Driving for Murphy meant a lot to Rock. He liked Murphy. He liked a man who didn’t keep his petty word but kept his unspoken word, lived in laughter, loneliness, and swift action, said nothing unkind to those who were false, but looked at them with contempt, amusement, and charity.
The airplane flew through clouds over mountains. The traveler slept and asked questions, awoke and remembered answers.
Why did she lie? he asked.
She was driven to lying, he answered. She thought there was something better for her to be than the wonderful thing she was because snobbery had looked upon that wonderful thing as an inferior thing. She lied to reach the truth, only she got tricked along the way, and instead of reaching the truth reached other lies, the lies that kill.
A man needs few material things, but he ought to have his portion of them: to eat, to see, to smell, to kiss, to sport with, to be astonished by, to keep him going. The things of matter that a man needs are few, but they are magnificent things, and without them the achieving of things of non-matter is either impossible, undesirable, or irrelevant. A man must have his portion, for a man is flesh, he comes from flesh, he inhabits it. He is not a soul, though he may have one, or several. He is swift-dying stuff, not slow-living stuff, he must have his portion, for it is little enough, as he himself knows.
A man needs girls. He needs civil liberties, too, but not the way he needs the daughters of strangers.
He needs humor, and he can’t have humor if he can’t have his portion. He needs girls, and money. He needs them in order to have the humor he needs.
A man needs to take himself seriously. A man is a serious matter. He is worthless, but seriously so. His head and hide aren’t worth a dime in the open market. He is an unmarketable commodity. Only his soul is worth something, something in the neighborhood of fifteen cents. It is never off the market. If the body goes with the deal, as it does in certain contracts, in marriage, in personal appearances, in acceptances of in vitations to dinner, in day labor, and so on, the whole soul does not go with the deal, inasmuch as no man in the world knows a soul from a hole in the ground. A good deal of a man is always out in the green, scouting around for a deal, as he himself knows, looking for the connection between the soul and the hole in the ground.
One day when they were riding up Highway 99 to Madera Murphy said, “Do Armenians hate Armenians?”
“Some do and some don’t,” Rock said. “Some hate some and don’t hate others. Some hate most and don’t hate a few. Some hate all, and some don’t hate any.”
“Jews hate Jews,” Murphy said.
“No, they don’t,” Rock said.
“I do,” Murphy said, “and I’m a Jew.”
“One,” Rock said. “Only one.”
“One’s enough,” Murphy said. “I hate all Jews.”
“Nah,” Rock said.
“Nah?” Murphy said. “Jews say that. Where’d you learn that?”
“Right here in this car,” Rock said, “from you.”
“I hate people who say nah,” Murphy said. “Do you hate Armenians?”
“Nah.”
“Why not?”
“Like them.”
“Don’t you get sick and tired seeing their faces, hearing their voices, watching them eat? They’re always eating, aren’t they? Don’t you get sick and tired of them?”
“Nah.”
“Nah,” Murphy said. “Don’t you think they’re silly when they go to church?”
“Nah. Like them at church.”
“Don’t you think they’re stupid, the way they’re always trying to make grapes grow on the vines?”
“Nah. Like grapes. Like vines. Like them always trying.”
“Don’t you think they’re ugly, with their ugly faces?”
“Nah. Like their faces. Like their ugly faces. Like their handsome faces.”
“Don’t you think they’re mean, the way they push their old people around when their old people die?”
“What do they do to their old people when they die?” Rock said.
“Don’t you think it’s pretty Goddamn mean to bury them?” Murphy said.
“What else can they do with them?” Rock said.
“I’m talking about the cemeteries where they put them,” Murphy said.
“We’ve got a good cemetery,” Rock said. “Ararat. All our dead are in there.”
“That’s not nice,” Murphy said.
“What’s not?” Rock said.
“Putting them in the cemetery,” Murphy said. “Putting them in Ararat. Is that the mountain?”
“Yes. It’s in the Armenian flag.”
“You got a flag, too.”
“Yes, we have.”
“What do you do with the flag?” Murphy said.
“Wave it,” Rock said.
“You got a Navy?”
“No. Inland.”
“You got an Army?”
“Six or seven.”
“Who do they fight?” Murphy said. “Each other?”
“Only in times of peace,” Rock said. “The rest of the time they fight the Turks.”
“They’re no different,” Murphy said.
“The Turks?” Rock said.
“Yes, the dirty Turks,” Murphy said. “They’re just as dirty as the dirty Armenians and the dirty Jews. I met a Turk once. The son of a bitch was a liar, but I fixed him. I lied better than he did. Don’t you think it’s mean to put them in a dirty hole in the ground?”
“Nah,” Rock said.
“Why not?”
“It’s the rule.”
“Who made the rule?”
“It’s natural. Ashes to ashes.”
“Is a man ashes?”
“Dust.”
“Is a man dust?”
“Earth.”
“Earth,” Murphy said.
“Who made the rule?”
“I did,” Rock said.
“All right,” Murphy said. “Stop the car and get out.”
Rock stopped the car and got out. It was a fine vineyard of Red Emperors, and they were ripe and ready. He went into the vineyard and took a bunch off a vine, a bunch that had three or four dozen fine large berries, each of them held firmly to its stem, the skin of each grape hard and tight, with a fine bloom. He began to eat the grapes. Murphy was stretching himself beside the car, feeling good. He liked to get out of the car every now and then and stretch and look around.
“What you got there?” he said.
“Fine Red Emperors,” Rock said.
“Bring me a bunch,” Murphy said.
Rock found a fine bunch for Murphy and took it to him.
“What makes them fine?” Murphy said. “They all look alike to me.”
“Large berries,” Rock said. “Good color. Good bloom. Clean stems. Skin hard and tight. These’ll keep a long time.”
“Where’d you learn all that stuff?” Murphy said.
“Driving for you,” Rock said. “Talking to the government inspectors.”
“How long will they keep?” Murphy said.
“Most of the winter,” Rock said. “It’s a fine grape to put on the table at Thanksgiving.”
“Remember this place,” Murphy said. “We’ll go in sometime and talk to the farmer, the son of a bitch.”
“He may not be an Armenian,” Rock said.
“Whatever he is,” Murphy said, “he’ll be a farmer, and I’ve never met people like farmers. They think this stuff’s gold.” He was eating the grapes swiftly, making a lot of noise chomping down on them and swallowing them entire, seeds and all. “It’s grapes, not gold.”
“You can eat grapes,” Rock said. “What can you do with gold?”
“Don’t be a smart aleck,” Murphy said. “You can buy anything to eat with gold.”
“You can’t if there’s nothing to buy,” Rock said.
“Smart aleck,” Murphy said. “Get in the car. There’s always farmers to grow stuff. There’s always stuff to buy. The thing to get is gold.
”
Rock got back into the car, behind the wheel. Murphy got back in his place in the back, still chomping down on the Red Emperors, his thick lips and big mouth making a lot of noise.
“There you are,” Murphy said. He spit a grape out of his mouth into his hand. “What about this grape? This one’s bad.”
“Mildew?” Rock said.
“Rotten.”
“That happens,” Rock said. “That’s what the girls in the packing house are for. To clip off the mildewed, smashed, or rotten berries.”
“Do you remember the place?” Murphy said.
“I remember it,” Rock said.
“On the way back let’s stop there,” Murphy said.
“You want to talk to the farmer?” Rock said.
“Farmer?” Murphy said. “Who wants to talk to a dirty farmer? I’m talking about the cemetery. Do you remember the cemetery?”
“I know where it is,” Rock said.
“You got anybody in there?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“My brother Haig,” Rock said. “He died when he was six. He would have been twelve years old now.”
“You want to visit his grave?”
“Nah.”
“Nah,” Murphy said. “Why nah?”
“What good does it do?” Rock said. “Don’t you want to talk to the farmer? Get those fine Red Emperors?”
“Talk to him tomorrow,” Murphy said. “Talk to him the next day. What good does it do? Visit your brother.”
“He’s been dead six years,” Rock said.
“Visit him,” Murphy said. “Show a little courtesy. Don’t be mean about everything. Was he a good boy?”
“I’m sore at him,” Rock said. “He didn’t need to die.”
“He didn’t need to die,” Murphy said. “He died, didn’t he? Why do you say he didn’t need to die?”
“He didn’t need to,” Rock said. “I’ll never forgive him.”
“You’re crazy,” Murphy said. “Everybody in your family crazy?”
“No,” Rock said. “My brother was crazy.”
“Why?” Murphy said. “Because he died?”
“Yes, because he died,” Rock said. “He didn’t need to. Everybody got the flu. Everybody got better.”
“I read in the papers where a lot of people died,” Murphy said.
“You didn’t read in the papers where a lot of people in my family died,” Rock said. “Just him. I’ll never forgive him. When he was sick I said to him, ‘Haig, I’m going to let you go around with me, everywhere I go. I’m going to take you catfishing as soon as the ditches get full of water again. I’m going to take you stealing watermelons as soon as they’re ripe again. I’m going to take you sneaking into the Hippodrome Theatre. I’m going to take you to the Public Library.’”
“What’s the Public Library got to do with it?” Murphy said.
“That’s where the books are,” Rock said.
“What books?”
“All the books.”
“What about them?”
“Nothing,” Rock said. “I just told him I’d take him to the Public Library and let him see the books.”
“What for?” Murphy said.
“Books,” Rock said. “Got to see books. Got to open them up. Got to read them. Got to know them.”
“Why?” Murphy said.
“Don’t you know about books?” Rock said.
“Bookkeeping,” Murphy said. “I know about keeping the books that’ll tell you if you’re getting rich or going broke. I know about books you put numbers in. What’s in the other books?”
“Everything’s in them,” Rock said.
“You read books?” Murphy said.
“Sure I read them.”
“You don’t have to read them,” Murphy said, “but you read them just the same?”
“Sure.”
“Why?”
“I like to read them,” Rock said.
“When do you do it?” Murphy said. “When do you read them?”
“Any time,” Rock said. “Any time I feel like it.”
“You want to be a professor?” Murphy said.
“No.”
“Then why do you read? You want to be a preacher?”
“No.”
“What do you want to be?”
“I want to be a lot of things,” Rock said.
“You want to be a lot of things,” Murphy said. “What do you want to be? A thief?”
“Does reading books make you a thief?” Rock said.
“You get smart reading books,” Murphy said, “and smart people are always thieves.”
“I don’t want to be a thief,” Rock said.
“You want to take him stealing watermelons, but you don’t want to be a thief?”
“That’s not being a thief,” Rock said. “I’ll never forgive my brother.”
“He had the flu,” Murphy said. “He died. Why will you never forgive him?”
“He didn’t need to die,” Rock said. “I know what I’m talking about.”
“What’s a small boy know, six years old?” Murphy said. “Does he know something?”
“He knows,” Rock said. “He knows plenty. He knows what he did to my mother. He knows what he did to my father. All of a sudden he was dead. He was lying there dead. Haig, you son of a bitch,” Rock said suddenly. “You don’t do things like that, you don’t stop that way, Haig, you don’t stop things inside your own people that way.”
“We’ll go visit him,” Murphy said.
“Do you really want to see his grave?” Rock said.
“Do you?” Murphy said.
“Yes, I’d like to,” Rock said. “It’ll be the first time. I’ve never gone there. My mother and father go a couple of times a year, come home and can’t talk. They look at each other, but they can’t say anything. They try to smile. My sister watches them, and then she runs out of the house. They’ve got a stone there. They’ve got his name on it. We’ll find it. I’d like to go all right. I won’t let them know I went, though. What do you want to go for?”
“I like to walk in cemeteries,” Murphy said. “I like to walk in a real city. Any chance I get I like to go where I’m going. It reminds me not to get too smart.”
“How smart are you?” Rock said.
“Too smart,” Murphy said. “So smart I’m the kind of man everybody hates. The kind you hate, too.”
“Nah,” Rock said, “I like the kind of man you are.”
“You’re a liar,” Murphy said.
“It’s the truth,” Rock said.
“Why do you like a man like that?” Murphy said.
Rock knew the time had come to give Murphy an inside laugh.
“Because he’s got a Cadillac,” Rock said.
“I thought you were going to say something good about me,” Murphy said.
“Nah,” Rock said.
A man needs few material things all right, but he ought to have his portion. He ought to have things of flesh in the flesh. His brother should live in the flesh, not die in it. His mother should abide in the flesh, not forsake it.
The minute the airplane came down in San Francisco he would drive to the St. Francis Hospital and see her. He would get her to abide. He would take her home for twenty years more of it.
A man’s mortality comes to him in his mother’s womb, and it comes as a sickness. He is the only animal which knows enough to get sick and die. All animals die, but no other animal dies as a man dies, as he himself knows. A man is sick every minute he lives, for he is his sickness, he is the one who lives his life. When he dies it is not another who dies. Now and then a dog may die like a man, but all men die like dogs.
The name of the Erie Railroad man was Elton Fickett. He was a vice-president. He wore a gray business suit, conservatively cut. He was probably a Mason, a Sciot, an Elk, a Woodman, and a secret riot. He was either a Methodist, a Baptist, or an Episcopalian. He was a big man, very nearly as big as Murphy himself,
who was six feet tall, and 250 pounds in weight. Fickett had a clean face with clean features. His hair was gray and parted on the side. He was not bald, or beginning to be bald, as Murphy was. Murphy wasn’t beginning. The top of Murphy’s head, the entire crown, was clean bald, and what was left seemed tired, dry, and absurd. It would have been better if he had been all bald, clean finished with hair on his head. Murphy’s face was swarthy, and he always looked as if he needed a shave. Fickett’s face had a color that is associated with health. A man of sixty, he seemed both boyish and adult. He spoke in a calm, deep, and warm voice. He had married well, had two sons and three daughters, each of whom had gone to good schools and colleges, places with names. Only one daughter, a girl of nineteen, remained unmarried. The others were married, successful in business and in society, with children of their own.
The railroad man was impressive, and Rock Wagram, almost fifteen years old, was impressed by him. He seemed to Rock a real American, the first he had run into, and he was glad the man had had to do with railroads all his life, for Rock loved railroads.
Fickett had come to Fresno to see some of the bigger carload shippers of grapes. Murphy had shipped almost a thousand carloads the previous year. The cars that had not stopped at Chicago had gone to the Eastern cities over the Erie line. Murphy had sent them over the Erie because one line was as good as another as far as he was concerned, and it was simple to say Erie. Fickett, however, wanted to show his appreciation for the enormous business Murphy had given his line, and his way of doing it was to permit Murphy to look at him, to be in his presence, one of the most successful railroad men in the country, one of the most famous in railroad circles, as well as a man with social background, and offhand membership in the best clubs.
Murphy, sitting beside the elegant but very manly man, was ill at ease.
Murphy talked automatically, without thinking, with excitement, loudly, and with all the dirty words he needed in order to more accurately convey his meaning.
Fickett talked thoughtfully, slowly, carefully.
When Fickett had left his card the previous night in Murphy’s hotel box and Murphy had read it, and the message on the back of it, Murphy thought it would be a good thing to have a word with Fickett about last year’s claims. Murphy had filed them at the end of the season, claiming damages due to negligence on the part of the railroad, but nothing had come of it. About forty out of almost a thousand cars had been involved. The damages came to around nine thousand dollars. He telephoned Fickett, who suggested a meeting in the morning. Murphy explained that he had to go to Bakersfield in the morning.
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