Bradbury Stories by Ray Bradbury Page B

a single man, hands deep in his pockets, felt for his entombed bones, a muzzle of ice for a beard. Farther up, in a doorway, was a bundle of old newspapers that would stir like a pack of mice and wish you the time of evening if you walked by. Below, by the hotel entrance, stood a feverish hothouse rose of a woman with a mysterious bundle.
    â€œOh, the beggars,” said my wife.
    â€œNo, not just ‘oh, the beggars,’” I said, “but oh, the people in the streets, who somehow became beggars.”
    â€œIt looks like a motion picture. All of them waiting down there in the dark for the hero to come out.”
    â€œThe hero,” I said. “That’s me, damn it.”
    My wife peered at me. “You’re not afraid of them?”
    â€œYes, no. Hell. It’s that woman with the bundle who’s worst. She’s a force of nature, she is. Assaults you with her poverty. As for the others—well, it’s a big chess game for me now. We’ve been in Dublin what, eight weeks? Eight weeks I’ve sat up here with my typewriter, studying their off hours and on. When they take a coffee break I take one, run for the sweet-shop, the bookstore, the Olympia Theatre. If I time it right, there’s no handout, no my wanting to trot them into the barbershop or the kitchen. I know every secret exit in the hotel.”
    â€œLord,” said my wife, “you sound driven.”
    â€œI am. But most of all by that beggar on O’Connell Bridge!”
    â€œWhich one?”
    â€œWhich one indeed. He’s a wonder, a terror. I hate him, I love him. To see is to disbelieve him. Come on.”
    The elevator, which had haunted its untidy shaft for a hundred years, came wafting skyward, dragging its ungodly chains and dread intestines after. The door exhaled open. The lift groaned as if we had trod its stomach. In a great protestation of ennui, the ghost sank back toward earth, us in it.
    On the way my wife said, “If you held your face right, the beggars wouldn’t bother you.”
    â€œMy face,” I explained patiently, “is my face. It’s from Apple Dumpling, Wisconsin, Sarsaparilla, Maine. ‘Kind to Dogs’ is writ on my brow for all to read. Let the street be empty, then let me step out and there’s a strikers’ march of freeloaders leaping out of manholes for miles around.”
    â€œIf,” my wife went on, “you could just learn to look over, around or through those people, stare them down .” She mused. “Shall I show you how to handle them?”
    â€œAll right, show me! We’re here!”
    I flung the elevator door wide and we advanced through the Royal Hibernian Hotel lobby to squint out at the sooty night.
    â€œJesus come and get me,” I murmured. “There they are, their heads up, their eyes on fire. They smell apple pie already.”
    â€œMeet me down by the bookstore in two minutes,” said my wife. “Watch.”
    â€œWait!” I cried.
    But she was out the door, down the steps and on the sidewalk.
    I watched, nose pressed to the glass pane.
    The beggars on one corner, the other, across from, in front of, the hotel, leaned toward my wife. Their eyes glowed.
    My wife looked calmly at them all for a long moment.
    The beggars hesitated, creaking, I was sure, in their shoes. Then their bones settled. Their mouths collapsed. Their eyes snuffed out. Their heads sank down.
    The wind blew.
    With a tat-tat like a small drum, my wife’s shoes went briskly away, fading.
    From below, in the Buttery, I heard music and laughter. I’ll run down, I thought, and slug in a quick one. Then, bravery resurgent . . .
    Hell, I thought, and swung the door wide.
    The effect was much as if someone had struck a great Mongolian bronze gong once.
    I thought I heard a tremendous insuck of breath.
    Then I heard shoe leather flinting the cobbles in sparks. The men came running, fireflies sprinkling the bricks