Jack

by Marilynne Robinson

  “Yes. Thank you.” So he read some Frost out of loyalty to the pretense, then began to think that these poems might neutralize the effect of Williams if on another reading he decided Paterson might seem crude to her. The thought was a relief, even though nothing would come of it. He stayed long enough to have a reasonable hope the lady’s shift had ended, but there she was, and there he was, with the two books tucked under his belt, a very insecure arrangement that could well embarrass him to actual death.

  She didn’t even look up. She said, “Remember to bring that back sometime.” That, singular. So he had actually gotten away with the theft of one of them, and he took a kind of satisfaction in the thought. The other one she had in effect lent him, which is what librarians are paid to do. It bothered him that he didn’t know which was which, but it didn’t bother him much.

  * * *

  A week and two days had passed. He had run a thousand plans through his mind, thinking what he would do if the desk clerk at the rooming house decided to make an issue about whether he had been paid or not, whether that twenty was legal tender. He should have asked for more than a five back. He was afraid at the time that worse might come to worst and he would have to come up with five bucks at a minimum to even hope he could mollify the fellow. So he spent what money he had so unwillingly it was almost another form of not having any. When had he last thought of that word “mollify”? “Emollient.” Association. Would he think differently if he thought in different words? He could dignify true nonsense, to his own satisfaction, in any case. A smaller vocabulary would keep him on a narrower path, no doubt limit these irksome divagations a little. Where did that one come from?

  He had been as quiet as he could be for nine days, had gone downstairs only when very necessary, had read Robert Frost. Or he did until the clerk came upstairs, opened his door, and looked in at him there with his book. “Still alive,” he said. There was a misleading raucousness in a rooming house, where, in fact, many a turbulent soul was, so to speak, silently coming to the end of his rope, or belt or electrical cord, or whatever. The clerk especially hated that kind of problem. It was best handled expeditiously. He had noticed the patch of silence in the thick of pandemonium and had come to check, confident enough of what he might find not to bother knocking.

  Jack said, “Still alive.”

  The clerk laughed. “To tell the truth, I had a bet with a guy about whether you sleep with your hat on.” And he went away.

  Very funny. But the joke made him uncomfortably conscious that he did, in certain moods, sleep with his shoes on. When he dreamed of the return of Bradshaw. Or the police, always so eager to be confirmed in their suspicions, to bring the universal solvent of official attention to bear on every hapless thing until it was all just evidence, patently incriminating. But then, once he dreamed that the police did come and find him with the blanket over his head and his two shod feet sticking out at the bottom of the bed. His mattress was a few inches short, a fact to which he had, until then, been resigned. How better to pique that officious curiosity? The worst thing about the cops was when they couldn’t help laughing. With judges it was even worse. He had to get some sort of control of his life.

  Why? The point of all this was to stay alive as long as decency required. He thought it would be the considerate thing to minimize so far as possible the signs of struggle with futility and despair and that sort of thing, so that when Teddy and whoever else came to fetch him home they would be able to say, Yes, that is absolutely our brother Jack, that is just how he knotted his tie. There might be something to the idea of sleeping with his hat on, his shoes, for that matter. Then he would appear so lifelike, as they say, that their grief would be mingled with suspicion. Teddy would lay his cool, professional fingers on his throat, just to be sure. And Jack, which was a name he had for his soul, would even then be falling through uncanny voids and starry abysses toward perdition.

  In the meantime, a man who stood six foot two in his socks could not sustain life on the occasional bologna sandwich. He did not want to fail at the one object he had set for himself, which was to stay alive until the next black-bordered envelope arrived, until Teddy pulled up in front of the wrong rooming house to offer him a ride home if he could find him.

  Then he decided enough time had passed to make it worthwhile to check at the old rooming house, to see if Teddy had left money there for him. So he strolled the few blocks to the old place, and the man at the desk took an unsealed envelope from the cash drawer and handed it to him without a word, but with that old injured look that let Jack know he couldn’t quite approve of the arrangement. He’d have had more respect for a thief, no doubt being one himself. Oh well. Jack put the money in his pocket, thanked the man with a cordiality meant to exasperate, and went off to buy himself a newer shirt.

  * * *

  It was feeling a little solvent and respectable that made him walk into a bar one night, to have one drink and listen to the piano. He had two drinks, waiting for the piano player to show up. Then he went over and started tinkering with the keys. Someone shouted “Tennessee Waltz!” so he sat down and played it, and someone shouted “Cool Water!” so he played that, and “I’ll Be Seeing You,” and “The Tennessee Waltz” again. Someone put a glass with change in it on the piano, then a glass of whiskey, and he played “My heart knows what the wild goose knows” and sang along. Then someone shouted “The Horst Wessel Song,” which had been set to an old hymn tune his father liked, a perfectly good hymn, and out of drunken happiness at the coincidence, he fingered a few bars. There was a silence and then a blow to the back of his head that landed him on the floor somehow. He made the mistake of standing up temporarily, intending to explain, he was quite sure, but he was punched in the face before he could compose his thoughts. When his head cleared a little, he stepped into the kitchen and out through the door to the alley. The tumult inside went on without him. Just those few notes were incitement enough to make up for the lack of an antagonist. He had heard the glass with the money in it hit the floor and the coins scatter. Oh well. Here he was, alone in an alley, bleeding again. He would have to sacrifice his handkerchief to his necktie. What a ridiculous life.

  A night or two later he pulled a flyleaf out of Paterson and wrote a note: Mrs. B.—I have been away from work because I have not been well. Sincere regrets, J. A. Boughton (Slick). He put it into the little basket hanging by the door, which was there to collect the bills and flyers that might otherwise have entered the establishment bringing threats and sad information. There was no chance she would find his note, but he would be able to find it if he needed proof he had been somewhat conscientious. But then, when he thought he might be presentable enough to show up for work and went to the shop, he saw the CLOSED sign, and a notice on the door, a piece of typewriter paper that said, matter-of-factly, Going out of business, prices slashed, everything must go, all sales final, our loss is your gain.

  And still that pair of faded men’s moccasins posed in the window. Why did it afflict him in some way that this starveling enterprise had suffered its final throes without his being there for the death watch? Well, a fragile strand of connection to ordinary life gone. What to do with the rest of the day. Beer, he thought. He could walk far enough to be out of the sphere of his acquaintance, beyond more than usual skepticism, and probably break a twenty. Worth a try. St. Louis is a German town, which made things a little unpredictable where the great issues were concerned. He would bear that in mind. But there was also beer with so much food value as to excuse his having it for breakfast. Then he could forget about lunch. And when it was evening, he would walk over to that place by the river, a sort of open-air plaza where there was a swing band and people danced. By then he would be too mellow to care that they were all young and that so many of them were soldiers or sailors, brought there to be scattered over the continent, back to the land of mom and dad. He was in general quiet when he drank. Anyway, he looked a little drunk when he was sober, a little sober when he was drunk, so hi
s odds were always about even. He’d stand to the side and listen to the music, and no one would really mind, though everything about him said 4-F.

  He found schwarzbier and bockbier in a shop that also sold very ripe cheese, white sausages, and giant pretzels. He felt a twinge of something like appetite. He left with a large, odoriferous bag in his arms and nearly sixteen dollars in his pocket. The man at the counter said, “You was never one of these soldiers,” gesturing toward the street. “I can see that. They’re rough sometimes. I was not a soldier. I get along all right most of the time.” And he made change like a gesture of subversive bonhomie and added an apple to the bag.

  Jack walked down to the river and sat there in the sun with the bag sitting on the bench beside him, companionably. He smelled like cigarettes and cheap aftershave, and the bag smelled like cheese and pretzels, the two of them just being what they were, the cheese no doubt sweating a little in the sunlight, just as he was. Prolong the moment, he thought, and then he knocked the cap off a bottle against the edge of the bench. “Swig” is an odd word. Perfect, though. He knew he would go from being a little content to pretty content to despondent, each phase in his descent rewarding in its own way. No sober man could admit to mourning the loss of the stupidest job imaginable. He would watch the river and consider the transiency of things for an hour or so, and then who knows. Whatever the virtues of food, it did blunt the effects of alcohol. If he ate the pretzel, he might never reach the state where he could put into words, and weep inwardly as he did it, that he would miss talking box scores with Mrs. Beverly. As a sober man he might maintain some sort of perspective, but once he was drunk, what mattered mattered. A trifling pleasure lost. He had nowhere to be, and he was really so sorry.

  That done, he was any bum dozing on a bench, jobless and 4-F, steeped in beer and sunshine. Then the air cooled with evening and the memory stirred in him that he had meant to go watch the dancing and hear the music. First home, to shave and pull himself together. No. He lifted his hat to run his fingers through his hair and straightened his tie and walked toward the sound of a piano.

  It was a mixed crowd. More precisely, there were black soldiers on one side of the plaza, white on the other; black girls on one side, white on the other. All the shy business of pairing off for a dance or two, the awkwardness of teasing and roughhousing among the soldiers, like boys who have only a minute or two away from authority and order.

  And there was Della, with two black men, one tall, the other taller, both in civilian clothes but with that martial bearing people talk about. Della was laughing, teasing and joking with a few black soldiers who stepped out of the crowd and gathered around them, shaking hands and clapping shoulders. He’d never seen this Della, had never imagined there could be such a Della. Well, of course. She was young and pretty, and he could never be standing with her like that in a public place, in a crowd, under a streetlamp. There was nothing at stake for him, no thread of connection to break, only the habit to rid himself of, of thinking about her, which he really had no right to do. He should have expected something like this. He had no reason to feel stunned by it, to be frozen in place by it, when he wanted so badly to leave.

  Then she turned for some reason and looked right at him, and he just stood there, absorbing the fact. She spoke to the taller of the two men, who also looked at him. Jack touched the brim of his hat and smiled, just a glimpse of a rim of teeth and a look that meant, I have a certain acquaintance with your girlfriend. I have admired the lobe of her ear and have thought of tracing the curve of her cheek with my fingertip. Any number of times. It was so ridiculous he almost made himself laugh, even though he knew he was risking one of those dustups that never went well for him.

  Della stepped away from the group and walked down the pavement to where he stood, he intent on lighting a cigarette so as not to lose face, whatever that might amount to.

  She said, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  He said, “Ditto,” and flicked his cigarette.

  “I’m here with my brothers. They have friends from the service who are passing through town.” She said, “I’d like you to meet my brother Marcus.”

  Jack said, “Maybe another time. When I’m a little less drunk.”

  She nodded. “They came up from Memphis just for a couple of days. I don’t know when there’ll be another time.”

  He took a long drag on his cigarette. “Why do this, Miss Miles? What point is there in this?”

  “Well,” she said, “they’ve heard the rumors. About the white man.”

  He laughed. “So shaking my hand is supposed to make him feel better about that. I have my doubts. Sorry, lady. I’ve had a rough day. I don’t want to meet your brother.”

  He was trying to put an end to absolutely everything, but she hung down her lovely head and he was covered with shame that he had been rude to her.

  “I understand,” she said. “Another time.” But she didn’t step away.

  By then her brother was simply watching them, with his hands on his hips. And there was Jack, shivering in his stale shirt, with a pretzel in each pocket, which had earlier seemed a stabilizing arrangement but now seemed to sum up his whole life. He took a drag on his cigarette and did not look at her.

  “I’m glad I know you,” she said. “People act as though it’s something to be ashamed of. I mean, that we’re friends, that we talk sometimes. But I can’t live that way. I can’t just be ashamed because people say I should be.” She said, “I have something to give you.” She opened her purse—Good Christ, not a handout. She said, “It’s a poem. I’d like to know what you think of it. I’ve been carrying it around with me in case I might see you sometime. Don’t read it now. Maybe I’ll see you again and you can tell me then.”

  Jack said, “They’re waiting for you.” He didn’t say, Please be gone. Let your brothers look after you. Don’t associate yourself with some old white bum just to show the world that you’re brave.

  But she stood there with him, beside him, just long enough to make it clearly intentional, to her brothers and to him. Then she said, “You take care of yourself, Jack,” and looked at him for emphasis, and walked away.

  Mortal, can these bones live? O Lord God, you know.

  He folded her poem to fit in his shirt pocket, not a place where those debt collectors would expect him to carry money. Then he ate a pretzel, which was a first step in rethinking his life.

  The first thing to decide was whether it was kind or unkind of her to speak with him that way. To rekindle the thought of herself when he was ready to believe those ashes were cold. On the other hand, what could it matter? There were a thousand barriers between black Della and his indigent, disreputable self, and mere kindness could not lower any of them so much as an inch. Sometime he might have a chance to say, That poem of yours is very whatever, deep or something, and the world will clear its throat and scowl, seeing them together, and her brothers will be on the train to St. Louis. And he will skulk away, hoping to leave her life undamaged, her good name. He should have let her introduce Marcus, assuming he would have agreed to it. Furtiveness, evasiveness, would have encouraged the notion that impropriety figured somehow.

  * * *

  By the time he was back in his room he had decided that he might as well look at her poem. Clothed as he was in the garments of misfeasance and bewilderment, there lived in him a deeply arrogant man. How could this be true? But as he walked away from the miserable scene of his rudeness and drunkenness, having brought a beautiful thing to a bad end, he began to gloat a little in anticipation of the mediocrity, at best, of this attempt at poetry, for this purpose making himself believe that she was like most people. Maybe some third-rate magazine had held on to this scrap of martyred language long enough to have kindled hopes in her, pride even. It was a very good thing that he would never see her again. He would be spared the temptation of telling her, with unaccountable confidence, exactly what he thought of her poem. Of embarrassing her with a cutting assault on
her illusions. That old, familiar qualm passed over him as he imagined himself giving in to his sense of her vulnerability. Jesus, what a good thing it was that he had utterly disgraced himself already.

  He unfolded the paper. Below the poem it said, “Thomas Traherne.” Oh. These two words deflated his condescension instantly. It seemed both deft and kind of her to put herself beyond the reach of even his fantasy of desolating criticism, though she could hardly have known when she wrote it out that he would have been driven to such a shift, that he would have hoped to smirk inwardly, to destroy his own illusions about her and to snuff out any hope that still lingered in him. At the bottom of the paper she had written This is true.

  All right.

  “For Man to Act as if his Soul did see

  The very Brightness of Eternity;

  For Man to Act as if his Love did burn

  Above the Spheres, even while it’s in its Urne.”

  Oh, too bad. “Urne” is a stretch. Plenty of words rhyme with “burn.” This fellow was probably writing before some ideas were all worn out. Love does actually burn, to ashes, which is how it ends up in an urn, presumably. But no one could say that now. “Superannuated” was a word that came to mind. It would sound learned. Actually, she had made herself vulnerable. He could choose to dismiss her poem with a word like that. He found a disheartening comfort in the thought.

  For Man to Act even in the Wilderness,

  As if he did those Sovereign Joys possess,

  Which do at once confirm, stir up, enflame,

  And perfect Angels; having not the same!

  It doth increase the value of his Deeds,

  In this a Man a Seraphim exceeds.

  This makes a kind of sense if the stress falls on the second syllable of “perfect,” which would make it a verb. He would like to ask her what in this is true. “Sovereign Joys”—when he dared, he would think about that long night with her in Bellefontaine, the beautiful graveyard. So many angels in attendance, not one of them stirred up, enflamed, roused from the encumbrance of her stony flesh, not even the angel that reached toward a baby forever, day and night, and never held her. He laughed at the thought of all those angels ecstatically liberated, finally seeing the fulfillment of everything their presence had promised for so long. This had to be the dream behind all the statuary. The angels would open the caskets and lift up old Mrs. This and young Mr. That, making themselves, to their great joy, much less marvelous and interesting than the recently disinterred. Wings are fine, and a kind of luminosity would be very nice, but to hear a familiar laugh would be an almost unbearable joy, a human joy exceeding anything seraphim could feel, since angels cannot know death. So that much was true, granting his terms. In such a blast and glare of astonishment, what offenses could be remembered? Those who can’t hope can still wish. He would not write Della a letter about this, with sketches of angels.