The Man Who Cried I Am Read Online Free

sick.” She smiled her thanks at the waiter who placed the drinks before them.
    â€œNo. Just tired. Took the train from Paris.”
    â€œParis? Harry died, didn’t he? It was in De Arbeiderspers and Het Parool and some other papers. Were you there?”
    Max smiled. The Europeans. The goddamn Europeans with their Black Peters and Black Madonnas and blackface celebrations. Five hundred years of guilt transposed into something like vague concern for anyone with a black skin. But Harry was loved more in Europe—and hated too—but not more than back home. There was some kind of balance here that the New York Times and the Chicago Sun-Times and the “Skibbidum Times” could never have when it came to Harry Ames. He spoke: “I was just a bit too late. We were to have drinks that day—”
    â€œOh, Mox, it must have been awful for you.”
    He felt angry. “Hell, it was all right! Harry was my friend, like a brother. But he had to go. We all have to go. He went quick. Didn’t hurt at all. I’m all right. You know me.”
    Margrit bent her head and studied her Scotch. It was a very expensive alcohol. Genever would have been all right for her, even though in New York she had come to like Scotch. Yes, she knew. Harry’s death had hurt Max. There was a time when he never admitted anything, but then, she thought, there was another time when he did. She stole a look at him. Yes, he was still handsome. He was graying evenly through his hair and moustache, but the lines in his square face had deepened, as if cut by a tired sculptor creating a hardness to offset the wide, soft eyes. But the eyes (how that soft look had deceived her!) were red, the almost amber-colored pupils diffused as though in the process of melting. He isn’t well! she thought with a shock. “How long are you here?”
    Max drank from the unfinished Pernod and then sipped from the other. “Not long. I wanted to tell you something, Margrit. Margrit, baby, I have news for you!”
    His voice had risen and gone spinning loudly into space. She looked at him with cautious eyes. She knew the waiter and bartender and the customers who were coming in now were used to Neger uitbundigheid , Negro exuberance; they smiled at it. It was the image they had.
    â€œWhat is your news, Mox?” Margrit was suddenly irritated. She and Max had spent so much time talking about images. “Is it good news? You have come all this way to tell me?” She smiled thinly. “Are you to be married?”
    He rose and touched her shoulder. Automatically she lent support to his unsteady fingers. “Will you wait until I return? I have to pee.” He giggled. She smiled. But as soon as he had left her, she turned to watch him. Something was the matter.
    Max wavered to the men’s room again. A vicious cycle. If he didn’t drink, he wouldn’t have to urinate. To urinate was to suffer the most intense pain. But, if he didn’t drink he would have to take either the pills or the morphine tucked into the pouch of the jock strap he was wearing. He had thrown the cup away. The morphine got the pain right by the balls he thought, with a weak chuckle, but it didn’t let him operate the way he had to during the day. But then the pain was growing every day. It gripped him at the most inopportune moments and left him breathless, weak, and with his eyes watering. Jesus Christ! he moaned, leaning against a wall which for a few seconds seemed to have vanished altogether. Did Herod ever have it so bad? He pushed himself away from the wall and went into one of the stalls. Clean. At least the Dutch wouldn’t give him as many germs as the French. He took out the cotton and looked at it. It was soaked through with dark red blood. Almost came through that time, he thought, and pulled a roll of fresh cotton from his pocket and tore off a piece. This he pushed gently into place. While sitting, he pulled at the