So Flynn, too, resigned himself, putting on once more the mask of craft
and implacability that was part of his stock in trade, and which Jackman
rarely took off.
————
And all that day Teddy lay crouched in his lair with his eye glued more
or less faithfully to the peephole. Except from hunger, he had suffered
but little, and the minutes had been too exciting to seem long in going
by. It was negative excitement, springing from what didn’t happen; but
because something might happen, and happen at any instant, it was
excitement. From morning to midday, and from midday on into the
afternoon, cars, carts, and pedestrians traveled in and out of Jersey
City, each spelling possible danger. Now and then a man or a vehicle had
paused in the road within calling distance of the shanty. For two
minutes, for five, or for ten at a time, Teddy lay there wondering as to
their intentions and trying to make up his mind as to his own course.
Whether to shoot himself or make a bolt for it, or if he shot himself
whether it should be through the temple or the heart, were points as to
which he was still undecided. He would get inspiration, he told himself,
when the time came. He had often heard that in crises of peril the brain
worked quicker than in moments of tranquillity; and perhaps, after all,
a crisis of peril might not lie before him.
In a measure, he was growing used to his situation as an outlaw; he was
growing used to the separation from the family. It was not that he loved
them less, but that he had moved on and left them behind. He could think
of them now without the longing to cry he had felt yesterday, while the
desperation of his plight centered his thought more and more upon
himself. If he didn’t have to shoot himself, he planned, in as far as
plans were possible, to sneak away into the unknown and become a tramp.
He couldn’t do it yet, because the roads were probably being watched for
him; but by and by, when the hunt had become less keen....
Seven doughnuts swallowed without a drop of water being far from the
nourishment to which he was accustomed, he waited with painful eagerness
for nightfall. When the primrose-colored lights up and down the road and
along the ragged fringe of the town were deepening to orange, he crept
forth cautiously. Even while half hidden by the sedgy grasses, he felt
horribly exposed, and when he emerged into the open highway, the eyes of
all the police in New York seemed to spy him through the twilight.
Nevertheless, he tramped back toward the dwellings of men, doing his
best to hide his face when motor lights flashed over him too vividly.
Unable to think of anything better than to return to the friendly woman
who had given him seven doughnuts for his six, he found her behind her
counter, in company with a wispy little girl.
"Ah, good-evening. Zo you’f come ba-ack. You fount my zandwiches naice."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account