332
PARTISAN REVIEW
"It's going to be rough on old Sonny," he said. We reached the
subway station. "This is your station?" he asked. I nodded. I took
one step down. "Damn!" he said, suddenly. I looked up at him. He
grinned again. "Damn
if
I didn't leave all my money home. You
ain't got a dollar on you, have you? Just for a couple of days,
is
all."
All at once something inside gave and threatened to come pour–
ing out of me. I didn't hate
him
any more. I felt that in another
moment I'd start crying like a child.
"Sure," I said. "Don't sweat." I looked in my wallet and
didn't have a dollar, I only had a five. "Here," I said. "That hold
you?"
He didn't look at it-he didn't want to look at it. A terrible,
closed look came over his face, as though he were keeping the
number on the bill a secret from him and me. "Thanks," he said,
and now he was dying to see me go. "Don't worry about Sonny. May–
be I'll write
him
or something."
"Sure," I said. "You do that. So long."
"Be seeing you," he said. I went on down the steps.
And I didn't write Sonny or send him anything for a long time.
When I finally did, it was just after my little girl died, he wrote me
back a letter which made me feel like a bastard.
Here's what he said:
Dear brother,
You don't know how much I needed to hear from you. I wanted
to write you many a time but I dug how much I must have hurt you
and so I didn't write. But now I feel like a man who's been trying to
climb up out of some deep, real deep and funky hole and just saw the
sun up there, outside. I got to get outside.
I can't tell you much about how I got here. I mean I don't know
how to tell you. I guess I was afraid of something or I was trying to
escape from something and you know I have never been very strong
in the head (smile). I'm glad Mama and Daddy are dead and can't
see what's happened to their son and I swear if I'd known what I was
doing I would never have hurt you so, you and a lot of other fine people
who were nice to me and who believed in me.
I don't want you to think it had anything to do with me being
a musician. It's more than that. Or maybe less than that. I can't get
anything straight
in
my head down here and I try not to think about
