The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Read Online Free Page A

past three or four nights. He won’t leave me alone. If you ever noticed, he never seems to say anything.’
    It was seldom that Biff ever discussed one customer with another. ‘No, he don’t,’ he answered noncommittally.
    ‘It’s funny.’
    Mick shifted her weight from one foot to the other and fitted the package of cigarettes into the pocket of her shorts. ‘It’s not funny if you know anything about him,’ she said. ‘Mister Singer lives with us. He rooms in our house.’
    ‘Is that so?’ Biff asked. ‘I declare--I didn’t know that’
    Mick walked toward the door and answered him without looking around. ‘Sure. He’s been with us three months now.’
    Biff unrolled his shirt-sleeves and then folded them up carefully again. He did not take his eyes from Mick as she left the restaurant. And even after she had been gone several minutes he still fumbled with his shirt-sleeves and stared at the empty doorway. Then he locked his arms across his chest and turned back to the drunk again.
    Blount leaned heavily on the counter. His brown eyes were wet-looking and wide open with a dazed expression. He needed a bath so badly that he stank like a goat. There were dirt beads on his sweaty neck and an oil stain on his face. His lips were thick and red and his brown hair was matted on his forehead. His overalls were too short in the body and he kept pulling at the crotch of them.
    ‘Man, you ought to know better,’ Biff said finally. ‘You can’t go around like this. Why, I’m surprised you haven’t been picked up for vagrancy. You ought to sober up. You need washing and your hair needs cutting. Motherogod! You’re not fit to walk around amongst people.’
    Blount scowled and bit his lower lip.
    ‘Now, don’t take offense and get your dander up. Do what I tell you. Go back in the kitchen and tell the colored boy to give you a big pan of hot water. Tell Willie to give you a towel and plenty of soap and wash yourself good. Then eat you some milk toast and open up your suitcase and put you on a clean shirt and a pair of britches that fit you. Then tomorrow you can start doing whatever you’re going to do and working wherever you mean to work and get straightened out.’
    ‘You know what you can do,’ Blount said drunkenly. ‘You can just--’
    ‘All right,’ Biff said very quietly. ‘No, I can’t Now you just behave yourself.’
    Biff went to the end of the counter and returned with two glasses of draught beer. The drunk picked up his glass so clumsily that beer slopped down on his hands and messed the counter. Biff sipped his portion with careful relish. He regarded Blount steadily with half-closed eyes. Blount was not a freak, although when you first saw him he gave you that impression. It was like something was deformed about him--but when you looked at him closely each part of him was normal and as it ought to be. Therefore if this difference was not in the body it was probably in the mind. He was like a man who had served a term in prison or had been to Harvard College or had lived for a long time with foreigners in South America. He was like a person who had been somewhere that other people are not likely to go or had done something that others are not apt to do.
    Biff cocked his head to one side and said, ‘Where are you from?’
    ‘Nowhere.’
    ‘Now, you have to be born somewhere. North Carolina --Tennessee--Alabama--some place.’
    Blount’s eyes were dreamy and unfocused. ‘Carolina,’ he said.
    ‘I can tell you’ve been around,’ Biff hinted delicately.
    But the drunk was not listening. He had turned from the counter and was staring out at the dark, empty street. After a moment he walked to the door with loose, uncertain steps.
    ‘Adios,’ he called back.
    Biff was alone again and he gave the restaurant one of his quick, thorough surveys. It was past one in the morning, and there were only four or five customers in the room. The mute still sat by himself at the middle table. Biff