Weird Tales/Volume 5/Issue 2/Hunger
Hunger
By Frank Owen
Author of "Shadows," "The Man Who Lived Next Door to Himself," etc.
All his life Mel Curran had been hungry. He had never known the pleasure of sitting down to a good meal. Hunger is a rat that gnaws at a man's stomach as if it were an empty, untenanted house whose beams were sagging.
Mel Curran was not a credit to humanity, but then neither was humanity a credit to him. He was undersized, underfed, and his mind was not normal. He believed that the dusk-shadows of evening were haunted by all sorts of weird ghosts and wraiths. He was more credulous than a child. He believed everything he heard, everything that was told to him, no matter how fantastic or preposterous. He believed that night was filled with creeping, crawling things, that sleep was a dreadful state. Each night he fought against it. He subjected himself to physical pain to escape the horror of unconsciousness. He held the lids of his eyes open so that the black horror could not creep in. All night long he kept a candle burning beside his bed so that the whirling, plunging, closing net of darkness would not close down upon him. Sometimes he groaned and shrieked in terror, and the sounds of his anguish echoed weirdly throughout the dank, cobweb-draped cellar in which he dwelt. For hours he would fight off the plague of sleep, but eventually, inevitably, from sheer exhaustion he would succumb to it.
Another of his eccentricities was his total vagueness regarding numbers. To him "one", "six", "seven", or any other numeral was merely a word without meaning, and not infrequently his vision also became jumbled. He would see the same man two or three times at once. He never knew how many men were walking toward him. Sometimes it would be only one man and he would appear like four, or, as not infrequently happened, it would be four men and they would appear to him like one. There were times when he walked smack into a person because his distorted vision had taken the person for a group. The same phenomenon was true of buildings, of trees, of automobiles, of stairways. When he walked down a subway stairs he walked as gingerly as if he were walking on eggs, for it was as if he were trying to descend several flights of stairs at once and he was unaware which he was really treading upon.
His life was filled with horrors and tragedies, with fears and desires and dim hopes that never were realized. But greater than all his desires was the supreme wish for a good meal. He was well past sixty, and very thin, like a wisp of straw. He was very tall, and his clothes were greasy and green with age. His eyes always shone fanatically and they bore a searching, hunted, haunted look. Sometimes he would spy a filthy crust of bread by the curbstone. Immediately he would rush forward and devour it as if all the people of New York had perceived it also and were pursuing it. Not infrequently the bit of crust would seem multiplied to four or five pieces, and he would grovel and whine pitifully when he could find only one. He was a familiar sight on the waterfronts, creeping about like an ugly shadow, sinister, ominous, dangerous, as if bent on some uncanny, dreadful mission, and yet his mission was purely an endless search for food to appease the loathsome gnawing rat that was clawing at his stomach—hunger.
2
One night he stood before a window in a small restaurant on South Street. The window was a vault containing the most precious of all jewels—food. He licked his dry lips with his doglike tongue. In the moonlight his teeth glistened like fangs: the gums seemed drawn back from them to permit greater ease in chewing. In the window was a cold boiled ham, a huge cake, a box of strawberries and a few garnishings of vegetables. But in his vision all this was multiplied. There was enough food for an army. His mouth watered so that the froth dripped from his lips at the corners. Everything on earth was blotted out. He had found food. He gazed furtively about to see that no one was approaching. Then deliberately he climbed up the side of the door as if he had been a jungle beast. It was quite easy to climb through the huge transom above the door, which, fortunately, was wide open. The next moment he was in the restaurant and the ham had been snatched from the window. In his frenzy he crouched upon the floor chewing at it as if he were a dog. All caution had fled from him. He fairly gloated over his prize, grunting and growling with satisfaction.
The restaurant proprietor dwelt upstairs. He heard the commotion and rose stealthily from his bed. He seized a huge revolver, so large that it appeared like a cannon, and crept downstairs. Mel Curran on his knees was fawning over the ham.
For a moment the restaurant proprietor gazed on him. Every nerve in his body revolted at the sight. He could not help shuddering. Then he pulled himself together.
"Throw up your hands!" he cried angrily.
Mel Curran only whined and chewed at the ham all the more ferociously. Then the revolver went off, whether deliberately or accidentally will never be known. Mel Curran was not touched. But the crash of the shot brought back to him a bit of rationality. He realized that his precious food was about to be taken from him.
With a cry of rage, he sprang to his feet. He seized the first thing his hand fell upon. It was an enormous platter, a platter that must have weighed a dozen pounds. With all his force he brought it down upon the intruder's head. With a groan the restaurant proprietor sank to the floor.
Then Mel Curran returned to his precious food.
He crouched over the huge ham as if it were a child and he were intent on protecting it.
The next moment the doors were burst open and the street mob surged in. It was headed by two burly policemen, who dragged him away from all that was dearest to him on earth.
3
Two months later, for the first time in his life, Mel Curran sat down to a feast fit for the gods, a turkey dinner with all the usual Yuletide trimmings. There was cranberry sauce, plum pudding, all sorts of fruits and nuts, and an enormous mince pie. He sat and ate slowly and deliberately. For the moment his vision was normal. First he ate to appease the gnawing of the rat, then he continued eating purely for his own pleasure. At last the appetite of his life was satisfied. When the meal was finished, he drank three cups of coffee and a glass of cider. Then he smoked a huge cigar. He heaved a sigh of satisfaction. He had not lived in vain.
When his meal was finished, he was given a somber black suit. Wonderfully content, he arrayed himself in it. Everybody was trying to outdo everybody else in being nice to him. A chaplain came to see him, a man whose face was truly beautiful—beautiful with a calm and restful peace.
"Have you anything to say, my brother?" the chaplain asked in a voice that was as soft as the wind through the treetops.
"Nothing," replied Mel Curran contentedly. "That was the finest meal I ever ate. I shall never forget it."
The chaplain placed his hand on his shoulder and prayed aloud. It was all very wonderful, Mel thought. It seemed rather fine to have people taking such an interest in him.
Then the gate of his cell was thrown open and he was led to the grim, gray chamber in which stood the electric chair. He gazed upon the scene blankly. He wondered what they were going to do with so many chairs. Without a word they led him to the gruesome chair. He sat down comfortably as if it were good to rest after such an enormous meal. He gazed at the little group of spectators who sat grimly in a huddled bunch on one side of the room. Their faces were chalklike in the shadows. To him the score of people seemed a multitude. And their gaze was centered on him as if he were a personage of prominence or an actor in a splendid play.
Someone stepped forward and placed a black cap over his eyes.
That was good. Now he could sleep.
Then other hands began fastening buckles about his legs and other parts of his body. That was very foolish. He was not going away. He was going to sleep.
Then the guards stepped back. There was a moment of utter silence—a silence so intense that it was almost deafening. The next instant the prison lights flickered dim. Then bright again, then dim.
Mel Curran would never be hungry again.