THE LITTLE MAN WHO WASN'T QUITE
By WILLIAM W. STUART
Illustrated by WALKER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine December 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
You could say Jonesy and/or I were not
all there, but I don't see it that way.
How much of Stanley was or wasn't there?
Have you ever been clear down there on skid row? Oh, sure, every cityhas one and no doubt you have given it one of those look-away-quickside glances. That isn't what I mean.
What I mean is, have you ever been really down there?
Probably not. And, if you haven't, I could make a suggestion.
Don't go.
Skid row is a far, remote way and there are all kinds of horrors downthere, the seen and the unseen. To each his own, as they say, andeveryone there has his own personal collection. All right. Generalopinion is to let them be there and the hell with them, people andhorrors too, if there is a distinction. Unfortunate, but what can youdo? Nothing. Look the other way. That's all right with me. I don'tknow anything better to do about the horrors that are, or that may beon skid row than to hope they will stay there where they belong—andlet me forget them.
That's why I'm writing this. I want to do the story of what I saw,and what I think I saw or felt, and what I didn't see, to get it offmy mind. Then I am going to do my damnedest not to think of the wholething.
Me, I know about skid row because I was there. That's my personalproblem and another story, before this one, and the hell with that,too. I once had a wife and a couple of kids. I had a lot of problemsand then no wife and no kids and I made it to skid row. It was easy.For a while I was there, all the way down, where the gutter wassomething I could look up to. Well, turned out I had friends whowouldn't quit. By their efforts plus, as they say, the grace of God, Icame off it; most of the way off it, at least. No credit to me, but nottoo many ever manage to make a round trip of it.
Who are the misfits and derelicts on skid row? Anybody; nobody.Individuals, if they are individuals, come and go. The group, withfew exceptions, is always the same. It is built of the world'srejects—lost souls, bad dreams; shadowy, indistinct shapes, not a partof life nor yet quite altogether out of it, either.
I was down there. I left. But I kept passing by every once in a whileto pay a little visit. For that I had two reasons. One, I couldsometimes pick up a lead on something for a Sunday feature for mypaper. The other—just taking another look now and then at where andwhat I had been was a sort of insurance for me.
So, from time to time I would stop by The Yard for an evening. I wouldspring for a jug. I was welcome. Those in the regular group knew me andthey held me in no more than the same contempt they had for each otherand themselves. Being no stranger—or, perhaps, not too much lessstrange—I fitted well enough with the misfits of that half-world wherethe individual rarely stands out enough to be noticeable.
Wino Jones, though, and his friend Stanley were, each in his own way,quite noticeable.
I first ran across Wino Jones and Stanley one early spring evening.It was a Thursday. I was beat. It had been a tough week—a politicalscandal, a couple of fires and a big "Missing Kid—Fiend" scare. Turnedout the kid had skipped school to catch a triple-feature horror showand was scar