"Lilith" by William Gay

Editor’s note: This previously unpublished, early story—written in the mid-1960s either while William Gay was still in the Navy or had just completed his service—is from a handwritten journal found among his papers after his passing. The story appears here courtesy of the William Gay Archive, J. Michael White, archivist.

Lillith

I did not know when it happened it would be like that, so quick and deep and final or even that it would happen at all.

I didn’t look for it or await or expect it, or have a curiosity about it, because at the time I thought I was in love and too young to be married and I was living while I could and counting the fun I had by the amount of liquor I drank and the lipstick and bruises I brought back to ship, never fully knowing or caring where I got all of either.

I was minding my own business, or as much as I ever did. I was on my way to see a girl I knew and I stopped for a drink at a bar and she was there. She was working there and to me it didn’t look like she was old enough to be on either side of the bar. She was little and something about her was childlike; perhaps mostly her eyes, because they were deep and unknowing, aware but still innocent. She had blonde hair, almost white, and her skin was clear and white to the point of paleness. She more gave an impression of smallness than she actually was. She was well built for her height, about 5’4”, I guess. The impression she gave was one of delicacy.

Anyway, we talked. Her name was Lillith. She was 20 and had been married, she said, but she was separated, and she was from Boston which I could tell by her speech. She left her husband because he nagged her about reading too much and they had nothing in common and she had come to Carolina where her mother lived. But her mother didn’t want her because she had an aversion to housework and let time go by while she read. She had wanted to be a psychologist and had gone to school two years but she got restless and quit.

But mostly we just talked. God, how we talked. We talked while the bartender eyed us, and we talked between the times when he made her go serve someone else. We talked in front of the jukebox when I played it and I remember every song. We talked about Hegel and Goethe and Whitman and Faulkner and Capote and Salinger and everyone. We talked while I got drunk on the constant drinks I had and on the experience of finding someone who recognized names I said and said some that were familiar to me, all this from six until almost two.

I bought a flower, I was now quite drunk, from an old withered lady, and she put it on and held my hand across the bar. At the end of eight hours I was in love with her and couldn’t help it though I would not admit it even to myself because I could not believe that a person could fall in love in eight hours with someone he never saw or heard of or even ever had evidence of existence.

Just before closing I got into a fight though I don’t even know for sure why. A guy that was maybe even a little drunker than I was threw my hat on the deck and stepped on it. I dare you to do that to mine, he said. I was drunk. I did that to his. He came up swinging and caught me first and I went back into the jukebox and slid off it. He could hit hard and was a little bigger than me but like I said, maybe a little drunker. So I got in and worked on his face, hitting him short ones and him now and then getting me with a good one. Then the bartender and Lillith were both on us, pulling us apart.

You’d better make it, he said to me. I’m calling the cops. I never started it, I said.
From where I was sitting, it looked like you started it, the bartender said.
Don’t call the cops, Linn, Lillith said. It’d only cause trouble for everybody. Linn said it wouldn’t cause him any trouble.
He said, by God I had been sitting in there all night trying to cause trouble and by God I had got some and would get more.
It began to look like he had it bad for Lillith. But anybody would; she had that about her.

Get the hell out of here right now, Linn told me, and I mean don’t come back. If you do you can sleep in jail tonight. It don’t make a damn to me.
What about him, I said. Does he go too?
He didn’t start it. You did. He can stay.

I looked at Lillith. I want to see you again, I said. When can I see you?
Any time you want to, she said, and then she told me to go before he called the cops. So I did. I got almost all the way across the street and I thought about Lillith and that goddamned bartender and the guy who hit me and the cheap flower and the jukebox and it was all mixed up because I was drunk and then I felt my nose, and pain shot through my face despite the alcohol and my hand came away bloody. I smeared my hand across my face again and it still came away bloody. So I went back.

He was sitting hunched across the bar talking to Linn with a beer in his hand and they were talking low and laughing. Lillith saw me and started to say something but I was already behind him.

Hey, I said and stepped back. I even waited for him to get off the stool. When he did I hit him as hard as I could. He didn’t get up. Linn called the cops and Lillith cried for him not to. They picked me up two blocks away.

I didn’t see her for a month because it was that long before I got off the ship again. But I got two letters from her with the wrong address. I guess it was a miracle I even got them, and she called me twice and I called her twice. When I got off the ship I went back to the bar again. I was later than I thought I would be and the time I told her I would be there. She was a little drunk.

I thought you weren’t coming. She was a kid then, and I could see the change in her and that she was glad to see me. She was just the way I remembered her and it was at that moment I really knew I loved her, and that I had never really been in love before, and I admitted it to myself.
You knew I’d come, I said, I had to.
I’m glad you did. I was a little afraid you wouldn’t.
You needn’t have been.
I know. I tried to get the night off but I couldn’t. The day girl quit.
It doesn’t matter. I can see you when you get off, can’t I? Where can we go?
You can see me. We can go to my hotel. I’ve got to talk to you. You’re the first person I’ve seen I can talk to. I want to just be with you and talk all night.
All right, I said. Very platonically. Where is Linn, I said. Someone new is here tonight.

He’s working days now.
I’m glad of it. I think he’s got it pretty bad for you, I said. At least he acts like it to me. She didn’t say anything.
I begin to wait for the night to pass. I played pool and talked to her and played the jukebox and drank mostly, like always, I drank.
I don’t want you to get drunk, she said. The same thing will happen again and I may never get to be with you and I want to be.

Alright, I said, but I drank. Once we stood in front of the jukebox and she laid her hand on my shoulder lightly and as innocently as a child.
I love you, she said. I love you because I fell in love with you twenty minutes after I saw you. I love you more completely and deeper and sweeter than anyone has ever been loved before and I can’t help it.

I didn’t say anything because I hadn’t been expecting her to say it but I knew when I heard it it was what I felt and that like always she had said what I had been thinking. And when I looked at her I couldn’t keep her from seeing it. She looked at my eyes for a long time.

At twelve thirty or one Linn came in and sat down. He ordered a drink and looked up from the other end of the bar. He saw me. I can best tell you what he looked like by saying he was one enormous son of a bitch. I mean he was not really enormous I guess but he was a hell of a lot bigger than I was and he knew it too. He was two or three inches over six feet and broad as hell through the shoulders. He looked like a triangle balanced on one end.

He called Lillith down to where he was and began to talk to her. His eyes were on me the entire time he was talking. She started to cry. She turned away from him and walked farther down the bar. I walked down to where he was.
I don’t know where you figure in this, I said, but you’d better butt out and I mean it. Leave her alone.

He thought it was very funny that I told him to butt out but he never said anything for a while. He sat and looked meditatively at his drink for a long while. Finally he said, you’re not going home with her.
Wait and see, I said. I’ll be here at two o’clock. Maybe he said. He went back to drinking his daiquiri. I went down to her and caught her arm.
What did he say?
I’ll tell you later. Stop crying. Please stop crying.
All right.

At two o’clock I had to go outside and wait for her. By now it was raining like hell. It was cold and the wind was blowing the rain as hard as sleet against the window. It rattled icily and stung my face. The wind blew the awning. It flapped and cried and the wind came up crying and moaning of the street full of rain and whirled it through the empty streets. It sounded like Lillith was crying inside but it could have been the wind. I threw myself against the door but it was locked. The lights were being turned out. I tried to force the door open and put my face against it but all I could hear was the wind.

Linn came out first and alone. I told you to leave.
I’m not leaving without her.
Listen, goddamn you. Her husband is coming down here next week after her. She’s going back to him.
I suppose you’re protecting her husband’s interests.
That’s right.
The hell you are. I know what you’re doing.
You’re not taking her home. I’m telling you not to even be here when she comes out.
I’m telling you I’m going to be here.
Then I’ll call the cops. I’ll have you picked up for being drunk and disorderly. You are, you know.
Then call them, you son of a bitch, but I’ll kill you one day and you know that too.
Leave while you can before I wipe this sidewalk up with you.
I’ll bet you say that to all the boys, I said.

He hit me then. I was expecting it but I didn’t know when and it caught me hard on the side of the face. I went down, out in the street at the edge of the sidewalk, and when I opened my eyes, I saw Lillith come out the door and him coming at me. Lillith opened her mouth wide but the scream was lost in the wind and rain and I never heard what she said. As I got up he hit me again. She fell beside me in the rain. My head was in the water and she lifted it, but I shook her off. I was trying to get up. I hit him once, as hard as I could, but he hit me again. Then the bartender came out. All the lights were out and he locked the door. He held Linn off me, but I kept hitting him until he turned Linn loose and grabbed me and held me back with Littith holding my other arm. Linn stopped hitting me then.

I told you, goddamn, I told you.
Let me go, I said. Let me go. I was almost crying.
Let him go, Linn said. Go ahead. Turn him loose, Lillith.
I kept begging them to turn me loose. I was not being brave or wanting to impress her or anything. I was helpless and angry and I didn’t care if he killed me. I jerked her forward and she slipped on the sidewalk. I pulled to get free but the bartender jerked me back and I fell too. The sidewalk was cold and wet.
Let’s go, she said. It’s only a block and a half. He’ll kill you. He doesn’t care. I want you to come on now.

She was crying and pulling me up. Her hair was wet and stuck to her face. I got up and she led me to through the rain. She held my arm tight and talked to me softly all the while but I did not even hear what she was saying. I turned and looked back once and Linn was standing there letting the rain beat him. He started walking toward us. She made me move faster.

When we came to the hotel he had caught up with us. As we went up the stairs he came up behind us. He grabbed my shirt hard and I felt it slip when he jerked me around. I fell down two of the steps and caught myself on the handrail. I held it tight to keep from falling. He hit me in the side once and then again alongside the jaw and I went down.

When I came to he was gone and she was holding my face in her hands I could hardly walk. She held me up with an arm around me and I steadied myself on the rail. Her room number was 9. I can still see it. There was a sink in the corner of the room and I got sick in it. She washed the blood off me and pulled the ripped shirt off me and lay beside me on the bed with her arms tight around me and her face against my chest and cried very hard. I could hardly hear what she was saying.
He said he was going to tell you about my husband coming back and that I was going back to him. He was going to tell you all sorts of things about me that I wanted to tell you myself. I was afraid that you would leave and I’d never see you again.

I wouldn’t have believed him.
I didn’t know that. I love you. I mean it. It sounds silly but I do. She held me tight and she was still shaking against me.
I love you too. I don’t care whether you or anyone ever believes me but it’s true.
I finally found my mouth with a cigarette. I was trembling all over and hurting about all over. I stuck a match with one hand and lit the cigarette.
Is your husband coming back?
Yes.
Are you going back to him after this?
After a minute, I don’t know.
Do you love him? I don’t know. I’m all mixed up. I love you, that’s all I know for sure. No, I don’t think I love him. I told you I loved you.
Then why would you go back to him?
Because I’m going to have his baby. Didn’t Linn tell you that?
No.

I never asked her how Linn knew. I didn’t say anything for a long time. I couldn’t think of a goddamned thing to say. I lay there and held her. I kissed her softly. Her hands were around my neck. She touched my face lightly where Linn had cut it.
Poor, bruised beautiful face. You didn’t do it all because of me, did you?
When you were crying in the bar I wanted to kill him. I never felt as goddamn helpless in my life.

I’m unstable. I never know what I want. I always have to have someone make up my mind for me. Will you? You know I want you. I told you that. What’ll you do when I get big? You can’t take me anywhere. He’d never give me a divorce anyway though.

I don’t care about any of that, I said and I didn’t. I wouldn’t think of it right then. Maybe sometime I’d worry about it.
We don’t even know what love is. I don’t know what it is anyway, do you?
I can give you a definition, I said, but I can’t tell you what it is any more than anyone else could. Somebody could maybe. All I know is how I feel and when you love somebody you’ve got to do something about it and not just throw it away like it was nothing.

She put a little chain around my neck and smiled. I couldn’t see the smile but I could feel it against my face the movement it made. Symbolical of my heart she said.

We lay like that. I pulled the wet clothes off her and covered us with the blanket. She was warm against me. The rain still fell. I could see the dim glow of the streetlights below through the hazy windows. I wanted it to be like that forever and I knew it couldn’t.

Will you think about it, I said/
About what? About you? I do all the time. All the time before you came I was afraid you wouldn’t come and after you did I was afraid you would leave. But I still don’t know what to do. I’ve got to think of somebody besides myself for once.
Then think of me.
I told you I do think of you. But more than tonight. It’s got to be more than tonight.
Yes.

I touched her breasts with my hand. She held away for a moment then gave them to me, her hands in my hair. They were warm and soft and smooth against my face. I kissed her hard, and she came to me tightly moving against my body.
I’ve got to have you. Oh god. I don’t know what to do about anything. I want you so.

We’re not being very platonic about it are we?
No. I wanted to be. I didn’t mean for it to be like this but I can’t help it now. I meant to talk because I haven’t in so long really. I don’t want to talk now.
No.

It was greater and bitter and sweeter than before or after. It was crying and moaning and drowning and loving, and it was her face against mine and below mine, the eyes closed tightly and the lashes shadowing the face, the lips taut, the nose slightly arched, the moving and world dissolving into the streets and the fighting and a release from the eternal last, last feeling of hunger.

I slept lightly and when I woke up she was gone and I kept expecting her to come in and smile and touch me and look that way with her eyes. I looked for her for days. I haunted the town and the bar but Linn looked at me without saying anything and I knew he didn’t know either. I wanted to tell her so much I didn’t say and find out so much I never asked. To tell her how she ruined it for me forever and it would never be that way again but that I knew that once in a lifetime of groping blind and dark and trying to learn the language of the world you come close to recognition in someone else. You can almost once know the language of men and come together with them as close as people can know and feel each other, an almost release from the lost, last void before someone shuts a final door in your face. But I never saw her.

Once in Charleston I saw the hair and walk and swing of a purse and began to run. I caught her arm and pulled her around to me to speak to her but it was not her. But sometime maybe there will be a time when the name won’t mean anything and you would ask me about her and I couldn’t even tell you what she looked like, but I doubt it.