Read The Whole Man for Free Online Page B

sympathy, but original with himself. It was a milepost in memory because he had regarded it as impossible, like walking down the street without a limp.
    That was the early morning of a Tuesday. His delirium and hope were fed for a few days by scraps of news and gossip: it was reported that there had been some kind of battle, and the police had cleared up the traces but were mystified by the details. It was as though he drew courage like oxygen from the atmosphere of rumor and tension; he went down Grand Avenue in full daylight, in the middle of the sidewalk instead of skulking to the wall, and could ignore the usual pitying stares because he knew inside himself what he was worth. With what seemed to him great cunning, he had changed his five hundred a long bus ride distant from his home and taken small bills, which would not excite comment; then he had hidden the bulk of them in his room and spent only as much as would get him a new pair of shoes with the unequal heels, a new jacket with the uneven shoulder pads.
    Even so, on Saturday night his glorious new world fell apart in shards.
     
     

 
     
     
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    Early in the evening he had taken five singles from the concealed hoard in his room. He had never thought of spending so much on one spree before; often, after paying room rent, he would have no more than five left to carry him through a week. Then he was driven to his least-preferred resource: washing cutlery at a nearby diner to earn plates of unwanted scraps. Cutlery didn’t break when he dropped it; cups and glasses did, so the owner no longer let him wash those. And the knowledge that this was given to him as a favor hurt badly.
    Tonight, though, he was going the limit. A movie he hadn’t seen; Cokes, candy, ices, all the childish treats he still preferred to anything else. Mostly he was self- conscious about really liking them, but in his present mood he could achieve defiance. The hell with what people might think about a twenty-year-old who craved candy and ices!
    He wished that the new jacket and shoes could have been ready by now, but he had been told they would take at least ten days. So nothing for it but to get a shine for the dulled leather, brush awkwardly at the dirty marks on the cloth.
    And then out: a Saturday night and a good time, something to make him feel halfway normal, an action ordinary people took.
    Down the narrow street where folks knew him, looked at him without the shock of surprise, maybe called a hello—but tonight not, strangely enough. But his mind was preoccupied, and he didn’t spare the energy to wonder why there were no spoken greetings. He had the distinct impression that people were thinking about him, but that was absurd, a byproduct of his elation.
    Yet the impression wouldn’t leave him. Even when he had braved the lights of Grand Avenue and was moving among crowds of strangers, his mind kept presenting it afresh, like a poker dealer demonstrating his ability to deal complete suits one after another.
    At first it was amusing. After a while it began to irritate him. He changed his mind about taking in the early-evening show at the movie theater of his choice—not his regular one, which was still playing the program he had seen, but one he had to get to by bus. The public’s mood was good tonight, and somebody had helped him board the bus, making other people stand back, but even that didn’t improve his state of mind. More, it was an annoying emphasis on his state of body.
    And at last, an hour and a half after setting out, he was so disturbed that he had to abandon his plan. Instead, he turned homeward, furious with himself, thinking it was lack of guts that spoiled his enjoyment, and determined to convince himself it was an illusion which plagued him.
    As he neared the street where he lived, the feeling grew stronger, for all his attempts to deny it. It was as if he was being watched. Once he halted abruptly and swung around, sure somebody’s eyes