The Lime Pit Read Free Page A

is my time we're on now. And I
already used up two and one-half dollars of it lollygagging."
    He shoved me through the door into a dark, musty
antechamber. On the right a stairwell coiled up to the second
floor; on the left a narrow hallway meandered toward the rear of the
house. Cratz walked down the hallway to the first door on the right
and fumbled in his pants pocket for a key.
    "I always keep it locked," he said. "Two
years ago we had some niggers move in on the second floor. 'Bout then
apartments started getting broke into." Cratz cackled dryly.
"I'd like to see 'em break in here. Yes, I would. After you,"
he said, pushing the door open.
    The door frame was low and I had to stoop to make it
through.
    "You're pretty good size, ain't you?" Cratz
said with a touch of expertise. "What d'you go? 'Bout six-three?
'Bout two-twenty?"
    "Two-fifteen," I said, surveying the dim
little room. Cratz's apartment looked to be no bigger than a small
storeroom and it was stuffed like a storeroom with sprung and faded
furnishings.
    "You ever play ball?" Cratz asked me.
    "Some. In college."
    "What? End, maybe?"
    "You got it."
    Cratz chuckled. "Don't mind the mess. Just sit
yourself down."
    There was a television whispering on my left on a
flecked metal trolley and a big scarred darkwood table in the shallow
bay. A chair covered with a torn and dusty yellow throw sat next to
the table, and a sprung, pea-green convertible couch next to the
chair. The bed was pulled open; and the sheets were rumpled and
dirty. Behind the couch was a stone mantle crowded with photos of a
young man in uniform. Beyond the couch the narrow room emptied
abruptly into an alcove the size of a small walk-in closet. In it
were a long trough-shaped sink and a tiny Kelvinator refrigerator
that made a mournful, ubiquitous hum. The apartment was so narrow
that the front of the convertible bed actually touched the credenza
stacked against the far wall. The walls themselves were papered in a
faded, water-stained stripe that was peeling off near the ceiling.
The whole place stank of grease, old clothing, and unwashed flesh.
    "It ain't much, is it?" Cratz confessed as
he sank down on the open bed. "I just said that stuff about it
being a nice place to comfort that old woman George." He looked
about the room with a mournful, watery eye. "No, it ain't much
to show after seventy-some years."
    "About George," I said, sitting gingerly on
the dusty edge of the yellow chair. "He didn't say a word about
Cindy Ann."
    "Then how'd you know?"
    "I guessed. It wasn't too hard to guess from the
way you were acting."
    Cratz stared out the big window at the bright expanse
of lawn. "It's dark in here, ain't it?" he said softly. "I
gotta replace that overhead bulb. 'Course it's hard for me to get up
on a ladder since I had the stroke. It done something to my sense of
balance. Man, I used to be as light-footed as a cat."
    Hugo toed the faded rug and looked over at me. "I
know it's shameful. To be so old and so damn helpless. I know it. I
know that's what you're thinking, too. You get to a certain age and
people, younger folks, figure you're through with life. You ain't
even supposed to have an appetite any more just pick at your food and
smile. 'Bout now it's all supposed to wind down. And you're supposed
to get yourself all prepared for the big one. Like starving yourself
a little at a time out of all the pleasures of life was the way of
easing into it. Don't you believe it! I ain't prepared to die. I wake
up in a cold sweat every night thinking of it. Stuff the damn sheet
in my mouth to keep from crying out." Cratz pressed a hand over
the crumpled sheets. "But, then, she'd be there," he said,
patting the mattress. "And I'd feel better."
    "You know where Mt. Storm Park is?" I
nodded.
    "It ain't so far from here. And up to the time
of my stroke I could walk it easy. Just cut down Mount Olive and over
to the Park Road. Me and George used to go over there every damn
afternoon. Just to be doing