The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze

by William Saroyan

  “Dream?” said Badal. “Well, that is something. Assyrians cannot even dream any more. Why, do you know how many of us are left on earth?”

  “Two or three million,” I suggested.

  “Seventy thousand,” said Badal. “That is all. Seventy thousand Assyrians in the world, and the Arabs are still killing us. They killed seventy of us in a little uprising last month. There was a small paragraph in the paper. Seventy more of us destroyed. We’ll be wiped out before long. My brother is married to an American girl and he has a son. There is no more hope. We are trying to forget Assyria. My father still reads a paper that comes from New York, but he is an old man. He will be dead soon.”

  Then his voice changed, he ceased speaking as an Assyrian and began to speak as a barber: “Have I taken enough off the top?” he asked.

  The rest of the story is pointless. I said so long to the young Assyrian and left the shop. I walked across town, four miles, to my room on Carl Street. I thought about the whole business: Assyria and this Assyrian, Theodore Badal, learning to be a barber, the sadness of his voice, the hopelessness of his attitude. This was months ago, in August, but ever since I have been thinking about Assyria, and I have been wanting to say something about Theodore Badal, a son of an ancient race, himself youthful and alert, yet hopeless. Seventy thousand Assyrians, a mere seventy thousand of that great people, and all the others quiet in death and all the greatness crumbled and ignored, and a young man in America learning to be a barber, and a young man lamenting bitterly the course of history.

  Why don’t I make up plots and write beautiful love stories that can be made into motion pictures? Why don’t I let these unimportant and boring matters go hang? Why don’t I try to please the American reading public?

  Well, I am an Armenian. Michael Arlen is an Armenian, too. He is pleasing the public. I have great admiration for him, and I think he has perfected a very fine style of writing and all that, but I don’t want to write about the people he likes to write about. Those people were dead to begin with. You take Iowa and the Japanese boy and Theodore Badal, the Assyrian; well, they may go down physically, like Iowa, to death, or spiritually, like Badal, to death, but they are of the stuff that is eternal in man and it is this stuff that interests me. You don’t find them in bright places, making witty remarks about sex and trivial remarks about art. You find them where I found them, and they will be there forever, the race of man, the part of man, of Assyria as much as of England, that cannot be destroyed, the part that massacre does not destroy, the part that earthquake and war and famine and madness and everything else cannot destroy.

  This work is in tribute to Iowa, to Japan, to Assyria, to Armenia, to the race of man everywhere, to the dignity of that race, the brotherhood of things alive. I am not expecting Paramount Pictures to film this work. I am thinking of seventy thousand Assyrians, one at a time, alive, a great race. I am thinking of Theodore Badal, himself seventy thousand Assyrians and seventy million Assyrians, himself Assyria, and man, standing in a barber shop, in San Francisco, in 1933, and being, still, himself, the whole race.

  Among the Lost

  At a table in a far corner of the room Paul smoked a cigarette, looking into New Bearings in English Poetry, absorbing random phrases, accuse him of sentimental evasions . . . meditations upon a deterministic universe. . . . Hardy’s great poetry . . . the impulse . . . Ezra Pound . . . Hugh Selwyn Mauberly. . . .

  He slipped the small book into his coat pocket and walked beyond the swinging doors, into Number One Opera Alley. Red, the bookie-clerk was telling a fellow how once, three years ago, he had been stabbed by a crazy Russian who had lost twenty dollars on the ponies. A month in the hospital, Red said. We didn’t prosecute because it would have given the “Kentucky” a bad name. The Russian cried and said he would never come down to Third Street again, so we let it go at that. For a while they thought I was going to die.

  He grinned tightly, smiling. This place is like home, he said. The boys caught him at the Examiner corner. My friends, all the boys who know me. They were going to kill him.

  Red looked around to see if anyone was listening. Do you know, he said, when I was in the hospital I worried about that crazy Russian? He came into this place all of a sudden and started to make bets, the craziest bets you ever did see a man make, long shots, impossible horses. I told him once or twice to take it easy, but he was out to make a killing. Then he went broke and sat on that bench over there, looking at me. I could tell he was going nuts, but I didn’t know he had a knife. I thought he might make a pass at me and I would let him have one on the chin. When the races were over and all the fellows had beat it, he was still sitting on the bench, looking at me. Then I knew he was nuts. He got me right below the heart, but do you know, after he had stuck the knife in me, I began to worry about him. I had an idea I would get over the wound all right, but this nut, this Russian, the way he looked after he had done it. He began to jabber in Russian, and then he beat it down the alley, with Pat and Brown chasing him.

  Paul went over to Red. You never told me that story, he said. What did you think, right after he stabbed you?

  I didn’t think anything, Red said. I began to swear because I had planned to go out to the beach with my wife that night. It made me sore because I wouldn’t be able to go out to the beach. I knew it was a cut that would send me to the hospital, and I began to swear.

  Through the swinging doors Paul returned to the table in the corner, waiting for Lambough. Smithy, whose neck was as fat as his head, walked among the card tables, crying out every now and then, Seat here for a player . . . one more seat. Paul watched the men coming and going, counting their nickels, talking to themselves, the way it is with petty gamblers. He opened the book again, coming upon existlessness, modulation, shift of stress and rhyme. Then he rose and sauntered about the room, studying the men and remembering fragments of their talk. There is a horse in the seventh at Latonia, Dark Sea. I like Foxhall. Yesterday, three winners, but I was broke. A small fortune.

  The small Irish waiter, called Alabama, was carrying coffee to a table, looking dully at nothing and asking: How many sugars?

  Paul stood in the smoke, waiting for Lambough. It was almost eleven and the appointment was for ten-thirty. Paul handed his package of cigarettes to a thin consumptive Jew. Take several, he suggested, and the Jew smiled and asked how it had been with Paul.

  Graceless, said Paul. The Jew groaned and lit a cigarette.

  I sell flowers in the streets, he said, and there is a law against it. Saturday night they took me to jail. I just got out. Two nights. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I felt dirty. All night the men yell. Is it wrong to sell flowers?

  Hardly, said Paul. Tell me about the jail.

  He led the way to the table in the corner, and the Jew sat across from him.

  It is not for us, that place, the Jew said. They put me in a cesspool with three others. One was a beggar. I don’t know what the others were, but they looked bad. I don’t mean they were criminals. Bad, they themselves. All night I felt like a man in a room with frogs, warty things, and I kept holding the door and crying. I am ashamed. It is not often that I cry, but it was rotten. In another cell . . . but it is too rotten.

  Go ahead, said Paul. I’ve never been in jail. Tell me what it is like.

  In the next room, said the Jew, were two pansies. And the other two men, they were talking to those fellows . . . I mean whispering and begging, and the pansies were saying no, just like cheap women. I didn’t know men were really that way. I thought it was just talk, joking. And in all the rooms was that dirty laughter. I was sick all the time, and I had no cigarettes.

  What food did they bring you? Paul asked.

  Slop . . . dirt . . .

  Bread?

  Yes, bread, but I couldn’t eat. Only the bread was fit to eat, but I was too sick.

  Do you remember any of the things the men said at night? Did they sing?

  Yes, said the Jew.

  Any religiou
s songs?

  Yes, religious, with dirty words.

  Did anyone pray?

  I heard only cussing, said the Jew.

  Across the room Paul saw Lambough walking slowly, holding a copy of the morning paper. He came soberly to the table and sat down without a word.

  This man just got out of jail, Paul said. He sells flowers. They put him in Saturday.

  Lambough glanced at the Jew and asked him if he felt all right. It seemed to him that the Jew must be very ill.

  I feel better, the Jew said. Anything is better than that place.

  What are you going to do? Lambough asked.

  The Jew coughed. I’ll try again. If they catch me, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t beg.

  Paul said to Lambough, How much money have we?

  I’ve got sixty cents, Lambough said.

  The Jew got to his feet. Thanks for the cigarettes, he said to Paul.

  We’re almost broke, Paul said. Can you use a quarter?

  He brought some small change from his pants pocket.

  Thanks, said the Jew. I’ll try again. If they come after me, I’ll run.

  He hurried away from the table in confusion. Lambough watched him walk away. Everybody around here is either sick or cracked, he said. That poor fellow is ready to keel. What’d he say?

  Nearly killed him, the jail, said Paul.

  I went up to a place on Jones Street, said Lambough. They had an ad in the paper for a student to work for room and board. I didn’t get the job.

  But you are a student, said Paul. You had a right to go up. By the way, what are you studying?

  Starvation, said Lambough. Sure I’m a student. I felt lucky not to get the job, though. It was a cheap rooming house. They hired a Willy from Manila.

  What’s on your mind? Paul asked.

  Nothing, as usual, said Lambough. I’m just killing time.

  Do you think we’ll ever get jobs?

  Oh, said Lambough, it’s a cinch.

  So it looks bad, said Paul.

  Well, said Lambough, it doesn’t look good. Everything looks the same as ever, only more well-dressed men are begging in the streets. I had a talk with that girl up on Eddy Street. We get to sleep in the waiting-room again if business is slow.

  How was she? said Paul.

  Who? said Lambough. The girl? Oh, fine; she looked all right.

  What can you think of to talk about? Paul asked.

  You know me, said Lambough. One thing or the next. I know a little about everything.

  Paul slipped New Bearings in English Poetry from his coat pocket. What do you know about English poetry? he asked Lambough.

  What? said Lambough. You don’t want to go on discussing economics?

  Nuts, said Paul. We covered all that.

  Yes, said Lambough, but what has English poetry got to do with us?

  Nothing has anything much to do with us, said Paul. We’re a bit out of the picture at the moment. So you don’t know anything about English poetry? Did you ever hear of T. S. Eliot?

  No, said Lambough. What about him?

  Well, said Paul, he is a pretty fine poet.

  Well, what of it? said Lambough. Who cares?

  I mean, said Paul, if you knew something about him, we could talk and kill time. As it is, tell me about Ireland. You’re Irish, aren’t you?

  Sure I’m Irish, said Lambough, but what the hell, I was born in Kansas. I’ve never seen Ireland.

  All right, said Paul. Tell me how you imagine Ireland to be. It’s a long time till midnight. We’ve got to talk about something. Ireland is a good subject.

  He began to listen to Lambough explaining that he knew nothing about Ireland, except maybe what he had gathered from Irish songs, most of them written in America by Jews and others. Once every year, he thought, while Lambough talked, to be among the lost, to know how it feels to be out of things, to have no present, no future, to belong nowhere, to be suspended between day and night, waiting.

  At midnight, he thought, I will go with this boy to that waiting-room and try to sleep in a chair, Smithy shouting, Seat here for a player . . . one more seat, and the petty gamblers coming and going, Lambough talking in the morning about Ireland, the sick Jew in jail, Red stabbed by the crazy Russian, sentimental evasions, the winter evening settles down with smell of steaks in passageways, meditations upon a deterministic universe, the readers of the Boston Evening Transcript, the impulse, when Mr. Apollinax visited the United States his laughter tinkled among the teacups, the day dwindling amid talk, the country perishing, all the young men waiting, hunger marches, as she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter, Ezra Pound, the American in France, an old man in a dry month, being read to by a boy, waiting for rain, defunctive music under sea, the smoky candle end of time declines, democratic progress, the Jew in jail, holding the door and crying, in the beginning was the Word, for Ezra Pound il miglior fabbro, the small Jew weeping, a flower peddler among beggars and homo-sexuals, meditations amid the smoke and ruins of a deterministic universe, the crazy Russian running down Opera Alley, and Red bleeding, wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh, the little Jew standing in the filth, holding the door and weeping, everyone waiting everywhere, there will be time to murder and create, and indeed there will be time, there will be time, a young man listening to the talk of another young man, waiting for national recovery, time to murder and create.

  Myself

  upon the

  Earth

  A beginning is always difficult, for it is no simple matter to choose from language the one bright word which shall live forever; and every articulation of the solitary man is but a single word. Every poem, story, novel and essay, just as every dream is a word from that language we have not yet translated, that vast unspoken wisdom of night, that grammarless, lawless vocabulary of eternity. The earth is vast. And with the earth all things are vast, the skyscraper and the blade of grass. The eye will magnify if the mind and soul will allow. And the mind may destroy time, brother of death, and brother, let us remember, of life as well. Vastest of all is the ego, the germ of humanity, from which is born God and the universe, heaven and hell, the earth, the face of man, my face and your face; our eyes. For myself, I say with piety, rejoice.

  I am a young man in an old city. It is morning and I am in a small room. I am standing over a bundle of yellow writing paper, the only sort of paper I can afford, the kind that sells at the rate of one hundred and seventy sheets for ten cents. All this paper is bare of language, clean and perfect, and I am a young writer about to begin my work. It is Monday . . . September 25, 1933 . . . how glorious it is to be alive, to be still living. (I am an old man; I have walked along many streets, through many cities, through many days and many nights. And now I have come home to myself. Over me, on the wall of this small, disordered room, is the photograph of my dead father, and I have come up from the earth with his face and his eyes and I am writing in English what he would have written in our native tongue. And we are the same man, one dead and one alive.) Furiously I am smoking a cigarette, for the moment is one of great importance to me, and therefore of great importance to everyone. I am about to place language, my language, upon a clean sheet of paper, and I am trembling. It is so much of a responsibility to be a user of words. I do not want to say the wrong thing. I do not want to be clever. I am horribly afraid of this. I have never been clever in life, and now that I have come to a labor even more magnificent than living itself I do not want to utter a single false word. For months I have been telling myself, “You must be humble. Above all things, you must be humble.” I am determined not to lose my character.

  I am a story-teller, and I have but a single story—man. I want to tell this simple story in my own way, forgetting the rules of rhetoric, the tricks of composition. I have something to say and I do not wish to speak like Balzac. I am not an artist; I do not really believe in civilization. I am not at all enthusiastic about progress. When a great bridge is built I do no
t cheer, and when airplanes cross the Atlantic I do not think, “What a marvelous age this is!” I am not interested in the destiny of nations, and history bores me. What do they mean by history, those who write it and believe in it? How has it happened that man, that humble and lovable creature, has been exploited for the purpose of monstrous documents? How has it happened that his solitude has been destroyed, his godliness herded into a hideous riot of murder and destruction? And I do not believe in commerce. I regard all machinery as junk, the adding-machine, the automobile, the railway engine, the airplane, yes, and the bicycle. I do not believe in transportation, in going places with the body, and I would like to know where anyone has ever gone. Have you ever left yourself? Is any journey so vast and interesting as the journey of the mind through life? Is the end of any journey so beautiful as death?

  I am interested only in man. Life I love, and before death I am humble. I cannot fear death because it is purely physical. Is it not true that today both I and my father are living, and that in my flesh is assembled all the past of man? But I despise violence and I hate bitterly those who perpetrate and practise it. The injury of a living man’s small finger I regard as infinitely more disastrous and ghastly than his natural death. And when multitudes of men are hurt to death in wars I am driven to a grief which borders on insanity. I become impotent with rage. My only weapon is language, and while I know it is stronger than machine-guns, I despair because I cannot single-handed annihilate the notion of destruction which propagandists awaken in men. I myself, however, am a propagandist, and in this very story I am trying to restore man to his natural dignity and gentleness. I want to restore man to himself. I want to send him from the mob to his own body and mind. I want to lift him from the nightmare of history to the calm dream of his own soul, the true chronicle of his kind. I want him to be himself. It is proper only to herd cattle. When the spirit of a single man is taken from him and he is made a member of a mob, the body of God suffers a ghastly pain, and therefore the act is a blasphemy.