“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. New York, I guess. The old country, maybe.”
“The old country?”
“Milan. My father’s city.”
“Oh.”
He wanted to ask her about herself, where she had been, where she was going; he wanted to be grown up, but he was afraid. She went to the cloak-room and brought out her coat and hat and purse, and began to put on her coat.
“I will not be here tomorrow. Miss Shorb is well again. I am going away.”
He felt very sad, but he could think of nothing to say. She tightened the belt of her coat and placed her hat on her head, smiling, golly Moses, what a world, first she made him laugh, then she made him cry, and now this. And it made him feel so lonely for her. Where was she going? Wouldn’t he ever see her again?
“You may go now, Ben.”
And there he was looking up at her and not wanting to go, there he was wanting to sit and look at her. He got up slowly and went to the cloak-room for his cap. He walked to the door, feeling ill with loneliness, and turned to look at her for the last time.
“Good-bye, Miss Wissig.”
“Good-bye, Ben.”
And then he was running lickety split across the school grounds, and the young substitute teacher was standing in the yard, following him with her eyes. He didn’t know what to think, but he knew that he was feeling very sad and that he was afraid to turn around and see if she was looking at him. He thought, If I hurry, maybe I can catch up with Dan Seed and Dick Corcoran and the other boys, and maybe I’ll be in time to see the freight train leaving town. Well, nobody would know, anyway. Nobody would ever know what had happened and how he had laughed and cried.
He ran all the way to the Southern Pacific tracks, and all the boys were gone, and the train was gone, and he sat down beneath the eucalyptus trees. The whole world, in a mess.
Then he began to cry again.
The
Big Tree
Coming
Thinking, in the mazda-lamp light, the clock ticking night of January and the silent radio bulging with forty-six jazz orchestras, crooners, waltzes, tangos, quiet delirium; ah, lovely cigarette, swift steed leaping no thought, swiftly over no space, the lovely taste of death coming, loveliness in death coming, all children must perish, sweeping high over it, all children must lose their faces, all children must walk with their small legs out of it, all children must go.
Thinking January night all faces all forms all thought must go, must go, and nothing is coming, only slowly and swiftly the death of the moment, and the death of of of the death of who is it that thinks? and whence? in the night, the quiet of waltzes, the hush of noise? who is it? who? and whence? which avenue of the living? which by way of the dead? Tall sad eucalyptus trees in January wind some centuries hence symphonically in no sadness of weeping.
And the stare of the gaping phonograph the shadow against the blur of monotony in wall-paper precise walls for precise seclusion all men must walk to moments ending all men must twist from print to earth and eyes that see must see not and ears that hear must hear only the sea and the smashing of space in accordion silence and all hands must lie deeply in the dirt and rot and rot and the garments of all men must be taken from their bodies and placed on wax dummies in the stores of pawnbrokers etcetera and the night which is ending will never end and the man who sits wakeful amid crumbling will return as a ghost to see his trousers being offered special one dollar and twenty-five cents and the same with his hat.
It is a merry time in January when the eucalyptus trees of tomorrow weep thoughtlessly for the men who died (dying now) a couple of hundred years ago which was last moment, and that boy smoking a cigarette was the one, it was he who was there and it was in a house there that he sat studying the gaping phonograph and where is he now? as well as his coat?
For there is some grace in dying quietly amid some fragment of a life some fragment of another’s death two thousand years before some fragment of another’s death and there is some grace in standing in the mazdalight our noblest contribution to sleeplessness our offering to children dying standing in the mazdalight awake and awake and dying and alive and the grace is a form of immobility as of quiet death and it is of the dance and the dance is of stone hard rock and never of fluid never of waves in motion and the dance is of smash of mountain graceful sky beloved pointlessness.
They will be saying then as they are saying now by turning inward and turning outward with the eye of thought to before and to after and they will be saying then as now that it was here during a moment of cigarette and mazdasleeplessness that it was here that he stood awake suddenly and suddenly alive in death and well now there is no house here only a tree a large fat thick selfish ruthless strong eucalyptus swooning in the wind and holding birds and it was here that a moment ago we saw his face quietly there in the light mocking the death and humbling himself before it and wanting it and mocking it and it was here almost that we heard him breathing the rock into his lungs and out again as thought as something from time and man and as something from the moment of himself but now there is no house here only this tree and what is the truth? what is it that we can say is not a lie even if it is a Christian lie? is it anything? or is it always an untruth? though we know that it was here that he stood?
And the talk we hear after all these moments and the crumbling of more rock and the shifting of seas and continents this talk that we hear is now a talk of silence and the words come blurred and there is no meaning there is no meaning and all is faint and sickly save the strength of the big tree weeping for no thought of man but weeping where the house stood and the talk is so quiet and it is so gentle that no one can say if it was the boy who spoke it or if it was maybe after the years the tree moaning it and there is no fact that can be stood on its tail and pointed to and there is no truth and all that comes through the space and through the quiet is the soft undulation of the thought almost sounded by mortal breath and it is of the upper limbs of the big tree swaying and breathing life and remembering the death of the boy.
But there is no fact and the issue is blurred. Historians stand bewildered and the rock which is crumbling crumbles more and the fact is in and out of the rock and in and out of the water coming in waves special delivery from the moon special one dollar and twenty-five cents for your best trousers and a dime for your hat and your ties are worthless absolutely unmarketable being polka dot ties.
You might as well smoke another cigarette and look again at the small calendar to make sure to see the fact on paper in print that it is January and you might as well presume that it is yourself looking and you might touch the gaping phonograph worshipping its silence, for it will be morning again before the tree bends itself westward again.
It is this year and it is now and already the tree and the rock are saying with the others who have speech that perhaps but only perhaps it may have been here in this spot on this earth that the boy stood dwindling to the pavement to the asphalt and to the bowels of it the bowels of the city and the earth and so you might just as well rise and yawn and say to yourself gentlemen I presume the hour is at hand and in the name of this universe I accept the nomination and humbly take my position among the solid ones now feeding flowers in cemeteries from Tokyo westward to Tia Juana and in all other directions humbly accept and humbly make my bow and platform speech to wit as follows gentlemen I shall do everything in my power and everything in my blood and bone and bowels to feed myself to sunflowers because they are strong and they resemble so much the sun and it is for the perpetuation of them that I humbly go down to make room for small and large and inarticulate imitations of the great bringer of light and life and laughter and leering and lice and all the other large and small things that make the scene so exasperating and lovely and make the scene so very very lovely and gentlemen you have my word of honor it is for the flowers that I say good day, I am going, going, gone.
The clock ticks language not yet precise but nearly so and t
he night is January. It was here that the boy quietly handing his coat to the man from the store said quietly to the man from the store well sir it is not a new coat and I have worn it for years but it will keep some poor devil warm another winter and that is all I care about to keep some poor devil warm another winter for we have the tradition to preserve and there is talk of time going away from us and there is a rumor that a couple of centuries long past due are crowding us and a number of unborn children are wailing their eyes out wanting to get on their feet and make a scene such as something about one child male wishing another child female and in them a multitude of children wishing the same thing only more savagely. So you see that the coat must serve to keep some poor devil warm another winter. Or else it will be all over and I being gone shall be gone utterly and the other shall be gone with me and the rodents will laugh and man will scratch his dead head and think well now that was remarkable those rodents laughing that way as if the joke was on us alone as if because they breed faster they don’t die faster and it is remarkable and it is at that.
So fare thee well. It was here. It was in this house and now only a big tree is here, fare thee well, a big tree is here, so fare thee well, everywhere, everyone, seeking and never finding, everywhere, so fare thee well, lost everywhere, fare thee well, it was here, and again it is here but the day the night come and go and ah kindly one you were never in this house, so fare thee well, fare well, you were never here, and now the day is ending death is coming kindly over the emptiness and so fare thee well, ah gentle God, seeking thee we find the emptiness of the night and so fare thee well, the tree, the big tree is sinking its roots deep in preparation for the explosion from the earth and from time to thee to thee gentle and kindly God, seeking thee we perish unweeping and unhurt but wanting and wanting, so fare thee well, forever fare thee well, it was here and it was only a moment ago that we saw the boy’s face grinning to God, and now there is only this big quiet tree, weeping for no one, moaning for no thought, seeking no God but being of God, forever and forever, farewell.
Dear Greta Garbo
Dear Miss Garbo:
I hope you noticed me in the newsreel of the recent Detroit Riot in which my head was broken. I never worked for Ford but a friend of mine told me about the strike and as I had nothing to do that day I went over with him to the scene of the riot and we were standing around in small groups chewing the rag about this and that and there was a lot of radical talk, but I didn’t pay any attention to it.
I didn’t think anything was going to happen but when I saw the newsreel automobiles drive up, I figured, well, here’s a chance for me to get into the movies like I always wanted to, so I stuck around waiting for my chance. I always knew I had the sort of face that would film well and look good on the screen and I was greatly pleased with my performance, although the little accident kept me in the hospital a week.
Just as soon as I got out, though, I went around to a little theatre in my neighborhood where I found out they were showing the newsreel in which I played a part, and I went into the theatre to see myself on the screen. It sure looked great, and if you noticed the newsreel carefully you couldn’t have missed me because I am the young man in the blue-serge suit whose hat fell off when the running began. Remember? I turned around on purpose three or four times to have my face filmed and I guess you saw me smile. I wanted to see how my smile looked in the moving pictures and even if I do say so I think it looked pretty good.
My name is Felix Otria and I come from Italian people. I am a high school graduate and speak the language like a native as well as Italian. I look a little like Rudolph Valentino and Ronald Colman, and I sure would like to hear that Cecil B. De Mille or one of those other big shots noticed me and saw what good material I am for the movies.
The part of the riot that I missed because they knocked me out I saw in the newsreel and I mean to say it must have got to be a regular affair, what with the water hoses and the tear-gas bombs, and the rest of it. But I saw the newsreel eleven times in three days, and I can safely say no other man, civilian or police, stood out from the crowd the way I did, and I wonder if you will take this matter up with the company you work for and see if they won’t send for me and give me a trial. I know I’ll make good and I’ll thank you to my dying day, Miss Garbo. I have a strong voice, and I can play the part of a lover very nicely, so I hope you will do me a little favor. Who knows, maybe some day in the near future I will be playing the hero in a picture with you.
Yours very truly,
Felix Otria.
The Man
with the
French Post Cards
He looked, if he liked, like a sinful version of Jesus Christ, and he looked like a man who had lived a holy life so long that it had driven him insane and he had suddenly decided to destroy the holiness very swiftly. He would say: It is all the same; I do not care; and it would be very difficult to understand what he could mean. Every now and then he would be clean and inwardly calm; his face would be closely shaven and his thick reddish moustache would begin to seem something biblical; he would smile sadly, looking over the form chart, saying the names of the various horses, Miss Universe, St. Jensund, Merry Chatter, and so on.
I think he was Russian, though it was none of my business and I never bothered to ask him a personal question. He was always broke and always in need of a cigarette and I generally had ready-made cigarettes or the makings. He would never ask another man for a cigarette, and as a matter of fact he never actually asked me for one. I merely handed him a package or a sack of makings, and in this way we became friends. He looked deeply sad, generally, like some of the pictures of Christ, and it would be when he had shaved himself. Then suddenly he would stop shaving himself and he would be this way, with a beard growing on his face, for a whole week, sometimes two.
His poverty distressed me and I hoped somehow to be able to help him. We went now and then to a cheap restaurant on Third Street below Howard where a full meal with a steak for entrée could be had for only twenty cents, pie included. And I played the horses he liked so that if they won I would be able to give him part of the money without offending him. They seldom won, though, and it nearly drove him mad, making him mutter in his own language, Russian or Slovenian, and walk up and down the back room at Number One Opera Alley where we made our bets.
He was fifty but youthful, rather tall, rather lithe, and in his way rather distinguished. He was greatly down, but somehow his manner implied that it was all accidental and a mistake and that actually he himself was a man to command respect and admiration. I knew when he hadn’t had a bed in which to sleep, and if the horses ran badly, I would sneak out of the bookie joint and run across the street to a rummy parlor and get into a game. At cards I used to be a little luckier than with the horses, and if I won, I would hurry back and put a half dollar in his hand so that no one would see it, and he would say nothing and I would say nothing. It was rather strange that he knew it was not for gambling and the next day I could see that he had had a bed and had slept.
Every day for several months I saw him and we talked of the horses. I knew dozens of other men like him and it was all a secretive sort of friendship, no man knowing the name of another and no man asking the name of another. I thought of him as the tall Russian, and I let it go at that.
Things went from bad to worse. All the men at Number One Opera Alley had a long stretch of rotten luck and I had my share of it too. I remember the day I went to the bookie joint with my last half dollar and listened to the tall Russian discussing the horses he thought might win. I made a bet on a horse named Dark Sea and sat down with the Russian to wait, smoking Bull Durham. I played the horse to win and it ran second, losing by a nose, and I believe this is the only time in my life that I ever became really excited. It was almost as bad with me as it was with the Russian, and each of us jumped up and began walking up and down, swearing to ourselves, looking at one another and swearing. That horse, he said, think of it, running so nicely all the way and
then losing by a nose. And he began to swear in Russian. After a while I calmed down and said maybe it would be different tomorrow, the old gag among the horse players. The bright day was always tomorrow. That night I stayed in the rummy joint across the street, hungry, until two in the morning. After two I walked through the city and returned at nine in the morning to Number One Opera Alley. I was the first man to arrive, and I was feeling very cold, needing a cup of coffee very badly.
At ten the Russian came down. I had planned to keep my condition unknown if possible, but I couldn’t manage it apparently and I knew that the Russian understood how it was with me; he came through the swinging doors and just as he came through I was walking toward the doors just to be keeping in motion, to waken myself, and he saw me and made the most painful face I have ever seen, as if it was his fault, not mine, but his, as if my having spent a sleepless night was his sin, and as if I was hungry because of him.
He said nothing, however, and began to look at Mannie’s to see how the races looked. He was aching to smoke a cigarette but I had no cigarettes and no makings, and I couldn’t think of anything to do. He finally went away without saying a word and returned in a half hour, smoking a rolled cigarette. He handed me the sack and I rolled one and began to smoke. The smoke wakened me and killed my hunger for a moment. I suppose he went out and begged, a thing which must have been disgustingly painful for him to do, but which he believed he had to do, and I began to be very angry with myself.
All day we talked about the horses, each of us knowing that the other had no money, and when there were no more races we went away. I don’t know where the Russian went, but I returned to the rummy parlor and sat down. Late at night a young fellow I had once helped a little saw me and he sat at the table with me, telling me he had had a little luck. Before he left he handed me half a package of cigarettes and a quarter, not speaking of the matter, and I was able to buy a good meal and to smoke. Sitting in the rummy parlor, in the very bright electric light, I was able with my eyes open to sort of sleep, or halfsleep, and at two in the morning I did not feel greatly tired.
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze Page 14