The Laughing Matter

by William Saroyan

  The little girl put her arms around her brother. “Mama,” she said, “don’t cry. What’s she crying for, Red?”

  “What’s the matter, Swan?” the man said.

  “I can’t look at beautiful things ended, that’s all,” the woman said. “The sight of them scares me to death.”

  “Come on, Swan,” the man laughed.

  “I want figs off a tree,” the woman said, “the way it was this afternoon. I want everything that way. Forever.”

  “Forever?” Red said. “What’s she mean?”

  “Ah, Swan,” the man laughed. “Cut it out, will you?”

  “No,” the woman wept.

  The man put his arms around the three of them.

  The woman stopped weeping and began to laugh suddenly, hugging and kissing everybody.

  “My kids,” she laughed. “My man, and my kids.”

  She was up quickly and back to the kitchen, as if nothing had happened. What did his mother mean? Why did she cry, and then laugh and kiss everybody? He took the roses back to the silver bowl on the mantel over the fireplace and put them back in it. Then, standing on the chair, he looked at his father, who was standing at the open front door, looking out.

  “Papa?”

  “Yes, Red.”

  “Why did Mama cry?”

  “I don’t know. Swan,” he called suddenly, “I’m going for a walk.”

  She came running out of the kitchen.

  “Wait for me!”

  “Sure, Swan.”

  “The hell with the fudge,” she said. “Who wants fudge, anyway? I don’t know why I start things like fudge in the first place. Where’ll we walk?”

  “How about town?”

  “Really?”

  “To the depot and back?”

  “Taxi back?”

  “Sure.”

  Chapter 4

  Most of the way on the walk to town Evan carried the little girl. When they reached the lights of the town, though, she got down to find out what it was all about. There was a difference here that she couldn’t account for, until at last she noticed the sky, as if it were a burst of fireworks.

  “I’m going to grab them,” she said. “I’m going to grab the stars.”

  “Evan?” the woman said. “Look at that sky. Look at the stars in that sky.”

  “Yes.”

  The four of them were looking straight up at the stars when a woman with three girls came blinking out of a movie and, speaking with laughter in her voice, said, “I’m May Walz.”

  Red and Eva turned away from the stars to look at the three girls. The five of them were soon at work at a game of skipping on the sidewalk while May and Swan talked, and Evan listened. Then the woman, heavy and hearty, asked her daughters to latch onto her, which they instantly did, all of them holding hands.

  “Come on over,” Swan said.

  “Won’t it be too late?”

  “No. Come on over and we’ll sit on the porch and talk.”

  May Walz and her daughters went along.

  “They were all girls,” Eva said. “Where’s their boys?”

  “The father didn’t want to go to the movie,” the woman said. “He stayed home.”

  “Where’s the other boys?”

  “They don’t have any. Just the father.”

  “Why didn’t he want to go?”

  “I don’t know. I guess he’d seen the movie.”

  Clovis had a twinkle, besides the stars. The lights of the streets and stores weren’t much for brightness, but the whole place seemed glad, as if to be around at all.

  Red heard some men laugh inside a saloon.

  A man in the street asked Evan for a dime and Evan gave him a quarter.

  “Show-off,” the woman said.

  “No, Mama,” Eva said. “The man’s lost his mama. Papa gave him money so he can find her.”

  In the taxi, more asleep than awake, the girl said, “Papa, when will he find her?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  She was asleep before the taxi reached the house. He took her to her room, got her undressed, and put her down to sleep.

  Red was standing alone in the parlor. The woman was out on the front porch, sitting in the rocker.

  “Is the smell of rocks from the water?” Red said. “Is that it? Is it from outside the house? The house is all wood. Where’s the smell of rocks coming from? There’s the leather chair—smooth black leather—but there’s no rocks in the house.”

  “It may be from the outside,” the man said. “It may not be rocks at all, and perhaps not even water, or not water alone. Perhaps it’s water, grass, leaves, earth, and whatever else is alive around here. Perhaps other things, too. Aren’t you tired?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  He looked at his father, his eyes smiling, the rest of his face grave.

  “Mama was funny in Clovis.”

  “What did she do?”

  “When she said show-off to you. When she talked to May, and May’s girls. She was funny all the time.”

  “She was?”

  “She was very funny. She loved everything. She was sad, too. When you love everything, and you’re sad, it makes you funny, doesn’t it?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, when somebody sees somebody sad loving everything, the one who sees it—well, the sad one makes him glad.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now, tomorrow, Papa,” he said, “I’m going to find the rocks, or find out what it is that smells like rocks. I mean, cool rocks.”

  “O.K., Red.”

  “Mama?” Red said.

  “Yes, Red.”

  “You were very funny in Clovis.”

  He went out on the porch and leaned against the rocker, holding her hand, then kissed the inside of it because he’d seen the man do that and because it was good to do. The woman took his head in her hands and looked at him, and he saw the sorrow in her eyes.

  “You were funny, too, Red.”

  “Did I love everything, too?”

  “Love everything?”

  “The way you did in Clovis?”

  “Did I love everything in Clovis?”

  “Yes, Mama. I saw you. Did I love everything, too?”

  “Yes, Red. Yes, you did.”

  “Good night, Mama,” the boy said. He kissed the inside of each hand quickly, didn’t look at her again, then loafed away into the house.

  “Good night, Papa,” she heard him say in the parlor.

  “Can you take care of yourself?” the man said.

  “I’m six, almost six and a half!”

  “O.K., Red.”

  Evan was at the kitchen sink washing black grapes that Dade had left in the refrigerator, peaches and nectarines.

  The way it was with Dade was that they’d come and gone, he’d had them and lost them, and all that was left was a house built for many, a house that Dade himself had built when he was twenty-nine, two big bedrooms and three little ones, the little ones for the ones he had scarcely seen, one of the big ones for his woman and himself, the other for his brother Evan and Evan’s woman, whenever they might visit him.

  Well, here was a plate of grapes from Dade’s vineyard. He was about to go to Swan with the grapes when Red came into the kitchen and said, “Could it be, Papa, that it’s Dade himself, and not rocks at all? Does a thing like that happen?”

  “Yes,” the man said, “that may be it. That may be part of it, at any rate, Red. You want a peach before you go to sleep?”

  “No, thanks, Papa.”

  The man went out onto the porch, the plate of fruit in one hand, a small table in the other. He set the table down beside the woman and put the plate on it.

  “Would you rather drink, Swan?”

  “I’d like to get drunk.”

  “O.K. We’ll look at the fruit, then.”

  He went back to the kitchen, opened a bottle, filled a silver bucket with ice from the refrigerator, got tall glasses, shaved peeling from a lemon, and filled a gl
ass pitcher with cold water. He poured drinks on the porch, and they began to drink. He lighted a cigarette, and Swan reached for it. He gave it to her and lighted another. They drank and smoked in silence. The man sat on the railing of the porch, not directly in front of his wife but to one side. In the silence they listened to one another, actually heard one another breathing, and then at last the woman said his name very softly. It was not whispered, it was spoken, but so softly that it might have been Eva Nazarenus herself speaking a year ago, the softest speech either of them had ever heard.

  “Yes, Swan?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m scared to death.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I don’t want to be, but I am. I know the kind of man you are, the kind your brother is, the kind your father must have been, the kind Red is.”

  The man got down from the railing, freshened his drink, then hers, for he knew she had something else to say. He was beginning to tighten up inside about the difficulty she was having saying it. He handed her the freshened drink and looked into her eyes. Then he put his drink down, and hers, picked her up out of the chair and embraced her, not kissing her mouth, only holding her. He came near to rage when he heard her sob. He let her go, picked up his drink, and went down the steps to the walk.

  “What is it, Swan?”

  “Jesus, Evan.”

  “What is it?”

  “I wish I were dead.”

  “Why, Swan?”

  “Let me drink a little,” the woman said. “Please let me drink a little first.”

  He leaped up onto the porch to the table and the bottle. He took the bottle and poured out of it over the ice in his glass until it was full, and drank the glass dry.

  “Drink a little, Swan,” he said.

  He poured into her half-empty glass and she drank as he had.

  “I know the kind you are,” she said.

  “What kind, Swan?”

  He almost knew now what she couldn’t tell him. He dropped cubes of ice into his glass, poured whiskey again, drank again, and refused to believe.

  “Listen,” he said. “Maybe you’d better not tell me.”

  “No,” the woman said. “I’ve got to tell you.”

  She finished her drink and stared at him.

  “The boy said you loved everybody in Clovis,” the man said. “He said you were beautiful in Clovis. He said you were funny because you loved everybody.”

  “Yes,” the woman said.

  “What is it, Swan?”

  “Can I have one more drink? Please.”

  “No!” he shouted. “What is it? Make it fast. Get it over with. Don’t fool around with it. Let’s have it.”

  “I’m pregnant,” the woman said quickly. “It’s not ours.”

  The man picked up the bottle by the neck. The woman cringed, thinking he meant to strike her. He poured his glass a quarter full, added water, and handed it to the woman. He took her glass and poured it almost full, and began to drink.

  He sat up on the railing again, holding the glass, and began to cry softly. The woman got up out of the chair, and went to him.

  He leaped from the railing to the walk, threw the glass far out into the vineyard, and hurried away. When he reached the road, he stopped and turned and saw the woman following him. He began to run down the same road along which only an hour ago the four of them had loafed. When he had gone about fifty yards he stopped again, turned, and saw that she was lying at the foot of the steps.

  A car was coming toward him now, moving swiftly. It slowed down, then almost stopped. He saw that it was Warren Walz and his wife May, but he turned away. The car drove on slowly. It stopped at the turn, and he saw Walz get out and walk quickly toward the woman.

  He ran across the road into the vineyard.

  Chapter 5

  Red heard his father shout, but he’d heard that before, many times. At first hearing his father shout had scared him and made him vaguely angry. Once it had filled him with sudden hatred. He’d flung himself at his father, who had only picked him up.

  “You don’t understand,” he’d said.

  He’d put Red down, and Red had felt ashamed, for he had instantly understood. Still, he wished Evan wouldn’t be so angry at her. When Swan was angry at Evan it was bad enough, but there was something amusing about it, and while it annoyed Red to think Evan was being made angry, Swan’s anger never seemed in earnest. She always seemed to mean something else by it.

  He sat up suddenly, then got out of bed, in the dark, and stood a moment at the door. He felt strangely sick, and began to shiver. At last he went out into the dark hall, then into the parlor.

  Warren Walz saw the boy trying to lift up his mother, holding a hand, dropping it, and then trying to lift her by the head.

  “I’m Warren Walz,” he said to the boy. “We met at the depot.”

  “What’s the matter with my mother?”

  “Here,” Warren said. “Let me lift her up.”

  May Walz came quickly, the husband and wife got the woman to her feet and moved her slowly up the steps. She saw Red holding the door open, wrenched herself free, went to him, took him up in her arms, and went into the house. She slammed the door shut and moved with the boy through the dark house. She struck a table somewhere, lost her balance, and fell.

  Red got out of her embrace and helped her to her feet.

  “Mama?” he said. “Turn on a light.”

  “No,” she whispered. “No. I don’t want a light.”

  Outside, the husband and wife looked at one another.

  “That was him on the road, wasn’t it?” the wife said.

  “Of course.”

  “Hadn’t you better go after him?”

  “I don’t know. After all, it’s none of our business.”

  “You better go after him,” the wife said. “We just can’t get back into the car and go home. I’ll stay here on the porch until she feels like coming out again, or until you come back.”

  “Let me take you home,” the man said. “I don’t think we’d better stick our necks out.”

  “Something’s the matter,” the woman said. “Why doesn’t she turn a light on?”

  “Let me take you home.”

  “Go after him. I’ll stay here.”

  “Hell fire,” the man said, “they’ve had a little fight. They’re both ashamed and want to be left alone.”

  “Go after him, Warren.”

  “Oh, Christ,” the husband said.

  “His brother’s your friend,” the woman said.

  “His brother’s nobody’s friend,” the man said. “This is none of our business.”

  “Will you please shut up and go after him?” the woman said.

  “Ah, the hell with you, too,” the man said, and went to the car. He turned it around and drove back along the road. The woman watched him go; then, deeply frightened, tiptoed up the steps of the porch to the door. There was nothing to be heard from inside the house.

  The boy was back in bed, wide awake in the dark.

  “Don’t cry,” he said.

  “He’s your father,” the woman sobbed. “He loves you. He loves Eva.”

  “Does he love you, Mama?”

  “Yes, he loves me, too.”

  “Then why are you crying?”

  “I can’t tell you, Red. I can’t tell you, but I love you.”

  Now, she sobbed more terribly than ever. What was the matter? What was it, always? Why couldn’t anything be the way it ought to be? Why was everything always strange, mysterious, dangerous, delicate, likely to break to pieces suddenly?

  “I love you, and I love him, Red,” the woman said. “I don’t love Eva because she’s like me. I hate Eva.”

  “Mama!”

  “I love her. I love her, too, Red.”

  “She found the stars, Mama.”

  “Yes. I love her.”

  “Nobody else found them. She’s the one who found them. Didn’t she?
”

  “Yes, she found them, Red.”

  “What’s the matter, Mama?” the boy said.

  “I can’t tell you, Red.”

  “Don’t you know, Mama?”

  “I know.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “I can’t tell you, Red”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” the woman wept.

  Chapter 6

  When he had crossed the vineyard and had come to another road he stopped running and began to walk, burning badly, drunk now, and suddenly deadly tired. He stumbled over something—my dirty life, he thought—and fell. He stayed fallen and hurt, inhaling the dust his fall had made, tasting it. He reached forward and clutched the dirt, then got to his feet.

  He walked again, tripped over something again, fell hard, and this time cried out, “Oh, Red, my son! Oh, Eva, my daughter!” He wept shamelessly now, the tears mixing with the blood of his cut face.

  A car stopped and somebody came and stood over him.

  “I’m driving to Fresno, if you want to go.”

  He got up without help. He wanted to be polite but he wasn’t ready to look into any man’s face just yet. In the car, he wiped the blood and dirt from his face.

  “You don’t see many drunks in the country.”

  “I’m awfully grateful to you,” he said in a whisper. “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Mind if I do?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I saw you back a little in the vineyard there. I thought I ought to see how you made out. I don’t know why. It’s none of my business. Another time I would have driven by. That’s all.”

  The driver of the car didn’t speak again until they came to the center of the town. He parked the car, and the man turned to look at him for the first time. He was amazed to see a man so young.

  “Evan Nazarenus,” he said.

  “I know,” the other said. “I’m Cody Bone’s boy. I know Dade. You look alike. Anyway, Cody told me he’d seen you at the depot.”

  The young man tried to smile, then got out of the car. The man got out and walked away. He reached a corner, went into a bar, glanced at the drinkers, then went out to the street again. A taxi drew up to let out a young man and a young woman, and the man stepped into it.