Free Morgan's Passing by Anne Tyler

aftershaveand he came back into the bedroom and went to sit on the bed—”
    â€œBut what was it? His heart?”
    â€œWell, I’m
telling
you, Libby …”
    Morgan began to have an uncomfortable thought. He became convinced that his hand, which gripped the seat in plain view of these two women, was so repulsive to them that they were babbling utter nonsense just to keep from thinking about it. He imagined that he could see through their eyes; he saw exactly how his hand appeared to them—its knuckly fingers, wiry black hairs, sawdust ingrained around the nails. He saw his whole person, in fact. What a toad he was! A hat and a beard, on legs. His eyes felt huge and hot and heavy, set in a baroque arrangement of dark pouches. “He reached for his socks,” the first woman said desperately, “and commenced to unroll them. One sock was rolled inside the other, don’t you know …” She was looking away from Morgan; she was avoiding the sight of his hand. He let go of the seat and buried both fists in his armpits. For the rest of the trip he rode unsupported, lurching violently whenever the bus stopped.
    And when they reached home, where the girls were doing their lessons on the dining-room table and Brindle was laying out her Tarot cards in the kitchen, Morgan went straight up the stairs to bed. “I thought you’d like some coffee,” Bonny said. She called after him, “Morgan? Don’t you want a cup of coffee?”
    â€œNo, I guess not tonight,” he said. “Thank you, dear,” and he continued up the stairs. He went to his room, undressed to his thermal underwear, and lit a cigarette from the pack on the bureau. For the first time all day, he was bare-headed. In the mirror his forehead looked lined and vulnerable. He noticed a strand of white in his beard. White hair! “Christ,” he said. Then he bent forward and looked more closely. Maybe, he thought, he could pass himself off as one of those miracles from the Soviet Union—a hundred and ten, hundred and twenty, still scaling mountains with his herdof goats. He brightened. He could cross the country on a lecture tour. At every whistle stop he’d take off his shirt and show his black-pelted chest. Reporters would ask him his secret. “Yogurt und cigarettes, comrades,” he cackled to the mirror. He took a couple of prancing steps, showing off. “Never anodder sing but yogurt und Rossian cigarettes.”
    Feeling more cheerful, he went to the closet for his cardboard file box, which he placed on the bed. He drew intently on his Camel as he padded around, getting arranged: turning on the electric blanket, propping up his pillow, finding an ashtray. He climbed into bed and set the ashtray in his lap. There was a little coughing fit to be seen through first. He scattered ashes down his undershirt. He pinched a speck of tobacco from his tongue. “Ah, comrades,” he wheezed. He opened the file box, took out the first sheet of paper, and settled back to read it.
    1.
Familiarize yourself with all steps before beginning
.
    2.
Have on hand the following: pliers, Phillips screwdriver …
    He lowered the sheet of paper and gazed at the black windowpanes. Miles away from here, he imagined, the windows on Crosswell Street were blinking out, first the left one, then the right one. The baby would stir in her sleep. Leon’s hand would drop from the light switch and he would cross the cold floor to their pallet. Then all daytime sounds would stop; there would only be the sifting breaths of sleepers, motionless and dreamless on their threadbare sheets.
    Morgan turned his light off too, and settled down for the night.

1969

1
    W hat was it that he wanted of them? He was everywhere, it seemed—an oddly shaped, persistent shadow trailing far behind when they went for a walk, lurking in various doorways, flattening himself around the corner of a building. What they