He pushed cans and bottles around in aimless fashion and then simply stared into the cupboard for awhile, as if expecting the box of soup packets to magically appear in the space he had made. When they didn’t, he repeated the process, only this time moving things back to their original positions before staring in again with the look of distant perplexity which was becoming (Ralph, mercifully, did not know this) his dominant expression.
When the teakettle shrieked, he put it on one of the rear burners and went back to staring into the cupboard. It dawned on him very, very slowly-that he must have drunk his last packet of CupA-Soup yesterday or the day before, although he could not for the life of him remember doing so.
“That’s a surprise?” he asked the boxes and bottles in the open cupboard. “I’m so tired I can’t remember my own name.”
Yes, I can, he thought. It’s Leon Redbone. So there It wasn’t much of a joke, but he felt a small smile-it felt as light as a feather-touch his lips. He stepped into the bathroom, combed his hair, and then went downstairs. Here’s Audie Murphy, heading out into enemy territory in search of supplies, he thought. Primary target: one box of Lipton Chicken and Rice Cup-A-Soup packets. If locating and securing this target should prove impossible, I’ll divert to my secondary: Noodles in Beef I know this is a risky mission, but-“but I work best alone,” he finished as he came out on the porch.
Old Mrs. Perrine happened to be passing, and she favored Ralph with a sharp look but said nothing. He waited for her to get a little way up the sidewalk-he did not feel capable of conversation with anyone this afternoon, least of all Mrs. Perrine, who at eighty-two could still have found stimulating and useful work among the Marines at Parris Island. He pretended to he examining the spider-plant which hung from the hook under the porch eave until she had reached what he deemed a safe distance, then crossed Harris Avenue to the Red Apple.
Which was where the day’s real troubles began.
He entered the convenience store once again mulling over the spectacular failure of the delayed-sleep experiment and wondering if the advice in the library texts was no more than an uptown version of the folk remedies his acquaintances seemed so eager to press upon him.
It was an unpleasant idea, but he, thought his mind (Or the force below his mind which was actually in charge of this slow torture) had sent him a message which was even more unpleasant: You have a sleep-window, Ralph. It’s not as big as it once was, and it seems to be getting smaller with every passing week, but you better be grateful for what you’ve get, because a small window is better than no windou) at all.
You see that now, don’t you?
“Yes,” Ralph mumbled as he walked down the center aisle to the bright red Cup-A-Soup boxes, “I see that very well.”
Sue, the afternoon counter-girl, laughed cheerfully. “You must have money in the bank, Ralph,” she said.
“Beg pardon?” Ralph didn’t turn; he was inventorying the red boxes. Here was onion… split pea… the beef-and-noodles combo… but where the hell was the Chicken and Rice?
“My mom always said people who talk to themselves have Oh my God.” For a moment Ralph thought she had simply made a statement a little too complex for his tired mind to immediately grasp, something about how people who talked to themselves had found God, and then she screamed. He had hunkered down to check the boxes on the bottom shelf, and the scream shot him to his feet so hard and fast that his knees popped. He wheeled toward the front of the store, bumping the top shelf of the soup display with his elbow and knocking half a dozen red boxes into the aisle.
“Sue? What’s wrong?”
Sue paid no attention. She was looking out through the door with her fisted hands pressed against her lips and her brown eyes huge above them. “God, look at the blood!” she cried in a choked voice.
Ralph turned farther, knocking a few more Lipton boxes into the aisle, and looked through the Red Apple’s dirty show window. What he saw drew a gasp from him, and it took him a space of seconds-five, maybe-to realize that the bloody, beaten woman staggering toward the Red Apple was Helen Deepneau. Ralph had always thought Helen the prettiest woman on the west side of town, but there was nothing pretty about her today. One of her eyes was puffed shut; there was a gash at her left temple that was soon going to he lost in the gaudy swelling of a fresh bruise; her puffy lips and her cheeks were covered with blood.
The blood had come from her nose, which was still leaking. She wove through the Red Apple’s little parking lot toward the door like a drunk, her one good eye seeming to see nothing; it simply stared.
More frightening than the way she looked was the way she was handling Natalie. She had the squalling, frightened baby slung casually on one hip, carrying her as she might have carried her books to high school ten or twelve years before.
“Oh Jesus she’s gonna drop the kid!” Sue screamed, but although she was ten steps closer to the door than he was, she made no move-simply stood where she was with her hands pressed to her mouth and her eyes gobbling up her face.
Ralph didn’t feel tired anymore. He sprinted up the aisle, tore open the door, and ran outside. He was just in time to catch Helen by the shoulders as she banged a hip against the ice cabinet-mercifully not the hip with Natalie on it-and went veering off in a new direction.
“Helen!” he yelled. “Jesus, Helen, what happened?”
“Huh?” she asked, her voice duly curious, totally unlike the voice of the lively young woman who sometimes accompanied him to the movies and moaned over Mel Gibson. Her good eye rolled toward him and he saw that same dull curiosity in it, a look that said she didn’t know who she was, let alone where she was, Or what had happened, or when.
“Huh? Ralph? Who?”
The baby slipped. Ralph let go of Helen, grabbed for Natalie, and managed to snag one of her jumper straps. Nat screamed, waved her hands, and stared at him with huge dark-blue eyes. got his other hand between Nat’s legs an instant before the strap he was holding tore free. For a moment the howling baby balanced on his hand like a gymnast on a balance beam, and Ralph could feel the damp bulge of her diapers through the overall she was wearing. Then he slipped his other hand around her back and hoisted her up against his chest.
His heart was pounding hard, and even with the baby safe in his arms he kept seeing her slip away, kept seeing her head with its cap of fine hair slamming against the butt-littered pavement with a sickening crack.
“Hum? Ar? Ral?” Helen asked. She saw Natalie in Ralph’s arnls, and some of the dullness went out (of her good eye. She raised her hands toward the child, and in Ralph’s arms, Natalie mimicked the gesture with her own chubby hands. Then Helen staggered, struck the side of the building, and reeled backward a step. One foot tangled in the other (Ralph saw splatters of blood on her small white sneakers, and it was amazing how bright everything was all of a sudden; the color had come back into the world, at least temporarily), and she would have fallen if Sue hadn’t picked that moment to finally venture out.
Instead of going down, Helen landed against the opening door and just leaned there, like a drunk against a lamppost.
“Ral?” The expression in her eyes was a little sharper now, and Ralph saw it wasn’t so much curiosity as incredulity. She drew in a deep breath and made an effort to force intelligible words past her swelled lips. “Gih. Gih me my bay-ee. Bay-be. Gih me… Natalie.”
“Not just yet, Helen,” Ralph said. “You’re not too steady on your feet right now.”
Sue was still on the other side of the door, holding it so Helen wouldn’t fall. The girl’s cheeks and forehead were ashy-pale, her eyes filled with tears.