” ‘Was there anything unusual?’ I asked, not quite daring to examine the import of my own question. ‘Anything out of the ordinary?’
” ‘I seem to recall somethin’… Let me see…’
“I produced a dollar to aid his memory, but this time it did not produce laughter, although it disappeared with the same speed.
” ‘Yes, there was something passin odd about it,’ the old man said. ‘I’ve called the city hack for enough of them to know. Bleedin Jesus, ain’t I! I’ve found ’em hangin from the hook on the door, found ’em dead in bed, found ’em out on the fire escape in January with a bottle
between their knees frozen just as blue as the Atlantic. I even found one fella that drowned in the washstand, although that was over thirty years ago. But this fella — sittin bolt upright in his brown suit, just like some swell from uptown, with his hair all combed. Had hold of his right wrist with his left hand, he did. I’ve seen all kinds, but he’s the only one I ever seen that died shakin his own hand.’
“I left and walked all the way to the docks, and the old man’s last words seemed to play over and over again in my brain like a phonograph record that has gotten stuck in one groove.
He’s the only one I ever seen that died shakin his own hand.
“I walked down to the end of one of the piers, out to where the dirty gray water lapped the encrusted pilings. And then I ripped that cashier’s check into a thousand pieces and threw it into the water.”
George Gregson shifted and cleared his throat. The fire had burned down to reluctant
embers, and cold was creeping into the deserted game room. The tables and chairs seemed
spectral and unreal, like furnishings glimpsed in a dream where I past and present merge. The flames rimmed the letters cut into the fireplace keystone with dull orange light: IT is THE
TALE, NOT HE WHO TELLS IT.
“I only saw him once, and once was enough; I’ve never forgotten. But it did serve to bring me out of my own time of mourning, for any man who can walk among his fellows is not wholly alone.
“If you’ll bring me my coat, Stevens, I believe I’ll toddle! along home — I’ve stayed far past my usual bedtime.”
And when Stevens had brought it, George smiled and pointed at a small mole just below
the left corner of Stevens’s mouth. “The resemblance really is remarkable, you know — your grandfather had a mole in that exact same place.”
Stevens smiled but made no reply. George left, and the rest of us slipped out soon after.