No More Gifts

Holding fast to the handrail, Avis hitched herself up the narrow bank of stairs. She paused at the landing to unlatch the door to the roof. As it swung full, someone moved in the shadows. Avis drew back, catching her breath. The figure lowered his gun with a laugh.

"Sorry!" he sang. "Thought you were a pheasant."

She stared at him sullenly. He was squatting with his back to the ledge, the revolver cradled loosely in his lap. A ragged circle of cigarette butts surrounded him. Through the settling dusk his features assumed those of the new roomer.

"That wasn't very bright," Avis said. "People have been killed by unloaded guns."

His teeth shone in a grin. "A stupid gag," he agreed. "Pull up a seat and be sociable."

She stepped out on the roof hesitantly.

"Mind closing the door?"

Surprised, Avis turned and pushed the door shut.

"That's better," he said. "I can't stand the draft."

Avis came forward, dragging her withered right foot behind her with a quick crablike gait. She was conscious of his eyes following her across the tarred gravel to the weathered camp stool. Seating herself, she waited for him to comment awkwardly on the weather, get to his sound normal feet in embarrassment and leave her to the arriving night. But instead he smiled disarmingly.

"Got a chance to get some hunting in this weekend," he said. "Thought I'd come up for some air and clean my gun."

"I didn't think they hunted pheasants (continued on page 58) No More Gifts (continued from page 31) with a pistol," Avis said.

"I guess it's against the rules here. But I'm an out-of-towner."

The streetlamps blinked on below. Through their diffused halos she watched the top floor tenant she had glimpsed late evenings, ducking past her basement window with a bag of sandwiches from the coffee shop. He was a slim highstrung man in his early twenties, with black hair strong against his sallow features. In his mustard-colored sport shirt and dark flannels, he might have been any college boy her own age. But she doubted it, he was a little too mature and wary.

"Can't ever get my fill of pheasants," he said. "I'm a sportsman from away back."

Avis smiled in spite of herself. He was being patronizing, but at least he wasn't being sympathetic.

"You could have fooled me," she said.

"Shows you how tricky looks can be. I'm strictly an outdoor character," he said. "Up with the birds, after a night of clean living. Then into the woods with my faithful pointer for a brace of quail, and back in time to pose for the whiskey ads." There was a contagious nervous gaiety in his voice. "How about you? How do you keep up your morale in these hectic times?"

"Me? Oh, I endorse beauty soaps. My picture's in all the magazines. I guess you didn't recognize me without my lather on."

He grinned at her across the yellow halflight. "Been living in this dump long?"

"Why, this is a very elegant address. Even the mice have pedigrees."

"Are those just mice in the walls? They sound more like cocker spaniels."

Smiling, Avis got to her feet and stretched. She limped over to the ledge and leaned out.

"It's really not so bad," she said wistfully. "Not when you get used to it."

Three stories below, the rubbly sidewalk lay smoothed by lamplight. A smell of simmering cabbage drifted up. Distantly the block echoed with the soprano profanity of kids in flapping pursuit of a tin can. Avis soothed her eyes on the park across the street.

It was nothing more than a swatch of parched grass, with a few listless shrubs competing among the flaking iron benches: but it was a green oasis in the shingled gray monotone. An expensive, older-looking car was parked beside it. One of those conservative kinds, maybe belonging to some old resident who'd made his mark in the world and come back to reminisce. Maybe paying a call in the neighborhood, because she'd noticed it there most of the day.

Just then a match flared inside it. The chauffeur, probably.

"We even have a park," Avis said. "Of course it's not much of a ——"

"I know. I've seen it."

Something in his voice drew her head around. He'd lit another cigarette and was studying her through the unfolding smoke. She stood facing him with her tar-colored hair loosely piled around her shoulders. Her unmade lips parted a little, as if breathing had become more difficult.

"You're a pretty girl," he said bluntly. "I never thought of it that way, but you are. How long have you had that leg?"

She didn't say anything.

"That leg of yours," he repeated. "Has it always been that way?"

"Yes," she said. "All my life."

"I guess it bothers you a lot."

"What do you think?" Avis said.

He started to crush his cigarette out, then changed his mind. "Look," he said awkwardly, "everybody's got one. One way or another. Nobody gets off free."

Limping back to the stool, Avis sat heavily. She flattened her hands against her thighs to still them.

"What are you running from?" she whispered.

"I stopped running, lady. I'm already there, as far as I can go." He glanced at the neighboring roof, a space of no more than twenty-five feet. "I guess I'm not about to tie any world record for the broad jump."

"It's that car across the street, isn't it?"

He continued watching the next roof. "Been running all the way from East St. Louis. You'd think with a head start like that. I almost could." He turned back to her. "What's your name, lady?"

"Avis." she said. "What's yours?"

"Mine? Clay," he said. "Like in pigeon."

She made herself breathe evenly. "Are you a gangster?"

He laughed, then considered it. "I don't think so. I'm just a bad businessman, up for retirement."

"Please — isn't there something I can do?"

"I don't know," he smiled, "is there?"

"The police?" she faltered.

"That's a thought. Give them a ring. And if no one answers, try the Boy Scouts."

She turned her head away.

"I'm not putting you down. Really," he said gently. "It's just that I guessed wrong, and now I have to pay off."

"But there must be some way. I can't just let you stay here and get——"

"Don't be crazy. You better run on home, if you got one." He stared at her in baffled anger. "What the hell's wrong with you, wanting to put your neck out? You don't know the first thing about me. I could be any kind of public enemy or something."

"What if you are? I don't owe the public anything."

He waited, expressionless.

"I don't care," she said desperately. I'm not going anywhere. What kind of a life is this — watching the world from a dirty cage?"

Half smiling, he said, "That bad?"

"How would you like it sometime, cooped up in a room no wider than a grave?"

"How would I like it? I wouldn't, lady. I didn't."

Avis dropped her eyes to the stool. "Even so," she picked at the fraying canvas, "even so. it's not the same thing. Your bars were real. You knew where you were, and you knew it wouldn't last. And besides, you're a man," she said. "You asked me how I keep up my morale. I keep it up over a sewing machine, hemming things for other women to go dancing in."

She could feel his eyes on her, dark and equivocal.

"And even before that, it was never real. My father was an evangelical minister. Along with this," she nodded at her foot, "he gave me a nice set of rules to explain it. He said it was a gift from God, Who'd seen fit to test my worthiness. Well, I'm not a candidate any more. Let Him recruit saints somewhere else. I'll settle for a life, the smallest little life with people in it."

The man nodded gravely. "All right, lady. I got a small life left, let's pretend you're included. What do we do with it?"

"Well, you certainly can't stay here..."

He shrugged.

Avis kept her eyes down, getting it out in one breath. "I have a room in the basement. There's an entrance around through the back, they wouldn't look for you there."

"Tell me about it," he said. "Your room and all. What's it like?"

She looked up, trying to read his face. "Why?"

"I just want to picture you. Moving around in it, the things you do."

"It's not much. Just one room and a kitchenette. The walls are always damp. But it's got a stove. You wouldn't have to sneak out at night for hamburgers."

"You been keeping track of me."

"Yes," she said.

"Where would I sleep? That's an important point, you know."

Avis could feel the color rising to her face.

"There's a wall bed that lets down." she said stiffly.

"Pretty wide bed?"

She met his level gaze. "Do we have to talk about it?" she said, feeling her control going. "Can't we just let things take care of themselves?"

"Sure," he said, "sure we can. Let's give it a whirl." He reached forward, resting his hand on her wrist. "Look, what's your name again? Avis? Sit over here a minute." He handed her over to the ledge beside him.

Together in the shadows, she could feel her shoulders trembling.

"Listen, Avis," he said, "I'm not sure how to put it. Guess I haven't traveled in the right circles. But what I'm getting at is — you never been with a man, have you?"

"No," she said.

"Well, I'm no lover-boy, myself. I mean. I was never in circulation places (concluded on page 68) No More Gifts (continued from page 58) where I could even get the right time from — well, say a girl like you. So here's the way it works, Avis," he said quickly. "We'll stay in that room of yours till things get well. You'll open a can of spaghetti and I'll dry the dishes, and at night we'll sleep in the wall bed that lets down and the damp walls won't matter. We'll stick, we'll make out. But not tonight."

He ran his palm along her arm clumsily. "I can't make it tonight," he said, "because the folks across the street brought a friend. And the back door downstairs opens just like the one up here. Whoever comes through it is a pigeon."

Avis sat like a board, trying not to give. Then she slumped against him with what seemed like exhausted laughter that gradually became a harsher sound, like tearing cloth. She felt his arm loosely around her, making futile soothing motions.

"You can't go up against the law of averages, baby," he said. "This just wasn't our night."

He stroked her into a sort of calmness. The stars continued hanging over them like pale niched torches. His voice probed the opaque night uncertainly. "Running's nothing new for me. I always used to have the bottom bunk in reform school. Always found myself on the floor, running in my sleep. Used to wonder what I'd find when I got there, when I finally reached the wall." He bent over her. "And what is it but a girl," he said. "A nice little package named Avis, who invites me to share her board and pillow."

Avis smiled wetly. "And do you?"

"Gentleman that I am, I do."

"Is she better than the others?"

"The best. We have the world by the tail, me and the minister's daughter."

"Tell me."

"Well, let's see. We're pretty domestic people. Stick close to home, play the radio and shoot a little pinochle. Not too much action, mostly. But we like it."

"Don't we ever get bored?"

"Impossible. The street's a free show. Dog fights, landladies gossiping. And we got a box seat, right in the window-where we'll have those nice red flowers."

"Roses?"

"No. Can't remember, it's been so long."

"Geraniums?"

"Sure, that's them," he smiled. "Big fat ones we'll have, the size of a plate. They'll do fine in this hot weather. And nights like this, we sleep in the raw."

"It sounds very . . . happy."

"It is. We live happily ever after."

"Just like the whiskey ads," Avis said.

"That's the idea." He brushed her lightly on the cheek. "And now I'm tired waiting for company. I think I'll go visiting instead."

Avis sat upright, the mood suddenly shattered. She tightened her arms around him and clung.

He let her keep that way for a moment, then gently pried her free. When he climbed to his feet the revolver was in his hand again.

"Here goes. There shouldn't be more than one out back," he said. "That's pretty even odds. I'll drop you a letter."

"Will you, will you?"

"If I can," he smiled. "If not, I'll be seeing you." As if to himself, he added softly, "In hell, maybe."

"Don't say that . . ."

"Oh, I don't know," he smiled. "They tell me it's not so bad there in the evenings." Halfway to the door he turned to wink. "We can sleep raw."

He slipped through the door and was gone.

Avis knelt in the gathering silence, not daring to breathe, to disturb a molecule of air. And I don't even have his name to keep, she thought. Slowly she raised her face, staring intently at a far, cold star.

Listen to me, she thought fiercely. I don't need any help. No more of your gifts with dirty little strings attached. Keep off, that's all. Give us a chance for once please can't you . . .

Suddenly she could no longer see the star. Still on her knees, holding nothing at all between her clasped palms, Avis waited for the sound of luck, the wide night cracking open to let feet run safely through.