48

Saroyan Stories
by William Saroyan
A very short introduction
This book "48 Saroyan Stories" is actually two books: "Love, Here Is My Hat"
and "Peace, It's Wonderful." It is not a mistake, however, to put the two books
together. I have always believed in inexpensive books, and I am very happy that
48 of my stories are here available for a quarter, as I have always believed also
that writing should be simultaneously priceless and inexpensive. I believe there
is anybody's money's worth here, poor man, rich man, or whatever.

It is not my intention to take up the reader's time with a lot of talk regarding
what is here in this book, but I think I ought to suggest that what is here is the
Saroyan story. This is a simple kind of earnest and comic writing which never
wastes time with non-essentials. The Saroyan story is simultaneously American
and international. It sings mainly, and for the most part it sings the song of
people and the way they live, of would like to live, or dream, or kill time, or
wait, or hurry.

As I write I am not re-reading these stories, but I think I can speak of one or two
of them. You might like to know which of these stories I myself especially like,
and which I do not especially like. First, which are the stories I do not especially
like? I have never written such a story. I like them all. It is simply that some of
them break loose from everything—from the world and myself—and roll out
into fresh and pleasant areas of comedy and wisdom. "1924 Cadillac For Sale" is
one of these—a goofy wonderful American fable. "The Insurance Salesman" is
another. "The Warm, Quiet Valley of Home," "Romance," "The Russian Writer,"
"The Journey and the Dream" — these are all happy things. The story of "The
Trains" is a good story, and "One of the Least Famous of the Great Love Affairs
of History" is O.K. "Gus the Gambler" is a good bar-room fable, and "Ah Life,
Ah Death, Ah Music, Ah France, Ah Everything" is fine spoofing. "The Genius"
is good casual world history, and "A Lady Named Caroline" is a joyous valentine
to the nature of things. "The Fire" is an important story, but not dull. It calls for a
good reader, however. "The Filipino and the Drunkard" is perhaps the first story
in English in which the Filipino is noticed as someone real, with emotions and
the troubles they make. "Jim Pemberton and His Boy Trigger" is a great fable,
and "The Poor Heart" is a little razzle-dazzle jazz concerning breathing among
human beings. But the one that's craziest and best of all is the one called "Am I
Your World?"
The stories I have not mentioned are not inferior stories by any means. They are
all O.K.

I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

William Saroyan
Hampshire House
New York, New York
August 10, 1942
The Greatest Country in the World
The father stared at the fourteen-year-old boy with confusion and love, and tried
his best to understand.

Joe, he said.

The boy was standing in front of the small mirror on the dining room wall,
looking at the bad eye. He had just gotten up from the table without eating any
of his supper. The boy's mother had put down her soup spoon and was leaning
forward, eager and delighted about both of them. The boy looked into the small
mirror and back to the eyes of his father and mother.

What? he said. I just don't want any supper, that's all.

The father put his hand over his mouth and mustache thinking what he might
say. He was fifty-five and this was his last son. This was the last of the five. The
others had all gone away. Each had been a stranger to him, but from birth he had
thought of this one as truly the son of himself. He remembered the baby smiling
up at him from the crib, laughing silently, and year after year growing more and
more like himself, as he had been as a boy in the old country. Now the boy was
exactly his height, big like himself, with the same head and face, and the same
thick blond hair.

The mother was an American, a girl Nick Frantisek had met in Pennsylvania
thirty years ago when he had been working in the mines there and could barely
speak two dozen words of English. She was still the girl he loved. He had never
become unimpressed about her being an American, a very pretty American girl.
The other sons had been either like her, or like the two of them, half and half.
They had all been good boys, but this one had started out completely like
himself. The boy's mother had been as pleased about that as the father. From the
beginning she had learned enough Czech to please her husband and laugh with
him intimately, as a foreigner in America, a Czech, a hunky workman, a simple
man in a complex and crazy and magnificent new world. The others, the
strangers, had pleased the foreigner; they had delighted him with the strangeness
in them, even though they were his own; he had loved the Americantzi of their
spirits; their amiability, their frankness, their innocence, and the spirit of their
mother's tribe in each of them. He had tried to get each of them to learn a little
Czech and each of them had done so, but it had always been a farcical thing to
them, and to him, too. All they had done was roar with laughter when he had
asked them in his deep voice what their names were, who their father was, and
had expected them to answer with the foreign inflection and intonation. This
they had done too, and added a few words of their own, and he and their mother
and the kids had roared with delight. Joe, though, had really learned the
language; he spoke it well, and seemed to enjoy speaking it, especially when
only he and the old man were together.

The father had called out the boy's name as a Czech speaking to another, and at
the mirror the boy had answered in English.

What? he had said. I just don't want any supper, that's all.

The father put his hand over his mouth and mustache and tried to think if he
should speak in English or in Czech.

Joe, he said in English as if it were Czech, you eat it your sopper.

I'm not hungry, the boy argued.

Joe, the boy's mother said.

She wanted to say many things but couldn't say anything more than the boy's
name. She wanted to say, Joe, you straighten out now, you crazy Joe, you.

Nick, the father, looked at the boy's mother and with a glance asked her not to
speak. She answered the glance with a smile and began drinking her soup again.
From his glance she could hear him saying, All right, Bess, I talk it to Joe.

The boy turned away from the mirror and looked at his father a moment, began
to say something, changed his mind, and went over to the couch at the window
and sat down, looking at the floor. Suddenly he said in Czech:

I'll kill them.

Joe, the father shouted at the boy.

The woman got up from the table and went upstairs. She knew that this was a
time Nick would want her to be out of the way.
Well, the boy said in English, they're not going to get by with anything like that
with me.

Is that what you're still thinking about? the father said in Czech. I thought it was
something else.

That's just part of it, the boy answered in Czech.

This pleased the father. He remembered his crazy fights with his own father in
the old country, and the way they would turn out, the father right, the boy right,
and a good free-for-all fight, with the rest of the men around, old and young,
jumping in and shouting at them and holding them apart.

What's the rest of it? Nick said to the boy.

Well, Joe said, I guess I don't like—

He stopped talking and grew tense with a fury of hatred he had been trying all
evening to control. As he sat in silence his father tried to understand what had
happened, as Joe had told him. The department store clerks were on strike and
were picketing the department stores. Joe didn't know anything about it. They
were marching up and down in front of The Emporium, talking against the store
and asking people not to go in. Joe came from the office where he was office boy
and went past the strikers into the store. He bought the stuff he had been sent to
get by the boss and left the store. All of a sudden four of'them ran after him,
knocked the package out of his hands, and began to beat him up. Joe had been so
surprised he hadn't had a chance to do anything and by the time the men had
been stopped by two cops, Joe had been pushed around and hit and hadn't done
anything about it.

Ever since he had wanted to go back and fight the whole gang of them. His left
eye was swollen and dark.

That's nothing, Nick said. They're workers fighting for rights. They made a
mistake. You forget that, Joe.

The boy came out of his trance of anger and looked at his father.

I'll get those guys, he said.

I tell you no, Nick said.

The boy was silent a moment. He was thinking of the Germans, and the four
men who had beaten him up.

Well, look at Germany he said. Who the hell do they think they are, trying to
move in on our little country ?

The father was delighted, but just as angry about Germany as the boy.

They'll go right in and take the whole country, the boy said.

They've got lots of trouble coming, Nick said to the boy in Czech. They can't
beat the Czechs when the Czechs haven't got guns, let alone when they have got
them.

They won't use guns, the boy said. They'll just bluff and take the whole country.

The old man got up from his chair and filled his chest with the blood of his
youth, hating the small world and its wretched way of behaving.

Joe, he said. The Czechs will fight it the whole world. Them England. Them
France.

What can a small country do? the boy said.

Small country? the father roared, and upstairs the mother heard him. Czecho-
Slovakia is the biggest country in the world, she heard him shout.

You're crazy, Pa, the boy said.

Crazy? the old man shouted. You listen it to me, Joe.

He went over to the boy and towered over him with the crazy Slavic strength of
his youth. The strength that had sent him from the village of Pribor to New York
thirty-three years ago. I tell you, he said, my country is the greatest country in
the world.

The boy got to his feet, knowing there was going to be trouble, not so much
between Germany and his father's country, but between his father and himself;
knowing his father would be disgusted with him if he did not accept the trouble,
and that he himself would be disgusted.

Czecho-Slovakia is a little tiny country, the boy said. Pretty soon it won't be a
country at all.

He hated to know this, but he believed it was true because of the way of the
world. The greatest country in the world was not the country whose men were
great; it was the country with the most men. One man at a time maybe Czecho-
Slovakia was the greatest country in the world, or at least one of the greatest, but
that didn't go when it came to war or politics because when it was war or politics
they didn't bother about the greatness of the men of the country, the greatness in
each man; they just counted them and acted accordingly—the country with the
most men fighting and winning a war or making demands and having them
satisfied. That was all. It was too bad, but it was the truth and there was nothing
his father could do about it.

The father was terribly angry about what the boy had said. He knew it was closer
to the truth than what he was saying, but he didn't like it.

He began to roll up his shirt sleeve, the same as he'd done thirty years ago when
there was an argument between himself and some other hunky, or anybody else.

Joe knew what this meant and got ready.

You say that? the father said.

Yes, the boy said.

Joe, the father said, I gonna fight it you.

Upstairs the American girl, the mother, listened to the crazy, absurd, magnificent
argument, and a moment later she listened to the ridiculous and beautiful fight.
At first she wanted to hurry downstairs and stop the fight, but after a moment she
decided it would be better to wait a while. The fight started slowly, but after less
than a minute it was a real fight, and she could hear the furniture getting pushed
out of the way. She waited until she believed most of the furniture in the dining
room had been ruined, and then went downstairs and stood in the doorway,
watching them.
The father had a headlock on the boy, and the boy had some sort of a toe-hold on
the father, and the two of them were turning about on the floor. The chairs were
all knocked down, and everything that had been on the table was on the floor, the
dishes broken and soup all over the rug. It was the loveliest-looking mess the girl
had seen in over eight years, when the next to the youngest boy, Tom, had had a
fight with Nick.

The girl was not at all displeased that Nick, her lover, was hardly getting the
worst of it. In fact, she was flattered. As for her boy Joe, he was all right. He was
fine. She remembered her visits to the Zoo and how the lions quarreling had
always made her laugh and feel delighted. This was no different from the
beautiful lions quarreling, and suddenly stopping and going right on living
together in the cage. It was the same thing.

First the father and then the son forced his way to the top, and then the other
became angry, just like the lions, and took command. Joe got his head free, but
just as he did so Nick got his leg free and suddenly they were both on their feet,
breathing freely and eager to start again. The father took the son around the
waist and lifted him off the floor, but the son forced the father backward and
down. On the floor Nick swiftly wrapped his arm around the boy's head again,
and this time kept his legs down and out of reach. Joe was almost, but not quite,
helpless.

Now, the father said, What you say, Joe?

The boy busted out laughing.

You're crazy, Pa, he shouted.

The old man lifted the boy and in a fury pushed him backward and against the
wall. The noise was beautiful to the girl, and she loved the splendid way the
whole house shook. The boy bumped his head, worked his neck, and was again
free.

But this time the fight was over. The boy simply didn't go on fighting, and with
no doubt at all about anything, at home, or in Europe, the old man turned, saw
the girl smiling, and began to pick up the broken dishes.

Everything was all right. The Germans had a lot of trouble coming
The boy picked up the chairs and put them in their places.

You remember that, Joe, the father said.

You're crazy, Pa, the boy said

That's all right, Nick said. You know what I said.

The girl joined the two, mopping up the spilled soup with a dish cloth

Thirty years ago they'd all said she was crazy to fall in love with a big bohunk,
but now more than ever she knew how wrong they had been, and how right
everything in the world had been when she had first kissed him.

The hunky turned to his girl and said, Fix the table again, Bess. Now we all
gonna sit it down and eat it our sopper, and Joe and the girl busted out laughing
at the crazy beautiful way he spoke, and was.

After supper the boy said quietly, This is the greatest country in the world, Pa,
and the old man didn't bother to deny it.
The Insurance Salesman, the Peasant, the Rug
Merchant, and the Potted Plant
Arshag Gorobakian was a small man who earned his living as a salesman for the
New York Life Insurance Company. He worked exclusively among his own
people, the Armenians. In twenty years, he often told a new client, I have sold
three hundred policies, and so far two hundred of my clients have died. He did
not utter this remark with sorrow and it was not intended to be a commentary on
the sadness of life. On the contrary, Gorobakian's smile indicated that what he
meant by two hundred of them dying was simply that these were men who had
cheated death of its awful victory, and at the same time made a monkey out of
the New York Life Insurance Company. All shrewd men, he often told a new
client. Men like yourself, in all things practical and brilliant. They said to
themselves, Yes, we shall die, there is no way out of that, let us face the facts.

Here the insurance salesman would bring the printed charts and statistics out of
his inside coat pocket and say, Here are the facts. You are forty- seven years of
age, and by the grace of God in good health. According to the facts you will be
dead in five years.

He would smile gently, sharing with the new client the thrill of dying in five
years and earning thereby an enormous sum of money. In five years, he would
say, you will have paid my company three hundred and eighty-seven dollars, and
on dying you will have earned twenty thousand dollars, or a net profit of
nineteen thousand six hundred and thirteen dollars.

That, he would say, is a fair profit on any investment.

Once, however, he talked to a peasant in Kingsburg who didn't believe he would

be dead in five years.

Come back in seventeen or eighteen years, the peasant said.

But you are sixty-seven years old now, the insurance salesman said.

I know, the peasant said. But I shall not be swindled in an affair like this. I shall
be alive twenty years from now. I have planted three hundred new olive trees and
I know I shall not be dead until they are full grown. Not to mention the mulberry
trees, and the pomegranate trees, and the walnut and almond trees.

No, the peasant said, the time is not ripe for a bargain of this sort. I know I shall
be alive twenty years from now. I can feel it in my bones. Shall I say something?

Yes, the insurance salesman said.

I shall live thirty years longer, not twenty. You will admit I should be cheated in
a deal of this sort.

The insurance salesman was small, courteous, quiet-spoken, and never

aggressive.

I can see, he said, that you are a man of giant strength—

Giant strength? the peasant roared. Shall I say something?

The insurance salesman nodded.

What you say is the truth, he said. I am a man of giant strength. What death?
Why should I die? For what reason, countryman? I am in no hurry. Money? Yes.
It is good But I am not going to die.

The insurance salesman smoked his cigar calmly, although inwardly he was in a
state of great agitation, like a routed cavalry officer trying desperately to round
up his men and organize another offensive.

Death to you? he said to the peasant. God forbid. In all my life I have never
wished another man's death. Life is what we enjoy. The taste of the watermelon
in the summer is the thing we cherish.

May I say something? the peasant interrupted.

Again the insurance salesman nodded

What you say is true, he said. The thing we cherish is the taste of the watermelon
in the summertime. And bread and cheese and grapes in the cool of evening,
under the trees. Please go on.

I do not wish any man's departure from this warm scene of life, the insurance
salesman said. We must face the facts however.

He shook the documents in his hand.

Our world is a crazy world, he said. You are a strong man. You enjoy the taste of
the watermelon. You are walking in the city. An automobile strikes you and
where are you? You are dead.

The peasant frowned.

Ah, yes, he said. The automobile.

In the event that you are killed accidentally, which God forbid, the insurance
salesman said, you will be rewarded doubly.

The confounded automobiles, the peasant said. I shall be very careful in the
streets.

We are all careful, the insurance salesman said, but what good does it do us?
More people are killed every year in automobile accidents than in one year of a
great war

May I say something? the peasant said.

Say it, the insurance salesman said.

I have half a mind to be protected, the peasant said. I have half a mind to take
out an insurance policy.

That is a wise plan, the insurance salesman said.

The peasant purchased a policy and began making payments. Two years later he
called the insurance salesman to his house and reprimanded him severely,
although politely. He complained that although he had spent several hundred
dollars, he had not so much as come anywhere near being killed, which he
considered very odd.

I do not want the policy any longer, he said.

The insurance salesman told the ironic story of another man who gave up his
policy after two years, and three weeks later was gored to death by an angry bull.
But the peasant was not impressed with the story.

May I say something? he said. There is no bull in the world strong enough to
gore me. I would break his neck. No thank you, I do not want to be insured. I
have made up my mind not to die, even for a profit. I have had a hundred
chances of walking in front of an automobile, but always I have stepped back
cautiously and allowed it to go by.

That was fourteen years ago, and the peasant, a man named Hakimian, is still
alive.

The insurance salesman, however, preferred people more enlightened than

peasants. He himself was a graduate of college. His preference was for men with
whom he could talk for hours about other things, and then little by little move in
with the insurance speech. He would often drive two hundred miles to San
Francisco to talk with a dentist who had graduated from college.

Once he decided to drive his Buick across the country to Boston. It was a
journey of ten days. Along the way there would be much to see, and in Boston
he would visit his sister and her husband and their eleven children. He drove to
Boston, visited his sister and her family, and met a rug merchant who was a
college graduate. Three times in ten days he called at this man's home and car-
ried on pleasant conversations. The man's name was Haroutunian and he was
extremely fond of conversation. The insurance salesman found him brilliant on
all subjects. But when the subject of life insurance was introduced he discovered
that his friend was, bluntly, in no mood for it. At least, not for the present.

The time came for the insurance salesman to return to California. Before
departing he was paid a visit by the rug merchant, Haroutunian who was
carrying a small potted plant.

My friend, the rug merchant said, I have a brother in Bakersfield which is near
where you live. I have not seen him in twenty years. Will you do me a favor?

Of course, the insurance salesman said.

Carry this plant to my brother with my greetings, the rug merchant said.

Gladly, the insurance salesman said. What plant is this?

I do not know, the rug merchant said, but the leaf has a wonderful odor. Smell it.

The insurance salesman smelled the plant and was disappointed in the smell of
the leaf.

It is truly a heavenly smell, he said.

The rug merchant gave the insurance salesman the name and address of his
brother, and then said:

One more thing. The agricultural department in each state demands that a plant
being transported be examined for plant insects. There are none on this plant, but
the law is the law. You will have to stop a minute at the agricultural department
of each state. A formality.

Oh, the insurance salesman said.

His word had been given, however, so he put the plant into his car and made his
departure from Boston.

He was a very law-abiding man and the plant caused him quite a little trouble.
Very often even after he had found the agricultural department of each state, the
inspector was out of town and wouldn't be back for several days.

The result of the whole thing was that the insurance salesman got home in
twenty-one days instead of ten. He drove a hundred miles to Bakersfield and
found the rug merchant's brother.

The plant was safe and was now growing small red blossoms that gave off an
odor which to the insurance salesman was extremely unpleasant.

Three thousand six hundred and seventy-eight miles I have carried this
wonderful plant, the insurance salesman said, from the home of your brother in
Boston to your home in Bakersfield. Your brother sends greetings.

The merchant's brother liked the plant even less than the insurance salesman did.

I do not want the plant, he said.

The insurance salesman was a man who was hardly ever amazed by anything.
He accepted the brother's indifference and took the plant home with him.

He planted it in the finest soil in his back-yard, bought fertilizer for it, watered it,
and took very good care of it.

It is not the plant, he told a neighbor. It nauseates me. But some day I shall
perhaps be going back to Boston to visit my sister and when I see the rug
merchant again I know he shall ask about the plant and I shall be pleased to tell
him that it is flourishing. I feel that I have as good a chance as any man to sell
him an insurance policy some day.
The Year of Heaven
There is a whole year of my life that's not included in the years I've been alive. It
is a year that is back there in the days of the streets, and while the real year that
year was like the one before, 1916, and the one after, 1918, another year took
place at the same time and was more or less lost for ten or eleven years. Then I
dreamed the movie and got it back.

It was a wonderful year, that separate year of 1917. It was the year of the
movies. It was the year in which I left the world and went to heaven in the
picture theaters. That was the only time I ever went to heaven and I went in rags,
as it were, and by foot. I went with a dirty face, not a face glowing with holy
light; and sometimes I went with a face wet with the rain of winter; with hands
cold and dirty; sometimes even my shoes would be wet, all soft, and my coat
too.

The movie was the one of the world, the one that never ended. It was the dream
being dreamed, outside in the city, in the dirt and rain, and inside in the picture
theater, in the darkness, with the pictures moving in front of you, the pipe organ
saying how it was, and the dream unfolding in front of you until you got up and
walked right into it and on into heaven, with Theda Bara and Mary Pickford,
William Farnum and Two-Gun Hart, Fatty Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin, and all
the others who were in heaven in those days.

That year in heaven I forgot after the Armistice, and then one night while I was
dreaming I dreamed the movie again and the whole year came back to me. It was
a bright day in the dream and I was back in the streets selling papers and
everybody was buying them, instead of not buying them, the way it had been in
1917. Everybody was buying them and I think I made a dollar and forty cents in
no time.

I'm dreaming, I said in the dream. It wasn't a bright day: it was raining. They
didn't buy any papers either. All it did was rain and the people hurried home. I
went to George Koriakle's on Eye Street and traded a paper for four chunks of
fudge. I ate the fudge and then went over to the Liberty Theater and gave Joe a
paper and he let me in free. I went in just as Jimmy Valentine jumped up onto the
chandelier. I'd seen the picture four times in the last four days and knew the story
by heart. It didn't stop being heaven, though, because Jimmy Valentine, although
once a safecracker, was at heart a man of great nobility, and when the girl got
locked in the safe accidentally, Jimmy rubbed his fingers on stone until they bled
and then when his fingers were sensitive that way he went to work and cracked
that safe and saved the girl.

That year is the year I began to get over cowboy pictures. • If they were being
shown I'd see them through, of course, but I didn't like them. I liked comedies,
but especially the ones with Snub Pollard in them, and a young zany named A1
St. Joy. I liked love stories too. I liked the outdoor ones where the girl would be
somebody wonderful and good like Mary Pickford and it seemed like the whole
world was against a little kid like that with nothing but goodness in her heart,
and then it would happen, the little girl's goodness would knock hell out of all
the viciousness and she'd get the bad ones put in jail where they belonged. And
all like that.

Before I got over cowboy stories, they were the best. The way to do it was with a
gun. Draw quickly, fire accurately, duck and, if hurt, fall slowly, and go on
firing. The worst it would ever be would be a flesh wound that would never keep
you from getting on the horse and riding across the plains to the small house,
leaping off the horse, stamping across the porch just in time for her to run out of
the house into your arms, crying, ODanny, Danny. I didn't exactly see through
that stuff. It was simply that I couldn't get a horse and even if I could buy a gun,
I wouldn't know who to use it on, might not be able to shoot accurately, might be
slow on the draw, might get shot through the head instead of through the flesh of
my left leg, above the knee, and might accidentally shoot somebody who wasn't
guilty.

The streets in our city were pretty much paved and nobody seemed to be arriving
on horseback anyway, and I never saw anybody carrying a gun, except the cops,
who were being paid to do it. And I never saw a cop draw a gun and do anything
about anything. I saw a guitar-player of a marimba band draw a pistol in front of
the Sequoia Hotel and wave it at the five other members of the band and a white
woman, but he didn't fire, and I didn't know what it was all about. One of the
other boys coaxed him into putting the gun back into his pocket and they all
went into the lobby of the hotel as if nothing had happened.

So it didn't seem as if a gun would be any good. The only thing that seemed to
be any good at all was wit, daring and forthrightness. But most important of all
was virtue. If you had all the wit in the world, and a lot of daring and plenty of
forthrightness, but no virtue, you were still on the wrong side and no good.

All I did that year was turn away from the city and walk into the theater and on
into heaven. There was nowhere else to go. It was a year of London, New York,
War, Love, Comedy, Newsreels and Heaven. It got so I didn't even think the
news- reels were real. It got so I thought they were part of the movie too, the
pictures of soldiers marching, and Generals striding about mechanically, turning
feverishly, their lips moving, their arms rising and falling like the arms of men
made of machinery. It couldn't be anything more than a movie. It was all part of
the dream. The people walking along country roads, carrying small bundles,
leaving bombed villages. It was all part of the great endless moving picture. The
wounded in hospitals, with Royalty and Actresses and Generals going around
mechanically from one bed to another, nodding, bowing, shaking hands and all
that stuff. The trains going with all the faces looking out, and the others, not
going, waving. If it wasn't a movie, I didn't know what it was.

It got so that even outside of the theater it was all a movie. Even I was one of the
unnamed ones in the movie. One of the faces you saw fo.r just a moment among
a hundred faces.

I forgot about that strange year until I dreamed the movie and it had stopped
raining and there seemed to be a sudden absence of miserliness and error in the
world.

I guess the people will always be leaving the world and going to heaven. There's
really nowhere else to go.
The Europa Club
In 1918 one of the gambling joints I used to loaf around in, pretending to be
selling papers, was The Europa Club on Tulare Street, across the Southern
Pacific tracks near China Alley, in Chinatown.

The Europa Club was supposed to be a gambling joint, but actually it was
nothing more than a place where men with no money sat around and talked, and
during the War I used to walk over to Chinatown and visit this place. The ugliest
men in the world were loafing in The Europa Club in 1918. Italians, Greeks,
Negroes, Chinese, Japs, Hindus, Russians, and Americans. Every kind of
American, from big dumb Indians and sad-eyed Mexicans to old white-trash
gamblers from Texas.

The place was full of tables and chairs and spittoons. There was a player-piano
in a corner, a bar along the back wall, and over the mirror was an oil painting of
a man who looked a little like Woodrow Wilson. It was a great big painting, the
work, no doubt, of a loafer who had painted it for drinks.

The place stank. The air was polluted with the wasted hours of many men, and
every time I went into the place with a dozen papers under my arm I used to try
to figure out what kept them going. I used to figure maybe it was the silent
player-piano in the corner. Maybe they were waiting for some spendthrift to
show up and drop a nickel in the slot. Maybe the men were waiting for music. Or
maybe it was the big painting of Woodrow Wilson, the great man of the bad
years. Maybe it was the dumb force within themselves, centuries old, demanding
to grow centuries older. Maybe it was nothing.

One day the little Jap called Suki swallowed a big fly.

He was a very melancholy-looking man. Any Jap who is loafing is a

melancholy-looking man because it's not in that race to loaf. He was disgusted
with everything, and nobody would be his friend. He tried to get along with his
countrymen who were loafing in the dump, but they wouldn't have anything to
do with him. He tried to laugh with the Negroes, but he couldn't laugh that way,
and they didn't like the disharmony of his giggle mingling with their guffaws.
They bawled him out every time he tried to laugh with them. He tried to be
friendly with the Indians and the Mexicans. But nobody wanted to be friendly
with him, so he gave it up and just sat in a corner.

One day in August Suki noticed that everybody in the room was aware of the
flies. Not bothered; just aware. It was very hot and very still in the room and the
big flies were flying around and lighting on noses and making the noise flies
make. Suki got up from his chair and waved at a couple of them and didn't catch
one. Everybody noticed him. He waved at another group of flies and this time
caught one. The fly was furious and tried to get away, buzzing loudly, but Suki
held it by its wings.

Then he swallowed it.

His countrymen went over to him and spoke in Japanese with great dignity and
great seriousness. It seemed they wished to know why he had swallowed the fly.
He told them he had swallowed the fly because he was going crazy from loafing.
His countrymen were very upset and at the same time very proud. They thought
at first that he was ' showing off. He had no labor to perform in the world, he
said sadly. They asked what labor he wished to perform, and he said he wished
to plant and care for strawberries. They told him the season for the growing of
strawberries was ended long ago. He said he knew that.

His countrymen told the other loafers why Suki had swallowed the fly.

For weeks during the last days of the War the loafers at The Europa Club talked
about Suki and the fly he swallowed. Part of the time they looked upon him as a
fool and part of the time as a hero.

Before the war ended, Suki swallowed four flies. I saw him swallow the first one
and the last one. The Negroes told me about the others. They said he liked flies.
They roared with laughter about Suki and the flies.

He was a very melancholy-looking man.

The loafers waited patiently, and at last the War ended.

When the soldiers of our town came back from the War, The Europa Club was
sold to a soldier who kicked out the loafers and put the place in order. The
soldier himself dropped nickels into the slot of the pianola and every time I
walked into the place I heard music. Men were at the tables, really gambling, for
money. At the bar were men who were drinking. It was all illegal and all that, but
the soldier was a hard guy and he knew all the ropes. His best friends were cops.

One afternoon in February while I was in The Europa Club I saw Suki come in
and buy a drink.

He was disgusted, and after he swallowed the drink, he caught a fly and
swallowed it. The soldier almost went out of his head when he saw Suki swallow
the fly. He took Suki by the neck with his left hand and by the seat of the pants
with his right hand and lifted him out into the street.

The little Jap walked away without turning around.

The soldier came back in and dropped another nickel into the slot.

Then he turned around and saw me.

I want you to get the hell out of this place, and stay out, he said.
1924 Cadillac For Sale
Anytime you think you can go out and pull something over on somebody, like
selling them a bad used car, you're kidding yourself because people don't believe
lies any more unless they've got their heart set on having the used car anyway. I
used to sell an average of two used cars a week five years ago, but nowadays I'm
lucky if I don't sell two a day. People who buy used cars these days would kill
anybody who tried to stop them from buying. They just naturally want a used
car. I used to try to argue them into believing they ought to have a used car, but
that was before I found out I was wasting my time. That was before I found out
people don't like to be fooled any more.

All I do now is hang around this used car lot and wait for people to come around
and start asking questions about the jalopies we're showing.

I tell them the truth.

I let them know exactly what they're getting, but it don't seem to stop them any
when they've got their hearts set on going for a ride in an automobile. They just
naturally insist on making a down payment and driving away. It used to make
me feel real proud and smart to sell a used car in the old days, but nowadays I
feel a little hurt every time somebody comes up and forces me to sell him one of
these out-of-date broken-down heaps. I feel kind of useless and unnecessary,
because I know I ain't selling anybody anything. I'm just letting the tide of
humanity rush where it pleases or must.

They come here by the hundreds every day, men, women, and children, wanting
a used car, and all I do is let them have their way. I don't put up any kind of an
argument, because it's no use. An old lady who doesn't know how to drive a car
wants to buy an old Hupmobile because it's green, so why should I interfere with
her wishes? I let her know the truth about the old heap, but she buys it anyway,
and the next day I see her going down the street forty-three miles an hour. She's
in sports clothes, and the radio's going full blast, with a crooner hollering: Deep
in the heart of me.

My God, it's beautiful and awful.

And then again a small boy, no more than twelve, comes in here with eleven
dollars he's saved up, and he wants to know how much is the cheapest car on the
lot; and I show him that 1922 Chevrolet we've been offering for fifteen dollars
for seven years now, and he hops in, holds the wheel and says he'll go home and
get the other four dollars. He comes back with his big brother, who signs the
papers for him, and the next thing I know they've got the hood lifted and they're
repairing the motor. In my opinion the old heap's got no more chance of moving
than a bronze horse in a park; but three hours later something happens, and the
whole lot is full of smoke and noise.

It's the old Chevrolet.

By the time the smoke clears I can see them walloping down the street, and I
know deep in the heart of me, as the song goes, that either the people of this
country are natural-born heroes or that the average used car, for all any of us
knows, is part human and will respond to tender and loving care, just as anything
else will.

There was a young Filipino came in here last April who'd been doing farm work
down around Bakersfield, and he'd saved up a small amount of money which, he
said, I wish to purchase a sports model Packard touring car with. Well, I had that
great big battleship of a Packard that had been abandoned in the middle of the
desert just south of Pixley about seven years ago, and I didn't want to see the boy
gypped, so I told him I didn't have a sports model Packard touring car except one
old one that had something fundamentally wrong with the motor and wouldn't
run.

You wouldn't be interested in that car, I said.

I would appreciate it very much if you would allow me to look at it, the Filipino
said.

His name was Vernon. I'm telling you this because I remember how amazed I
was when he signed the papers. Vernon Roxas. The other boys who sat in the car
with him when he drove out of the lot had names that were even worse. One of
the boys was called Thorpe; another was named Scott, and another Avery. My
God, them ain't names you ever see attached to people, native or alien, and me
hearing them little men calling each other names like that made me stop in my
tracks and wonder what the world was coming to. I mean I felt awful proud of
them young citizens. I like people just so they're sensible and honest and sincere,
and I like Filipinos as much as I like any other kind of people. I was just
profoundly impressed by their superb adaptability. Them boys had not only
adjusted themselves to our world: they'd fitted themselves out in the best style of
our clothes, and they'd taken over our most impressive names. I felt awful proud
of that condition in America among the boys from the Island,

Of course I was a little worried about their wanting that old Packard.

I showed the car to this boy Vernon Roxas, and he began crawling all over the
car, trying out everything but the motor.

What is the price? he said.

Well, there was no price. I'd never bothered to give it a price because I was
satisfied to have it in the lot as a sort of decoy, just to take space. I figured I'd do
the boy a favor and name a big price so he wouldn't buy it.

Well, I said, it's pretty expensive. That'll run you about $75.

You mean 75 dollars is the first payment? the boy asked.

Well, right there I guess I could have swindled him, and for a moment I was
tempted to do it; but I just couldn't go through with the idea.

No, I said; $75 is the total cost.

I'll take it, the boy said.

He brought all kinds of money from his pockets, and we counted. He had a little
over $75. I drew up the papers, and he signed. He said he would come back later
that afternoon with several of his friends. He'd take the car then.

He came back in two hours with eleven well-dressed Filipinos named Thorpe,
Scott, Avery, and other names like that. Each of them was carrying a satchel
containing tools and other stuff. Well, they took off their coats and rolled up their
sleeves and went to work. One of them started working on the motor, and the
others started working on other parts of the car. In less than two hours they had
that old warship looking like the car the Governor rides around in when there's a
parade. And they had smoke coming out of it too.
I mean they'd fought their battle and won.

I stood in the lot with my mouth open, because never before in my life had I seen
such beautiful co-operation and strategy. They just naturally fell on that pile of
junk and tightened and cleaned and greased and oiled until it looked like a five-
thousand-dollar job. Then they all got into the car and slowly drove out of the lot
with the motor barely making any sound at all, like the motor of a car just out of
the factory.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Or my ears, either.

I walked beside the boy at the wheel, Vernon Roxas, while the car moved out of
the lot.

Vernon, I said, you boys have just taught me the greatest lesson any man can
learn.

It is our opinion, Vernon said, that this Packard will travel fifty thousand miles
before its usefulness is exhausted.

Well, I said, I don't doubt it the least. I'm more or less • convinced that it will
keep moving as long as you boys want it to.

And don't ever think it's the car. Don't ever think it's machinery. It's people. It's
America, the awful enemy of the people. It's not machinery, it's faith in yourself.
Them boys from the Island went to work and changed that worthless heap of
junk into a beautiful and powerful automobile with a motor that hummed.

When they drove out of this lot in that magnificent Packard my heart cheered
this great country. People with no money having the polite impudence to want
class and get it at no expense and to insist on getting it no matter how run-down
and useless it might seem at first glance.

I don't sell used cars any more.

I just stand around in this lot and admire the will of the people, men, women,
and children, as they take over a bankrupt and exhausted piece of machinery and
breathe new and joyous life into it. I just stay here and admire this great and
crazy race of adventure-loving people who can't be stopped by truth or expense.
I just watch them throw themselves into a cause and come out with a roaring
motor that five minutes ago was a piece of dead and rusted junk.

You're the first man who's come to this lot in six months and not forced me to
sell him a car. I want to shake your hand. Like yourself I'm an honest man, and I
believe as you do that every car in this lot is worthless, useless, and incapable of
moving. I believe as you do that anybody who buys one of these cars is a fool
and ought to have his head examined. It's my job to let the people have what
they want, but I believe as you do that the most they can find here is junk, so
naturally I admire somebody who agrees with me. This old 1924 Cadillac you've
been looking at, in my opinion, isn't worth five cents, but we're asking sixty
dollars for it. I don't think you're the type of man who could bring this car to life;
and I wouldn't care to see you try, because if you failed I'd feel unhappy and
maybe lose my faith in people.

But if you want to give it a try after all I've told you, well, that's your affair. I
won't try to stop you. I'm telling you in all sincerity that this car is no good, but
if you think you can fall on it like the others who buy cars here every day, and
make it go, why go ahead. Nothing can amaze me any more, and if you've got
your heart set on driving a Cadillac, well, here's a Cadillac, and good luck to
you.
The Love Kick
Lots of people in Coalinga don't like Clip Rye just because he kicked Miss Alice
Pfister on Oilfield Street in front of Joe Kolb's barber shop at high noon, but
most of them don't understand Clip. Any other place but a little rundown town
like this, Clip would be appreciated by upper-class people, but what happens to
him in this God-forsaken neck of the woods? He's disgraced. He's in jail. What
the hell for? Because he done it. Because he busted loose and let her have it. He
kicked her. I ain't got nothing against Miss Pfister or anybody like her, only I
don't want any truck with them kind of ladies, weekdays, Sundays, or holidays.
Clip busted loose and kicked her. Lots of people don't like him.

The only trouble with Clip's kick was that it was a love kick. A lady like Miss
Pfister don't deserve a love kick from a man like Clip, the most famous lover in
Tulare County. What I say is, he was too kind to her.

Let me tell you how it happened. Clip ain't no brother of mine. He ain't no
cousin of mine. We ain't even close friends. I ain't prejudiced in Clip's favor and
1 ain't one to say kicking a lady is exactly in keeping with the rules on how to
behave in public. I kicked a lady once myself, and nearly kicked a dozen others.
The lady I kicked claimed I was a loafer. She claimed I was lazy. My first wife. I
didn't do it in public the way Clip did. You're the first man in the world knows I
kicked a lady. I don't go around bragging about it because lots of people are
sensitive on the subject and don't like to hear of a lady being kicked. Nine out of
ten of them don't ever stop to think it over carefully. They just don't like the idea.
I didn't want to kick my first wife. Not even after she almost drove me crazy
nagging at me. She wanted me to take a correspondence course on how to
increase the brain's capacity for thinking. My brain has a better than average
capacity for thinking already, and I don't like it. I don't sleep good, on account of
thinking. I keep thinking all the time. I think how different everything in the
world would be if I had two or three hundred dollars. Then I start thinking along
the political line, and I start thinking how wonderful it would be if I was a
Senator or maybe Vice-President.

I'm thinking all the time, night and day, and my first wife had the impudence to
ask me to take a correspondence course on how to increase the capacity of my
overworked brain. Even then, though, I didn't want to kick her, my right leg just
got out of control and the first thing I knew my first wife was sitting on the
parlor floor calling me dirty names.

You may not believe me, but I'm still sorry about that. Ordinarily I'd only have
clouted her, but my right leg got out of control. I apologized on the spot, but she
wouldn't listen to me. She was mortified with shame. I told her I was sorry. I
lifted my right leg to show her how out of control it was. She saw it trembling
and aching to kick again, but she wouldn't understand.

Honey, I said, it wasn't me, it was my leg. I didn't mean to do it.

She went right home to her mother and I never saw her again.

Clip Rye did it at high noon, though, and right in the street. A lot of people saw it
happen. A lot of people were eye-witnesses. That's why they took Clip to jail.
They claimed they not only saw it, they heard it. They claimed it made a lot of
noise, especially when Miss Pfister sat down on the sidewalk.

Clip Rye is a natural-born lady-kicker. I reckon every man in the world is a

natural-born lady- kicker if he'd be honest about it. I never yet knew a man who
wasn't aching to kick some lady or other. I guess most men go through life
keeping their right leg under powerful control. The average man wastes a
Niagara of energy holding back his kicking leg.

What I say is, Kick a lady if it's the only thing to do. Let her have it.

For all we know, my friend, maybe the ladies themselves are asking for it.
Maybe they want to be kicked. Maybe deep down inside they're just begging for
a strong, healthy kick. I got a feeling Clip Rye's kick did Miss Pfister more good
than harm. I just bet that kick was the starting point of a new era in Miss Pfister's
love life.

Miss Pfister's love life is just about as interesting as the love life of the desert
horned-toad. Miss Pfister ain't had a lover. She don't know what a man smells
like. She ain't had a man's hands go over her the way a man's hands ought to go
over a lady. Consequently, her love life has taken a half dozen special directions.
First she was in the choir at the Presbyterian Church. Nothing happened. So she
went over to the Baptist Church as a Sunday School teacher. Nothing happened.
So she went in for astrology and studied the stars. Then she went in for
professional gossiping. She spent all her time discussing the immorality of the
people of Coalinga, especially Clip Rye, and the immorality of movie stars, and
that's all she cared to do. She used up most of her energy talking about the
immorality of Clip Rye, though. Every time she met Clip Rye in the street she
lifted her nose at him.

She was flirting, of course. She was crazy about Clip Rye. Anybody but a fool
could see how crazy Miss Pfister was about Clip Rye.

She acted as if she wouldn't look at Clip Rye if he was the last man in the world,
but that was her way of flirting. Clip knew it, too. He knew what she wanted,
even if she herself didn't, and Clip resented it. He didn't resent her gossiping
about him, he resented her passion. It drove him crazy. That old hag's in love
with me, he used to say.

Clip was sitting in Joe Kolb's barber shop getting a haircut. Last Saturday. He
was minding his own business sitting there and staring out of the window at the
people passing in the street. Then Miss Pfister went by in the street. Then she
went by again, going up the street, and looking in at Clip and lifting her nose.
I'm giving you the evidence. I'm trying to prove Clip don't deserve social
ostracism. Then Miss Pfister went down the street, lifting her nose. Then up,
then down, looking at Clip, adoring him, and lifting her nose, and then Clip's
right leg got out of control and he jumped out of Joe Kolb's barber chair and ran
out into the street and grabbed Miss Pfister by the arm. He was disgusted. Miss
Pfister was so delighted she screamed. Clip bawled hell out of her. She bawled
hell out of Clip. It sounded like a man and a woman who had been married
sixteen years and knew all about one another, and Clip knew it and it burned him
up. He was disgusted and sore and embarrassed. And then it was all over.

Miss Pfister was sitting in front of Joe Kolb's barber shop, on the sidewalk, at
high noon, and everybody in town was running to the scene of the crime, and
Miss Pfister didn't want to get up.

Clip was so sore he didn't know what to do. If Miss Pfister had gotten up he
would have kicked her again, but she didn't get up. A couple of church- people
started complicating Miss Pfister's love life, and the result of it was they had
Clip Rye taken to jail and he's there yet and everybody in town is sore at him for
kicking Miss Pfister.

Myself, I'd say Clip shouldn't have done it, if for no other reason than that it
made Miss Pfister so happy. She didn't deserve such affection from a man like
Clip Rye. I didn't see Clip kick her, but I showed up in time to hear Miss Pfister
crying, and I know the kinds of crying there is, and Miss Pfister's kind was the
joyous love variety. She was just thrilled to tears.

So they took Clip Rye to jail. They took him to jail for doing a noble kindness
like that.

Joe Kolb never did get a chance to finish Clip's haircut.

Little Moral Tales From the Old Country
My Grandmother Lucy, to illustrate the awful love lines of faith in God and
goodness, and the absurdity of despair, tells the story of the carpenter of many
hundreds of years ago who, on his way home one evening, was stopped by a
friend who said, My brother, why are you so down in face?

You too would feel as I do, the carpenter said, if you were in my position.

What is it? his friend said.

By tomorrow morning, the carpenter said, I must have eleven thousand eleven
hundred and eleven pounds of fine hardwood sawdust for the king or I will lose
my head.

The carpenter's friend smiled and put his arm around the carpenter's shoulders.

My friend, he said, be light of heart. Let us go eat and drink and forget
tomorrow. The great God shall remember for us while we worship.

So they went to the carpenter's home where they found the carpenter's wife and
children in tears. This was stopped with eating, drinking, talking, singing,
dancing, and all manner of faith in God and goodness. In the midst of laughter,
the carpenter's wife began to weep and said, So, my husband, in the morning you
are to lose your head and we are all enjoying the goodness of life. So it's that
way.

Remember God, the carpenter said, and the worship continued.

All night they celebrated and when light pierced darkness and it was day,
everyone became silent and stricken with fear and grief. From the king came his
men knocking softly at the door of the carpenter's house, and the carpenter said,
Now I go to die, and opened the door.

Carpenter, they said, the king is dead. Build him a coffin.

II

My Uncle Aram, to illustrate any number of extraordinary things, tells the story
of another king and another man. This king was given to ridiculous whims, and
this man, one of his advisers, had more good sense, wit, and daring than the king
and all his ancestors put together.

The king said one evening, By morning I want you to let me know how many
blind there are in Constantinople.

Oh, the adviser said. Oh, I see.

He went away to think of a solution to this absurd assignment. He obtained the

services of an expert bookkeeper, placed him on a fine horse, put a book and a
pen in his hands, and told him to ride with him through the city and to put down
the blind as they came to them. With a strong rope, to the saddle of his horse, the
adviser tied an enormous branch of a lilac tree, and dragging this behind him
began to ride over the streets of the city.

After a moment a man in the street looked up and shouted, Mahmed, what are
you doing?

The adviser turned to the bookkeeper and said, Bookkeeper, this man is blind.
Begin your account.

On the next street a lady put her head out of a fine house and said, Young man,
what are you doing? and the adviser told the bookkeeper to continue his account.

By morning the account of the blind included all the people of Constantinople
and the adviser and the bookkeeper turned their horses into the gardens of the
king's palace, still dragging the branch of the lilac tree.

The king himself came out onto a balcony and looked down at his adviser.

Hey, Mahmed, he shouted. What are you doing?

The adviser turned quickly to the bookkeeper and said, Bookkeeper, the account
is now complete. This son of a bitch is blind too.

III

To illustrate the comic stupidity of people who get ahead of themselves in their
ambitions and dreams, my uncle tells also the story of the two Arabs, one wise
and one foolish, who went into the hills to shoot bears.

I have already sold the skin of my bear, the foolish one said. Have you sold
yours?

No, the wise one said. I shall begin to think of that after I have killed my bear.
How is it that you are so confident?

Oh, the other said, it is simply that I am so expert at shooting, so wise in the
ways of bears, and so shrewd in transactions.

They went far into the hills and broke away from one another. An enormous bear
appeared from behind an enormous boulder in front of the foolish Arab who
dropped his gun, fell to the ground, and pretended to be dead. The bear came up
to him, smelled him all over, watered in his face, and then slowly walked away.
When the bear was far away, the foolish Arab got up and dried his face. The
other Arab came to him and said, What did the bear say to you?

The foolish one, who was now less foolish than he had been, said, The bear said,
From now on don't sell my skin till you've got it off my body.

IV

By way of reprimanding two-faced people who speak well of a man to his face
and libel him to others, he tells also the story of the bear and the man who were
friends and went for a walk one day in the winter. The man stopped and blew on
his hands and the bear said, My friend, why do you blow on your hands? To
warm them, the man said. After their walk they went to the man's house for
supper and when soup was served the man blew on it and the bear said, My
friend, why do you blow on the soup? To cool it, the man said. The bear (in
much the manner of an angry man, with the temperament of my uncle) roared, I
revile that breath which blows both hot and cold.

To return small people with pretensions to greatness to their normal size, he tells
also the story of the lion wounded by the bullet of a hunter, roaring with pain and
on the verge of coming to death. Came the small slow-moving turtle to the lion
and said, What is your pain? I have been shot by a hunter, the lion said. The
turtle became angry and said, May the arms of such men be broken who come to
injure magnificent creatures of the earth like us. Brother turtle, the lion said, let
me tell you the injury of the hunter pains me less than what you have just said.
And then the lion died.

On this same theme, he tells also the story of the flea in the elephant's ear as the
elephant walked across a bridge. My friend, the flea said, when enormities like
us cross a bridge it shakes with our mightiness.

VI

A husband and wife were traveling by donkey over a mountain road to Bitlis
when before them appeared a blind man groping for his way.

The husband said, God has given you two eyes; get down and walk and let the
blind man ride.

The wife said, The blind take advantage; let us pass by. But the husband had
taken pity on the blind man and wanted him to ride.

Look, he said. He is hurting his feet; get down and let him ride.

So the wife got down and the blind man got up beside the husband. The wife
walked, the men rode and came at last to the city.

The husband said, This is Bitlis; we will leave you here; get down.

Get down? the blind man said. Just because you guided my donkey for me
through the hills, you want to steal the animal?

The wife saw the trouble coming and groaned.

My foolish husband, she said.

Please get down, the husband said. I took pity on you and carried you on my
donkey to the city. Now go your way.

The blind man began to shout. A crowd gathered. The blind man spoke to the
people. The husband saw that the people were more in sympathy with the blind
man than with him, so he said to his wife, You were right; I have made a
mistake; let him have the donkey; let us go.
Yes, the wife said. Let us go.

The blind man called out, First you wanted to steal my donkey; now you want to
steal my wife; and my wife, seeing a whole man, no longer wants a blind one.

The wife groaned with terror. The husband was speechless.

The crowd believed the blind man. He was blind. They pitied him because he
could not see.

The wife began to cry. The husband refused to go away without his wife.

They went to court and the blind man explained that he and his wife had been
traveling on their donkey to Bitlis when the donkey became stubborn and would
not move; this other man appeared and urged the donkey on and arrived with
them in the city where he first tried to steal the donkey and then the wife.

The husband then told the truth, speaking bitterly and cursing himself for having
such a soft heart.

The wife then told the truth and wept.

The Judge discovered that from the way the three spoke one could not tell which
was lying so he said, Place each of these in a separate room. Let each be
watched, and in the morning report to me what is learned.

This was done.

When the blind man thought he was alone he began to smile. He then yawned,
stretching his muscles. He then began to dance. He said to himself, I've got the
donkey; if I can get the wife, mine will be the life.

The husband cursed himself over and over again for his stupidity in wanting to
help a blind man.

The wife wept.

In the morning this information was given to the Judge. He had the blind man
placed in jail. The husband and wife went away on their donkey.
 VII

There was a blind man in a household to whom the others gave the best of all
things: food, clothing, bed, covers, and all; yet he was filled with discontent and
wailed all day and all night because of his ill-treatment. The family had water
and gave the blind man milk; they had one cup of rice and gave him three; they
had half a loaf of bread and gave him three loaves; but still he complained. In
fury and despair the family killed a lamb, roasted it, placed it on a platter, and
put it before the blind man. He smelled it, began touching it to find out how
large it was, and then began to eat, but before he had swallowed the first bite he
said, If this much comes to me, how much goes to you?
The Warm, Quiet Valley of Home
My cousin drove the broken-down Ford to the front of the house and pulled the
emergency brake because the regular brakes were no good. The car skidded,
choked and stopped. He got out and came around the house to the back yard and
stood a little while looking up at the sky.

Then he came up the steps and on into the kitchen.

I was almost through shaving.

It's going to be a swell day, he said.

That's line, I said.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down and began to have breakfast.
Bread and butter and coffee and Armenian cheese and black olives.

I dried my face and poured coffee into the other cup on the table and began to
eat.

It was a big percolator. He drank four cups and I drank three; I would have had
four cups myself, only there wasn't any more coffee in the percolator.

It was still dark when we left the house.

We've got a swell lunch, he said. I fixed it myself.

Anything to drink? I said.

Beer, he said. Six bottles. I've got them in a box with wet burlap on the bottom
and top, so they won't get too hot.

Can't we get some ice? I said.

Well, sure, he said. But it'll melt.

That's all right, I said. We can drink the beer before we have lunch. It won't melt
before ten in the morning, will it?
It gets pretty hot after daybreak, he said.

I don't like warm beer, I said.

I know where we can get some ice at this hour, he said.

Is it very far out of the way ? I said.

No, he said.

I'll crank, I said.

No, he said. Let me crank. I know how to get this motor going.

He cranked, the motor started, we got in and drove away.

I don't suppose there are any streams up that way, I said.

There used to be a brook somewhere up there, he said. It might be dry this time
of year, though.

Did you bring the guns? I said.

Hell yes, he said. If you hit anything with that twenty-two, it'll be luck, though.

Why? I said.

Something's the matter with the sight, he said.

Maybe it's your eye, I said.

I got a good eye, he said. It ain't my eye. I aimed at a cotton-tail not more than
twenty yards away and missed.

It's probably your eye, I said.

How about the shot-gun ?

It's O. K., he said.

Anything the matter with the sight? I said

No, but you don't need the sight, he said.

Oh, I said.

The old Ford rattled down Ventura Avenue and then slowed down. My cousin
pulled the emergency brake and the car skidded and stopped in front of a Coal
and Ice place that had an office up front and a light on in the office. My cousin
went up and tried the door but it was locked. He looked through the window and
saw a man sleeping in a chair so he knocked at the door. After a while the man
opened the door and said, What do you want?

Pennsylvania coal, my cousin said.

Ain't got no coal this time of year, the man said.

O.K., my cousin said, we'll take ice, then.

How much ice do you want? the man said.

Give me a dime's worth, my cousin said.

The man disappeared and came back half a minute later with a cube of ice in a
canvas bag.

Got a pick? my cousin said.

Sure, the man said.

The man brought the ice to the car and my cousin took the ice out of the canvas
bag and put it on the running board. Then he took the ice pick from the man and
began chipping the cube and putting the pieces between the wet burlap around
the bottles of beer.

My cousin gave the man a dime, and the man went back to his office and chair.

My cousin chipped the cube into small pieces and put all the pieces in the wet
burlap; then he cranked the car and got in.

We turned north near the County Hospital. It began to be day. The sky was very
fine and the hospital looked very sad.
Were you ever in a hospital? my cousin said.

Yes, I said.

What did you have? he said.

Nothing, I said. I was visiting.

Visiting who? he said.

Do you remember Kerop who died? I said. You weren't very old when he was
around.

I remember, he said.

Well I was visiting him, I said.

What did he have? my cousin said.

T. B., I said.

What sort of a guy was he, anyway? my cousin said.

He was O. K., I said. I used to take him grapes and figs and peaches. He wasn't
very old when he died. He wasn't forty. I was ten or eleven.

When we reached Clovis the sun was up and the town was very pleasant-
looking. My cousin drove around town four or five times, looking at the place.

Then my cousin pulled the emergency brake and the car stopped in front of a
general merchandise store. There were no people in the town. Do you want to
walk around in this town? he said.

How about some more breakfast? I said.

Got any money? my cousin said.

About a dollar and twenty cents, I said.

All right, if we can find a place, he said.

We got out of the car and walked along the main street of the little town. There
wasn't much to the town. It was just a lot of sad-looking wooden buildings
facing a couple of sad-looking streets, a lot of sad-looking store windows, a lot
of sad-looking doors and signs and second-story windows. And just beyond the
town you could see the vineyards. It was just a little place in the country
surrounded by vines, but it was very pleasant being there early in the morning.

My cousin went behind a shack that was empty and for rent.

Did I ever tell you about the colored boy who went up to the doctor? my cousin
said.

No, I said.

That's a funny one, my cousin said. I like the jokes of this country more than the
serious things. The serious things are funny too, but they're funny because they
ain't supposed to be funny. Do you remember that guy who came to town and
pitched a big tent and preached?

You mean that revivalist? I said. Sure I remember him.

He was all right, my cousin said. I didn't like the sawdust on the floor and the
wooden benches and the canvas roof. That didn't seem like a church. He was an
earnest man, though. It was very funny when he prayed. I could hardly keep
from busting out laughing. The people were a lot funnier than the preacher. They
were scared to death.

We went back to the main street of the town and found a restaurant, only it was
closed.

There wasn't a soul in town, even though the sun was up and it was beginning to
be hot.

Shall we wait for this place to open up, my cousin said, or shall we go on and eat
some of the lunch and drink a bottle of beer each in the country?

This place may not open up for hours yet, I said.

I don't know why they ever opened this place in the first place, my cousin said.
I'd like to meet the guy who did it.
What sort of a guy do you think he'd be? he said.

I figured he'd be a sort of an amiable sort of a guy, I said.

I don't mean amiable, my cousin said. I mean what the hell do you figure made
him go and open up a restaurant in a town like this?

Maybe he's got a big appetite, I said. Maybe he takes care of that.

I'll bet ten to one that's the answer, my cousin said. He's a little guy with a big
appetite. He doesn't want to go hungry, any time, He wants to have stuff near by
all the time. So he has a restaurant. If the worst comes to the worst, he can eat all
the hash himself.

I think we've solved the whole problem, I said, so we don't need to wait.

We went back to the hack and my cousin cranked it and we drove out of the
town.

The hills were brown and dry. The grass was all dead and dry. We traveled about
ten miles and then it was the place my cousin said was fine. It was a good place.
It was cool and very pleasant, although the weather was very hot. There were
trees that had grown up by themselves, on the slopes of the hills, and beneath the
trees was grass that wasn't dry. We ate three beef sandwiches each and drank a
bottle of beer each, and then we took the guns and the rest of the lunch, except
the beer, and began to walk.

We walked about an hour and didn't see anything to shoot, so my cousin shot at a
white butterfly with the twenty-two and missed.

See? he said. Something's the matter with the sight..

Give me that gun, I said.

I shot at a butterfly and missed too.

Sounds all right, I said.

Sounds just like a twenty-two, my cousin said.

Where the hell's that brook? I said.

What brook? my cousin said.

What do you mean, what brook? I said. The brook. Didn't you speak of a brook
this morning?

I don't think there's any water in it, my cousin said.

It ain't a brook unless there's water in it, I said.

All of a sudden my cousin fired the shot-gun and I saw a jack-rabbit jump and
run.

Something's the matter with the sight on that shot-gun, I said.

No, my cousin said, on second thought I decided not to kill an innocent animal.
After all, what good would it do me?

We walked two hours before we found the brook. There was a little water in it,
but the water was stagnant and stank. Nevertheless, we sat down on the cool
grass and talked.

My cousin wanted to know some more about the man who died in the County
Hospital. Kerop, our third uncle. I told him, and then he told me about a boy who
drowned in Thompson Ditch. A friend of his named Harlan Beach.

He was a good guy, my cousin said.

It was very quiet and pleasant. I laid flat on my back and looked up at the sky. A
lot of crazy years had gone by all right. A lot of crazy things had happened all
right. It was September again and it was very pleasant. It was very hot, but it was
very pleasant too. This was my valley, where I had been born, This earth and sky
was home. This temperature was. My cousin was. The way he talked was. The
memories he knew were part of it. The people he remembered. I looked up at the
sky and remembered New York. I had lived there less than a year ago, when I
was twenty years old, but it seemed as if it were ten years ago, or twenty, or a
hundred. And it seemed as if I had never lived there, or had only dreamed of
having lived there, a long summer and winter dream of sultriness and stickiness
and crazy buildings and crazy crowds and crazy subways, and then bitter cold,
snow and wind, and the black sunless sky.

My cousin talked in English, and I talked partly in English and partly in

Armenian. Then he began to talk partly in English and partly in Armenian, and
after a while we talked in Armenian only.

Poor Kerop, my cousin said. Poor, poor, poor. He used to walk; now he does not
walk.

My cousin moved the palms of his hands together which is the Armenian symbol
of the ending of a thing.

Let us eat bread, I said.

Let us eat bread and remember, my cousin said.

We ate all the sandwiches.

Then we started walking back to the car so we could drink the beer.

There were no animals or birds to shoot along the way. There were a number of
small singing birds, but we did not shoot at them.

Let us salute the absent inhabitants of the world, my cousin said.

That's a noble thought, I said.

We lifted the guns to our shoulders and pointed them at nothing in the sky.

To the dead, my cousin said.

We fired the guns.

The sound was half-crazy and half-tragic.

To Kerop, I said.

We fired again.

To Harlan Beach, my cousin said, and again we fired.

To everybody who once lived on this earth and died, my cousin said.

We fired the guns.

The shot-gun made ten times as much noise as the twenty-two.

Give me the shot-gun for this next one, I said.

My cousin gave me the shot-gun and I gave him the twenty-two.

Who will it be? he said.

To my father, I said. I squeezed the trigger of the shot-gun. It had a powerful

kick.

To my father, my cousin said.

He fired again.

To my grandfather, I said.

To my grandfather, my cousin said.

To Gregory the Illuminator, I said.

To Bedros Tourian, my cousin said.

To Raffi, I said.

We would walk a little way and stop and name someone who was dead, and fire
the guns.

To Antranik, my cousin said.

To Khetcho, I said.

Poor Khetcho, my cousin said in Armenian.

To Mourad, I said.

We saluted many Armenian soldiers and scholars and writers and priests. We
saluted many great men who were dead.

We made a lot of noise in the hills, but it was all right because there was nobody
around.

When we got back to the car the beer was not quite as cold as it had been in the
morning, but it was cool and good to drink.

We drank the beer, my cousin cranked the car, we got in and drove out of the
hills into the warm, quiet, lovely valley that was our home in the world.
A Number of the Poor
One summer I worked two months in a grocery store. I worked from four in the
afternoon till midnight, but after eight o'clock there wouldn't be any business to
speak of and all I'd do was look out the window or go around the store and keep
things in order. It was a little store on Grove Street, in the slums. The people
who came to the store were all interesting and poor.

Only two or three of them didn't steal things, not counting little children. Almost
all the others stole more than they bought. It was just that they needed the stuff
and didn't have enough money to buy it. They'd put a package of chewing gum
in a pocket when my back was turned, or a small cake, or a can of tomato soup. I
knew all about it, but I never let on. They were all good people, just poor.

Once in August a lady tried to hide a cantaloupe in her waist. That was one of
the saddest things I ever saw. She was a woman of fifty or so. It was obvious that
she had a lot more under her waist than herself and I guess she just had to have a
cantaloupe. That evening she didn't buy anything. I guess she was broke. She
spent about five minutes in the store, asking about the prices of a lot of things,
and tasting apricots and peaches and figs. I'd tell her figs were ten cents a dozen
and very good and she'd say they looked good but were they really? Then I'd tell
her to taste one. She'd hesitate a little and then lift a very big one out of the crate,
peel it and very thoughtfully swallow it in three bites, tasting it carefully. She
was always a lady. With a little money to go with her charm I believe she would
have cut an impressive figure in a grocery store, but she never seemed to have
any. I thought it was wonderful the way she got the cantaloupe without losing
her dignity.

One of the few who came to the store and never stole anything was a little
Spaniard named Casal. You had to know which stole and which didn't. Casal was
one of those small men with big heads and sad faces that you notice right away
and wonder about. He used to come to the store almost every night at ten and
stay for a half hour or so to talk. He was quiet-spoken and solemn and dignified.
If you're no bigger than a boy of eleven, and weigh about ninety-two pounds, it's
no cinch to be dignified.

I always had a lot of respect for Casal. He didn't seem to know anything. I don't
suppose he'd read a newspaper in ten years. He had no ideas and no complaints
about anything. He was just a very small man who had managed to stay alive
forty-eight years. Little by little I came to know why he was so dignified and had
no need to complain about anything.

It was because he was a father. He had a son of sixteen. This boy was six feet tall
and very handsome. He was Casal's boy all right; there was no getting around
that. He had his father's head. Casal was very proud of him; that's what kept him
going. One evening he said: You know my boy? He is a fine boy. So big and
good. Do you know what? Every night when I come home from work my boy
says, Pa, get on my shoulders. I get on his shoulders and he carries me all around
the house. Then we sit down and eat.

What can you make of something like that? That small father and that great son,
the boy carrying the father around on his shoulders? There's something there, I
think.

Another night Casal said, I'll tell you why my boy is such a good boy. His
mother died when he was born. That's the reason. He never knew his mother. He
was always alone Even when he was a baby. I used to go home in my lunch hour
to see how he was. Sometimes he'd be crying.. Sometimes he'd be through
crying and he'd be all alone waiting. He stopped crying when he was just a little
baby. He learned to know how it was. After he was two years old it was a lot
easier for him and for me too. You should have seen the way he grew. Do you
like him?

I think he's a fine boy, I said.

Well, I'll tell you, Casal said. Do you know what? He wants me to stop working.
He wants to work for me now. He says I've worked enough. He's good with
machines. He can get a job as a mechanic in a repair shop. You know what I told
him? I told him no. I told him, Joe, you're going to college. He gets along fine
everywhere. He's a good boy. I'm going to send him through college. He's got a
right. I like to work for him.

Sure, I said.

Casal was one of the fine ones who came to that store when I worked there.

There was a little red-head, about twelve, who was another. Her name was
Maggie. She was very powerful, the way some kids of the poor are and full of
the swellest laughter in the world.

She used to come into the store and bust out laughing right out of a clear sky, no
preliminaries, no explanations or anything. She'd just come in and laugh. That
always pleased me, but I'd never let her know it. So she'd laugh some more.

All right, I'd say. What do you want?

You know, she'd say.

Laughter.

A loaf of bread? Bread! she'd say.

Well, what do you want?

Out of the corner of her eye, a glance.

What have you got?

There wouldn't be anything else to do with somebody like that, so I'd toss her a
peach which she would catch and eat very daintily. Spoofing though, of course,
with her little finger extended.

They say I look like Ginger Rogers, she'd say.

They're liars.

I do, she'd say. You know I do. Do you like her?

She's swell, I'd say.

I look just like her, she'd say.

Twelve years old.

The country's full of them too, and it's no use worrying about them. They're all in
the big movie.

Another was the little boy who never had a penny but always came to look.
About four years old. I used to call him Callaghan. He was great. He'd spend an
hour looking at the penny candies and never say a word, except maybe to
himself. People would stumble over him but he'd stick to his spot and keep
looking.

One evening the lady who stole the cantaloupe patted him on the head.

Your son? she said.

Yes, I said.

A fine boy, she said. He resembles you. How much are figs today?

Ten cents a dozen, I said.

Are they really good?

Yes, they are. I ate one five minutes ago. Please try one.

She did and tried also a peach and an apricot.

She didn't buy anything that night either. She stayed ten minutes and I know she
wanted to ask if she might borrow twenty-five cents till tomorrow, but didn't
dare. At last she said, We're lucky to be living in California, aren't we?

I've never been out of the state, I said. I've never been out of this city. Is it
different in other places ?

Oh terribly, she said. Why, there are places you can hardly breathe in in the
summertime. Chicago. And look how wonderful it is here.

She was at the open door and waved her arm gently outward at the sky.

The air is so fine here, she said.

When she was gone I called Callaghan. He came over immediately.

Would you like a licorice strap?

No answer.

He would, of course, but he wouldn't say so.

Come over here and take what you like, I said.

He came over behind the candy case but didn't reach to take anything.

Take anything you like, I said.

He looked at me a little uncertain.

Sure, I said. You can have anything you like.

He couldn't believe it and was a little scared.

It's all right, I said.

He reached out and took a licorice strap.

Take something else, I said.

He put back the licorice strap and reached for a wax dog.

No, I said. Keep the licorice strap, too.

In all he took four different kinds of penny candies, but it took a lot of
encouragement from me to get him to do it.

Okay, Callaghan, I said. Now go home and eat them. Take them with you.

Without a word, but still amazed, he went away.

The next day when he came back he said very quietly, The best is the licorice
strap.

In that case, I said, I'll try one myself.

So I got him one and one for myself and together we ate them.

It was a good job while it lasted because of the fine, funny, tragic, little poor
people who came there for things to eat or somebody to talk to.
The Monumental Arena
At the waterfront they told me about the trouble.

They put the blame on one head and then on another. The men were sullen.

There was one who had been clubbed. He was a sad-faced Scandinavian. What
this boy said I could understand.

He said it was a thing he could not speak about to the others because they had
one idea in mind, and he had several. They were good men, he said, but he was a
man who could read a book and stand up and go to work and, working,
remember what he had read. Every word, he said.

They had clubbed him and he was without hate. He even laughed, saying it was
funny. The man who clubbed him, doing it with hate. He said he saw the man, a
police. The man was frightened. He felt sorry for the man. And then the club
came down on his head and he laughed out loud and became unconscious.

When he awoke, he was in the smell of the emergency hospital. Six others were
there, one a woman. He felt all the ugliness and lost his temper because the
woman, who was really hurt, was swearing and crying and saying she could kill
every cop on the waterfront.

He got up, he said, feeling angry, and was about to lift the table from the floor
and smash it against the wall, because it was too much to hear the woman
swearing and crying, and then he remembered how funny it was, and sat down.

The young doctor asked if he was all right. He told the young doctor he was all
right all right, only if he didn't have a little drink he might get sore, and he didn't
want to. The doctor told him sure. He swallowed the drink and began to smile,
the woman still crying. Now it was as bad as before and he knew it, only he was
accepting it differently, because of the drink. It was a lie, but he said what of it?
Since it was all a lie? It was better to smile. He felt sorry for the young doctor.
For the man who had clubbed him he felt bitterly sorry, because he knew the
man was a coward when he might not be.

He talked quietly, saying it was not easy for him to listen to the woman crying.
He told the young doctor he was going away. He wrote his name in the book and
told the doctor he had no address because he had no money and would not stay
in a free place. He said the doctor did not like it, and began to swear. The doctor
gave the Scandinavian a dollar and the Scandinavian accepted the dollar, because
it was different. It was the way the doctor swore that made it different. It wasn't a
shame. The doctor was a young man who had gone through college and learned
about curing the body of pains, and the way he swore made the acceptance
possible.

It was a thing to remember, to place against the lifted club of the police and the
insanity of the weeping woman.

He walked down the steps of the emergency hospital smiling, because it was
true. There was and could be one of one kind as much as one of another. The
swearing of the doctor proved it: angry kindliness or angry hate, decency in man
or the other thing.

At the waterfront I listened to the young Scandinavian. At the same time the
others talked, I could understand the significance of the talk without
understanding the words, because the words were only the outward form of the
thing, which is not important, and the talking was the thing itself. But I could
understand the significance and the words when the Scandinavian talked because
they were one and the same.

The strong body has a wisdom beyond language, but if you are clubbed and your
equilibrium is destroyed and you fall, laughing, and waken in the smell of a
hospital, and hear weeping, and feel sudden insanity, and learn of decency in
man, the body is apt, if you have read two or three books by good men, to find
articulation and to utter timeless belief and faith, its humility and its pious anger,
and this boy spoke without effort, speaking for himself.

He said he was sorry for everybody because when he was clubbed and while he
was laughing and while he was falling and his balance was being taken from his
body and mind and he could not determine who or what to hate or love there
occurred in him only one thing, white, like snow, quiet, like weeping music, and
this thing was pity. It was pity for the man who had struck him and pity for all
the others on strike, for the rich who were using the police and the clubs of the
police, and for all rich and all poor in all cities and in all countries, for man
everywhere, caught in the monumental arena, helplessly the victim of a vicious
and stupid game, wanting something, wanting a breath of free and pure air,
escape, to go beyond the walls of the arena, to stand alive and whole. He said he
saw life caught in the small arena as he fell. The air there, he said, was stifling.
He could feel life suffocating, and he did not know what happened finally except
that he remembered nations of them running against the wall of the monumental
arena, and that was all.

When he awoke in the hospital he could almost remember what happened after,
but he could not quite do it, and all that he remembered was their running and
his pity. Then he heard the woman weeping and swearing, and he wanted to
destroy the whole place.

He said he could not understand.

We want something, he said, but we do not know what. It is all in the books, our
wanting, but we do not know what.

He looked at the others who were talking, and smiled.

They think they want more money he said, but that isn't all. Better working
hours, he said, but that isn't all either. It is something beyond these. More, he
said. More and beyond. It is in all the books, not in the writing, but it is there.
And many died, he said, wanting. Something we have lost perhaps, he said. We
cannot remember what it is but sometimes, sometimes in sleep, we remember
that it is lost and when we get up in the morning we think it is money we want,
but that isn't all. The rich are sometimes more miserable than the poor, and they
have enough money to buy everything that can be bought. There is a mistake in
some place of our life.

He took the dollar from his pocket and smiled at it. It was the gift of the young
doctor.

I have had it two days and I am never going to spend it, he said. When I left the
hospital, he said, I needed a drink badly and I went to the Palace Bar.

Then something happened and I would not spend the money. It was the way the
doctor swore, wanting to help me and help everybody, and if I used the money it
would destroy the feeling I had of gratitude. I am keeping it, he said. Either, he
said, for giving to another when the time comes or for giving back to the doctor.
It is money, he said, if I spend it. If I do not spend it, he said, it is many things,
maybe what we have lost and are trying to get back.
Peace, It's Wonderful
The Judge said he was sorry but the young man was guilty of hopping. Two
eager, middle-aged, slum-dwelling, white women with memories got up in the
first row and said, Thank you, Father. Peace, it's wonderful.

The Judge ducked, called for order, and said, Never mind that Father stuff. You
ladies are old enough to be my mother. I will now pronounce sentence.

The sentence was five years in the Federal Penitentiary.

That ought to hold him a while, the Judge thought.

The young man told reporters he was happy and at peace with the world. He said
powerful vibrations had been coming to him from New York. He said he was
exhausted and looked forward to spending the next five years in holy seclusion.
He told the reporters he had been wanting to write a book, and now he was going
to have his chance.

Thank you, Father, he said. Peace, it's wonderful.

The Judge was disgusted.

It ain't right, somebody said. A good honest religious young man like that with
nothing but love in his bones don't deserve punishment like that.

What is dis stuff? Manuel the pool shark said.

Everywhere I go everybody saying Peace.

We went around the corner to Pete's and had two beers and a steak sandwich
each. Then we went across the street to the North Beach Branch of that religious
order. In the window was a picture of the man and beneath the picture was the
opinion that the man was God.

It was eleven o'clock at night. Two American girls of the half-wit school came
out of the place and stood on the porch. Behind them was a large good-natured
Negro woman who might have been a maid in any one of the whorehouses in
that neighborhood. There was a bunch of bananas in the room, as well as a shelf
of canned goods, mostly beans.

O.K., Sport, Manuel said. Flash de smile. Give out de personality.

These girls? I said.

Sure, Manuel said.

Good evening, I said to the Negro woman. How much are the bananas?

Thank you, Father, she said.

The two girls said, Peace, it's wonderful.

Oh boy, Manuel said.

Bananas are thirty cents a dozen, the Negro woman said. Peace.

I'll take a dozen and a half, I said. Thank you.

We went into the hall. The girls moved to go. Manuel said, Amen, and gave the
girls the religious eye. They smiled piously and vibrated.

I helped the Negro woman count out a dozen and a half bananas. When I turned
around Manuel was gone. I saw him at the corner with a girl on each arm.

He turned around and hollered, Hurry up, Joe. Peace, it's wonderful.

Peace, It's Wonderful.

I went back to Pete's and gave the bananas to a Chinese newsboy.

Manuel showed up a little before two in the morning.

Peace, I said.

It was all lousy, he said. What is dis stuff?

Piano
I get excited every time I see a piano, Ben said.

Is that so? Emma said. Why?

I don't know, Ben said. Do you mind if we go into this store and try the little one
in the corner?

Can you play? Emma said.

If you call what I do playing, Ben said.

What do you do?

You'll see, Ben said.

They went into the store, to the small piano in the corner. Emma noticed him
smiling and wondered if she'd ever know anything about him. She'd go along for
a while thinking she knew him and then all of a sudden she'd know she didn't.
He stood over the piano, looking down at it. What she imagined was that he had
probably heard good piano playing and loved that kind of music and every time
he saw a keyboard and the shape of a piano he remembered the music and
imagined he had something to do with it.

Can you play? she said.

Ben looked around. The clerks seemed to be busy.

I can't play, Ben said.

She saw his hands go quietly to the white and black keys, like a real pianist's,
and it seemed very unusual because of what she felt when that happened. She
felt that he was someone who would be a long time finding out about himself,
and someone somebody else would be much longer finding out about. He should
be somebody who could play a piano.

Ben made a few quiet chords. Nobody came over to try to sell him anything, so,
still standing, he began to do what he'd told her wasn't playing.
Well, all she knew was that it was wonderful.

He played half a minute only. Then he looked at her and said, It sounds good.

I think it's wonderful, Emma said.

I don't mean what I did, Ben said. I mean the piano. I mean the piano itself. It
has a fine tone, especially for a little piano.

A middle-aged clerk came over and said, How do you do?

Hello, Ben said. This is a swell one.

It's a very popular instrument, the clerk said. Especially fine for apartments. We
sell a good many of them.

How much is it? Ben said.

Two hundred forty-nine fifty, the clerk said. You can have terms, of course.

Where do they make them? Ben said.

I'm not sure, the clerk said. In Philadelphia, I think. I can find out.

Don't bother, Ben said. Do you play?

No, I don't, the clerk said.

He noticed Ben wanting to try it out some more.

Go ahead, he said. Try it some more.

I don't play, Ben said.

I heard you, the clerk said.

That's not playing, Ben said. I can't read a note

Sounded good to me, the clerk said.

Me, too, Emma said. How much is the first payment ?

Oh, the clerk said, Forty or fifty dollars. Going. Asking him for a job. Bragging.
Then ahead, he said, I'd like to hear you play some more.

If this was the right kind of room, Ben said, I could sit down at the piano for
hours.

Play some more, the clerk said. Nobody'll mind.

The clerk pushed up the bench and Ben sat down and began to do what he said
wasn't playing. He fooled around fifteen or twenty seconds and then found
something like a melody and stayed with it two minutes. Before he was through
the music became quiet and sorrowful and Ben himself became more and more
pleased with the piano. While he was letting the melody grow, he talked to the
clerk about the piano. Then he stopped playing and stood up.

Thanks, he said. Wish I could buy it.

Don't mention it, the clerk said.

Ben and Emma walked out of the store. In the street Emma said, I didn't know
about that, Ben.

About what? Ben said.

About you.

What about me?

Being that way, Emma said.

This is my lunch hour, Ben said. In the evening is when I like to think of having
a piano.

They went into a little restaurant and sat at the counter and ordered sandwiches
and coffee.

Where did you learn to play? Emma said.

I've never learned, Ben said. Any place I find a piano, I try it out. I've been doing
that ever since I was a kid. Not having money does that.
He looked at her and smiled. He smiled the way he did when he stood over the
piano looking down at the keyboard. Emma felt very flattered.

Never having money, Ben said, keeps a man away from lots of things he figures
he ought to have by rights.

I guess it does, Emma said.

In a way, Ben said, it's a good thing, and then again it's not so good. In fact, it's
terrible.

He looked at her again, the same way, and she smiled back at him the way he
was smiling at her.

She understood. It was like the piano. He could stay near it for hours. She felt
very flattered.

They left the restaurant and walked two blocks to The Emporium where she
worked.

Well, so long, he said.

So long, Ben, Emma said.

He went on down the street and she went on into the store. Somehow or other
she knew he'd get a piano some day, and everything else, too.
The Mouse
He was a little man with a sad look in his eye; an uncertain posture, as if he were
held together only temporarily and might at any moment break into all sorts of
ridiculous, surrealist fragments. He was not nervous as very strong people
sometimes are. He was on edge, but friendly. That was because he was afraid; a
mouse among many cats. He was hungry and so were the cats, so he was
friendly and good-natured.

He called them all killers.

Hi-ya, Killer, he would say to Sam. Sam wouldn't even look at him. Look, Killer,
he'd say to Dopey, I got a horse in this next race that's a cinch. He'd try to smile
and seem one of the cats, but Dopey would give him a dirty look and say, All
right, Mouse, you've got a horse in the next race that's a cinch, so bet him to win,
or ride him, or eat him. You're hungry, so eat the horse.

Ha, ha, Mouse would say, I could eat a horse at that.

Sam himself, though, and Dopey too, were no better than Mouse. They just
happened to be less temporarily held together. They just happened to be able to
take it better than the little fellow. If no one talked to them they didn't feel lonely
and scared. If they didn't eat they didn't suffer the way he suffered. If they
gambled and lost they didn't feel like falling down somewhere and dying.

In a way they were his inferiors. He was at least critical of the world. He only
wanted to be one of them, the ones who were no good in the world. He didn't
want to be making up to the world any more because he knew it was no use.
He'd tried long enough to get by as a clerk or something in some corner of the
world, some corner of commerce or industry or something. There was no place
for him out there, so he wasn't eager to go out any more and try to make a place
for himself. He talked about it a good deal whenever he found somebody who
would listen and he swore a good deal, spitting at every opportunity, being one
of the boys, turning around suddenly to see if anybody was going to play a joke
on him again. He'd always laugh, and try to be one of the gang. Blackie or
somebody else big would lift him off the floor by the seat of his pants and trot
him out of the place and drop him in the alley and he would stand in the alley a
moment, trying to decide what to do, and after a while he'd come back in, talking
at the top of his voice while everybody roared with laughter.

The others of course were stupid, not strong. They didn't understand that in a
way he was the best of them, the gamest, and the one who was having the most
trouble and taking it better than anybody else. They didn't realize that when they
were unfriendly to him they were behaving like the smug ones in the world, the
ones who had kicked them out and told them to stay out. They were enjoying a
vicious and wretched kind of superiority. He was a little brother and instead of
being kind to him they hurt him all the time and wouldn't even do him the favor
of letting him be useful to them once in a while. He was always eager to be
helpful to any of them. He was always the first to offer to go on an errand, but
they always pushed him out of the way and sent somebody else. They didn't
even want him to feel useful. He took it all and showed up every day and stayed
until the races were over, and even though he never seemed to have a nickel to
his name he managed better than the others to keep from coughing.

One day a big lout named Harry won eighteen dollars on a race and felt so
superior that he began to pick on the little fellow.

What do you eat, Mouse? he said. Where do you sleep?

The little fellow was scared to death because of , the money Harry had in his
pocket and didn't know what to say.

If Harry hadn't won all the money he would have said, I eat the same things you
eat, and I sleep where you do, in empty stores. But now he didn't know what to
say. It wasn't easy for him to lie. He stood uneasily, fidgeting, trying to think of a
good answer and then he said:

I eat Irish stew and sleep in a bed.

This was too desperate a reply not to be funny and everybody busted out
laughing. Everybody knew that what the Mouse was saying was that he wished
to God he could eat Irish stew and sleep in a bed for a change.

Then Harry asked a question that made everybody laugh.

Somebody goosed the little fellow. He jumped and tried to get into a corner
while everybody crowded around him, pretending to want to touch him, making
him shrink and bend and put his hands in front of him and then in back. When he
was safe in the corner everybody waited for him to talk. Everybody was all
primed to bust out laughing no matter what he said. He looked about fearfully
and when he spoke his voice cracked.

I've got a girl, he said.

The laughter was hysterical. Everybody went around shoving and striking one
another, saying, He's got a girl.

One of them who wasn't much bigger than Mouse himself and a good deal more
of a weakling tried to embrace the little fellow. The little one pushed the other in
the face. It was all an accident. He just didn't want anybody with a face like that
to kiss him. The other one stopped being funny and smashed a hard fist into the
little one's face and the little one crumpled into the corner and sat down. His eye
began to swell and his lips were trembling and before Harry lifted the other one
off the floor and ran him out into the alley, the Mouse, almost crying, said, Well,
I have. I can show you her picture.

Everybody was a little disgusted with the whole episode now, and Harry pushed
through everybody and took care of the other little guy who knocked the Mouse
down.

Who the hell are you? Harry said. This was my joke.

He ran the other fellow out into the alley, and the other fellow never came back
to the place again. The next day, though, the little one was there the same as
ever. That made everybody have a little respect for him. His left eye was badly
swollen, but at least he was there. He was very quiet of course, but so was
everybody else.

Harry was the richest one in the dump for three days. Then he had his normal
run of bad luck and once again he was broke. He went on being broke for four
days, and it looked like he was going to be broke for a long time to come. One
day, just before post time on the last race, the little fellow, who was standing
beside Harry, said quietly, I really have got a girl. Do you want to see her
picture?

No Harry said. I believe you. I haven't got a girl and neither have any of these
other lugs.
The Adventures of a Young Man Some Day to Be
Another Jack London
When you go away from home the first time in your life you're usually a year or
two under twenty. You're usually ambitious and anxious to be a newspaperman
or something. You're usually eager to meet exciting people and do wonderful
things. That's how it was with Joe two years ago when he left my home town and
came to Frisco, the same as me ten years ago.

He was a boy people looked at twice in the hope of finding out if he was just
dumb or got that expression from having one great idea after another. He was a
little under six feet, broad-shouldered, good-looking one minute and ordinary-
looking the next. It all depended on when you happened to look at him.

He'd had a year at State College: football, public speaking, and the leading role
in the college production of Emperor Jones.

He wrote for the college magazine, too. It was a story called A Guy With a Good
Heart, and of course it was about himself. It was about how he gave a bum in the
street who'd taken him for somebody with money his last quarter because he
didn't want to disappoint the bum. The best thing about the story was that it
didn't say the bum didn't need the quarter.

That's how I knew Joe had a good heart or a poor imagination.

It turned out that his imagination was all right. As for his heart, it was one of the
best that ever got broken.

When he came to Frisco he didn't get in touch with me for a month. He arrived
in town with thirty-seven dollars, and didn't have a job when the money gave
out. He walked through town one whole night because he didn't have any money
for a room. The next day he came up to see me, but not to borrow money. He
wanted to borrow my typewriter. He wanted to write a story. He wanted to write
about what he'd seen while walking through town all night.

What did you see? I asked him.

Believe me, he said. Nothing. That's what I want to write about. If I had money, I
wouldn't be that way.

No? I said. Let me lend you some money till you get started.

Thanks, he said. All I want is a typewriter.

All right, I said. You can have a typewriter, but suppose you do write the story,
suppose it is great, what then?

What then? he said. It'll be written, that's all.

Let's go get some breakfast, I said.

Supper for me, he said.

All right, I said. I've had breakfast. I'll have lunch. You have supper. We'll
manage somehow. We'll explain the whole thing to the waitress.

What waitress? Joe said.

Any waitress, I said.

Oh, he said. I thought maybe you knew a waitress.

I know a couple of waitresses, I said. I know them only by their first names of
course, but if necessary I can ask them their last names.

No, he said. I thought you knew somebody you wanted me to meet. I hope to
marry and settle down some day, you know.

You've got to have a waitress of course, I said.

No, he said. You're getting everything wrong. I'll marry the first waitress we
happen to run into if she can sing and is beautiful and likes me.

How many meals have you missed so far? I said.

Three or four, Joe said.

Are you running a fever or anything?

No. Why?

Well, if you've missed three or four meals and aren't running a fever and talk the
way you do, you're a natural-born writer.

It's the truth, Joe said. But do you think Scoop Healy cares about that?

Who's Scoop Healy?

He's the best city editor in San Francisco.

How do you know?

He said so himself.

He did? How did that happen?

I told him he didn't know his business. Then he told me he was the best city
editor in San Francisco and if I didn't believe him I could go to hell or ask any
newspaperman in town. He said I could go to hell anyway.

What did you say?

Well, Joe said, what could I say. I told him I was sorry. I told him I hadn't known
he was the best city editor in San Francisco.

What did he say to that?

He said to go to hell.

Why?

Because he was ten minutes behind deadline.

I sat down again. So did Joe—for two seconds.

Ten minutes behind deadline? I said. How'd you happen to run into him at a time
like that? City editors don't interview applicants for jobs at a time like that.

Friend of mine got me into the editorial room at six in the morning, Joe said. I
hid under a desk until I saw his shoes.
Scoop's shoes?

Yes. Friend of mine told me they were big brown oxfords.

Who is this friend of yours? I said.

The telephone operator, Joe said.

What telephone operator?

The one that works from midnight till eight in the morning at The News. Alice.

Oh, I said. Alice.

What did you do when you saw his shoes?

Well, Joe said, I said, Pardon me, Mr. Healy, can I have a moment of your time?

Don't tell me you were hiding under his desk?

Of course, Joe said. I didn't want an interview with the re-write man.

Go on, I said. I know you're hungry, but let's get this straight before we eat. If we
don't, the food will be poison.

So I asked him if I could have a moment of his time.

What did the best city editor in San Francisco say to that? In view of your
addressing him from underneath his desk?

He said no.

What?

That's right, Joe said. He said no.

Joe, I said, you're sure you're not running a fever from not having had three or
four important meals ?

Three or four meals are pretty important to a growing boy, you know.
Growing boy? Joe said. I'm nineteen. And a good writer, too.

I know, I said. If I'm not badly mistaken, you're going to be another Mark Twain
or somebody.

Jack London most likely, Joe said.

Jack London? I said.

Sure, Joe said.

Sure what? I said.

Sure, Mr. Harley, Joe said.

No, no, I said. I didn't mean for you to get formal. You don't need to call me Mr.
Harley. I've known you since, you were born in the house across the street from
the house I was born in. What about Jack London?

I mean, Joe said, if you're not badly mistaken, I'm going to be another Jack
London.

Why Jack London? I said. Instead of somebody else, I mean? You're not exactly
the rugged out-door type.

I'm pretty rugged, Joe said. It's true I haven't been getting out-of-doors a great
deal lately. But I'm more or less elemental about most things.

If you mean, I said, that when you haven't had three or four meals you get
hungry.

No, Joe said. I mean about more things than getting hungry. Would you believe
me if I told you I weigh one hundred and ninety pounds?

Yes, I would. Tell me.

I weigh one hundred and eighty-six pounds, Joe said.

Now more than ever I believe you. So you weigh one hundred and eighty-six
pounds. So what?
Not one ounce of it's fat.

So what?

Well, Joe said, add two to two together and draw your Own conclusion.

You mean you're very hungry? I said. Very, very hungry ?

No, Joe said. I'm hungry all right, but that's not what I mean. I mean a guy like
me has to have a girl.

A guy like you certainly does, I said.

I should say so, Joe said.

Well, now that we've got that settled, I said, let's go back to the telephone
operator who works from midnight till eight in the morning at The News, and
the best city editor in San Francisco, Scoop Healy. After you've told me
everything and had a bite to eat, you can come back here and write that story you
want to write.

Thanks, Joe said. How are things going, Mr. Harley?

Not bad, I said. What did you do when Scoop Healy told you you couldn't have a
moment of his time?

For a minute, Joe said, I just sat there. I hadn't counted on his saying I couldn't
have a moment of his time, so I just sat there and tried to figure out what I ought
to do next.

What did you decide?

Nothing. I didn't have time enough to figure out anything brilliant.

No? Why not?

All of a sudden Scoop Healy realized where I was. Under his desk, I mean. He
jumped out of his chair and moved back and bent down to look at me.

Who are you? he said.

Joe Morgan, I said.

What are you doing under my desk? he said.

At the moment, I said, I'm sitting.

He started getting sore. I could tell he was getting sore from the way he was
trying to be polite.

I see, I said. Go ahead.

Well, Joe said, he asked me what I wanted.

I want a job, I said.

We don't need a copy boy, he said.

Copy boy? I said. Mr. Healy, I'm one of the best newspapermen your paper is
ever going to have on its staff. I'm on my way to New York.

How did he take that? I said.

Not very pleasantly, Joe said.

How could you tell?

Well, Joe said, from what he said. He told me to get the hell out from under his
desk and hurry to New York.

What did you do? I said.

I got out from under his desk, Joe said, and offered to meet him more formally. I
mean, I put out my hand. He took my hand and put his arm around me and I
thought I had misjudged him when I believed him to be unfriendly, but I was
right. I mean I was wrong when I thought I had misjudged him, I hadn't. I was
right when I believed him to be unfriendly. With his arm around me he tried to
force me toward the door.

Here Joe smiled as he did whenever he was remembering an episode in which

everyone but himself had behaved stupidly.
And you know how many pounds I weigh, Joe said.

Yes, I said, you told me. I suppose your weight was no small thing to move
toward the door.

Mr. Healy weighs at least two hundred pounds himself, Joe said.

Don't tell me you two had trouble, I said.

It wasn't my fault, Joe said.

Of course not, I said.

I wasn't the one who did the first pushing, Joe said.

Did you do some of the later pushing? I said.

A little, Joe said. We were talking all the time of course. He got more and more
unfriendly and finally we started to wrestle. It wasn't my fault. I didn't mean to
disarrange his clothes. As for his coat, he tore it himself. Then Miss Corbett told
me to get off of Mr. Healy that very minute.

Miss Corbett? I said. Who's she?

Alice, Joe said. You know. The telephone operator.

Oh, I said. Did you get up?

Of course, Joe said. Mr. Healy got off the floor and bawled everybody out. They
all went back to their desks.

Miss Corbett, he said do you know this young gorilla?

He's no more a gorilla than you are, Miss Corbett said.

How did he get in here? Mr. Healy said. And what are you doing here at ten in
the morning? You're off duty at eight.

She was waiting to find out how I would make out.

Why?
Well, Joe said, I'd bet her two dollars I'd get a job.

I see, I said. You lost of course.

Not exactly, Joe said.

Not exactly? I said. Don't tell me he hired you.

No, Joe said. He didn't hire me, but he may hire me some day. I made a profound
impression on his subconscious mind.

I should say you did, I said. Sticking your head out from under his desk the first
thing in the morn- wrestling him.

Thanks, Joe said. I'm hungry, but most of all I'm excited about this story I want
to write.

All right, I said. Let's go get supper for you and lunch for me. After lunch for me
and supper for you we'll come back here and you can go into the next room and
close the door and write your story. I'm eager to see what it will be like.

Thanks, Mr. Harley, Joe said. It's not often a young man like me happens to get
born in a house across the street from the house a man like you was born in.

I should say not.

We went out into the hall, talking, got into the elevator, talking, walked two
blocks to Terry's, talking, took a booth, and went on talking.

It was the pleasantest thing I'd run into since I'd left Kingsburg myself. Joe had
brought a lot of the old home town with him to the city. It was amusing to
remember the place and the old years through the way he talked and smiled and
got into every kind of trouble any young man from a small town ever got into in
a big city, being ambitious and wanting to be a newspaperman and wanting to
meet exciting people and have adventure and reach New York and be famous
and fall in love and so on. It was pleasant to know the old home town was still
making them that way.

Joe's supper was two orders of ham and eggs, five cups of coffee, and peach pie
a la mode.
How do you like San Francisco? I said.

Fine, he said, but I got homesick last night.

We went back to my office. Griffis had fixed up the room I use for reading and
loafing and taking naps. He'd cleared the desk and put a brand new rented
typewriter and a bundle of white paper on

it. When we got back to the office I opened the door of the room and told Joe to
sit down and do his stuff.

Thanks very much, Mr. Harley, he said.

If you want anything, I said, Just buzz. Mr. Griffis will be glad to get you
anything, won't you, Mr. Griffis?

I certainly will, Griffis said.

I won't be wanting anything more, Joe said. Typewriter. Paper. Private office.
That's all a writer needs.

He went into the office, closed the door, and two minutes later Griffis and I
heard him pounding on the typewriter.

Extraordinary young man, Griffis said.

I saw him grow up, I said.

Little by little the typing slowed down, then stopped. An hour later Griffis
opened the door of the room and found Joe asleep on the couch.

He was still asleep at six, so Griffis and I decided to let him go on sleeping. He
had a troubled, childlike, sorrowful, yet amused expression on his face. I left five
ten-dollar bills on the desk with a note.

Dear Joe:

When you wake up, here's a little money.

I glanced at the sheet of paper in the typewriter and read: Now is the time for all
good men to come to the aid of their party. Scoop Healy. Some day you'll
remember me. Now is the time

Griffis and I tiptoed out of the room, closed the door, and left for the day.

In the morning Griffis found a typed short story on Joe's desk and a note for me.

Dear Mr. Harley: Joe wrote.

I'm sorry I fell asleep. I guess I was tired. You've been very kind. I'm borrowing
the fifty dollars, but as I have nothing else I'm leaving as

security this short story which I wrote when I woke up at ten minutes to eleven
tonight. It is now three o'clock in the morning. Please take good care of the story
for me until I pay you back the fifty dollars. Your friend and admirer,

Joe Morgan.

Joe called the story A Night of Empty Streets. It was about walking around town
all night and not having anywhere to go. Some of the writing was good in a
naive, small-town way, and some of it was terrible in a naive, small-town way.

I didn't hear from Joe again for a year. Three days after he came up to the office
and told me about everything I had to fly to New York and two weeks later I had
to go to London, and from London I had to go to Paris where I had to stay five
months. I told Griffis to give Joe as much money as he needed, keep an eye on
him, and to let me know how he was making out. Griffis wrote that he hadn't
seen Joe again or heard from him. I got back to San Francisco seven months
after Joe had come up to the office. Griffis had no idea what had become of Joe.

So I sat down and read his story again. It was no better and no worse than it had
been the first time I had read it. I hoped nothing had happened to him.

A couple more months went by and then one day an airmail letter from
Kingsburg came from Joe. He was back home again. He wrote that he had stayed
in Frisco only two weeks after borrowing the fifty dollars. Then he'd gone down
to Los Angeles where he'd gotten a job on The Record. It had lasted three days.
Then he'd gone down to El Paso and after that to New Orleans, doing any kind
of work he could get and trying to write. After New Orleans he'd gone up to
Chicago and gotten a job in a department store, selling sports goods, and three
weeks later he'd gone to New York, the one city in the world he'd always wanted
to reach. He had been in New York all during the month of August. That was
amusing because I had been in New York all during the month of August, too. In
New York he'd gotten very homesick for Kingsburg and very tired of big cities
and the noise, and one day he'd bought a bus ticket and started back to the old
home town. He belonged in Kingsburg, he wrote. He was born there and
everybody he knew and liked was born there and he was going to stay there.

Well, as I say, when you go away from home the first time in your life you're
usually a year or two under twenty, ambitious and anxious to be a newspaperman
or something, eager to meet exciting people and do wonderful things. Everything
happens to you. After a while you decide to go home.

That's the first time.

The second time it's different.

That first time away from home you grow older in a couple of months than you
do in eighteen years at home. You go home with a heart more or less broken, but
after a while everything gets straightened out inside of you and you know
enough to make the second departure.

Griffis has been keeping track of Joe for me, and although Joe is still in
Kingsburg I know he'll be making his second departure pretty soon.

I'm going to be watching out for him because after that first attempt to live the
fine literary life, a guy like Joe is a cinch to do some mighty exciting things.
After that first defeat he's not going to be hiding under anybody's desk, he's
going to be hiding somewhere where he can stand up straight.
Romance
Would you rather sit on this side or would you rather sit on the other side? the
red-cap said.

Hmm? the young man said.

This side all right? the red-cap said.

Oh, the young man said. Sure.

He gave the red-cap a dime. The red-cap accepted the small thin coin and folded
the young man's coat and placed it on the seat.

Some people like one side, he said, and some like the other.

What? the young man said.

The red-cap didn't know if he ought to go into detail, about some people being
used to and preferring certain things in the landscape looking out of the train
from one side, and others wanting to get both sides of the landscape all the way
down and back, preferring one side going down, usually the shady side, but in
some cases the opposite, where a lady liked sunlight or had read it was healthy,
and the other side coming up, but he imagined it would take too long to explain
everything, especially in view of the fact that he wasn't feeling real well and all
morning hadn't been able to give that impression of being on excellent terms
with everybody which pleased him so much.

I mean, he said, it's no more than what anybody wants, I guess.

The red-cap, figured the young man was a clerk who was going to have a little
Sunday holiday, riding in a train from a big city to a little one, going and coming
the same day, but what he didn't understand was why the young man seemed so
lost, or, as the saying is, dead to the world. The boy was young, not perhaps a
college graduate, more likely a boy who'd gone through high school and gotten a
job in an office somewhere, maybe twenty-three years old, and perhaps in love.
Anyhow, the red-cap thought, the young man looked to be somebody who might
at any moment fall in love, without much urging. He had that sad or dreamy look
of the potential adorer of something in soft and colorful cloth with long hair and
smooth skin.

The young man came to an almost violent awakening which very nearly upset
the red-cap.

Oh, he said, I've been sort of day-dreaming.

He wiggled the fingers of his right hand near his head, or where people imagined
one day-dreamed.

Have I given you a tip? he said.

The red-cap felt embarrassed.

Yes, sir, he said.

The young man wiggled the fingers of his left hand before his face.

I very often forget what I'm doing, he said, until long afterwards—sometimes
years. May I ask how much I gave you?

The red-cap couldn't figure it out at all. If the young man was being funny or
trying to work some sort of a racket, it was just too bad because the redcap
wasn't born yesterday. The young man had given him a dime and if the young
man came out with the argument that he had given the red-cap some such
ridiculous coin as a five-dollar gold piece the red-cap would simply hold his
ground and say, This is all you gave me—this dime.

You gave me a dime, he said.

I'm sorry, the young man said. Here.

He gave the red-cap another dime.

Thank you, sir, the red-cap said.

Were you saying something while we were coming down the aisle? the young
man said.

Nothing important, the red-cap said. I was only saying how some folks like to sit
on one side and others on the other.

Oh, the young man said. Is this side all right?

Yes it is, the red-cap said. Unless of course you prefer not getting the sunshine.

No, the young man said, I kind of like sunshine.

It's a fine day too, the red-cap said.

The young man looked out the window as if at the day. There was nothing but
trains to see, but he looked out the window as if he were looking to see how fine
a day it was.

The sun don't get in here where it's covered up, the red-cap said, but no sooner
than you get out of here into the open you'll be running into a lot of sunshine.
Most California folks get tired of it and get Aver on the other side. You from
New York?

There was nothing about the young man to suggest that he was from New York
or for that matter from anywhere else either, but the red-cap wondered where the
young man was from, so he asked.

No, the young man said, I've never been out of California.

The red-cap was in no hurry, although there was considerable activity

everywhere, people piling into the car, other red-caps rushing about, helping
with bags, and hurrying away. Nevertheless, he lingered and carried on a
conversation. There was a girl

across the aisle who was listening to the conversation and the red-cap fancied he
and the young man were cutting quite a figure with her, one way or another. It
was charming conversation, in the best of spirits, and, although between men in
different stations of life, full of that fraternal feeling which is characteristic of
westerners and Americans.

I've never been out of California myself, the redcap said.

You'd think you'd be the sort of man to travel a good deal, the young man said.
Yes you would at that, the red-cap said. Working on trains, or leastaways near
them, on and off most of my life since I was eighteen, which was thirty years
ago, but it's true, I haven't set foot outside the boundary lines of this state.

I've met a lot of travelers though, he added.

I wouldn't mind getting to New York some day, the young man said.

I don't blame a young man like you for wanting to get to New York, the red-cap
said. New York sure must be an interesting place down around in there.

Biggest city in the world, the young man said.

It sure is, the red-cap said, and then he made as if to go, dragging himself away
as it were, going away with tremendous regret.

Well, he said, have a pleasant journey.

Thanks, the young man said.

The red-cap left the car. The young man looked out the window and then turned
just in time to notice that the girl across the aisle was looking at him and was
swiftly turning her head away, and he himself, so as not to embarrass her, swiftly
continued turning his head so that something almost happened to his neck.
Almost instantly he brought his head all the way back to where it had been, near
the window, looking out, and felt an awful eagerness to look at the girl again and
at the same time a wonderful sense of at last beginning to go places, in more
ways than one, such as meeting people like her and marrying one of them and
settling down somewhere in a house somewhere with, more likely than not after
time enough, two or three offspring.

He didn't look at the girl again, though, for some time, but kept wanting to very
eagerly, so that finally when he did look at her he was embarrassed and blushed
and gulped and tried very hard to smile but just couldn't quite make it. The girl
just couldn't quite make it either.

That happened after they'd been moving along for more than ten minutes, the
train rolling out among the hills and rattling pleasantly and making everything
everywhere seem pleasant and full of wonderful potentialities, such as romance
and a good deal of good humor and easy-going naturalness, especially insofar as
meeting her and being friendly and pleasant and little by little getting to know
her and falling in love.

They saw one another again after about seven minutes more, and then again after
four minutes, and then they saw one another more steadily by pretending to be
looking at the landscape on the other side, and finally they just kept seeing one
another steadily for a long time, watching the landscape.

At last the young man said, Are you from New York?

He didn't know what he was saying. He felt foolish and unlike young men in
movies who do such things on trains. «

Yes, I am, the girl said.

What? the young man said.

Didn't you ask if I was from New York? the girl said.

Oh, the young man said. Yes, I did.

Well, the girl said, I am.

I didn't know you were from New York, the young man said.

I know you didn't, the girl said.

The young man tried very hard to smile the way they smiled in pictures.

How did you know? he said.

Oh I don't know, the girl said. Are you going to Sacramento ?

Yes, I am, the young man said. Are you?

Yes, I am, the girl said.

What are you doing so far from home? the young man said.

New York isn't my home, the girl said. I was born there but I've been living in
San Francisco most of my life.
So have I most of mine, the young man said. In fact all of it.

I've lived in San Francisco practically all of my life too, the girl said, with the
possible exception of them few months in New York.

Is that all the time you lived in New York? the young man said.

Yes, the girl said, only them first five months right after I was born in New York.

I was born in San Francisco, the young man said. There's lots of room on these
two seats, he said with great effort. Wouldn't you like to sit over here and get the
sun?

All right, the girl said.

She stepped across the aisle and sat across from the young man.

I just thought I'd go down to Sacramento on the special Sunday rate, the young
man said.

I've been to Sacramento three times, the girl said.

The young man began to feel very happy. The sun was strong and warm and the
girl was wonderful. Unless he was badly mistaken, or unless he got fired
Monday morning, or unless America got into a war and he had to become a
soldier and go away and get himself killed for no good reason, he had a hunch
some day he would go to work and get acquainted with the girl and marry her
and settle down.

He sat back in the sunlight while the train rattled along and smiled romantically
at the girl, getting ready for the romance.
At the Chop Suey Joint on Larkin Street at Two
Thirty in the Morning
This was a place that didn't do a nickel's worth of business till after ten o'clock at
night; mostly low-lifes of the region; five not-very-Chinese-looking Chinese,
that is, not truly Chinese any longer, kind of spoiled after too many years in that
neighborhood, a little too close to American tragedy and scum and vulgarity;
that is, they'd lost the East in themselves, they'd become Western, kind of snappy
in a way, kind of efficient, talkative, which is not the true Chinese way. In the
Chinese restaurants in Chinatown of Frisco, where the Chinese are truly Chinese
the waiters aren't that way, they're quiet, self-respecting, unhurried, partly deaf,
and yet at the same time, not at all offensive, they don't make you dislike them,
like the boys in this joint do, who, to all appearances, are the friendliest souls in
the world. It just doesn't seem to work, some reason or other.

Anyhow, Terranova and I had just walked a friend home, after a night of dull
conversationally brilliant people who had griped Terranova, and much drinking,
and now he was hungry, so when he saw the Chop Suey sign he thought he'd like
some tomato beef which when cooked right is something good to eat.

It was half past two in the morning and when we got to the door we saw the
good-looking young man and the smart Chinese waiter making a commotion.
You could just tell trouble was going on, so Terranova, who was feeling
disgusted on account of the lousy conversation all evening, went in and we took
the table next to the young man's.

Look at the poor guy, Terranova said. He's so lonely he's got to make trouble
about the price of something he ate in a joint like this.

The Chinese waiter was growing severe, in a sort of American bouncer way, and
he said, You pay thirty-five cents or I call police.

The young man got more indignant and said, Go ahead, call the police.

He wants to see them, Terranova said. He wants them to see him. It's all on
account of loneliness. Who wants to argue about thirty-five cents? Ten to one
he's get more money than you and me put together.
How do you know? I said.

You're dumber that the people you introduced me to tonight, Terranova said.
He's lonely, can't you see? It's not the money. He wants them to make a fuss over
him. Look how pretty he is.

I looked, and sure enough he was pretty. He was soft all over and indignant like
a woman with trouble going on in her.

The Chinese waiter came close to grabbing the young man by the neck and the
young man kind of challenged him to do it, but he didn't after all.

You pay, he said, or I call police.

I won't pay, the young man said.

So the Chinese waiter stepped out to the sidewalk and in less than two minutes
two big cops came in, kind of business-like. They had been in the beer joint next
door. They were like the Chinese too, kind of spoiled by the neighborhood, easy
work, and lots of money from the joints.

They were big, though, and that was what counted.

All right, the biggest one said to the young man, you ate, so you pay or I'll run
you in.

Well, said the young man, you can see for yourself from these dishes on the table
that I didn't have thirty-five cents' worth.

The big cop looked over at his friend and smiled and the other one smiled back,
then made one of them faces that means, Well, shut my mouth, look what we've
got here.

Oh, the big cop said. Oh, I see. You didn't have thirty-five cents' worth. Well,
what is thirty-five cents' worth? Come on, give this young Chinese boy his
thirty-five cents and take a walk.

Well, it isn't fair, the young man said.

Come on, pay, the cop said. Come on. Come on, he said like a comedian.
He didn't touch the young man and for a moment the young man waited.

Then he got up and brought some currency from his pocket.

Terranova hit my arm and said, See? I win.

He gave the Chinese waiter a five dollar bill, and the cop said, That's a good boy.

The two of them went back to the kitchen to eat something free.

The Chinese waiter came back in a moment with the change. All of it was silver,
the way it is in Frisco always. The young man put the money in his pocket, but
dropped a half dollar.

The Chinese waiter picked it up and offered it to him.

Keep it, the young man said.

It wasn't easy to figure out why. The Chinese waiter couldn't figure it out either,
and the young man went away. The waiter giggled and went back to the kitchen
and then the cops roared with laughter.
Ohio
It's a sad world, Sam said. He was playing I've Got a Feeling You're Fooling,
smoking a nickel cigar, keeping his eyes on the gobs and talking to a kid who'd
come into the place for the first time with a slick dame and was now drunk and
sorry about everything.

Sad? said the kid. It's worse than sad, it's lousy. It's ten times lousier than Ohio.

Ohio? said Sam, tickling the piano keys, punctuating his question with a lot of
loud chords. Ohio? What the hell's Ohio got to do with the world?

The gobs were waltzing all over the place, bending the girls this way and the
other, hugging them like maybe they would finish the job right there while they
were dancing.

Ohio? said the kid. What's Ohio got to do with the world? Ohio is the world, pal.
I was born in Ohio.

Well, said Sam. I'm mighty glad to speak to a man who was born in Ohio.
Myself I was born incognito, ha-ha-ha.

That's funny, said the kid. Ha-ha-ha, he said. That's very funny.

What's the matter ? Sam said

What's the matter? said the kid. Everything's the matter.

Is it that dame? said Sam. Well, take it easy.

She ain't much.

Not much she ain't much, said the kid. She's Ohio and everywhere else to me.

She's a pushover, son, said Sam. Take it easy.

He knew the kid was worried because the girl was waltzing around with one of
the gobs.
Pushover? said the kid. Don't give me any of that kind of lip. Don't talk about
my girl in that kind of language.

Your girl? said Sam, breaking into Miss Otis Regrets.

You're goofy, boy. That girl is your girl and my girl and the gob's girl. She
belongs to any man in the world who can buy her a drink.

The kid told Sam to go to hell and went over to the bar. Sam saw him swallow a
drink the way young kids who are being disillusioned do it.

Poor kid, he said.

He saw the kid's dame swimming around over the floor with the big gob.

He played one more number. Cheek to Cheek, and then had Mike bring him a
bottle of beer. He didn't want the beer, he wanted the bottle. He poured the beer
into a glass and put the glass on the piano. He put the bottle under the piano
where it would be handy.

Them young fools always made trouble because they took things too seriously.

If Sam, the piano player, had to break somebody's head, he had to, that was all,
and he'd do it, even if it hurt him more than ithurt (a) the kid, or (b) the gob, or
(c) the girl.

He didn't like to hit anybody over the head with a beer bottle, but he never took
time out to dwell on the moral aspects of the act when the trouble started. There
was something fine about grabbing the bottle firmly by the neck, swinging it
upward, bringing it down on a befuddled head, bringing order and poise into the
universe again, going back to the piano while Mike dragged the fellow to the
street, and playing, as if nothing was changed anywhere in the world and all was
well, The Music Goes Round and Round.

He began to play the song, looking around, watching the boy, knowing the
trouble would start soon, and he would bend down, lift the bottle, walk to where
the trouble was, and stop it.
The War in Spain
You could barely breathe it was so sultry.

My big brother Drake was in his room, walking around naked after a cold bath,
talking out loud and singing. Take everything, he said.

Take my money.

My heart.

Take my life, he said.

I slumped down in the rocking-chair on the front porch and watched him. This is
a sad year in the world, I thought. I could feel the world laughing at all of us who
are alive.

Drake stood in his room, smoking a cigarette.

You know you belong to somebody else, he sang. So why don't you leave me
alone?

Then he busted out laughing.

Enoch, he called. Oh, Enoch.

I got up from the rocking-chair and went into the house. Pa was sleeping on the
couch in the parlor. He looked as if he were trying to get far away to a place
where he could breathe clear air.

I went into Drake's room.

What? I said.

Enoch, he said.

What?

What are you dreaming about now?

Nothing, I said. What do you want?

My boy, he said. I'll be leaving you soon. I want to have a little talk with you.

This is the saddest year of the world, I thought.

Where you going? I said.

Enoch, my boy, he said. I'm on my way to the war.

War? I said. You're fooling.

I was scared, like the times when I'd think the world would end in a minute or
two, everything break to pieces and everybody die, drowning or suffocating or
being crushed by some great unseen weight.

You're fooling, I said.

My boy, he said, I am now a soldier.

I started to cry because I could tell he wasn't fooling. He lifted me off the floor
and dropped me face down on his bed.

Enoch, my boy, he said, war is man's delight. Danger is his solace, and death is
the lover of all who breathe.

He talked a long time. I sat up and looked at him. In a war, I thought, a man is
killed. Drake will be killed.

They'll kill you in the war, I said. Don't go, Drake.

Maybe they'll kill me, and maybe they won't, he said. That's what I want to find
out.

They'll kill you, I said.

I saw him dead in the middle of some dark earthly desolation and began to cry.
He would be alone there and broken, his body crushed. Ma heard me crying and
came to the room.

Why are you making the boy cry? she said.

They'll kill him, I bawled. Drake's going to the war in Spain, and they'll kill him.

Ma screamed. Drake, she cried.

Drake puffed at his cigarette.

Drake, Drake, Drake, Ma cried.

She turned and ran to Pa.

Enoch, my boy, said Drake, I want to leave you anything of mine you'd care to
have. My gun, my phonograph, my books. I'll talk to Paula later. You come first.

I don't want anything, I bawled. They'll kill you. You wait and see.

You're nine, he said. That's a good age for music. I'll leave you the phonograph
and the records. How will that be?

No, I said. I don't want anything.

Paula can have the books, he said. Go call her.

I was glad to go. I ran up the stairs to Paula's room.

Drake is going to the war, I said.

I didn't wait for Paula to say anything. I ran out of the room, and she came down
the stairs a moment later. Pa and Ma were in Drake's room, talking to him. Paula
was Drake's twin and she didn't seem sorry at all. I guess she understood Drake
too well to believe what he was doing was wrong.

I followed her into the room. Ma was still crying, but Pa only looked tired.

You're not old enough to go to the war, he said.

I took care of that, Drake said.

He looked at Paula.

You can have my books, he said.

You're only eighteen, Ma said, and she started to cry again.

Only? Drake said.

You're no Communist, Pa said.

I'm a student, Drake said.

Don't cry, Ma, Paula said. Nothing'll happen to Drake.

Sure, said Drake.

He'll be killed, I said.

What do you want to be a soldier for? Pa said.

Drake put on his coat and hat, smiling at everybody, and Ma started to cry louder
than ever.

Pa said, God damn it.

He put his arms around Ma and said, What do you want to cry for?

He took Ma into the parlor.

That was all. Drake went to the war. We never saw him again, and nobody in the
house except Paula could keep from crying. Paula kept saying, They can't kill
Drake, even though he was dead.
Comedy is Where You Die and They Don't Bury You
Because You Can Still Walk
All night instead of sleeping he stared out of the lower berth window at the dark
sky and remembered for the first time in many years his oldest dreams. He
looked far away into heaven, looking far away into his heart, and felt the regret
within himself at the hours and days and years wasted, the warm days of summer
lost, the heavy ripe air unbreathed, the years empty of everything but roaring
streets and crazy people, the eye blind to everything but ugliness, the ear deaf to
everything but noise, the heart dead to everything but struggle.

For hours he watched the dark land, hungering for it. The level plains, the bare
hills, the lonely brooding trees.

My God, he said.

He began to dream, his heart talking to itself.

Seven times the sheep have wakened and seven times, it is the same afternoon.
There is still light upon the earth.

A ferocious hunger for food possessed him. He got into his clothes and went
looking for the porter. He found the Negro sleeping in the smoking room. He sat
down and lighted a cigarette. After five minutes, when the porter did not waken,
he shook the man and said, I'm sorry, but I'm hungry. Can you get me some
food?

There ain't no food at this hour, the porter said.

He brought some money from his pocket and handed the porter two one-dollar
bills.

Get me a lot of sandwiches, he said, and anything to drink you can find.

Any kind of sandwiches? the porter said.

Yes, he said.
You want to spend all this money? the porter said.

I want food, he said. Anything you can get.

There ain't no place to eat at this hour, the porter said.

I'll eat here, he said. Get anything you can. Here's a dollar for yourself.

I'll do the best I can, the porter said.

The porter stayed away almost half an hour. He returned at last with seven
sandwiches and six bottles of various kinds of soda pop.

This is the best I could do, he said.

Thanks, the young man said. Did you bring a bottle-opener ?

Yes, sir, the porter said. I didn't forget no bottle-opener at this hour of the night.

The porter put down the sandwiches and the bottles and went away.

The young man unwrapped one of the sandwiches, opened one of the bottles,
and began to eat and drink.

He began to feel better, less conscious of the wasted years, less grieved by death
within himself. Eating and drinking, he began to feel amused. The world was all
right. It was hard, but it had to be hard. It killed you, but it did so innocently,
without motive. He knew he was dead, but nobody

could prove it. Nobody knew.

Suddenly, while he was eating, he heard his heart again and the food became
poison. It became like ash and he could not swallow. He got up as if someone
had entered the room and saw only himself in the mirror. He spat the food from
his mouth and listened.

Seven times, his heart said.

What the hell is this anyway? he said.

He sat down and lighted a cigarette. His heart talked on, and he sat like a small
child, listening, and while his heart talked, he argued with it.

Let them waken seven hundred times, he said. Nothing can kill me. In the
morning this train will reach San Francisco.

He tried to eat again, but the miserable food wouldn't go down.

I remember, his heart said.

His guts choked with nausea, and bending with the pain, he waited for the
murder to end, so he could breathe again.

He straightened at last, dried his eyes, and began to laugh in memory at the
wretched comedy of mortal man in the immortal world. The world alive and
inhuman, the man human and dead. The slapstick comedy of his hunger to live,
to open the eye to something better than ugliness, to silence the roaring streets,
to fill the empty years with light and reality.

He was still laughing when he reached his berth, stretched out, and looked far
away into heaven again. Now dead, his heart said, Go ahead and laugh, What
else can you do?
Noonday Dark Enfolding Texas
When winter ended in 1935 a lot of earth was lifted by wind and carried from
one place to another, making a dust storm. If there hadn't been cities on this
continent, this natural event wouldn't have made much difference one way or
another, but there were cities.

The first thing they teach us at school is that earth is not for breathing. We are
not rodents or reptiles or worms. We do not burrow into the earth. Our life is not
sustained by darkness, it is sustained by light. It is not hidden in density, it is
reflected in transparency. Our substance is refreshed and renewed by air and
water and light.

The second thing they teach us is that there was a flood once on the earth. It was
a mythical flood or a small flood much exaggerated by men who feared God. It
doesn't matter. The living perished in that flood; the living, at least, which were
not fish. The flood was supposed to be punishment. There was much ungodliness
among the living, so the living were drowned. This is perhaps no more than a
fable. Even so it is a good one. Evil is as well destroyed by flood as by fire or
anything else natural. But where's the evil in being alive in a small town in
America?

Dry, desolate and lonely Texas, rock and sand and dust, and the train. Lord God
the crazy train rattling through Texas, the sky dark with dust and the smoker full
of the sad faces, the travelers, the everlasting travelers of the earth, going from
one place to another, leaving one thing for another, and seeking God only knows
what.

If you like, of course you can dismiss the whole thing by saying trains are
saddening. One shouldn't get aboard a train. One should walk. One shouldn't go
from one place to another. One should stay in one place, and let it go at that.

I'll agree that trains are tragic contraptions. I'll agree that going from one place to
another is a melancholy activity.

Even so.

I myself, aboard the train, had no destination. The train, however, was going to
El Paso. So, with the train, my destination was, in a way, El Paso.

El Paso.

Lord God. I'd never seen the city. I knew El Paso was a city because it came up
in geography one year. It didn't come up in mythology. It wasn't a buried city or
a mythical city, it was a place in Texas. The living had made this place only
recently, especially the Americans. I don't know for sure, but maybe a dozen
cities have been buried under the place where El Paso now stands, cities of
Mexicans-and Indians. I'm only guessing, not being a student. But El Paso itself
was one of the American cities that came up in geography. We used to learn
something significant about every city and state in America. Pittsburgh, coal.
Nebraska, wheat. Kansas, corn. Boston, culture. And so on. I never did
remember what we learned about El Paso I knew Texas was big. I knew it was
cattle country and all that, but I didn't know anything specific about El Paso. I
figured it was a place in the world, inhabited by the living

and therefore a place of the holy presence of God on earth.

What I mean is, living, are we to live, or not? Geographically and mythically,
religiously, and every other way. Are we to live, living, or are we to be fretted to
death by trains and dust storms, blizzards and floods and fires, hunger and pain,
labor and fear, debts and entanglements, cold and homelessness, monotony and
noise? Is our presence here to be something, or nothing? In this experience of
hydrogen and oxygen, earth and water and fire, time and space, are we to reach
any place, are we to know any truth, are we to possess any loveliness? Or what?
Lord God, I'm in earnest. I wanted to know that year, and I want to know this
year.

Is it full of meaning because the meaning is nothing and we will be pleased to

have nothing, bread and shelter and clothing and water and warmth, a place to
walk, and a place to pause and rest? And is it meaningless because the meaning
want is more than we can have? It's fine: it's the world. You're born and you
become the center of a multitude of encumbrances. You work, you die. Brother,
there's meaning for you, but you know it's no meaning to write home about. You
know it's the easiest and goofiest meaning to be had. The most scientific, the
most real. That's all: the world. Take it or leave it. And you take it. You break
even.
What are we going to get out of it? What can we get out of it? Well, we can get
one of two things: nothing, or everything. If you're religious, you know this is so.
Unseeking you can have nothing and at the same time much that isn't worth
tabulating, or, seeking, you can seek love, and maybe find it, as I did in El Paso.

I had no place to go that year, but I was on the train and so were a lot of other
people. The train roared through the dust of the southwest, and the dust came
into the train. Your nostrils became dry, your lungs became dry, your hands
became dry, and you asked the question. You looked at the earth, desolate Texas,
and asked the question. Even here, Lord? Even out of this dryness, in the midst
of this desolation? That loveliness, Thy presence? There have been births in
Texas, Lord.

I remember the men in the smoking car talking, but I don't remember what they
said. It was about trouble. I remember buying a Texas paper and reading a
headline: Noonday Dark Enfolding Texas. I remember a photograph of a man
who had died, a Texas Judge. I remember he was a remarkable Judge in that he
overruled or sustained objections as a baseball referee declares a player safe or
out, using the baseball gestures, both arms outspread for objection sustained,
thumb high for objection overruled. A great American, direct, no hocus-pocus:
you're out, you're safe. Now, he himself was out, and the old thumb was high.

The train came into El Paso, and I got off.

It was dark in El Paso that day at two in the afternoon. It was the storm, the dust.
You couldn't breathe, and there was a strong wind. Even so, there it was, El
Paso, which I had never before seen. It was the ugliest and loveliest city I have
ever seen. If you looked at the buildings and streets, it was ugly, as all cities are,
but if you looked beyond the buildings and streets at God there, the living, it was
lovely. It was night and day in Texas the day I reached there. No sun, no light, no
transparency. We don't stay here long. We aren't allowed to stay long. It was a
dead city, it was part of a dead world, a dead age, a universe dying, aching with
loneliness, gasping for breath. That is a thing that frightens you. That makes you
want life the worst way. I jumped into a cab. The next train wouldn't be leaving
El Paso for five or six hours, and in a dust storm, on this continent, in Texas, five
or six hours is a long long time.

Take me to the best hotel in town, I said.

I went up to a room and took off the dusty clothes and washed the dust out of my
skin. There was a lot of fine dust in the room, even though the windows were
shut. The dust got in just the same. It was one of those immediate things you
couldn't do anything about, except ignore, and you can't ignore immediate things
until you're dead, which is a thing you don't like to be while you're alive. I went
down to the street and began walking through the beautiful, ugly, dying city. The
girls were like the girls of all places, only different. They were Texas, but
different from ever before. They were Texas in the sudden darkness of noonday;
enfolded in the dark; sealed in the far away dream. One of them was the one I
was seeking, and knew she was, so that, even in that desolation, there was
meaning at last to write home about. Afterwards, on the train, going away from
Texas, rolling out of the dream, I listened to the men in the smoker roaring with
the lonely laughter of the living, and suddenly I began to cry, roaring with
laughter, because I knew we were all dead, didn't know it, and therefore couldn't
do anything about it.
Johnny the Dreamer, Mary the Model at Magnin's,
and Plato the Democrat
The bar was crowded, the tables were all taken, and the place was full of smoke
and noise. The best I could do was share a small table with a young man who'd
been drinking for some time. Although he was alone, he was talking when I sat
down. I had a half hour to kill, so I sat down and listened to him.

I drowned my sorrows with a girl named Mary once who used to be a model at
Magnin's, he said. Ten years ago. I used to have to drown my sorrows every
season in those days. When I say seasons I don't mean just the seasons of the
year, I mean the fishing season, the football season, the opera season, and all the
other seasons. I remember the terrible sorrow I had to drown once during the
society season. It wasn't the easiest thing to do because of the pronunciation,
which was embarrassing for me to listen to and more embarrassing for me to try
to approximate, as it were. Ghastly is a simple word for me during the fishing
season, but-during the society season it's ghastly. Of course I can pronounce
ghastly in the society manner as well as the next man. Interesting is another
word I can pronounce the society way. I learned quite a few of them. Ghastly,
interesting, divine, chambertin, ecstatic, elan, Andre Gide, bon mot, and dozens
of others.

The society season began for me that year in September, in the lobby of the De
Luxe Hotel on Grant Avenue near Broadway, where I had a suite of one room
and bath down the hall, and ended four days later in the Sky Room or the
Starlight Room or some name like that of The Empire Hotel. There I finally sent
the sorrows down for the third time, drowned them, and was carried out of the
building by three friends, college men and each of them all-around good fellows.

Mary was in the swim of things with me during that time of sorrow and always
hel-d up my spirits when it seemed like the weight of my grief was too much for
me to carry alone. My tragedy during the sorrow of the society season was the
consequence of a stretch of bad luck at gambling, with disappearance of much-
needed money. Money I needed, I must say, for the barest necessities of life.
Bread and water and a pinch of salt. At last the tragedy was just too much. It
suddenly became a matter of either the tragedy or myself. One of us had to go.
The war was waged fair and square and I won. That is, Mary won. She did all
the quarreling with the tragedy, squared off beautifully, jockeyed into contention,
and fired away like mad—after which the tragedy got dressed, packed a bag and
went in search of a cousin of mine named Nick who had a smile that could melt
a heart of stone.

Mary was always glad to do it. Johnny, she always used to say, I've got all the
faith in the world in you and any time things look gloomy, you just come to me
and we'll sit down and straighten everything out. She used to say dozens and
dozens of other nice things, too.

We were the most platonic friends in the world. You hear a lot of talk about
platonic friendships, but probably no more than one platonic friendship out of a
hundred is the real thing. With a bottle on the floor, a fire roaring in the fireplace
and the phonograph playing Debussy, Mary used to read Plato to me for hours. I
can remember lying back in the deepest sorrow and just listening to Mary
reading, Next then, I suppose, we must examine Democracy and find out how it
arises and what it is like, so that we may know what the democratic man is like
and estimate his value.

I used to lie back and dream about what the democratic man is like, and then I'd
just move back an inch or two more, and estimate his value. He would be like a
fellow I knew once named Luke who always said all he knew was that he was a
Democrat and wanted no trouble with nobody, just so they'd leave him alone. I
estimated his value at ten cents a pound. He was a small man, and all told came
to about $14.35 with his clothes on.

Plato was a real sweetheart to both of us in those days. Mary was improving her
mind all the time because of the type of people she was meeting at Magnin's,
who imagined themselves superior to Mary, not only in breeding but in
education.

As a matter of fact, if the truth were known, Mary was always the best-bred of
the lot, and for my money the best-educated. She was built like a Debussy
daydream in a 1924 custom-built Stutz. But the debutantes and their mothers
who came to Magnin's for their clothes hurt Mary's feelings, so she went and
bought the collected works of Plato.

Every once in a while after I got through dreaming about what the democratic
man is like, I would wonder what Plato himself was like and what his first name
was.

What's his first name, Mary? I used to say.

First name? Mary used to say. Why, I don't know. They just called him Plato.

What was he, anyhow?

He was a philosopher. All this stuff I'm reading is philosophy.

Is that what it is?

Of course.

Well, I guess lots of stuff is philosophy and nobody stops to notice.

This is all Plato's philosophy.

It sure is nice to know, I used to say. Read some more.

So Mary used to go back to the book and read.

But the money-makers fix their eyes on the ground and pretend not to see;
instead they go on poisoning with their wealth any of the other citizens who give
up the struggle, and increase the number of drones and beggars in the city.
While, as for themselves and their own sons, their young men are luxurious and
useless both in mind and body, lazy and too soft to endure pain or resist pleasure.

She used to read, When the ruling class and the ruled meet one another in the
streets or at public meetings, at festivals or in the army, when they serve side by
side either on board ship or in the ranks and see one another facing danger, the
poor wiU not be despised by the rich. On the contrary, often a poor man, strong
and brown, stands in the ranks next to a rich man, who has lived an indoor life
and is far too fat; and, seeing his shortness of breath and general discomfort, will
surely think that such men as these are rich simply because the poorer classes are
cowards. And whenever he meets his friends the word will get passed around.
We can do what we like with these men; they are good for nothing.

And my God I used to lie back on the floor at Mary's and just listen and listen to
all that wonderful stuff that was philosophy.
I am quite sure, Mary would go on reading, that they will.

Now wait a minute, Mary, I used to say. Just let me get that straight. Will what?

Why, they will do what they like with the rich men, Mary would say.

Well, I used to say, what do you suppose they want to do with them?

Well, I'll read and find out, Mary used to say.

Well then, I suppose, she'd go on reading, democracy comes into existence when
the poor have conquered the rich, killing some, banishing others, and sharing
citizenship and office with the rest.

I see, I used to say. Good. Read some more.

So Mary used to go on.

That is how democracy is established, whether it be through armed force or

whether the opposite side give in at once through fear.

That would make me jump to my feet and say, Well, by God, how long has this
been going on?

This is all ancient stuff, Mary used to say. This was written before Christ.

No fooling?

Of course.

Well, that's different, I used to say. Just so they don't come around and try to
scare me with their armed force.

Scare you? Mary used to say. Why, Johnny, you're not rich.

That doesn't make any difference. Suppose I get rich some day?

Well, all right, Mary used to say. Just rest, and let me go on reading.

O. K.
Well, now, Mary used to go on reading, how will they live and, what kind of a
government will theirs be? First, of course, they are free, and the city is full of
freedom and free speech and everyone may do whatever he wishes.

And where everyone may do as he wishes it is quite clear that each man will
order his own life in the way that pleases him best.

So, I imagine, under this government we shall find men of all sorts and kinds.

Certainly.

Then this is likely to be a very beautiful form of government.

Along about this time I'd swim off to sleep and wake up just in time to come in
on, Is not this a gloriously pleasant kind of life for the moment?

Perhaps for the moment.

And how considerate such a city is. No nonsense there about trifles.

It is wonderful.

It seems to be a pleasant form of government, varied and without rulers, dealing

out its own special brand of equality to equal and unequal alike.

Mary used to read Plato to me all the time in those days of sorrow. She wanted to
improve her mind so she could talk down to the society riffraff that was always
trying to make her feel cheap.

Finally one day in the Geranium Room or something like that at the Harry
Hopkins Hotel or some place like that, at the bar, Mary put a young loafer in his
place who thought he could get away with etching-talk with a girl like her,
brought up platonically. He was one of them boys who even before Christ were
too lazy and too soft to endure pain or resist pleasure, and he passed a few
intimate remarks to Mary who listened carefully, reflected on what the
democratic man is like, weighed his value, considered the sum involved, and
then said, You can talk that way to your society friends, my good fellow, but you
can't talk that way to me—a model at Magnin's.

She was a sweetheart of a girl.

The drinker stopped a moment to remember what a sweetheart of a girl Mary
was. Then he said, I remember the sorrow I drowned with her during the Horse
Show season. . . .

Wait a minute, I said It was time for me to go and I wanted to know more about
Mary herself. Let's not rush into the sorrow you drowned with her during the
Horse Show season. Tell me about Mary herself. What was her last name?

What? he said.

Her last name? I said.

Who's last name?

Mary's.

Mary who?

Your friend, the model at Magnin's, I said. The girl you used to drown your
sorrow with.

What are you talking about, he said?

You were telling me about a girl named Mary that you used to drown your
sorrow with, I said.

I've been quoting Plato, he said.

O. K., I said. It doesn't matter. It's been nice drinking with you.

You call yourself a drinker? he said. I used to pal around with a guy named Felix
like you once in Boston. He was an Austrian on his father's side and an
American on his mother's side. Claimed he was a child prodigy. Said he'd
studied ten years. He was twenty-one but looked younger because he shaved
every day. He always carried a violin around with him. Not in a case. Out in the
open. The violin in one hand and the bow in the other. He used to wear short
pants. I never could figure out why he wanted to be a child prodigy. I met his
son, too. He was a nice-looking little boy, five years old, and he had his own
little violin, right out in the open, too, and his own bow. When I saw the boy I
told the father to sit down and put the lousy violin away for a minute and have a
drink, but he wouldn't do it. He claimed he had to keep up with his studies if he
ever intended to get anywhere in the world.

I'm sorry, I said. I've got to go now. I'd like to hear the whole story about Felix,
but I'm late.

What's the matter? he said.

I've been sick, I said. I can't have more than seven without feeling a little
confused. So long.

So long, he said.

He went right on talking—to God, most likely, who is a better listener than I am.
The Best and Worst People and Things of 1938
The first thing to do, Joe said, is to decide who was the worst person of the year.

Well, Pete said, we may not know. There may have been somebody somewhere
who was the worst and nobody heard about it.

Joe closed his eyes and retreated into memory.

The worst we know about, he said with his eyes shut. From the newspapers, the
radio, or any other medium of communication.

He opened his eyes with a mechanical swiftness, as if they were part of a

camera, and as if he needed to be very swift if he expected to find out if his
friend had caught on to the idea.

It was obvious that his friend had.

What do we want to do that for? Pete said, nevertheless.

Joe became very amazed. He wiggled an irritated and terribly impatient right
hand at his friend, while Pete smiled and shook his head in wonder at the goofy
and useless seriousness of the other.

No reason in the world, Joe said. It's December. It's 1938. This is the season for
selecting the worst and best of everything. The Nation will come out with its list
in the next issue or two. Lots of other people will review the year and try to
understand what happened. It's raining. The year's almost over. It was a good
year. We're in this hightone bar, drinking Scotch You know and I know what's
going on everywhere. The least we can do is say something about it, and choose
up teams. Who would you say was Heel Number One of the year?

Pete was only amused.

Not counting you? he said.

When was I a heel in 1938? Joe said.

What about Esther Ramirez? Pete said.

That was late in 1937, Joe said, and she was no more your girl than she was
mine. I did you a favor. I nominate Hitler.

Too easy, Pete said. Anybody can nominate Hitler. Chamberlain would be better.

That Munich affair had to be the way it was, Joe said. Chamberlain was no fool.

He was a rat, Pete said.

I stick to Hitler, Joe said.

Well, even if you do, Pete said, it's no good. Hitler's been that way for years. It's
nothing new this year.

Pete swallowed the rest of his drink and added, What you're talking about is
Fascism anyway; not Hitler. This kind of talk is chit-chat. We all know we don't
like Fascism. Saying we don't doesn't mean anything. Want to know something?

Joe nodded several times, disgusted.

Fascism is disgusted with itself, Pete said. It hates itself.

Boy, Joe said, you're some philosopher. You sure understand everything, don't
you?

I can carry on a barroom conversation as well as anybody, Pete said.

The waiter brought fresh drinks. It was the fifth for each of them.

You know what I mean, though, Joe said. What about all this stuff?

I say the hell with it, Pete said.

Is that all you say?

Sure, Pete said. That's all.

It's going to be a fine world with that kind of talk going on. Joe said.

Fine or lousy, Pete said, I say the hell with it. I don't intend to do anything about
it. All I've ever done has been for myself. I'm no hero and I've got no ambition to
be one. That's a disease too. Being a hero about what you think is right is what
all the heroes are doing, some on one side, and some on the other. No hero
doesn't believe he's on the right side. As far as I'm concerned, if there's got to be
sides, every side is right, and wrong. And the heroes are all sick.

If you ain't a hero, what are you? Joe said.

I'm a loafer and a Presbyterian, Pete said. What are you?

To tell you the truth, Joe said, that's what I am too, only I belong to The Leap-to-
Glory sect of the Baptist denomination; I'm also a jockey.

On a wooden horse, Pete said. You're riding down the fox in a small circle. But
so are a couple of million others. It's all right. So who's Heel Number One of the
world this year?

Nobody, I guess, Joe said.

I think you're right, Pete said. There is no heel like that. It's all chit-chat. The
world is riding down the fox in a small circle too. The thing to do is let it ride.
Let it think it's really getting somewhere. It's all Hi-yo, Silver.

Sure, Joe said. Who was the best person of the year?

That'll turn out the same way, Pete said. There was no best person of the year.
They were all lousy; and all right too. You've got this thing figured out wrong.
You're short-sighted. You're also unimaginative. Run them all together and
you've still got something pathetic.

I didn't know, Joe said. In that case I guess we'd better just drink and start
making phone calls.

That's right, Pete said.

O. K., Joe said. Who was best for you in 1938?

I won't tell, Pete said.

Will you tell me who was worst? Joe said.

Of course not, Pete said.

Why not? Joe said.

Well, I'll tell you, Pete said. Because the best and the worst are the same. What
are we, idiots, or what? Don't we know anything?

We know how to read, Joe said.

The waiter brought two more and took away the empty glasses.

Pete lifted his glass to Joe. Here's to you, Joe, he said.

Pete, Joe said, lifting his glass. Here's to me.

That's right, Pete said. And here's to me.

That's all anybody can drink to, Joe said.

For the most part, yes, Pete said, and the sooner they find out the better.

Here's to their finding out soon, Joe said.

That's a prayer, not a toast, Pete said.

In that case, Joe said, let's close our eyes, fold our hands and bow our heads.

And start telephoning, Pete said.

Joe prayed for half a minute.

Amen, he said. He opened his eyes, lifted his bowed head, and swallowed some
more of his drink.

What were the best and worst things of the year? he said.

All of them, Pete said. All of them. All of them. Don't ask questions like a child.

He got up from the table and fished in his pocket for nickels.

I'm going to begin phoning, he said.

He walked out of the barroom into the hall where the row of four phone booths
were and heard the music coming from the Persian or Greek or Ethiopian or
Jewish or Czechoslovakian Room. He leaned against one of the booths a
moment, listening, then went in, closed the door, and began dialing. At the table
his friend was saying to himself that if it was so, it was lousy and he would make
no phone calls at all.

None whatsoever.

He'd just sit there and drink until two in the morning, dial nobody, and the hell
with everything and everybody.
What We Want is Love and Money
What's your name? she said. Joe, he said. We met last night at Musso & Frank's.

Oh yes of course, she said. How silly of me to forget. You're a writer. You can
forget that, he said. My husband told me, she said. All right, I'm a writer. You
must be pretty good.

Pretty bad, he said, but better than most. Let's forget it.

You don't like writers, do you? They're all right. Have another drink? All right.

Two more, he said to the bartender. O. K., said the bartender. Do you like it
here? she said. / It's swell, he said. Why do you dislike it? she said. No, he said, I
mean it. It's swell. I've always got money here.

He smiled foolishly, a little amused. What are you grinning about? she said.
Money, he said, and me. You've been poor?

Poverty-stricken, he said. Constantly without funds. Ill-clothed.

That's a nice suit you're wearing, she said.

First suit I ever had made to order, he said. I never knew clothes could be so
comfortable. Cost me seventy-five bucks.

He smiled to himself.

I didn't earn the money, though, he said.

Who you with? she said.

Paramount, he said. Good old Paramount. Giving me a lot of dough for nothing.
They think it's an honor too. I ain't complaining.

Got a good assignment?

Swell.
Really? she said, Or are you kidding again?

I haven't been kidding, he said. See these shoes? Cost me eighteen bucks.
Supposed to be the best.

What kind of a story is it? she said.

Well, he said, it's hard to tell. I think it's standard.

Standard? she said. What's that?

You know, he said. What they want is love and money. Who?

The boy and the girl.

Oh, the girl said. Is it a comedy?

An hilarious one, he said.

Really?

It's fairly side-splitting, he said.

I don't believe you, she said. Do you always talk double-talk?

Double-talk? he said. What's that?

Oh you know, she said. You've been talking double-talk all the time.

I didn't know that, he said.

I guess I'm drunk, he said.

The girl busted out laughing.

You, drunk? she said. You're soberer than anybody in this place. You're soberer, I
might say, than anybody in Hollywood.

DRUNK she roared with laughter. You're probably the soberest writer on the
North American Continent. You're soberer than anybody in the whole world.
You're wonderful.
My God, the young man thought, where the hell's her husband? She's cockeyed.
Myself, all I want is money.
The Street Singer of Omsk
There is a Russian from Omsk in this town, Hollywood, who is a singer. He has
read my books and claims I do not know what I have written. He claims he
knows. He claims he is my best reader and he says I myself, Saroyan, Wheel-
yam Sar-o-yan, as he says, do not understand my stuff, which I wrote.

He is a serious man, an excellent singer of Russian songs, expert on the guitar,

deeply sorrowful, extremely courteous, extraordinarily unhappy. He claims he is
dead, not alive. He asks how I, writing as I do, saying what I say, am able to be
so much alive. I tell him I don't know.

He then declares that I do not know what I write.

He plays the guitar like a crazy man, and I swear he knows less about the way he
plays the guitar than I know, and I swear I write my stuff exactly the way he
plays the guitar. In short, we are brothers.

He is, strictly, at heart, one who knows. He knows all things. His knowing is
sharp and swift and to the dead center of it all: he knows it is all death. * He
knows it is all nothing. He is a big, sorrowful-looking fellow in excellent
American clothes who plays the guitar the way I write.

Each time we meet at a party, this great Russian, this great singer who is
truthfully my brother comes to me and very bitterly, in his deep voice, says to
me, roaring deeply, very hurt about everything, a truly tragic man, a truly noble
one, Wheel-yam Sar-o-yan, you will understand.

I don't try hard to understand because it seems I almost always understand

without trying, and I bust out laughing, and he tells me he cannot understand
how I understand, how I write what I write. Sometimes, believing what I say, I
say, sincerely but with a smile, that it is true, very often I do not know what I
write, what I say. I simply write, something perhaps more significant than I
know, which falls in place by itself, rather strangely. And oddly enough, or not
oddly at all, he brings out his guitar, takes his stance, which is practically tragic,
truthfully a thing to see and remember, and after a suitable half minute of
reverent silence, he begins easily, effortlessly, as I begin each of my pieces, to
sing and play the guitar. And before you know it, before you've had a chance to
understand anything about anything he's singing and playing like one who was
placed in this world to sing and play a guitar; and in no time at all the room is
full of electrical, I might go so far as to say holy, splendor, magnificence,
tragedy, and comedy; all at once, all together, all of it together in one piece. Eat,
eat, eat, he sings in Russian, only the Russian word is not so flat, kossi, kossi,
kossi. This Russian word for eat is the warm, kindly, gentle one of the mother to
her child, the endearing one, kossi, kossi, kossi.

I do not believe there is a better singer of this kind in the world, nor for that
matter, of my kind, a better writer. This man is possessed. And, unless I am
badly mistaken, I am too. Most people meeting me, talking with me, do not get
the impression that I am a great writer, and often do not believe me when I tell
them so. Very often, even after I have told them six or seven times, they do not
believe, and I beg them to read my stuff. I know they will know, while they are
reading my stuff and afterwards that everything I have said to them is true, and I
beg them because I know it will be a splendid and extraordinary and funny
experience for them. To hear me bragging, and then to read my stuff and know
that I am a great writer. I beg them to read my stuff, so it will be complete.

I admit it. I am possessed. Most of the time not violently so. But often enough.
Not haunted, mind you. The presence is not an evil one. It is often angry and
bitter and furious, but most of the time it is warm and friendly and amiable and
gentle and courteous, and at times a little gallant, even. It is a good presence, and
in varying degrees it is with me always. I do not mind it at all, and am on the
contrary on excellent terms with it. We sometimes have quarrels. I am some-
times strongly inclined toward one thing, such as loafing and having an easy-
going time, and this presence is inclined toward another thing, such as sitting
down somewhere and putting two or three thousand words on paper, making a
story, or something else. As I say, I do not know a great deal about what the
words come to, but the presence is always anxious that I take time out to say
something. I say, What's there to say? And the presence says, Now don't get
funny; just sit down and say' anything; it'll be all right. Say it wrong; it'll be all
right anyway, v

Half the time I do say it wrong, but somehow or other, just as the presence says,
it's right anyhow. I am always pleased about this. My God, it's wrong, but it's all
right. It's really all right. How did it happen?

Well, that's how it is. It's the presence, doing everything for me. It's the presence,
doing all the hard work while I, always inclined to take things easy, loaf around,
not thinking, not paying much attention to anything, much, just putting down on
paper whatever comes my way.

The Russian singer told me about this. Wheel-yam Sar-o-yan, he said, I know
what you are saying, but you do not know.

This is, unfortunately, or fortunately, true. I think fortunately. Because I like

being alive. And being dumb this way allows me to stay alive. By rights I should
have died long ago. This is no fancy phrase. It is the truth. By all rights I should
have died long ago.

Two years ago, at three in the morning, when I fell down a flight of cement stairs
into the basement of a Greek restaurant on Market Street in San Francisco and
should have been instantly killed, why did I get up and yell at Pete the short
order cook, What the hell's the big idea putting these stairs where the toilet's
supposed to be?

How did that happen? How did it happen that I was not even scratched?

I could give seventeen other instances. All those years, all that crazy stuff, all
those years when I had no money, why didn't I die? How did it happen that I
didn't even lose my hair?

I have always suspected that what I am doing is not the work of one man, but I
have never given the matter much thought. Then I met this Russian singer, and
he told me, and now I know for sure.
The Same as Twenty Years Ago
On the way down we got thirsty and stopped at the first place on the highway
just in time to hear the last few seconds of the fourth round of the Barney Ross-
Henry Armstrong fight. I was swallowing root beer out of a bottle when I
remembered it was the day of the fight and just about time it was going on. It
•yvas very hot, the way you don't mind particularly, because it brings you to life
more truly than any other variety of climate. There was a paunchy, pleasant,
middle-aged salesman of some sort in front of the radio with a bottle of beer in
one hand and a cigar in the other.

That's how I knew it was the fight.

We stayed in this place on the highway until the fight was over. It was like I told
them. No matter how they happened to be betting in the East, Armstrong would
all but kill Ross, but Ross would stand up through each of the fifteen rounds.

When we got to Fresno it was early night and we were all hungry so we went
into George's restaurant and had some more of the Armenian food. Jim had -
been eating the stuff four days in a row in Frisco, but wanted more. George was
there, so we got special stuff, which was too good to resist, even though we
didn't need it all. We sat around after dinner for half an hour, talking, and then

Jim and Mike went on down to Hollywood, and I called up my cousin, the
crooner of the vineyard country.

He came down in ten minutes and said the dirtiest word in the language.

What's the matter? I said.

Somebody stole both my guns, he said.

Today? I said.

No, he said. Two months ago. I haven't got any money to buy new guns with.
Also, my girl is in love.

With somebody else?

No, with me, he said. I can't act natural any more. I've got to be nice all the time.

You're in a hell of a mess, aren't you?

I guess I'll get another girl.

Don't do it, I said. Stick with it a while and maybe you'll fall in love too and then
both of you can suffer. Any new songs lately?

Couple.

Let's hear them, I said.

We went out and got in his car and drove out toward Skaggs Bridge. He sang
two I'd heard three dozen times each over the radio in Frisco. He sang them
better than the radio singers had ever sung them. Then he began talking like
Roosevelt making a fireside chat in the summer. . My friends, he said, in 1931,
under the administration of Herbert Hoover, the affairs of our country took a
down grade. Under the present administration the affairs of our country have
reached bottom.

Four years ago there were fifteen million unemployed, he said. Today there are
fifty million unemployed.

All right, I said. Lay off that bad impersonating.

I'm a sadist, my cousin said. I'm the saddest guy in this town.

You're not so sad, I said.

Come out to the ranch tomorrow, he said, and watch me drive the new tractor.

O. K., I said. Let's go get a root beer.

We went back to town and up to the office where he slumped down in the swivel
chair, put one leg over the arm of the chair, dangled his right arm out in space,
and began to act.

Love, he said, and made a sick face that was somehow an exact approximation
of the state of love.
Despair, he said, and made the same face, with the same result.

Anger, he said, making the face again.

Bitterness, he said.

Scorn.

Delight.

Ecstasy.

Delirium.

Boredom.

O. K., I said, you've practically traveled the gamut, as they say.

Do you think I could get a job in Hollywood?

As far as I can tell, I said, you've got the job, except that you don't do it in front
of a camera, don't get paid, and can really act. Your version of ecstasy makes
Dietrich look sick.

My cousin made the face again.

You mean like this?

That's right.

Righteous indignation, he said.

Hope.

Disgust, he said. How long you going to be in town?

A month maybe, I said.

Ten to one you leave by Saturday.

I don't call you, I said.

A little after four in the morning he came out to my grandmother's and woke me
up and we had coffee together and drove out to the 160 acres where I watched
him drag the harrow over the earth between the rows of Emperor vines. I ate two
pounds of loquats and went down to the pond to scare up the frogs and be in a
place I knew twenty years ago, before my cousin was born. The pomegranate
trees along the road to the house were in blossom. The same birds were around
and the same dragonflies were everywhere. It was fine to be alive and capable of
all the conditions my cousin was so expert at approximating.

He quit work at noon and we drove back to town for a two-hour nap after a
shower; then another shower and some food.

I've found an artist in a dump on G Street, near Chinatown, my cousin said.

What's he do? I said.

Piano, and sing.

Who is he?

Big colored boy, my cousin said.

Let's go hear him, I said.

Too early. We'll go for a ride, he said.

If you're going for a ride, his father said, go out to Riverdale and Huron for me.

No, my cousin said.

Sure, I said.

It's away over to hell and gone in the driest country in the world. It's out around
Coalinga. It's too far.

What's the difference? I said We've got all

afternoon. His father named two places for us to visit and some information to
get. We got in the Chrysler and started out.

It was the driest country in the world all right, but in a way awfully beautiful. At
Huron we stopped at The Shack for beer and dropped nickels in the phonograph.
The signs in the little dump were printed by somebody creative in that region
and had a certain element of style. Yourin Huron. It's all right for ladies to smoke
cigarettes, but watch out where you lay your butts. What the hell are you looking
in this corner for?

The four women in The Shack ranged in age from thirteen to about sixty-two, I'd
say, and were all dried-out, giddy, and immortal practically. I never felt greater
affection for people than the affection I felt for these four.

On the way back to town we stopped every ten miles or so for root beer and
music and a bit of a try at one or another of the marble games.

At one place I began putting pennies in a machine that gave you a half dozen
candy-coated peanuts for a penny, and, with luck, a little bit of an item of some
sort, such as a bear stamped out of lead, or a setter, or one dice. All I got was the
candy, which I didn't want. The little unshaved man who owned the place was
terribly displeased with the machine when, after putting in eighteen pennies, I
didn't get one little bitty item.

Well, I'll be dipped in honey, he said with anger.

In the. evening we went over to the place near Chinatown to hear the colored
boy play the piano and sing. My cousin was right about him. He was truly an
artist. We gave him four bits each and he played about an hour He was especially

good on Hawaiian Hospitality which he himself liked very much. He sang his
own lyrics which were much better than the regular ones. When he sangs Trees
he said, Leafly Arms. He had a list of songs he knew well. One of them was,
You Be Long To Me. I never did get around to asking him to play that one. He
was a man of fifty who'd been with the best colored orchestras in the country in
his day. He liked to drink, too. One night somebody handed him a glass full of
something which he swallowed and then said, That was wonderful, what was it?

Milk, they told him.

Sure enough, I left town Saturday morning at six thirty.

The Russian Writer
In Russia I ran into a small, undernourished, high-strung, mournful-looking
young writer who spoke better English than I do, only with an accent, and he
said, Comrade, I have read everything. I have read many of your American
writers. I know the works of John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London,
and many others. Still, I know nothing. I know nothing about anything. I am
twenty-seven years old. I am a writer too. You are a writer too. Still, if I may say
so, Comrade, do you know anything?

If memory serves, he was only an inch taller than a midget He smoked one
Russian cigarette after another, inhaled deeply while he talked, and even more
deeply while he remained silent. The other Russian writers in that city were
taller men, or fatter, or quieter, or dumber. One of them was a giant. This small
writer told me this big one was the worst of the lot, although they were all bad.

Forgive me, he said, if what I say seems counterrevolutionary, but we are the
worst writers in the world. We are the very worst. We are the ultimate of
worseness.

Here, he said. Here are six of my books. You cannot read Russian, thank God.
Look at the print. All of it is the worst writing in the world.

Where is Chekov? Where is young Gorky? Where is Tolstoy? Where is

Andreyev? Have they all died in us? I have read your stories, he said. You are a
very bad writer. My God, you write badly, but everybody is not dead in you. You
are not bad as we are. We are the way we are because they are all dead in us. In
you two or three of the Americans are alive. That is why you are so bad. You are
always jumping around because they are all so alive in you. My God, everything
you write is awful, but it is much less awful than everything we write. Comrade,
he said, do you know anything at all?

Well, I said, I know when it's raining.

So, he said. Again. Again you can laugh. It is not funny, though I do not even
know when it is raining. Yesterday the sun was shining and I sat in this room
writing a story and I did not know the sun was shining. I thought it was raining. I
tell you I thought it was raining all the time. It is because we are so sad. You
have heard them laughing It is false. Listen to them next time they laugh and you
will know it is false. It isn't false when you laugh. It is crazy, but it isn't false.
How can you laugh, Comrade?

I'll tell you an American joke, I said. It will make you laugh. I told him the one
about the father and the beautiful daughter on the train to Cleveland that was
held up by train robbers. You know the one. Where the father says, If only your
mother had been here, Alice, we would have been able to save the luggage.
Every time I tell this story it makes me roar with laughter. Every time somebody
else tells it I've got to laugh too. It's a great, goofy, American joke. I laughed all
over the room, and the young writer went into hysterics, slapping his knee,
bending over, running around the room, and bumping his head against the walls.

When he stopped laughing, there were tears in his eyes.

Did you hear me laughing? he said. Did you feel the grief of that laughter? Do
you know another?

I told him the one about the two Forty-second Street fleas that went out
adventuring one summer night. Remember?

The little writer went crazy over this one. His face got red from too much
laughing and then suddenly he sat down on the floor and began to cry.

My God, he said, we can't even laugh. Please forgive me, Tovarich. Please tell
another.

I knew a hundred more, but I didn't want to upset him like this. If I had known
these jokes were going to upset him this way I wouldn't have told them. It was
sad, the way he laughed like a young American who'd spent all his life in the
slums of some big city; he sounded like a kid who'd been brought up in the
slums of New York or Pittsburgh or Chicago or Frisco.

You must tell me a Russian joke, I said.

He looked at me with an amazed expression on his face.

A Russian joke? he said. We have no jokes. The people do not make up such
stories as these. We have some comedy. There are many comical peasants, and
many pompous executives who are very funny to observe, but no jokes. We do
not tell jokes." We won't admit it, he said, but everybody is dead in us. We are
the very worst writers in the world.

I told him I didn't believe it. Late that night

I asked the other writers about him. They spoke of him with the humbleness of
inferiors. He is a great writer, they said. He is one of the very greatest. We
believe that he will be greater than Chekov. He is only a baby now. He writes
like a crazy man.

That's what I thought, I told them.

That same night I left that city and continued my journey.

The Journey and the Dream
Nagasaki, Bull, Mr. Isaac, Dynamite, Hollywood Pete, and a kid in a leather coat
who looked like a college student were playing stud when I walked into the joint
with money burning holes in my pockets.

Well, said Bull. Where the hell have you been? Sit down and go broke.

Thanks, Bull, I said. I'll sit down, but I'll try not to go broke.

It was September, raining, and I had just come home from Europe and New
York. Months ago when I got up from the game and left town, the players were
sitting in the same seats they now occupied. Only Curley was out of sight.

Where's Curley? I said.

Nagasaki the Jap told me. Curley die, he said. Curley 'win big pot.

You're kidding, I said.

That's right, said Hollywood Pete. He tried to bluff out of that spot, but they
called him.

Too bad, I said. Curley was 0. K.

The best, said Bull. He broke me as many times as I tried to bluff him. Waiter," I
said. Perry the waiter came running over. Bring me some whisky, I said. I want
to drink to the memory of Curley.

Make it three, said Bull. And then everybody 149 at the table except the kid in
the leather coat decided to drink to the memory of the old gambler.

I sat down, and Flash, the Irish tenor who used to sing in burlesque, came over to
find out how much worth of chips I wanted to buy.

Where you been? he said.

I just got back from Russia, I said.

I was born in Russia, said Dynamite. He was a smart Jew.

What city? I said.

Kiev, he said.

I stayed at the Karl Marx hotel in Kiev, I said.

God damn it, said Dynamite. You ain't kidding, are you?

No, I said.

I left Kiev when I was ten years old, he said. How's the river? Dnieper.

Swell, I said.

Did you see Stalin? said Mr. Isaac. He was a little Jewish tailor.

No, I said. I went to see Russia. How's it going, Flash?

Bluffing the best way I know how, he said.

Bring me thirty dollars' worth, I said.

Fat Laramie was dealing and the first card he gave me was the Ace of Spades,
which was swell. Perry came back with the drinks.

To Curley, I said.

To Curley, said the gamblers.

The kid in the leather coat was sitting on my left. Who's this guy Curley? he
said.

He used to play here, I said. Usually he sat in the chair you're sitting in now He
was a great guy.

That calls for a drink, said the kid. Bring me the same.

How old a man was he? said the kid to the players.
He was a young man, said Bull, himself over sixty.

He was in his sixties, I said.

What the hell killed him? said the kid.

Bad heart, said Hollywood Pete.

Well, said the kid, I'm sitting in his chair. I don't suppose the game stops when a
player dies.

No, said Nagasaki. Game go on all the time, night and day.

Neither night nor day nor storm nor war nor revolution interferes with this game,
said Dynamite.

Where'd you get that? said Fat Laramie.

It's the truth, ain't it? said Dynamite.

Where'd you get it, though? said Fat Laramie.

I'm not so dumb as some of the players around here, said Dynamite. I know
when to retreat. I got it out of a book.

I thought so, said Fat Laramie. I thought it didn't sound natural. What you mean
is, this game goes on all the time.

It's a good game, said Nagasaki.

Yeah, said Bull. You haven't worked in two years. You've been in this game two
years now. You never lose, do you, Nagasaki?

Sometimes lose very bad, said the Jap.

Yeah, said Fat Laramie, I know.

Somebody's got to lose, said the kid in the leather*coat. I'm about twenty dollars
in the hole right now.

One night, said Bull, I saw Curley lose eighty dollars in one pot to Crazy Gus
who was drunk. Gus drew out on him. Curley had aces back to back and Gus had
treys back to back. Curley bet

everything in front of him on the fourth card. He wanted the poor fool to know
he had the best, but Gus was too drunk to know anything; or maybe drunk
enough to know everything. Anyway, he called and made two pair.

That was tough, said the kid.

Wait a minute, said Bull. Curley fished into his pocket and brought out a quarter
and a dime. He bought seven white chips. Two hours later Crazy Gus got up
from the table broke, and Curley had all his chips.

That's luck for you, said the kid.

Luck nothing, said Bull. Curley knew how to play. They can draw out on you
once in a while, but not all the time.

Mr. Isaac said something, then Nagasaki said something, and then Hollywood
Pete, and one after another each of the players said something while the game
moved along into the night and the year. It was great and I knew I was home
again. Somebody went broke and got up and went away and somebody else sat
down in his chair, and I began to forget everything. It was fine. It was perfect
because I wanted to forget everything. I played the way the cards demanded that
I play and the cards were full of kindness They didn't race after me, and they
didn't trick me.

It was a little after midnight, and I was home again from Europe. The streets of
all the cities I had visited, and the people of these streets, and the words of the
foreign languages, began to return to the wakeful dream, and I began to return to
each place I had visited for a day, or an afternoon, or an hour, and I began to see
again each face I had seen, each street, each configuration of city and village.

I knew I'd be playing poker till the journey ended. All winter, most likely.

I drank whisky all night and left the game sober and hushed early in the
morning. I went into the cafeteria on the corner and ordered buckwheat cakes
with bacon and hot coffee. Then I walked three miles to my room through rain. I
took off my wet clothes and got into bed. I slept and dreamed the journey, almost
wakening now and then to listen more consciously to the sound of the train
rushing from Paris to Vienna, through the Swiss and Austrian Alps. To look
more clearly upon the green fields of Europe. To breathe more deeply the clear
cold air of dawn in Austria. And when I got up at three in the afternoon, I felt
stronger and wiser and more melancholy than ever before in my life.

I was beginning to forget everything, and the only way you can do that is to
remember everything in the conscious dream and return everything to the living
void of memory.

Then you'll be born again. Then you'll waken from the sleep of unbirth to the
wakeful sleep of mortality.

The game lasted a long time, longer than the reckoning of days on the calendar,
longer than time pulsing to inhale and exhale of breath, and the come and go of
seatide, every moment wakeful and dreamed, inhabiting present and past,
absorbing all movement over sea and continent, bringing the world together into
one swiftly perceived reality and truth, and one morning when I got up from the
game I knew the journey was ended and when I walked into the street I was
laughing because it was so good to be in the world, so excellent to be a part of
the chaos and unrest and agony and magnificence of this place of man, the
world, so comic and tragic to be alive during a moment of its change, the sea,
and the sea's sky, and London, and London's noise and fury, and the cockney's
lamentation, the King's Palace, the ballet at Covent Garden, and outside Covent
Garden the real ballet, and France, and the fields of France, and Paris, and the
streets of Paris, and the stations, and the trains, and the faces, and the eyes, and
the grief, and Austria, and Poland, and Russia, and Finland, and Sweden, and
Norway, and the world, man stumbling mournfully after God in the wilderness,
the street musicians of Edinburgh crying out for God in the songs of America,
dancing after Him down steep streets, the tragic dream stalking everywhere
through day and night, so that when I walked into the street I was laughing and
begging God to pity them, love them, protect them, the king and the beggar
alike.
Love, Here is my Hat
When 1 woke up I didn't know what time it was, what day, or what city. I knew I
was in a hotel room. It seemed to be either pretty late or a small town. I didn't
know whether to get up or go on lying on the bed in mv clothes. It was dark.

I knew I was feeling the same.

Love is absurd, always has been, always will be. It's the only thing, but it's
absurd. It's too good for anything but birds. It's too splendid for any form of life
that's cluttered up with all the crazy things the human form of life is cluttered up
with. It's too fine for creatures which wear clothes, which inhabit the world, who
must work, who must earn money, who cannot live on air and water.

It's too good for animals that can talk.

I woke up and remembered where I was and why. I was in a room in the
Riverside Hotel in Reno and I wasn't in Reno for divorce because I wasn't
married. I was in Reno because she was in San Francisco. '

I'm not a canary, oriole, dove, quail, robin, hummingbird, or any other kind of
feathered creature that lives in or near trees, and exists only to love another
canary, oriole, dove, quail, robin, or hummingbird, and sing about it. I'm an
American. Fun is fun, but I know the difference between good wholesome fun
and love, and love is too good for me or anybody like me. It's too wonderful. I
can't fly and I can't sing and I need honest-to-God nourishment. I've got to have
rare roast beef at least once a day and when I'm in love I can't eat.

I can't be that nice, either, and not feel ridiculous. It isn't my nature to be that
nice. That may be all right for an oriole, but it's just a little absurd for me. I can
be that nice when I don't mean it, but when I mean it, it's just too wonderful for
words. Being that nice is all right for some good-looking dope in a movie, but
it's just too wonderful in San Francisco.

I was in Reno because I wanted her to start eating regularly again and let me eat
regularly too. I wanted her to get well, so I could get well too.

Look, I told her in San Francisco, I'm getting awfully hungry. Will you excuse
me while I leave town?

Leave town? she said. If you go, I go.

Nothing would please me more, I said, but if you go with me, we won't be able
to eat and what we need is food. We're both undernourished. Look at me. I'm
scarcely a shadow of what I was three weeks ago.

You look wonderful, she said.

No, I don't, I said. I look hungry. I am hungry. You look hungry too.

I don't care if I do, she said. If you go away, I'm going with you. I can't live
without you.

Yes, you can, I said. What you can't live without is roast beef.

I don't care if I never eat again, she said.

Look, I said. You've got to get some food and sleep, and so do I.

I won't let you go, she said.

All right, I said. Then we'll die of starvation together. It's all right with me if it's
all right with you.

It's all right with me, she said.

All right, I said. I won't go. What shall we do? I mean, first?

It was a little after eleven and we had just gotten home after a movie and an
attempt to eat sandwiches that wouldn't go down, except dry. We ate the pickles
and drank the coffee.

Let's stay here and listen to the phonograph, she said.

Or shall we go out and have a few drinks? I said.

Wouldn't you rather stay here and listen to the phonograph? she said.

I guess I would, I said.

So we went to bed.

It might have been a couple of orioles.

Three days later, though, we decided to let me go away. We laughed and she said
she wouldn't try to find out where I had gone to and wouldn't follow me and I
said I wouldn't write, wire, or telephone her.

I feel sick, she said.

Don't be silly, I said. Get in bed and go to sleep and when you wake up, have
them bring you a big tray of food. Keep that up for a week.

All right, she said.

I rode to the airport in a cab and two hours later I was in Reno. Fifteen minutes
later I was asleep in this room in the Riverside Hotel. I slept like a baby and
when I woke up I didn't know what time it was, what day, or what city. Little by
little I began to remember.

I got up and yawned. Then I went downstairs and ate a hearty but sad supper of
rare roast beef. I don't think it did me much good. After supper I took a walk
around town. It was bright and pleasant, but I didn't feel right. I wished I was
back in San Francisco, so I got into a cab and rode out of town to The Tavern
where I had eight or nine drinks. When I got. back to the hotel it was a quarter
after two. The desk clerk handed me the key to my room and eleven slips of
paper asking me to telephone 783-J. That was a local number. I went to my room
and telephoned 783-J.

Where are you? I said.

I'm in Reno, she said.

I know, I said. But where?

I'm at Leon & Eddy's, she said. That number's the number of the phone in the
booth here. I'm drunk. .

I'll come and get you, I said.

Are you all right? she said.

I'm fine, I said. Are you all right?

I want to cry, she said.

I'll come and get you, I said.

Did you eat? she said.

Yes, I said. Did you?

No, she said. I couldn't.

I'll be right down, I said. How did you know I was in Reno?

The desk clerk told me, she said. I asked him if he knew where you had gone
and he told me you had gone to Reno. He told me the name of the hotel too. Did
you tell him?

Yes, I said.

I didn't think you would, she said. Why did you do it?

I don't know, I said. I guess I thought maybe you might ask him. Why did you
ask him?

I thought maybe you might tell him, she said.

I'll be right down, I said.

Leon & Eddy's was two blocks from the hotel, but I took a cab anyway.

When I saw her sitting at the small table holding the tall glass and looking alone
and lonely, I felt sick and happy again, only worse. It was goofy. It was the only
thing, but it was crazy.

Come on, I said.

It was too good for me or anybody like me, but it seemed to be under the will of
the good Lord.
We walked to the hotel.

What we'll have to do, I said, is quarrel and hate one another. It's no use getting
married.

I won't quarrel, she said.

We're bound to find something to quarrel about, I said. It may take another day
or two, but we're bound to find something. If we don't, it'll be just too bad. This
is terrible. I love you.

I love you too, she said.

We stayed in Reno eleven days. Then I told her what I knew she knew I was
going to tell her.

Everything's fine, I said. I want it to stay that way.

All right, she said. But we didn't quarrel, did we?

No, I said. Would you prefer a small quarrel?

No, she said.

I'm glad we met, I said.

I took a train back to Frisco and was sick all the way. I knew I would get well,
though, and I did.

It took me a long time, but after I got well, nothing was spoiled, and the next
time I saw her, three months later, she was well too, so we had supper together.

It was the biggest and finest supper we ever had together, and we enjoyed
everything. Isn't it wonderful? she said. It certainly is, I said.
Ever Fall in Love With a Midget?
I don't suppose you ever fell in love with a midget weighing thirty-nine pounds,
did you?

No, I said, but have another beer.

Down in Gallup, he said, twenty years ago. Fellow by the name of Rufus Jenkins
came to town with six white horses and two black ones. Said he wanted a man to
break the horses for him because his left leg was wood and he couldn't do it. Had
a meeting at Parker's Mercantile Store and finally came to blows, me and Henry
Walpal. Bashed his head with a brass cuspidor and ran away to Mexico, but he
didn't die.

Couldn't speak a word. Took up with a cattle-breeder named Diego, educated in

California. Spoke the language better than you and me. Said, Your job, Murph, is
to feed them prize bulls. I said, Fine; what'll I feed them? He said, Hay, lettuce,
salt, and beer. I said, Fine; they're your bulls.

Came to blows two days later over an accordion he claimed I stole. I borrowed it
and during the fight busted it over his head; ruined one of the finest accordions I
ever saw. Grabbed a horse and rode back across the border. Texas. Got to talking
with a fellow who looked honest. Turned out to be a Ranger who was looking
for me.

Yeah, I said. You were saying, a thirty-nine pound midget.

Will I ever forget that lady? he said. Will I ever get over that amazon of small
proportions?

Will you? I said.

If I live to be sixty, he said.

Sixty? I said. You look more than sixty now.

That's trouble showing in my face. Trouble and complications. I was fifty-six

three months ago.
Oh.

Told the Texas Ranger my name was Rothstein, mining engineer from
Pennsylvania, looking for something worth while. Mentioned two places in
Houston. Nearly lost an eye early one morning, going down the stairs. Ran into a
six-footer with an iron-claw where his right hand was supposed to be. Said, You
broke up my home. Told him I was a stranger in Houston. The girls gathered at
the top of the stairs to see a fight. Seven of them. Six feet and an iron claw.
That's bad on the nerves. Kicked him in the mouth when he swung for my head
with the claw. Would have lost an eye except for quick thinking. Rolled into the
gutter and pulled a gun. Fired seven times, but I was back upstairs. Left the place
an hour later, dressed in silk and feathers, with a hat swung around over my face.
Saw him standing on the corner, waiting. Said, Care for a wiggle? Said he didn't.
Went on down the street, left town.

I don't suppose you ever had to put on a dress to save your skin, did you?

No, I said, and I never fell in love with a midget weighing thirty-nine pounds.
Have another beer.

Thanks. Ever try to herd cattle on a bicycle?

No, I said.

Left Houston with sixty cents in my pocket, gift of a girl named Lucinda.
Walked fourteen miles in fourteen hours. Big house with barb-wire all around,
and big dogs. One thing I never could get around. Walked past the gate, anyway,
from hunger and thirst. Dogs jumped up and came for me. Walked right into
them, growing older every second. Went up to the door and knocked. Big
negress opened the door, closed it quick. Said, On your way, white trash.

Knocked again. Said, On your way. Again, On your way. Again. This time the
old man himself opened the door, ninety if he was a day. Sawed-off shotgun too.

Said, I ain't looking for trouble, Father. I'm hungry and thirsty, name's
Cavanaugh.

Took me in and made mint juleps for the two of us.

Said, Living here alone, Father?

Said, Drink and ask no questions; maybe I am and maybe I ain't. You saw the
negress. Draw your own conclusions.

I'd heard of that, but didn't wink out of tact.

Called out, Elvira, bring this gentleman sandwiches.

Young enough for a man of seventy, probably no more than forty, and big.

Said, Any good at cards? Said, No.

Said, Fine, Cavanaugh, take a hand of poker.

Played all night.

If I told you that old Southern gentleman was my grandfather, you wouldn't
believe me, would you?

No.

Well, it so happens he wasn't, although it would have been remarkable if he had

been.

Where did you herd cattle on a bicycle?

Toledo, Ohio, 1918.

Toledo, Ohio? I said. They don't herd cattle up there.

They don't any more. They did in 1918. One fellow did, leastways. Bookkeeper
named Sam Gold. Only Jewish cowboy I ever saw. Straight from the Eastside
New York. Sombrero, lariats, Bull Durham, two head of cattle, and two bicycles.
Called his place Gold Bar Ranch, two acres, just outside the city limits.

That was the year of the War, you'll remember.

Yeah, I said.

Remember a picture called Shoulder Arms?

Sure. Saw it five times.

Remember when Charlie Chaplin thought he was washing his foot, and the foot
turned out to be another man's?

Sure.

You may not believe me, but I was the man whose foot was washed by Chaplin
in that picture.

It's possible, I said, but how about herding them two cows on a bicycle? How'd
you do it?

Easiest thing in the world. Rode no hands. Had to, otherwise couldn't lasso the
cows. Worked for Sam Gold till the cows ran away. Bicycles scared them. They
went into Toledo and we never saw hide or hair of them again. Advertised in
every paper, but never got them back. Broke his heart. Sold both bikes and
returned to New York.

Took four aces from a deck of red cards and walked to town. Poker. Fellow in
the game named Chuck Collins, liked to gamble. Told him with a smile I didn't
suppose he'd care to bet a hundred dollars I wouldn't hold four aces the next
hand. Called it. My cards were red on the blank side. The other cards were blue.
Plumb forgot all about it. Showed him four aces. Ace of spades, ace of

clubs, ace of diamonds, ace of hearts. I'll remember them four cards if I live to
be sixty. Would have been killed on the spot except for the hurricane that year.

Hurricane ?

You haven't forgotten the Toledo hurricane of 1918, have you?

No, I said. There was no hurricane in Toledo, in 1918, or any other year.

For the love of God, then, what do you suppose that commotion was? And how
come I came to in Chicago? Dream-walking down State Street?

I guess they scared you.

No, that wasn't it. You go back to the papers of November, 1918, and I think
you'll find there was a hurricane in Toledo. I remember sitting on the roof of a
two-story house, floating northwest.
Northwest ?

Sure.

Okay, have another beer.

Thaaaaanks. Thanks, he said.

I don't suppose you ever fell in love with a midget weighing thirty-nine pounds,
did you? I said.

Who? he said.

You? I said.

No, he said, can't say I have.

Well, I said, let me tell you about it.

The Trains
He used to stand for hours at the window, staring, more asleep than awake, for-
getting everything, deeply troubled by a feeling of homelessness which was all
the more saddening in that he was home: in the warm valley where he had
entered the world, where he had lived the first seventeen years of his life. He had
been home four months now, from June to September, and was still homeless, in
spite of the summer temperature which was perfect; in spite of the places he re-
membered which were delightful to see; in spite of the faces he had known long
ago which, though they had journeyed much through time, had remained
essentially unchanged; in spite, even, of the summer sky, daytime and nighttime,
the summer odors which never during his travels had he ever forgotten, and
which, when he first breathed them in again to his heart and spirit, his heart
laughed and his spirit leaped; in spite, even, of the absurd sounds of the absurd
city: the water-sprinklers on the miserable lawns, the popcorn wagon whistles,
the sound of the streets, in the morning, at high-noon, and at the peak of evening;
and then after the people had gone home and the streets grew cold and empty; he
was still homeless in spite of the chaotic, and often comical, presence of home in
every fragment of time and place about him and within him, and it was this
unfriendly condition which had brought about his deep inward bewilderment and
stupor; his spiritual listlessness; his day-dreaming; his inability to work.

The child had come home from the world to be a child again: the child had
opened the door of the house of home, and entered, and stretched out upon the
bed of home, and slept, and awakened, and was still homeless. Home was not
home. He was home: everything was in place, and yet he was a stranger. He was
alone. And little by little a profound silence had come over his spirit, so that
when he slept, it was not sleep, and when he wakened, it was not wakefulness.
And he found it very difficult to speak, either with the people of the town, which
ordinarily would have been the easiest thing in the world for him; or through his
work, in his paintings : he could think of no word to say to anybody in the town;
and no meaningful silence or poise or precision or accuracy or purity to
articulate in his paintings. He would go out in the evening and look about him
for someone to speak to, and after many hours, walking, sitting in cafes,
drinking, he would return silently to his two rooms; and this would be so,
amazingly, even when he was drunk, when ordinarily he would be garrulous
with goodwill and gayety. Once he staggered upstairs into a cheap whorehouse,
went to a room with a girl, stared at her foolishly for several minutes, laughed
out loud, begged her pardon with a bow and a gesture, gave her three dollars
instead of two, and staggered down the stairs.

Now, after many hours of it, many hours of many days and many nights, he
found solace only in standing at the window and staring down at the trains. The
Santa Fe Station was across the street, and this pleased him because, although he
did not know it, he was very close to the beginning of going.

The departure of trains saddened him very much, but the arrival of them
gladdened him: and he wondered a good deal about the people who got off the
trains, who they were, where they had been, why they had come to this place,
and so on and so forth.

Once he saw a young girl with a small black satchel descend from a train, and
she seemed so lonely and frightened that he wanted to shout to her and run down
to her and smile and tell her, My name is Joe Silvera. I was born in this town, but
I went away when I was seventeen and stayed away seven years. I've been back
four months. I live across the street. I'm a painter. Come on up to my place and
rest; I've got some wine.

All he did, though, was to stare at her, and finally when she disappeared, walking
down Tulare Street, he wanted very much, even then, to run down to the street
and catch up with her; and a day later he wanted to look for her all over town;
and a week later he wondered where she might be.

The silence was getting him; it was really getting him the worst way. And he was
just crazy enough to give it every advantage, to stay with it, to watch it, if only
out of a sense of curiosity. To escape, all he had to do was throw everything
together, get aboard a train, and in less than seven hours be in San Francisco,
where his homelessness would be thorough and consequently much easier to
endure, much easier to accept and dismiss. He knew how small the world was:
he had been to the magic cities of the world that every small-town boy dreams
about and seldom reaches. He knew that

arrival in the magic cities was purely a question of train and ship schedules, and
having the fare, or being willing to hitchhike, ride the freight trains, or work on
ships. It was nothing. The cities weren't really magic. The people in them were
exactly like the people in other cities, like the people in this town.
He wanted to give the thing every advantage because he knew how it was: the
magic was not in the world. It was in a dimension made out of the longings of
the inhabitants of the world: and that's where home was too. If home were a
place, then he was home. But it was not a place: it was a synchronization of a
multitude of subtle and constantly changing substances and rhythms and
perceptions and values in a number of people together as a family; or in two
people, as himself, and the lost girl, for instance; or himself and a friend, like old
Otto Bennra in Vienna.

Maybe it was; maybe it wasn't too. He didn't know. Maybe it was another of the
mirages the heart was constantly creating. He was afraid it was a mirage; and he
was afraid home was movement for the body, travel; and he was sorry this might
be so. He could feel that he was very close to a beginning of some sort, but he
couldn't tell what sort it would be: to stay or to go. It would have to be one of the
two, and he wanted to stay. He wanted to stay and paint, and be in the valley a
long time. He felt too near death, constantly, away from the valley, as if all his
strength were necessary for only one thing, to keep off death a little longer. And
he believed his strength could be put to better use.

The trains would come and go. He would watch for the appearance, far in the
south, of the crack

passenger trains from Los Angeles. And listen for their cry of arrival: the whistle
desolating and full of human anguish, like the ungodly anguish of the heart after
possessing flesh and losing spirit; and the last minute haste, the roar, the fire and
smoke; and then, almost meaninglessly, sadly, the slow stop, the tentative pause,
the swift-ending moment of rest; and then the going again, unlike the movement
of the spirit, the train going from city to city, place to place, climate to climate,
configuration to configuration. Unlike the going of the spirit, which traveled
ungeographically, seeking absurdly magnificent destinations: all places, the core
of life, the essence of all mortality, eternity, God. And, he thought bitterly,
seeking everything else, in one big bright package.

It was very warm and pleasant during August and September, but within himself
was the paralysis of indecision and bewilderment on the one hand, and on the
other the slow-growing impulse to run inwardly amuck, getting cockeyed, and
letting himself have half a chance to fight the thing, which he believed he could
lick with alcohol and physical comedy: like doing any crazy thing that reached
impulse, being obscene, fighting. The temperature of the valley during August
and September was swell, but he couldn't enjoy it.

He was very nearly caught, although he knew escape ultimately would be very
easy; even though, he knew, it would not be permanent.

One Sunday in September he was sure the time had come to make a decision:
one way or another. To stay and go still deeper into the gloom of inaction and
despair, or to find his way out to the light; or to go away by train, geographically,
right out into the outward light, which of course was the easiest way, and the one
he hoped, even yet, to be able to avoid.

He got up around six in the morning and after watching the arrival and departure
of the morning passenger train, he went downstairs and walked to town, looking
into its silly Sunday face, listening to its sorrowful Sunday stillness.

After breakfast at a Greek place on Mariposa Street he walked around town and
then went into the White Fawn on Broadway and began drinking beer. It was
very warm in the city and very cool in the White Fawn. After an hour of beer he
suddenly shouted across the room at the bartender.

Hey, Mac, bring me six bottles of Pabst.

How many? the bartender said.

Six, he said. No, make it seven. Seven bottles of Pabst.

One at a time? the bartender said.

No, he shouted, all at once.

And he knew he was on his way; he was already beginning to feel that he was
awakening, and every now and then he would shake his head, as one who had
been suddenly wakened does.

What day is this? he shouted. What month? What year? What's the population of
this town? Anything exciting happening around here these days?

And so on and so forth.

He emerged from the saloon a little after one in the afternoon, glowing with the
warmth of beer, staggering slightly, full of good-will, amiable, and inclined to be
overcourteous. Especially toward lamp-posts. He was full of bowing, gesturing,
clicking the heels together.

It was very pleasant, superficially, to be busting loose again, even at midday.

He went to the Court House Park and challenged the horseshoe players to a
contest, which was great sport until the physical exertion began to sober him;
and then he became self-conscious and apologetic. While he was drunk, though,
he played a beautiful game, pitching the shoes either much too far, or only three
or four feet in front of him, which was very amusing. When he began to be
sober, he began really trying to pitch, and the effort was not at all comical.

His departure from the game was not grand, as it would have been had he been
drunk. It was, rather, a little ridiculous. He thanked the players for letting him
play. If he had been drunk, he would have told them to remember what he had
taught them about the game.

He went across the park and stretched out under a magnolia tree and
immediately went to sleep, dreaming mournfully, the expression of his sleeping
face one of long weariness, long unhappiness.

He slept what seemed to be many days and many nights and many weeks and
many months, but when he awakened it was not yet four o'clock. He sat up and
yawned, and when he opened his eyes and began looking out of them sharply, he
saw the girl. He shook his head and looked again because he thought he might
still be asleep.

She was seated on the lawn under the same tree, very near him, and had no doubt
been watching him while he slept.

Without thinking, without even smiling, as if he were speaking to nothing, or to

the world, he said, Hello.

Hello, the girl said.

Then, for some crazy reason, he stretched out again and closed his eyes. With his
eyes closed

he said, My name is Joe. And then, just to be comical he almost shouted, I'm a
painter. A great painter.

He sat up again and again opened his eyes.

Now, he was completely awake.

The girl was real.

She was very nice; not altogether too nice, but neat and cool-looking and with
good hands.

The girl smiled, and he wondered if she might be a hooker who'd come to the
park for a little Sunday afternoon quiet.

She wasn't knitting though, so he supposed she wasn't.

Joe Silvera, he said. I've been all over hell, but even so, this is my home town. Is
it yours?

No, the girl said.

Where are you from? he said.

The girl hesitated a moment, thinking, and he said, Any place; it doesn't have to
be the truth. Texas maybe?

That's right, the girl said.

I've always liked Texas, he said.

Any place is all right, the girl said.

If, he said. If?

If you've got money or a job, the girl said.

That's right, he said. I'm hungry and I'd like to go on with this conversation.
Would you care to have supper with me?

The girl hesitated again.

At a restaurant, he said.

Christ, he thought, what the hell's she being coy about? I'll kiss her when I help
her up.

All right, the girl said, and he got up and took her hand and helped her up and
was about to kiss her when she bent down to pick up her handbag.

Only she had known what he intended to do.

Her face was very nice, her expression calm and cool; and he figured she was as
splendid a girl as any man might wake up in a park and find sitting in front of
him on a warm September Sunday afternoon in a small town; statistically, she
was really very remarkable. But all this spoofing was only superficial and he
knew it: he was rather delighted with her, and regarded her as something
extraordinary, most desirable, and perhaps the means for him to synchronize all
the vagrant moods within himself and achieve a state of being home; a state of
inward contentment and delight.

He might have to discount her conversation here and there, he believed, but
deeply he believed that she might be something extraordinarily important to him;
and to his return to the valley. He hoped so; he hoped so very earnestly.

He enjoyed a pleasant, long supper, slowly eaten, quietly, with much quiet
conversation and much quiet laughter, and much drinking of wine; and gradually
he came to be delighted with the girl. Effortlessly, he learned all he wished to
learn about her, and knew that she would go with him to his rooms across the
street from the Santa Fe Station. There, he would show her his paintings, and
after a while stand with her at the window and look down at the trains, and a
little later he would try to find out, through her, whether he should stay or go.

When he had awakened in the morning, he had known he would decide which he
would do, but he had imagined that he would make the decision alone, and now
this accompaniment, this presence of the girl beside him, was a pleasant
improvement.

She did not like his paintings very much, and wanted to know what they were
about.

They were about everything, he said.

When he heard the whistle of the northbound passenger train, arriving from Los
Angeles, he led the girl to the window, and together they watched the train come
into the station and stop. He said nothing for some time, but held the girl beside
him, inwardly frantic about her reaction to this common event, which to him had
become uncommonly significant and touching. If she said nothing, if she did no
more than turn to him with any sort of a satisfactory glance, he would take her in
his arms, and know that he would stay, and he hoped desperately that this
communion would be established between himself and the girl.

He waited fearfully, not daring to speak, and then the girl walked away from the
open window, and with her back turned to him, she said, The trains certainly
make a lot of noise, don't they?

He sat down and lit a cigarette.

Across the street the train hissed and began to move, and suddenly he wanted to
be aboard it and on his way, away; he went to the window alone and he watched
it go north. The house shook while the train passed beside it, and the sound of
the locomotive was very sorrowful. After a moment the room was still again; the
train had come and gone.

He sat down and smiled at the girl; then began to laugh.

The girl got up, perhaps to move toward him, and he said, Must you go?

She hadn't thought of going.

Can I take you home in a cab? he went on. I'm very grateful to you. I've enjoyed
talking with you very much.

When the girl was gone, he turned on the electric light in his room and began
getting his paintings together because he knew he wouldn't have time to do so in
the morning.
One of the Least Famous of the Great Love Affairs of
History
One thing I never could get enough of used to be candy. Another used to be
bananas. I also used to have a tremendous appetite for pies of all kinds. Ice
cream was something I always wanted, and in the summertime I was very fond
of watermelon. I used to get small amounts of each of these things now and then,
but large amounts, enough for my appetite, I never used to get. Consequently,
during most of the years of my boyhood I went around with a hungry look in my
eye. There was bread, but what I wanted was cake.

I got it too.

I mean I didn't go without. I went with. If anybody went with I did. If anybody
had an inalienable right to go with, it was me. I had the proper appetite for going
with, and for not going without.

I used to feel the same way about shoes, and when the style was button shoes I
had me a pair of red button shoes. The buttons were green. It was the leather that
was red.

People used to stand off six or seven paces and admire my shoes. They used to
either admire them or just stand horror-stricken. You could tell I was coming
from a distance of three blocks. It wasn't the squeak alone, it was the flash of
color too.

Them shoes scared more than half the horses that used to pass down Ventura
Avenue at high noon. That was when the flash was at its height. Many a day-
dreaming horse used to get that flash and take a big jump and keep moving for as
many as seven miles in at least seven directions.

Years later, perhaps three years later, around 1919, after the Armistice, them kind
of shoes went out of style. They went completely out of style. Only vaudeville
comedians kept on wearing them.

What I had in mind wearing shoes like that was to keep society in its place.
Society, for some dark and secret reason, was out to humiliate me in the world,
and I was out to keep society in its place. I wanted shoes and society wanted me
not to have shoes. So I had shoes.

Society isn't really malicious. It doesn't really single anybody out and make a
monkey out of him, but way back there in 1917 I used to believe that for all I
knew society was hounding me like a wolf hounding a lame tiger and I figured
society had one major objective: to keep me from having my share of
everything.

By society I used to mean society people. That is to say, people with money: the
fathers, the mothers, and the well-fed kids. I used to resent the fathers, the
mothers and the kids. I not only used to resent the kids, I used to refuse to talk to
them. I wasn't on talking terms with any boy who had all the good clothes he
wanted, all the good things to eat he wanted, and money in his pockets besides. I
couldn't figure out one of them boys having all them things without having to
work for them the way I was working for them, selling papers. By what right did
they get all the good stuff without doing anything for it?

That was the basis of the argument. Who the hell were they?

I wouldn't talk to them. One year, though, I fell in love with a girl who was
society. I talked to her because, after all, a girl shouldn't work for anything
anyway, but what good did it do me?

She wouldn't talk to me.

That clinched it.

To hell with society and watch me get my share.

Well, I was going along there flashing my red button shoes and going over to
Chatterton's Bakery on Broadway and buying me two pies for a quarter, one
loganberry and the other peach, and I was sitting down on the running board of
one of them old automobiles they don't make any more, one of them Appersons
or Hendersons that society people used to affect in them days, and I was slowly
and thoughtfully putting away them pies, getting up, and giving out a terrific
whoop that was supposed to be a headline about the War.

I was eating two whole pies alone and unassisted, and I was getting up and
giving out the terrific whoop.
My headline hollering used to be the next to the loudest noise in my home town.
The loudest was the fire alarm.

In the summertime watermelon used to be a thing I was practically a colored boy

about. I used to be crazy about cold watermelon away back there in the early
days of the world. I used to steal a watermelon out in the country and eat the
heart. It used to be, warm and not as good as a cold watermelon, but it used to be
all right too. That was because it used to be stolen and as far as I was concerned
society could try to stop me, or keep me supplied with cold watermelons, I used
to place the cards on the table: one way or another.

That year that I fell in love with that beautiful society girl was a funny one. It
was one of them goofy years that never happen but once in a lifetime and always
before a man is twelve. When I say goofy I mean it was a sad year. I mean the
weather was sad: it was cold. The sky was sad too. It was dark. Everything was
cold and dark and what I wanted was cake. I wanted warmth and light, and it
was dark and cold. Another thing it was was awful. I mean it was stark raving
mad awful day after day. School was lousy. The War was still going on.

This society girl that I fell in love with had a brother my age whose name was
Vernon. Old spic-and-span impeccable gentlemanly polite Vernon. He was O.K.
Vernon was mighty like a rose and as for being the sweetest little fellow, faith
and he was that too. He had better manners than anybody you ever saw and he
was really being brought up. He was not going without either. He had shoes,
clothes; this, that, and the other, and when I say he was being brought up I mean
he was being brought right smack up. And no dilly-dallying. Vernon's parents, as
he used to say, were giving him a real honest to God bringing up. Well, I went
and plumb lost my head and fell in love with Vernon's sister Mary Lou. That
used to be a popular name in the society world in them days. Mary Lou Smith
and Mary Lou Carter and Mary Lou anything else.

What it was was the awful weather and the ghastly (ghastly, I mean: I mean with
the society intonation) state of affairs in the world. It was cold and dark and the
world was mean, so as a last resort I went ga-ga and fell in love with Mary Lou.

That love affair was one of the least famous of all the great love affairs of
history, literature, art, music, and our time. That poor love affair got nowhere. It
just came to a dead halt and froze right there in the middle of nowhere. Of all the
spectacular love affairs of the machine age that small love affair was the least
furious and all-consuming. Lord, that there love affair stepped in, stepped out,
closed the door behind it, and said, O.K., sister, you go your way and I'll go
mine.

And I did. I went my way lock, stock, barrel and whole hog.

I really liked Mary Lou but I couldn't tolerate her attitude. I was pretty broken-
hearted the day I got acquainted with her attitude. I mean, her society attitude.
She just didn't care about mingling with the hoi-polloi. She just didn't want any
truck with poor white trash. I went down to the paper offices and got my papers
and went through town hollering the most broken-hearted, grief-stricken
headline ever hollered. I just couldn't make head nor tail of anything. I sold all
my papers in no time and got ten more. I sold them in no time too. They just
went like nothing. I guess it was that brokenhearted howl about the War. They
just couldn't resist buying a paper from a boy who could feel contemporary
tragedy so deeply, to the very roots, as it were.

I was very sad when the gloom of that winter day darkened to the deeper gloom
of winter night and the street lights came on and everybody in town started going
home. I felt awful. I went over to Chatterton's Bakery on Broadway and bought
me two of the day-old pies for a quarter and I went outside and stood in the
empty street and slowly ate the pies. I ate every bit of each of the pies and then I
sat down for a moment to review the whole situation. I sat down on the running-
board of one of them old cars they don't make any more and I reviewed the
situation from beginning to end. I reviewed the situation inside and out, left and
right, north and south, east and west, vice and versa, coming and going, and
from every other angle. It was just like I thought.

It was exactly like I thought. The whole thing came to exactly what I figured it
ought to come to. It was a tie score, no matter how you looked at it. It was lousy
and great. It was as much one thing as another, and all you could do was choose
carefully and be careful where you stepped.

It was crazy but it was all right too.

I got up and gave out a terrific whoop, and then I started walking home.
The La Salle Hotel in Chicago
The philosophers were standing around the steps of the Public Library, talking
about everything. It was a clear dreamy April day and the men were glad. There
was much good will among them and no hard feelings. The soapboxers were not
supercilious towards the uninformed ones as they ordinarily were. The Slovak
whose face was always smoothly shaven and whose teeth were very bad and
who was usually loud and bitter and always in favor of revolution, riot and fire
and cruelty and justice, spoke very quietly with a melancholy and gentle
intonation, his bitterness and sadness still valid, but gayety valid too.

I don't know, he said with an accent. Sometimes I see them in their big cars and
instead of hating them I feel sorry for them. They got money and big houses and
servants, but sometimes when I see them, all that stuff don't mean anything, and
I don't hate them.

The listeners listened and smiled. The eccentric one, who was religious in an
extraordinary way, and old, who hated three kinds of people of the world,
Catholics, Irishmen, and Italians, scratched his beard and didn't make an
argument. He hated Catholics because he had once been a Catholic; he hated
Irishmen because Irishmen were cops and cops had hit him over the head with
clubs several times and pushed him around and knocked him down and taken
him to jail; and he hated Italians because Mussolini was an Italian and because
an Italian in New York had cheated him thirty years ago.

Now he listened to the Slovak and didn't make an argument.

The young men, who were always present but never joined the meetings, stood
among the old men and smoked cigarettes. One of them, who was in love with a
waitress and wanted to get married, said to the small anarchist who was violently
opposed to everything in the world, A lot of people that are married—both of
them work.

The anarchist was usually high-strung, impatient, and sarcastic, but on this day
he did not mock the young man or laugh out loud in the peculiar way he had that
was neither natural nor artificial.

That's true, he said. And the young man was glad to have someone to talk to.
The anarchist was a man of forty-five or so. He had a well-shaped head, thick
brown hair, and his teeth were good. He thought Communists were dopes. You
God damn day-dreamers, he said to them one day. I know all about your Karl
Marx. What was he? He was a lousy Jew who was scared to death by the world.
(The anarchist himself was a Jew, but his love of Jews was so great that it had
turned to hate and mockery.) You think you've got a chance, he said, but you've
got no more chance than anybody else. Nobody's got a chance. Even after you
have your lousy revolution you won't have a chance. What will you do ? Do you
think anything will be different?

Then he became very vulgar and the Slovak said, What's the use talking to you?
You've got your mind made up.

On this day, though, the anarchist was very kindly and allowed the young man
who was in love to tell his story.

I only had a quarter, the young man said, so I walked into that cheap hamburger
joint — Pete's on Mason Street, right around the corner from the Day and Night
Bank — because I figured I could get a lot for my money. It was around
midnight and I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast. That was last week,
Friday. I ain't been working lately and on top of everything else I got kicked out
of my room. The landlady kept my stuff because I owed her two dollars. I got
the quarter from a rummy-player on Third Street who'd been lucky. Well, my
insides were groaning and I felt sick, but all I wanted was a big sandwich and a
cup of coffee. It's funny the way things go. I didn't have any place to sleep either,
and when I sat down on the stool at the counter and she came up to take my
order I didn't even look at her. She put a glass of water down and I said, A
hamburger with onions and everything else and a cup of coffee. The Greek
started to make the hamburger and she brought the coffee. I took two sips and
looked up. I had been looking down at the spoon and fork and knife. She was
standing to one side looking at me and when I looked up she smiled, only it was
different. It looked like she had known me all her life and I had known her all
my life and we hadn't seen one another for maybe ten or fifteen years. I guess I
fell in love. We started talking and I didn't try to make her or anything because I
was so hungry and tired I guess, and maybe that's why she liked me. Any other
time I guess I would have tried to make her and just have a little fun. She took
me up to her room that night and I been staying there ever since, five nights now.

Here the young man began to be confused. The anarchist was very kind,
however, and the young man explained.

I haven't touched her or anything, but I really love her and she really loves me. I
kissed her last night because she looked so tired and beautiful, and she cried.
She's a girl from Oklahoma. I guess she's had a few men, but it's different now.
It's different with me too. I used to do office work, but I ain't got a job any more.
I been going around to the agencies, but it don't look very good. If I could get a
job we could get married and move into a small comfortable apartment.

A lot of people that are married—both of them work, he said. But I ain't got a
job. When one of them works, he said, it's usually the man. I don't know what to
do.

That's true, the anarchist said. Maybe you'll get a job tomorrow.

Where ? the young man said. I wish I knew where. Everything's different with
me now. My clothes are all worn out. I saw some swell shirts in the window of a
store on Market Street for sixty-five cents; I saw a blue-serge suit for twelve
fifty; and I know where I can get a good pair of shoes for three dollars. I'd like to
throw away these old clothes and begin all over again. I'd like to marry her and
get rid of everything old and move into a small comfortable apartment.

The anarchist was very sympathetic. He didn't care about the young man
himself, who was miserable-looking and worried and undernourished and yet
rather handsome because of this new thing in his life, this love of the waitress.
He was delighted with the abstract purity and holiness of the event itself, in the
crazy world, the boy starving and going into the dump for a hamburger and
running headlong into love.

Maybe you'll get a job tomorrow, the anarchist said. Why don't you try a hotel?

The young man didn't quite understand.

No, he said, I don't think we'd care to live in a hotel. What we'd like to get is a
small comfortable apartment with a bathroom and a little kitchen. We'd like to
have a neat little place with some good chairs and a table and a bathroom and a
little kitchen. I don't like these rooms that ain't got no bath in them, and you've
got to go down the hall to take a bath and nine times out of ten there ain't no hot
water. I'd like to fill a tub with warm water and sit in it a long time and then
clean off all the dirt and get out and put on new clothes.
I don't mean to live* in, the anarchist said. I mean to get a job at. I was thinking
of these fine hotels that I'm accustomed to visiting the lobbies of.

Oh, the young man said. You mean to go to the hotels and ask for work?

Sure, the anarchist said. If you could get a job they'd give you a regular weekly
salary and on top of that you'd make a little on tips.

I ain't had no experience being a bell-boy, the young man said.

That don't make no difference, the anarchist said.

Some of his old impatience began to return to him, and he believed nothing in
the world should stop this boy from getting a job in a hotel and earning a regular
weekly salary and making a little more on tips and marrying the waitress and
moving into a small comfortable apartment with a bath and filling the tub with
warm water and cleaning off all the dirt and getting out and putting on new
clothes, the sixty-five cent shirts and the twelve fifty blue-serge suit.

That don't make a God damn bit of difference, the anarchist said. What does a
bell-boy have to know ? If they ask you have you had any experience, tell them
sure, you were bell-boy at the La Salle Hotel in Chicago five years.

The La Salle Hotel in Chicago? the young man said.

Sure, the anarchist shouted. Why the hell not?

Maybe they'll be able to tell I ain't had no experience being a bell-boy, the young
man said. Suppose they find out I ain't never been in Chicago?

Listen, the anarchist said. What if they do find out you ain't never been in
Chicago? Do you think the world will end? (The anarchist himself was
beginning to think the world would end if the young man didn't go out and get a
job and move into an apartment with the girl.) Do you have to tell the truth, he
said, when it doesn't make any difference one way or another if you've had any
experience as a bell-boy or not or if you've ever been in Chicago or not, except
that they won't give you a job if you do tell the truth and might if you don't?

The young man was a little bewildered and couldn't speak. The anarchist was so
angry with the world and so delighted about this remarkable love affair that he
himself didn't know what to say, or how to put what he meant.

He became a little unreasonable.

How the hell do you know you've never been in Chicago? he shouted.

The Slovak heard him shouting and stopped talking to listen. The eccentric one,
the man of God, whose God was unlike anybody else's, moved closer to the
anarchist and the young man, and little by

little all the men gathered around the two.

What? said the young man.

He was beginning to wake up, and at the same time he was beginning to be
embarrassed. He had been telling secrets, and now everybody was near him, near
the secret, and everybody was listening and wanting to know what it was all
about; why, on such a day as this, when everybody was glad and without ill will,
and quiet, the anarchist was shouting.

How the hell do you know it? the anarchist shouted. Catch on? he said. You were
born in Chicago. You lived there all your life until three months ago. Your father
was born in Chicago. Your mother was born in Chicago. Your father worked in
the La Salle Hotel in Chicago. Your mother worked in the La Salle Hotel in
Chicago. You worked in the La Salle Hotel in Chicago.

The listeners didn't understand. They looked around at one another, smiling and
asking what it was all about, and then they looked again at the anarchist who was
suddenly so different and yet so much the same, and then they looked at the
young man. It was all very confusing. But they knew it would be dangerous to
interrupt the anarchist and ask a question or say something witty. They listened
religiously.

There are a lot of good hotels in this town, the anarchist said. Begin at the
beginning and go right on down the line and don't stop until they give you a job.
Get up in the morning and shave cleanly and go down and talk to them and don't
be afraid. Them hotels are full of people that got plenty of money and not one of
them in the whole city has got better use for a little lousy money than you have.
Not a lousy one of them, he shouted. What the hell makes you think you ain't
never been in Chicago? Start with the St. Francis Hotel on Powell Street. Then
the Palace on Market Street. Then the Mark Hopkins. Then the Clift. Then the
Fairmont. What the hell do you mean you ain't been in Chicago? What the hell
kind of talk do you call that?

Now the young man was completely awake, as the anarchist was awake. He
seemed to understand what the anarchist was trying to tell him and he was
ashamed because the men were near him and could feel, even though they didn't
know what it was all about, what it was all about.

The anarchist took the young man by the arm. His grip was very strong and the
young man felt as if the man might be an elder brother or a father.

You understand what I'm telling you, don't you? he said.

Yes, the young man said.

He moved to go.

Thanks, he said.

He hurried down the street, and the anarchist stamped into the Public Library.

The men were very silent. Then one of them said, What the hell was he shouting
about anyway? What the hell was all that stuff about the La Salle Hotel in
Chicago? What about the La Salle Hotel in Chicago?
Gus the Gambler
It will do you a world of good to know about my friend, Gus the gambler, Jim
said, because, although Gus is dead, his memory will linger on and on.

Jim was a little drunk of course and the reason he figured it would do me a world
of good to know about his friend Gus was that he wanted to tell me about Gus. It
seems Gus was a man one inch under seven feet, broad as a barrel, gentle as a
lamb, courteous to the point of nausea and in every particular a genius. Although
married five times, he did not murder one of his wives. He left them. Deserted
them. He did this courteously, Jim argued, bowing deeply, waving his hat in
front of him, and uttering only one or two of the milder words of profanity of the
English language. He deserted his wives out of politeness and consideration, in
order not to be compelled to murder them and suffer much personal
inconvenience.

My dear, Gus used to say to a wife he was about to leave, if you are ever in need
of ten cents for coffee and doughnuts, or for that matter fifteen cents for a
hamburger and coffee, I shall be deeply hurt and offended if you do not call on
me.

And mind you, Jim said, wagging his head in drunken insinuation, Gus was the
kind of man who normally knocked down anyone he disliked and commented
about it later.

I floored Hollywood Pete this afternoon Gus used to say mournfully to a group
pf horse-bettors. I'm afraid I hurt the feelings of that lousy gambler.

Well, said Jim, Gus died at the age of ninety in a beer parlor on Powell Street, at
a quarter past two in the morning.

They didn't find out that Gus was dead for two days and two nights because he
seemed to be asleep and nobody had guts enough to go over and try to wake him
up.

Gus was a heavy sleeper. One winter in Chicago, Jim said, Gus was so unhappy,
he slept two months in a row, in a suite of rooms at the Revere House. Every
other night they used to send up a girl to get in bed with Gus and a barber every
three days to give him a shave. He could tell it was still winter by the touch of
their hands.

My God, he used to groan, get in here where it's warm. God Almighty, is there
no kindness in the world?

He was almost seventy at the time, Jim said.

One night Gus took hold of a small hand that was very warm, and he thought
winter was over. He jumped up out of bed and put on a light sport suit. When he
stepped out of the hotel, he saw streets white with snow, and he hopped right
back in again. It seems the girl was running a fever. When Gus got back to his
room, he was very polite.

He took off his hat, bowed very low, and said, My dear young lady I should be
very grateful to you if in the future you would not mislead me as regards the
weather and the time of year. From the warmth of your hand I was led to believe
winter was ended and summer was coming in. Is it possible that you are ill? If
so, leave this room immediately.

There was a gentleman, Jim said.

A man of intelligence, Jim said, yet he had no public schooling worth

mentioning.

What the hell was his last name ? I said.

Nobody knows, Jim said. A number of low-minded gamblers at one time

concocted a foul theory that Gus was the illegitimate son of a King of Austria
and a traveling musical comedy girl from America. Another school of thought,
Jim said, argued that Gus was the son of a Salvation Army Corporal and a girl of
the streets. In all probability, however, Gus was a descendant of New England
church-people, for to his dying day he was a man of faith.

Faith in what? I said.

Faith in anything, Jim said. He was a pious man. When the whole world turned
against a horse you probably don't remember, a lovely trotter of thirty years ago
named Miss Rebecca, and the odds on this horse rose to a hundred to one, Gus,
always a man of faith bet one thousand dollars on Miss Rebecca to win, and she
won.

How did that happen? I said.

The other trotters were the unfortunate victims of an accident, Jim said.

What sort of an accident? I said.

An unfortunate accident, Jim said. It seems eight trotters a quarter of a mile

ahead of Miss Rebecca stumbled one upon another and were badly hurt, and
Miss Rebecca, going to the outside of the track, trotted in alone, breaking the
world's record for the slowest time for the mile.

What made the other trotters stumble and fall? I said.

Providence, said Jim, although a number of low- minded gamblers invented the
theory that Gus caused them to stumble and fall by means of one of two things.

One of two things? I said.

One group claimed Gus hired a hypnotist to destroy the balance and equilibrium
in Kansas City, the trotter most heavily backed by wise money, said Jim, and
another group claimed Gus hired eight hypnotists to destroy this same balance
and this same equilibrium in each of the eight trotters. Both theories, I need not
point out, I am sure, were false.

Well, what the hell made them stumble then? I said.

An act of God, Jim said. Gus was one of the most pious gambling men of his
day, if not the foremost. I was at his side when he appealed to God in language
impossible, utterly, to repeat; language so poetic and eloquent that it caused me,
a young man of seventeen at the time, to burst into tears.

I can't believe it, I said. Do you mean to say you actually burst into tears?

I do, Jim said.

How much had you bet on Miss Rebecca? I said.

Ten dollars, Jim said.

Well, why did you cry? I said.

For having such little faith in the power of prayer, Jim said. If I had been a
believer as Gus was a believer I would have bet thirty dollars.

Is that all the money you had? I said.

No, I had forty, Jim said.

Wouldn't you have bet all forty ? I said.

No, Jim said. Only thirty.

Why?

Because. I was not a believer as Gus was, Jim said. If I was dead sure the horse
was going to win, I still would have bet only thirty.

That's funny, I said, I would have bet every penny I could get hold of.

Your faith, Jim said, is comparable to that of Gus himself.

Faith nothing, I said. If I figure a horse is going to win, I'm going to bet him for
all I'm worth.

Your parents, in all probability, said Jim, are New England church-people.

They ain't, I said.

There's much of the pious man in you, nonetheless, said Jim.

I wish you could remember the prayer Gus said the day Miss Rebecca came in, I
said.

I remember only its most ineloquent passages, Jim said.

Language of the street, Jim said. Language which in my mouth or your mouth or
the mouth of Curley the bartender or any other man alive would be offensive and
yet language which in the mouth of Gus could offend no one.

Well, what did he say? I said.

Stumble, you bastards, stumble, he said.

That don't sound like a prayer, I said.

The difference, said Jim, is in the mouth that utters the words. In the mouth of
my dead and noble friend, Gus the gambler, it sounded very much like a prayer.

I wish I had met Gus, I said.

He would have spoken to you as a father to a son, «lim said. He would have
given you three winners for the next day, informed you as regards the tricks of
blackjack and poker dealers, and how to win the friendship of such men, and he
would have furnished you with the addresses of many charming ladies.

Gee, I said.

In the absence of Gus, said Jim, I, hardly his equal in stature, nobility, or faith,
can give you only one

winner for tomorrow, and suggest that rather than seek the friendship of card-
dealers, to enter no game at all, and furnish you with only one address.

Even so, I said, I am very grateful.

Jim named the horse and wrote down the address.

In his later years, Jim said, Gus developed an interest in Christian Science which
for thoroughness and eagerness could not possibly have been exceeded by Mary
Baker Eddy herself.

I never heard of the horse, I said.

There's never been a horse named Mary Baker Eddy, said Jim. That is the name
of a Boston lady, a lady, I might say, of the greatest charm, not to say daring,
who, in a fit of inspiration, stumbled one night on the theory that pain is
imaginary.

Sounds like a flukey theory to me, I said.

On the contrary, said Jim, it is not completely without truth, though there is an
element of the far-fetched in it, as Gus himself finally admitted.

He did? I said. How come?

He hurt his fist in a fight with a gambler from Mobile, Alabama, said Jim.

What happened? I said.

It was a colored gambler with a straight-edged razor in one hand and a chair in
the other, said Jim. Gus knocked the chair out of one hand, and the razor out of
the other, and then the colored gentleman, who had a large mouth, bit Gus's
hand, and Gus howled like a baby.

Gus kicked the colored gentleman in the pit of the stomach and said, Jim, I'm
afraid this sect of the Christian religion is founded on something closely akin to
folk-lore or fantasy.

Jim, I said, I gut to go now, but if I see you again soon, ] hope you'll tell me
more about your friend Gus.

Jim called Curley over to him and started to tell Curley it would do him a world
of good to know a little more about Gus the gambler, and Curley, who knew
everything there was to know about Gus the gambler, and Jim, and everybody
else in the world, just told Jim to keep it till tomorrow.
Saturday Night
The restaurant was all right, not too flashy, a Greek place with the sporty Greek
headwaiter, and the little, tired waitress trying to. be gay. It was dinner, it was
eating food at night and being alive, it was talking at the table. It was the world,
the amazing sadness of the world, and it was saying to her, You can never tell,
maybe it is true: maybe they will kill Hitler before summer.

It was talking in the Greek restaurant.

Maybe they will kill Mussolini, too, he said. I guess maybe they will kill all
them guys.

He looked at her, the sad quiet shadow of her face, the sad sealed lips, the sad
eyes, the sad smiling.

I'll ask the waitress, he said.

They won't kill anybody, said the girl.

I know they won't, he said, only I like to imagine Hitler will be dead by summer.

The thick glass ash-tray was very sad, and the tall sad glass of Scotch, and the
sad salt and pepper shakers with their sad shadows, and the sad people in the
next booth, and the sad street outside, and the sad buildings, the sad windows
and doors and halls and rooms.

Hitler is a rat, he said. He is a major rat. Nobody minds a minor rat.

The waitress came with coffee.

You ought to know, he said to the waitress. Is Hitler a rat, or isn't he?

The waitress understood. It was joking. She wouldn't lose her job or anything.

I'll say he's a rat, she laughed.

You see? he said. Everybody knows Hitler is a rat. The whole world is waiting
for Hitler to die. Nobody will be happy again till Hitler is dead.
The waitress went away smiling to herself, but not altogether unbewildered.

They'll think you're crazy, the girl said.

No, he said. Everybody is secretly hoping Hitler will be dead by summer.

From the Greek restaurant they went to a movie. It was a lousy movie, and the
idea was to prove that love and love alone is what the world is seeking. So it was
a good movie too. You could tell how much of it was lousy: the rest of it was
good: it was people wanting to be together, so it was good. There was a lot of
trouble, but the idea was for the man and the lady to step out of all the artifice
and falsity of civilization and be together. This part of the idea wasn't stressed in
the movie, but you could tell what the idea was, anyway. Every man, woman,
and child in the theater was in favor of the idea. Everybody thought it was an
excellent idea.

It was Saturday night and they could sleep till noon Sunday. They had worked
all week, so they were in no hurry to get home, and they went to a quiet little
beer joint, no orchestra and no fuss, just beer and a table, and they drank beer till
two in the morning.

A little after one in the morning a young Italian came to the place with an
accordion and began to play. He was a very sad-looking Italian and the music he
played was sad. He wasn't altogether blind, but he couldn't see very well, When
he played certain passages of music he would lose himself in the music and his
face would be full of all the love-sadness of the Italian race. He played O Sole
Mio and A Vuchella.

The girl was a little drunk and he himself was a little drunk, but it was all right, it
was music, O Sole Mio, my sun, Italy, simple people singing of love, it was the
whole world in sadness, wanting love, and every time he sipped beer she sipped
beer and this was part of their love, part of their innocence together, part of their
kinship, to be awake together, in a little beer joint; drinking beer together,
hearing the sad music of the young Italian together, being alive in the world
together, in the same place, each of them one of millions. It was fine, and within
the cup was the kiss, and they drank to one another with their eyes, and he knew
they were drunk and immortal, and he believed firmly that Hitler and all the
other major rats would be dead by summer and everything would be all right
again in the world.
Coffee and Sandwiches at Louie's on Pacific Street
Are you sure? he said. Or are you just saying that to horrify me?

I'm sure, she said.

They were having coffee and sandwiches at Louie's on Pacific Street. The young
lady was very pretty and seemed to be in a sad but playful mood. The young
man seemed to be the cause of her mood. He was smiling.

It was close to midnight.

You mean, the young man said, you have proof? Conclusive proof?

On these words, conclusive proof, he shook his head as cross-examining young

attorneys sometimes do in bad movies.

I have proof, the girl said.

Conclusive proof, she said, shaking her head the way he had shaken his.

Are you sure it wasn't someone who looked something like me ? the young man
said.

I'm afraid, the girl said, there is no such person. The only other person you look
like is you.

You mean to say, the young man said, you saw me last night?

That's right, the girl said.

I was with you, he said.

You're just saying that, the girl said.

It's the truth, the young man said.

You weren't with me last night, the girl said.

Where did you see these two people, the young man said, whom you imagine
were this girl and myself?

You know where, the girl said. I saw you at Louie's on Pacific Street. You know
the place. We used to go there all the time.

Oh that place, the young man said. Let me see if I can remember. Last night.
Friday, June 18, 1937. Louie's. Pacific Street. Beautiful girl.

He shook his head

No, he said. It wasn't me.

But I saw you, the girl said.

Well, what happened ? the young man said.

You know what happened, the girl said.

I swear I don't, the young man said.

Well, the girl said, you were drunk. Remember?

No, the young man said.

Do you remember anything? the girl said.

I remember being with you last night, the young man said. I remember an
argument, but that's nothing new. It's because I love you and maybe because you
love me. I wouldn't know about that. I know I love you. If I was with anybody
last night, anywhere in Frisco, Louie's on Pacific Street, or anywhere else, I was
with you.

What's the matter? he said.

Oh darling, the girl said, I'm so sorry.

What about? he said.

The way I behaved, the girl said.

I behaved worse than you, the young man said, but I'm not sorry, I'm glad.

Well, the girl said, it seemed awful this morning. I couldn't believe it had been
me. I said some awful things.

You said I was selfish, conceited, and rude, the young man said. Why should you
be sorry about that? I am selfish and conceited and rude.

Being in love is crazy, he said. Aren't you planning on going away somewhere
for two or three years or anything like that? Aren't you planning on getting
married real soon?

The girl became thoroughly thoughtful. She had been deeply thoughtful ever
since they had sat down. Now she couldn't even pretend to be playing a game.

Do you really want me to go away? she said. I can, you know, if you want me to.

Do you really want me to tell you the truth? the young man said.

Yes, the girl said.

Well, said the young man, yes. I want you to go away. I'm being rude again. I
want you to go away, but I know if you do, I'll find out where you are and I'll
follow you there. Now if you can figure that out, figure it out. I tell you I'm in
love with you.

Darling, the girl said, I'm in love with you, too. I could never go away. I'd die if I
didn't see you every day; I've heard women say these things in movies and I've
never believed them, but I know now what they've meant.

You will admit, though, the young man said, that it's crazy.

Yes, I will, the girl said.

The worst of it is, the young man said, that I'm beginning to want to marry you.

I'm sort of proud too, the girl said. That's the worst of it for me too. I'm
beginning to want that too.

This sort of thing isn't going to get us anywhere, the young man said.
First thing you know, he said, we'll be married. We'll have a nice little house
somewhere. You'll be around all the time and I'll be around all the time, and after
six or seven days and nights it's going to get to be very unexciting. I might even
say irritating.

I might even say disgusting, the girl said.

Even so, the young man said.

And then some fine day, the young man said, you're going to come up to me and
tell me something every wife tells her husband.

My God, he said.

Isn't it awful? the girl said.

Awful? the young man said. I know very well the day you tell me what they all
do I'll go out and get good and cockeyed. Come on, let's not give it another
thought.

They got up together and began not giving it another thought.

Ah Life, Ah Death, Ah Music, Ah France, Ah
Everything
Students all over America are deeply indebted to the postage stamp on the
envelope from Chicago: how I, uneducated, in six easy lessons learned to play
the piano and speak fluent French, and I, a Greek, learned, in less than two
weeks, to write poetry: O Texas, O Alamo, O People, O God, and I, shunned by
society girls on every side, rose, in less than five years, to assistant bookkeeper
of Mifflan, Mofflan, Incorporated, and won the friendship, not to say respect and
admiration, of numerous debutantes, as well as several of their mothers.

Ah life, ah December, ah Alexander Woollcott, ah Victor Phonograph Records,

ah citizens, comrades, patriots, traitors, ah Harvard, ah Yale, ah all the colleges I
never did go to, ah all the courses in literature and medicine and mathematics
and French and Latin I never did take, ah literature, ah medicine, ah
mathematics, ah French, ah Latin, ah all the stuff I didn't learn.

Behind all the comedy in this world and behind all the laughter is a horse of
another color, ah cattle in Wyoming, ah Texas, O compendium, O ether, O
Columbia, O history and machinery.

And behind the horse which is behind all the comedy in this world, and the
laughter, is the old saga, ah Iceland, ah snow and darkness, ah music. For this
grief, Lord, let the game go on, ah disease, ah whiskey.

All over the world, ah world, ah city after city, ah street after street, ah face after
face, ah mischief, ah sex, ah perfume at night, ah Greece, ah Athens, how I, a
Greek, learned, in less time than the years of the earth, to carve poetry in stone:
O birth control, O Zola, O Spain, O Christianity, ah music.

Ah France, ah Paris, ah religion, ah George Santayana.

The hero is a young department store clerk who is studying engineering by mail.
The theme is lofty. Ah loftiness. It is the story of a man's struggle against odds.
Ah gambling. There is a false background of tenement houses and a fake smell
of frying steaks. Ah meat, ah food. The style is simple, fake, colorful, false,
vigorous, spurious, ah style, ah simplicity, O falsity, O color, ah vigor ah mathe-
matics.

There are a number of love scenes. Ah love.

The characters are out of the telephone book ah modern science, ah commercial
law. They act and talk just like the people who occupy the flat upstairs, ah stairs.
They love jazz and hamburgers, ah America.

The story is the story of every man, ah literature.

There is tea-drinking, and fancy talk.

Mr. Giles; Mrs. Gripe. Mrs. Gripe, Mr. Giles. Mr. Gripe, Mrs. Giles. Mrs. Giles,
Mr. Gripe. Ah death, ah Chesterfields.

One of the characters is high-minded, warmhearted, heavy-handed, and half-

cracked. Ah Ethiopia, he says. Ah Italy. Ah war.

And he stares around the room at the tangible blessings of life, ah time and
space, ah architecture.

The path is a good path. It travels straight across the bare and bleak landscape,
through tenements, and back again to slums, ah freedom, ah liberty.

In many cases the young student will go so far as to deprive himself of food and
clothing in order to continue his studies, ah fame, ah fortune. He will eat canned
beans and read the seventh lesson of a correspondence course on how to speak
impressively, and the day will come when he will speak. Ah oratory. It will be a
gloomy day, but the young student will speak his line and be fired.

Ah grammar, the young student will be fired and he will take another
correspondence course, ah art. He will study hard and try to be a success, ah
Illinois and Ohio. He will break his neck trying to be a success, ah Michigan. He
will wear out his brain trying to learn what he thinks he ought to learn, a
Louisiana. He will wind up in the gutter trying to be a great American, ah South
Carolina.

And there will be a revolution, ah Moscow. There will be cheerless running, ah

victory. After the revolution everything will be the same. Everything will be
exactly the way it was before the revolution, only the young student will be
dead, ah death, ah poetry. Every lousy thing in the world will be lousy the same
way as before, ah lousy lousiness. Ah fraudulence, ah treachery. Every cockeyed
thing in the whole universe will be the same except the young student who will
be dead, ah sadness, ah misery, ah music.

Ah Iceland, ah snow and cold and fear and pain, ah God, why in Christ's name
don't you just let it smash? Ah God, why don't you let them sleep again in the
darkness and not want to know how to be polite and how to play the harmonica
and how to speak in public and how to be a success? God Almighty, God, why
don't you just let them sleep again?
Three, Four, Shut the Door
There was an old two-story yellow house on Fielding Avenue that year. We used
to go there and sit on the front porch steps and watch the automobiles go by and
act as if we lived in the house. It was a big house and we didn't know anything
about it. Like Johnny said to Mr. Feakins when Mr. Feakins caught us, we didn't
know it was his house.

It burned down that year too. It was one of the biggest fires the people of Magee
ever saw. Everybody in town saw the old yellow house burn down. It was in
September and at night. It was a cold dark night and then everybody saw the
color of fire in the dark winter sky. It was suppertime and everybody in town left
his supper on the table and went to the fire. Some ran, some rode bicycles, some
motorcycles, and the rich people came in automobiles. It was very pretty and
awful. The sky was so black and the fire, was so bright in the black sky, it was
awful.

Everybody was excited and wanted to know how it happened. Who did it?
everybody asked. A lot of people cried too. They knew nobody was in the house,
but they cried anyway.

Me and Johnny used to go to the old yellow house and sit on the front porch
steps. Johnny was a nigger who was almost white. Nobody liked Johnny.

His own brothers didn't like him.

Johnny didn't start the fire, though.

They scared him and asked him a lot of questions, but he didn't start the fire.

Sheriff Appley scared the life out of Johnny.

Why did you do it? he said.

I didn't do it, Johnny said. Honest I didn't. What would I want to burn down Mr.
Feakins's house for? I didn't do it. You can ask anybody.

Anybody? Sheriff Appley said. Who?

You can ask Glenn, Johnny said.

Glenn? the Sheriff said. Who the hell is Glenn?

Glenn Lyle, Johnny said.

What the hell you talking about? the Sheriff said.

Ask him, Johnny said.

You mean Judge Lyle's boy Glenn? the Sheriff said.

Yes sir, Johnny said. You go ask Glenn if I did it.

What's Glenn Lyle know about it? the Sheriff said.

Glenn's my friend, Johnny said. We used to sit on the steps of that house all the
time.

You're a nigger, ain't you? the Sheriff said.

Yes sir, Johnny said. I'm a nigger.

You're a hell of a looking nigger, the Sheriff said. How come you're the friend of
Judge Lyle's boy Glenn? You must be telling another lie.

No sir, Johnny said. Go ask Glenn. He'll tell you.

Johnny was sweating when I walked into the Sheriff's office. It was after
midnight and the house was burned down. It was still smoking, but the fire was
out.

You Glenn Lyle? the Sheriff said.

Yes sir, I said.

You Judge Lyle's boy? he said.

Yes sir, I said.

Do you know this nigger? he said.

Yes, I said, I know Johnny.

See? Johnny said.

How come you know a nigger? the Sheriff said.

Johnny's father is gardener at our house, I said.

How come you got a nigger for a friend? the Sheriff said.

Ask him, Johnny said. Ask him if I did it. He'll tell you. Did I do it, Glenn? he
said.

How come you got a nigger for a friend? the Sheriff said.

He could scare Johnny if he felt like it, but he couldn't scare me. I didn't care
what Johnny was. What if he was a nigger? What if his mother was a nigger and
his father a white man? What did I care about any of that stuff? Johnny Brooklyn
was my friend because we had been brought up together. Johnny's nigger father
had been gardener at our house as far back as I could remember. Johnny had
always been my friend.

I guess I can have anybody I please for a friend, I said.

Does your father know you got a nigger for a friend? the Sheriff said.

If he doesn't, I said, he doesn't know anything whatsoever.

Whatsoever, Johnny said. Yes sir, Mr. Appley, he said, ask Glenn if I did it.

Did this nigger set fire to Mr. Feakins's old yellow house? the Sheriff said.

No more than you did, I said.

All right now, the Sheriff said. You can give me a civil answer, can't you? Just
because you're Judge Lyle's boy doesn't mean you got any license to give me any
of that kind of lip. You can tell me the truth without giving me any of that lip,
can't you?

He didn't do it, I said.

Who did it? the Sheriff said.

I knew who, but I wasn't going to tell.

It didn't make any difference anyway.

How should I know who did it? I said. Johnny didn't do it.

Did you do it? the Sheriff said.

No more than you did, I said.

The Sheriff didn't like the way I was answering his questions. I guess he could
tell I knew who'd done it, but he knew who'd done it too. He knew as well as I
knew that Mr. Feakins had set fire to his own house. The Sheriff knew why too.
Anybody who knew anything at all about Mr. Feakins and the old yellow house
and what happened in the house nine years ago knew Mr. Feakins was the one
who had set fire to the house.

Just because Mr. Feakins was dead they thought they'd try to pin it on Johnny
Brooklyn, just because he was a nigger who wasn't black, whose father was a
white man. Just because they found Mr. Feakins dead when they busted into his
room at the Jefferson Hotel, they thought they'd get busy and pin it on Johnny.
Well, they were wrong.

You can't give me any of that kind of lip, the Sheriff said. I'm Sheriff of this
whole God damn county, and I don't want no boy of ten giving me that kind of
sass.

Eleven, I said.

Ten or eleven, the Sheriff said. I won't stand for it. You just keep your place and
give me a civil answer. A crime's been committed and under my oath I've got to
try to catch the criminal.

It ain't Johnny, I said, and it ain't me.

You used to go to that old yellow house with this nigger and sit on the steps and
walk around in the yard, didn't you? the Sheriff said.
Almost every day during summer vacation, I said.

That's better, the Sheriff said. That's a civil answer. I got my duty to perform and
I'm going to perform it. I know you ought to be home and in bed at this hour of
the night, but I got my duty to perform. This fire tonight was the biggest fire
we've ever had in Magee.

I saw the fire, I said.

I guess everybody saw it, the Sheriff said.

It was very quiet in the Sheriff's office. There were twenty or thirty people
outside on the lawn, but they weren't making much noise. They were just waiting
to find out who did it, so they could take him away from the Sheriff. I heard
them talking about it on my way into the Sheriff's office. I heard them mention
Johnny Brooklyn. They were just having fun. The white people hated him
because he was white and his father was a white man and the colored people
hated him for the same reasons.

Johnny was awful scared. There was only me and Johnny and Sheriff Appley
and Under-Sheriff Tad Grover in the office. Tad didn't care to do any talking
because he knew who had set fire to the house and he didn't like the idea of
scaring the life out of a little nigger boy just because he happened to be white
and just because his father happened to be Mr. Feakins. Tad just sat at his desk
and chewed tobacco and squirted juice into the spittoon every once in a while.

This whole town's all worked up about the fire, the Sheriff said.

I didn't do it, Johnny said. Can I go home?

You better go home with me tonight, I said.

You just sit still a little while, the Sheriff said to Johnny. I got a mob of jackasses
outside who think you did it. I got them jackasses to take care of yet. You just sit
still. If you didn't do it, there ain't nobody in this whole county is going to lay a
hand on you. All I want is a civil answer from Judge Lyle's boy here.

I'll give you a civil answer, Mr. Appley, I said.

That's all I want, the Sheriff said. It's bad enough when they lynch a grown-up
nigger, let alone a boy of ten.

Eleven. Johnny said.

Ten or eleven, the Sheriff said, I don't want nothing like that to happen under my
nose.

I'll take care of them hooligans outside, he said. Me and Tad here will send them
home when the time comes.

Tad squirted tobacco juice into the spittoon and wiped his mouth with the back
of his hand.

How come you used to go to that yellow house with this nigger boy? the Sheriff
said.

I don't know, I said. We just started going around town together during summer
vacation and one day we found the yellow house and went up the walk and sat
on the steps of the front porch. It was a big house and we used to sit on the steps
of the front porch every day and watch the automobiles go by.

That's more like it, the Sheriff said. Go ahead and tell me everything. I don't
want to keep a couple of school kids up all hours of the night. I'll get rid of that
mob of hoodlums in two minutes when the time comes and we'll take you boys
home in our Cadillac.

I don't think you better take Johnny to his house, I said. I wish you'd let him stay
at our house tonight.

Anything you say, the Sheriff said. Go ahead and tell me what happened.

Well, I said, one day we decided to try to get into the house and find out what
was in it. We tried the front door and it was locked. We went around to the back
door and it was locked too. I got up on Johnny's shoulders and opened a window
and we crawled into the house.

Go ahead, the Sheriff said.

Well, it was a nice house on the inside. There were a lot of rooms and there were
pictures on the walls and in the parlor there was this pianola that Mr. Feakins left
in the house. It's all burned up now, I guess.

All right, the Sheriff said, the pianola. What about it?

Nothing, I said, except we used to play it. It was the old kind, not electric, and
sometimes I used to pump and sometimes Johnny used to. We didn't know the
house belonged to Mr. Feakins. We didn't know who it belonged to. Johnny used
to say, Who do you think owns this fine house? How come nobody is living in
this fine house?

Is that what you used to say? the Sheriff asked Johnny.

Yes sir, Johnny said. It was a big house, full of fine things, and nobody was
living in it.

I don't suppose you know why, the Sheriff said.

I don't know for sure, Johnny said.

The Sheriff looked around at Tad Grover and Tad spit in the cuspidor.

All right, the Sheriff said, go ahead.

Well, I said, one day while we were in the house we heard footsteps on the front
porch and we ran out of the house the back way. We had been playing the
pianola all afternoon. It was Mr. Feakins. We ran as hard as we could, but he
caught us at the fence. He was very sore and excited. He said, What are you little
fools doing in my house? And then

Johnny said, We didn't know it was your house. We don't know anything about
anything.

What happened? the Sheriff said.

Well, I said, at first Mr. Feakins was very sore at us. He even slapped Johnny's
face.

Did he slap your face? the Sheriff asked Johnny.

Yes sir, Johnny said.

The Sheriff turned around again and looked at Tad Grover and Tad spit in the
cuspidor again.

Then, I said, Mr. Feakins started acting funny.

What do you mean, funny? the Sheriff said.

Well, I said, it sounded like he was crying, only he wasn't, he was talking to
himself.

What did he say ? the Sheriff said.

He said a lot of things I forget, I said, but I remember one thing he said.

What was it? the Sheriff said.

Well, I said, he was very sorry about slapping Johnny's face, and then he asked
us to go back into the house with him. In the house he was very quiet. When he
closed the door of the parlor, the room where the pianola was, he said, Three,
four, shut the door.

Three, four, shut the door? the Sheriff said.

Yes sir, I said.

Three, four, shut the door, Johnny said. Yes sir, that's what Mr. Feakins said.

The big clock on the wall of the Sheriff's office was ticking and it was almost
one o'clock. I was pretty sleepy, but Johnny was too scared to be sleepy.

Yes sir, Johnny said. Three, four, shut the door.

Then what happened? the Sheriff said.

Well, I said, Mr. Feakins sat down and started looking around. He started looking
at everything in the room, the pianola, the rug, the chairs, the floor, the walls, the
ceiling, and then he started walking

around to the pictures on the walls. He stopped in front of the picture of a very
pretty girl and started acting funny again, talking to himself.
Whose picture was it? the Sheriff said.

His wife's I guess.

I don't suppose you know she's been dead nine years, the Sheriff said.

I knew, and I knew what the Sheriff was thinking. I looked at him and then I
looked at Johnny. Tad Grover moved around in his chair and spit in the cuspidor.

I don't suppose you know how Grace Feakins died, the Sheriff said.

I knew she had killed herself and I knew why, but I didn't want Johnny to know
all them things. It was bad enough already.

I didn't say anything and then Tad Grover said, All right, Glenn, tell the Sheriff
what else happened.

I started to tell the Sheriff what else happened, but I stopped when Johnny
jumped up because of the shouting outside and the pounding on the door. The
Sheriff got out his big revolver and so did Tad Grover.

God damn them hooligans, the Sheriff said. Tad, he said, maybe we better go out
there now and send them home.

Maybe we better, Tad said.

You boys sit still, the Sheriff said. Don't move an inch. Nobody in this whole
county is going to lay a finger on this nigger boy. Not while I'm Sheriff, they
ain't.

Sheriff Appley and Tad Grover stepped out of the office and closed the door
behind them, and me and Johnny could hear them walking down the hall toward
the entrance of the building. We knew the doors were bolted, but we were
scared. I didn't like the way they were hollering.

What are they going to do to me? Johnny said.

Nothing, I said. They ain't going to do nothing to you.

He was very tired and scared, and his lips began to tremble and he was about to
start to cry.

I wish I wasn't born, he said.

It ain't nothing, I said. The Sheriff and Tad Grover will drive them fools away in
two minutes.

We could hear Sheriff Appley yelling at the men, and we could hear the men
yelling back at him.

I ain't a nigger, Johnny said, and I ain't a white boy.

You can stay at our house, I said. You can stay there until you're old enough to
go away.

What do they want to kill me for? he said. I ain't done nothing.

They're just crazy, I said. The Sheriff won't let them do anything.

What did Mr. Feakins want to kill himself for? Johnny said.

Who told you that? I said.

The Sheriff told me, Johnny said. What did he want to go and kill himself for?

I don't know, I said.

He was a good man, Johnny said. He slapped me, but he was a good man.

I didn't say anything and we listened to the Sheriff yelling at the men. Then all of
a sudden we heard the men pounding on the door harder than ever. Johnny
jumped up and started looking around for a way out.

What shall I do? he said.

Then we heard four revolver shots and the men started yelling louder than ever,
and we could hear the door giving way. It seemed like the craziest thing in the
world, and when we heard the door crash open and the men running up the hall
we got up and

pushed the window open and jumped down to the lawn and started running. I
couldn't see any men around and we ran as fast as we could go. It was the Court
House lawn first, and then Baker Street. The street was dark and empty and we
ran about six blocks. When we got home my father was sitting in the parlor
talking to Sam Brooklyn, our gardener, Johnny's nigger father.

They broke the door down, I said. Me and Johnny got out of the window and ran
all the way.

My father went to the telephone and tried to get the Sheriff's office. The bell
rang about seven times and then somebody answered the phone. It wasn't Sheriff
Appley and it wasn't Tad Grover. My father could hear them yelling, so he didn't
say a word, he just hung up. He told Sam to go to the garage and get out the
Pierce-Arrow. Sam ran out of the house and my father got a coat for me, and one
for Johnny, and one for himself. We went outside to the driveway and got into
the Pierce-Arrow. Me and Johnny sat in front by my father and Sam sat in the
back. My father gave him a rifle and two revolvers. Just keep them handy, my
father told him.

Then we drove away and before we knew it we were on the highway, going
north about seventy miles an hour, and nobody was saying anything.
For My Part I'll Smoke A Good Ten Cent Cigar
If he says, What's going on? and you say, How do you mean? Where? And he
says, Why, all over. Then tell him, Sam, I want you to know I don't know any
more about it than you do. By God, Sam, I know less. Believe me, if you mean
the trouble, if you mean people with money and others without and people with
time and others without and others with good liquor and others without and
others with fine places to sleep and others without, believe me I don't understand
it. If you mean, even, one man and one woman, together, married or not married
or in love or not in love, let me apologize. If I've given the impression that I'm
one who knows or one who would be apt to know, I didn't mean to. I don't know.
I can't make head or tail of it. I understand about rain. If I'm out in rain I know
it's raining.

I know when I'm hungry too. I'm not so good about when I'm not hungry. Very
often when I'm not hungry I feel hungry, but when I'm real hungry I'm dead sure
of it. I can tell when I'm cold too and if I'm sleepy I know it. I got as far as the
first year of high school and that's all. If I've given the impression, warm and
well-dressed and smoking a good ten cent panatela cigar and smiling, that I'm
one who knows, Sam, believe me, I didn't mean to. I was just loafing at the time
and trying to find out. I was just being comfortable and not unpleased about any-
thing, not vigorously unpleased I mean, but I didn't mean to give the impression
that I know.

Up until two years ago, Sam, I didn't know about anything. I mean I didn't. I
kind of figured everybody was all right. I felt all right. I never figured it to be so
world-wide. I thought it was just limited to one or two here and there, making
everything more exciting and worth while. I didn't know everybody was that
way. I mean it got to be lonely. Every one of them is alive. He's got a private
grade to make. He's got to meet all opposition, carry on, come through, all like
that. He's got to.

I wish to apologize. Let any man who knows speak. For my part I'll smoke the
panatela and look over the racing form. When eight horses are running I know
it's eight. That's as far as I got in high school. I don't know anything about how
any of us are going to get out of it. Or if we are. Or when. Or why. I don't
understand it.
Maybe it's simple. Maybe all they've got to do is make it all Marxian. You know
Marx. Karl Marx. I don't know about it but I hear maybe that's the way. I'm for
it. There'll be no opposition from me there. If it's Marx, fine, let it be Marx.
Maybe it's liquor, one man at a time. If it is, good. Maybe it's religion, or going
to church. If it is, it's O.K. with me. Maybe it's movies. Fine, I'm in favor of it.
Maybe it's newspapers. Maybe it's popular novels. Maybe it's How to Make
Friends and Influence People. Maybe it's music, Bach or swing, what the hell's
the difference? Maybe it's women for men and men for women. That's O.K. by
me. Maybe it's climate. Maybe that's the answer, Maybe it's an automobile for
every man. Maybe it's a horse. Maybe it's the Old Gold Contest. There's no harm
in devoting the best months of the year to working out picture puzzles. Maybe
it's gambling. Maybe it's Rem. You know, the cough medicine. Maybe it's being
able to walk, but whatever it is, I don't know. I'm in favor of everything, but I
don't know.

I don't want any of them hurt. In any way, privately or in mobs or in troops or in
any other way. If it's picture puzzles, let them have all the picture puzzles they
want or need. If it's Gone with the Wind, let them go with it. If it's bigger and
better movies, let them have them. If it's a woman for a man and a man for a
woman, let it be good and goodhumored and pleasant and sad if it's got to be and
pleasant and lovely and amusing and refreshing and quarrelsome too if it pleases
the good Lord and joyous and a little crazy and a little vulgar if it's better that
way and pleasant and heartbreaking if that makes it better and casual and all the
other things. If that's what it is, let it be that.

I wouldn't know about five or six million at a time, farms and finances and
mortgages and rent and how much milk is and how much bread is and
reforestation and armaments and A. F. of L. and C.I.O. and the new 1938
Studebaker and the memoirs of Chrysler in The Saturday Evening Post and all
like that. That I wouldn't know anything about, not even rain and cold and
hunger. I wouldn't know anything about it when it's a lot of them all mixed up in
a lot of different neighborhoods in a lot of different cities. That comes after the
first year of high school. I'll have to apologize about that.

You'll have to go to the other boys about all like that. They'll tell you something.
They'll explain everything. They'll tell you all about everything.

You go ask them. They know. My public schooling ended when I was fifteen and
I didn't find out about two or three things. I'll have to apologize and refer you to
the others. They know. They've known all the time. They've known from the
beginning of the world. The best I can do is get comfortable and smoke the fine
panatela cigar.
Up at Izzy's one night a young genius in corduroy pants came up to me and said,
I hear you're a writer. I've got a story that'll make a great movie, only I need
somebody with experience to write it for me. I'd write it myself, only I've got to
make a living working and when I get through working I'm too tired to write.

I was a little drunk, but I'm never too drunk and never too busy to listen to a
fellow-artist, and I said, Go ahead, tell me the story. If it's good I'll write it and
we'll get Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to make a movie out of it. What happens?

If you've ever had a story printed in a national magazine and been around at all
you've met all kinds of people with stories that will make great movies. The
world is full of people with movie stories, all unwritten, but it seems the people
who manufacture movies never meet these people, or if they do, never let them
tell their stories, consequently the average movie manufactured is lousy, even in
technicolor, even starring Clark Gable, John Barrymore, Norma Shearer, or
anybody else. The people who manufacture movies just simply don't care to
manufacture good movies.

Up at Izzy's as many as eighty-seven good movies are related in one flight, but
not one of them is ever filmed.

I told the boy to go ahead and tell me the story.

Shall I begin at the beginning? he said.

Not necessarily, I said. Begin anywhere. Begin at the end and work backward to
the beginning. You might even sit down if you like.

Thanks, he said, I'd rather stand.

Take all the time you need, I said.

There ain't much to say, he said. The idea is this. Says, I'll do something. I won't
be a clerk all my life. Ships out on a boat to Shanghai.

Who? I said.

The fellow, said the boy. Clark Gable.

Oh, I said. Clark Gable. Says he'll do something. Do what ?

Coming up on deck he bumps into the girl.

The girl? I said.

Joan Crawford. «

Ah, Joan, I said. What's it come to?

They fall in love.

So the boy does something?

Not right away. That's at the end.

I know, I said. Anything special?

He marries the girl.

How about the money? I said. Who's got the money ?

She has. That's where the trouble comes in.

Oh, I said, the trouble.

Yeah, the boy ain't a gigolo, so he won't marry the girl when he finds out she's
rich.

Why? I said.

He figures he can't marry a rich girl, even if he is in love with her, so they
quarrel.

Just in fun, of course, I said. Nothing serious.

Plenty serious. The girl's got to marry somebody before the boat reaches
Shanghai or she won't inherit the eighteen million dollars.

The how many million? I said.

Eighteen.

Do you think that's enough ? I said. For all practical purposes ?

It's a tidy sum.

A trifle, I said. How does it turn out?

Well, the man who is engaged to the girl is a middle-aged banker. He ain't very
good-looking. She don't want to marry him. That's where she gets a chance to do
some acting.

Boy, I said.

After the boy and the girl fight, the girl says she's going to marry the banker, just
to make the boy jealous.

That's another spot for some fancy acting, I said.

Yeah, so the Captain makes plans for a ship wedding. This is where it gets
exciting. One thing after another happens, in quick succession. Chinese pirates
take over the ship, and a Chinaman decides to marry the girl himself, without the
formality of a wedding of course. The banker doesn't care, because he's scared,
but the boy hates the Chinaman. He's a young educated Chinaman and speaks
better English than anybody else on board the ship.

So, I said.

The Chinaman gets the girl in her cabin and starts chasing her around.

That's bad, I said.

The Chinaman is chasing the girl around the room, when the boy breaks the door
down. The Chinaman and the boy have a fight. The Chinaman gets the boy flat
on his back and gets out his dagger and is about to stick it in the boy.

Where? I said.

Right in the heart. The girl hits the Chinaman over the head with a chair.

That's love for you, I said.

In the meantime, a cablegram is received by the ship, asking the Captain to put
the banker in chains for grand larceny and bigamy.

Just two little misdemeanors? I said.

And possible murder. The picture ends with the boy kissing the girl.

Boy, what an ending, I said.

How is it? he said.

It's fine, I said.

Is it exciting enough ? -

It's breath-taking, I said, especially where the Chinaman chases her.

I thought you'd like it, he said. First I think you ought to make a book out of it,
and then sell it to the movies.

By God, I said, I'd do that little thing, only I gave up writing day before
yesterday.

What for? he said.

I got bored, I said. Same old stuff over and over again.

This is different, he said. Think of the Chinaman. East against West.

Even so, I said. I gave up writing day before yesterday. You write it.

Do you think they'll print the book? he said.

They'd be fools not to, I said.

What style should I use? he said.

Oh, I said, don't worry about style. Just put it down on paper the way it comes to
you after work and you'll find it'll be full of style. There'll be enough left over for
two more movies.
My grammar ain't so hot, he said.

Neither is mine, I said. You don't need to worry about that. That'll be part of your
style, part of your originality. Unless I'm badly mistaken, you're a genius.

No, he said. I just get these ideas for books and movies, that's all. I've forgotten
enough ideas for books and movies to make a dozen books and a dozen movies.

Write them down, I said. Don't let them get away. You're losing money every
minute.

Got a pencil? he said.

I'm afraid not, I said. I gave up writing day before yesterday.

What the hell for? he said.

My stuff's no good for the movies, I said. I sell a story for thirty or forty dollars
every now and then. I don't get movie ideas. I thought I would after a while, but I
didn't, so I gave it up.

That's tough, he said. I get movie ideas left and right.

I know it, I said. All you got to do is get them down on paper and I know you'll
be famous and rich in no time.

I'll tell you another idea I got for a movie, he said.

Joe, I said.

Joe came over to the table.

Joe, I said, here's a dime. Go get me a pencil.

Joe went over to Izzy. and Izzy looked around and found a pencil. A little tiny
one. Joe brought the pencil over to me. I handed it to the boy.

Listen, George, I said, you got no time to lose. Here's a pencil, all sharpened and
everything. You take this pencil and go home and write them ideas down on
paper. Any old kind of paper. Lincoln wrote his famous speech on the back of an
envelope.
He took the pencil, but didn't start to go.

I thought I'd take it easy tonight and start writing tomorrow, he said.

No, I said, that ain't right. You go right home and go to work while the ideas are
still fresh in your mind.

All right, he said.

He put the pencil in his inside coat pocket, pulled his hat down over his eyes,
and went down the stairs.

Joe, I said, bring me three beers.

A Lady Named Caroline
All it was was good because she was so good herself, not like most people,
especially who are supposed to be superior or something. It was fine because she
was so truly delighted with what had happened and so innocent and hopeful
about what the West would be when she saved enough money to get out there.
She wasn't a chicken or anything. She was ready to open a house of her own and
settle down somewhere where the air was finer than in New York and the people
too, like out West, up around Portland, all around in there, the mountains and the
rivers and the young men all big and healthy and eager to visit her place every
once in a while. Not like in New York, mean and small and vulgar.

What happened was this. It wasn't me, it was Johnny Hunter, visiting the big
city. It was a month after I left there. I was there in the summer too, but it didn't
happen to me. I wish it had because I would have liked knowing a lady like that.
I would have liked seeing her all excited about her friend Babe and I would have
liked telling her how it was out in California and all around in there through the
West. When I was there it was the same kind of place, but that was one of the
things that didn't happen to me.

That night Johnny had been visiting a girl he'd met in New York who'd turned
out to be some sort of a screwy radical, and a student of modern ballet,
explaining in detail the modern ballet principle of a, a, b, aa b. Of course, she
kept telling Johnny, Alice is a very brilliant girl in some things, but not a dancer.
Alice was a girl this girl knew and they were students together. Johnny didn't
know Alice but this girl kept telling him about her and other inferior people who
were very brilliant in an obnoxious and unimportant way. She told Johnny she
was creating a dance of her own. She called it something important and
sociological like Upheaval, only bigger and more important, a, a b, aa b, her
sexless leg going in and out illustrating when and where the people, as well as
the workers, rise up in a body and smash the government. Johnny didn't offer to
sleep with her because he didn't think she'd figured it out that far up in the alpha-
bet and he didn't want to go to the trouble of trying to teach her in one night. He
was also afraid she'd introduce the masses into it and he wanted it to be private,
so around midnight he went away.

From what he told me I've got to try to figure out what happened. At first I
thought the lady was phony, but Johnny said she wasn't. He said he was sure.
The story was a little far-fetched, but he said he was sure it was true. She
couldn't have been that good an actress. She said all she wanted was somebody
to talk to so she could tell somebody what a wonderful thing had happened to
Babe. She just wanted to share the wonderful news with somebody and Johnny
happened to come along at the right moment. She was standing in front of his
hotel on East 47th Street. She asked Johnny what his room number was. He
kidded her and told her that that was for her to find out and went up to his room.
Three minutes later there was a knock at the door and when he opened it, there
she was.

She was kind of all excited in a beautiful and unprofessional way.

Please let me come in, she said. I just want to talk to you a minute.

Well, Johnny said, after a, a b, aa b, what could I lose? I told her come on in.

She came in and he poured her a drink of Scotch. He was going to put some ice
and soda into the glass, but she asked if she could have it straight. She was kind
of excited.

What's exciting you? Johnny said. He expected her to come out with something
big involving the workers and a revolution, but all she said was, Babe.

Who's Babe? Johnny said.

She's my room-mate, she said. She's just a kid. We've been sharing expenses and
profits for six months now. She's a lovely kid.

What's happened to her? Johnny said.

He was afraid something terrible had happened to Babe, like falling in love with
a cab driver and marrying him or something else ordinary and tragic.

Things ain't been so good lately, she said. We been just getting by. Sometimes I
come home with a little money and Babe doesn't. Sometimes she comes home
with a little and I don't. We don't use our rooms. We go up to their rooms
because then they don't have to put on their clothes again and they can go to
sleep. It's better for them. They like to go to sleep afterwards. I never stay long,
she said. I ain't no chicken, but Babe is a lovely kid. She's only nineteen.
Sometimes she doesn't get home till morning. Sometimes she has ten dollars.
Once she had twenty.

Johnny poured her some more Scotch and began to like her. She was ugly and
very beautiful. That was what he liked about her, and so happy about what had
happened to Babe at last.

Last night, she said, Babe didn't come home, so I figured she'd be home in the
morning with ten dollars or more, but she didn't come home in the morning and I
began to get kind of scared. I'd hate to see anything happen to a girl like her.
She's a wonderful kid. All afternoon I walked around town and back to our
place, but she wasn't home and I got real worried. Gee, she laughed, I started
imagining a million crazy things that might have happened to her. That's why I
just had to talk to you, because it's so wonderful.

I'm kind of glad you came up, Johnny said. What's your name?

She looked at Johnny and smiled.

We never tell our real names, she said, but I'll tell you. My real name's Caroline.
Honest. I've got a fourteen-year-old daughter. They all say they've got a
daughter, but I really have. What's your name?

My name's John, Johnny said.

I go by a half dozen different names, she said. Most of them like to call me some
name they remember from some time before. A lot of them call me Mae West
because I'm so big, but they're usually drunk.

She laughed pleasantly, letting him know she knew how wrong the ones who
called her Mae West were.

She was sitting in the bed and Johnny was standing by the glass-top bureau near
the bottle so he could pour more when she was ready,

I was real worried all day, she said, but when she didn't come home at eight
o'clock I got real sick. I didn't know what to do. I thought I'd go tell the police,
but I didn't know what to tell them. What could I tell them? She goes to their
rooms and comes home but last night she didn't come home and she's still gone.
So what could they do in a city like this? I walked around town and asked
everybody I knew, the other girls and cab drivers and drug store clerks and
bartenders, if they'd seen her, but nobody had. Gee I was real sick. Around
eleven I decided to go home again. I was scared to death she wouldn't be there,
and she wasn't. I didn't even turn on the light for five minutes. Babe? I said. And
she didn't answer. I just sat on the bed in the darkness. After a while I got up and
switched on the light and there on the bureau was this piece of paper, and these
five ten-dollar bills.

She opened her handbag and brought out the piece of paper, and the money. The
note from Babe said: Something wonderful's happened. He gave me five
thousand dollars, cash, not a check. I've got it in the bank. He's old but very nice.
We're going to Miami by airplane.

Johnny thought it was wonderful too.

That's swell, he said.

I can't believe it, she said. To Miami, by airplane.

She thought about it a moment, while Johnny did too.

I just had to tell somebody, she said.

I'm glad you came up, Johnny said.

Thanks, she said. I guess I'll go now.

She got up and put the glass on the bureau.

Don't go, Johnny said. Have another drink.

Thanks, she said.

Johnny poured her another and she sat down again.

I don't know, she said, when I saw you I thought I'd be able to talk to you.

That makes me feel proud, Johnny said.

You look like somebody who's all right, she said. Where you from?

I'm from Frisco, Johnny said.

Ever been in Portland? she said.

Lots of times, Johnny said.

I'd like to get out to Portland someday, she said.

It's a nice town, Johnny said.

I knew a man once from Portland, she said. He was the politest man I ever knew.
After that I've always wanted to save enough money to get out there.

It's better than New York, Johnny said.

Oh I know it, she said. It's out there in the country. He told me about the
mountains and rivers and the people. I'd like to open up my own place in a place
like Portland. I'm too old to get anywhere like Babe. I'm tickled to death about
her, though. She deserved it.

Of course she did, Johnny said.

She didn't speak a moment, shaking her head a little drunkenly, thinking of the
wonderful thing that had happened to her friend and dreaming of the fine city in
the bright land far away.

Are they really that way out there around Portland? she said.

They're swell people out there, Johnny said.

That's what he said too, she said. If they're like him that's where I want to be.

Johnny almost wanted to take her in his arms, she was so good.

I hope you get out there some day, he said.

She probably never would, but he wanted the dream to go on. She'd probably
never find out they were like people everywhere else, but he didn't want to say
so and he wasn't sure he wasn't mistaken. Maybe they were.

She finished her drink and got up, a little uncertain about how she should leave
after a visit of this kind.
Thanks for letting me come in, she said.

Johnny didn't know what to say so as not to spoil it. While he was trying to
choose from two or three remarks that might be all right, although he felt that
each was inadequate, she put out her hand awkwardly, and he knew it was a
thing she hadn't done that way in years. He took it and held it firmly a moment.
He knew that that was better than saying anything. When he released her hand
she said, Goodbye, John.

He went to the door with her.

Goodbye, Caroline, he said.

Then she went away.

The Fire
It was so cold in the world, beyond the warm room, and the air was so clear you
could hear it and when the Santa Fe crossing bell rang it was like churches,
Sunday and peace in the world, quiet, and then the whole house, like the soft
laughter of his father Jesse, trembled with the heavy weight and movement of
the passing train.

It seemed as if the only safety in the world was in the red and yellow and white
flames of the fire in the stove, the color and the heat, the whole house trembling
like a sad man laughing, the whole world cold and sad, and nothing in the world,
only the flowers of the fire, blossoming a hundred times a minute, a whole world
full of flowers, and outside, beyond the room, the whole world frozen and
hushed, so still you could hear the hush.

They said to sit in the kitchen and keep the stove going so he would be warm
until they got home in the evening, and not open the door of the stove, be sure
not to open the door of the stove, especially Beth, always telling him what to do,
and Jesse telling him to mind her because now she was his mother. His father
asking him if he couldn't be nice to her and act like she was his mother.

Well, they couldn't fool him. The door of the stove was open, his mother was
dead, they couldn't put anything like that over on him, she was dead. It was so
quiet in the world you could hear it and the ringing of the Santa Fe crossing bell
was like churches. He guessed he was old enough to know his mother was dead,
he guessed he knew who saw them put the big box at the front of the church, and
the way the house trembled while the train moved was the way Jesse laughed
when it was all over and the house was empty, and little pieces of the fire like
petals of flowers, flew out of the stove to the floor and disappeared.

He knew. There was nothing in the world. It was empty and she was dead.
Empty as a pitch black night, and nothing to have but fire, no light and no
warmth and no color and no love. They asked him to keep the door of the stove
closed. What did he care about any of that stuff? He was cold, he was almost
freezing. At the same time he seemed to be burning. It was the first time in his
life he felt cold and hot at the same time. It was the first time in his life he
noticed things like the crossing bell being like churches, the trembling house
being like Jesse laughing, the fire being like flowers, and everything being
nothing because the house was empty.

Nothing in the whole world could make her come back and be alive and come up
to the front door of the house and put the key in the lock and open the door and
come in and be there with him and be his mother and talk to him again.

It was the first time in his life he knew about everything. They couldn't fool him.
Beth was all right. She was swell. She even brought him candy and toys. That
was all right. He liked candy sometimes. He liked the little colored whistles and
marbles and different kinds of toys that did all sorts of things and he liked Beth
too, but he knew all about it. There was a bag of candy on the table in the parlor.
He didn't want any of it. The toys were in the parlor. He didn't want to blow any
of the whistles or shoot the marbles or wind up the toy machines and watch them
work. He didn't want anything. There wasn't anything. There wasn't one little bit
of anything. All he wanted was to be near the fire, as close to it as he could be,
just be there, just see the colors and be very near. What did he want with toys?
What good were toys? The whistles sounded sadder than crying and the way the
machines worked almost made him die of grief.

In the fire, though, there was laughter, and not only that, there was singing and
every kind of music he had ever heard. There was no end of laughter and singing
in the fire, only the laughter was not like the times at school when he used to
laugh at the funny way the kids talked and acted, and the singing was sadder
than the singing at church. Everything was not the way it used to be. He used to
think a whistle was something and he used to blow a whistle until it wouldn't
make a noise any more. He didn't want anything. Beth was in town working in
the department store, and Jesse was at the factory. Jesse worked with big
machines and made all kinds of stuff out of iron.

He guessed Jesse was making nothing. What could Jesse make? What could
anybody make? Jesse could make a part of a machine, but even after he had
made it, what good was it? What good was the whole machine, after it was put
together? Maybe it would be an automobile, maybe a Ford. Who wanted a Ford?
Who cared about getting into an automobile and going down the highway?
Where could you go? What place was there in the world to go to?

Bright petals of yellow and red flew from the blossoming flower to the floor and
disappeared, and he knew. Nothing in the whole world could happen to make her
be there again. Jesse figured he was doing stuff at the factory, but he wasn't
doing anything. There wasn't anything to do. Could Jesse do something that
would make her be in the house again where she belonged? Could anybody do
anything in the world that would make something like that happen? Not one man
in the whole world could do anything like that. Jesse could go ahead and make
every crazy kind of piece of machinery he felt like making and after they had put
all the pieces together nothing would happen, except maybe smoke would come
out from some pipe and some wheels would turn and the big machine would do
something that nobody cared about, maybe move, but nobody in the whole world
could make anything that would do something everybody in the world would
like to see done. Jesse could work hard and save money and fill the house with
new furniture, like the new tables and chairs in the parlor, but the house would
always be empty. He could try to live in the house with Beth, but he knew it
couldn't be, it could never turn out that way, and he knew this from the quiet way
Jesse laughed when Beth wasn't around. Jesse just didn't know what to do. That's
why he brought Beth to the house. He just didn't know what else to do. Before
Beth came to the house Jesse used to sit in the parlor and do nothing and say
nothing. Jesse figured maybe there was something he could do. He knew,
though. He knew exactly how it was. He didn't like to know, it scared him, but
he knew.

The fire. That was all. The laughter. The singing. The blossoming of the flower.
The color and the sadness, and the bright petals falling to the floor and ending.
The ending, especially. Even though one petal followed another endlessly. The
house was no good any more. It was no place she would come to again. The
world was no good. She was not there. It was no use getting well again and
going back to school and laughing at the kids. He didn't want that again. He
didn't want to learn to read and write and answer the questions. They were
fooling everybody. The questions were nothing. They asked you about apples
and eggs. That was nothing. They asked you about a word. They never ask you a
real question, so how could you give them a real answer? They didn't even know
a real question, how could anybody tell them the answer? They couldn't fool
him. None of them, not Miss Purvis, not Jesse, not Beth, not any one of them.

He knew. The question was, Can you do it? Any of you? Here or in any other
place of the world? Can you do it by doing something in the world or by praying
or by doing anything anybody alive can do? He knew the answer too. He knew it
was no. So what were they doing? What good did it do them? What good was
anything in the world when you couldn't do it? When you could never be able to
do it? What good did it do you to do a million other crazy things that had
nothing to do with it? What was the sense in answering a million other questions
and never even asking the real question?

They told him to sit still and keep warm and not to open the door of the stove.
They told him to be a good boy and wait for them to come home in the evening.
They told him he was ill but all he needed to do was to sit by the stove and keep
warm.

He knew what he could do. It was right too. It was the only thing to do. It was a
good thing, and he knew he would do it. He knew there would never again be
any house for them to come to. And he wished a strong wind would carry the
color and heat and fury of the fire to every house in the world and destroy every
house and make them all know nothing in the world they could do could ever do
it.

When the day darkened and he knew they would be coming soon, he took the
fire on burning paper into the parlor and let it eat into the new table. The fire
crept slowly up the leg of the table, and then he took the fire into each of the
other rooms and planted it in the things of the house, so the whole house would
burn, and when they found him across the street staring at the burning house,
crying, they thought he was crying because the house was burning, they did not
know he knew.
You're Breaking My Heart
Dear Emma: Mike wrote. I'm out here in San Francisco.

It was twenty minutes to one in the morning and very quiet. He was looking
mournfully at the snapshot she had given him six years ago when they had just
met. She was even lovelier now than she had been six years ago, but she was still
the same girl. It was still impossible to figure her out.

He wondered what she might be doing in New York while he was sitting in the
hotel room writing to her.

Let's see, he thought. It's almost one o'clock here. Four hours difference,
counting one hour for daylight saving. Five o'clock in New York.

He thought about five o'clock in New York for some time. It was heavy
melancholy thinking.

I guess she's sleeping, he decided.

He thought a little more about New York at five in the morning, feeling very
homesick.

Maybe she can't sleep, he thought. Maybe she's thinking about me.

He returned to the letter he was writing. Honest, Emma, he wrote, I never

realized how much I love you and need you until three months ago when all this
foolishness started. I didn't find out how much you really mean to me until I
started traveling away from New York, and now I'm away out here in San
Francisco. You can imagine how much I love you.

I'll tell you frankly, he wrote. I don't like it out here. I've been in this city two
hours now and it's no fun. It's a fine city, but I don't like it. What do you want me
to do? I'm no good at doing stuff. I've been away from home three months now
and I'm telling you I want to come home. Don't you want me to come home?

He looked at the snapshot of the lovely girl who was his wife. Darling, he said,
don't you want me to come home? I can't write. I can't act. I can't sing. I can't fly
an airplane. I can't make a speech. What do you want me to do?

You're breaking my heart, he added.

He went to the window and looked down on the empty street.

There ought to be something for me to do, he thought. But what? She wants me
to do something, but how should I know what?

He watched a drunkard stagger across the street, almost falling.

I could go out and take a drunkard home in a cab, he thought, but what good
would that do him, or Emma, or me? He'd only get drunk again tomorrow.

Helping a drunkard home was no good. Even giving the drunkard's wife money
was no good. Mike pictured himself talking confidentially to the wife, a small
eager lady with seven children, Mrs. Gilhooly, and he said, Mrs. Gilhooly, I want
you to accept this small gift (a mere thousand dollars), and I want you to send
away for the alcoholic cure for Tom here. That'll cost about seventy dollars, and
from what I hear, it'll cure him for life. Then I want you to buy the kids new
clothes, and I want you to move to a better house, and I want you to buy Tom a
copy of a good book, something inspirational like Wake Up and Live, and unless
I'm badly mistaken, after he's read the book, he'll go out and get himself a good
job and work his way up steadily until he's practically chief engineer. That is, of
course, if he's in the engineering department. I'm sure he'll work himself up to
something, Mrs. Gilhooly. I don't need this money, and I hope you will do these
few little things.

No, that wouldn't do.

On the other hand, Mike thought earnestly, perhaps among the seven or eight
children there might be a genius, a violinist perhaps, or a great writer, or maybe
an inventor.

An inventor, he thought. That's an idea. What can I invent that will make Emma
proud of me? Let's see. The automobile, the airplane, the locomotive, the
motorcycle, the umbrella, the parachute, the submarine. Well, the tricycle, the
kiddy-kar, the pogo stick. What else is there to invent?

He thought a good deal about something practical to invent, but all he could
think of was a person like Emma who would be as lovely as Emma without
wanting somebody else, like himself, her husband, to do something, such as
invent something. Emma would be a magnificent invention. Emma Corbett,
loveliest creature on God's green earth, patent applied for.

He turned from the window and stared gloomily at the telephone. Maybe she
can't sleep, he thought. Maybe she's awake. Maybe Little Mike's crying and the
nurse can't keep him quiet. Maybe Little Mike's sick. Maybe he's got pneumonia.
Maybe he's got a temperature. Maybe the house on Fifth Avenue is full of
doctors. Good God, maybe it's on fire.

He lifted the receiver of the telephone.

Operator, he said. Get me New York. Butterfield 8-9737. Michael Corbett. I

want to talk to my wife. I'll hold the line.

After a moment he heard her voice.

Hello, he said. Emma?

Yes of course, Mike, she said. What's the matter?

Emma, he said. I've got to know how Mike is? How is he?

He's fine, Emma said.

Emma, he shouted, Mike hasn't got pneumonia or anything, has he?

Of course not.

Thank God, Mike said. The house isn't on fire or anything like that, is it?

What are you talking about? Emma said. Why would the house be on fire?

Houses are sometimes on fire, you know, Mike said. It could be our house just as
well as somebody else's.

Well, it isn't our house, Emma said. And what in the world are you doing in San
Francisco?

That's what I'd like to know, Mike said. For that matter, I'd like to know what I'm
doing anywhere away from you. Emma, he pleaded, I can't think of anything to
do. Honest, I can't. Are you sure Mike's all right? It seems like years since I've
seen you two. I reached San Francisco a couple of hours ago. How are you,
Emma? Do you realize I'm more than three thousand miles from home? What do
you want me to do?

You've got to decide for yourself, Emma said.

I've tried very hard to decide, Mike said, but it just seems like the best thing I
can do is be near you and Mike. Can't I come home now?

Mike, Emma said. I'm going to hang up and go back to bed. I'm very sleepy.
Everything's all right here. Good-night.

Emma, Mike shouted, you're driving me crazy.

He heard the receiver come down at the other end.

I don't know, he said.

This was the thirtieth long distance call he had made in three months, and once
again he was right back where he had started, only this time he was over three
thousand miles from home.

It was terrible.

He got the hotel telephone operator. Room 747 please, he said.

Sam? he said.

The chauffeur admitted wearily that he was Sam.

Would you mind coming over to my place?

What for? Sam said.

I want to talk things over with you, Mike said.

What things?

The same things.

I see, Sam said. He wasn't very pleased. I don't suppose I got a right to get some
sleep once in a while, have I? I'll be right over.

Thanks, Mike said.

Sam Levin was not only Mike Corbett's chauffeur, he was Mike's adviser. He
was an eastside New Yorker. He was about the same age as Mike, twenty-eight
or twenty-nine, the same build as Mike, five feet nine, the same weight, 160
pounds. Mike was a graduate of Harvard, 1927. Sam hadn't graduated from
anything. Mike found Sam driving a cab in New York and offered him a job.
Sam said he had a job. Mike said he would pay Sam more than Sam was earning
driving the cab, Sam asked

Mike what the working hours would be. Mike told Sam he didn't know what the
working hours would be. Sam asked Mike what kind of a car he was to drive.
Mike told Sam there would be three kinds of big cars to drive. Sam took the job.
He was always a sucker for big cars.

Sam drove Mike's car all the way across the North American continent, from
Manhattan to San Francisco.

In his room, getting into his uniform, Sam said, A million miles from nowhere,
and he won't let me sleep.

He walked eleven steps down the hall to Mike's rooms.

What time is it? he said.

It's a little after one, Mike said. Now look, Sam, he said, you've got to think of
something for me to do, so Emma will let me go home. You want to get back to
New York, don't you? You miss Rose Tarantino, don't you?

Do I miss Rose Tarantino? Sam said. He's asking me do I miss her. I'm going to
marry her just as soon as I get back to New York, ain't I? Mike, do you think
we'll ever get back to New York alive?

Well, Mike said, we'll get back all right, if you'll help me figure out something to
do. Emma!s still got her mind made up. I just telephoned her.

It ain't Emma, Sam said. You're just about the dumbest graduate of Harvard I
ever saw. It ain't her. It's her father. It's old man Gordon. Can't you figure out
anything?

What makes you think it's her father? Mike said.

Deductive reasoning, Sam said. Sam had gotten that from a detective story in
which the accused man, a small bookkeeper, had proven, by deductive
reasoning, that the actual murderer was the detective. This had delighted Sam
very much. Deductive reasoning, he said again. The old man's a little nuts, if you
know what I mean. Sam twirled his right forefinger in front of his right ear. He's
a little ga-ga, Sam said. He's probably very well educated, but he's a little
eccentric just the same. Them ideas ain't Emma's. They're his. She loves you.
Why would she be sending you away from home and asking you to do
something? That's the craziest thing I ever heard of. Take my word for it, the old
man's behind all this foolishness.

I wouldn't be so sure about that, Mike said.

He noticed Sam standing.

Never mind standing, Mike said. Sit down. I'm sorry about getting you out of
bed in the middle of the night like this, but this is getting more and more serious.
I'm worried. I need your advice. We've got to draw up plans for the immediate
future. I'm fed up with this wilderness out here. I want to get back to New York
as much as you do.

Not half as much, Sam said. Not one iota as much.

He took off his cap and sat down.

Anyhow, Mike said, all I know is that I'm dying to get back. That's all.

Well, why don't you just go back? Sam said.

I can't do that, Mike said.

Why not? Sam said. She's your wife, ain't she? She's the mother of your little
boy, ain't she?

That's right, Mike said, but even so, if I went back before I'd done something, for
all I know she'd get a divorce.

Oh yeah? Sam said. On what grounds?

Failure to do something, Mike said.

What kind of grounds for divorce do you call that? Sam said.

Emma's kind, Mike said.

There ain't no such grounds for divorce, Sam said. You've got to hit her or desert
her or something special like that.

Technically, yes, Mike said. But don't you understand that if she ever decides to
want a divorce, or even think of wanting a divorce, I won't care to stop her from
getting one. That's why I've been breaking my neck these three months trying to
do something that will please her.

Sounds crazy to me, Sam said. You ain't poor. What do you want to do
something for?

You know it isn't my idea, Mike said. Now look, Sam, you're not exactly poor,
Taut at the same time you're not rich either. You ought to be able to think this
thing over with me carefully, before we lose any more time, and give me an idea
or two.

Yeah, Sam said, but we've talked this thing over a hundred times already. I don't
know what she wants you to do.

Well, Mike said, let's give it another try. If Rose Tarantino put you on the spot
this way, what would you think of doing?

I've told you a hundred times Rose Tarantino wouldn't ask me to do anything,
Sam said. She loves me.

I see, Mike said. You refuse to cooperate.

O.K., Sam said. O.K. Don't get sore. I'll cooperate some more. Let's see. What
can you do?
The two young men were very quiet a long time.

I heard of a guy going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, Sam said.

Yes, but he got killed, Mike said.

That's right, Sam said.

No, Mike said. No Niagara Falls in a barrel. Something else. Think hard, Sam,

Let's see, Sam said. He considered half a minute by putting his head very close
to the floor, then looked up with a bright gleam in his eye.

How are you at sitting on a flag pole, Mike? he said.

Sitting on a flag pole? Mike said. It can't be done. There isn't enough room.

What do you mean there ain't enough room? Sam said. You don't sit on the pole
itself. They give you a chair. They practically give you an apartment.

I don't want to be sitting on any flag pole, Mike said.

You got to do something, Sam said. I'm dying to see Rose Tarantino again.

I won't sit on any flag pole, Mike said.

O.K., Sam said. O.K. Go ahead, be headstrong.

Can't you think of something people'll talk about ?

They'll talk about sitting on a flag pole, Sam said.

I won't sit on any flag pole, Mike said. Let's not hear any more about it.

O.K., Sam said. O.K. You asked me and I told you. Niagara Falls and flag pole-
sitting is all I know.

No good, Mike said.

So you went to Harvard? Sam said. What'd you ever learn at Harvard?
I don't remember, Mike said.

Just as I thought, Sam said. What'd you ever do ?

Well, Mike said, one year I boxed,

Sam jumped up and took off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

Now we're getting somewhere, he said. Show me what you can do.

I don't think we're getting anywhere at all, Mike said. I got knocked out in the
first round.

That don't make no difference, Sam said. Stand up and square off.

What do you mean? Mike said.

I'll teach you more about boxing in ten minutes than you could pick up in a life
time, Sam said.

You mean I ought to win some kind of a title? Mike said.

Sure, Sam said. You're in good shape. And I'll teach you plenty.

Do you think I could do it? Mike said.

Do I think you could do it? Sam said. You're a cinch. Harvard graduate, solid as
a rock. You've got intelligence, speed, finesse, and most important of all
aggressiveness. Stand up, Mike, and I'll show you six or seven little tricks.

Mike got up and took off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

Ready? Sam said. Now, this is the ring. Bing, the gong! You come out fighting.

Mike came out worrying. His chauffeur, talking swiftly, explaining accurately,
planted a left on his chin, a right into the pit of his stomach, and Mike doubled
up, exhaling deeply.

You see, Sam said. What I can do, you can do.

It took Mike five minutes to get back his breath.

Wait a minute, he said. Sam, you're a natural-born killer. You do the fighting and
I'll be your manager. We'll plow to the top of the pugilistic world in no time.
You'll knock out Sharkey in two rounds, Baer in three, Braddock in four, and Joe
Louis in five.

I ain't the guy who's supposed to plow to the top, Sam said. You are. Rose
Tarantino ain't asking me to do anything. Your wife is. You got to do the
knocking out, and it won't be Sharkey, Baer, Braddock, or Joe Louis, It'll be
enough if you get a decision over some worn-out local boy. You all right now?

A little better, Mike said.

O.K., Sam said. Round two. Bing, the gong!

Wait a minute, Mike said.

He jumped over a chair and ran into the next room, only his chauffeur jumped
over the chair too, and ran after him.

You're up against the ropes, Sam said. What do you do? It's a tough spot.

Mike didn't know what he'd do. What he did was go out like a light.

Sam stood over him with a disgusted expression on his face.

He can't fight, Sam said.

He went into the bathroom and came out with a glass of water. Some of the
water he sprinkled on Mike's face.

I hope you noticed how I did it, Sam said.

Get me some whiskey, Mike said. You're fired.

What do you mean I'm fired? Sam said.

You're fired if you try to teach me any more about fighting, Mike said.

O.K., Sam said. O.K. I was only doing my duty as I saw it. He'd gotten that from
a detective story too.
Sam poured Mike a drink and took it to him. Mike swallowed the drink and got
up wearily, rubbing his jaw.

I'll tell you what, Mike said. We're tired. You go back and get some sleep. We'll
tackle things with fresh minds in the morning. Wake me up at noon.

O.K., Mike, Sam said.

Ten minutes later Mike's telephone rang. It was Sam.

Mike, he said, I've got a great idea for you.

That's fine, Mike said. What is it?

You can't fight, Sam said, but I figure you've got the makings of a great rassler in
you. I'll come right over and teach you a few pointers.

You're fired if you do, Mike said. I'll see you in the morning.

O.K., Sam said. O.K. Don't get sore.

Mike got up at ten in the morning and went to his chauffeur's room. Sam was
still sleeping. When he heard the knock he called out half-asleep, Who's there?

Mike, Mike said.

Mike who? Sam called out.

Mike Corbett, Mike said.

Sam jumped up out of bed and opened the door.

No, he said, you don't get the idea. When I say, Mike who? you say something
funny. Like this. I say, Knock, knock, You say, Who's there?

What are you talking about? Mike said.

Knock, knock, Sam said.

All right, Mike said, Who's there?

Alby, Sam said.

Alby who? Mike said.

Alby glad when you're dead, you rascal you, Sam said.

That's very funny, Mike said. Get dressed. We got work to do.

Work? Sam said. What work?

Well, Mike said, get the car out and we'll go riding around. Maybe we'll see
something that'll give us an idea.

Sam got under the shower.

Knock, knock, he said.

Never mind that stuff, Mike said. Make it fast. I'll be downstairs drinking coffee
and reading the morning paper. I'll send up a pot of coffee for you.

Thanks, Sam said. And some lamb chops, medium.

Have the car out in front in ten minutes, Mike said.

Fifteen minutes later Sam drove the car down Powell Street to Market, up
Market to Fell, and out Fell to the Golden Gate Park. In the park he drove very
slowly.

It was a nice park and a nice day.

He drove out of the park to the beach.

Knock, knock, he said when he saw the ocean.

Who's there? Mike said.

Pacific Ocean, Sam said.

Pacific Ocean who? Mike said.

You've got me there, Sam said. Just Pacific Ocean, I guess.

That's very funny, Mike said. Just Pacific Ocean.

The ocean made Mike feel lonelier than he had ever felt before. There was only
one thing to do: go home.

Listen, Sam, he said. We're going to be in New York tomorrow morning.

You're crazy, Sam said. That's impossible.

We'll take a plane tonight and be in New York tomorrow morning, Mike said.

Plane? Sam said. What are we going to do with this car?

We'll leave the car in a garage, Mike said. No, he said. We'll sell it. No. We'll
give it away. That's what we'll do. We'll give it to somebody who's always
wanted a big jalopi like this.

I've always wanted a big jalopi like this, Sam said.

All right, Mike said. This big jalopi is now your big jalopi.

Do you mean it? Sam said.

Of course I mean it, Mike said. I'm going home. You can hire a chauffeur and sit
in the back where

I'm sitting.

I wouldn't think of it, Sam said. I'll do my own driving.

Fine, Mike said. I'll take the plane and you can drive home.

Let's think this over a minute, Sam said. Them planes are pretty safe, ain't they?

Of course they are, Mike said. Don't you want the jalopi?

I think I'd rather see Rose Tarantino seven days sooner, Sam said. Let's give the
jalopi to some newskid or somebody.

Now you're talking, Mike said.

They gave the car to a fourteen-year-old Italian newsboy named Vincent Torini.
Mike took the boy up to a lawyer's office in the Russ Building on New
Montgomery Street and made the deal legal. The boy was amazed and scared
and delighted. He was an expert driver, he said. The lawyer was scared to death.
He thought it was a frame-up of some kind. Maybe a plot to kidnap, although
who'd want to kidnap a newsboy? Nevertheless, the lawyer telephoned the police
and the newspapers.

The police and the reporters found Mike and Sam at Torini's house on Telegraph
Hill.

They were having a little celebration, drinking wine and laughing and admiring
the big jalopi and going over the legality of the whole transaction.

No arrests were made, but a lot of photographs were taken. Papa Torini, Mama
Torini, Vincent, five younger Torinis, Mike and Sam, all smiling.

Mike and his chauffeur boarded the plane together and in the morning they were
standing on New Jersey soil. Sam hurried away to Brooklyn and Rose Tarantino,
and Mike jumped into a cab, headed for Manhattan, home, Little Mike, and
Emma.

I don't know he thought. I gave the big jalopi away and I came home. It took me
three months to get from New York to San Francisco and one night to get from
San Francisco to New York.

I don't know, he thought again. He was delighted, but a little worried.

Little Mike saw him first.

Here's that man again, Mike said.

Little Mike ran to his arms and kissed him.

Gosh, Mike said.

Then it was Emma. Mike was sick with joy.

Gosh, he said.
He sat down and tried to be calm.

I can't believe I'm home, he said.

I don't know, he said. You seem glad to see me.

I am glad, Emma said.

I never could figure you out, Mike said.

Night before last, he said, when I talked to you, you sounded as if you didn't
want to see me again. Now look at you.

All right, Emma said. Look at me.

I am, Mike said. You're looking great. Emma, do I look worn and haggard?
These three months away from you have been the unhappiest, the most
miserable, the craziest of my life. I may as well come out with it. I haven't done
anything.

Not much, Emma said.

I don't understand, Mike said. What have I done?

Well, said Emma, you haven't changed in three months.

Mike was bewildered.

Honest, Emma, he said, I don't understand. I guess I'm pretty dumb, but I don't
understand. I thought I was supposed to go out and do something.

That was the idea, Emma said.

But I didn't do anything, Mike said. I tried hard enough, but it seems I just
couldn't think of anything to do but come home. I spent thirteen days in Chicago
trying to write a novel. All I wrote was the title and one little sentence.

What was the title? Emma said.

Emma, Mike said: That was the title.

What was the one little sentence? You're breaking my heart, Mike said. That was
the sentence.

Mike, Emma said.

You mean everything's all right? Mike said. All right? Emma said. It's perfect.
How come? Mike said.

You've come home, Emma said. And you're the same.

Come home? Mike said. I thought that was the

one thing you'd never forgive me for doing, but I had to come anyway.

I'll tell you about that some day, Emma said.

I don't know, Mike said. I can't figure you out.

Three months of agony, he said: Three months of agony for nothing.

For nothing? Emma said.

I don't know, Mike said. Sometimes I just naturally don't know.

The Filipino and the Drunkard
This loud-mouthed guy in the brown camel-hair coat was not really mean, he
was drunk. He took a sudden dislike to the small well-dressed Filipino and began
to order him around the waiting room, telling him to get back, not to crowd up
among the white people. They were waiting to get on the boat and cross the bay
to Oakland. If he hadn't been drunk no one would have bothered to notice him at
all, but as it was, he was making a commotion in the waiting room, and while
everyone seemed to be in sympathy with the Filipino, no one seemed to want to
bother about coming to the boy's rescue, and the poor Filipino was becoming
very frightened.

He stood among the people, and this drunkard kept pushing up against him and
saying, I told you to get back. Now get back. Go way back. I fought twenty-four
months in France. I'm a real American. I don't want you standing up here among
white people.

The boy kept squeezing nimbly and politely out of the drunkard's way, hurrying
through the crowd, not saying anything and trying his best to be as decent as
possible. He kept dodging in and out, with the drunkard stumbling after him, and
as time went on the drunkard's dislike grew and he began to swear at the boy. He
kept saying, You fellows are the best-dressed men in San Francisco, and you
make your money washing dishes. You've got no right to wear such fine clothes.

He swore a lot, and it got so bad that a lot of ladies had to imagine they were
deaf and weren't hearing any of the things he was saying.

When the big door opened, the young Filipino moved swiftly among the people,
fleeing from the drunkard, reaching the boat before anyone else. He ran to a
corner, sat down for a moment, then got up and began looking for a more hidden
place. At the other end of the boat was the drunkard. He could hear the man
swearing. He looked about for a place to hide, and rushed into the lavatory. He
went into one of the open compartments and bolted the door.

The drunkard entered the lavatory and began asking others in the room if they
had seen the boy. He was a real American, he said. He had been wounded twice
in the War.
In the lavatory he swore more freely, using words he could never use where
women were present. He began to stoop and look beyond the shut doors of the
various compartments. I beg your pardon, he said to those he was not seeking,
and when he came to the compartment where the boy was standing, he began
swearing and demanding that the boy come out.

You can't get away from me, he said. You got no right to use a place white men
use. Come out or I'll break the door.

Go away, the boy said.

The drunkard began to pound on the door.

You got to come out sometime, he said. I'll wait here till you do.

Go away, said the boy. I've done nothing to you.

He wondered why none of the men in the lavatory had the decency to calm the
drunkard and take him away, and then he realized there were no other men in the
lavatory.

Go away, he said.

The drunkard answered with curses, pounding the door.

Behind the door, the boy's bitterness grew to rage. He began to tremble, not
fearing the man but fearing the rage growing in himself. He brought the knife
from his pocket and drew open the sharp blade, holding the knife in his fist so
tightly that the nails of his fingers cut into the flesh of his palm.

Go away, he said. I have a knife. I do not want any trouble.

The drunkard said he was an American. Twenty-four months in France.

Wounded twice. Once in the leg, and once in the thigh. He would not go away.
He was afraid of no dirty little yellow-belly Filipino with a knife. Let the
Filipino come out, he was an American.

I will kill you, said the boy. I do not want to kill any man. You are drunk. Go
away.
Please do not make any trouble, he said earnestly.

He could hear the motor of the boat pounding. It was like his rage pounding. It
was a feeling of having been humiliated, chased about and made to hide, and
now it was a wish to be free, even if he had to kill. He threw the door open and
tried to rush beyond the man, the knife tight in his fist, but the drunkard caught
him by the sleeve and drew him back. The sleeve of the boy's coat ripped, and
the boy turned and thrust the knife into the side of the drunkard, feeling it scrape
against rib-bone. The drunkard shouted and screamed at once, then caught the
boy at the throat, and the boy began to thrust the knife into the side of the man
many times, as a boxer jabs in the clinches.

When the drunkard could no longer hold him and had fallen to the floor, the boy
rushed from the room, the knife still in his hand, blood dripping from the blade,
his hat gone, his hair mussed, and the sleeve of his coat badly torn.

Everyone knew what he had done, yet no one moved.

The boy ran to the front of the boat, seeking some place to go, then ran back to a
corner, no one daring to speak to him, and everyone aware of his crime.

There was no place to go, and before the officers of the boat arrived he stopped
suddenly and began to shout at the people.

I did not want to hurt him, he said. Why didn't you stop him? Is it right to chase
a man like a rat? You knew he was drunk. I did not want to hurt him. but he
would not let me go. He tore my coat and tried to choke me. I told him I would
kill him if he would not go away. It is not my fault. I must go to Oakland to see
my brother. He is sick. Do you think I am looking for trouble when my brother is
sick? Why didn't you stop him?
Jim Pemberton and His Boy Trigger
Pa came into Willy's Lunch Wagon on Peach Street where I was sitting at the
counter talking to Ella the new waitress from Texas and eating a hamburger and
drinking a cup of coffee, and he threw his hat on the marble machine and took
off his coat and folded it and put it by his hat and he said, Trig, I'm going to
knock your head off. You told Mrs. Sheridan I wasn't in the army.

I nearly choked on hamburger and coffee and Ella told me to hold up my left arm
because that would stop me from coughing, and Pa said, Trigger, get up off of
that stool.

Let me finish this hamburger anyway, Pa, I said.

All right, Pa said. You told Mrs. Sheridan I never killed anybody in my life and
now she don't want to see me any more.

Well, let me finish this hamburger, Pa, I said. You never killed anybody and you
know it.

How do you know? Pa said. Are you sure?

I ain't exactly sure, I said, but gosh, Pa, what would you go to work and kill
anybody for?

Never mind that, Pa said. I ain't got time to explain about what for. Go ahead
now and swallow that last bite of hamburger and stand up. I'm going to knock
your head off.

He turned to Ella.

Hello Ella, he said politely. Fix me up a sirloin steak. Kind of rare.

Yes, Mr. Pemberton, Ella said. Are you going to fight Trigger again?

He can't go around telling lies about me, Pa said.

It ain't no lie, Pa, I said. Who'd you ever kill? Name one man.
One hell, Pa said. I could name fourteen men on the tips of my fingers.

You ain't got fourteen fingers, Pa, I said. You ain't even got ten. You've got eight.
You lost them last two fingers of your left hand in Perry's Lumber Mill.

I lost them fingers in the War, Pa said. For my country.

Pa, I said, you know you never did go over to Europe. It's your imagination
getting the best of you.

I'll show you what's getting the best of me, Pa said. Mrs. Sheridan claims I ain't
no hero.

You ain't, Pa, I said.

All right, stand up then, Pa said. If that's the way you feel about it, I'm going to
knock your head off.

You know I can whip you, Pa, I said. Don't make me do it again.

Again? Pa said. When did you ever whip me?

Why Mr. Pemberton, Ella said, Trigger whipped you yesterday right here in front
of Willy's.

Fix me a side order of fried onions, Pa said. How've you been, Ella? Has my son
been passing insolent remarks to you? I won't stand for it, you know. I'll knock
his head off.

Why Mr. Pemberton, Ella said, Trigger's been as nice as nice can be. Trigger is
the best-behaved and nicest-looking boy in Kingsburg.

I won't stand for anybody passing insolent remarks to an innocent girl like you,
Ella, Pa said. If my son Trigger asks you out to the country, you just let me know
and I'll knock his head off.

Why I'd love to go to the country with Trigger, Ella said.

Don't you do it, Pa said. Trigger would have you down in the tall grass in two
minutes.
He wouldn't either, Ella said.

He would too, Pa said. Wouldn't you, son?

I don't know, I said.

I looked at Ella and figured maybe Pa was right for once in his life. For once in
his life Pa wasn't letting his wild imagination run away with him.

It looked like maybe Pa was going to forget to fight about Mrs. Sheridan and that
made me feel pretty good. I didn't want to be spoiling the best years of Pa's life
all the time pushing him around in what he thought were fighting contests.

Ella, Pa said, whatever you do, don't let Trigger carry you away with his fine talk
and nice manners.

I been in town since day before yesterday, Ella said, and I ain't seen anybody I
like half as much as I like Trigger.

She turned the steak over.

How's that look, Mr. Pemberton? she said.

Perfect, Pa said.

He sat down on the stool beside me.

Trigger, he said, would you mind waiting outside till I've had my supper? I can't
put up any kind of a fight on an empty stomach.

I've got to go down to The Coliseum, Pa, I said.

You can wait five minutes, Pa said.

I've got an appointment to play Harry Wilke a little snooker, I said. What's on
your mind, Pa?

I want you to drop over to Mrs. Sheridan's, Pa said, and tell her I killed
seventeen Germans in the War. She's sitting on the front porch. I can't stand this
kind of excellent weather without the affection and admiration of a handsome
woman.
Gosh, Pa, I said, Mrs. Sheridan won't believe me.

Yes, she will, Pa said. She'll believe any crazy thing you say. Seventeen, now.
Don't forget.

But you didn't really do it, did you, Pa? I said.

What difference does it make? Pa said.

Ella put the steak on a plate and set the plate on the counter between a
tablespoon and a knife and fork. Pa cut off a big piece of steak. It was bloody
red. He put it in his mouth and smiled at Ella.

You're a good innocent girl, Ella, he said. You'll be wanting to get married one of
these days, so don't be going out to the country with Trigger.

Why I'd love to, Mr. Pemberton, Ella said.

All right then, Pa said. Go ahead and get yourself knocked up if you've got your
heart set on it.

Pa turned to me.

Will you do that little thing for me, Trigger? he said.

Gosh, I felt proud of Pa. He was so big and crazy.

Sure Pa, I said. I'll tell Mrs. Sheridan you killed a whole troop of machine-
gunners.

You go right on over to Mrs. Sheridan's, Pa said. You'll find her on the front
porch, in the rocking chair. Tell her I'll be over just as soon as I've had my
supper.

Sure Pa, I said.

Goodbye, Trigger, Ella said.

Goodbye, Ella, I said.

I went out to the curb and got on my Harley-Davidson and rode six blocks to
Mrs. Sheridan's Rooming House on Elm Avenue.

Mrs. Sheridan was sitting on the front porch just like Pa said, only Ralph Aten
was there with her. Mrs. Sheridan was sucking strawberry soda pop through a
straw out of a bottle.

I leaned my motorcycle against the curb and walked up to the porch. Mrs.
Sheridan looked comfortable and pretty, but Ralph Aten looked sore, especially
about me. I never did like his daughter Effie, though. He just thought I did. He
tried to make me marry her, but I asked him to prove it was me and not Gabe
Fisher. He claimed it didn't look Gabe Fisher, and I claimed it didn't look like me
either. He got sore and said he would take the case to the Supreme Court, but he
never did.

Good evening, Mrs. Sheridan, I said.

Good evening, Trigger, Mrs. Sheridan said. Come on up and sit down.

Good evening, Mr. Aten, I said, and Ralph Aten said, Son "what brings you here
at this hour of the evening?

Come on up onto the porch and sit down, Mrs. Sheridan said. Me and Ralph
want to talk to you.

I went up onto the porch and sat on the railing, facing Mrs. Sheridan and Mr.
Aten.

Here I am, Mrs. Sheridan, I said. What do you want to talk to me about?

Well, said Mrs. Sheridan, about your son Homer out of Effie, Ralph's youngest
daughter.

Homer ain't my son, I said.

You're wrong there, Ralph Aten said. Trigger, you're dead wrong in that opinion.
Homer is the spitting image of you, and your father, and your grandfather before
him. Homer is a real Pemberton.

Mr. Aten, I said, I'm afraid you're letting your imagination get the best of you.
No, I ain't, Trigger, Mr. Aten said. Homer is your son. He's talking now, and he
even talks like you.

Trigger, Mrs. Sheridan said, I think you ought to show a little more interest in
your children.

Why Mrs. Sheridan, I said, how can you say a thing like that? What children? I
ain't got no wife.

Wife or no wife, Mrs. Sheridan said, you've got over four children in these parts.
You get around so easily on that motorcycle, Trigger. I don't suppose you realize
how much time that machine saves you in reaching innocent girls and getting
away from them in a hurry.

I use this machine to deliver the San Francisco papers to farmers who live in
these parts, I said. That's what this motorcycle is for.

I ain't saying it ain't primarily for delivering papers, Trigger, Mrs. Sheridan said,
but you only deliver papers an hour or so early in the morning. Your children are
the nicest-looking kids in Kings County, and I think it is very unkind of you to
pay no attention to them.

Trigger, Mr. Aten said, why don't you marry my daughter Effie and settle down
and make a name for yourself?

What kind of a name do you mean, Mr. Aten? I said.

A great name, Mr. Aten said. Why don't you settle down and be somebody?

Yes indeed, Trigger, Mrs. Sheridan said, I think with a little effort on your part
you could develop into quite a personage.

I figured it was about time for me to begin working on Mrs. Sheridan, but I
couldn't do it in front of a man like Mr. Aten, a man Pa never did like, so I
figured I'd get him out of the way in a hurry.

Mr. Aten, I said, before 1 forget I want you to know I came here to tell you
Charley Hagen wants to see you down at The Coliseum about a private matter.
He said to hurry right down.
Mr. Aten jumped three feet out of his chair.

You mean Charley Hagen the banker, son? he said. You mean the richest man in
Kings County, Trigger?

Yes sir, I said. Mr. Hagen claims he has something important to talk over with
you.

Well, who would have guessed it? Mr. Aten said. Excuse me, Mrs. Sheridan?

Of course, Mrs. Sheridan said.

Mr. Aten scrambled down the steps of the porch, jumped across the front yard,
and began running down Elm Avenue.

Mrs. Sheridan, I said, you may not believe it, but my Pa destroyed a whole
regiment of crack German machine-gunners in the war. He crept up on them
while they were asleep. That's how he did it.

Mrs. Sheridan put down the bottle of soda pop and straightened out her large
front, wiggling with amazement.

Trigger, she said, what in hell are you talking about ?

My Pa, I said. I'm talking about Jim Pemberton, The Lone Wolf of Kings
County, The Terror of Thieves and Pickpockets, The Protector of Children and
Innocent Girls, that's who.

What did you say your crazy Pa did in the War, Trigger? Mrs. Sheridan said.

I said he killed seventeen crack German machine-gunners singlehanded, that's

what.

I don't believe it, Mrs. Sheridan said.

All I can say is, I think you're letting your imagination get the best of you, Mrs.
Sheridan, I said. It's the truth. Pa had papers to prove it, but he lost them. He had
seven medals, but he had to sell them. Pa is a hero, Mrs. Sheridan.

Trigger, Mrs. Sheridan said, who sent you here with that crazy story? Yesterday
you told me your Pa never went to Europe at all. Yesterday you told me your Pa
wasn't even in the army.

Mrs. Sheridan, I said, I was misinformed at the time. I was grossly misinformed.

Well, how did your Pa ever do such a brave thing? Mrs. Sheridan said. How in
hell did he ever do it?

He crept up on them, I said. He killed eleven of them while they were asleep,
hitting them over the head with the butt of his rifle. Then the other six woke up
and started making trouble for Pa, but he turned one of their own machine-guns
on them and mowed them down. He got seven medals for doing it, and two days
later the War ended.

Mrs. Sheridan rocked back and forth very beautifully.

Well, what do you know about that? she said. Trigger, here's fifteen cents. Go
down to Meyer's and get me a package of Chesterfields. This calls for some
heavy cigarette smoking.

I ran half a block to Meyer's and bought Mrs. Sheridan a package of cigarettes.
When I got back Pa was sitting on the porch, telling Mrs. Sheridan how he
happened to do it. Pa was telling her in very tender and affectionate language.

Here, Trigger, Mrs. Sheridan said, give me them cigarettes.

I looked at Pa to see how he was making out while Mrs. Sheridan tore open the
package of cigarettes, got one out and lighted it. Pa smiled and made a certain
movement with his right hand that I knew meant everything was going along
very nicely and many thanks. I made the movement back at Pa and Mrs.
Sheridan inhaled deeply, looking exciting and lovely, so I knew my work was
done.

Good night, Mrs. Sheridan, I said. It's been awful nice being in your company.

Not at all, Trigger, Mrs. Sheridan said. The pleasure's been mine.

Good night, Pa, I said.

Good night, Trigger, Pa said.

I went down to the curb and got on my bike. Before I started the motor I heard
Pa start talking in a low warm affectionate tone of voice and I knew he was all
set for the rest of the night at least.
War and Peace
Before he got to the door his mother came from the kitchen in her crazy pathetic
way and said his name, Sammy. He became disgusted with everything and
wanted to know of himself why he didn't go away and begin all over, begin
everything all over, the whole world, his name, his foolish memories, all the
years of feeling inferior because he was inferior, all the years of being smaller
than others, more intense, less easy-going and natural about things, all the years
of knowing his face made people laugh to themselves and feel how lucky they
were not to have a face like that. So his mother was his mother and loved him.
So she loved him anyway and worried about him as if he were some great big
good-natured animal.

He decided not even to turn around and let her see his face. He decided not even
to let her say what she wanted to say. He knew what she wanted to say. She
wanted to say Sammy, please be a good boy. He'd like to tell her he stank from
being a good boy.

He turned suddenly and said, Aw, Ma, quit your worrying. I'm only going out for
a little walk. I've got to move around a little. You don't need to worry every time
I go out at night.

You feel bad, his mother said. Why do you feel bad all the time?

I guess it's just my nature, he said.

She was a swell old lady. He'd be a rat to hurt her any more than he had already,
leaving the house without a word, coming home at two in the morning and
hollering at her for waiting up and worrying.

You want to go back to college? his mother said.

It's not that, he said. I don't mind working. I've just got to get out at night. I can't
sit around the house all the time reading. I've read everything.

Sammy, his mother said. Do you want to get married ?

He felt sick and believed there couldn't ever be any other way. He'd have to go
away and begin all over. He became furious with her and with himself.

He swore at her vilely.

I don't want to be in your way, his mother said. If you want to get married, don't
feel bad, Sammy.

Aw, shut up, will you, Ma? he said. I don't know anybody to marry. I don't know
any girls.

Sammy, his mother said. Please don't feel bad. You're only a child.

Sure, he said. Twenty. Only a child. Sure.

I don't mean your age, his mother said. You're just a baby.

Aw, shut up, he said.

Where do you go alone? his mother said.

I walk around town, he said. I've got no money. I've got thirty cents in my
pocket. I can go to a fifteen-cent movie, that's all. I just walk around and . . .

He stopped talking because he couldn't understand why it went on year after year
that way. Why didn't he do something? Lots of people in the world were as
goofy-looking as he was, and as small, and a lot of them were important too.
Every time he

saw the photograph of an ugly man in Time it made him feel a little less lonely
and disgusted with himself. The best-looking guys were usually dopes anyway.
They never amounted to anything. All they ever did was get in and out of bed
with the most beautiful women in the world. They never did anything important.
None of the men who got into Time were very good-looking, excepting some of
the movie actors, but they didn't really count.

It's nothing, he told his mother. I just feel lousy every year about this time.

Summer's gone again, he thought.

Sammy, his mother said. Please be a good boy. Get married to a good girl.
I don't know a good girl, he said. I don't even know a bad one. There are a
couple of worn-out girls at the office, but even they don't like me.

Now, he thought, you're talking like a dope. Nobody likes you. Well, isn't that
just too bad. You're all alone in the world.

All right, Ma, he said, don't worry. I'll be back in a couple of hours. I'll just take
a little walk.

All right, Sammy, his mother said.

He wanted to laugh at himself and his poor mother, but he couldn't. It wasn't
funny.

He went down the stairs and out of the house to the street. He knew his mother
was at the window of the front room looking down at him and feeling terrible
about the way he was feeling. Poor Ma, he thought. Poor old Mama. Once upon
a time she knew love and that's why a Jew was born.

It was a fine October evening with a solemn and sorrowing sky, full of stars. He
didn't feel so bad walking, looking up into the sky. He was pretty insignificant
when it came to the sky and so were all the others. They were all nothing, every
one of them. They had one another, whoever each of them happened to be, but
each of them was nothing. Each was a mouse. Fretful and eager and scared. The
cities weren't anything either. Neither were any of the things they took so much
pride in. What they called civilization. What they called culture. All that stuff.
All it was was mice scared and in need of one another. If he was uglier than the
others it didn't make any difference. They were all ugly. Not one of them had the
kind of handsomeness he knew a man could have and ought to have. They were
all offside somewhere or other. If a man was well-made, if his substance had
grace and proportion, his spirit didn't, and you had a lout in the body of a god.
And if another had intelligence, he had no heart, no humanity. If you got one
thing, you usually didn't get another.

A young girl, tall and graceful, was coming up the street toward him. He
watched her as she came, admiring her beauty of form and her innocent un-
concern of herself, the effortless way she walked beautifully, as if she had no
idea she was as lovely as anything ever created. When she was very close he saw
her face, as perfect and true as anything could possibly be. He felt a horrible
impulse to attack the girl, somehow to take from her that which he adored and
knew she would never give him, since he had nothing to give her in return.
Coming closer to her his arms and legs ached with longing. He somehow moved
inward, almost in the path of the girl, his flesh feeling a strange delight in this
sudden proximity to that which it needed, his heart sickening with' grief, while
he himself became disgusted because he was so pathetic and helpless.

The girl scarcely noticed him, for which he loved her more than ever.

If one of them could know me, he thought, and help me stop being ugly about
everything I could be all right. If one of them could see past . . .

There was so much magnificence and beauty everywhere and so little of it where
it could mean so much. It was all fury of longing or magnificence wasted on
magnificence. It was never longing for magnificence shared with magnificence.

So now, he said, I am twenty and a small evil-looking animal which breathes and
wants glory. Now I am a clerk in an office. I wonder who loves that girl.
Probably some powerful dolt who doesn't know whether he's going or coming
but has everything his kind needs.

He walked down McAllister, past the stinking second-hand goods shops, and on
into town.

The Soldier and the Lady, which he had read in Time was a pretty good picture,
was playing at the little fifteen-cent theatre next to The Warfield. It was the
theatre the scum of the city visited, but he didn't think he cared to go in and sit in
the stench and see some more of the foolish magnificence that had nothing to do
with him. He could go in and see the movie and the newsreel and the comedy
and go home, but what good would that do him? Suppose he went in and the
Lady was very beautiful and the Soldier was very handsome and each of them
suffered and at last were granted time to be together? So what!

He walked down Market as for as Kearny, and then didn't know if he ought to
cross over to Third and walk among the bums or go on down Market to the
Embarcadero. Either way reached a dead end, and there was really nowhere to
go. To her is where to go, he said.

He crossed Market to Third and walked down the street two blocks to Howard
and then up to Fourth. Here they were, by the hundreds, all ugly, diseased, and
without money. At Fourth he turned north and walked to Market again, across to
Stockton, up Stockton to Geary, across the park to Post, up Post to Mason, and
slowly down Mason to Market again.

Like the others like himself, puny, ineffectual, ugly and inferior, for two dollars
he could buy it, damaged and soiled and unclean, broken off from its reality. He
could always buy the least of it. From someone he would have to hate and pity
he could always buy a small and wretched amount of it, and hate and pity
himself. He could always buy with money the one thing of life which has its
beauty and magnificence in being given.

He walked slowly up Market to McAllister and on up McAllister to Fillmore and

then north to Sutter, and then home.

His mother was still up of course, waiting for him.

Sammy ? his mother said when he opened the door.

Hello, Ma, he said. How are you?

He went upstairs, into the parlor. His mother was smiling at him, and even
though his grief was the most intense he had ever experienced he somehow felt
delighted about her and himself and his puny body and his awful-looking face
and his whole life from the beginning.

How do you feel, Ma? he said. I'm sorry I've been lousy lately. It's nothing. I've
been walking all this time. Here, take this money. Go to a matinee tomorrow.

He tried to give his mother the money, a quarter and a nickel.

No, she almost screamed, I want no movies, Sammy. Just that you be all right.

Let's forget it, Ma, he said.

Sammy, his mother said. He knew what she was worrying about. He shook his
head, smiling foolishly. No, he said. Nothing like that. Do you feel bad? she said.

Not bad, he said. Absurd. Ridiculous. Pathetic. Stuff like that.

He said goodnight to his mother and went to his room and decided to start
reading Tolstoy again, beginning this time with War and Peace.
The Poor Heart
Loud music over the small radio doesn't make the room warm but it's better than
silence, which tends to carry the temperature still lower, as well as paralyze what
I call the spirit of humanity. They'll tell you Carter's Little Liver Pills are the
thing you need, but you won't believe them because you know it ain't the liver,
it's the heart, Lord God it's the poor heart. What do the workers want? In
addition to better conditions, what is it they want? If the conditions are the best,
if they are the very best, what do the workers want which no one has ever
gotten? What is it they are apt to want when the wage is right, the hours right,
Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays days off, and working hours on working
days from eleven in the morning till one in the afternoon, what would you say is
apt to be the basis of their discontent?

The workers want what everybody wants and never gets. A man is a man and
every one in the world wants the same enormity and abundance of good things
every other man has ever wanted. Everything would be fine in a way if nobody
alive ever got to be alive to that awful degree, but what can you do when ninety-
nine percent of the time they keep a man away from everything? How can you
expect him not to run amuck the first chance he gets? It is always the heart. It is
always the poor breaking heart.

I remember Joe Ryan the engineer in the smoking car of the Great Northern train
telling the boys how the two hobos would have froze to death if Joe hadn't
roared at the fireman, God damn it, Sam, the railroad's got rules, but men have
got rights too, so to hell with the Great Northern, bring them fellows up here to
this warmth. This is winter and it's eight hundred miles to the end of this run.

His boy came into the smoker drunk and proud of the old man.

Tell them, Pa, he said, what they call you on the railroad.

I ain't ashamed of that name, the old man said. They call me Nigger Ryan. By
God, he shouted, it's better than being a son of a bitch. I know a guy in Fargo
who collects money from whores and pimps and spends every Sunday in church.
He's the sheriff. They can call me Nigger Ryan, just so they know what I've done
in my day for men without money.
His boy roared with laughter and shouted. Pa, I'm quarterback on the college
football team, but that's a lot of hooey. I belong where you were when you were
twenty, in the cab of an engine. You're giving me every chance in the world to
grow up and be a punk.

Never mind that kind of talk, the old man said. I want you to amount to
something. If you don't learn to sit in an office where there's heat in the winter
I'll break your head.

The boy roared with laughter.

I got no head for business, he said. I play football because it makes it easy for
me with the girls.

The old man cleared his throat and spit across the train into the cuspidor and
said, Well, what's wrong with that, if you love them?

How do you mean, Pa? the boy said. Of course I love them, but how do you
mean ? I love the same thing every one of them has, and by God you're not so
old you don't know what that is.

He's bragging about me, the old man said to the

rest of us. He knows I'm sixty. Well, I'll say this much. He was conceived when I
was forty.

The boy roared with laughter and the old man said, You remember what I said,
son. You see you don't go to work for the railroad. I'm sending you through
college for your own good.

Later, on that same train, I got into a conversation with a 74-year-old Norwegian
from Hammerfast who lived in Alaska and was on his way home from Chicago
where he'd learned that eleven of his best friends had been dead for close to ten
years and the twelfth was too feeble to leave the house.

Everybody calls me Captain, he said. I went to sea when I was thirteen and I've
been to every port in the world. If you come up to Alaska and open a good night
club, you'll make money left and right. Why they die is more than I'll ever be
able to understand. I was married again three years ago.
It's the heart.

Another was a cowboy who said he could knock out Joe Louis in one round and
looked as if he could.

The way to knock out a nigger, he said, demonstrating on my jaw, is to catch him
here, and hold the fist in there and come out. A nigger's jaw ain't attached like a
white man's and if you come out like this, it almost kills him. I fought all over
Montana when I was twenty and I knocked out every nigger I ever fought.

He didn't have anything against negroes. He called them niggers because that
was the word in his vocabulary for negroes and he meant no offense. He always
had some Copenhagen under his lower lip and was twenty-seven years old. He
claimed he was an expert at stud, without cheating.

The following night around eleven I found him in that little gambling joint in
Great Falls. He wasn't in a game and I'd just gotten out of one, $27 ahead. He
told me he'd lost all but forty cents of his money, $50. I tried to lend him five
dollars, but he wouldn't take the money. We had two drinks at the bar and then
we went across the street to the Greek restaurant for steaks. A lady of forty or so
came in and sat next to us at the counter. She was excited and had a beautiful sad
smile on her face. I found out why. She'd been away twenty years and had just
come back. She'd been in Great Falls when she'd been a young woman and
everything was the same in the restaurant and for a moment she was overcome
by something like joy and grief, and she said to the waitress, Is Nick still the
owner of this restaurant?

Nick Booras? the waitress asked.

That's right, the woman said. How's Nick these days?

Nick's dead, the waitress said.

She wiped the counter with a dirty rag as she spoke.

I watched the woman who'd come back to Great Falls until she ate the sandwich
and drank the cup of coffee and went away.

It's the heart. It's the awful long years, suddenly ended and lost, crowding your
guts with remembrance of odor, image, and pressure of climate, it's the poor
heart still alive in the midst of endless death, unimpedible dying. She got up and
walked out and the screen door banged, and in her day I'd say she'd been as
lovely as any of them.

284

The cowboy picked his teeth a while, being no brighter than a cow, and just as
fine. Then he said, Everybody don't understand cattle. I do. If you don't
understand a cow, sometimes she'll die of a broken-heart. Calves, especially. If
they die, he added, you can't make any money to speak.

Earlier that day, which was Labor Day, in the afternoon that is, I walked from the
hotel to the Fairgrounds because a man named Eccles who'd been on the train
was going to talk and try to get the ranchers to join some kind of an association
that would get them a reasonable living out of their work and I wanted to find
out how he'd do it. His arrival in Great Falls was front-page news in the papers
and he asked the ranchers in the smoker what they thought of Roosevelt, the
president. There were two regular ranchers, not counting the cowboy who was
only a worker. They were both old and had big western moustaches. They were
small and given to the use of Copenhagen. They said Roosevelt was all right.
That's just the way they put it. Then one of them, a man going on seventy he
said, elaborated, saying that Roosevelt sometimes made mistakes, but who
didn't?

You can't do anything, he said, but what it's partly a mistake. Take helping the
poor. It's partly a mistake because you can't help the poor when you get right
down to it, or anybody else either.

Eccles, this man I was going out to the Fairgrounds to hear said, What we want
to do is keep from hindering. If it's impossible to help, it's always possible to
hinder.

When I reached the Fairgrounds, he'd already made his speech and departed. I
asked what sort of a speech he'd made and the ranchers said it was a loud one.

What did he say? I asked.

He said to join the association.

So I loafed around the Fairgrounds a while, then got to walking back to town.
Joe Ryan's youngest daughter who was going out to Cal to study was round and
dark, and the young Jew from Chicago who was going out to Portland to live
with an uncle and aunt he'd never seen, who were childless, got into a romance
on the train, which ended, when she got off the train, when the poor boy burst
into tears. She was about eighteen and he was seventeen and while they were
switching trains he stood on the station platform and looked around in all
directions, after Joe and his three kids had gone off, and then suddenly he began
to cry. He was going to study law at the university and try to make something of
himself and all of a sudden the girl was gone and it was the clearest night in the
world. He moved away from the people on the platform, wept freely, blew his
nose, and came back to the boys who were still talking about the big fight in
New York, Joe Louis vs. Tommy Farr. He listened several minutes, then went
away again to try to get back his heart which had left him with Joe Ryan's little
girl.

In the smoker, an hour later, he said, Do you know how far it is from Portland to
Berkeley?

What do they want, if it isn't what they can't have? What is it, if it isn't the
enormity and abundance that isn't ever steadily part of this life? You can take
Carter's pills for your little liver, or Carter's little pills for your regular-sized
liver, which ever way it happens to be, but for the heart, all you can do is take
your time and cultivate the art of telling the truth from the sweet, sorrowful lie.
A Family of Three
THE CHILD

At the fence, her father talked to the neighbor, Mr. Hickman with the sad round
face and the swift foolish laugh, like small birds throwing themselves from a
small flower bush, a little bird for every ha.

She saw her father lift himself higher above Mr. Hickman than he was normally.
She saw him look down upon the bewildered face of the neighbor, smiling (her
father smiling) in a way that was, she felt, not polite.

Mr. Hickman was certainly less brilliant than her father, but he was a fine man
and all day every Sunday wasn't it Mr. Hickman who worked so quietly in his
garden? Hoeing the earth and watering trees and plants, just being there, very
quietly, so that through the cracks in the fence she could see the suggestion of his
small figure, always quietly busy, not at church like his wife, who was very
religious, her mother said, rather over-religious and perhaps for some good
reason. She remembered how her mother looked across the table at her father.
Very, very religious: a thin little woman with a sore nose and red hands.

She sat in the swing, not swinging, and then stood in it to have a better view of
her father and Mr. Hickman. Sunday morning conversation, Mrs. Hickman at
church, her husband in the yard. It was God. Sunday: the day things stopped and
God began. You could feel the silence of God all about, and you could feel the
warmth of the sun, the sun on Sunday, the day of the sun.

Her father was an intellectual; this was different from what Mr. Hickman was;
Mr. Hickman was only a small man who lived quietly with his wife, and no
children, alas no children. He hadn't a lot of fine language in his mouth, but the
way he worked in the garden on Sundays was very splendid. It was too bad, if it
was true, Mrs. Hickman going to church without her husband because they had
no children, if it was true, and she guessed it must be.

She never saw Mrs. Hickman in the yard with Mr. Hickman; maybe that was the
reason, maybe.

She began to swing, seeing the earth, the house in which she lived, Mrs.
Hickman's house (she always thought of it as Mrs. Hickman's; the yard was Mr.
Hickman's) come forward, curving to the motion of the swing, and then fall
away, forward again and again away, herself moving with the swing and seeing it
all that way, coming and going, alas no children, she thought, no little child in
Mrs. Hickman's house.

She was the daughter of the tall man at the fence who was talking to Mr.
Hickman. Her father was a much younger man than Mr. Hickman, and not only
that, although it was a secret, they were talking of a new person coming to the
house, somebody else coming, a brother or a sister, nobody knew. Well, her
father and Maud, inside the house, they didn't go to church, together or alone,
and so a new person was coming to live in their house.

Well, said Mr. Hickman with embarrassment, really, Mr. Corbus, I wouldn't like
to wake up some fine morning and find out that I'd turned into a radical-minded
person. It is not a pleasant thought.

She heard Mr. Hickman send the flock of small birds flying swiftly from the
flower bush.

No, really, not a very pleasant thought, she heard him say.

An intellectual, that's what her father was. She wondered what such a nice
sounding word could mean; it must mean something big and special, because the
young man who wrote poems, Casper Fisk, had said it.

The words Casper Fisk said were very easy to remember because of the way, so
strange and amusing and unquiet, he said them, looking about nervously and
lifting his voice, making her remember. She liked Casper Fisk almost as much as
she liked her father. Casper Fisk made her feel how good it was to be alive.
Every time he came to their house she felt somehow that because of his visit
something remarkable would happen in the world; she did not know what and
she could not imagine what, but she always felt, whenever she saw him, that
things were happening everywhere; he was so fine looking and so excited and he
laughed so sadly, looking at Maud. Her father and Casper Fisk were like brothers
almost, she thought.

She wondered who the new person was going to be, and where, really, was he
now? Why was it she had not seen him before and if he was to live in their
house, where had he been all the time? Waiting, perhaps, she decided; but
waiting where? These secrets of the world were very strange. She wished the
new one would show up soon so she could see what he looked like and find out
if she was going to like him. She liked her father because he was so sensible. He
knew the finest stories anyone could imagine, finer ones even than the ones in
the school books.

I am his daughter, she thought, and the earth came forward and then fell away,
and she remembered when she had been a much smaller girl, the one who was in
the photographs, in the book with gray pages.

She liked her mother, too, although she was sometimes unkind: medicine to
drink, to make you well, she said; bed to go to, so that you will grow, she said;
special things to eat, to keep you beautiful, she said; questions not to be asked,
for another year or two, to keep you good, she said; you will know soon enough,
she said, everything will be known to you soon enough.

She remembered hearing her father say, Our child is precocious, Maud. It was
almost like peaches. What lovely words, she thought.

This country, she heard her father say, is hanging on to a dead and rotted form of
itself, and the only thing that will shake us to our senses is a revolution.

There was a lovely word: so round and full, revolution; the word rolled and
danced; revolution, she thought many times.

But Mr. Corbus, Mr. Hickman said. Really, a revolution? Like in Russia? You
mean riots like in foreign countries?

Riots, she thought. That was lovely too. Swinging, she said the word, riots, little
riots, big riots. Maybe it was a tree. A little one growing and a big one growing.
Riots, she said.

She saw her father light his pipe, look across the fence at Mr. Hickman. Good
lord, she heard her father say, don't you realize, man, that we have been having
riots in this country for years? It isn't anything new.

Well, yes, said Mr. Hickman, small riots, if you want to call them that. (Small
riots, she said; maybe it was a tree after all.) Yes, said Mr. Hickman, we have
had little uprisings here and there (small trees rising up?), little demonstrations,
but nothing serious.
She heard her father say, The smallest riot is as serious as the largest. (Trees.)
Our country, he said, is large (And, she thought, we have many trees, some
serious, Some small.), and our riots have an appearance of being local. We
needed this crash. (Crash, she said; that was lovely! crash.) We have seven
million unemployed, and it is no small thing.

Seven million, she thought; that was numbers like one and two; many numbers,
one million, two million, a million million, a million million million million.

Half of the unemployed, Mr. Hickman said, are bums. (Buns? she thought;
breakfast buns? No; bums, a different word. Bums were the men who were
always ringing the bell and making Maud feel bad, the ones who were always
saying, No work, lady, isn't there some little job I can do?) She remembered
going to the door one day and seeing a very young man. He looked very tired
and sad, and he said, Hello, child, and then Maud came to the door and he said,
Madame, I am starving. And Maud said, I believe you, come in; and she watched
him as he ate and listened to him as he talked to Maud and in the evening Maud
said to her father, He was only a boy, and he had a dreadfully intelligent face; I
don't know what's happening everywhere, I made him take a dollar, and the way
he smiled was very painful. He took our address and said he hoped somehow, if
he had any luck, to remember us. I told him to forget it.

Yes, said Mr. Hickman, half of them are bums. Really, Mr. Corbus, we must not
forget that half of them are bums.

Any man, said her father, can become a bum: no man is ever a bum by himself.
Conditions make him a bum. I could be a bum, she heard her father say, and you,
Mr. Hickman, even you could be a bum, though God forbid.

Well, said Mr. Hickman, I think it will all turn out for the best.

And now she saw her father smiling. Yes, Mr. Hickman, she heard him say, that
is a good thought. Everything always turns out for the best (and he smiled
strangely now), because even the worst is always the best. All we want is to go
on living. All we want is to go on breathing.

Then swinging, everything ended; it ended when she heard Maud call her name:
Maria. Goodness, she thought, now I won't hear what Mr. Hickman has to say.
She stepped carefully from the. swing and walked through the yard, over the
lawn, to the kitchen where her mother was waiting.
Maria, her mother said, do you think you could go to the store for me?

How nice, she felt. Go to the store, out of the house, up the street to the corner,
and around the corner to the store, and in, just like a lady.

Yes, she said, pronouncing the word as they had taught her to pronounce it, not
yeah.

Tell Mr. Riga, her mother said, I want a pound of the best coffee, in a can; here is
the money; he will give you change.

She left the house and began to walk up the street, alone, going to the grocer's. It
was the time of year she liked best: sunshine on the pavement, all the trees with
leaves, birds in the trees, and very clear air, not like winter air, so hard and
heavy. The stranger, she thought, the new one who is coming to our house,
suppose I see him walking to our house, will I know him? She hoped he would
be a nice little boy, not a boy like Henry Cooper who made such ugly faces and
spoke as if everything he said were naughty. She hoped the stranger would be
like the boy in the picture in the living room, over the fireplace, the boy with the
blue velvet suit and the neat black slippers and the quiet smiling face; alas, she
thought, no children, poor Mr. Hickman has no children.

At the corner she looked suddenly far away and saw the street go straight out to
the sky. She looked up to the sky and saw it go everywhere, and my, she thought,
how large it is, what a large place it is. She remembered the words her father and
Mr. Hickman had said, revolutions, riots; what a fine place to be in, she thought.

It was very nice going to the grocer's alone. When she opened the door a small
bell tinkled; she walked to where Mr. Riga was standing and, feeling thrilled,
began to speak nervously but very distinctly. A pound of the best coffee, she
said, in a can. Mr. Riga had a nice face, very dark eyes, and a thick black
moustache.

You're Mrs. Corbus's little girl, aren't you? he said, speaking like an Italian,
which was very pleasant.

She said, Yes, sir, Mrs. Corbus's.

The grocer took a pole with two wire fingers at the top and worked the fingers so
that they tightened around a blue can of coffee, high up on a shelf.
Then the grocer let the wire fingers loosen and the can fell neatly into his hands;
he did it very beautifully, she thought. She guessed that was why he had the
store; it was because he could work the fingers of the long pole and get things
down from high places, very neatly.

She heard the door open, and the bell tinkle; the last time the bell tinkled it was
herself entering the store, alone, and she wondered who it would be this time.
She turned quickly and saw a little boy, no bigger than herself, and she decided
instantly, This is the stranger who is coming to our house, and such a nice little
boy. What a large world, she thought. So many different people, so many differ-
ent places, close by and far away, people everywhere, places everywhere. What a
fine place to be in, she thought. She herself in Mr. Riga's store and this little boy
himself in the store, the stranger, coming to their house. The boy was almost as
quiet as the boy in the picture, but he was very different, real, and she saw him
move, walking into the store. She hoped there was no mistake and that he was
really the one. She knew she liked him very much and she wished she could say
something to him, but she was too frightened to open her mouth. All sorts of
words sprang into being there, but she couldn't say them. It was, after all, a
secret, and perhaps, she thought, the little boy himself did not know.

The grocer placed the can of coffee into a brown paper bag, working it open with
a graceful movement of the arm. He handed her several small coins, and taking a
last look at the small boy, she left the store, delighted with the remembrance of
his serious face and the quietness of his presence.

When he comes to our house, she thought, I will say, I saw you at the grocer's.
Do you remember?

At the corner she looked once again up the street and saw it vanish into the sky;
then she looked straight overhead, remembering that she had done this once
before only a short time ago. What a large place, she thought again; so far away;
and she herself standing on the sidewalk, so small, so near everything.

In the kitchen-she said to her mother, I saw him at the grocer's; he is as quiet as
the boy in the picture and just as nice.

What are you talking about? her mother said.

The little boy, she said. The one who is coming to live with us. I saw him at the
grocer's. I hope he comes soon.
But, Maria, her mother said, he will not come walking. It will be a very small
child, an infant; and we do not know yet. It may be a brother, or it may be a
sister.

She could not understand. She continued to think of the small boy at the grocer's,
wanting him to be the one.

He was a very nice little boy, she said. Isn't he the one?

I don't know what little boy you are talking about, her mother said, but he
certainly isn't the one, whoever he is. Did you speak to him?

No, she said.

She left the kitchen and returned to the yard. Well, she thought. She named the
little boy Stephen. That was a lovely word. Stephen, the quiet little boy in Mr.
Riga's store. Thinking of him, she remembered the smell of the grocer's: dried
onions, ham, bacon, cheese, oranges, bananas. My, she thought, what a nice
place to be in.

Mr. Hickman, she saw, was no longer at the fence, and her father was at the end
of the yard, digging with a shovel, pressing it deeply with his foot into the
ground. She went to him.

I went alone to the grocer's, she said. On the way and coming back, she said, I
looked far away and saw the street end, and then I looked up at the sky.
Everything is so big, she said.

She saw her father smile and lean on the handle of the shovel, looking down at
her. Maria, she heard him say, and she forgot what else he said to her, though she
remembered that it was very splendid and that it made her feel as if she ought to
run through the yard, laughing.

THE MAN

Yes, yes, of course, said Mr. Hickman, simply to go on breathing.

And as if to illustrate the thought he took in a deep breath, exhaling slowly,

saying AAAAH.
Yes, he said, it is splendid when the weather is so nice.

He heard Mrs. Corbus call Maria, and he saw the child step from the swing and
walk across the lawn.

He saw his neighbor, young Mr. Corbus, follow the child with his eyes. They
were a good family, he thought, James and Maud and their daughter Maria. He
moved closer to his young neighbor. How is Mrs. Corbus? he asked. Is she well?

Very well, thank you, said his neighbor.

Mr. Hickman did not speak, but his glance was full of the meaning of his
thought.

Very soon, said Mr. Corbus in reply to the thought. A month perhaps, he said.
Not more than a month.

Mr. Hickman smiled happily. If, he suggested, we can be of any help. The child,
you know. While you are away. We should be very happy to have her at our
house.

I'm sure Maria would be pleased, Corbus said. She speaks of you often.

Really, said the little man, it makes me happy.

The conversation at the fence ended; there was much work for each of them to
do.

Maria, Corbus thought. He swung the shovel to his shoulder as if it were a gun.

The guns, he thought, all the guns falling with the dying men. So many years
after, and yet he could not forget. The war was, after all, the major experience of
his life. Destroying him, in a certain sense it had also made him. His distinction
as a writer was the distinction of a young man who had seen death and returned
to speak of it, quietly, vigorously, and bitterly. It was part of everything he wrote.
Death was a part of each of his thoughts.

Walking over the small patch of earth that was now his own, he walked again
over an alien earth, the earth of war, and he saw himself, holding a gun, young
and bitter, homesick, caught in the madness of the war, moving among mobs of
his kind, all homesick like himself, moving sullenly to the place of death, actual
or inward, the orderly mob walking steadily toward the noise and horror, the
bleeding and praying, the falling and dying.

At the end of the yard he pressed the blade of the shovel into the soft earth,
lifted, then, looking into the earth, he was again in the alien land. He was
meaningless again, unfulfilled, without Maud, without Maria, alive in the
shadow of death, waiting, going with the mob, carrying the gun, talking quietly
with his companions of home. There was Clyde Jeffries from South Carolina, a
dark young fellow who wanted to die, and did.

If we live, he was telling Jeffries, if we do not fall, I think we shall have

something to say.

And if we die? Jeffries said. What then? He inhaled deeply, staring at Corbus,
implying by the stare that he knew he would fall, that he could feel it, and (what
amazed Corbus) that he wanted it to be so.

Listen, he said. You've got to think of living, of returning whole.

He saw the boy smile, inhaling deeply. Staring at the boy, he did an astounding
thing, a thing that happened inevitably, by itself, shivering his spirit. Our Father
in Heaven, he said, keep this boy alive, do not let him fall.

And Jeffries fell.

And with Jeffries he himself fell. I want time, he had said to Jeffries, in which to
walk quietly over the earth, among uncrazed men. I want time in which to build
a house, inhabit it, create a past with meaning. I want time in which to seek and
find love. I want time, he said. I want to be unhurried, uncaught. I want time in
which to sleep and waken, in which to dream the truth of my being on earth.
Time, he said.

With the falling of Jeffries, the War became a monstrosity almost unendurable.
There was no longer anyone to whom he could declare his being, no one with
whom he could speak, proving to himself that he lived. Among mobs of his
fellows, he was smothered by bitter loneliness, and instead of speaking with
anyone he began to write. He wrote short and half-insane poems.

Then suddenly, almost unaccountably, he had created Maud. She appeared in his
thought, unnamed, religiously beautiful. She was there, somewhere in the land of
his birth, and he would return to her, unwhole perhaps, but through her he would
achieve wholeness again, and they would build a house together, and together
they would move through time and space with dignity. She emerged from his
loneliness and became an imperishable presence in his blood. He saw her often,
asleep and awake, since in the alien land sleep and wakefulness were the same.

Once, in dream, he was certain that he would find her, and when he wakened he
burst into laughter at the War. It could never destroy him. It could never smash
his dream, destroying him and the girl, breaking down the house, crumbling the
thought of her. He roared with laughter, knowing that he would live.

When the War ended he was not amazed. His injuries had been unworthy of
notice. His physical injuries had been negligible. Inwardly, though, he was
deeply hurt.

He was glad to be alive, but ill with the thought that he should have been killed.
This ending was senseless, he thought. It proved that the whole thing was an
idiotic waste of life. The shouting was absurd. What was there to shout about?
How could anyone feel happy because the war had ended? Did the ending of the
war mean that the dead would be resurrected? What right had the living to
shout?

Crossing the Atlantic he was sick every moment. It was not seasickness. He was
ill with the thought of the war, of what it had done to Jeffries, of what it had
done to himself.

On the ship he had almost only one thought: I am dead. I am no longer alive.
Now and then the thought of Maud returned, but unpleasantly, as a fantasy that
had been inevitable, unavoidable, a thought which he should destroy as soon as
possible, as soon as sanity should become possible.

He had very good luck in New York, living there four years, working on The
Sun, making occasional contributions to The Nation, beginning his career as one
of the soundest of the younger critics. The thought of Maud dwindled and finally
became forgotten. He remembered it now and then as part of the madness of the
war which he was fortunately outgrowing. Knopf brought out a collection of his
essays. The book had very little sale, but was discussed by the right men.

He met her at a party. She had read his essays and named three that she liked.
In the cab she explained that she was on a visit to New York and would return to
San Francisco in a week.

Less than a month later they rented a small house in the Marina district of San
Francisco, and three months later she told him she was with child.

The child was Maria.

Digging in the yard, he heard the child coming to him. I went alone to the
grocer's, he heard her say. I looked far away and saw the street end. Everything
is so big, he heard her say.

He leaned upon the handle of the shovel, looking upon the beauty of the thought,
remembering himself in France, a frightened young man, dreaming of himself
whole, of Maud, of this child, now before him. Maria, he said, in you I am
whole. God, he thought, how I love this child; how strange that I might have
died as Jeffries died, but am still living.

THE WOMAN

Standing in the kitchen, Maud felt the child stirring within herself, almost whole
now. When it had been Maria, the child had been very still, not budging the way
this one was budging, as if it wanted to get out into the light and stand on its legs
and have a good look at things. Maria had been very quiet all the time. Long
ago, even before the growth had begun in her body, she had made up her mind
that her second would be a son; now she hadn't the slightest doubt about it. Each
time the growth within herself kicked or shoved, she thought pleasantly, It is the
young man (thinking of Casper Fisk) growing impatient. He wants to get out and
start breathing.

When it had been Maria, she had felt great fear, not knowing what the pain
would be like. Now she knew it was unlike any other pain of living, a pain so
intense that one had to dream and live it at once. Releasing Maria she had
perished, losing her mind, sleeping and waking, forgetting herself and forgetting
that she had ever lived, and then with the form of the child beside her, whole and
perfect and of itself, she had become resurrected and had grown slowly back to
life and herself, and the remembrance of herself. But even her remembrance was
no longer the same. Because of the birth, her life was now herself with James
Corbus and with Maria. She was no longer separate, by herself, detached. The
time of her growth was now circled back to another's beginning, back to the
beginning of Maria, through her and through Corbus, and she was beginning to
live again in the separateness of the child. Maria restored her to youth, making
her feel that all things were endless, that fresh beginnings made all things
endless, and life everlasting.

After breakfast Corbus had helped her with the housework, making the beds,
running the vacuum cleaner over the living room rug, washing the breakfast
dishes, and now he was in the yard, talking to their neighbor, Mr. Hickman. It
was a bright Sunday, and the air was very clear. Within herself the child kicked
and budged, the brightness of the day, she thought, and the clearness of the air,
perhaps urging him to enter the earth and begin to breathe, crying out, as Maria
had cried out, with the joy of possessing substance.

She sat in the sunlight, in the kitchen, reading an old copy of Scribner's, enjoying
the appearance of print in daylight. She read the words of a sonnet, thinking of
the coming of Maria, and she remembered only the first five words of the poem,
this is the only house.

She looked up from the page to the ceiling and the walls, thinking at the same
time of a number of other things, Corbus and Maria in the yard, the child within
her, the brightness of the Sunday light, and, strangely, Casper Fisk. Among her
thoughts, the thought of Casper Fisk was sullen and secretive, coming and going
like a mirage of his face, sometimes small and far away, sometimes large and
close, almost of her own inward face, or like music from close by and then from
a great distance, over hills perhaps, echoing.

Of the truth she was not certain. The sun, she thought, is lovely to the child; and
she felt the new life stirring to her thought. The poem in print began to ripple
beneath her staring, the design of the letters blurring, and she knew from this that
soon enough now the real pain would begin.

After the pain of Maria she wakened to life and the earth as one might waken
from a twenty year dream, feeling, she felt, as one might feel if one had been
born twenty years of age; and after the pain the return of the earth and of life had
been refreshing. If she had done wrong, though, she was not aware of it. Corbus
was her life. He could not live without her, nor she without him; nor could he
live without Maria, nor could she.

Poor Casper, she thought, so inwardly violent and bewildered, so marvelously

lonely. She loved him as one might love a small boy who is lost in a large city
and is weeping. If she had given him her body, and if the growth within herself
Avas his, of his past, his blood, it was because she was a woman.

The continuity of her thought broke. She moved from the window to the
breakfast table, paused there to touch a green cup, then thought to herself, almost
secretively, as if the thought were not also of Corbus, as most of her thoughts
were, I am glad.

She thought of the time early in November when the three of them were in the
waiting room of the Southern Pacific depot on Townsend Street. Corbus was
going home to visit his father who was ill, in Chicago, and Casper, who had no
father, sat beside her, troubled and sincerely grieved, as if he were going, or as if
he too were the son of the man who was ill.

Waiting for the train, they said little. It was very difficult to speak because of the
man who was ill, several thousand miles away. At the last minute she heard her
husband speak. I'm sure it's nothing, he said. 'Nothing, surely, more than
loneliness. I haven't seen him in a long while and he is lonely.

It was strange, though, the way he talked. She felt that he was deceiving himself,
intentionally or unconsciously, that he knew his father was dying. His grief
touched her so profoundly that she shivered and asked for a cigarette. Casper
Fisk was no less moved, and in getting a cigarette his hands trembled, he
dropped the package, and had to light three matches before he finally succeeded
in lighting her cigarette.

They walked together to the train. Corbus, who walked ahead, seemed very
lonely, hanging to a satchel. She embraced him passionately, and the train went
away, taking Corbus to his father. She turned and saw Casper Fisk crying, then
she too began to cry. They cried softly, touching their eyes with handkerchiefs
and blowing their noses.

This is the house, she thought. It was here that she had given herself to the young
poet, even while Corbus was on the train, being carried to his father, to a man
already dead. Their weeping had been strange: she herself didn't know just why
she had wept, but she knew that it was not only because of her husband's grief. It
was also because of Casper's grief, his loneliness, and, she believed, his love for
her, so secretive and yet so obvious, so shy and yet so violent; and she wondered
why he had wept. Had it been because of his love for her? And for Corbus? And
because of his bewilderment? Had it been because he wanted her, and couldn't
bear to think of hurting his friend?

That night, the night Corbus went away, Casper sat in the house, tense and
nervous. At last he said, I love you, Maud. I must tell you.

Then, before she could answer him, he had hurried from the house. The
following evening he came again, shy and ashamed, and everything he said was
flippant, in mockery of himself.

After a while, though, the mockery went away, and suddenly he was speaking of
himself solemnly, telling her how greatly he needed her, how greatly he had
always needed her. He spoke bitterly of himself. I am ten years late, he said. I
know it. All my poems are ten years late. Everything I do is what someone else
has already done. The first time I saw you, you were already a meaning for
another. I knew it was you I had always been seeking, but again I was late. That
night I didn't sleep. I walked all night, angry and happy. Everything was so
splendid and so empty at the same time (his intense face far away and small, and
then large and close).

She saw him as a lonely child. She touched him, not speaking, feeling his
terrible agony, his shame and his desire and his loneliness. Then she embraced
him, going to him as another person, not as the wife of James Corbus, but as the
loneliness of Casper Fisk and herself, and now she had his growth within herself,
and she was glad.

She became suddenly startled at her happiness, and seeing Corbus in the yard, at
the fence, talking to Mr. Hickman, she wanted to have him understand, to know
how and why it had happened, and she wanted to believe that he could
understand as she understood and not become crazed as a man might, and
should, no doubt. She wanted him to know and not hate anyone, neither himself,
nor herself, nor him, nor the one coming. But the thought was too heavy.

There were things to do, she remembered with relief; unimportant but pleasant
things to do. Thinking of Maria, she was overwhelmed with longing for the
presence of the child, and she wanted to have her standing in the house, her
daughter, the child of herself and Corbus, to be talking to her, and without
thinking she went to the door and called the girl's name, Maria.
I will send her to the grocer's, she thought. We need coffee, she decided. There
was still a half pound of coffee in the house, but she wanted to see Maria and she
knew the child would not understand merely wanting to be seen. She was too
practical for that, and she would ask questions.

She heard the child on the steps. The screen * door opened, and she saw Maria, a
little displeased, walking to her. It was very good. She began to smile. Maria, she
said, and although she went on to ask if Maria thought she could go to the store,
her mind clung to the name that was her daughter: Maria.

Yes, she heard her daughter say; then, she began to explain what she wanted, and
about the money. Staring again at the print of the magazine, she heard Maria
walking over the gravel walk, around the house.
Am I Your World?
In Reno I had to gamble (and win) to get enough money together for a ticket all
the way through to New York. It's funny the way the songs that get into you and
hum themselves to death change as time goes by. Sometimes they're popular
'songs and sometimes they're old ones. Once in a while they're not songs at all,
just little moods of your own that get themselves articulated in little fragments of
melodies and words. Sometimes you get popular songs, old ones, and your own
little melodies tangled up into a whole concert of grief or amusement, with a
little grand opera on the side once in a while, a little symphonic music too, like
the welling-up parts of the Fourth Symphony by Tchaikovsky, occasionally
something not easy to remember like the graduation episode, or ultimate
moment, in Liszt's Les Preludes, the moment, that is, when at last after eight or
nine brave attempts that heart in Liszt or in his composition or in all of us
reached its truth and with all the power in the world poured out the message,
always dumb of course, but always great and furious too, and now and then
beautiful too, as for instance the sea is, and a beautiful woman too; that is,
without clothes, separated from the world; or remembered.

The concert will include also a line or two from an old lovely song like O Dry
Those Tears, or one like My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, or a bit of mournful
contemporary chit-chat like My Darling, I will love you tonight, or whatever the
words are that go with that soft, over-ripe, over-mournful, trembling popular
melody of a couple of years ago.

I'm kind of trying to remember all the music that was dreaming away in me
while I was in Reno trying to get enough money together to get to New York on.
What it was was a kind of comic fragment out of a song I had heard on a radio
once and had never remembered and never forgot.

The words I remembered and kept repeating all the time were, Am I your world,
your whole universe, for better or worse, or am I dreaming? That part of the
song is the part where the poor guy is really sick with love, where he really asks,
and the music is the good old American kind. I had it bad this summer, going
and coming, leaving and arriving, as it is in travel. But not without comedy,
having lived years and years and having little by little learned. Little enough, but
having learned that little well. That the enduring is alone. Just know that. Just
remember it. Just be casual. Just don't get all worked up and feel terrible about
everything. Just hum it until it dies and keep moving with the days. Just get to
morning, then to noon, then to evening, then to night, and just know it's the only
thing, except that it ends like everything else. Am I your world? As long as you
are you are. As long as I'm yours and you're mine, it's so. As soon as it's not so,
you know it, you don't believe it, you refuse to believe it, you ask, get sick, look
around, and the concert begins.

After three thousand miles, two hundred villages, towns, and cities, seven
million faces of people alive, ten thousand street corners, highways, streets, and
the sky, after enough of everything irrelevant, the humming of that question
ceases, and a new concert begins.

Anyhow, when I got to Reno I said. Am I your world? Huhmmm? Whole

universe? What? Better or worse? Or am I delirious again?

No? No world, no universe, no better or worse, no dreaming? All right, let's go

get a drink. How've you been? Good. That's fine. Feel all right? Health good?
Everything all right? O.K., let's thank science for alcohol. Huhmmm? World,
universe, better or worse? O.K., baby. I'm on my ways to N. Y. and I haven't got
car-fare. Want to watch me talk to the dice?

So I talked to them, world and universe, made three passes, won thirty dollars,
walked across the street to the depot, fixed up the ticket, went back and won
eleven dollars more, food on the way, and four minutes later kissed her and got
on the streamlined train and started moving. Of what importance is personal
stuff? If you don't kill somebody, go to war, invent a portable machine of some
kind, or something, what good is what happens to you personally? Who cares
about that? Huhmmm? You do, that's who? Am I your world? Your whole
universe? For better or worse ?

What good is all that stuff? Isn't she lovely? Look at her. Isn't she the world and
the universe? And then the midget gave out a wild Indian whoop and shouted,
There's enough woman here for a whole tribe of Ojibways, and it's all mine.
Could you blame the little man' First he jumped up and down like a child in the
presence of a great big brightly-painted toy. Then he started hollering. You know
the story. There was a fellow in Iceland too, once, who had the same kind of
experience. She was the awfulest, most beautiful world and universe ever put
together and just to look at her made this young man of Iceland faint. He fainted
eight times before he got over fainting; then he started inhabiting the world and
before morning he was in the world, all of him, every bit of him, every
dimension of him.

When I got to New York the song that seemed to be in the people, and
everywhere, was The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down. One version of it that I
heard here and there, in the streets, in little bars, out of nickel-in-the-slot
phonographs and over radios, had a man singing and crying like a little boy. Wah
wah wah, he cried at the beginning of the song. On account of it was broken; at
the end of the song he was in a better mood, on account of they'd fixed it again.

Another one was about Vienna dreaming or something. Not American, but godd
and soft: Wien, Wien, and a lot of warm Teuton words about I love you; not
Vienna, not Wien, but somebody there who was that place, Vienna, the world
and the whole universe. When I was in Vienna it wasn't like in the song, though.
It was hundreds of wonderful girls strolling near the square where the opera
house is, eager to settle the problem of romance for a reasonable sum.

There was a Portuguese-American seaman in a little bookshop in Frisco one

night who told me how it was in Barcelona every time his ship docked there. The
girls were all under fifteen and all they asked was ten or fifteen cents. Wien? It
was horrible, he said, because the girls were so wonderful. He hated a world that
caused that. Everybody took himself a girl and it was probably the real thing,
real love, but he didn't like the lousy transaction, so he hoped the Loyalists
would change the world over there. I hope they would too because the seaman
was right; it was fine for them to be so lovely, but it was too cheap for them to be
so badly in need that they came onto boats at the age of fifteen and under.

We don't want to be vulgar, any of us. The worst of us or the best of us. We don't
want anything upper and innermost like that to get cheap and after you hear
about wonderful Vienna all your life in the songs that come from there and reach
there yourself and see them all smiling at you, you kind of wonder what's come
over the poor world. When the first one gives you that eye you feel flattered and
happy because you're still that good; you're fooled for a moment. You think she's
all right and you're all right, just a couple of young people near the opera house
in Vienna. When the second one gives you that where-have-you-been-so-long?
look you feel better than ever. You get real enthusiastic about travel and how
educational it is. When the third one gives you the let's-get down-to-business
look you begin to understand what's going on in Vienna. When the fourth one
hurries after you and at the right moment takes your hand, you know God damn
well it's the poor world, the whole awful universe. It's not like it was in the
music, like Tales From the Vienna Woods, Barcarole, and all the other rivering
moods of the heart: The Blue Danube and so on. It's Tales From the Vienna
Streets, Tales of the Poor Young Beautiful Street-Walkers.

Well, nobody wants to be vulgar about it. If you're a proud Communist, or even
only a militant one, you're no different from an inventor of portable machines of
one sort or another, or no different from anybody when it comes to that,
innermost.

You'd like it to be a better world, no less than anybody else, but how? I've still
got to write my first story for The Saturday Evening Post. That's no different
from being a proud Communist or an inventor of portable machines. I've still got
to figure out how they do it. There is a way, I know. I've studied the stuff in the
magazine carefully and I know there's a way of doing it, but I can't figure it out
yet. What you do is keep it far from innermost and stress chit-chat; preliminaries
too, all the prefatory by-play, the travel toward the world.

Vulgarity is no good and nobody wants to be that way. What waste, the
proletarians say, what waste. Awful. Awful awful awful. It's true too, it is awful.
Overproduction maybe. It ain't right for everything to be the awful way it is
when it could be a much finer way, but how? They've got to make it better, each
man by himself, and to do that he's got to be practically anti-social. He's got to
be all alone with never more than one of them. Together the two of them have
got to make the world over for themselves. Chances are they do that, and then
for a while everything is wonderful. The world is all right because the part of it
they're bothering with is the part that doesn't keep them from being together and
delighted. Then little by little the world comes working its way in; other things
happen; and the durable, the imperishable, is no longer durable, is now
perishable, is perishing, and then, in the midst of things breaking, as the heart, it
perishes, and there they are, knowing it, knowing it's perished, all over but the
shouting, so how's it ever to be better, finer, more durable? When folks are what
they are? How can it be finer when the way they are is so unfine, nine and ten
times out of ten and eleven?

It's awful funny the way things are, and the way folks like to think they are. It's
awful funny the way folks like to make the most of what amounts to practically
misery, when love is all over but the shouting.
That's when the concert begins, the sad concert of remembrance, tangled up in a
thousand fragments of the broken heart, broken in the mournful songs, the
wretched groaning music, in the streets of a whole world, in the skies of a
thousand afternoons and nights. When it's all over but the shouting, the heart
goes its way, and a man goes his. The heart hums the symphony and the man
begins a geographical journey. He starts traveling. He gets on a train and gets
himself carted across the continent, the way I did last summer because the
season was over.

It's kind of funny the way a man can stay alive when everything but his body is
dead; when everything but comedy is dead and buried, when the whole world is
a cemetery.