Free Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West

to you after reading your answer to
Disillusioned. I am a cripple 41 yrs of age which I have been all my life and I
have never let myself get blue until lately when I have been feeling lousy all
the time on account of not getting anywhere and asking myself what is it all
for. You have a education so I figured may be you no.
What I want to no is why I go around pulling my leg up and down stairs reading
meters for the gas company for a stinking $22.50 per while the bosses ride
around in swell cars living off the fat of the land. Dont think I am a greasy red. I read where they shoot cripples in Russia because
they cant work but I can work better than any park bum
and support a wife and child to. But thats not what I am writing you about. What I want to no is what is it all for my
pulling my god darned leg along the streets and down in stinking cellars with
it all the time hurting fit to burst so that near quitting time I am crazy with
pain and when I get home all I hear is money money which aint no home for a man like me. What I want to
no is what in hell is the use day after day with a foot like mine when you have
to go around pulling and scrambling for a lousy three squares with a toothache
in it that comes from useing the foot so much. The
doctor told me I ought to rest it for six months but who will pay me when I am
resting it. But that aint what I mean either because
you might tell me to change my fob and where could I get another one I am lucky
to have one at all. It aint the fob that I am
complaining about but what I want to no is what is the whole stinking business
for.
    Please
write me an answer not in the paper because my wife reads your stuff and I dont want her to no I wrote to you because I always said
the papers is crap but I figured maybe you no something about it because you
have read a lot of books and I never even finished high.
    Yours
truly,
    Peter
Doyle
     
    While Miss Lonelyhearts was puzzling out the crabbed writing, Doyle's damp hand accidentally touched his under the table. He jerked away, but then drove his
hand back and forced it to clasp the cripple's. After finishing the letter, he
did not let go, but pressed it firmly with all the love he could manage. At
first the cripple covered his embarrassment by disguising the meaning of the
clasp with a handshake, but he soon gave in to it and they sat silently, hand
in hand.

 
MISS LONELYHEARTS PAYS A VISIT
     
    They left the speakeasy together,
both very drunk and very busy: Doyle with the wrongs he had suffered and Miss Lonelyhearts with the triumphant thing that his humility
had become.
    They took a cab. As they entered the
street in which Doyle lived, he began to curse his wife and his crippled foot.
He called on Christ to blast them both.
    Miss Lonelyhearts was very happy and inside of his head he was also calling on Christ. But his
call was not a curse, it was the shape of his joy.
    When the cab drew up to the curb,
Miss Lonelyhearts helped his companion out and led
him into the house. They made a great deal of noise with the front door and
Mrs. Doyle came into the hall. At the sight of her the cripple started to curse
again.
    She greeted Miss Lonelyhearts ,
then took hold of her husband and shook the breath out of him. When he was
quiet, she dragged him into their apartment. Miss Lonely-hearts followed and as
he passed her in the dark foyer, she goosed him and laughed.
    After washing their hands, they sat
down to eat. Mrs. Doyle had had her supper earlier in the evening and she
waited on them. The first thing she put on the table was a quart bottle of
guinea red.
    When they had reached their coffee,
she sat down next to Miss Lonelyhearts . He could feel
her knee pressing his under the table, but he paid no attention to her and only
broke his beatific smile to drink. The heavy food had dulled him and he was
trying desperately to feel again what he had felt while holding hands with the
cripple in the speakeasy.
    She put her thigh under his, but
when he