SEVEN

The way it went, Avery finally came out to the cove where I was with Sebastiano. He didn’t come right up to us but stopped quite a ways off and sat down on top of a dune with his knees pulled up and his arms around them, and he watched us. I told Sebastiano who he was, and Sebastiano said, “He looks like a sad one. He looks like someone who lives with the Devil. He will cook his brains out sitting in the sun without a hat on. I don’t think he is used to it.”

“Oh, he’s used to it,” I said. “Anyhow, he always looks sad.”

So we tried not to pay attention, but it wasn’t easy with Avery sitting and staring at us like an old sea gull on a log. After a while Sebastiano said, “He wants to be alone with you.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. Watch. As soon as I go away he will come down here to be with you. Would you be afraid if I left you alone with him?”

“Why should I be?”

“Because of the way he looks at you. But don’t worry. I’ll be in my house if you need me,” as if he could stand up against Avery for a minute, little dried-up thing that he was.

He went off to his shack, waving his hand at me and saying, “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” and as soon as he was inside, Avery came walking up. I sat there looking at my magazine, making believe not to notice him.

“What were you and that man talking about?” he said.

“I don’t know. A lot of things.”

“He was talking about me,” Avery said. “He gave you a warning against me. He said I was accursed.”

“He did not. And you leave him out of this. He happens to be a very good friend of mine.”

“But I am accursed,” Avery said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “It is the flesh, the flesh, and there is no escape from it. I must live with it all my days.”

“That’s mighty lucky for you,” I told him. “You’d look awful funny going around like an old fish skeleton.”

He never knew when you were joking. “The skeleton and the flesh are the same,” he said. “Only the spirit is different. What are you reading? It looks like a sinful book full of naked men and women.”

“It is not. It’s a movie magazine and nobody’s naked in it. They don’t let you show naked people in movie magazines.”

“It’s sinful,” he said. “Don’t you know what’s sinful?” and before I could stop him he put his dirty work shoe on it and ground it into the sand. It was an old one with a lot of pictures of Jimmy in it and getting all crumbly around the edges, and he was ruining it. I put my hand on his leg to push him off and you’d think a jellyfish had stung him, the way he moved back.

I said, “You quit that with my magazine. And you better stop carrying on so much, Avery. What makes you like that anyhow?”

“I am what I am. The war between the spirit and the flesh is endless. See, the war is all around us,” he said and swung his arm back and forth as if there was really something there besides the sand and water and reef and Sebastiano’s shack, only there wasn’t. “See how Satan and the Lord of Hosts battle! The flesh and the spirit war until Judgment Day, and I am a soldier in that war.”

I was getting used to that kind of talk. “Well, don’t go soldiering up and down over me,” I told him. “If you can’t be nice, go away and bother somebody else.”

“I’m going away,” he said. “At the end of the week the barge will be fixed, and I’m going away to New York. I want us to get married, so you can come with me.”

It wasn’t only that it was so sudden, it was the way he said it. Not like asking somebody to get married, but hating her.

“Married?” I said. “You and me get married?”

“There’s room on the barge for two. And I make enough money to keep a wife.”

“You and me married?” I said, still trying to get this straight in my head. “But you’re an old man, Avery. You’re older than Cole is.”

“What has Cole to do with it? I talked to him and he said he would not stand in my way.”

“You mean Cole said it was all right for me to marry you?”

“He said he would not stand in my way.”

“And Lettie?”

“Lettie is a woman. She is a wife. My father had such a wife, too, and she devoured him because he prayed for the Lord’s guidance instead of hers. That is how women are. They will devour a man if they can, but he must not let them. He must look to the Lord.”

“Maybe so, but you better not let Lettie hear that kind of talk.”

“She has heard it. I told it to her and she listened.”

“You mean that Lettie and Cole both said we could get married?”

“Yes. But it must be done quick, because the barge is leaving at the end of the week, and I must go to New York.”

I believed him about Cole and Lettie. No matter what else was wrong with him he was dead against lying, so I had to believe him. And I could tell it left everything right up to me. I said as nice as I could, “Well, it’s good of you to ask, Avery, but I don’t see it. Whoever I figured on getting married to, it sure enough wasn’t a poor old man.”

Avery looked at me for a long time without saying a word. Then he said in a whisper so I could hardly hear him, “I have money.”

“Maybe so, but not enough for me.”

“I have money,” he said, as if it killed him to think about it. “I have money.”

“Now look,” I said, and I pointed to the magazine where it was open to a picture. It was one of my favorite pictures of Jimmy because he was wearing that tuxedo he hardly ever wore, and he looked wonderful in it. Only thing that spoiled it was the girl with him. She was a real nothing, but she was wearing this beautiful, mink coat and she was smiling at him over the collar. “You see that,” I said and I put my finger right on the coat so he’d understand. “Any man I marry old enough to be my pa has got to buy me a coat like that. Not a young good-looking man, because I’ll take him the way he comes. But an old man’s got to buy me a real mink coat like that. You think you have money enough for it?”

“I have money,” he said, still tormenting himself about it. Then he cried out, “Money to feed the flesh!” and this time he was the one that backed away. And suddenly turned and ran off like a wild man, staggering up over the dunes and down the other side like somebody all liquored up and not knowing what he was doing.