That’s an example; the rest were in a like vein. Irish immigrants, honeymooners, Negroes, traveling salesmen, Jews, Chinese laundrymen, prostitutes—the usual cast for such tales—made their appearances as heroes or dupes. It was much too relentless a monologue to be genuinely amusing, yet I forced myself to laugh at everything until my jaws were aching.
Toward midnight, after two hours of this, he at last wound down—whether from the exhaustion of his voice or his material I do not know Whatever the reason, I was immeasurably grateful. He had by this time bibbed a goodly dose of “the green muse.” We sat there without speaking, while outside, the automobiles and trolleys rushed by on Beacon Street, creating their customary din and sending shivers through the joists and uprights of the ancient house. In the intervals of stillness, moths and other nocturnal insects could be heard banging against the screens. The air of the parlor was viscous from humidity and tobacco smoke.
I was on the point of suggesting that we call it a night when Norbie coughed once, scowled down at the worn spot on the Shiraz rug, and without an introduction of any sort began to talk about his wife, Marion. It was not a pleasant discourse.
I had met Marion twice. She was a pretty girl then, very lively and a fine, graceful dancer, and Norbie’s love for her was a tidal wave of passion. So smitten was he that I felt almost sorry for him. But all that was years ago; his feelings had since undergone a drastic change. If love were endless, Young has written, men were gods.
And it was far more than that he’d grown disenchanted; he’d actually come to hate the woman. “A dirty bitch” is how he now characterized her. She was a rattlesnake who had destroyed his children. She was a vulture, a bloodsucker, who’d stolen his money and stripped him of his self-respect, who’d shamed him in the eyes of the other executives of the company, who’d cost him all his best friends, who’d made his home a crazy house of lies and arguments and underhanded scheming. Her only purpose in life, it seemed, was to make him suffer.
“For seven years, Al—seven goddamn long and miserable years—she hasn’t even been a wife to me,” he muttered, while a wavering column of smoke from his stub of cigarette rose up in front of him, like the fumes of a burnt offering before some massive heathen idol. “Separate beds, separate rooms, separate everything. It was like being a boarder in my own home. That’s when I started putting on the weight.”
Of course I was terribly embarrassed by these sudden confidences. I was bewildered, too. It seemed impossible that this hulking fellow—so cheerful only moments ago—could now be wallowing in such abject self-pity. Not knowing what else to say, I made a feeble attempt to divert the conversation by mentioning the heat and the likelihood of a thunderstorm, but if he heard these remarks he showed no sign of it.
“God, how I would’ve jumped at the chance of getting a divorce from that leech!” he went on bitterly. “But there was no way. You see, Al—Old Man Hanauer is a hard-shell, Bible-spieling Baptist, and dead set against anything like that. He used to say that busting up a family was the same as committing a murder—the mealymouthed old bastard! I would have been bounced out on my ass. Yeah, and Marion knew it. She knew she had me—had me good. Jesus, Al—did she ever make me suffer!”
I assumed that “Old Man Hanauer” was his employer, but I didn’t dare ask. Norbie’s bald crown was speckled with pearls of sweat, and his large eyes were clouded with remembered injury. He took a last puff on the stub of his cigarette, tamped it out in the ashtray and said thickly, “But anyway, it’s over. I’m through now. I’m through with Ypsilanti, Michigan, and with Samson Road Equipment. I’m through with the whole bucket of eels. That’s right. I walked out, and I didn’t say good-bye, either. Cashed the stocks and government bonds, sold the car and the bungalow (couldn’t sell the house—she’s got that), took every dollar out of the bank—even peddled my terrific stamp collection, with all the first-day covers—packed my suitcases and flew the hell out of there. That’ll fix Marion—and that son-of-a-bitch Hanauer, too! Damn right, Al! They can look for me, but they’re not going to find me. I even changed planes at Buffalo to cover up my tracks, and I used a phony name, too. Let them hunt for me. They’ll just be piddling up a rope.”
He growled an obscenity, blinked, drank more absinthe and then swabbed his glistening pate with a handkerchief. Again I sought to introduce a different topic; again I was ignored.
“Had to do it. Now or never,” he mumbled. “The thing is, Al, my medics say I’m a real sick guy. Yeah, real sick. Do you want to know how sick, Al? Well . . . well, they figure I’m only good for another year, and maybe not even that long. I’m not kidding you. That’s the kind of shape your old buddy is in, and there’s nothing they can do to fix me up, either.”
“Oh, no . . . no,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.
“All this fat—that’s what’s killing me. And Marion, the bitch, is responsible. I guess it sounds kind of whacky, but the docs say that for me food is a substitute for love, for affection—you understand? ‘Psychosomatic’ is the ten-dollar word they use.”
Norbie stared at me appealingly. I nodded, mute.
“Listen, I’ll tell you something I never told anybody else,” he declared softly, hunching forward in the cracked-leather chair. “A couple of months ago, Al, I tried to do away with myself. Honest to Pete—I tried suicide. She was gone—off to one of her half-assed meetings—so I went in the garage, shut the overhead door, got in the Caddy and switched on the engine.”
Norbie’s thin froggy lips trembled. His voice sank but his words remained distinct. “I figured it would happen pretty quick, you know? That damn garage, though—it was too big! I waited and I waited and I waited, racing the engine. Then I got scared. All of a sudden the idea of death really hit me. The next thing I knew, I was running. I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t have the courage—the guts. Only a few minutes more and the whole problem—the problem of Norbert Hess—would’ve been settled forever. But I blew it. I was too scared, Al. Outside the garage I vomited all over the junipers.”
“Oh, Norbie!” I groaned, shocked by this revelation. “How terribly awful! Surely there must be some way to . . . to . . .”
“No sir. The only way was to stay in the garage, but I didn’t have enough backbone to do it. So now I’ll just have to sit around and wait for the old ticker to seize up on me. At least I got the hell away from her. One thing I couldn’t take would be croaking slowly in front of my dear wife, the vulture.”
For a moment we were both quiet. The atmosphere, saturated with heat and moisture, was nearly palpable. I took a breath of it and asked, “But what if you lost weight, Norb? What if you adopted a strict regimen—a diet?”
A queer, contorted little laugh escaped from his quivering mouth. “Diets? I’ve been on a hundred, Al,” he said. “Pills, health farms, psychiatrists, macrobiotics, hypnosis—I tried the lot. Am I skinny? No, it’s all a crock! If I could stop breathing, I could stop eating and drinking. Otherwise, forget it. I don’t have the willpower. Anyhow, with me it’s mental.”
I needed only to gaze into my friend’s bulging eyes to see that he spoke the truth. Sympathy melted my heart. Yet, thought I, there must be a means of helping him. And then, all at once, a mad notion blossomed like a flaming-red begonia inside my skull: suppose I made the poor man a captive—chained him up or tied him down—and gave him nothing but water and raw vegetables for a month or two? I’d have to drug him somehow, to do it. Yes. The heavy sewer pipe in the corner of the basement—if I chained him to that, he’d be secure enough. Of course he’d shout for help in the beginning, and I’d have to keep him gagged lest he rouse the neighborhood, but he’d soon become acclimated. Two months, possibly three, and he’d be as slim as a ballroom dancer. Nothing but raw vegetables and water. If I brought the television down to him, that would keep him occupied and ease the ordeal. I found the entire idea exceedingly satisfying, but unfortunately he disposed of it with his very next words.
“Anyway, my heart couldn�
��t stand a diet, they told me. Not any more. It’s too late,” Norbie murmured, his face like a tragic mask. “And I’m scared, buddy. Jesus, I’m really scared.”
16
REFLECTIONS IN BED
On this lugubrious low note our evening ended.
The next morning I was awakened by an irate jay in the young elm outside my window. “Wretch! Wretch!” he cried.
Immediately the previous night’s events leaped into my mind to oppress me. Norbie’s predicament was dreadful. I longed to help him. Somewhere in that tangled network of his life, I pondered, there must be a loose string end which once tugged would unravel the knotted skeins and set him free. If I could only find it—what a good deed it would be!
“Wretch! Wretch! Wretch!” squawked the insolent bird in the elm tree.
My half-open eyes alighted on the photograph of Great-grampy on the dresser. The old boy, seated in a camp chair with a topee at a wry angle on his head, smiled out at me. Beside him stood an Arab in a striped caftan, holding a halter in his dark hands, while beyond their heads the Step Pyramid of Saqqara loomed majestically. Certainly Great-grampy would have found a solution to Norbie’s woes. Why might not I then?
Shafts of sunlight streaked the room. In them a myriad of motes drifted, like stars floating in the universe. I dwelt on the universe, considering its vastness and mystery and infinite possibilities, and very soon I was in a happier frame of mind. Thinking of the cosmos invariably cheers me. I don’t know why exactly, but I suppose it’s because earthly miseries dwindle to insignificance in so immense a setting. Imagine all that must be happening out there! It is estimated now that some ten percent of the stars in our own galaxy could have life-supporting planets. Since there are two hundred billion stars in the galaxy, twenty billion would fall into this category. Twenty billion life-supporting solar systems! Think of it! And remember—that’s only a single galaxy. There are billions of others in the universe! It’s so indescribably exhilarating.
Sometimes on clear nights when I survey the heavens, I am overcome with a violent—yes, violent—sensation of kinship for every one of my fellow creatures out in those limitless depths. How many trillions of them must there be! What Nebuchadnezzars reign on those distant worlds? What Alexanders conquer, what Caesars bleed, what Vergils poetize, what Mohammeds preach there? Who knows how many Raphaels and Shakespeares have been born, or how many Mozarts? I try to picture the events that must be taking place: the pillaging of great cities, the love scenes, the natural disasters, the productions of art and scientific geniuses, the Machiavellian intrigues, the combats between strange beasts, the festivals and the religious ceremonies. I even try to conceive the inconceivable. Really, I am absorbed by it all. My soul lunges across the light-years as easily as a hunter jumping a hedge. I am one with the whole of creation.
Before breakfast I spoke briefly with Eulalia. She displayed considerable interest in the sixty thousand dollars in Norbie’s suitcase.
17
THE STORY OF ROGER WILLIAMS
“A charnel house? What’s that?” Norbie asked, regarding the little outbuilding in the distance.
“A storeroom for bones,” I answered.
“You’re kidding,” he said.
“No, it really is. When graveyards get crowded they evict the old tenants to make room for new ones, and since they’re squeamish about tossing human bones on the town dump, they stack them in a charnel house. But there’s none there now.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said.
We had just finished another gigantic lunch and were sitting on the bench in the yard. Norbie appeared rested and cheerful, quite different in aspect from the night before. His eyes wandered from the small stone building to the Burying Ground itself. The fifty-odd tombstones, tilted in every direction, resembled ranks of drunken sailors.
“A cemetery in your backyard,” he said. “That’s weird! But I suppose you’ve got some of your relatives in it.”
“A few. Aside from my great-grandfather, though, none I ever knew. He was the last one buried out there.”
“That the fellow who lived in Egypt, Al?”
“Yes. He was a wonderful man. Do you know—he served under General Grant at Vicksburg. He was an engineering officer. His job was to dig tunnels beneath the defenses and then blow them up. I gathered from talking to him that he loved the work. Yes, he’s buried there—off to the right. It always surprised me that he didn’t get himself a big monument, since he was keen on that sort of thing. Strange. At one point he had started to convert the charnel house into an Egyptian temple, believe it or not. For a time we had a couple of Italian stonecutters here, chipping away at slabs of granite like budding Michelangelos. Exactly how far they got in the project I don’t know. I guess the old boy lost his interest in it after a while.”
From out of nowhere a large dead-black crow swooped, skimmed the tombstones, banked gracefully, and then soared upward to vanish over the rooftop of Mrs. Binney’s Cape Cod house. The faint ping of balls meeting rackets came up to us from the tennis courts, while from beyond them the shrill cries of youngsters playing baseball on the diamond in the park drifted.
“I’d like to be buried under a tree,” Norbie remarked.
“Really? Why?” I asked.
“Because of the shade in the summer. And in the autumn it would be nice too, with all the leaves on top of you.”
“Yes,” I said, pleased to hear him utter so poetic a statement. “But then, trees are predatory.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, perplexed.
“Well, Norb,” I began, crossing one leg over the other to make myself comfortable, “I read recently of a strange business that took place in Rhode Island about a hundred years ago. Some minister there was anxious to locate the grave of Roger Williams, the Colonial leader who founded the state. After a good deal of poring over church records he was able at last to pinpoint the plot. Not satisfied with that, the reverend gentleman—succumbing to a gnawing curiosity—enlisted the help of the sexton and proceeded to open the grave. The shape of the ancient coffin was there, all right. It was traced in a black line of carbonaceous material, the decayed wood, with here and there a smear of red powder to show where the nails and hinges had been. There were a few fragments of cloth as well, still in existence after two hundred years of burial.”
I licked my lips, cleared my throat, and went on. “Next to the plot stood an apple tree, old and garled. One of its principal roots extended into the grave, having pushed through the soil like a probing finger until it reached the exact spot occupied by Roger Williams’ head. There it made a turn as if to go around the skull, and followed the direction of the backbone down to the hips.”
“Jesus,” Norbie murmured.
I went on. “Beyond the hips, it divided into two branches, sending one along each leg as far as the heel, where the ends curved up to the toes.”
“Is this a gag?” he asked skeptically.
“No, not at all. It’s supposed to be a true story,” I assured him. “I believe it myself. It’s entirely plausible.”
“Yeah, Al? Then what happened?”
“Nothing else, really. One of the root branches formed a slight crook at the knee, giving the whole thing a close resemblance to a human figure; and another ramification of the root—about where the left hand would’ve been—had grown through a gold finger ring.”
“Honest to Pete?”
I nodded. “And that’s all there was in the grave—not a bone, not a lock of hair, not a particle of human dust. The organic substance of the man had been consumed by the apple tree. All the proteins and minerals had been transmuted into the fiber, the leaves, the buds and blossoms of the ghoulish plant. More than that, Norb—it had gone into the fruit, too. Who, I wonder, had eaten those apples? Or, to put it another way—who had eaten Roger Williams?”
My fat friend made no immediate comment. He studied my face as though searching for some further elucidation in its expression. At any moment
, I felt sure, he would say, “That’s weird!” and shake his head doubtfully.
But he didn’t. Instead he began to laugh. From a soft chuckle like the gurgling of a meager mountain stream, he graduated swiftly to a booming roar comparable in amplitude to the sound of the plunging Niagara River or the catapulting Zambesi. Repeatedly he slapped his thighs, until the lard that swaddled his body was all aquiver. What a look of pure glee he had! No giant, papier-mâché carnival head ever bore half so merry an aspect. His plump cheeks grew crimson from hilarity, his huge eyes sparkled like globes of soda water, while his long mouth described a rosy crescent of joy.
At that instant the two of us might have been again in the wardroom of the Davoran, or at the Top of the Mark in San Francisco with our pal, Larry, and some of our other shipmates. Yes, that was just how it felt. His Jovian laughter turned the clock back almost thirty years for me, erased half a lifetime and excised each of the slow weeks and forlorn months since the Second World War. My old affection for him—every bit of it—returned in a rush, crowding my heart.
His mirth subsided finally. He clutched his midriff, which was domed like a Florentine cathedral, and gasped, “By God, buddy—that beats everything. That’s a dilly—a dilly, Al! Jesus! Yes siree! The first time in history, I’ll bet a dollar, that an apple ever ate a man!”
He giggled some more. The St. Aidan church bells commenced to chime, augmenting the festiveness of the occasion.
“And you really think it’s true?” Norbie asked.
“Certainly,” I replied.
“Well, hell! I think I’ll still be buried under a tree. Why not? That way I’ll have a chance of coming back to life—right, Al?”
“Absolutely!” I acknowledged, nodding.
It was then that the front-door buzzer sounded, and I got up from the bench to see who it was.
The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton Page 6