Warm Man

No one was ever quite sure just when Mr. Hallinan came to live in New Brewster. Lonny Dewitt, who ought to know, testified that Mr. Hallinan died on December 3, at 3:30 in the afternoon, but as for the day of his arrival no one could be nearly so precise.

It was simply that one day there was no one living in the unoccupied split-level on Melon Hill, and then the next he was there, seemingly having grown out of the woodwork during the night, ready and willing to spread his cheer and warmth throughout the whole of the small suburban community.

Daisy Moncrieff, New Brewster’s ineffable hostess, was responsible for making the first overtures towards Mr. Hallinan. It was two days after she had first observed lights on in the Melon Hill place that she decided the time had come to scrutinize the newcomers, to determine their place in New Brewster society. Donning a light wrap, for it was a coolish October day, she left her house in the early forenoon and went on foot down Copperbeech Road to the Melon Hill turnoff, and then climbed the sloping hill till she reached the split-level.

The name was already on the mailbox: DAVIS HALLINAN. That probably meant they’d been living there a good deal longer than just two days, thought Mrs. Moncrieff; perhaps they’d be insulted by the tardiness of the invitation? She shrugged and used the doorknocker.

A tall man in early middle age appeared, smiling benignly. Mrs. Moncrieff was thus the first recipient of the uncanny warmth that Davis Hallinan was to radiate throughout New Brewster before his strange death. His eyes were deep and solemn, with warm lights shining in them; his hair was a dignified grey-white mane.

“Good morning,” he said. His voice was deep, mellow.

“Good morning. I’m Mrs. Moncrieff—Daisy Moncrieff, from the big house on Copperbeech Road. You must be Mr. Hallinan. May I come in?”

“Ah—please, no, Mrs. Moncrieff. The place is still a chaos. Would you mind staying on the porch?”

He closed the door behind him—Mrs. Moncrieff later claimed that she had a fleeting view of the interior and saw unpainted walls and dust-covered bare floors—and drew one of the rusty porch chairs for her.

“Is your wife at home, Mr. Hallinan?”

“There’s just me, I’m afraid. I live alone.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Moncrieff, discomforted, managed a grin nonetheless. In New Brewster everyone was married; the idea of a bachelor or a widower coming to settle there was strange, disconcerting…and just a little pleasant, she added, surprised at herself.

“My purpose in coming was to invite you to meet some of your new neighbors tonight—if you’re free, that is. I’m having a cocktail party at my place about six, with dinner at seven. We’d be so happy if you came!”

His eyes twinkled gaily. “Certainly, Mrs. Moncrieff. I’m looking forward to it already.”

The ne plus ultra of New Brewster society was impatiently assembled at the Moncrieff home shortly after 6, waiting to meet Mr. Hallinan, but it was not until 6:15 that he arrived. By then, thanks to Daisy Moncrieff’s fearsome skill as a hostess, everyone present was equipped with a drink and a set of speculations about the mysterious bachelor on the hill.

“I’m sure he must be a writer,” said Martha Weede to liverish Dudley Heyer. “Daisy says he’s tall and distinguished and just radiates personality. He’s probably here only for a few months—just long enough to get to know us all, and then he’ll write a novel about us.”

“Hmm. Yes,” Heyer said. He was an advertising executive who commuted to Madison Avenue every morning; he had an ulcer, and was acutely aware of his role as a stereotype. “Yes, then he’ll write a sizzling novel exposing suburban decadence, or a series of acid sketches for The New Yorker. I know the type.”

Lys Erwin, looking desirable and just a bit disheveled after her third martini in thirty minutes, drifted by in time to overhear that. “You’re always conscious of types, aren’t you, darling? You and your grey flannel suit?”

Heyer fixed her with a baleful stare but found himself, as usual, unable to make an appropriate retort. He fumed away, smiled hello at quiet little Harold and Jane Dewitt, whom he pitied somewhat (their son Lonny, age 9, was a shy; sensitive child, a total misfit among his playmates), and confronted the bar, weighing the probability of a night of acute agony against the immediate desirability of a Manhattan.

But at that moment Daisy Moncrieff reappeared with Mr. Hallinan in tow, and conversation ceased abruptly throughout the parlor while the assembled guests stared at the newcomer. An instant later, conscious of their collective faux pas, the group began to chat again, and Daisy moved among her guests, introducing her prize.

“Dudley, this is Mr. Davis Hallinan. Mr. Hallinan, I want you to meet Dudley Heyer, one of the most talented men in New Brewster.”

“Indeed? What do you do, Mr. Heyer?”

“I’m in advertising. But don’t let them fool you; it doesn’t take any talent at all. Just brass, nothing else. The desire to delude the public, and delude ’em good. But how about you? What line are you in?”

Mr. Hallinan ignored the question. “I’ve always thought advertising was a richly creative field, Mr. Heyer. But, of course, I’ve never really known at first hand—”

“Well, I have. And it’s everything they say it is.” Heyer felt his face reddening, as if he had had a drink or two. He was becoming talkative, and found Hallinan’s presence oddly soothing. Leaning close to the newcomer, Heyer said, “Just between you and me, Hallinan, I’d give my whole bank account for a chance to stay home and write. Just write. I want to do a novel. But I don’t have the guts; that’s my trouble. I know that come Friday there’s a $350 check waiting on my desk, and I don’t dare give that up. So I keep writing my novel up here in my head, and it keeps eating me away down here in my gut. Eating.” He paused, conscious that he had said too much and that his eyes were glittering headily.

Hallinan wore a benign smile. “It’s always sad to see talent hidden, Mr. Heyer. I wish you well.”

Daisy Moncrieff appeared then, hooked an arm through Hallinan’s, and led him away. Heyer, alone, stared down at the textured grey broadloom.

Now why did I tell him all that? he wondered. A minute after meeting Hallinan, he had unburdened his deepest woe to him—something he had not confided in anyone else in New Brewster, including his wife.

And yet—it had been a sort of catharsis, Heyer thought. Hallinan had calmly soaked up all his grief and inner agony, and left Heyer feeling drained and purified and warm.

Catharsis? Or a blood-letting? Heyer shrugged, then grinned and made his way to the bar to pour himself a Manhattan.

As usual, Lys and Leslie Erwin were at opposite ends of the parlor. Mrs. Moncrieff found Lys more easily, and introduced her to Mr. Hallinan.

Lys faced him unsteadily, and on a sudden impulse hitched her neckline higher. “Pleased to meet you, Mr Hallinan. I’d like you to meet my husband Leslie. Leslie! Come here, please?”

Leslie Erwin approached. He was twenty years older than his wife, and was generally known to wear the finest pair of horns in New Brewster—a magnificent spread of antlers that grew a new point or two almost every week.

“Les, this is Mr. Hallinan. Mr. Hallinan, meet my husband, Leslie.”

Mr. Hallinan bowed courteously to both of them. “Happy to make your acquaintance.”

“The same,” Erwin said. “If you’ll excuse me, now—”

“The louse,” said Lys Erwin, when her husband had returned to his station at the bar. “He’d sooner cut his throat than spend two minutes next to me in public.” She glared bitterly at Hallinan. “I don’t deserve that kind of thing, do I?”

Mr. Hallinan frowned sympathetically. “Have you any children, Mrs. Erwin?”

“Hah! He’d never give me any—not with my reputation! You’ll have to pardon me; I’m a little drunk.”

“I understand, Mrs. Erwin.”

“I know. Funny, but I hardly know you and I like you. You seem to understand. Really, I mean.” She took his cuff hesitantly. “Just from looking at you, I can tell you’re not judging me like all the others. I’m not really bad, am I? It’s just that I get so bored, Mr. Hallinan.”

“Boredom is a great curse,” Mr. Hallinan observed.

“Damn right it is! And Leslie’s no help—always reading his newspapers and talking to his brokers! But I can’t help myself, believe me.” She looked around wildly. “They’re going to start talking about us in a minute, Mr. Hallinan. Every time I talk to someone new they start whispering. But promise me something—”

“If I can.”

“Someday—someday soon—let’s get together? I want to talk to you. God, I want to talk to someone—someone who understands why I’m the way I am. Will you?”

“Of course, Mrs. Erwin. Soon.” Gently he detached her hand from his sleeve, held it tenderly for a moment, and released it. She smiled hopefully at him. He nodded.

“And now I must meet some of the other guests. A pleasure, Mrs. Erwin.”

He drifted away, leaving Lys weaving shakily in the middle of the parlor. She drew in a deep breath and lowered her décolletage again.

At least there’s one decent man in this town now, she thought. There was something good about Hallinan—good, and kind, and understanding.

Understanding. That’s what I need. She wondered if she could manage to pay a visit to the house on Melon Hill tomorrow afternoon without arousing too much scandal.

Lys turned and saw thin-faced Aiken Muir staring at her slyly, with a clear-cut invitation on his face. She met his glance with a frigid, wordless go to hell.

Mr. Hallinan moved on, on through the party. And, gradually, the pattern of the party began to form. It took shape like a fine mosaic. By the time the cocktail hour was over and dinner was ready, an intricate, complex structure of interacting thoughts and responses had been built.

Mr. Hallinan, always drinkless, glided deftly from one New Brewsterite to the next, engaging each in conversation, drawing a few basic facts about the other’s personality, smiling politely, moving on. Not until after he moved on did the person come to a dual realization: that Mr. Hallinan had said quite little, really, and that he had instilled a feeling of warmth and security in the other during their brief talk.

And thus while Mr. Hallinan learned from Martha Weede of her paralyzing envy of her husband’s intelligence and of her fear of his scorn, Lys Erwin was able to remark to Dudley Heyer that Mr. Hallinan was a remarkably kind and understanding person. And Heyer, who had never been known to speak a kind word of anyone, for once agreed.

And later, while Mr. Hallinan was extracting from Leslie Erwin some of the pain his wife’s manifold infidelities caused him, Martha Weede could tell Lys Erwin, “He’s so gentle—why, he’s almost like a saint!”

And while little Harold Dewitt poured out his fear that his silent 9-year-old son Lonny was in some way subnormal, Leslie Erwin, with a jaunty grin, remarked to Daisy Moncrieff, “That man must be a psychiatrist. Lord, he knows how to talk to a person. Inside of two minutes he had me telling him all my troubles. I feel better for it, too.”

Mrs. Moncrieff nodded. “I know what you mean. This morning, when I went up to his place to invite him here, we talked a little while on his porch.”

“Well,” Erwin said, “if he’s a psychiatrist he’ll find plenty of business here. There isn’t a person here riding around without a private monkey on his back. Take Heyer, over there—he didn’t get that ulcer from happiness. That scatterbrain Martha Weede, too—married to a Columbia professor who can’t imagine what to talk to her about. And my wife Lys is a very confused person too, of course.”

“We all have our problems,” Mrs. Moncrieff sighed. “But I feel much better since I spoke with Mr. Hallinan. Yes: much better.”

Mr. Hallinan was now talking with Paul Jambell, the architect. Jambell, whose pretty young wife was in Springfield Hospital slowly dying of cancer. Mrs. Moncrieff could well imagine what Jambell and Mr. Hallinan were talking about.

Or rather, what Jambell was talking about—for Mr. Hallinan, she realized, did very little talking himself. But he was such a wonderful listener! She felt a pleasant glow, not entirely due to the cocktails. It was good to have someone like Mr. Hallinan in New Brewster, she thought. A man of his tact and dignity and warmth would be a definite asset.

When Lys Erwin woke—alone, for a change—the following morning, some of the past night’s curious calmness had deserted her.

I have to talk to Mr. Hallinan, she thought.

She had resisted two implied, and one overt, attempts at seduction the night before, had come home, had managed even to be polite to her husband. And Leslie had been polite to her. It was most unusual.

“That Hallinan,” he had said. “He’s quite a guy.”

“You talked to him too?”

“Yeah. Told him a lot. Too much, maybe. But I feel better for it.”

“Odd,” she had said. “So do I. He’s a strange one, isn’t he? Wandering around that party, soaking up everyone’s aches. He must have had half the neuroses in New Brewster unloaded on his back last night.”

“Didn’t seem to depress him, though. More he talked to people, more cheerful and affable he got. And us, too. You look more relaxed than you’ve been in a month, Lys.”

“I feel more relaxed. As if all the roughness and ugliness in me was drawn out.”

And that was how it felt the next morning, too. Lys woke, blinked, looked at the empty bed across the room. Leslie was long since gone, on his way to the city. She knew she had to talk to Hallinan again. She hadn’t got rid of it all. There was still some poison left inside her, something cold and chunky that would melt before Mr. Hallinan’s warmth.

She dressed, impatiently brewed some coffee, and left the house. Down Copperbeech Road, past the Moncrieff house where Daisy and her stuffy husband Fred were busily emptying the ashtrays of the night before, down to Melon Hill and up the gentle slope to the split-level at the top.

Mr. Hallinan came to the door in a blue checked dressing gown. He looked slightly seedy, almost overhung, Lys thought. His dark eyes had puffy lids and a light stubble sprinkled his cheeks.

“Yes, Mrs. Erwin?”

“Oh—good morning, Mr. Hallinan. I—I came to see you. I hope I didn’t disturb you—that is—”

“Quite all right, Mrs. Erwin.” Instantly she was at ease. “But I’m afraid I’m really extremely tired after last night, and I fear I shouldn’t be very good company just now.”

“But you said you’d talk to me alone today. And—oh, there’s so much more I want to tell you!”

A shadow of feeling—pain? fear? Lys wondered—crossed his face. “No,” he said hastily. “No more—not just yet. I’ll have to rest today. Would you mind coming back—well, say Wednesday?”

“Certainly, Mr. Hallinan. I wouldn’t want to disturb you.”

She turned away and stared down the hill, thinking: He had too much of our troubles last night. He soaked them all up like a sponge, and today he’s going to digest them—

Oh, what am I thinking?

She reached the foot of the hill, brushed a couple of tears from her eyes, and walked home rapidly, feeling the October chill whistling around her.

And so the pattern of life in New Brewster developed. For the six weeks before his death, Mr. Hallinan was a fixture at any important community gathering, always dressed impeccably, always ready with his cheerful smile, always uncannily able to draw forth whatever secret hungers and terrors lurked in his neighbors’ souls.

And invariably Mr. Hallinan would be unapproachable the day after these gatherings, would mildly but firmly turn away any callers. What he did, alone in the house on Melon Hill, no one knew. As the days passed, it occurred to all that no one knew much of anything about Mr. Hallinan. He knew them all right, knew the one night of adultery twenty years before that still racked Daisy Moncrieff, knew the acid pain that seared Dudley Heyer, the cold envy glittering in Martha Weede, the frustration and loneliness of Lys Erwin, her husband’s shy anger at his own cuckoldry—he knew these things and many more, but none of them knew more of him than his name.

Still, he warmed their lives and took from them the burden of their griefs. If he chose to keep his own life hidden, they said, that was his privilege.

He took walks every day, through still-wooded New Brewster, and would wave and smile to the children, who would wave and smile back. Occasionally he would stop, chat with a sulking child, then move on, tall, erect, walking with a jaunty stride.

He was never known to set foot in either of New Brewster’s two churches. Once Lora Harker, a mainstay of the New Brewster Presbyterian Church, took him to task for this at a dull dinner party given by the Weedes.

But Mr. Hallinan smiled mildly and said, “Some of us feel the need. Others do not.”

And that ended the discussion.

Towards the end of November a few members of the community experienced an abrupt reversal of their feelings about Mr. Hallinan—weary, perhaps, of his constant empathy for their woes. The change in spirit was spearheaded by Dudley Heyer, Carl Weede, and several of the other men.

“I’m getting not to trust that guy,” Heyer said. He knocked dottle vehemently from his pipe. “Always hanging around soaking up gossip, pulling out dirt—and what the hell for? What does he get out of it?”

“Maybe he’s practicing to be a saint,” Carl Weede remarked quietly. “Self-abnegation. The Buddhist Eightfold Path.”

“The women all swear by him,” said Leslie Erwin. “Lys hasn’t been the same since he came here.”

“I’ll say she hasn’t,” said Aiken Muir wryly, and all of the men, even Erwin, laughed, getting the sharp thrust.

“All I know is I’m tired of having a father-confessor in our midst,” Heyer said. “I think he’s got a motive back of all his goody-goody warmness. When he’s through pumping us he’s going to write a book that’ll put New Brewster on the map but good.”

“You always suspect people of writing books,” Muir said. “Oh, that mine enemy would write a book…!”

“Well, whatever his motives I’m getting annoyed. And that’s why he hasn’t been invited to the party we’re giving on Monday night.” Heyer glared at Fred Moncrieff as if expecting some dispute. “I’ve spoken to my wife about it, and she agrees. Just this once, dear Mr. Hallinan stays home.”

It was strangely cold at the Heyers’ party that Monday night. The usual people were there, all but Mr. Hallinan. The party was not a success. Some, unaware that Mr. Hallinan had not been invited, waited expectantly for the chance to talk to him, and managed to leave early when they discovered he was not to be there.

“We should have invited him,” Ruth Heyer said after the last guest had left.

Heyer shook his head. “No. I’m glad we didn’t.”

“But that poor man, all alone on the hill while the bunch of us were here, cut off from us. You don’t think he’ll get insulted, do you? I mean, and cut us off from now on?”

“I don’t care,” Heyer said, scowling.

His attitude of mistrust towards Mr. Hallinan spread through the community. First the Muirs, then the Harkers, failed to invite him to gatherings of theirs. He still took his usual afternoon walks, and those who met him observed a slightly strained expression on his face, though he still smiled gently and chatted easily enough, and made no bitter comments.

And on December 3, Wednesday, Roy Heyer, age 10, and Philip Moncrieff, age 9, set upon Lonny Dewitt, age 9, just outside the New Brewster Public School, just before Mr. Hallinan turned down the school lane on his stroll.

Lonny was a strange, silent boy, the despair of his parents and the bane of his classmates. He kept to himself, said little, nudged into corners and stayed there. People clucked their tongues when they saw him in the street.

Roy Heyer and Philip Moncrieff made up their minds they were going to make Lonny Dewitt say something, or else.

It was or else. They pummeled him and kicked him for a few minutes; then, seeing Mr. Hallinan approaching, they ran, leaving Lonny weeping silently on the flagstone steps outside the empty school.

Lonny looked up as the tall man drew near.

“They’ve been hitting you, haven’t they? I see them running away now.”

Lonny continued to cry. He was thinking, There’s something funny about this man. But he wants to help me. He wants to be kind to me.

“You’re Lonny Dewitt, I think. Why are you crying? Come, Lonny, stop crying! They didn’t hurt you that much.”

They didn’t, Lonny said silently. I like to cry.

Mr. Hallinan was smiling cheerfully. “Tell me all about it. Something’s bothering you, isn’t it? Something big, that makes you feel all lumpy and sad inside. Tell me about it, Lonny, and maybe it’ll go away.” He took the boy’s small cold hands in his own, and squeezed them.

“Don’t want to talk,” Lonny said.

“But I’m a friend. I want to help you.”

Lonny peered close and saw suddenly that the tall man told the truth. He wanted to help Lonny. More than that: he had to help Lonny. Desperately. He was pleading. “Tell me what’s troubling you,” Mr. Hallinan said again.

OK, Lonny thought. I’ll tell you.

And he lifted the floodgates. Nine years of repression and torment came rolling out in one roaring burst.

I’m alone and they hate me because I do things in my head and they never understood and they think I’m queer and they hate me I see them looking funny at me and they think funny things about me because I want to talk to them with my mind and they can only hear words and I hate them hate them hate hate hate—

Lonny stopped suddenly. He had let it all out, and now he felt better, cleansed of the poison he’d been carrying in him for years. But Mr. Hallinan looked funny. He was pale and white-faced, and he was staggering.

In alarm, Lonny extended his mind to the tall man. And got:

Too much. Much too much. Should never have gone near the boy. But the older ones wouldn’t let me.

Irony: the compulsive empath overloaded and burned out by a compulsive sender who’d been bottled up.

…like grabbing a high-voltage wire…

…he was a sender, I was a receiver, but he was too strong…

And four last bitter words: I…was…a…leech…

“Please, Mr. Hallinan,” Lonny said out loud. “Don’t get sick. I want to tell you some more. Please, Mr. Hallinan.”

Silence.

Lonny picked up a final lingering wordlessness, and knew he had found and lost the first one like himself. Mr. Hallinan’s eyes closed and he fell forward on his face in the street. Lonny realized that it was over, that he and the people of New Brewster would never talk to Mr. Hallinan again. But just to make sure he bent and took Mr. Hallinan’s limp wrist.

He let go quickly. The wrist was like a lump of ice. Cold—burningly cold. Lonny stared at the dead man for a moment or two.

“Why, it’s dear Mr. Hallinan,” a female voice said. “Is he—”

And feeling the loneliness return, Lonny began to cry softly again.