cement-mixer had fallen on his instep, breaking the metatarsals, and further complications had caused the amputation of his great toe and the toe next to it. For this reason Kenneth got two hundred and sixty dollars per month: he had been a semi-skilled laborer in construction work, good at pipe-laying, a good foreman in the sense that some men are good army sergeants though they may never rise higher. Kenneth had been lucky in claiming, via his lawyer, a skilled status with promise of immediate advancement when the accident had happened, so his compensation had been generous. But now Kenneth could never again (he thought with a kind of pride, self-pity and curious glory) jump about spryly on scaffoldings as he had once done, and for this he had been rightly recompensed.
His face and head were round, his cheeks inclined to be ruddy, his nose bulbous and crude. Either his expression was jolly, or it was tense and suspicious, full of menace, and there was little between. When he relaxed as in sleep, even, his face was vaguely smiling. And his expression could vary in a trice—smiling, for instance, as he mused over a letter he was composing, scowling and hostile if there came a knock on his door for any reason, or even if he heard a footfall beyond his door. Kenneth lived in a semi-basement, corner apartment that consisted of one huge room and an absurdly small bathroom behind a door in one corner. There was a basin with a mirror above it, but there was no tub, and Kenneth washed himself, at least twice a week, standing nude on newspapers in front of the basin. The room, because never any sunlight came in, required electric light at all times, but Kenneth didn’t mind that. The windows were half-windows that started four feet up the wall and opened (but Kenneth never opened them) on West End Avenue. He could often see people’s legs, up to the hips, walking by, and occasionally a heel made a clink or a scrape on a metal grille in the sidewalk there. An ironing-board always stood ready in a front corner of the room, with a shabby standing lamp beside it. Newspapers, folded and open, half-read lay singly or in little stacks here and there on the floor, in corners, beside the limp bed which Kenneth sometimes made and more often didn’t. The kitchen consisted of a smallish stove with two burners and an oven against the wall and to the left of where Kenneth now sat at his table. Similarly, his closet was not enclosed, but was a rod suspended on two wires from a shelf against the wall. Kenneth had few clothes, however, three pairs of trousers, two jackets, an overcoat and a raincoat, and four pairs of shoes—one pair so old he knew he would never put them on again. He had a transistor, but it had become broken months ago, and he had never bothered getting it repaired. Just outside his door was a corridor that led to some steps that went straight up to the street door, and also there were steps to the right leading to the level of his landlady’s ground-floor apartment. The garbage bins and ashcans were left in Kenneth’s corridor, which was why he sometimes heard the footsteps of his landlady’s giant idiot of a son, who wrestled them forward and up the front steps. Kenneth suspected that the oafish son came into the corridor to spy on him through his keyhole, so for this reason Kenneth used a flap of tin (he’d found just the thing in a gutter) eight inches long and two inches wide. The top of this flap was nailed into the door above the lock, and the bottom part he kept slid behind the bolt that closed his door below the keyhole. This way, even if the son (whose name was Orrin) pushed the flap with something through the keyhole, the flap could not move sideways and permit a view of the room—because it was nailed with two nails at the top and therefore did not swivel. Also, from the inside, by pulling the flexible tin out of the bolt, Kenneth could lock his door from the inside, once he had come in.
Kenneth was the
His face and head were round, his cheeks inclined to be ruddy, his nose bulbous and crude. Either his expression was jolly, or it was tense and suspicious, full of menace, and there was little between. When he relaxed as in sleep, even, his face was vaguely smiling. And his expression could vary in a trice—smiling, for instance, as he mused over a letter he was composing, scowling and hostile if there came a knock on his door for any reason, or even if he heard a footfall beyond his door. Kenneth lived in a semi-basement, corner apartment that consisted of one huge room and an absurdly small bathroom behind a door in one corner. There was a basin with a mirror above it, but there was no tub, and Kenneth washed himself, at least twice a week, standing nude on newspapers in front of the basin. The room, because never any sunlight came in, required electric light at all times, but Kenneth didn’t mind that. The windows were half-windows that started four feet up the wall and opened (but Kenneth never opened them) on West End Avenue. He could often see people’s legs, up to the hips, walking by, and occasionally a heel made a clink or a scrape on a metal grille in the sidewalk there. An ironing-board always stood ready in a front corner of the room, with a shabby standing lamp beside it. Newspapers, folded and open, half-read lay singly or in little stacks here and there on the floor, in corners, beside the limp bed which Kenneth sometimes made and more often didn’t. The kitchen consisted of a smallish stove with two burners and an oven against the wall and to the left of where Kenneth now sat at his table. Similarly, his closet was not enclosed, but was a rod suspended on two wires from a shelf against the wall. Kenneth had few clothes, however, three pairs of trousers, two jackets, an overcoat and a raincoat, and four pairs of shoes—one pair so old he knew he would never put them on again. He had a transistor, but it had become broken months ago, and he had never bothered getting it repaired. Just outside his door was a corridor that led to some steps that went straight up to the street door, and also there were steps to the right leading to the level of his landlady’s ground-floor apartment. The garbage bins and ashcans were left in Kenneth’s corridor, which was why he sometimes heard the footsteps of his landlady’s giant idiot of a son, who wrestled them forward and up the front steps. Kenneth suspected that the oafish son came into the corridor to spy on him through his keyhole, so for this reason Kenneth used a flap of tin (he’d found just the thing in a gutter) eight inches long and two inches wide. The top of this flap was nailed into the door above the lock, and the bottom part he kept slid behind the bolt that closed his door below the keyhole. This way, even if the son (whose name was Orrin) pushed the flap with something through the keyhole, the flap could not move sideways and permit a view of the room—because it was nailed with two nails at the top and therefore did not swivel. Also, from the inside, by pulling the flexible tin out of the bolt, Kenneth could lock his door from the inside, once he had come in.
Kenneth was the
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