Read Online Wild Geese Overhead by Neil M. Gunn - Free Book Online

therefore weak all over, and fit, in a final thought, for the snort of contempt that is comforting.
    He withdrew his eyes from Mac to his own glass.
    â€œPerhaps you’re right,” said Mac. “God knows, perhaps you’re right.”
    Will lit a cigarette and said nothing.
    â€œIt’s all bloody show anyway—this whole nightmare we call civilization. What’s it all getting at? God, think of us in our daily round, think of Tamerlane and his cock-eyed stunts. Muck—slush and muck. Each trying to be a bit superior to the other. Each sure in his own rat-infested mind that he is clever enough to put it over on some one else. Toadying to this one, toadying to that, toadying to Tamerlane, toadying to the Lord God Almighty. The whole thing is a vomit.”
    â€œI wouldn’t say that.”
    â€œNo? You think you can put it right with your socialism! Or by living in the country! Socialism—what’s that but something to get a kick out of? When some one stands up in a blind alley and spouts like a diarrhetic fountain, why do you think he’s doing it? For love of his fellow man? Listen to him. The pure fire-eater. The fighter with his mouth. The hater. Have you ever heard Christ’s humility there? He wants to kill half humanity for a kick-off, the half that doesn’t agree with him. Love of his fellow man? Jesus! The only man he loves is himself. And when he hears his own voice, he is the most thrilled person in the bunch. You can see it warm him. The warmth the actor gets, the exhibitionist. And then—the sense of power. Power over his fellow men. Not love of them. Power over them, until his bowels move with his own importance—or such tripes as he may have for bowels.”
    Will gave a soft laugh. “There may be instances, but——”
    â€œI’m not speaking instances. I’m generalizing from experience and an elementary knowledge of normal psychology. Have you ever stood up at a street corner and spoken? No. Why? As a blessed socialist your love of humanity is no less, I assume, than the fellow who does. You don’t do it because it doesn’t take you that way. You would get no kick out of it. Which is my point. You belong to the crowd who have in them the instinct of escape. So you escape—to a farm in the country.”
    â€œAnd you?”
    â€œI take my stand in the only reality I know—the mud. And be damned! The rest is all sickening egotism and fake.”
    Will looked with a start at his watch. “Heavens!” he said, getting up. “I’ll have to do the escape trick pretty smartly.”
    â€œHey, you’re not going?”
    â€œSorry, Mac, I must. I warned you.”
    Mac’s brows lowered darkly. “What the hell are you going for? Isn’t there the whole night?”
    â€œNot to-night. And I’ve got to run. So long!”
    â€œHere!”
    But Will was out the door. He had already missed his bus by ten minutes, he knew, but if he had admitted that to Mac, he would have found it difficult to break away an hour later. Mac was obviously prepared to make a night of it. He was still decidedly under the alcoholic weather, or he would not have spoken at such length. Mac wanted to have him, to take him, step by step, down into the pit of the night.…
    How furious he would now be, how darkly he would curse and hate him!
    Will felt himself drift along the street like a tall leaf. When virtue was taken out of him in this way, his body became light and evasive as his mind. People and objects, the street itself, also became slightly detached from normal reality.
    When they had mentioned his aunt, the idea had flashed through his mind that he would visit her, and he had actually been leaving the office with that intention when he had met Mac. But Mac had been too strong for him, and now there would be a smell of whisky off his breath. He could not visit her now. Did not want to. He had better