Sexus: The Rosy Crucifixion, Book I

by Henry Miller

  We brushed ourselves off and started back towards the house once again. At the corner she stopped dead in her tracks and, turning round to face me squarely, she said with a smile that was almost ugly—And now for the dirt!

  I looked at her in amazement. What do you mean? What are you talking about?

  I mean, she said, never relinquishing that strange grimace, that I need fifty dollars. I must have it tomorrow. I must. I must.... Now do you see why I didn't want you to take me home?

  Why did you hesitate to ask me for it? Don't you think I can raise fifty dollars if you need it badly?

  But I need it at once. Can you get a sum like that by noon? Don't ask me what it's for—it's urgent, very urgent. Do you think you can do it? Will you promise?

  Why of course I can, I answered, wondering as I said so where in hell I would get it in such quick time.

  You're wonderful, she said, seizing my two hands and squeezing them warmly. I do hate to ask you. I know you have no money. I'm always asking for money—that seems to be all I can do—get money for others. I hate it, but there's nothing else to do. You trust me, don't you? I'll give it back to you in a week.

  Don't talk that way, Mara. I don't want it back. If you're in need I want you to tell me. I may be poor but I can raise money too now and then. I wish I could do more. I wish I could take you out of that damned place—I don't like seeing you there.

  Don't talk about that now, please. Go home and get some sleep. Meet me at twelve-thirty to-morrow in front of the drug store at Times Square. That's where we met before, you remember? God, I didn't know then how much you would mean to me. I took you for a millionaire. You won't disappoint me to-morrow—you're sure?

  I'm sure, Mara.

  Money always has to be raised in jig time and paid back at regular stipulated intervals, either by promises or in cash. I think I could raise a million dollars if I were given enough time, and by that I don't mean sidereal time but the ordinary clock time of days, months, years. To raise money quickly, however, even carfare, is the most difficult task one can set me. From the time I left school I have begged and borrowed almost continuously. I've often spent a whole day trying to raise a dime; at other times I've had fat bills thrust into my hand without even opening my mouth. I don't know any more about the art of borrowing now than I did when I started. I know there are certain people whom you must never, not under any circumstances, ask for help. There are others again who will refuse you ninety-nine times and yield on the hundredth, and perhaps never again refuse you. There are some whom you reserve for the real emergency, knowing that you can rely on them, and when the emergency comes and you go to them you are cruelly deceived.. There isn't a soul on earth who can be relied on absolutely. For a quick, generous touch the man you met only recently, the one who scarcely knows you, is usually a pretty safe bet. Old friends are the worst: they are heartless and incorrigible. Women, too, as a rule, are usually callous and indifferent. Now and then you think of some one you know would come across, if you persisted, but the thought of the prying and prodding is so disagreeable that you wipe him out of your mind. The old are often, like that, probably because of bitter experience .

  To borrow successfully one has to be a monomaniac on the subject, as with everything else. If you can give yourself up to it, as with Yoga exercises, that is to say, whole-heartedly, without squeamish-ness or reservations of any kind, you can live your whole life without earning an honest penny. Naturally the price is too great. In a pinch the best single quality is desperation. The best course is the unusual one. It is easier, for example, to borrow from one who is your inferior than from an equal or from one who is above you. It's also very important to be willing to compromise yourself, not to speak of lowering yourself, which is a sine qua non. The man who borrows is always a culprit, always a potential thief. Nobody ever gets back what he lent, even if the sum is paid with interest. The man who exacts his pound of flesh is always short-changed, even if by nothing more than rancor or hatred. Borrowing is a positive thing, lending negative. To be a borrower may be uncomfortable, but it is also exhilarating, instructive, life-like. The borrower pities the lender, though he must often put up with his insults and injuries.

  Fundamentally borrower and lender are one and the same. That is why no amount of philosophizing can eradicate the evil. They are made for one another, just as man and woman are made for each other. No matter how fantastic the need, no matter how crazy the terms, there will always be a man to lend an ear, to fork up the necessary. A good borrower goes about his task like a good criminal. His first principle is never to expect something for nothing. He doesn't want to know how to get the money on the least terms but exactly the contrary. When the right men meet there is a minimum of talk. They take each other at face value, as we say. The ideal lender is the realist who knows that to-morrow the situation may be reversed and the borrower become the lender.

  There was only one person I knew who could see it in the right light and that was my father. He was the one I always held in reserve for the crucial moment. And he was the only one I never failed to pay back. Not only did he never refuse me but he inspired me to give to others in the same way. Every time I borrowed from him I became a better lender—or I should say giver, because I've never insisted on being repaid. There is only one way to repay kindnesses and that is to be kind in turn to those who come to you in distress. To repay a debt is utterly unnecessary, so far as the cosmic bookkeeping is concerned. (All others forms of bookkeeping are wasteful and anachronistic.) Neither a borrower nor a lender be, said the good Shakespeare, voicing a wish-fulfillment out of his Utopian dream life. For men on earth, borrowing and lending is not only essential but should be increased to outlandish proportions. The fellow who is really practical is the fool who looks neither to the left nor the right, who gives without question and asks unblushingly.

  To make it short, I went to my old man and without beating about the bush I asked him for fifty dollars. To my surprise he didn't have that much in the bank but he informed me quickly that he could borrow it from one of the other tailors. I asked him if he would be good enough to do that for me and he said sure, of course, just a minute.

  I'll give it back to you in a week or so, I said, as I was saying good-bye.

  Don't worry about that, he replied, any time will do. I hope everything's all right with you otherwise.

  At twelve-thirty sharp I handed Mara the money. She ran off at once, promising to meet me the next day in the garden of the Pagoda Tea Room. I thought it a good day to make a little touch for myself and so I trotted off to Costigan's office to ask for a five spot. He was out, but one of the clerks, suspecting the nature of my errand, volunteered to help me out. He said he wanted to thank me for what I had done for his cousin. Cousin? I couldn't think who his cousin might be. Don't you remember the boy you took to the psychiatric clinic? he said. He was a. runaway boy from Kentucky—his father was a tailor, remember? You telegraphed his father that you would take care of the boy until he arrived. That was my cousin.

  I remembered that lad very well. He wanted to be an actor—his glands were out of order. At the clinic they said he was an incipient criminal. He had stolen some clothes belonging to a buddy of his while at the Newsboy's Home. He was a fine lad, more of a poet than an actor. If his glands were out of order then mine were completely disorganized. He had given the psychiatrist a kick in the balls for his pains—that's why they had tried to make him out a criminal. When I heard about it I laughed my head off. He should have used a blackjack on that sadistic Jake of a psychiatrist.... Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise to find I had an unknown friend in the wardrobe attendant. Nice, too, to hear him say I could have more any time I was in need of a little change. In the street I bumped into an ex-wardrobe attendant now working as a messenger. He insisted on giving me two tickets for a ball to be run under the auspices of the Magicians and Conjurors’ Association of New York City of which he was the president. I wish you could get me a wardrobe attendant's
job again, he said. I have so many things to attend to now since I'm president of the Association that I can't do justice to the messenger work. Besides, my wife is going to have another baby soon. Why don't you come up to see us—I have some new tricks to show you. The little boy is learning to be a ventriloquist; I'm going to put him on the stage in a year or so. We have to make a living somehow. You know, magic doesn't pay very much. And I'm getting too old to run my feet down too much. I was cut out for the professional life. You understand my personal capabilities and idiosyncrasies. If you come to the ball I'm going to introduce you to the great Thurston—he's promised to be there. I've got to go now—I've got a death message to deliver.

  You understand my personal capabilities and idiosyncrasies. I stood at the corner and wrote it down on the back of an envelope. Seventeen years ago. Here it is. Fuchs was his name. Gerhardt Fuchs of FU Office. Same name as that of the hundski picker in Glendale where Joey and Tony lived. Used to meet this other Fuchs coming through the cemetery grounds, a sack of dog, bird and cat shit over his shoulder. Brought it to a perfumery house somewhere. Always smelt like a skunk. A foul, evil-minded bugger, one the original tribe of blind Hessians. Fuchs and Kunz—two obscene birds who could be seen drinking every night in Laubscher's Beer Garden near the Fresh Pond Road. Kunz was tubercular, a dermatologist by profession. They talked a bird and skin language over their stinking pots of beer. Ridgewood was their Mecca (1). Never spoke English unless they had to. Germany was their God and the Kaiser His spokesman. Well, bad ‘cess to them! May they die like dirty umlauts—if they haven't already. Funny, though, to find a pair of inseparable twins with names like that. Idiosyncratic, I should say....

  1) A German-American quarter in Brooklyn.

  3

  And now it's Saturday afternoon, the sun's out bright and strong, and I'm sipping some pale Chinese tea in Dr. Wuchee Hachee Tao's garden. He's just handed me a long poem about Mother written on fire-cracker paper. He looks like a superior type of man—not very communicable either. I'd like to ask him something about the original Tao but it so happens that at this point in time, retrogressively speaking, I haven't yet read the Tao Teh Ching. If I had read it I wouldn't need to ask him any questions—nor in all probability would I be sitting in his garden waiting for a woman named Mara. Had I been intelligent enough to have read that most illustrious and most elliptical piece of ancient wisdom I would have been spared a great many woes that befell me and which I am now about to relate.

  As I sit in the garden, B. C. 17, I have utterly different thoughts than these. To be quite honest, I can't recall a single one at this moment. I vaguely remember that I didn't like the poem about Mother—it struck me as being sheer crap. And what's more, I didn't like the Chink who wrote it—I remember that very distinctly. I know too that I was getting furious because it was beginning to look like another stand-up. (Had I imbibed a bit of Tao I would not have lost my temper. I would have sat there as contented as a cow, thankful that the sun was out and grateful to be alive.) To-day as I write this there is no sun and no Mara and, though I have not yet become a contented cow, I feel very much alive and at peace with the world.

  I hear the telephone ringing inside. A slatfaced Chink, probably a professor of philosophy, tells me in chopstick language that a lady wishes to speak to me on the telephone. It's Mara, and to believe her she's only just getting out of bed. Has a hangover, she informs me. So has Florrie. The two of them are sleeping it off in a hotel nearby. What hotel? She doesn't want to say. Just wait a half hour and she'll doll herself up. I don't feel like waiting another half hour. I'm in a bad mood. First it's the split and then it's a hang-over. And who else is in bed with her, I want to know. Couldn't possibly be a man whose name begins with a C, no? She doesn't like that. She doesn't allow anybody to talk to her that way. Well, I'm talking that way, do you hear? Tell me where you are and I'll be up to see you in a jiffy. If you don't want to say then to hell with you. I'm sick of.... Hello, hello! Mara!

  No answer. Well, that must have touched her to the quick. Florrie, that's the little bitch who's responsible for it. Florrie and her itchy fur-lined muff. What are you to think when all you ever hear about a girl is that she can't find a prick big enough to suit her? To look at her you'd think a good fuck would knock the slats out of her. About 103 in her stocking feet. A hundred and three pounds of insatiable flesh. A booze artist to boot. An Irish slut. A sluttee, if you ask me. Putting on a stage accent as if to pretend that she'd once been a Ziegfeld Follies girl.

  A week rolls by and no word from Mara. Then out of the blue a telephone call. She sounds depressed. Could I meet her for dinner somewhere, she wants to talk to me about something very important. There's a gravity in her voice which I haven't detected before.

  In the Village, as I'm hurrying to keep the appointment, who should I run into but Kronski. I try to wave him off but it's no go.

  What's the great hurry? he asks with that bland, sardonic grin he always summons at the wrong moment.

  I explain to him that I have a date.

  Are you going to eat?

  Yes, I'm going to eat, but alone, I say pointedly—

  Oh no you're not, Mister Miller. You need company, I can see that. You're not in such fine fettle to-day.... You look worried. It's not a woman, I hope?

  Listen, Kronski, I'm going to meet somebody and I don't want you around.

  Now, Mister Miller, how can you talk that way to an old friend? I insist on accompanying you. I'm going to buy the meal—you can't resist that, can you?

  I laughed in spite of myself. All right, shit, tag along then. Maybe I'll need your help. You're no good to me except in a pinch. Listen, don't start any funny work. I'm going to introduce you to the woman I'm in love with. She probably won't like your looks, but I want you to meet her anyway. Some day I'll marry her and, since I can't seem to get rid of you, she might as well begin to tolerate you now as later. I have a hunch you won't like her. This sounds very serious, Mister Miller. I'll have to take steps to protect you.

  If you start meddling I'll crown you, I answered, laughing savagely. About this person I'm in dead earnest. You never saw me that way before, did you? You can't believe it, eh? Well, just watch me. Tell you how earnest I am.... if you get in my way I'll murder you in cold blood.

  To my surprise Mara was already at the restaurant. She had chosen a lonely table in a dark corner. Mara, I said, this is an old friend, Dr. Kronski. He insisted on coming along. I hope you don't mind. To my astonishment she greeted him cordially. As for, Kronski, the moment he laid eyes on her he dropped his leer and banter. Even more impressive was his silence. Usually, when I presented him to a female, he became garrulous and made a sort of fluttering noise with his invisible wings.

  Mara too was unusually calm; her voice sounded soothing and hypnotic.

  We had scarcely given the order and exchanged a few polite words when Kronski, looking at Mara steadily and appealingly, said: Something has happened, something tragic, it seems to me. If you'd rather have me go I'll leave right now. To tell the truth, I'd prefer to stay. Perhaps I can be of help. I'm a friend of this guy and I'd like to be a friend of yours. I mean it sincerely.

  Rather touching, this. Mara, visibly moved, responded warmly.

  By all means stay, she said, extending her hand cross the table in token of trust and confidence. You make it easier for me to talk being here. I've heard a lot about you, but I don't think your friend did you justice, and she looked up at me reprovingly, then smiled warmly.

  No, said I quickly, it's true I never do give an honest picture of him. I turned to him. You know, Kronski, you have about the most unlovely character imaginable and yet...

  Come, come, he said, making a wry grimace, don't begin that Dostoievski line with me. I'm your evil genius, you were going to say. Yes, I do have some queer diabolical influence over you, but I'm not confused about you as you are about me. I sincerely like you. I'd do anything you asked if I thought you meant it—even if it brought har
m to some one I dearly loved. I put you above every one I know, why I can't say, because you certainly don't deserve it. Right now I'll confess I feel sad. I see that you love each other and I think you're meant for each other, but....