Miss Lonelyhearts & the Day of the Locust Read Free Page A

searched the sky for a target. But the gray sky looked as if it had been rubbed with a soiled eraser. It held no angels, flaming crosses, olive-bearing doves, wheels within wheels. Only a newspaper struggled in the air like a kite with a broken spine. He got up and started again for the speakeasy.
    Delehanty’s was in the cellar of a brownstone house that differed from its more respectable neighbors by having an armored door. He pressed a concealed button and a little round window opened in its center. A blood-shot eye appeared, glowing like a ruby in an antique iron ring.
    The bar was only half full. Miss Lonelyhearts looked around apprehensively for Shrike and was relieved at not finding him. However, after a third drink, just as he was settling into the warm mud of alcoholic gloom, Shrike caught his arm.
    “Ah, my young friend!” he shouted. “How do I find you? Brooding again, I take it.”
    “For Christ’s sake, shut up.”
    Shrike ignored the interruption. “You’re morbid, my friend, morbid. Forget the crucifixion, remember the Renaissance. There were no brooders then.” He raised his glass, and the whole Borgia family was in his gesture. “I give you the Renaissance. What a period! What pageantry! Drunken popes… Beautiful courtesans… Illegitimate children….”
    Although his gestures were elaborate, his face was blank. He practiced a trick used much by moving-picture comedians—the dead pan. No matter how fantastic or excited his speech, he never changed his expression. Under the shining white globe of his brow, his features huddled together in a dead, gray triangle.
    “To the Renaissance!” he kept shouting. “To the Renaissance! To the brown Greek manuscripts and mistresses with the great smooth marbly limbs…. But that reminds me, I’m expecting one of my admirers—a cow-eyed girl of great intelligence.” He illustrated the word intelligence by carving two enormous breasts in the air with his hands. “She works in a book store, but wait until you see her behind.”
    Miss Lonelyhearts made the mistake of showing his annoyance.
    “Oh, so you don’t care for women, eh? J. C. is your only sweetheart, eh? Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, the Miss Lonelyhearts of Miss Lonelyhearts….”
    At this moment, fortunately for Miss Lonelyhearts, the young woman expected by Shrike came up to the bar. She had long legs, thick ankles, big hands, a powerful body, a slender neck and a childish face made tiny by a man’s haircut.
    “Miss Farkis,” Shrike said, making her bow as a ventriloquist does his doll, “Miss Farkis, I want you to meet Miss Lonelyhearts. Show him the same respect you show me. He, too, is a comforter of the poor in spirit and a lover of God.”
    She acknowledged the introduction with a masculine handshake.
    “Miss Farkis,” Shrike said, “Miss Farkis works in a book store and writes on the side.” He patted her rump.
    “What were you talking about so excitedly?” she asked.
    “Religion.”
    “Get me a drink and please continue. I’m very much interested in the new thomistic synthesis.”
    This was just the kind of remark for which Shrike was waiting. “St. Thomas!” he shouted. “What do you take us for—stinking intellectuals? We’re not fake Europeans. We were discussing Christ, the Miss Lonelyhearts of Miss Lonelyhearts. America has her own religions. If you need a synthesis, here is the kind of material to use.” He took a clipping from his wallet and slapped it on the bar.
    “ ADDING MACHINE USED IN RITUAL OF WESTERN SECT … Figures Will Be Used for Prayers for Condemned Slayer of Aged Recluse …. DENVER, COLO. , Feb. 2 (A. P.) Frank H. Rice, Supreme Pontiff of the Liberal Church of America has announced he will carry out his plan for a ‘goat and adding machine’ ritual for William Moya, condemned slayer, despite objection to his program by a Cardinal of the sect. Rice declared the goat would be used as part of a ‘sack cloth and ashes’ service shortly