pposing I intercepted one of them and just asked him a simple question.
Supposing I just said to him suddenly: "Why do you go on living the way you
do?" He would probably call a cop. I ask myself - does any one ever talk to
himself the way I do? I ask myself if there isn't something wrong with me.
The only conclusion I can come to is that I am different. And that's a very
grave matter, view it how you will. Henry, I say to myself, rising slowly
from the stoop, stretching myself, brushing my trousers and spitting out the
gum. Henry, I say to myself, you are young yet, you are just a spring
chicken and if you let them get you by the balls you're an idiot because
you're a better man than any of them only you need to get rid of your false
notions about humanity. You have to realize Henry me boy, that you're
dealing with cut-throats, with cannibals, only they're dressed-up, shaved,
perfumed, but that's all they are - cut-throats, cannibals. The best thing
for you to do now. Henry, is to go and get yourself a frosted chocolate and
when you sit at the soda fountain keep your eyes peeled and forget about the
destiny of man because you might still find yourself a nice lay and a good
dean lay will dean your ballbearing out and leave a good taste in your mouth
whereas this only brings on dyspepsia, dandruff, halitosis, encephalitis.
And while I'm soothing myself thus a guy comes up to me to bum a dime and I
hand him a quarter for good measure thinking to myself that if I had had a
little more sense I'd have had a juicy pork chop with that instead of the
lousy meat balls but what the difference now it's all food and food makes
energy and energy is what makes the world go round. Instead of the frosted
chocolate I keep walking and soon I'm exactly where I intended to be all the
time, which is front of the ticket window of the Roseland. And now. Henry,
says I to myself, if you're lucky your old pal MacGregor will be here and
first hell bawl the shit out of you for running away and then he'll lend you
a five-spot, and if you just hold your breath while climbing the stairs
maybe you'll see the nymphomaniac too and you'll get a dry fuck. Enter very
calmly. Henry, and keep your eyes peeled! And I enter as per instructions on
velvet toes, checking my hat and urinating a little as a matter of course,
then slowly redescending the stairs and sizing up the taxi girls all
diaphanously gowned, powdered, perfumed, looking fresh and alert but
probably bored as hell and leg weary. Into each and every one of them, as I
shuffle about, I throw an imaginary fuck. The place is just plastered with
cunt and fuck and that's why I'm reasonably sure to find my old friend
MacGregor here. The way I no longer think about the condition of the world
is marvellous. I mention it because for a moment, just while I was studying
a juicy ass, I had a relapse. I almost went into a trance again. I was
thinking, Christ help me, that maybe I ought to beat it and go home and
begin the book. A terrifying thought! Once I spent a whole evening sitting
in a chair and saw nothing and heard nothing. I must have written a good
sized book before I woke up. Better not to sit down. Better to keep
circulating. Henry, what you ought to do is to come here some time with a
lot of dough and just see how far it'll take you. I mean a hundred or two
hundred bucks, and spend it like water and say yes to everything. The
haughty looking one with the statuesque figure, I bet she'd squirm like an
eel if her palm were well greased. Supposing she said - twenty bucks! and
you could say Sure! Supposing you could say - Listen, I've got a car
downstairs ... let's run down to Atlantic City for a few days. Henry, there
ain't no car and there ain't no twenty bucks. Don't sit down ... keep
moving.
At the rail which fences off the floor I stand and watch them sailing
around. This is no harmless recreation... this is serious business. At each
end of the floor there is a sign reading "No Improper Dancing Allowed". Well
and good. No harm in placing a sign at each end of the floor. In Pompei they
probably hung a phallus up. This is the American way. It means the same
thing. I mustn't think about Pompei or I'll be sitting down and writing a
book again. Keep moving Henry. Keep your mind on the music. I keep
struggling to imagine what a lovely time I would have had if I had the price
of a string of tickets, but the more I struggle the more I slip back.
Finally I'm standing knee-deep in the lava beds and the gas is choking me.
It wasn't the lava that killed the Pompeians, it was the poison gas that
predpitated the eruption. That's how the lava caught them in such queer
poses, with their pants down, as it were. If suddenly all New York were
caught that way - what a museum it would make! My friend MacGregor standing
at the sink scrubbing his cock... the abortionists on the East Side caught
red-handed ... the nuns laying in bed and masturbating one another ... the
auctioneer with an alarm in his hand ... the telephone girls at the
switchboard ... J. P. Morganana sitting on the toilet bowl placidly wiping
his ass ... the dicks with rubber hoses giving the third degree ...
strippers giving the last strip and tease...
Standing knee-deep in the lava beds and my eyes choked with sperm; J.
P. Morganana is placidly wiping his ass while the telephone girls plug the
switchboards, while dicks with rubber hoses practice the third degree, while
my old friend MacGregor scrubs the germs out of his cock and sweetens it and
examines it under the microscope. Everybody is caught with his pants down,
including the strip teasers who wear no pants, no beards, no moustaches,
just a little patch to cover their twinkling little cunts. Sister Antolina
lying in the convent bed, her guts trussed up, her arms akimbo and waiting
for the Resurrection, waiting, waiting for life without hernia, without
intercourse, without sin, without evil, meanwhile nibbling a few animal
crackers, a pimento, some fancy olives, a little head cheese. The Jew-boys
on the East Side, in Harlem, the Bronx, Carnarsie, Bronville, opening and
dosing the trapdoors, pulling out arms and legs, turning the sausage
machine, dogging up the drains, working like fury for cash down and if you
let a peep out of you out you go. With eleven hundred tickets in my pocket
and a Rolls Royce waiting for me downstairs I could have the most
excruciatingly marvellous time, throwing a fuck into each and everyone
respectively regardless of age, sex, race, religion, nationality, birth or
breeding. There is no solution for a man like myself, I being what I am and
the world being what it is. The world is divided into three parts of which
two parts are meat balls and spaghetti and the other part a huge syphilitic
chancre. The haughty one with the statuesque figure is probably a cold
turkey fuck, a sort of con anonyme plastered with gold leaf and tin foil.
Beyond despair and disillusionment there is always the absence of worse
things and the emoluments of ennui. Nothing is lousier and emptier than the
midst of bright gaiety clicked by the mechanical eye of the mechanical
epoch, life maturating in a black box, a negative tickled with add and
yielding a momentaneous simulacrum of nothingness. At the outermost limit of
this momentaneous nothingness my friend MacGregor arrives and is standing by
my side and with him is the one he was talking about, the nymphomaniac
called Paula. She has the loose, jaunty swing and perch of the
double-barrelled sex, all her movements radiating from the groin, always in
equilibrium, always ready to flow, to wind and twist, and clutch, the eyes
going tic-toc, the toes twitching and twinkling, the flesh rippling like a
lake furrowed by a breeze. This is the incarnation of the hallucination of
sex, the sea nymph squirming in the maniac's arms. I watch the two of them
as they move spasmodically inch by inch around the floor; they move like an
octopus working up a rut. Between the dangling tentacles the music shimmers
and flashes, now breaks in a cascade of sperm and rose water, forms again
into an oily spout, a column standing erect without feet, collapses again
like chalk, leaving the upper part of the leg phosphorescent, a zebra
standing in a pool of golden marshmallow, one leg striped, the other molten.
A gold marshmallow octopus with rubber hinges and molten hooves, its sex
undone and twisted into a knot. On the sea floor the oysters are doing the
St. Vitus dance, some with lockjaw, some with double-jointed knees. The
music is sprinkled with rat poison, with the rattlesnake's venom, with the
fetid breath of the gardenia, the spittle of the sacred yak, the bolloxed
sweat of the musk-rat, the leper's sugar-coated nostalgia. The music is a
diarrhoea, a lake of gasolene, stagnant with cockroaches and stale horse
piss. The drooling notes are the foam and dribble of the epileptic, the
night sweat of the fornicating nigger frigged by the Jew. All America is in
the trombone's smear, that frazzled brokendown whinny of the gangrened sea
cows stationed off Point Loma, Pawtucket, Cape Hatteras, Labrador, Camarsie
and intermediate points. The octopus is dancing like a rubber dick - the
rhumba of Spuyten Duyvil inedit. Laura the nympho is doing the rhumba, her
sex exfoliated and twisted like a cow's tail. In the belly of the trombone
lies the American soul farting its contented heart out. Nothing goes to
waste - not the least spit of a fart. In the golden marshmallow dream of
happiness, in the dance of sodden piss and gasolene, the great soul of the
American continent gallops like an octopus, all the sails unfurled, the
hatches down, the engine whirring like a dynamo. The great dynamic soul
caught in the click of the camera's eye, in the heat of rut, bloodless as a
fish, slippery as mucus, the soul of the people miscegenating on the sea
floor, pop-eyed with longing, harrowed with lust. The dance of Saturday
night, of cantaloupes rotting in the garbage pail, of fresh green snot and
slimy unguents for the tender parts. The dance of the slot-machine and the
monsters who invent them. The dance of the gat and the slugs who use them.
The dance of the blackjack and the pricks who batter brains to a polypous
pulp. The dance of the magneto world, the spark that unsparks, the soft purr
of the perfect mechanism, the velocity race on a turntable, the dollar at
par and the forests dead and mutilated. The Saturday night of the soul's
hollow dance, each jumping jigger a functional unit in the St. Vitus' dance
of the ringworm's dream. Laura the nympho brandishing her cunt, her sweet
rose-petal lips toothed with ballbearing clutches, her ass balled and
socketed. Inch by inch, millimetre by .millimetre they shove the copulating
corpse around. And then crash! Like pulling a switch the music suddenly
stops and with the stoppage the dancers come apart, arms and legs intact,
like tea leaves dropping to the bottom of the cup. Now the air is blue with
words, a slow sizzle as of fish on the griddle. The chaff of the empty soul
rising like monkey chatter in the topmost branches of the trees. The air
blue with words passing out through the ventilators, coming back again in
sleep through corrugated funnels and smokestacks, winged like the antelope,
striped like the zebra, now lying quiet as the mollusc, now spitting flame.
Laura the nympho cold as a statue, her parts eaten away, her hair musically
enraptured. On the brink of sleep Laura stands with muted lips, her words
falling like pollen through a fog. The Laura of Petrarque seated in a taxi,
each word ringing through the cash register, then sterilized, then
cauterized. Laura the basilisk made entirely of asbestos, walking to the
fiery stake with a mouth full of gum. Hunkydory is the word on her lips. The
heavy fluted Ups of the sea-shell. Laura's lips, the lips of lost Uranian
love. All floating shadow-ward through the slanting fog. Last murmuring
dregs of shell-like lips slipping off the Labrador coast, oozing eastward
with the mud tides, easing starward in the iodine drift. Lost Laura, last of
the Petrarques, slowly fading on the brink of sleep. Not grey the world, but
lustlack, the light bamboo sleep of spoon-backed innocence.
And tins in the black frenzied nothingness of the hollow of absence
leaves a gloomy feeling of saturated despondency not unlike the topmost tip
of desperation which is only the gay juvenile maggot of death's exquisite
rupture with life. From this inverted cone of ecstasy life will rise again
into prosaic skyscraper eminence, dragging me by the hair and teeth, lousy
with howling empty joy, the animated foetus of the unborn death maggot lying
in wait for rot and putrefaction.
Sunday morning the telephone wakes me up. It's my friend Maxie Schnadig
announcing the death of our friend Luke Ralston. Maxie has assumed a truly
sorrowful tone of voice which rubs me the wrong way. He says Luke was such a
swell guy. That too sounds the wrong note for me because while Luke was all
right, he was only so-so, not precisely what you might call a swell guy.
Luke was an ingrown fairy and finally, when I got to know him intimately, a
big pain in the ass. I told Maxie that over the telephone: I could tell from
the way he answered me that he didn't like it very much. He said Luke had
always been a friend to me. It was true enough, but it wasn't enough. The
truth was that I was really glad Luke had kicked off at the opportune
moment: it meant that I could forget about the hundred and fifty dollars
which I owed him In fact, as I hung up the receiver I really felt joyous. It
was a tremendous relief not to have to pay that debt. As for Luke's demise,
that didn't disturb me in the least. On the contrary, it would enable me to
pay a visit to his sister, Lottie, whom I always wanted to lay but never
could for one reason or another. Now I could see myself going up there in
the middle of the day and offering her my condolences. Her husband would be
at the office and there would be nothing to interfere. I saw myself putting
my arms around her and comforting her; nothing like tackling a woman when
she is in sorrow. I could see her opening her eyes wide -she had beautiful,
large grey eyes - as I moved her towards the couch. She was the sort of
woman who would give you a fuck while pretending to be talking music or some
such thing. She didn't like the naked reality, the bare facts, so to speak.
At the same time she'd have enough presence of mind to slip a towel under
her so as not to stain the couch. I knew her inside out. I knew that the
best time to get her was now, now while she was running up a little fever of
emotion over dear dead Luke -whom she didn't think much of, by the way.
Unfortunately it was Sunday and the husband would be sure to be home. I went
back to bed and I lay there thinking first about Luke and all that he had
done for me and then about her, Lottie. Lottie Somers was her name - it
always seemed a beautiful name to me. It matched her perfectly. Luke was
stiff as a poker, with a sort of skull and bones face, and impeccable and
just beyond words. She was just the opposite - soft, round, spoke with a
drawl, caressed her words, moved languidly, used her eyes effectively. One
would never take them for brother and sister. I got so worked up thinking
about her that I tried to tackle the wife. But that poor bastard, with her
Puritanical complex, pretended to be horrified. She liked Luke. She wouldn't
say that he was a swell guy, because that wasn't like her, but she insisted
that he was genuine, loyal, a true friend, etc. I had so many loyal,
genuine, true friends that that was all horse shit to me. Finally we got
into such an argument over Luke that she got an hysterical attack and began
to weep and sob - in bed, mind you. That made me hungry. The idea of weeping
before breakfast seemed monstrous to me. I went downstairs and I fixed
myself a wonderful breakfast, and as I put it away I was laughing to myself,
about Luke, about the hundred and fifty bucks that his sudden death had
wiped off the slate, about Lottie and the way she would look at me when the
moment came . . . and finally, the most absurd of all, I thought of Maxie,
Maxie Schnadig, the faithful friend of Luke, standing at the grave with a
big wreath and perhaps throwing a handful of earth on the coffin just as
they were lowering it. Somehow that seemed just too stupid for words. I
don't know why it should seem so ridiculous, but it did. Maxie was a
simpleton. I tolerated him only because he was good for a touch now and
then. And then too there was his sister Rita. I used to let him invite me to
his home occasionally, pretending that I was interested in his brother who
was deranged. It was always a good meal and the halfwitted brother was real
entertainment. He looked like a chimpanzee and he talked like one too. Maxie
was too simple to suspect that I was merely enjoying myself; he thought I
took a genuine interest in his brother.
It was a beautiful Sunday and I had as usual about a quarter in my
pocket. I walked along wondering where to go to make a touch. Not that it
was difficult to scrape up a little dough, no, but the thing was to get the
dough and beat it without being bored stiff. I could think of a dozen guys
right in the neighbourhood, guys who would fork it out without a murmur, but
it would mean a long conversation afterwards - about art, religion,
politics. Another thing I could do, which I had done over and over again in
a pinch, was to visit the telegraph offices, pretending to pay a friendly
visit of inspection and then, at the last minute, suggesting that they rifle
the till for a buck or so until the morrow. That would involve time and even
worse conversation. Thinking it over coldly and calculatingly I decided that
the best bet was my little friend Curley up in Harlem. If Curley didn't have
the money he would filch it from his mother's purse. I knew I could rely on
him. He would want to accompany me, of course, but I could always find a way
of ditching him before the evening was over. He was only a kid and I didn't
have to be too delicate with him.
What I liked about Curley was, that although only a kid of seventeen,
he had absolutely no moral sense, no scruples, no shame. He had come to me
as a boy of fourteen looking for a job as messenger. His parents, who were
then in South America, had shipped him to New York in care of an aunt who
seduced him almost immediately. He had never been to school because the
parents were always travelling; they were carnival people who worked "the
griffs and the grinds", as he put it. The father had been in prison several
times. He was not his real father, by the way. Anyway, Curley came to me as
a mere lad who was in need of help, in need of a friend more than anything.
At first I thought I could do something for him. Everybody took a liking to
hira immediately, especially the women. He became the pet of the office.
Before long, however, I realized that he was incomgible, that at the best he
had the makings of a clever criminal. I liked him, however, and I continued
to do things for him, but I never trusted him out of my sight. I think I
liked him particularly because he had absolutely no sense of honour. He
would do anything in the world for me and at the same time betray me. I
couldn't reproach him for it... It was amusing to me. The more so because he
was frank about it. He just couldn't help it. His Aunt Sophie, for instance.
He said she had seduced him. True enough, but the curious thing was that he
let himself be seduced while they were reading the Bible together. Young as
he was he seemed to realize that his Aunt Sophie had need of him in that
way. So he let himself be seduced, as he said, and then, after I had known
him a little while he offered to put me next to his Aunt Sophie. He even
went so far as to blackmail her. When he needed money badly he would go to
the aunt and wheedle it out of her - with sly threats of exposure. With an
innocent face, to be sure. He looked amazingly like an angel, with big
liquid eyes that seemed so frank and sincere. So ready to do things for you
- almost like a faithful dog. And then cunning enough, once he had gained
your favour, to make you humour his little whims. Withal extremely
intelligent. The sly intelligence of a fox and - the utter heartlessness of
a jackal.
It wasn't at all surprising to me, consequently, to learn that
afternoon that he had been tinkering with Valeska. After Valeska he tackled
the cousin who had already been deflowered and who was in need of some male
whom she could rely upon. And from her finally to the midget who had made
herself a pretty little nest at Valeska's. The midget interested him because
she had a perfectly normal cant. He hadn't intended to do anything with her
because, as he said, she was a repulsive little Lesbian, but one day he
happened to walk in on her as she was taking a bath, and that started things
off. It was getting to be too much for him, he confessed, because the three
of them were hot on bis trail. He liked the cousin best because she had some
dough and she wasn't reluctant to part with it. Valeska was too cagey, and
besides she smelled a little too strong. In fact, he was getting sick of
women. He said it was his Aunt Sophie's fault. She gave him a bad start.
While relating this he busies himself going through the bureau drawers. The
father is a mean son of a bitch who ought to be hanged, he says, not finding
anything immediately. He showed me a revolver with a pearl handle... what
would it fetch? A gun was too good to use on the old man ... he'd like to
dynamite him. Trying to find out why he hated the old man so it developed
that the kid was really stuck on his mother. He couldn't bear the thought of
the old man going to bed with her. You don't mean to say that you're jealous
of your old man, I ask. Yes, he's jealous. If I wanted to know the truth
it's that he wouldn't mind sleeping with his mother. Why not? That's why he
had permitted his Aunt Sophie to seduce him... he was thinking of his mother
all the time. But don't you feel bad when you go through her pocketbook, I
asked. He laughed. It's not her money he said, it's his. And what have they
done for me? They were always farming me out. The first thing they taught me
was how to cheat people. That's a hell of a way to raise a kid...
There's not a red cent in the house. Curley's idea of a way out is to
go with me to the office where he works and while I engage the manager in
conversation go through the wardrobe and dean out all the loose change. Or,
if I'm not afraid of taking a chance, he will go through the cash drawer.
They'll never suspect us, he says. Had he ever done that before, I ask. Of
course ... a dozen or more times, right under the manager's nose. And wasn't
there any stink about it? To be sure ... they had fired a few clerks. Why
don't you borrow something from your Aunt Sophie, I suggest. That's easy
enough, only it means a quick diddle and he doesn't want to diddle her any
more. She stinks. Aunt Sophie. What do you mean, she stinks? Just that ...
she doesn't wash herself regularly. Why, what's the matter with her?
Nothing, just religious. And getting fat and greasy at die same time. But
she likes to be diddled just the same? Does
she? She's crazier than ever about it. It's disgusting. It's like going
to bed with a sow. What does your mother think about her? Her? She's as sore
as hell at her. She thinks Sophie's trying to seduce the old man. Well,
maybe she is! No, the old man's got something else. I caught him red-handed
one night, in the movies, mushing it up with a young girl. She's a
manicurist from the Astor Hotel. He's probably trying to squeeze a little
dough out of her. That's the only reason he ever makes a woman. He's a
dirty, mean son of a bitch and I'd like to see him get the chair some day!
You'll get the chair yourself some day if you don't watch out. Who, me ? Not
me ! I'm too clever. You're clever enough but you've got a loose tongue. I'd
be a little more tight-lipped if I were you. You know, I added, to give him
an extra jolt, O'Rourke is wise to you; if you ever fall out with O'Rourke
it's all up with you . . . Well, why doesn't he say something if he's so
wise? I don't believe you.
I explain to him at some length that O'Rourke is one of those people,
and there are damned few in the world, who prefer not to make trouble for
another person if they can help it. O'Rourke, I say, has the detective's
instinct only in that he likes to know what's going on around him: people's
characters are plotted out in his head, and filed there permanently, just as
the enemy's terrain is fixed in the minds of army leaders. People think that
O'Rourke goes around snooping and spying, that he derives a special pleasure
in performing this dirty work for the company. Not so. O'Rourke is a born
student of human nature. He picks things up without effort, due, to be sure,
to his peculiar way of looking at the world. Now about you ... I have no
doubt that he knows everything about you. I never asked him, I admit, but I
imagine so from the questions he poses now and then. Perhaps he's just
giving you plenty of rope. Some night he'll run into you accidentally and
perhaps he'll ask you to stop off somewhere and have a bite to eat with him.
And out of a dear sky he'll suddenly say - you remember, Curley, when you
were working up in SA office, the time that little Jewish clerk was fired
for tapping the till? I think you were working overtime that night, weren't
you? An interesting case, that. You know, they never discovered whether the
clerk stole the money or not. They had to fire him, of course, for
negligence, but we can't say for certain that he really stole the money.
I've been thinking about that little affair now for quite some time. I have
a hunch as to who took that money, but I'm not absolutely sure . . . And
then he'll probably give you a beady eye and abruptly change the
conversation to something else. He'll probably tell you a little story about
a crook he knew who thought he was very smart and getting away with it.
He'll draw that story out for you until you feel as though you were sitting
on hot coals. By that time you'll be wanting to beat it, but just when
you're ready to go he'll suddenly be reminded of another very interesting
little case and he'll ask you to wait just a little longer while he orders
another dessert. And he'll go on like that for three or four hours at a
stretch, never making the least overt insinuation, but studying you closely
all the time, and finally, when you think you're free, just when you're
shaking hands with him and breathing a sigh of relief, he'll step in front
of you and, planting his big square feet between your legs, he'll grab you
by the lapel and, looking straight through you, he'll say in a soft winsome
voice - now look here, my lad, don't you think you had better come clean?
And if you think he's only trying to browbeat you and that you can pretend
innocence and walk away, you're mistaken. Because at that point, when he
asks you to come clean, he means business and nothing on earth is going to
stop him. When it gets to that point I'd recommend you to make a clean sweep
of it, down to the last penny. He won't ask me to fire you and he won't
threaten you with jail - he'll just quietly suggest that you put aside a
little bit each week and turn it over to him. Nobody will be the wiser. He
probably won't even tell me. No, he's very delicate about these things, you
see."
"And supposing," says Curley suddenly, "that I tell him I stole the
money in order to help you out? What then?" He began to laugh hysterically.
"I don't think O'Rourke would believe that," I said calmly. "You can
try it, of course, if you think it will help you to dear your own skirts.
But I rather think it will have a bad effect. O'Rourke knows me ... he knows
I wouldn't let you do a thing like that." "But you did let me do it!"
"I didn't tell you to do it. You did it without my knowledge. That's
quite different. Besides, can you prove that I accepted money from you?
Won't it seem a little ridiculous to accuse me, the one who befriended you,
of putting you up to a job like that? Who's going to believe you? Not
O'Rourke. Besides, he hasn't trapped you yet. Why worry about it in advance?
Maybe you could begin to return the money little by little before he gets
after you. Do it anonymously."
By this time Curley was quite used up. There was a little schnapps in
the cupboard which his old man kept in reserve and I suggested that we take
a little to brace us up. As we were drinking the schnapps it suddenly
occurred to me that Maxie had said he would be at Luke's house to pay his
respects. It was just the moment to get Maxie. He would be full of
slobbering sentiments and I could give him any old kind of cock-and-bull
story. I could say that the reason I had assumed such a hard-boiled air on
the phone was because I was harassed, because I didn't know where to turn
for the ten dollars which I needed so badly. At the same time I might be
able to make a date with Lottie. I began to smile thinking about it. If Luke
could only see what a friend he had in me! The most difficult thing would be
to go up to the bier and take a sorrowful look at Luke. Not to.laugh!
I explained the idea to Curley. He laughed so heartily that the tears
were rolling down his face. Which convinced me, by the way, that it would be
safer to leave Curley downstairs while I made the touch. Anyway, it was
decided on.
They were just sitting down to dinner when I walked in, looking as sad
as I could possibly make myself look. Maxie was there and almost shocked by
my sudden appearance. Lottie had gone already. That helped me to keep up the
sad look. I asked to be alone with Luke a few minutes, but Maxie insisted on
accompanying me. The others were relieved, I imagine, as they had been
conducting the mourners to the bier all afternoon. And like the good Germans
they were they didn't like having their dinner interrupted. As I was looking
at Luke, still with that sorrowful expression I had mustered, I became aware
of Maxie's eyes fixed on me inquisitively. I looked up and smiled at him in
my usual way. He seemed absolutely nonplussed at this. "Listen, Maxie," I
said, "are you sure they won't hear us?" He looked still more puzzled and
grieved, but nodded reassuringly. "It's like this, Maxie... I came up here
purposely to see you ... to borrow a few bucks. I know it seems lousy but
you can imagine how desperate I must be to do a thing like this." He was
shaking his head solemnly as I spit this out, his mouth forming a big 0 as
if he were trying to frighten the spirits away. "Listen, Maxie," I went on
rapidly and trying to keep my voice down sad and low, "this is no time to
give me a sermon. If you want to do something for me lend me ten bucks now,
right away . .. slip it to me right here while I look at Luke. You know, I
really liked Luke. I didn't mean all that over the telephone. You got me at
a bad moment. The wife was tearing her hair out. We're in a mess, Maxie, and
I'm counting on you to do something. Come out with me if you can and I'll
tell you more about it.. .*' Maxie, as I had expected, couldn't come out
with me. He wouldn't think of deserting them at such a moment..." Well, give
it to me now," I said, almost savagely. "I'll explain the whole thing to you
tomorrow. I'll have lunch with you downtown."
"Listen, Henry," says Maxie, fishing around in his pocket, embarrassed
at the idea of being caught with a wad in his hand at that moment, "listen,"
he said, "I don't mind giving you the money, but couldn't you have found
another way of reaching me? It isn't because of Luke... it's..." He began to
hem and haw, not knowing really what he wanted to say.
"For Christ's sake," I muttered, bending over Luke more closely so that
if any one walked in on us they would never suspect what I was up to ...
"for Christ's sake, don't argue about it now... hand it over and be done
with it... I'm desperate, do you hear me?" Maxie was so confused and
flustered that he couldn't disengage a bill without pulling the wad out of
his pocket. Leaning over the coffin reverendy I peeled off the topmost bill
from the wad which was peeping out of his pocket. I couldn't tell whether it
was a single or a ten-spot. I didn't stop to examine it but tucked it away
as rapidly as possible and
I08
straightened myself up. Then I took Maxie by the arm and returned to
the kitchen where the family were eating solemnly but heartily. They wanted
me to stay for a bite, and it was awkward to refuse, but I refused as best I
could and beat it, my face twitching now with hysterical laughter.
At the comer, by the lamp post, Curley was waiting for me. By this time
I couldn't restrain myself any longer. I grabbed Curley by the arm and
rushing him down the street I began to laugh, to laugh as I have seldom
laughed in my life. I thought it would never stop. Every time I opened my
mouth to start explaining the incident I had an attack. Finally I got
frightened. I thought maybe I might laugh myself to death. After I had
managed to quiet down a bit, in the midst of a long silence. Cur-ley
suddenly says: "Did you get it?" That precipitated another attack, even more
violent than before. I had to lean against a rail and hold my guts. I had a
terrific pain in the guts but a pleasurable pain.
What relieved me more than anything was the sight of the bill I had
filched from Maxie's wad. It was a twenty dollar bill! That sobered me up at
once. And at the same time it enraged me a bit. It enraged me to think that
in the pocket of that idiot, Maxie, there were still more bills, probably
more twenties, more tens, more fives. If he had come out with me, as I
suggested, and if I had taken a good look at that wad I would have felt no
remorse in blackjacking him. I don't know why it should have made me feel
so, but it enraged me. The most immediate thought was to get rid of Curley
as quickly as possible - a five-spot would fix him up - and then go on a
little spree. What I particularly wanted was to meet some low-down, filthy
cunt who hadn't a spark of decency in her. Where to meet one like that. . .
just like that? Well, get rid of Curley first. Curley, of course, is hurt.
He had expected to stick with me. He pretends not to want the five bucks,
but when be sees that I'm willing to take it back, he quickly stows it away.
Again the night, the incalculably barren, cold, mechanical night of New
York in which there is no peace, no refuge, no intimacy. The immense, frozen
solitude of the million-footed mob, the cold, waste fire of the electrical
display, the over- whelming meaningless of the perfection of the female who
through perfection has crossed the frontier of sex and gone into the minus
sign, gone into the red, like the electricity, like the neutral energy of
the males, like planets without aspect, like peace programmes, like love
over the radio. To have money in the pocket in the midst of white, neutral
energy, to walk meaningless and unfecundated through the bright glitter of
the calcimined streets, to think aloud in full solitude on the edge of
madness, to be of a city, a great city, to be of the last moment of time in
the greatest city in the world and feel no part of it, is to become oneself
a city, a world of dead stone, of waste light, of unintelligible motion, of
imponderables and incalculables, of the secret perfection of all that is
minus. To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled
by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no
least single object anywhere that is not money, money, money everywhere and
still not enough, and then no money or a little money or less money or more
money, but money, always money, and if you have money or you don't have
money it is the money that counts and money makes money, but what makes
money make money ?
Again the dance hall, the money rhythm, the love that comes over the
radio, the impersonal, wingless touch of the crowd. A despair that reaches
down to the very soles of the boots, an ennui, a desperation. In the midst
of the highest mechanical perfection to dance without joy, to be so
desperately alone, to be almost inhuman because you are human. If there were
life on the moon what more nearly perfect, joyless evidence of it could
there be than this. If to travel away from the sun is to reach the chill
idiocy of the moon, then we have arrived at our goal and life is but the
cold, lunar incandescence of the sun. This is the dance of ice-cold life in
the hollow of an atom, and the more we dance the colder it gets.
So we dance, to an ice-cold frenzied rhythm, to short waves and long
waves, a dance on the inside of the cup of nothingness, each centimetre of
lust running to dollars and cents. We taxi from one perfect female to
another seeking the vulnerable defect, but they are flawless and impermeable
in the impeccable lunar consistency. This is the icy white maidenhead of
love's logic, the web of the ebbed tide, the fringe of absolute vacuity. And
on this fringe of the virginal logic of perfection I am dancing the soul
dance of white desperation, the last white man pulling the trigger on the
last emotion, the gorilla of despair beating his breast with immaculate
gloved paws. I am the gorilla who feels his wings growing, a giddy gorilla
in the centre of a satin-like emptiness; the night too grows like an
electrical plant, shooting white-hot buds into velvet black space. I am the
black space of the night in which the buds break with anguish, a starfish
swimming on the frozen dew of the moon. I am the germ of a new insanity, a
freak dressed in intelligible language, a sob that is buried like a splinter
in the quick of the soul. I am dancing the very sane and lovely dance of the
angelic gorilla. These are my brothers and sisters who are insane and
unangelic. We are dancing in the hollow of the cup of nothingness. We are of
one flesh, but separated like stars.
In the moment all is dear to me, dear that in this logic there is no
redemption, the city itself being the highest form of madness and each and
every part, organic or inorganic, an expression of this same madness. I feel
absurdly and humbly great, not as megalomaniac, but as human spore, as the
dead sponge of life swollen to saturation. I no longer look into the eyes of
the woman I hold in my arms but I swim through, head and arms and legs, and
I see that behind the sockets of the eyes there is a region unexplored, the
world of futurity, and here there is no logic whatever, just the still
germination of events unbroken by night and day, by yesterday and tomorrow.
The eye, accustomed to concentration on points in space, now concentrates on
points in time; the eye sees forward and backward at will. The eye which was
the I of the self no longer exists; this selfless eye neither reveals nor
illuminates. It travels along the line of the horizon, a ceaseless,
uninformed voyager. Trying to retain the lost body I grew in logic as the
city, a point digit in the anatomy of perfection. I grew beyond my own
death, spiritually bright and hard. I was divided into endless yesterdays,
endless tomorrows, resting only on the cusp of the event, a wall with many
windows, but the house gone. I must shatter the walls and windows, the last
shell of the lost body, if I am to rejoin the present. That is why I no
longer look into the eyes or through the eyes, but by the legerdemain of
will swim through the eyes, head and arms and legs to explore the curve of
vision. I see around myself as the mother who bore me once saw round the
comers of time. I have broken the wall created by birth and the line of
voyage is round and unbroken, even as the navel. No form, no image, no
architecture, only concentric flights of sheer madness. I am the arrow of
the dream's substantiality. I verify by flight. I nullify by dropping to
earth.
Thus moments pass, veridic moments of time without space when I know
all, and knowing all I collapse beneath the vault of the selfless dream.
Between these moments, in the interstices of the dream, life vainly
tried to build up, but the scaffold of the city's mad logic is no support.
As an individual, as flesh and blood, I am levelled down each day to make
the fleshless, bloodless dty whose perfection is the sum of all logic and
death to the dream. I am struggling against an oceanic death in which my own
death is but a drop of water evaporating. To raise my own individual life
but a fraction of an inch above this sinking sea of death I must have a
faith greater than Christ's, a wisdom deeper than that of the greatest seer.
I must have the ability and the patience to formulate what is not contained
in the language of our time, for what is now intelligible is meaningless. My
eyes are useless, for they render back only the image of the known. My whole
body must become a constant beam of light, moving with an ever greater
rapidity, never arrested, never looking back, never dwindling. The dty grows
like a cancer; I must grow like a sun. The dty eats deeper and deeper into
the red; it is an insatiable white louse which must die eventually of
inanition. I am going to starve the white louse which is eating me up. I am
going to die as a dty in order to become again a man. Therefore I dose my
ears, my eyes, my mouth.
Before I shall have become quite a man again I shall probably exist as
a park, a sort of natural park in which people come to rest, to while away
the time. What they say or do will be of little matter, for they will bring
only their fatigue, their boredom, their hopelessness. I shall be a buffer
between the white louse and the red corpuscle. I shall be a ventilator for
removing the poisons accumulated through the effort to perfect that which is
imperfecdble. I shall be law and order as it exists in nature as it is
projected in dream. I shall be the wild park in the midst of the nightmare
of perfection, the still, unshakeable dream in the midst of frenzied
activity, the random shot on the white billiard table of logic. I shall know
neither how to weep nor protest, but I shall be there always in absolute
silence to receive and to restore. I shall say nothing until the time comes
again to be a man. I shall make no effort to preserve, no effort to destroy.
I shall make no judgments, no criticisms. Those who have had enough will
come to me for reflection and meditation; those who have not had enough will
die as they lived, in disorder, in desperation, in ignorance of the truth of
redemption. If one says to me, you must be religious, I shall make no
answer. If one says to me, I have no time now, there's a cunt waiting for
me, I shall make no answer. Or even if there be a revolution brewing, I
shall make no answer. There will always be a cunt or a revolution around the
comer, but the mother who bore me turned many a comer and made no answer,
and finally she turned herself inside out and I am the answer.
Out of such a wild mania for perfection naturally no one would have
expected an evolution to a wild park, not even I myself, but it is
infinitely better, while attending death, to live in a state of grace and
natural bewilderment. Infinitely better, as life moves towards a deathly
perfection, to be just a bit of breathing space, a stretch of green, a
little fresh air, a pool of water. Better also to receive men silently and
to enfold them, for there is no answer to make them while they are still
frantically rushing to turn the corner.
I'm thinking now about the rock fight one summer's afternoon long long
ago when I was staying with my Aunt Caroline up near Hell Gate. My Cousin
Gene and I had been corralled by a gang of boys while we were playing in the
park. We didn't know which side we were fighting for but we were fighting in
dead earnest amidst the rock pile by the river bank. We had to show even
more courage than the other boys because we were suspected of being sissies.
That's how it happened that we killed one of the rival gang. Just as they
were charging us my cousin Gene let go at the ringleader and caught him in
the guts with a handsome-sized rock. I let go almost at the same instant and
my rock caught him in the temple and when he went down he lay there for good
and not a peep out of him. A few minutes later the cops came and the boy was
found dead. He was eight or nine years old, about the same age as us. What
they would have done to us if they caught us I don't know. Anyway, so as not
to arouse any suspicion we hurried home: we had cleaned up a bit on the way
and had combed our hair. We walked in looking almost as immaculate as when
we had left the house. Aunt Caroline gave us our usual two big slices of
sour rye with fresh butter and a little sugar over it and we sat there at
the kitchen table listening to her with an angelic smile. It was an
extremely hot day and she thought we had better stay in the house, in the
big front room where the blinds had been pulled down, and play marbles with
our little friend Joey Resselbaum. Joey had the reputation of being a little
backward and ordinarily we would have trimmed him, but that afternoon, by a
sort of mute understanding. Gene and I allowed him to win everything we had.
Joey was so happy that he took us down to his cellar later and made his
sister pull up her dresses and show us what was underneath. Weesie, they
called her, and I remember that she was stuck on me instantly. I came from
another part of the city, so far away it seemed to them that it was almost
like coming from another country. They even seemed to think that I talked
differently from them. Whereas the other urchins used to pay to make Weesie
lift her dress up, for us it was done with love. After a while we persuaded
her not to do it any more for the other boys - we were in love with her and
we wanted her to go straight.
When I left my cousin at the end of the summer I didn't see him again
for twenty years or more. When we did meet what deeply impressed me was the
look of innocence he wore - the same expression as the day of the rock
fight. When I spoke to him about the fight I was still more amazed to
discover that he had forgotten that it was we who had lolled the boy: he
remembered the boy's death but he spoke of it as though neither he nor I had
had any part in it. When I mentioned Weesie's name he had difficulty in
placing her. Don't you remember the cellar next door.. .Joey Kesselbaum ? At
this a faint smile passed over his face. He thought it extraordinary that I
should remember such things. He was already married, a father, and working
in a factory making fancy pipe cases. He considered it extraordinary to
remember events that had happened so far back in the past.
On leaving him that evening I felt terribly despondent. It was as
though he had attempted to eradicate a precious part of my life, and himself
with it He seemed more attached to the tropical fish which he was collecting
than to the wonderful past. As for me I recollect everything, everything
that happened that summer, and particularly the day of the rock fight. There
are times, in fact, when the taste of that big slice of sour rye which his
mother handed me that afternoon is stronger in my mouth than the food I am
actually tasting. And the sight of Weesie's little bud almost stronger than
the actual feel of what is in my hand. The way the boy lay there, after we
downed him, far far more impressive than the history of the World War. The
whole long summer, in fact, seems like an idyll out of the Arthurian
legends. I often wonder what it was about this particular summer which makes
it so vivid in my memory. I have only to close my eyes a moment in order to
relive each day. The death of the boy certainly caused me no anguish - it
was forgotten before a week had elapsed. The sight of Weesie standing in the
gloom of the cellar with her dress lifted up, that too passed easily away.
Strangely enough, the thick slice of rye bread which his mother handed me
each day seems to possess more potency than any other image of that period.
I wonder about it... wonder deeply. Perhaps it is that whenever she handed
me the slice of bread it was with a tenderness and a sympathy that I had
never known before. She was a very homely woman, my Aunt Caroline. Her face
was marked by the pox, but it was a kind, winsome face which no
disfigurement could mar. She was enormously stout and she had a very soft, a
very caressing voice. When she ad- dressed me she seemed to give me even
more attention, more consideration, than her own son. I would like to have
stayed with her always; I would have chosen her for my own mother had I been
permitted. I remember distinctly how when my mother arrived on a visit she
seemed peeved that I was so contented with my new life. She even remarked
that I was ungrateful, a remark I never forgot, because then I realized for
the first time that to be ungrateful was perhaps necessary and good for one.
If I dose my eyes now and I think about it, about the slice of bread, I
think almost at once that in this house I never knew what it was to be
scolded. I think if I had told my Aunt Caroline that I had killed a boy in
the lot, told her just how it happened, she would have put her arm around me
and forgiven me - instantly. That's why perhaps that summer is so precious
to me. It was a summer of tacit and complete absolution. That's why I can't
forget Weesie either. She was full of a natural goodness, a child who was in
love with me and who made no reproaches. She was the first of the other sex
to admire me for being different. After Weesie it was the other way round. I
was loved, but I was hated too for being what I was. Weesie made an effort
to understand. The very fact that I came from a strange country, that I
spoke another language, drew her closer to me. The way her eyes shone when
she presented me to her little friends is something I will never forget. Her
eyes seemed to be bursting with love and admiration. Sometimes the three of
us would walk to the riverside in the evening and sitting on the bank we
would talk as children talk when they are out of sight of their elders. We
talked then, I know it now so well, more sanely and more profoundly than our
parents. To give us that thick slice of bread each day the parents had to
pay a heavy penalty. The worst penalty was that they became estranged from
us. For, with each slice they fed us we became not only more indifferent to
them, but we became more and more superior to them. In our ungratefulness
was our strength and our beauty. Not being devoted we were innocent of all
crime. The boy whom I saw drop dead, who lay there motionless, without
making the slightest sound or whimper, the killing of that boy seems almost
like a clean, healthy performance. The struggle for food, on the other hand,
seems foul and degrading and when we stood in the presence of our parents we
sensed that they had come to us unclean and for that we could never forgive
them. The thick slice of bread in the afternoons, precisely because it was
not earned, tasted delicious to us. Never again will bread taste this way.
Never again will it be given this way. The day of the murder it was even
tastier than ever. It had a slight taste of terror in it which has been
lacking ever since. And it was received with Aunt Caroline's tacit but
complete absolution.
There is something about the rye bread which I am trying to fathom -
something vaguely delicious, terrifying and liberating, something associated
with first discoveries. I am thinking of another slice of sour rye which was
connected with a still earlier period, when my little friend Stanley and I
used to rifle the icebox. That was stolen bread and consequently even more
marvellous to the palate than the bread which was given with love. But it
was in the act of eating the rye bread, the walking around with it and
talking at the same time, that something in the nature of revelation
occurred. It was like a state of grace, a state of complete ignorance, of
self-abnegation. Whatever was imparted to me in these moments I seem to have
retained intact and there is no fear that I shall ever lose the knowledge
that was gained. It was just the fact perhaps that it was no knowledge as we
ordinarily think of it. It was almost like receiving a truth, though truth
is almost too precise a word for it. The important thing about the sour rye
discussions is that they always took place away from home, away from the
eyes of our parents whom we feared but never respected. Left to ourselves
there were no limits to what we might imagine. Facts had little importance
for us: what we demanded of a subject was that it allow us opportunity to
expand. What amazes me, when I look back on it, is how well we understood
one another, how well we penetrated to the essential character of each and
every one, young or old. At seven years of age we knew with dead certainty,
for example, that such a fellow would end up in prison, that another would
be a drudge, and another a good for nothing, and so on. We were absolutely
correct in our diagnoses, much more correct, for example, than our parents,
or our teachers, more correct, indeed, than the so-called psychologists.
Alfie Betcha turned out to be an absolute bum: Johnny Gerhardt went to the
penitentiary: Bob Kunst became a work horse. Infallible predictions. The
learning we received only tended to obscure our vision. From the day we went
to school we learned nothing: on the contrary, we were made obtuse, we were
wrapped in a fog of words and abstractions.
With the sour rye the world was what it is essentially, a primitive
world ruled by magic, a world in which fear played the most important role.
The boy who could inspire the most fear was the leader and he was respected
as long as he could maintain his power. There were other boys who were
rebels, and they were admired, but they never became the leader. The
majority were clay in the hands of the fearless ones: a few could be
depended on, but the most not. The air was full of tension -nothing could be
predicted for the morrow. This loose, primitive nucleus of a society created
sharp appetites, sharp emotions, sharp curiosity. Nothing was taken for
granted: each day demanded a new test of power, a new sense of strength or
of failure. And so, up until the age of nine or ten, we had a real taste of
life - we were on our own. That is, those of us who were fortunate enough
not to have been spoiled by our parents, those of us who were free to roam
the streets at night and to discover things with our own eyes.
What I am thinking of, with a certain amount of regret and longing, is
that this thoroughly restricted life of early boyhood seems like a limitless
universe and the life which followed upon it, the life of the adult, a
constantly diminishing realm. From the moment when one is put in school one
is lost: one has the feeling of having a halter put around his neck. The
taste goes out of the bread as it goes out of life. Getting the bread
becomes more important than the eating of it Everything is calculated and
everything has a price upon it.
My cousin Gene became an absolute nonentity: Stanley became a
first-rate failure. Besides these two boys, for whom I had the greatest
affection, there was another, Joey, who has since become a letter carrier. I
could weep when I think of what life has made them. As boys they were
perfect, Stanley least of all because Stanley was more temperamental.
Stanley went into violent rages now and then and there was no telling how
you stood with him from day to day. But Joey and Gene were the essence of
goodness: they were friends in the old meaning of the word. I think of Joey
often when I go out into the country because he was what is called a country
boy. That meant, for one thing, that he was more loyal, more sincere, more
tender, than the boys we knew. I can see Joey now coming to meet me:
he was always running with arms wide open and ready to embrace me,
always breathless with adventures that he was planning for my participation,
always loaded with gifts which he had saved for my coming. Joey received me
like the monarchs of old received their guests. Everything I looked at was
mine. We had innumerable things to tell each other and nothing was dull or
boring. The difference between our respective worlds was enormous. Though I
was of the city too, still, when I visited my cousin Gene, I became aware of
an even greater city, a city of New York proper in which my sophistication
was negligible. Stanley knew no excursions from his own neighbourhood, but
Stanley had come from a strange land over the sea, Poland, and there was
always between us the mark of the voyage. The fact that he spoke another
tongue also increased our admiration for him. Each one was surrounded by a
distinguishing aura, by a well-defined identity which was preserved
inviolate. With the entrance into life these traits of difference fell away
and we all became more or less alike and, of course, most unlike our own
selves. And it is this loss of the peculiar self, of the perhaps unimportant
individuality, which saddens me and makes the rye bread stand out glowingly.
The wonderful sour rye went into the making of our individual selves: it was
like the communion loaf in which all participate but from which each one
receives only according to his peculiar state of grace. Now we are eating of
the same bread, but without benefit of communion, without grace. We are
eating to fill our bellies and our hearts are cold and empty. We are
separate but not individual. There was another thing about the sour rye and
that was that we often ate a raw onion with it. I remember standing with
Stanley in the late afternoons, a sandwich in hand, in front of the
veterinary's which was just opposite my home. It always seemed to be late
afternoon when Dr. McKinney elected to castrate a stallion, an operation
which was done in public and which always gathered a small crowd. I remember
the smell of the hot iron and the quiver of the horse's legs. Dr. McKinney's
goatee, the taste of the raw onion and the smell of the sewer gas just
behind us where they were laying in a new gas main. It was an olfactory
performance through and through and, as Abelard so well describes it,
practically painless. Not knowing the reason for the operation we used to
hold long discussions afterwards which usually ended in a brawl. Nobody
liked Dr. McKinney either: there was a smell of iodoform about him and of
stale horse piss. Sometimes the gutter in front of his own office was filled
with blood and in the winter time the blood froze into the ice and gave a
strange look to his sidewalk. Now and then the big two-wheeled cart came, an
open cart which smelled like the devil, and they whisked a dead horse into
it. Rather it was hoisted in, the carcass, by a long chain which made a
creaking noise like the dropping of an anchor. The smell of a bloated dead
horse is a foul smell and our street was full of foul smells. On the comer
was Paul Sauer's place where raw hides and trimmed hides were stacked up in
the street: they stank frightfully too. And then the acrid odour coming from
the tin factory behind the house - like the smell of modem progress. The
smell of a dead horse, which is almost unbearable, is still a thousand times
better than the smell of burning chemicals. And the sight of a dead horse
with a bullet hole in the temple, his head lying in a pool of blood and his
asshole bursting with the last spasmic evacuation, is still a better sight
than that of a group of men in blue aprons coming out of the arched doorway
of the tin factory with a hand-truck loaded with bales of fresh-made tin.
Fortunately for us there was a bakery opposite the tin factory and from the
back door of the bakery, which was only a grill, we could watch the bakers
at work and get the sweet, irresistible odour of bread and cake. And if, as
I say, the gas mains were being laid there was another strange medley of
smells - the smell of earth just turned up, of rotted iron pipes, of sewer
gas, and of the onion sandwiches which the Italian labourers ate whilst
reclining against the mounds of upturned earth. There were other smells too,
of course, but less striking: such, for instance, as the smell of
Silverstein's tailor shop where there was always a great deal of pressing
going on. This was a hot, fetid stench which can be best apprehended by
imagining that Silverstein, who was a lean, smelly Jew himself, was cleaning
out the farts which his customers had left behind in their pants. Next door
was the candy and stationery shop owned by two daffy old maids who were
religious: here there was the almost sickeningly sweet smell of taffy, of
Spanish peanuts, of jujubes and Sen-Sen and of Sweet Caporal cigarettes. The
stationery store was like a beautiful cave, always cool, always full of
intriguing objects: where the soda fountain was, which gave off another
distinct odour, ran a thick marble slab which turned sour in the summer time
and yet mingled pleasantly, the sourness, with the slightly ticklish, dry
smell of the carbonated water when it was fizzed into the glass of ice
cream.
With the refinements that come with maturity the smells faded out, to
be replaced by only one other distinctly memorable, distinctly pleasurable
smell - the odour of cunt. More particularly the odour that lingers on the
fingers after playing with a woman, for, if it has not been noticed before,
this smell is even more enjoyable, perhaps because it already carried with
it the perfume of the past tense, than the odour of the cunt itself. But
this odour, which belongs to maturity, is but a faint odour compared with
the odours attaching to childhood. It is an odour which evaporates, almost
as quickly in the mind's imagination, as in reality. One can remember many
things about the woman one has loved but it is hard to remember the smell of
her cunt - with anything like certitude. The smell of wet hair, on the other
hand, a woman's wet hair, is much more powerful and lasting - why, I don't
know. I can remember even now, after almost forty years, the smell of my
Aunt Tillie's hair after she had taken a shampoo. This shampoo was performed
in the kitchen which was always overheated. Usually it was a late Saturday
afternoon, in preparation for a ball which meant again another singular
thing - that there would appear a cavalry sergeant with very beautiful
yellow stripes, a singularly handsome sergeant who even to my eyes was far
too gracious, manly and intelligent for an imbecile such as my Aunt Tulle.
But anyway, there she sat on a little stool by the kitchen table drying her
hair with a towel. Beside her was a little lamp with a smoked chimney and
beside the lamp two curling irons the very sight of which filled me with an
inexplicable loathing. Generally she had a little mirror propped up on the
table: I can see her now making wry faces at herself as she squeezed the
blackheads out of her nose. She was a stringy, ugly, imbecilic creature with
two enormous buck teeth which gave her a horsey look whenever her lips drew
back in a smile. She smelled sweaty, too, even after a bath. But the smell
of her hair - that smell I can never forget, because somehow the smell is
associated with my hatred and contempt for her. This smell, when the hair
was just drying, was like the smell that comes up from the bottom of a
marsh. There were two smells - one of the wet hair and another of the same
hair when she threw it into the stove and it burst into flame. There were
always curled knots of hair which came from her comb, and they were mixed
with dandruff and the sweat of her scalp which was greasy and dirty. I used
to stand by her side and watch her, wondering what the ball would be like
and wondering how she would behave at the ball. When she was all primped up
she would ask me if she didn't look beautiful and if I didn't love her, and
of course I would tell her yes. But in the water closet later, which was in
the hall just next to the kitchen, I would sit in the flickering light of
the burning taper which was placed on the window ledge, and I would say to
myself that she looked crazy. After she was gone I would pick up the curling
irons and smell them and squeeze them. They were revolting and fascinating -
like spiders. Everything about this kitchen was fascinating to me. Familiar
as I was with it I never conquered it. It was at once so public and so
intimate. Here I was given my bath, in the big tin tub, on Saturdays. Here
the three sisters washed themselves and primped themselves. Here my
grandfather stood at the sink and washed him- self to the waist and later
handed me his shoes to be shined. Here I stood at the window in the winter
time and watched the snow fall, watched it dully, vacantly, as if I were in
the womb and listening to the water running while my mother sat on the
toilet. It was in the kitchen where the secret confabulations were held,
frightening, odious sessions from which they always reappeared with long,
grave faces or eyes red with weeping. Why they ran to the kitchen I don't
know. But it was often while they stood thus in secret conference, haggling
about a will or deciding how to dispense with some poor relative, that the
door was suddenly opened and a visitor would arrive, whereupon the
atmosphere immediately changed. Changed violently, I mean, as though they
were relieved that some outside force had intervened to spare them the
horrors of a protracted secret session. I remember now that, seeing that
door open and the face of an unexpected visitor peering in, my heart would
leap with joy. Soon I would be given a big glass pitcher and asked to run to
the comer saloon where I would hand the pitcher in, through the little
window at the family entrance, and wait until it was returned brimming with
foamy suds. This little run to the comer for a pitcher of beer was an
expedition of absolutely incalculable proportions. First of all there was
the barber shop just below us, where Stanley's father practised his
profession. Time and again, just as I was dashing out for something, I would
see the father giving Stanley a drubbing with the razor strop, a sight that
made my blood boil. Stanley was my best friend and his father was nothing
but a drunken Polak. One evening, however, as I was dashing out with the
pitcher, I had the intense pleasure of seeing another Polak go for Stanley's
old man with a razor. I saw his old man coming through the door backwards,
the blood running down his neck, his face white as a sheet He fell on the
sidewalk in front of the shop, twitching and moaning, and I remember looking
at him for a minute or two and walking on feeling absolutely contented and
happy about it. Stanley had sneaked out during the scrimmage and was
accompanying me to the saloon door. He was glad too, though he was a bit
frightened. When we got back the ambulance was there in front of the door
and they were lifting him on the stretcher, his face and neck covered with a
sheet. Sometimes it happened that Father Carroll's pet choir boy strolled by
the house just as I was hitting the air. This was an event of primary
importance. The boy was older than any of us and he was a sissy, a fairy in
the making. His very walk used to enrage us. As soon as he was spotted the
news went out in every direction and before he had reached the corner he was
surrounded by a gang of boys all much smaller than himself who taunted him
and mimicked him until he burst into tears. Then we would pounce on him,
like a pack of wolves, pull him to the ground and tear the clothes off his
back. It was a disgraceful performance but it made us feel good. Nobody knew
yet what a fairy was, but whatever it was we were against it. In the same
way we were against the Chinamen. There was one Chinaman, from the laundry
up the street, who used to pass frequently and, like the sissy from Father
Carroll's church, he too had to run the gauntlet. He looked exactly like the
picture of a coolie which one sees in the school books. He wore a sort of
black alpaca coat with braided button holes, slippers without heels, and a
pig tail. Usually he walked with his hands in his sleeves. It was his walk
which I remember best, a sort of sly, mincing, feminine walk which was
utterly foreign and menacing to us. We were in mortal dread of him and we
hated him because he was absolutely indifferent to our gibes. We thought he
was too ignorant to notice our insults. Then one day when we entered the
laundry he gave us a little surprise. First he handed us the package of
laundry: then he reached down below the counter and gathered a handful of
lichee nuts from the big bag. He was smiling as he came from behind the
counter to open the door. He was still smiling as he caught hold of Alfie
Betcha and pulled his ears: he caught hold of each of us in turn and pulled
our ears, still smiling. Then he made a ferocious grimace and, swift as a
cat, he ran behind the counter and picked up a long, ugly-looking knife
which he brandished at us. We fell over ourselves getting out of the place.
When we got to the comer and looked around we saw him standing in the
doorway with an iron in his hand looking very calm and peaceful. After this
incident nobody would go to the laundry any more: we had to pay little Louis
Pirossa a nickel each week to collect the laundry for us. Louis's father
owned the fruit stand on the comer. He used to hand us the rotten bananas as
a token of his affection. Stanley was especially fond of the rotten bananas
as his aunt used to fry them for him. The fried bananas were considered a
delicacy in Stanley's home. Once, on his birthday, there was a party given
for Stanley and the whole neighbourhood was invited. Everything went
beautifully until it came to the fried bananas. Somehow nobody wanted to
touch the bananas, as this was a dish known only to Polaks like Stanley's
parents. It was considered disgusting to eat fried bananas. In the midst of
the embarrassment some bright youngster suggested that crazy Willie Maine
should be given the fried bananas. Willie Maine was older than any of us but
unable to talk. He said nothing but Bjark I Bjork! He said this to
everything. So when the bananas were passed to him he said Bjork! and he
reached for them with two hands. But his brother George was there and George
felt insulted that they should have palmed off the rotten bananas on his
crazy brother. So George started a fight and Willie, seeing his brother
attacked, began to fight also, screaming Bjork! Bjork I Not only did he
strike out at the other boys but at the girls too, which created a
pandemonium. Finally Stanley's old man, hearing the noise, came up from the
barber shop with a strop in his hand. He took crazy Willie Maine by the
scruff of the neck and began to lambast him. Meanwhile his brother George
had sneaked off to call Mr. Maine senior. The latter, who was also a bit of
a drunkard, arrived in his shirt sleeves and seeing poor Willie being beaten
by the drunken barber, he went for him with two stout fists and beat him
unmercifully. Willie, who had gotten free meanwhile, was on his hands and
knees, gobbling up the fried bananas which had fallen on the floor. He was
stuffing them away like a nannygoat, fast as he could find them. When the
old man saw him there chewing away like a goat he became furious and picking
up the strop he went after Willie with a vengeance. Now Willie began to howl
- Bjork! Bjark I - and suddenly everybody began to laugh. That took the
steam out of Mr. Maine and he relented. Finally he sat down and Stanley's
aunt brought him a glass of wine. Hearing the racket some of the other
neighbours came in and there was more wine and then beer and then schnapps
and soon everybody was happy and singing and whistling and even the kids got
drunk and then crazy Willie got drunk and again he got down on the floor
like a nannygoat and he yelled Bjork! Bjork! and Alfie Betcha, who was very
drunk though only eight years old, bit crazy Willie Maine in the backside
and then Willie bit him and then we all started biting each other and the
parents stood by laughing and screaming with glee and it was very very merry
and there were more fried bananas and everybody ate them this time and then
there were speeches and more bumpers downed and crazy Willie Maine tried to
sing for us but he could only sing Bjork! Bjark! It was a stupendous
success, the birthday party, and for a week or more no one talked of
anything but the party and what good Polaks Stanley's people were. The fried
bananas, too, were a success and for a time it was hard to get any rotten
bananas from Louis Pirossa's old man because they were so much in demand.
And then an event occurred which cast a pall over the entire neighbourhood -
the defeat of Joe Gerhardt at the hands of Joey Silverstein. The latter was
the tailor's son: he was a lad of fifteen or sixteen, rather quiet and
studious looking, who was shunned by the other older boys because he was a
Jew. One day as he was delivering a pair of pants on Fillmore Place he was
accosted by Joe Gerhardt who was about the same age and who considered
himself a rather superior being. There was an exchange of words and then Joe
Gerhardt pulled the pants away from the Silverstein boy and threw them in
the gutter. Nobody had ever imagined that young Silverstein would reply to
such an insult by recourse to his fists and so when he struck out at Joe
Gerhardt and cracked him square in the jaw everybody was taken aback, most
of all Joe Gerhardt himself. There was a fight which lasted about twenty
minutes and at the end Joe Gerhardt lay on the sidewalk unable to get up.
Whereupon the Silverstein boy gathered up the pair of pants and walked
quietly and proudly back to his father's shop. Nobody said a word to him.
The affair was regarded as a calamity. Who had ever heard of a Jew beating
up a Gentile? It was something inconceivable, and yet it had happened, right
before everyone's eyes. Night after night, sitting on the curb as we used
to, the situation was discussed from every angle, but without any solution
until... well until Joe Gerhardt's younger brother, Johnny, became so
wrought up about it that he decided to settle the matter himself. Johnny,
though younger and smaller than his brother, was as tough and invincible as
a young puma. He was typical of the shanty Irish who made up the
neighbourhood. His idea of getting even with young Silverstein was to lie in
wait for him one evening as the latter was stepping out of the store and
trip him up. When he tripped him up that evening he had provided himself in
advance with two little rocks which he concealed in his fists and when poor
Silverstein went down he pounced on him and then with the two handsome
little rocks he pounded poor Silverstein's temples. To his amazement
Silverstein offered no resistance: even when he got up and gave him a chance
to get on his feet Silverstein never so much as budged. Then Johnny got
frightened and ran away. He must have been thoroughly frightened because he
never came back again: the next that was heard of him was that he had been
picked, up out West somewhere and sent to a reformatory. His mother, who was
a slatternly, jolly Irish bitch, said that it served him right and she hoped
to God she'd never lay eyes on him again. When the boy Silverstein recovered
he was not the same any more: people said the beating had affected his
brain, that he was a little daffy. Joe Gerhardt, on the other hand, rose to
prominence again. It seems that he had gone to see the Silverstein boy while
he lay in bed and had made a deep apology to him. This again was something
that had never been heard of before. It was something so strange, so
unusual, that Joe Gerhardt was looked upon almost as a knight errant. Nobody
had approved of the way Johnny behaved, and yet nobody would have thought of
going to young Silverstein and apologizing to him. That was an act of such
delicacy, such elegance, that Joe Gerhardt was looked upon as a real
gentleman - the first and only gentleman in the neighbourhood. It was a word
that had never been used among us and now it was on everybody's lips and it
was considered a distinction to be a gentleman. This sudden transformation
of the defeated Joe Gerhardt into a gentleman I remember made a deep
impression upon me. A few years later, when I moved into another
neighbourhood and encountered Claude de Lorraine, a French boy, I was
prepared to understand and accept "a gentleman". This Claude was a boy such
as I had never laid eyes on before. In the old neighbourhood he would have
been regarded as a sissy: for one thing he spoke too well, too correctly,
too politely, and for another thing he was too considerate, too gentle, too
gallant. And then, while playing with him, to hear him suddenly break into
French as his mother or father came along, provided us with something like a
shock. German we had heard and German was a permissible transgression, but
French! Why to talk French, or even to understand it, was to be thoroughly
alien, thoroughly aristocratic, rotten, distingue. And yet Claude was one of
us, as good as us in every way, even a little bit better, we had to admit
secretly. But there was a blemish - his French! It antagonized us. He had no
right to be living in our neighbourhood, no right to be as capable and manly
as he was. Often, when his mother called him in and we had said good-bye to
him, we got together in the lot and we discussed the Lorraine family
backwards and forwards. We wondered what they ate, for example, because
being French they must have different customs than ours. No one had ever set
foot in Claude de Lorraine's home either - that was another suspicious and
repugnant fact. Why? What were they concealing? Yet when they passed us in
the street they were always very cordial, always smiled, always spoke in
English and a most excellent English it was. They used to make us feel
rather ashamed of ourselves - they were superior, that's what it was. And
there was still another baffling thing - with the other boys a direct
question brought a direct answer, but with Claude de Lorraine there was
never any direct answer. He always smiled very charmingly before replying
and he was very cool, collected, employing an irony and a mockery which was
beyond us. He was a thorn in our side, Claude de Lorraine, and when finally
he moved out of the neighbourhood we all breathed a sigh of relief. As for
myself, it was only maybe ten or fifteen years later that I thought about
this boy and his strange elegant behaviour. And it was then that I felt I
had made a bad blunder. For suddenly one day it occurred to me that Claude
de Lorraine had come up to me on a certain occasion obviously to win my
friendship and I had treated him rather cavalierly. At the time I thought of
this incident it suddenly dawned on me that Claude de Lorraine must have
seen something different in me and that he had meant to honour me by
extending the hand of friendship. But back in those days I bad a code of
honour, such as it was, and that was to run with the herd. Had I become a
bosom friend of Claude de Lorraine I would have been betraying the other
boys. No matter what advantages lay in the wake of such a friendship they
were not for me, I was one of the gang and it was my duty to remain aloof
from such as Claude de Lorraine. I remembered this incident once again, I
must say, after a still greater interval - after I had been in France a few
months and the word "raisomiable" had come to acquire a wholly new
significance for me. Suddenly one day, overhearing, I thought of Claude de
Lorraine's overtures on the street in front of his house. I recalled vividly
that he had used the word reasonable. He had probably asked me to be
reasonable, a word which then would never have crossed my lips as there was
no need for it in my vocabulary. It was a word, like gentleman, which was
rarely brought out and then only with great discretion and circumspection.
It was a word which might cause others to laugh at you. There were lots of
words like that - really, for example. No one I knew had ever used the word
really - until Jack Lawson came along. He used it because his parents were
English and, though we made fun of him, we forgave him for it. Really was a
word which reminded me immediately of little Carl Ragner from the old
neighbourhood. Carl Ragner was the only son of a politician who lived on the
rather distinguished little street called Fillmore Place. He lived near the
end of the street in a little red brick house which was always beautifully
kept. I remember the house because passing it on my way to school I used to
remark how beautifully the brass knobs on the door were polished. In fact,
nobody else had brass knobs on their doors. Anyway, little Carl Ragner was
one of those boys who was not allowed to associate with other boys. He was
rarely seen, as a matter of fact. Usually it was a Sunday that we caught a
glimpse of him walking with his father. Had his father not been a powerful
figure in the neighbourhood Carl would have been stoned to death. He was
really impossible, in his Sunday garb. Not only did he wear long pants and
patent leather shoes, but he sported a derby and a cane. At six years of age
a boy who would allow himself to be dressed up in this fashion must be a
ninny - that was the consensus of opinion. Some said he was sickly, as
though that were an excuse for his eccentric dress. The strange thing is
that I never once heard him speak. He was so elegant, so refined, that
perhaps he had imagined it was bad manners to speak in public. At any rate,
I used to lie in wait for him Sunday mornings just to see him pass with his
old man. I watched him with the same avid curiosity that I would watch the
firemen cleaning the engines in the fire house. Sometimes on the way home he
would be carrying a little box of ice cream, the smallest size they had,
probably just enough for him, for his dessert. Dessert was another word
which had somehow become familiar to us and which we used derogatorily when
referring to the likes of little Carl Ragner and his family. We could spend
hours wondering what these people ate for dessert, our pleasure consisting
principally in bandying about this new-found word, dessert, which had
probably been smuggled out of the Ragner household. It must also have been
about this time that Santos Dumont came into fame. For us there was
something grotesque about the name Santos Dumont. About his exploits we were
not much concerned - just the name. For most of us it smelled of sugar, of
Cuban plantations, of the strange Cuban flag which had a star in the comer
and which was always highly regarded by those who saved the little cards
which were given away with Sweet Caporal cigarettes and on which there were
represented either the flags of the different nations or the leading
soubrettes of the stage or the famous pugilists. Santos Dumont, then, was
something delightfully foreign, in contradistinction to the usual foreign
person or object, such as the Chinese laundry, or Claude de Lorraine's
haughty French family. Santos Dumont was a magical word which suggested a
beautiful flowing moustache, a sombrero, spurs, something airy, delicate,
humorous, quixotic. Sometimes it brought up the aroma of coffee beans and of
straw mats, or, because it was so thoroughly outlandish and quixotic, it
would entail a digression concerning the life of the Hottentots. For there
were among us older boys who were beginning to read and who would entertain
us by the hour with fantastic tales which they had gleaned from books such
as Ayesha or Ouida's Under Two Flags. The real flavour of knowledge is most
definitely associated in my mind with the vacant lot at the comer of the new
neighbourhood where I was transplanted at about the age often. Here, when
the fall days came on and we stood about the bonfire roasting chippies and
raw potatoes in the little cans which we carried, there ensued a new type of
discussion which differed from the old discussions I had known in that the
origins were always bookish. Some one had just read a book of adventure, or
a book of science, and forthwith the whole street became animated by the
introduction of a hitherto unknown subject. It might be that one of
these-boys had just discovered that there was such a thing as the Japanese
current and he would try to explain to us how the Japanese current came into
existence and what the purpose of it was. This was the only way we learned
things - against the fence, as it were, while roasting chippies and raw
potatoes. These bits of knowledge sunk deep - so deep, in fact, that later,
confronted with a more accurate knowledge it was often difficult to dislodge
the older knowledge. In this way it was explained to us one day by an older
boy that the Egyptians had known about the circulation of the blood,
something which seemed so natural to us that it was hard later to swallow
the story of the discovery of the circulation of the blood by an Englishman
named Harvey. Nor does it seem strange to me now that in those days most of
our conversation was about remote places, such as China, Peru, Egypt,
Africa, Iceland, Greenland. We talked about ghosts, about God, about the
transmigration of souls, about Hell, about astronomy, about strange birds
and fish, about the formation of precious stone, about rubber plantations,
about methods of torture, about the Aztecs and the Incas, about marine life,
about volcanoes and earthquakes, about burial rites and wedding ceremonies
in various parts of the earth, about languages, about the origin of the
American Indian, about the buffaloes dying out, about strange diseases,
about cannibalism, about wizardry, about trips to the moon and what it was
like there, about murderers and highwaymen, about the miracles in the Bible,
about the manufacture of pottery, about a thousand and one subjects which
were never mentioned at home or in school and which were vital to us because
we were starved and the world was full of wonder and mystery and it was only
when we stood shivering in the vacant lot that we got to talking seriously
and felt a need for communication which was at once pleasurable and
terrifying.
The wonder and the mystery of life - which is throttled in us as we
become responsible members of society! Until we were pushed out to work the
world was very small and we were living on the fringe of it, on the
frontier, as it were, of the unknown. A small Greek world which was
nevertheless deep enough to provide all manner of variation, all manner of
adventure and speculation. Not so very small either, since it held in
reserve the most boundless potentialities. I have gained nothing by the
enlargement of my world: on the contrary, I have lost. I want to become more
and more childish and to pass beyond childhood in the opposite direction. I
want to go exactly contrary to the normal line of development, pass into a
super-infantile realm of being which will be absolutely crazy and chaotic
but not crazy and chaotic as the world about me. I have been an adult and a
father and a responsible member of society. I have earned my daily bread. I
have adapted myself to a world which never was mine. I want to break through
this enlarged world and stand again on the frontier of an unknown world
which will throw this pale, unilateral world into shadow. I want to pass
beyond the responsibility of fatherhood to the irresponsibility of the
anarchic man who cannot be coerced nor wheedled nor cajoled nor bribed nor
traduced. I want to take as my guide Oberon the night-rider who, under the
spread of his black wings, eliminates both the beauty and the horror of the
past: I want to flee towards a perpetual dawn with a swiftness and
relentlessness that leaves no room for remorse, regret, or repentance. I
want to outstrip the inventive man who is a curse to an earth in order to
stand once again before an impassable deep which not even the strongest
wings will enable me to traverse. Even if I must become a wild and natural
park inhabited only by idle dreamers I must not stop to rest here in the
ordered fatuity of responsible, adult life. I must do this in remembrance of
a life beyond all comparison with the life which was promised me, in
remembrance of the life of a child who was strangled and stifled by the
mutual consent of those who had surrendered. Everything which the fathers
and the mothers created I disown. I am going back to a world even smaller
than the old Hellenic world, going back to a world which I can always touch
with outstretched arms, the world of what I know and see and recognize from
moment to moment. Any other world is meaningless to me, and alien and
hostile. In retraversing the first bright world which I knew as a child I
wish not to rest there but to muscle back to a still brighter world from
which I must have escaped. What this world is like I do not know, nor am I
even sure that I will find it, but it is my world and nothing else intrigues
me.
The first glimpse, the first realization, of the bright new world came
through my meeting Roy Hamilton. I was in my twenty-first year, probably the
worst year of my whole life. I was in such a state of despair that I had
decided to leave home but thought and spoke only of the California where I
had planned to go to start a new life. So violently did I dream of this new
promised land that later, when I had returned from California, I scarcely
remembered the California I had seen but thought and spoke only of the
California, which I had known in my dreams. It was just prior to my
leave-taking that I met Hamilton. He was a dubious half-brother to my old
friend MacGregor: they had only recently made each other's acquaintance, as
Roy, who had lived most of his life in California, had been under the
impression all along that his real father was Mr. Hamilton and not Mr.
MacGregor. As a matter of fact it was in order to disentangle the mystery
surrounding his parentage that he had come East. Living with the MacGregors
had apparently brought him no nearer to a solution of the mystery. Indeed he
seemed to be more perplexed than ever after getting acquainted with the man
whom he had concluded must be his legitimate father. He was perplexed, as he
later admitted to me, because in neither man could he find any resemblance
to the man he considered himself to be. It was probably this harassing
problem of deciding whom to take for a father which had stimulated the
development of his own character. I say this, because immediately upon being
introduced to him, I felt that I was in the presence of a being such as I
had never known before. I had prepared, through MacGregor's description of
him, to meet a rather "strange" individual, "strange" in MacGregor's mouth
meaning slightly cracked. He was indeed strange, but so sharply sane that I
at once felt exalted. For the first time I was talking to a man who got
behind the meaning of words and went to the very essence of things. I felt
that I was talking to a philosopher, not a philosopher such as I had
encountered through books, but a man who philosophized constantly - and who
lived this philosophy which he expounded. That is to say, he had no theory
at all, except to penetrate to the very essence of things and, in the light
of each fresh revelation to so live his life that there would be a minimum
of discord between the truths which were revealed to him and the
exemplification of these truths in action. Naturally his behaviour was
strange to those about him. It had not, however, been strange to those who
knew him out on the Coast where, as he said, he was in his own
element. There apparently he was regarded as a superior being and was
listened to with the utmost respect, even with awe.
I came upon him in the midst of a struggle which I only appreciated
many years later. At the time I couldn't see the importance which he
attached to finding his real father: in fact, I used to joke about it
because the role of the father meant little to me, or the role of the
mother, for that matter. In Roy Hamilton I saw the ironic struggle of a man
who had already emancipated himself and yet was seeking to establish a solid
biological link for which he had absolutely no need. This conflict over the
real father had, paradoxically, made him a superfather. He was a teacher and
an exemplar: he had only to open his mouth for me to realize that I was
listening to a wisdom which was utterly different from anything which I had
heretofore associated with that word. It would be easy to dismiss him as a
mystic, for a mystic he undoubtedly was, but he was the first mystic I had
ever encountered who also knew how to keep his feet on the ground. He was a
mystic who knew how to invent practical things, among them a drill such as
was badly needed for the oil industry and from which he later made a
fortune. Because of his strange metaphysical talk, however, nobody at the
time gave much heed to his very practical invention. It was regarded as
another one of his cracked ideas.
He was continually talking about himself and his relation to the world
about, a quality which created the unfortunate impression that he was simply
a blatant egotist. It was even said, which was true enough as far as it
went, that he seemed more concerned about the truth of Mr. MacGregor's
fatherhood than about Mr. MacGregor, the father. The implication was that he
had no real love for his new-found father but was simply deriving a strong
personal gratification from the truth of the discovery, that he was
exploiting this discovery in his usual self-aggrandizing way. It was deeply
true, of course, because Mr. MacGregor in the flesh was infinitely less than
Mr. MacGregor as symbol of the lost father. But the MacGregors knew nothing
about symbols and would never have understood even had it been explained to
them. They were making a contradictory effort to at once embrace the long
lost son and at the same time reduce him to an understandable level on which
they could seize him not as the "long lost" but simply as the son. Whereas
it was obvious to any one with the least intelligence that his son was not a
son at all but a sort of spiritual father, a sort of Christ, I might say,
who was making a most valiant effort to accept as blood and flesh what he
had already all too clearly freed himself from.
I was surprised and flattered, therefore, that this strange individual
whom I looked upon with the warmest admiration should elect to make me his
confident. By comparison I was very bookish, intellectual, and worldly in a
wrong way. But almost immediately I discarded this side of my nature and
allowed myself to bask in the warm, immediate light which is profound and
natural intuition of things created. To come into his presence gave me the
sensation of being undressed, or rather peeled, for it was much more than
mere nakedness which he demanded of the person he was talking to. In talking
to me he addressed himself to a me whose existence I had only dimly
suspected, the me, for example, which emerged when, suddenly, reading a book
I realized that I had been dreaming. Few books had this faculty of putting
me into a trance, this trance of utter lucidity in which, unknown to
oneself, one makes the deepest resolutions. Roy Hamilton's conversation
partook of this quality. It made me more than ever alert, preternaturally
alert, without at the same time crumbling the fabric of dream. He was
appealing, in other words, to the germ of the self, to the being who would
eventually outgrow the naked personality, the synthetic individuality, and
leave me truly alone and solitary in order to work out my own proper
destiny.
Our talk was like a secret language in the midst of which the others
went to sleep or faded away like ghosts. For my friend MacGregor it was
baffling and irritating: he knew me more intimately than any of the other
fellows but he had never found anything in me to correspond to the character
which I now presented him with. He spoke of Roy Hamilton as a bad influence,
which again was deeply true since this unexpected meeting with his
half-brother served more than anything else to alienate us. Hamilton opened
my eyes and gave me new values, and though later I was to lose the vision
which he had bequeathed me, nevertheless I could never again see the world,
or my friends, as I had seen them prior to his coming. Hamilton altered me
profoundly, as only a rare book, a rare personality, a rare experience, can
alter one. For the first time in my life I understood what it was to
experience a vital friendship and yet not to feel enslaved or attached
because of the experience. Never, after we parted, did I feel the need of
his actual presence: he had given himself completely and I possessed him
without being possessed. It was the first dean, whole experience of
friendship, and it was never duplicated by any other friend. Hamilton was
friendship itself, rather than a friend. He was the symbol personified and
consequently entirely satisfactory hence no longer necessary to me. He
himself understood this thoroughly. Perhaps it was the fact of having no
father that pushed him along the road towards the discovery of the self,
which is the final process of identification with the world and the
realization consequently of the useless-ness of ties. Certainly, as he stood
then, in the full plenitude of self-realization, no one was necessary to
him, least of all the father of flesh and blood whom he vainly sought in Mr.
MacGregor. It must have been in the nature of a last test for him, his
coming East and seeking out his real father, for when he said good-bye, when
he renounced Air. MacGregor and Mr. Hamilton also, he was like a man who had
purified himself of all dross. Never have I seen a man look so single, so
utterly alone and alive and confident of the future as Roy Hamilton looked
when he said good-bye.