“Crazy people can’t have visitors,” she answered, shaking her head. “I consider the whole thing sheer fraud. Here I walk all the way from my dorm, risk life and limb, and you don’t look any different.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Do you feel funny when the moon is full, Euripides? You know, strange? Flesh creep or anything?” I tried smiling. She sat on the end of my bed, bouncing up and down. After a while she stopped and looked at me. “What happened, Euripides?” she said then. “Whatever happened?”
I told her. Starting from when I left the magazine, hurrying home. What I’d seen in Zock’s room, the marriage, the reception, the blow-off, coming home the next morning, the trip out to Crystal City to find Terry, the...
“Why did you do that?” Harriet cut in.
“What?”
“Why did you go to Crystal City?” I shrugged. “Did you want her back?” I shook my head. “Then, why?”
“What do you care?”
“I’m a girl and you’re a boy,” Harriet said. “We have mutual interests. Why did you go there?”
I thought a long time. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I don’t know.”
“O.K.,” Harriet said. “Now that you’ve cleared that up, go on.”
I did. And when I had finished she looked at me, smiling, shaking her head and smiling. “How do you feel now, Euripides?” she said.
“Tired,” I answered. “Honest to God, Harriet. I’ve never felt so tired in my life...”
I stayed in the hospital a week, “under observation,” and except for my daily visits with Miss Dietrich, I didn’t mind. It was quiet. I slept a lot and the food was good so I have no complaint.
Then, the eighth day, my mother and Adrian were standing in the doorway, holding hands, staring at me across that rectangular room.
“The newlyweds,” I said, laughing.
My mother ran to me, throwing herself on the bed, holding me. Adrian looked very serious. “Raymond, old chap,” he said, “how do you feel?”
“Miss Dietrich says I got a fifty-fifty chance of making it, Adrian. But the odds will go against me if the fits come back,” and I jerked my head, squinting. “I sure hope they don’t. I haven’t had one now since yesterday. Those fits are no fun, Adrian, let me tell you.”
“Katherine,” Adrian said, coming over, resting his hands on her shoulders, “you can stop worrying. He’s all right.”
And in his own way, he turned out to be a prophet, Adrian. Because two afternoons later, I went home.
A wet April afternoon, complete with thunder and pouring down rain. My mother drove slowly, peering ahead, turning here, there, here again. Then we were in the driveway. She led me up to my room. My bed was ready, clean sheets and all, a mountain of white pillows piled at the head. I lay down. My mother started talking, but pretty soon she realized I didn’t much want to. She asked me if I minded her going downtown for a little. I said I didn’t. She kissed me on the forehead and left the house.
I lay quiet in bed, propped up by all those pillows. It wasn’t comfortable. I took some of them out. It didn’t help. The rain was coming down worse than ever, that thunder tearing up the sky. The room was hot and stuffy. I tossed and turned awhile longer, watching the rain die against my window. Then I threw the covers off and went downstairs.
To my father’s study. I closed the door and right away that leather smell hit me and I swear his tobacco was around too, some place. I walked to the bookcase, glancing at the tides; Sophocles and Homer, Catullus, Theocritus, Pliny the Elder. The air was so thick and heavy I started to sweat.
I sat down at his desk, in his chair, my head in my hands, my eyes closed, listening to the rain. I stayed like that a long time never looking up, not even when the thunder seemed right on top of me, not even when the study door opened and someone came in.
“I’ve been waiting for you to get home.”
Then I looked up. Andy Peabody was standing in the doorway, staring at me.
I nodded to him.
“I’ve been waiting for you to get home,” he said again, kicking the door shut, never once taking his eyes away.
“Some other time,” I said.
“I got a letter from your wife,” he said. “Don’t you want to see it?” He tossed me an envelope. I opened it. There was nothing inside. Suddenly he was laughing, high-pitched, the sound filling the room. “I burned it,” he said. “I burned it before you could see it. You’ll never see it now.”
“Come on,” I said. “I’m tired, Andy. Go home.”
“Don’t you want to know what was in it?”
I didn’t answer.
His body shook as he came closer to me, staring. “She said she was sorry. How do you like that? She said she was sorry and she’s gonna divorce you and she’s never coming back. She’s sorry and she’s never coming back here again.”
I didn’t say anything and neither did he. We waited there in that stuffy room, me sitting, him standing across, breathing deeper and deeper, his body shaking more, about to explode.
Then he was crying, the tears flooding down his face. He turned. “I hope you die,” he said. “I hope you both die.”
I stood up and he wheeled around, not able to see, but still staring, screaming at the top of his voice.
“I screwed your wife!”
I came closer to him, tensing, listening to him as he screamed, “Whore!” at me. I didn’t say anything. “Whore!” I didn’t answer. “Whore!” My stomach was aching and it was hard to breathe, but I kept on, coming, closer to him. “Whore!”
Closer.
“Whore!”
Closer.
“WHORE!!!”
I hit him.
All I had, the back of my hand against his cheek, my knuckles against the bone. He coughed, gasped, his body stiff. I hit him again and he sagged, suddenly limp, falling against me, sobbing.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and when I did he tried getting away. I held him with all the strength I had left, held him until he quit struggling and just lay there in my arms, pushing his head against my chest, burying it.
“I’m sorry about what happened, Andy! I honest to God am! I’m sorry about what happened and I’m sorry you had to be there, but that still doesn’t give you the right to go around calling her names. Not today or ever. Just because she did something you don’t like doesn’t give you the right to go around calling her names. Because everybody’s going to do something you don’t like sooner or later. Do you hear me, Andy? Do you hear what I’m saying? Everybody’s going to screw up on you sooner or later. Everybody screws up. Everybody fails. Everybody fails everybody. Just like God. God failed. God failed on His own son in the Garden of Gethsemane. God failed His own son in the Garden of...”
And I stopped.
I led him over to my father’s chair. I walked to the door. He was still sobbing when I called to him. “Stay as long as you want, you poor bastard. You got a right to cry.”
I closed the door and stood a second in the hallway, stretching. Then I went up to my room. I walked in. There was a face looking at me in the mirror. I stared back at it, watched it as it started to smile, said one word to me.
“Indeed.”
That’s about all.
My mother and Adrian left for England on the 14th of June, two months to the day after they were married. And how my mother lived through those months, I’ll never know, she was that busy. She put the house up for sale, held an auction on the furniture she didn’t want, shipped the rest off to England. She attended to all her club work, getting things in decent order for whatever poor soul was going to take over after she’d gone. She went to a million parties, was constantly in tears. With Adrian always one step behind her, running, trying to keep up.
I took it easy. There wasn’t much for me to do. Except wait. I spent most of my time in the back yard, throwing stones at the trees in the ravine, or just lying flat, sopping up sunshine. Harriet came over a lot, and we said good-by on the
8th of June, when she went home.
I walked her to her dorm. Neither of us said anything, but stood around instead, scuffing our shoes. Which got so ridiculous that finally she gave a giggle, kissed me, and dashed inside. I turned, heading for the sidewalk. She called to me before I got there, from the parlor window.
“I live in Rhode Island,” she called. “And my name is Harriet.”
“Raymond Euripides Trevitt,” I called back, bowing. “And the pleasure is mine.”
On the morning of the 14th we got set to go. It was a beautiful day, warm and clear, with just a couple of clouds speckled here and there, to break up the monotony. By ten o’clock we were ready, luggage in the car. But we didn’t leave.
Because Mrs. Atkins appeared at the end of the block, coming toward us, followed by about twenty-five other women, all of them calling, “Bon voyage, bon voyage, bon voyage,” over and over. My mother took one look and started bawling. The closer they came, the worse she got. Then they had us surrounded and began kissing my mother, giving her presents, hugging Adrian, smiling at me.
I dashed back into the house, stopping a second in the foyer, still able to hear that “Bon voyage, bon voyage.” I went up the stairs to my room, looked around, went into my mother’s room, did the same. I looked at every room upstairs and when I was through I went down and began with the kitchen. Just a quick glance and then to the dining-room. Then the living-room.
Finally I got to my father’s study. Like all the others, it was empty. The books were gone, the desk, everything. But you still could smell that leather in the air. I closed the door and headed outside.
I managed to get my mother into the car. Adrian followed. I sat behind the wheel, backed out of the driveway, those twenty-five women standing in front of us, waving.
The drive to the airport was horrible. My mother cried and cried, sniffling away in the back seat, Adrian doing what he could to comfort her—not much. I drove as fast as I could, and when we got there we waited, stuttering, trying hard to grab onto some conversation. Finally their plane was announced.
I shook hands with Adrian. “Good-by, old chap,” I said, which stopped him, seeing as he was about to say the same thing.
“Raymond.” My mother wept, throwing her arms around me. “I’m going away.”
“Not unless you get a move on, Mother.”
“Raymond,” she said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“It’s a hell of a time to be asking.” I laughed, leading them toward the plane. They handed in their tickets and I followed to the steps. We looked at each other.
“I just knew you two would be pals,” I said. “I just—”
“Good-by, Raymond,” my mother interrupted. “Be a good boy.” I nodded, watching as they got on the plane, sitting by a window, looking out. They waved and I waved and they waved and my mother cried and we kept at it until the plane motored down the runway. Then I got in the car, heading North.
It was mid-afternoon when I reached the cemetery. When I had parked, I tucked in my shirt and looked around. There were a lot of other people wandering aimlessly, walking among the graves. Way off on the right a funeral was ending, twenty or thirty people dressed in black.
I stepped onto the grass over him, bending down, kneeling, my eyes closed. “Zock,” I said. “I’ve come to say good-by. I’m leaving Athens, Zock, for good. I’m taking off and don’t ask me where, because I don’t know. But there’s a lot of places I haven’t been, and I’ve been here.” The sun was beating down on me as I knelt there, sweating, my collar wet against my neck. I opened my eyes, looked around at the cemetery again, up at the sky, then back to him. “And if that sounds like I haven’t found the handle, Zock, it ought to. Because I haven’t. But I don’t feel bad about it. Because you were wrong, Zock. There isn’t any handle, any temple of gold. You were wrong and I’m sorry if I failed you, but maybe it’s a good thing you’re dead, Zock. I don’t know. But you can’t keep expecting me to go on looking for something that isn’t there. I got my own life to lead and God knows where it’s going, but I have to follow along to see. And I’m sorry to be crying, Zock, and I don’t know why I am, because I really feel good and you got to believe that.” I stood up. “So long, Zocker,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you sometime.” I left him there.
Afterword
WARNING: READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL
WHEN I SAT DOWN, June 24, 1956, to be totally precise about it, to write what turned out to be this book, I was as lost as any Cortes. But I knew I had to write something, so I did.
What follows is that something.
It is the original first chapter of my novel. When I submitted the book to Knopf, rewrote and doubled it in length (it originally ended a few pages after the chapter called The Army), and they accepted it, the first thing the editor did was cut the first chapter. Totally. The book you hold now starts with what was then chapter two.
One thing you must know about me: I don’t read what I’ve written. A slight exaggeration but only that. I never read what I’m writing while I’m putting it down, and I only read it through one time afterward, just before I meet with the editor if it’s a book, the director if a flick.
So I have never read the original opening since I wrote it. Never will. So if there are typos in what follows, blame my editor, Peter Gethers.
If you hate the chapter, blame me.
MYSELF
First a few facts:
Name : Raymond E. (for Euripides) Trevitt
Age : 21 years of age
Height : Five feet, nine inches tall
Weight : 165 pounds
Scars : One. Along my right cheek from an accident I had.
Occupation : I don’t work.
Place of birth : Athens, Illinois
Education : Athens Grammar School (graduated)
Athens : High School (graduated)
Athens : College (didn’t graduate)
No. That’s enough. I have a whole list of things I could put down, but there’s no point in it I can see. I think you could put down a bookful of facts about yourself, all neat and correct and in order, and the whole thing together with a dime might get you a cup of coffee.
Because a simple fact in black and white doesn’t tell a thing. Like the scar on my face. It’s there all right, but that doesn’t tell you what you want it to. Such as what it means. That scar means something to me, and every time I look at myself in the mirror I see it. And I remember. To live with something every day like my scar and to remember how you got it—that’s important. It tells something. About me. So it’s not the scar alone that counts; not the fact that it’s there. But why it’s there.
Now we all know that Medea killed her kids, which doesn’t deserve a gold star in anybody’s book, but still, you can’t go around saying, “Why, that no-good Medea, killing her kids like that. She ought to be put away.” Extenuating circumstances. In every single thing that happens, there’s extenuating circumstances. And you’ve got to understand what they are and why they are, along with all the rest. Then, after you understand, if you still want to go around saying, “Why, that no-good Medea, killing her kids like that. etc. etc. etc.,” then it’s O.K. But the understanding has to come first.
And you have to start at the beginning. That’s why it’s there. To start from. For example, just from the facts I put down, you might say that I’m a bum. Look. “There he is, twenty-one years of age and not working. He’s a bum.” Well, such may be the case and such may not, but you must be sure you know whereof before you speak. I could tell right now how I got the scar, point-blank. But it wouldn’t be right, because that scar didn’t come until later, and a lot of things led up to it. And you’ve got to know those things, at least the important ones, before you can understand why I’m twenty-one years of age and have no occupation, and why I never graduated from college.
But even that is not as easy as it sounds. Because I’m not sure what’s important and what isn’t. Not really. For example, my killing the g
uppies. When I put that down I want to say—There! Remember that! It explains something—but I can’t tell you what. I feel it. Or these words: “So seize the moment.” They are the first words of the first poem ever written by my friend Zock, who is now dead. Because of me. I killed him. Or what Felix Brown said to me that hot day down south; or what happened in the bedroom with Helen Twilly. There are lots of things, many more, that I feel are important, but can’t say why.
Which is the main trouble with writing in the first place. You can never say what you mean to say. Not really. Sometimes you come close. And I suppose that coming close is all anyone has ever any right to expect. To want more would be hubris. Which, by the way, is a Greek word that you can’t translate into English except by saying that it sort of means pride. Wanting too much. It’s the reason Oedipus got into all that trouble, and why Antigone got hers. They wanted too much. Hubris. That’s why.
All of which is just my way of saying that in my opinion, you can’t get much across to anybody at anytime. Communication is in the same class with the elixir of life and the philosopher’s stone. It just isn’t. You can’t explain yourself to anybody. Never in this world. Or why you do something. Or what makes you tick. You can’t ever point to something that happened to you and say—There! That’s me. Right in there. See? Now do you understand?—Because nobody’s going to.
But if there’s one thing that nobody can accuse me of, it’s consistency. Because just to round things off, I’m going to point to something that happened. And I’m putting it here because I think it’s typical. Of me. I’m in it. Somewhere.
It took place on a Sunday afternoon in Kentucky when I was in the middle of my basic training. Kelly was the other kid involved. Actually, he was the only one really involved, as I was just a spectator. But on his invitation. I was there.
I was lying on my sack that afternoon, sweating like a pig because it was so hot, over 100. I was all alone there that afternoon, with my thoughts, mostly of Zock. I was lying naked with my eyes closed, staring up and seeing his ugly face, when I heard somebody coming up the stairs. I don’t think a free ticket to the second coming could have roused me then, and I didn’t move until the footsteps came close, stopping at the foot of my bed.
The Novels of William Goldman: Boys and Girls Together, Marathon Man, and the Temple of Gold Page 142