Read Online Street of No Return by David Goodis, Robert Polito - Free Book Online

old man. "Started what?"
"These riots. These race riots."
"Damned if I know," Whitey said without interest. And then, shrugging, "Anyway, it don't concern me."
"No?"
"Why should it? I got no ax to grind."
Jones Jarvis took off the rimless spectacles. His naked eyes, narrowed and glinting, drilled into the face of the small white-haired man and he said, "You sure?"
'Absolutely," Whitey answered. It was an emphatic word and he tried to say it with emphasis. Rut it didn't come out that way. It came out rather weakly.
He heard the old man saying, "Every man has an ax to grind. Whether he knows it or not."
Whitey didn't say anything.
"I've been on this earth a long time," Jones Jarvis said. "I'm eighty-six. That makes me too old to grind the ax. But the Lord knows I did it when I was younger. Did it with all the strength in my body. And don't think I wasn't scared when I did it. So scared I wanted to turn and run and hide in the woods. Much safer that way. Much healthier. But there's some things more important to a man than his health. So I stayed there and saw them coming to grab me and I didn't move and when they got in real close I looked them straight in the eye. I talked back to them and said I hadn't touched that white girl and I gave them the facts to prove it. They moved in closer and I pulled the blade from my pocket and showed it to them. And I told them to come on, come on, come and get me. They stood there and saw that blade in my hand. Then one of them said, "You swear to it, Jones? You swear you didn't do it? On your mother's life?" I looked at this man who had the rope in his hand all ready for me and I said, 'How'd you like to kiss my black ass?' So then all they did was turn and walk away. I waited until they were gone, then made for the woods, and later that day I hopped a freight going north. But it wasn't no scared weasel running away. It was a man. It was a man going on a trip."
Whitey was looking at the floor. He was frowning slightly and his mouth scarcely moved as he said, 'All right, you've made your point. You're a man. And I'm just a scared weasel ."
"You really believe that? You want it that way?"
"Sure," Whitey said. He looked up. "Sure. Why not?" Again it sounded weak and he told himself he didn't care how weak it sounded. He put a very weak grin on his lips and he said loosely and lazily, "I lost my spinal column a good many years ago. There ain't no surgery can put it back. Even if there was, I wouldn't want it. I like it better this way. More comfortable."
"No," Jones said. "You're telling a fib and you know it."
Whitey widened the grin. He said joshingly, "How can you tell?"
"Never mind," Jones said. "I can tell, that's all. It shows."
"What shows?" The grin began to fade. He pointed to his shaggy mop of prematurely white hair. "This?"
"That's part of it," Jones murmured. 'And your eyes. And the way your mouth sets. And something else." He leaned forward and let the pause come in and drift for a long moment, and then he said, "Your voice."
"Huh?"
"Your voice," Jones said. "The way you can't talk above a whisper. As if you got a rupture in your throat. As if it's all torn apart in there."
Again Whitey looked at the floor. The grin was gone now and he didn't know what was on his face. He opened his mouth to say something and he tried to get the sound past his lips and nothing came out.
"Or maybe it ain't the throat," the old man said. "Maybe it's the heart."
"It's the throat," Whitey said.
"Maybe it's both."
Whitey lowered his head and put his hand to his eyes and pressed hard. He was trying to deepen the blackness of the dark screen that ought to be very black because it was only his closed eyelids, but something was projected on it and he was forced to look and see. It was a memory he didn't want to see and his hand pressed harder against his closed eyes. On the screen it showed clearly and vividly, and he thought: Now, that's queer, it oughta be foggy. After all, it's an old-time film, it's seven