“I thought perhaps the nurse would write and tell me about the children,” Rock said. “I thought you’d tell me about the eviction. All I know is what I saw in the papers. They served me with a summons, but I telephoned the lawyers and told them I owe them the rent money all right. I told them I’d pay them as soon as I get some money. It’s three thousand, including court costs. I’m sorry that happened. I thought your parents would help you. I didn’t think they’d let somebody else help you. Somebody must be helping you. I thought you’d answer my letters and tell me about it.”
“What else?” Ann said.
“Well, I even thought you might want to tell me—”
“Tell you what, Rock?”
“Well,” he said, “I thought you might want to tell me you’re sorry for making a joke of so many things, and then maybe—” He stopped again suddenly, for he was sick of the joke, and never felt the sickness so much as when he spoke to her, even by telephone, even with three thousand miles between them.
“Listen,” he said suddenly. “I’m sorry. That’s all. What do you want, Ann?”
“I want money, Rock.”
“I haven’t got any.”
“You could gamble again,” she said. “That betting commissioner owes you plenty. Gambling owes you plenty.”
“I don’t like to gamble,” Rock said. “I haven’t any money to cover a loss with. I took a chance last time because I hated the idea of losing my car. They won’t give me more than eight or nine hundred dollars for it, anyway.”
“I happen to know Schwartz’s offer still goes,” Ann said. “All you’ve got to do is get in your car and drive down there and let them shoot a test in a couple of hours, and then go to work a year at five hundred dollars a week. That’s twenty-six thousand dollars a year. I can use that money. I happen to know he’s pretty sure he’s going to like the test.”
“I happen to know he knows I’m broke, and is trying to take advantage of that,” Rock said. “I have his telegrams and letters.”
“Well, what are you doing about it?” Ann said. “Reading the Armenian papers?”
“I told you I don’t like the mother of my kids to be a smart aleck about their family,” Rock said. “They’re also my kids. They’re not yours alone.”
“All right, Rock,” Ann said. “I just think it would be monstrous if you didn’t send money for the upbringing of your children.”
“Is there anything else, Ann?”
“No. I just need money.”
“Is there anything you want to tell me about yourself?” he said. “What you’re doing? What your plans are? Why you keep using the word monstrous all the time? What you’re thinking of for the future, for yourself and for the kids?”
“We’re divorced, Rock. Those things are none of your business.”
“Well, goodbye, Ann.”
“What about the money?”
“I haven’t got any. If I get some I’ll send it. All of it.”
“What are you doing about getting some?” Ann said.
“Well, I won’t say that that’s none of your business,” Rock said. “I don’t like Schwartz’s offer. I don’t have any other. I’ve spoken to a number of good agents in New York and Hollywood. They haven’t come up with anything yet. Goodbye, Ann.”
He went to the betting commissioner’s a month later when he was broke again and took a flyer on a two-team parley, and won. The betting commissioner counted out eighteen hundred dollars, knowing Rock was broke (since Rock had told him so), and even though he hadn’t had any word from Ann about the children he sent her fifteen hundred dollars. It was late June then and the children were out of school. He asked if she would please think about having the nurse bring the children out to San Francisco to spend a month with him. She did not answer his letter, but a month later telephoned again.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“What do you want, Ann?”
“I want money, Rock.”
“Is there anything you want to tell me about anything?” Rock said.
“About what, Rock?”
“Anything,” Rock said.
“Anything you think I might be interested in.”
“I can’t think of anything,” Ann said.
“I’ll send you some money as soon as I get some,” Rock said. “Goodbye, Ann.”
“Is there anything you want to tell me about anything?” Ann said quickly. “Why don’t we put it that way, Rock?”
“The kids aren’t with me,” Rock said. “There isn’t much for me to tell. Oh yes. I forgot. Your mother telephoned a couple of weeks ago and said that if I would go back to work and make some money you and the children would come back to me.”
“What did you tell her?” Ann said.
“I told her you ought to marry a man with a lot of money,” Rock said.
“You mean if you could afford it, you wouldn’t want me back?” Ann said.
“No, Ann.”
“Why not?”
“I can afford it now,” Rock said.
“You haven’t got a dime,” Ann said.
“No, but I can afford it,” Rock said. “If I had a job and a lot of money put away and a steady income, I couldn’t afford it. I don’t need a lot to live on, and kids don’t, either, except love. An imitation of love is purchasable only from whores, Ann. Good men sometimes need to make this transaction with whores, but only whore-makers make it with the mothers of children. Goodbye, Ann.”
One day in September David Key came to the house in San Francisco and said, “Schwartz sent me, Rock, but I came for reasons of my own, too.”
“What are they?” Rock said.
“Well, I know you’ve been having a rough time,” David said. “I mean, everybody knows. Well, I thought maybe I could—”
“You could what, David?”
“Well, I think you know what I mean,” David said. “I’m pretty sure you don’t like the idea, so maybe I’d better skip it.”
“Yes,” Rock said, “but I want you to know I think it’s kind of you. What’s Schwartz up to?”
“Well, you know how he can’t do anything except in imitation of my father,” David said. “He’s got his heart set on getting you back to U.S. Pictures.”
“His offer’s a poor one,” Rock said.
“It is,” David said, “but things have changed in Hollywood, Rock. The test is nothing. He’s just doing that to look important.”
“I don’t mind the test,” Rock said. “I don’t mind his being important, either. Maybe he is important, David. He doesn’t offer enough money, that’s all. I’m supposed to send a thousand a month to my kids and their mother. I’ve got to pay taxes on that money. I’ve got two years back taxes to pay, and around sixty thousand in debts. A year at five hundred dollars a week wouldn’t do me much good. I’ve got an agent hustling around in Hollywood, and another in New York.”
“The public’s forgotten you, Rock,” David said. “They’ve forgotten so many others, too. It’s not the worst offer in the world, because if you do one good picture in the year that you work, when the year’s over you can make a much better deal. The idea of limiting the contract to one year wasn’t Schwartz’s idea, Rock. It was mine. I told him you might not turn out the way you did the first time. I told him that because I know you’ll be better than ever, and you won’t have a bad long-term contract to keep you from getting your debts paid. I hope you don’t mind, Rock.”
“I don’t mind,” Rock said, “but a year’s a long time to spend in Hollywood at five hundred dollars a week, more than half of which has to go to New York. Tell Schwartz to make it a thousand a week, and I’ll drive down and take the test. If he doesn’t like the test, nobody’s lost anything. I want to work again all right, but I can’t get into something that’s only going to get me deeper into debt.”
“I’ll fly back and tell him,” David said, “but I don’t think he’ll take you up, Rock. He’s sure you’re going to accept his offer sooner or later. He happ
ens to know your agent hasn’t had any luck with any of the other studios. I’ll tell him, though, Rock. I’ll try to get him to—”
“No,” Rock said, “don’t try anything. Just tell him what I told you. I don’t like things to get too much help. You don’t seem as troubled as you were when we talked in New York. I hope things are working out all right.”
“Sam says I’ll be producing soon,” David said. “I know that only means he’ll still be producing. But I’ll get my name up as the producer, anyway, and more money. They’ll be the same pictures, though.”
“They’re not bad pictures,” Rock said.
“The photography’s pretty good,” David said. “The pictures are bad all right. I’ve seen all of my father’s pictures again. I made a point of seeing every one of them again after our talk in New York. I saw them in order, one a day, and I thought about each of them, forty-five pictures. They’re very bad, Rock. There’s something in every one of them that is very bad. It’s in the fourteen pictures you were in, too, Rock.”
“Was I in that many?” Rock said.
“Yes,” David said, “and every one of them’s bad. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think I know what’s the matter.”
“What is it?” Rock said.
“We’re liars, Rock, and don’t need to be,” David said. “Don’t need to be at all. Every place in every picture that is false could just as easily have been true, but wasn’t. I was terribly disappointed in my father at first, but I’m not any more.”
“I wonder if you know about the play he wrote?” Rock said.
“Yes,” David said. “Myra Clewes told me the day after we talked in New York. I meant to write you about it, but I didn’t know what to say. I found all of his writing. It’s all bad, worse than the movies, except that one, and that’s not very good, either, Rock.”
“No?” Rock said.
“The play itself is almost something,” David said, “but it isn’t my father, and the reason it isn’t is very simple. He’d already changed his name from Keesler to Key. That’s O.K. But you can’t change Paul Key to Patrick Kerry, too, and expect what you do to be O.K. You can’t hide, and expect anything to be O.K. I didn’t think my father was that kind of a man. I can’t imagine how it happened that he became such a man.”
“Can’t you, actually?” Rock said.
“No, I can’t, Rock,” David said, “and I know what you’re thinking. No man has a right to fool with something that goes out to people who is not himself true, who is not proudly himself. If he is justified in not being proud of himself, then he has got to live in such a way that will compel him to be proud of himself, even if he sells neckties out of a satchel on a street corner. He has no right to hide from himself and from the world that he is not proud of himself, and that’s what my father did. He was unhappy about being a Jew, about being Paul Keesler, about being himself. Why? Who the hell else did he expect to be? Who the hell is the man who is happy about who he is? Is he somebody better than my father?”
“No,” Rock said. “What is it you’re going to do about it?”
“Well, Rock,” David said. He went to the door, opened it, then stopped and turned. “I guess I’m going to work as well as I know how to put across the superiority of truth to anything else: convenience, effectiveness, expediency, profit. Schwartz sent me about his offer, but I came for reasons of my own, too, one of which was to tell you these things. I love my father more than ever. I’m not sorry, though, that I don’t admire him so much any more. I think he could have been almost a great man, perhaps even a great writer. Well, I’ll tell Schwartz what you told me to tell him, Rock.”
Every man is afraid and fearless. He is fearless about his father turning out to be his son, but fearful about his son living long enough to turn out to be his father.
Every man needs his family, whether his family is his father and mother, sister and brother, or the brothers and sisters of his father and mother, and their children. He needs his children, or the people who are supposed to be of his own nationality, the Americans, for instance, or the people of that part of the world in which he was born and spent his boyhood and early manhood, the people of California, for instance, or people like himself in other things, in things of the spirit and mind, in humor or velocity, for instance.
A man needs his family, whoever or whatever his family is. He needs them whether he loves or hates them. He may not need a great deal of them, but he needs a little of them, he needs at least a moment of them now and then, he needs to have another look at them, he needs to be among them again, he needs to be astonished by them. Why not? Isn’t it a fine thing to see them? To see the faces of them again? Isn’t it an amazing thing to see so many of them still alive, still working hard, still trying to make both ends meet, as they put it, still trying to keep body and soul together, as they say, still asking tenderly if old acquaintance should be forgot, still standing around and talking things over? Why shouldn’t a man have another look at his family? Isn’t it better than looking at print in books all the time? Isn’t it better than nothing? Isn’t it a little something or other to get out among one’s own family and holler to them and see their terrible faces?
One morning he telephoned Zadik.
“Zadik,” he said, “I would like you to come to the house some evening for some food and drink and talk. Could you make it tonight?”
“I will come gladly, by streetcar, Rock,” the priest said. “At what hour?”
“I’ll come and get you at the church at seven,” Rock said.
“Very good, Rock.”
They had Scotch before dinner, which was broiled steaks, and brandy after dinner.
Rock brought out the sheet of lined paper he had kept for twenty-five years.
“Will you read this handwriting to me, please?” he said.
“Very good,” Zadik said. “I will if I can. Let me put on my glasses.”
The dark little man with the black beard, happy and half-drunk, put on his glasses and studied the handwriting a moment, then began to read. When he had read the entire poem aloud he looked at Rock and said, “What is this, Rock?”
“I want you to tell me,” Rock said.
“Do you understand this poem?” Zadik said.
“Not altogether,” Rock said. “What does it say?”
“It says several strange things,” Zadik said. “Who is the writer?”
“I will tell you in a moment,” Rock said. “What does the poem say? As far as you are able to tell me in English and in Armenian, what does it say?”
“It says several things at once in the words,” Zadik said, “and at the same time it says several other things at once, but not in words.”
“Yes,” Rock said. “Well, let’s have another drink, please take all the time you need, and tell me each of the things it says in words, and each that it says without words.”
“It says things we all say in our hearts, now and then, perhaps once in a lifetime, to somebody we love, or somebody we hate, or somebody we love at whom we are very angry,” Zadik said.
“Yes,” Rock said. “Now, here’s this drink. Drink, and then drink more. What does the writer of the poem say? What does he say?”
Zadik swallowed his drink and said, “He says, Rock, it is to God he wishes to speak. He says he speaks to God with pity but without love. He says he loves not God but man, and especially the enemy, the Turk. The Turk, Rock, in his own father, in himself, and in his own son. He says he must pity God because God is the Father, and His children love Him like fools or hate Him like fools or mock Him like fools. He says he has breathed a long time, from beneath the mulberry tree on the hillside of Baghesht—which is the ancient name of Bitlis—halfway across the world, to the fig tree in the garden of The Asbarez, just beyond the Armenian printing presses of Fresno.”
Zadik stopped. Rock filled Zadik’s glass with brandy, and his own as well. They swallowed their drinks, and the priest said, “He says, Rock, that he has a son, no better than
any Turk’s son, but a man in whom his own heart beats with terrible hope for love between all the children of the Father. He says if he is to live he is to live in this son, for the other one, the better one, died as a child. If he is to go on breathing, he says, this son must restore to him the breath of life. If he is awakened from the sleep of death by this son, he will live and he will love. If he is not awakened, he will never know that he was never awakened, he will not remember that he breathed the mulberry-scented air of Baghesht once, he will neither know nor care that he hated the Turk until the last moment when he loved him more deeply than he loved the sons of Haig themselves, he will not remember his father, himself, or his sons. If he is not awakened by this son, he will never know the gladness with which he stopped breathing, stopped loving, and stopped hating.”
The priest looked from the sheet of paper to Rock, and said, “That is what he says, Rock.”
“Yes,” Rock said.
“What do you want to tell me about this poem, Rock?” Zadik said.
“My father wrote those lines the day I came home and found him dead at the kitchen table,” Rock said. “He had closed the doors and shut the windows, and he had opened the gas of the stove.”
“Could you not have reached home a little earlier, Rock?”
“No.”
“Had you reached home perhaps only a half hour earlier you would have given him the breath he wanted.”
“I reached home when I did,” Rock said.
“Where were you?” Zadik said.
“What’s the difference where I was?” Rock said. “Where was he?”
“It is not said in the words,” Zadik said, “but it is deeply felt that he believed you would awaken him.”
“He was dead,” Rock said. “He had stopped breathing. It might have been my mother to find him.”
“Did you stop somewhere on the way home?” Zadik said. “Perhaps to visit a friend?”
“I had just driven Murphy back from Bakersfield,” Rock said. “I put the car in the garage and started walking home, walking down Eye to Ventura. I ran into a friend talking to a couple of girls. I stood and talked with them a half hour, and then I walked home.”
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