Rock Wagram

by William Saroyan

  “I thought you’d do the play, Rock,” Paul said. “I thought you’d do anything to do it.”

  “I wouldn’t do anything to do it,” Rock said. “Accidents happen to me. I don’t do anything to stop them from happening. I never have. I never have, because I’m curious to know what the accidents are going to be, and what they are going to do and how they are going to do it, and because I’m not sure the accidents aren’t at last going to come to what I want and have always wanted anyway.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To be, to have been, a good witness,” Rock said. “Did your father kill himself, or did somebody else kill him?”

  “He killed himself,” Paul said. “He irritated himself to death threading needles and sewing buttonholes. How did your father die?”

  “He died of old age,” Rock said. “Let’s go on in and get in the game.”

  “How about one drink in the hotel bar?” Paul said.

  “Make it two,” Rock said. “The game’s there. It’ll keep.”

  They went into the hotel bar and had two, then three, then four. Rock asked the bartender to hand him the telephone. He called Ann Ford and talked to her mother again.

  “It’s four o’clock in New York,” Ann’s mother said.

  “Is there any madness in the family?” Rock said.

  “Any what?”

  “Any madness. I haven’t met Ann’s father. Was he mad?”

  “Mad?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is no insanity in my family, or in Ann’s father’s family. They are all property owners.”

  “I didn’t say insanity,” Rock said. “I said madness.”

  “They are all practical,” the mother said. “Scotch-Irish on her father’s side. Russian-French on her mother’s. All well-to-do and well-mannered.”

  “She didn’t telephone me,” Rock said.

  “I wasn’t able to reach her,” the mother said.

  “Where is she?” Rock said.

  “In bed, I suppose,” the mother said.

  “In bed with who?” Rock said.

  “Alone, of course,” the mother said. “My daughter enjoys going out and having fun, but all her people behave like ladies and gentlemen. Alone, of course.”

  “You mean she’s in her own bed in her own room?” Rock said.

  “Yes, of course,” the mother said. “It’s four o’clock.”

  “I’d like to talk to her,” Rock said.

  “I didn’t think you wanted to talk to me.” the mother said. “She’s got a phone beside her bed. I guess she’s unplugged it. I’ll go wake her up and have her plug it in. Hold on. You must be drunk to call at four in the morning and ask if we’re mad.”

  “I’ve got a high I.Q., though,” Rock said.

  “I’ll go wake her up,” the mother said.

  “That’s her mother,” Rock said to Paul Key. “She’s gone to wake her up.”

  “Where’s her father?” Paul said.

  “I don’t know,” Rock said. “They’re divorced. Her mother’s married again. The first husband was her own age. This one’s older. I haven’t met her father. I hear he’s a gentleman drunk. A Scotch-Irish gentleman drunk. The daughter of that ought to go all right with the son of an Armenian manic depressive poet. The son and daughter of fathers like that ought to have pretty good sons and daughters.”

  “You want to marry this girl?” Paul said.

  “I want to find out if I do,” Rock said. “I expect to find out now.”

  “Now?”

  “More or less.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “Wait a minute,” Rock said. “I think she’s plugged the phone in.”

  “You dirty dog you!” Ann said. “You said you weren’t going to phone, then you phone at four in the morning! What do you want, you dirty stinking dog? My mother’s standing over my bed. Go away, Mother! She says I ought to be ashamed to talk the way I’m talking. Oh, go away, Mother, and don’t you dare listen on the other phone! You hang up the minute you get back to your bed! And don’t you dare life the receiver later on, either! She’s gone now. Listen, you dirty dog! You’ve made me sick as a dog. I can’t stand being made sick as a dog. What do you want?”

  “I’m driving to San Francisco in a few hours,” Rock said. “Take down this number and this address.”

  He gave her the telephone number and the address, then said, “Fly to San Francisco. Phone me before you leave. I’ll pick you up at the airport and take you to the St. Francis Hotel.”

  “Do you want to marry me?” Ann said.

  “I want you to meet my mother, and her mother.”

  “I want to meet your grandmother’s mother,” Ann said. “Where’s she, you dirty dog? You want me to meet your mother and her mother! Don’t you love me? Don’t you want to marry me? I can’t wait to meet them. I hope they’ll like me. Do you think they will?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “If they like me, I’ll love them madly,” Ann said.

  “I hear you’re eighteen now,” Rock said. “I hear it’s your birthday.”

  “Yes. What are you going to give me?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Eighteen what? Oh, you dirty dog! I love you, Rock. Do you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll phone you,” Ann said. “Don’t you dare make a pass at any of those California girls, do you hear? Wait for me.”

  “I’ll wait,” Rock said. “Happy birthday.”

  He hung up and turned to his friend.

  “I’m going to marry her,” he said.

  “Why?” Paul said. “Who is she? You don’t know her. Myra Clewes said something about her. Myra knows her. You don’t know her. Myra doesn’t think she’s the girl for you at all. Why are you going to marry her?”

  “For my kids,” Rock said. “I was a father the minute I was born. No sense being a father without kids. I want to see them now. I’d like to see them looking at least half like her. Let’s go get into the game. Schwartz and my cousin are probably broke by now. Let’s go sit down and look at the cards.”

  Is a man his father and his son fighting in him for a chance to share in the common indestructibility?

  Every man’s life means more than any other man may ever guess or suspect, more than any man himself may ever guess or suspect, as he himself knows. The mystery of every man is a full-grown thing while he is still in his mother’s womb. To live, to go on living, is to have this full-grown thing worn away by time until nothing is left. As the wearing away proceeds the meaning of a man’s life grows farther and farther past knowing or guessing, until meaning and no-meaning are one and the same.

  What does a man mean, for instance, sitting in a poker game at two in the morning? What does he mean, carrying this full-grown but vanishing thing to the cards and their values? Does he mean it is he who is lucky? Does his sitting there mean he is drawing nearer with each hand dealt to fatherhood and proud unimportance, to love and fun, to health and gladness? Does it mean that if he makes a heart-flush the war will end by morning? Does it mean that if he draws to two pair and makes a full house his children will be handsome and have fine hearts and minds? Does it mean that if he is dealt a pat queen high straight the girl he marries will be the one woman in the world to send him by accident to the best end he could ever reach?

  The boy whose parents were from Bitlis, who spoke to Rock at Fat Aram’s, who took Schwartz in a taxi to the house on Winery Street, was Bakrat Bonapartian, called Buck Bonapart. He was one of the last box-makers of Fresno, a once proud calling, in recent years all but made extinct by the machine. He took his bench, nail rack, and hatchet from one small grape shipper to another, nailing three or four days for one, five or six for another. The owners of the box-making machines asked a dollar sixty-five for a hundred lugs, Buck Bonapart asked a dollar fifty. Thus by underselling the machine he practiced his proud trade, nailing at top speed a hundred lugs in two hours. In twelve hours he earned nine dollar
s. Sometimes, however, he worked on and earned twelve dollars. Still, he gambled as if he had gotten his money from his father.

  Rock Wagram was glad to see that after losing two hundred dollars on an eight full to a ten full, Buck Bonapart was able to win four hundred from Paul Key on a pair of sixes against a bluff.

  “How did you know I was bluffing?” Paul Key said.

  “I didn’t,” Buck said. “I just had a hunch you were.”

  “Old Buck,” one of Buck’s friends said, a man of twenty-one called Pitcher because he had pitched for Fresno High the only year they beat Bakersfield and won the Valley Championship. “The heart of a lion, the brain of a boob.”

  “Boob,” Buck said quietly. “Brain of a boob. I suppose I played that wrong?”

  “Call a three-hundred-dollar bet with a pair of sixes, and right or wrong you’ll soon be sleeping in the streets,” Pitcher said.

  “You’re talking about pitching,” Buck said. “This is poker. I got the same idea Paul did. I was going to bet three hundred to try to get the hundred in the pot. When he beat me to it, I asked myself if he was bluffing and the answer I got was yes.”

  “Where’d you get it, Buck?” Paul Key said. “Where’d you get the answer?”

  “I don’t know,” Buck said. “I got it. I got it clear. You drew two to something, a flush most likely. I drew three to a pair of sixes. You got nothing and I got nothing. But I got the answer when I asked the question. Isn’t that what poker is? Isn’t it asking them and answering them? I never try to trick another player into telling me what he’s got. I never look at him, I never ask him anything, I never tell him anything. I play poker with God.” He laughed softly. “I guess that’s where I get the answers, and the questions, too.”

  “You’re entitled to that money,” Paul Key said. He shuffled and dealt. “This time it’ll be a different story.”

  “My grandmother,” Buck said, “always used to say, ‘God is big.’ A different story, a different God. There’s enough to go around, I guess. Anybody here can take my money if he’s got a better in with God than I’ve got.”

  The cards were dealt, the talk stopped. It had been so quiet in the first place as to have been not much more than the game’s continuous quietude. No one had paid much attention to the actual words said, or the actual meaning of them, except Paul Key.

  Rock was thinking of Ann Ford, of having her meet his grandmother and his mother.

  Next to Rock, on his left, Buck Bonapart was thinking of the vineyard he would buy after the war.

  Next to Buck, Schwartz was thinking the world must be coming to an end for his uncle to be sitting in a poker game with an assortment of Armenians, a most happy end, for there was his uncle losing and winning, but mainly losing, and happier (or something) than he had ever before seen him.

  Next to Schwartz, Haig Vagramian was thinking that if he could get through this game without losing he was a cinch to get through the war without getting killed, for he had gambled the only way he knew how, innocently and wildly, with astonishment at his mistakes, with gladness at his successes.

  Next to Haig, Pitcher was thinking that if he was lucky he might still have a pretty good arm after the war and might be signed by one of the teams in the Coast League, the San Francisco Seals, he hoped.

  Next to Pitcher, a man of twenty-seven with black bushy eyebrows called Aslan was thinking it must be a small world, after all, for a man who was supposed to be as famous as Rock Wagram to come back to Fresno and sit down with him and the other boys and play poker, for he had never believed Fresno would ever again see Rock Wagram, or that he himself would ever speak to him in Armenian, and hear Rock speak to him in Armenian.

  Next to Aslan, Paul Key was thinking that if Rock could come through the war all right, Paul Key could write a play even better than The Indestructibles, and Rock would appear in it and it would make a difference, a great difference, but at the same time he was thinking he might never see Rock again, might never know how Rock made out in the war, might be dead before the war was over.

  Next to Paul Key was a man called Manuel. This man was thinking that if it was the Turks they were fighting he would feel better about it, for they were the only people he hated, since they had killed most of his family when he had been five years old, a man of thirty-five now who sometimes had difficulty about his hatred of the Turks. This happened when he remembered the Turks who had been kind to him, who had taken care of him, given him food and shelter, and even tried to give him love.

  At half past six the game stopped. It stopped by itself. Buck Bonapart got up to yawn. While he was doing so, Haig Vagramian got up to get himself a fresh drink. Sam Schwartz got up to see about getting a little more comfortable inside his tight pants. The others pushed back their chairs, but did not get up.

  Haig had won a hundred and seventy-five dollars. Schwartz had won exactly one dollar. Buck Bonapart had won three hundred and thirty dollars. Pitcher had won fifty-five dollars. Aslan had lost eleven dollars. Manuel had lost eighty-five dollars. Rock had won nine hundred and ninety dollars. Paul Key had lost a little over two thousand dollars, less than half a week’s wages.

  Rock spoke to Manuel, the orphan, the loser of eighty-five dollars, in Armenian.

  “What is your city?” he said.

  “Moush,” Manuel said.

  Then in English Rock said, “Cut high card for a hundred.”

  Rock took the deck and quickly cut to an eight.

  “I haven’t got any more money,” Manuel said softly in Armenian because he was ashamed.

  “Cut,” Rock said in English.

  Manuel cut to a nine, and Rock handed him two of Paul Key’s fifties.

  They moved around the room now, talking and laughing, and then it happened. Sam Schwartz heard his uncle Paul Key laugh. Paul Key had told Buck Bonapart a joke. Buck had liked the joke so much he had leaped and whirled with laughter. Sam Schwartz had seen his uncle come alive in a way that he had never before seen, and for the first time in his life he had heard Paul Key laugh as if Paul Key had the equipment for it.

  “What will they do next?” Sam asked himself, deeply puzzled by what was happening to the world.

  Everybody stretched and joked and laughed. The game was now a thing of the past.

  What good is it for a man to lose his soul if he does not gain the world? What does it profit him? What is the joy or comfort of it? What good is it for a man to gain his soul, only to discover that it was not worth gaining?

  Paul Key had long ago gained the world, and lately he had also gained his soul, but what good was it? The world he had long ago gained was a poor one, the soul he’d gained was poorer still.

  He stood in front of Fat Aram’s with Rock and Rock’s cousin, and with his nephew Sam Schwartz, and he said, “Good luck, Rock.”

  “The same to you, Paul.”

  He turned to Rock’s cousin. “Good luck, boy.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Key,” Haig said.

  “Mr. Key my foot,” Paul said. “My name is Paul, boy. Paul. That’s all.” He turned to his nephew. “Good luck, Sam.”

  “Thanks, P.K.,” Sam said.

  “P.K.’s chewing gum,” Paul said. “Don’t ever call me that again, Sam. Paul.”

  The small man, who was drunker and tireder than ever before in his life, said, “Give my love to your family, Rock. I love them all. I love them deeply. Take care of yourself for them. Come on, Sam, back to Hollywood, back to U.S. Pictures, back to lies, Rock. Take care of yourself.”

  “I’ll drop you off at the airport,” Rock said.

  “No, you won’t,” Paul said. “This is our corner, Rock. Fat Aram’s. This is where we met. This is where we say so long. The joint’s closed, but this is the place. I loved them all. I loved them all deeply.”

  “We’ll meet here again,” Rock said.

  “Will we, Rock?”

  “Sure we will,” Rock said. “Take it easy. Take it easy, Sam. So long.”

  Rock and Haig turned
and walked across the street, to get back to the car parked in front of the hotel, Haig saying, “You worked something out, didn’t you, Rock?” Haig was speaking in Armenian when Rock heard Sam shout, “Rock!” He turned and saw the nephew holding the uncle in his arms.

  He went back, not hurrying, and looked at the man’s face.

  “He’s all right, Sam.”

  “I think he’s dead, Rock.”

  “No,” Rock said. “He’s passed out. He’s drunk, that’s all. Come on. I’ll help you get him back to the hotel. Let him sleep it off, then fly back.”

  “Isn’t he dead, Rock?”

  “No.”

  “The way he looked at me, Rock, I thought he was dying.”

  “No.”

  They got him to the hotel, onto the couch in the room they had just left. His face was white and sticky. Haig was downstairs trying to get a doctor. At last Haig came up with somebody old and dirty from the Emergency Hospital in the Police Department across the street.

  “He’s had a little to drink,” Rock said. “He’s all right, but take a look at him.”

  The man worked over the body a few minutes and then said, “I think he’s had a heart attack. He’s not dead, though. I’ll give him a shot, sit around a minute and see what happens.”

  “Shall I call Vida?” Schwartz said. “Shall I call U.S. Pictures, Rock?”

  “No.”

  “What shall I do, Rock? He’s going to die. I saw him when it happened.”

  “He’s not going to die,” Rock said.