Roark. “Give me another board. Now look. Here’s what you do on the two floors below.” He went on drawing for a long time, throwing words over his shoulder once in a while.

“Yes,” whispered the superintendent. “But . . . but what’ll I say if someone asks if . . .”

“Say I gave the orders. Now keep these and get started.” He turned to Darrow. “I’ll draw up the plans and you’ll have them this afternoon to check, and let him have them as soon as possible.” He turned to the superintendent. “Now go ahead.”

“Yes, sir,” said the superintendent. He said it respectfully.

They went down silently in the elevator. The superintendent was studying the drawings, Darrow was studying Roark, Roark was looking at the building.

They reached the ground below and Roark went back to Cameron. He took Cameron’s elbows and helped him slowly to his feet. The estimator had disappeared.

“I’ll take you home, Mr. Cameron,” Roark said gently.

“Huh?” muttered Cameron. “Yes . . . oh, yes. . . .” He nodded vaguely, in assent to nothing comprehensible.

Roark led him away. Then Cameron shook off the hands holding him, tottered and turned around. He stood, looking up at the steel skeleton, his head thrown back. He flung his arms out wide, and stood still, only his fingers moving weakly, uselessly, as if reaching for something. His lips moved; he wanted to speak; he said nothing.

“Look . . .” he whispered at last. “Look . . .” His voice was soft, choked, pleading, pleading desperately for the words he could not find. “Look . . .” He had so much to say. “Look . . .” he muttered hopelessly.

When Roark took his arm again, he did not resist. Roark led him to a cab and they drove to Cameron’s home. Roark knew Cameron’s address, but had never been inside his one stuffy, unkempt furnished room that bore on its walls, as its single distinction, framed photographs of his buildings. The bed stood untouched, unused the night before. Cameron had followed docilely up the stairs. But the sight of his room seemed to awaken something in his brain. He jerked loose suddenly; he whirled upon Roark, and his face was white with rage.

“What are you doing here?” he screamed, choking, his voice gulping in his throat. “What are you following me for? I hate you, whoever you are. I know what’s the matter with me. It’s because I can’t bear the sight of you. There you stand reproaching me!”

“I don’t,” whispered Roark.

“God damn you! That’s what’s been following me. You’re the one who’s making me miserable. Everything else’s all right, but you’re the one who’s putting me through hell. You’re out to kill me, you . . .” And then there followed a torrent of such blasphemy as Roark had never heard on any waterfront, in any construction gang. Roark stood silently, waiting.

“Get out!” roared Cameron, lurching toward him. “Get out of here! Get out of my sight! Get out!”

Roark did not move. Cameron raised his hand and struck him across the mouth.

Roark fell back against a bedstand, but caught his balance, his feet steady, his body huddled against the stand, his hands behind him, pressed to its sides. He looked at Cameron. The sound of the blow had knocked Cameron into a sudden, lucid, sober pause of consciousness. He stared at Roark, his mouth half-open, his eyes dull, blank, frightened, but focused.