454
PARTISAN REVIEW
soon. Soon. Maybe a day; another night. I would find a way to wait it
out.
In the first shadows again, working from one crane to the other, I
made it to the end of the dock, and just stood, paying attention, all the
attention I had, to what was there, to what was only a step or two
away, or might have been, in a few more. Where the docks and the
warehouses gave out there were more docks, more warehouses. But I
was interested in the field between, and what happened when it came
together with the water.
There was no ladder down. I couldn't tell exactly, but I judged it
was not far to the ground, though. I hung by my hands off the edge of
the concrete, and dropped.
I hit almost right away. The field, whatever kind of ground it was,
was slanted toward the water, and I didn't count on that, and hit
wrong and fell. I rolled and had my knife out and ready to come up,
but there was nobody around. Since it was out, I took the satisfaction
of watching the blade flash off the moon. I looked around and did it
again, and the satisfaction was as much as anybody could have wanted.
I could see a lot better, too, and I won't say that it wasn't because
of the knife flash. Steel that good, and that big silver light full of thread;
well you can't tell what it might do. Like I tell you, I believe in things
like that. It don't matter why.
The field was set against the water by a kind of wall, cement, a
breakwater I think somebody called it. I inched along the top of it on
my belly, like a lizard, running my hand, trying to feel if there might be
some kind of hole in it, some place I might be able to wedge into. It
took a long time to do it, and I really hadn't come all that ways from
the docks when I felt into something; something not concrete, but hard
and wet. I smelt of my fingers, and knew exactly where they'd been. Us–
ing one of my matches, letting it burn nearly all the way down
to
my
fingers, I got a good notion of what was there: a sewer pipe that fell off
into the ocean, big enough to hold a man; not running too much, but
some. I let myself down, and put my feet in.
The smell put my eyes out; I mean, it hit my eyeballs like the worst
light, and one that would never quit. My eyes, you know, and that was
not meant to be. But it was a hole, and I could go on into it, if I
wanted to. I took out another match, and lit it, though I knew that
sewers could blow up. That would be something else, 1 said to myself, to
get out of a
B-29
on fire and blow yourself up with shit-gas. But
nothing blew, and I went on up, amongst the squishing shit and other
stuff, to where there was a turn, where I was damn sure nobody would
come. To do it they'd have to come the same way I had, and I couldn't
think of anybody who'd do that, not even the Japs, no matter what.
