The City and the Pillar

by Gore Vidal

  Jim crossed the crowded living room, smiling at all the people who wanted to talk to him. He was surprised that he was popular. If only they knew. At the punch bowl he found himself face to face with his brother.

  John was tall and dark and he looked trim in his uniform. Jim disliked him as much as ever. He was astonishingly self-confident and everyone said that he was going “to make his mark” and he believed it, too. Politics was to be his career.

  “What’s up, Jim? It’s been a long time.” John’s voice was rich and deep; he had been drinking too much, Jim noticed. They exchanged greetings and perfunctory compliments. Then John indicated Sally. “She’s very nice, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. I like her.”

  “Shame Bob missed the party. You must be looking forward to seeing him again.”

  Jim wondered if John knew about him. His brother was shrewd and he obviously remembered how much Jim had seen of Bob when they were boys. But was that enough to make him suspicious? Or did it take one to know one? Jim smiled to himself at the thought. It often ran in families, they said. He gave his brother a speculative look.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Oh…nothing. I was just thinking. Well, I better get Sally her punch.”

  “Don’t get caught under any mistletoe,” said John in his deep mocking voice.

  “What took you so long?” Sally was pleasant. “I was afraid you’d deserted me.”

  “No, I was just talking to my brother.”

  “It must be wonderful to be back,” said Sally Ford.

  * * *

  —

  The day of the dinner came and Jim was nervous. He snapped at his mother when she told him that he should wear an overcoat, and he lost his temper with his brother, whose fountain pen in a bureau drawer had leaked all over his last white shirt. After a satisfactory row with John, Jim left the house.

  With pounding heart, Jim knocked on the door of the Mergendahl house. Bob opened it.

  In a daze, Jim shook hands, hardly able to speak.

  “How the hell are you?” Bob was saying. “Come on in and have a drink.” He led Jim into the living room. “The old folks are out for dinner and Sally’s upstairs doing something or other to the baby. Gosh, but it’s good to see you. You look the same. How’ve you been?”

  Jim’s voice was hoarse when he finally spoke. “Fine. I’ve been just fine. You look good, too.” And Bob did.

  Jim was surprised that he had forgotten what Bob looked like. He had always thought his mental picture of him as accurate, but apparently his memory was emotional, not literal. He had forgotten how dark Bob’s red hair was, and that he had freckles and that his mouth curved up at the corners and that his eyes were as blue as the Arctic Sea. Only the body was as he recalled it, long and slim and heavy in the chest. He looked good in uniform.

  They sat in front of the fireplace and Bob forgot to get the drinks. He too was taking inventory. Did he remember everything?

  “You just disappeared,” said Bob at last.

  “Me? You! I wrote you and wrote you but you were never where I sent the letters.”

  “Well, I was on the move a lot, like you.”

  “We both were.”

  “Hey, you met Sally yet? Since you been back?”

  “At the Christmas party.”

  “That’s right. I forgot. She invited you for tonight.”

  “She’s a wonderful girl.” Jim wanted to establish that at the beginning.

  “I’ll say! I’m glad you like each other. You didn’t really know her back at school, did you?”

  “No. But I remember you used to go around with her even then.”

  “So when are you getting married?” That question again.

  “Not for a while.”

  “You think you might come back here to live?”

  Jim nodded. “I think I might. You’ll be living here, won’t you?”

  “So they tell me. It looks like I’m going into the insurance business, with Sally’s father. Everybody thinks I’ll be good at it.”

  “But you’d rather be at sea?”

  Bob moved uneasily in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his long legs. “Well, I’ve been at sea almost ten years now and I’ve made a place for myself. It won’t be easy changing to land. But if Sally wants it…”

  “She wants it. But you don’t?”

  “Yes, I do.” Bob was defiant, even petulant. Then he shifted. “Well, maybe not.”

  “I don’t see what’s wrong with being a sailor, especially since you’re making good money. Why wouldn’t Sally like that?”

  “You know women. They want you where they can look at you all the time. She says she doesn’t feel she’s married when I’m gone.”

  “So you’ll settle here.”

  Bob nodded gloomily. “I’ll settle here. Oh, I’ll get used to it, all right. And I like the idea of being a family man.”

  “So I guess I’ll be moving back, maybe.”

  “That’d be swell, just like it used to be. Funny, I knew all kinds of girls here but I never did know any of the guys very well, except you. It’d be nice having at least one buddy in town. To play tennis with.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re too good for me. You’re a pro and I haven’t played for years. But it sure would be nice to play again.” He was nostalgic and Jim felt an instant of triumph. Bob would return to him, as easily, as naturally as he had gone with him the first time.

  “We had some good times when we were kids,” said Bob dreamily, looking into the fire. Jim looked, too. Yes, this was the way it had been: fire and the mood of firelight. It was going to happen again. He was certain of that.

  “We had a good time.” Jim vowed he would not mention the cabin first.

  “I wish sometimes that we had gone to the university together. The sea was probably a mistake, though fun. You only went because I did, didn’t you?”

  “That was one of the reasons.”

  “Do you think I…we made a mistake?”

  Jim studied the fire. “No,” he said finally. “We did what we were meant to do. I think it was natural for you to be a sailor and me to be a tennis player. We were never like the other people around here. We weren’t housebroken. We got away. They hate that. Only now we’re coming back.”

  Bob smiled. “You’re the only person who understands why I had to go to sea. Yes, we did do the right thing. But now is it right to come back? Can you come back to living in the same house, with the same people day after day? Is it possible?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know. Of course it’s easier for me. I can teach tennis here but you certainly can’t be a seaman on land. I guess you ought to do what you feel you have to do.” Jim spoke with something else in mind.

  Bob sighed. “I can’t make up my mind.”

  Jim wanted to help but he could not. “Wait,” he said. “Wait until something happens. Something always does.”

  They were silent before the fire. Jim could hear the muffled sound of a baby crying upstairs, Bob’s baby.

  “How’s your father?” asked Jim finally.

  “Dead. Last month.”

  “Did you see him before he died?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t he want to see you?”

  “He was crazy, they say. He’d been crazy for the last five years. It wouldn’t have done any good. Besides, I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t care if he died or not.” Bob was matter of fact, all bitterness gone. “You got a girl, Jim?” he asked suddenly.

  “No.”

  “That sounds like you. Still shy with women. But you ought to find yourself one. Changing around wears a guy out.”

  “Maybe I’ll find somebody when I come back here.”

  “And then we’ll be two married men. Gosh, we never thoug
ht of ourselves being that old, did we?”

  “No, never.”

  “And in a few years we’ll be middle-aged and then old and then dead.”

  “Morbid, isn’t it?” They both laughed. Then Sally came into the room.

  “Hello, Jim.”

  “How’s the baby?” asked Bob.

  “Asleep. Thank God! Bob! you haven’t given Jim a drink.”

  “Sorry. What do you want?”

  “Nothing, thanks.”

  “Then we’ll go in to dinner,” said Sally.

  The dinner was good and they talked of the townspeople and their families and about the war in Germany. In the intimacy of the family dining room, Jim was completely at peace. He would not have to make a move. The thing was happening of its own accord. Soon Bob would be with him. And, sure enough, it was Bob who maneuvered their lives into conjunction. “I think I’ll be up in New York during May. Let’s get together then and have one last fling before the old prison doors shut!”

  Sally smiled indulgently.

  Jim said, “That’d be wonderful. I’ll give you my address and you call me as soon as you get to town.”

  III

  THAT SPRING JIM TRIED to exhaust himself in work so that he would not think of Bob. But it was difficult. Nor did matters improve when May came and went and there was no word from Bob. Finally he wrote Sally, who told him that Bob was still at sea and wasn’t it just awful? But at least the war was finally over and the Merchant Marine could not keep him much longer.

  A year late Bob appeared at Jim’s apartment. They shook hands as though they had seen each other only the day before.

  “Swell place you got.” Bob looked approvingly at the apartment. “Won’t you hate to give this up for Virginia?”

  “I haven’t given it up yet.” Jim smiled.

  Bob sat in a chair and stretched his long legs. He still wore a uniform. “Swell place,” he murmured again.

  “When are you getting out?”

  Bob frowned. “Damned if I know. I have a chance now to get master’s papers. That’s something at my age, and I hate turning it down.”

  “But Sally?”

  “That’s just it…but Sally. I don’t know what I’m going to do. She wants me home.”

  “And you don’t want to go?”

  “No.”

  “Well, don’t. It’s your life. If you’re happy at sea, stay there. Sally isn’t the first woman to marry a sailor.”

  Bob nodded. “That’s what I said to her but she’s so damned set on my staying put. Her family, too. Sometimes I think it’s her family more than her. She seems happy enough with the baby. I don’t think she’d miss me all that much.”

  “You’ll have to make up your own mind,” said Jim, who preferred Bob to be at sea. They would be separated for long periods, but then he would be separated from Sally too. “How about dinner?”

  They went to an Italian restaurant and drank a flask of Chianti between them. Soon the circle would close.

  “Where do you want to go?” asked Jim when they had finished.

  “I don’t care. Anyplace I can get drunk.”

  “There’s a bar I know.”

  They walked through the warm night air to a bar where men hunted men. Jim was curious to see how Bob would react. They took a table and ordered whiskey. There were enough women present to disguise to the casual observer the nature of the place.

  Bob looked about him. “Not too many women here,” he said at last.

  “No, not so many. Do you want one?”

  Bob laughed. “Hey, I’m a married man. Remember?”

  “That’s why I brought you here. No temptation.”

  They drank and talked. Their old intimacy was resumed, which meant that Bob did most of the talking, while Jim listened and waited. Bob talked of life at sea, and Jim watched the comedy at the bar. An Air Force pilot would squeeze in beside a sailor. They would talk, legs pressed together. Then they would leave, faces flushed, eyes bright. Youth drawn to youth, unlike the sad old men, eager but unattractive, who tried first one boy, then another; inured to rebuff, they searched always for that exceptional type which liked old men, or money.

  “That’s sort of a queer-looking crowd,” said Bob suddenly, motioning to the bar.

  “Just New York.” Jim was a little frightened. Suppose Bob panicked? Had he overplayed his hand?

  “I guess that is New York. Full of queers. They seem to be everywhere now. Even onboard ship. Once I had a skipper who was, but he never bothered me. He liked niggers. I guess it takes all kinds. Want another drink?” Bob ordered another round.

  Jim was relieved at Bob’s display of tolerance.

  “You know any women?” asked Bob finally. “I mean just to talk to. Sally’d kill me if I ever did anything else. That’s why, believe it or not, I’ve only shacked up with one other woman since I married, which is a pretty good record. No, I just mean girls for company.”

  “Yes. But they’d be all tied up this late.”

  “I guess it’s pretty short notice. Of course I know a few numbers. Maybe I ought to call them.”

  Jim thought it wise to make no protest.

  “Let’s go over to my hotel.” Bob stood up. “I’ll call from there.” They paid for their drinks and left the bar. Envious eyes watched them depart.

  They crossed Times Square. Hot windless night. Lights flashing. People everywhere. The mood jubilant, postwar. Bob’s hotel was on a side street. They went straight to his room. As Jim stepped inside, he was suddenly overwhelmed by Bob’s physical reality. Clothes were strewn about the floor, a damp towel hung from the bathroom door, the bed was a tangle of sheets, and over the harsh odor of disinfectant and dust, Jim was aware of Bob’s own smell, to him erotic.

  “Kind of a mess,” said Bob mechanically. “I’m not very neat. Sally always gets mad at the way I throw things around.” He went to the telephone and placed several calls. No one was home. Finally, he put the receiver down and grinned. “I guess I was meant to be good tonight. So let’s get drunk. Might as well be drunk as the way we are.” He took a bottle from his suitcase and poured two drinks. “Here’s how.” He drank his shot at a gulp. Jim merely tasted the whiskey. He had to keep clearheaded.

  As they drank beneath the harsh unshaded light of a single electric bulb, the room became stifling with summer heat. They took off their shirts. Bob’s body was still muscular and strong, the skin smooth and white, not freckled, unlike most redheads.

  The duet began pianissimo.

  “You remember the old slave cabin?” asked Jim.

  “Down by the river? Sure.”

  “We had a lot of fun there.”

  “I’ll say. There was a pond, too, wasn’t there? Where we swam?”

  Jim nodded. “Remember the last time we were there?”

  “No, I don’t think I do.”

  Could he have forgotten? Impossible. “Sure you remember. The weekend before you went North. Right after you graduated.”

  Bob nodded. “Yeah, I kind of remember.” He frowned. “We…we fooled around quite a bit, didn’t we?”

  Yes, he remembered. Now it would happen. “Yes. Kind of fun, wasn’t it?”

  Bob chuckled.

  “I guess we were just a couple of little queers at heart.”

  “Did you ever…well, do that again, with anybody else?”

  “Any other guy? Hell, no. Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s have another drink.”

  Soon they were both drunk and Bob said that he was sleepy. Jim said that he was, too, and that he had better go home, but Bob insisted that he spend the night with him. They threw their clothes on the floor. Wearing only shorts, they tumbled onto the unmade bed. Bob lay sprawled on his back, arm across his face, apparently unconscious. Jim stared at him: was h
e really asleep? Boldly, Jim put his hand on Bob’s chest. The skin was as smooth as he remembered. Lightly he touched the stray coppery hairs which grew below the deep-set navel. Then, carefully, like a surgeon performing a delicate operation, he unbuttoned Bob’s shorts. Bob stirred, but did not wake, as Jim opened wide the shorts to reveal thick blond pubic hair from which sprouted the pale quarry. Slowly his hand closed around Bob’s sex. He held him for what seemed a long time. Held him, until he looked up to find that the other was awake and watching him. Jim’s heart stopped for a full beat.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” The voice was hard. Jim could not speak. Obviously the world was ending. His hand remained frozen where it was. Bob pushed him. But he could not move.

  “Let go of me, you queer.”

  Plainly a nightmare, Jim decided. None of this could be happening. But when Bob struck him hard in the face, the pain recalled him. Jim drew back. Bob leapt to his feet and stood, swaying drunkenly, fumbling with buttons. “Now will you get the hell out of here?”

  Jim touched his face where he had been struck. His head still rang from the blow. Was he bleeding?

  “Get out, you hear me?” Bob moved toward him, menacingly, fist ready. Suddenly, overwhelmed equally by rage and desire, Jim threw himself at Bob. They grappled. They fell across the bed. Bob was strong but Jim was stronger. Grunting and grasping, they twisted and turned, struck out with arms, legs, but Bob was no match for Jim and, at the end, he lay facedown on the bed, arm bent behind him, sweating and groaning. Jim looked down at the helpless body, wanting to do murder. Deliberately he twisted the arm he held. Bob cried out. Jim was excited at the other’s pain. What to do? Jim frowned. Drink made concentration difficult. He looked at the heaving body beneath him, the broad back, ripped shorts, long muscled legs. One final humiliation: with his free hand, Jim pulled down the shorts, revealing white, hard, hairless buttocks. “Jesus,” Bob whispered. “Don’t. Don’t.”

  Finished, Jim lay on the still body, breathing hard, drained of emotion, conscious that the thing was done, the circle completed, and finished.