The Laughing Matter

by William Saroyan

  The man turned and looked at Evan. His eyes very nearly wept, then grew hard and swift.

  “I shot him,” Evan said.

  “I know,” the man said. “Now let me think a moment. You must attend the inquiry,” he said at last. “That is the only thing you can do. Yes, you did shoot him. It was an accident, as you know. You would not kill your own brother. You were sitting and talking, cleaning the gun. It went off. It was an accident.”

  “I shot him,” Evan said. “It was not an accident. I killed my wife, too. My brother helped me kill her. I was mad. I shot him. He’s dead. I do not want to go to the inquiry.”

  “You must go,” the man said, “for your children.”

  “My children are dead,” Evan said. “I can do nothing for the dead.”

  “They are in the back yard with Mary Koury,” the man said. “Please think of your children. If you go away, it will be taken for a sign of guilt which will be most difficult to disprove. I will help you. I am of your family.”

  “I wish no help,” Evan said. He took his brother’s hands and held them a long time. “I’m sorry, Dade,” he said.

  He brought the money from the top drawer of Dade’s bureau and handed it to the man.

  “For you, Doctor Altoun,” he said. “For Mary Koury. For my son and my daughter.”

  He left the house, got in his brother’s car, and drove off, the man standing on the porch.

  Dr. Altoun returned to the room and sat there a long time, trying to think. He got up at last, and went to the back yard and spoke to the woman.

  “Let them not understand,” he said. “Their mother is buried. Let it be said that she is away on a visit with her mother and father. Their father’s brother is dead. Let it be said that he is asleep. I will lock the door of his room for this night. Their father is mad with grief. He is gone. He cannot help. He will not be helped. Let them not understand their mother is dead, their father is mad, their father’s brother is dead. I will spend the night, waiting for the return of their father. If he does not return by morning you must take them to your home and keep them. I will help you. If their father returns, I will help him. They are there in the vineyard at play. Let them not understand of death and madness. You are a mother. You will do this.”

  “Yes,” the woman said.

  Dr. Altoun walked slowly along the row of vines to where they were sitting in the shade of a vine.

  “Hi,” Red said.

  “Who is it?” Eva said.

  “Doctor Altoun, Eva.”

  The man plucked a bunch of Red Emperors from a vine and began to eat them, looking at the children. Each of them was strong, alive, alone, and so real as to hurt even a man who was every day in the presence of pain and death.

  “Did you come to talk to us?” Eva said.

  “I came to see you,” the man said.

  “Do you see us?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you see?”

  “A brother and a sister.”

  “No,” Eva said. “A king and a queen.”

  (King Love, Queen Beauty? he thought.)

  “Which king, which queen?” the doctor said.

  “King him and queen me,” Eva said. “Didn’t you know? He’s the king and I’m the queen. It’s true, isn’t it, Red?”

  “Yes,” Red said. He looked at the man earnestly, so earnestly it hurt the man. “It is true,” he said. “King Red, Queen Eva. You believe us, don’t you?”

  “Yes,? the man said.

  “King of the Vineyard,” Red said. He reached up, plucked a bunch of grapes from the vine, handed them to Eva, then plucked a bunch for himself, and they began to eat the grapes. “King of the Vineyard, Queen of the Vine,” Red said.

  “No, Red,” the girl said. “King of the Vineyard, Queen of the King.” She turned to the man. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Is it right?” Red asked earnestly.

  “What do you think?” the man said.

  “It seems right,” Red said.

  “It is right,” Eva said. “Isn’t it?” she said to the man.

  “Yes, it is,” he said, and turned to go.

  “Don’t go,” Red said.

  “Yes, don’t go,” Eva said. “Let’s talk some more.”

  “I’d love to,” the man said, “but I’ve got some things to do. We’ll talk another time.”

  He turned and walked back to the house.

  The boy took a green leaf from the vine and held it out to the girl.

  He then let earth sift through his fingers, after which he took by the tail a horned toad he had captured an hour ago, picking it out of the cigar box into which he had put it with a bunch of grapes. He held it up, its small legs swimming, then put it back in the box.

  “He’s alive,” Red said. “He’s alive and he’s mine.” He looked into the box at the horned toad. “But he won’t eat the grapes.”

  “Why?” Eva said.

  “I guess he doesn’t like Red Emperors.”

  “What does he like? Muscats? Malagas?”

  “No,” Red laughed. “He doesn’t like any kind of grapes. He likes dirt.”

  “Then give him some,” Eva said. “Poor little—— What’s his name, Red?”

  “Horny toad.”

  “Poor little horny toad,” Eva said. “Give him some dirt.”

  Red put some dirt into the cigar box.

  “Do you want him?” he said to his sister.

  “Yes, Red, I want him very much.”

  Red picked up the box and handed it to her.

  “All right,” he said. “He’s yours.”

  “Forever, Red?”

  “I don’t know how long they last,” Red said, “but you can have him as long as they do.”

  The girl lifted the lid of the box, looked at the horned toad, then said, “Poor little—— What’s his name?”

  “Horny toad, Eva!”

  “Horny toad,” Eva said. “What shall I do with him? Smash him?” She nodded gayly several times.

  “No,” Red said. “He’s all—he’s all fixed up that way. You don’t want to spoil the way he’s fixed up, all the nice horns.”

  “What, then?” Eva said. “Shall I give him a little bath?” She thought a moment, then said, “No, I know what.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll give him to Mama. For her birthday.”

  “When is Mama’s birthday?” Red said.

  “Day after tomorrow?”

  “No.”

  “Day before yesterday?”

  “No!”

  “When, then?”

  “The day she was born, Eva. Don’t you even know what birthday means?”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means the day you were born.”

  “And then,” Eva said, “you get born again every time it’s your birthday?”

  “No.”

  “You get dead, then, every time it’s your birthday?”

  “No, Eva! Birth! Day! The day you were born. You don’t get dead on your birthday!”

  “When, then?” Eva said. “On your deadth day?”

  “Deadth day?” Red laughed.

  The woman, who had been such an adventure to them, came down the row of vines, singing a slow song in the language.

  She looked down at them, her eyes loving them.

  “Now, King Red,” she said. “Now, Queen Eva. We gonna have it nice bath. Then we gonna have it nice supper. Then I gonna tell it nice story.”

  “What kind of a story?” Eva said.

  “I gonna tell it true story, Queen Eva.”

  “Did it happen to you, Mary?” Red said.

  “This story happen to—who you think?”

  “Who?” Red said.

  “You, King Red! You, Queen Eva!”

  “But we know what happened to us,” Red said. “Don’t we, Eva?”

  “We know every bit of it,” Eva said. “I was there, Mary. And Red was there. Everybody saw us. We saw them. That’s what happen
ed.”

  “This is other story,” Mary said. “This is love story. You get up now.”

  They got up and began to walk with her out of the vineyard to the house.

  “Is it sad?” Red said.

  “Yes,” the woman said.

  “Why?” Red said.

  “It is true story, King Red, and true story is sad,” she said.

  “What is a story?” Eva said. “What is that?”

  “A story is a true thing, Queen Eva,” the woman said.

  She took their hands and squeezed them with love, and they knew it was love.

  Chapter 42

  He would talk to the man. He wouldn’t hate him. He wouldn’t be angry, but he would take the man by the throat, very nearly stop his breathing, and then let him live, after all. He would then drive night and day until he reached Paterson. He would go to the house Petrus had made for his sons. We would walk through the streets of his boyhood. He would walk along the Passaic, as he had done more than thirty years ago, with Dade.

  He was at the summit of Pacheco Pass between Los Banos and Gilroy at sundown, the car sailing swiftly around the curves, the view of the deep valley of Hollister a magnificent but meaningless thing to see now.

  He stopped the car a block from the man’s house, walked there, and went upstairs to the door. He knocked softly, for he would not hate him, would not be angry. The door was opened by a girl who was probably no more than nineteen, a student in one of the man’s classes, no doubt.

  He gave the man’s name.

  “Oh,” the girl said. “Just a moment.” She went back into the apartment, and after a moment returned to the door. She had a copy of the town paper folded to something for him to read. He took the paper and read the item quickly.

  “The poor man,” the girl said. “Did you know him?”

  “Yes,” he said. He handed the paper back to the girl.

  “We just moved in this morning,” the girl said. “They found his body last night. He’d been dead for some time, though. He must have been sick or crazy or something. The article says he was brilliant and had everything to live for. He left no note. I hope he wasn’t related to you.”

  He went down to the street, around the corner to his car, and drove to the house they had been trying to buy. He saw it when he turned the corner into their street. It wasn’t much to see. At the door were four rolled newspapers, and the mailbox was full of mail. He unlocked the door and went in. In the hall he saw Eva’s stuffed elephant, which she no longer cared for especially, and Red’s two-wheeler, from which he had taken so many spills, getting up bruised and infuriated every time, but refusing to stop riding it. That was long ago, of course. Now, it was too small for him and Eva was trying to learn to ride it. He went through each room of the house, then went out and locked the door behind him. He was about to go when he reached into the mailbox and removed everything in it. They were bills mainly, but he tore open one that was a letter. It was on six sheets of lined paper, without heading or salutation.

  “A man had a friend,” he read. “Late one night his friend’s wife telephoned him to say that she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. He went there and she said she had wanted to die but didn’t want to any more. She couldn’t call a doctor because she didn’t want anybody to know. Somehow she came around all right. She made him promise not to let her husband know. She said she was all right now. Several nights later, though, she called again. He decided he must telephone his friend, but she wept and begged him not to ruin the lives of her children. He couldn’t understand her. He wanted to help his friend, but he was afraid it wouldn’t help his friend to be told. He couldn’t sleep, though, and the next day telephoned to find out if she was all right, if his friend’s children were all right. She said he must go to her. They talked for hours while the children went off to the circus with the neighbor girl. A week later the neighbor girl took the children on a picnic. When the neighbor girl brought them home after the picnic the boy asked him why he didn’t stay in his own house. He went home, packed a suitcase, and went to another town, so that she could not reach him. After a month he returned to his home, and several days later she telephoned from another city and said everything was all right again. He asked her to please take care of herself, take care of her family. He decided to return to his birthplace. He was packed and ready to take the train when he believed he must telephone her and urge her to tell her husband about herself. The number didn’t answer. When he got home to pick up his bags his friend telephoned. He had many things to tell his friend, but he didn’t know how to begin to tell him, and his friend didn’t want to hear him say anything. He decided to try to tell the things in writing, with decent love for her, for his friend, for the children. He wrote and wished them all decent life, decent love, decent truth, decent hope.”

  He read the letter slowly, then got into his car and sat there almost an hour, unable even to turn the ignition key and start the motor. He did not read the letter a second time, but remembered everything in it. At last he got out of the car and went back into the house, to the telephone.

  Dr. Altoun came on the line.

  “Listen,” he said in their language. “I am calling from my own home. I am leaving immediately in my brother’s car. It is a drive of four hours. I wish to go to the inquiry.”

  “We will go in the morning,” Dr. Altoun said.

  “It is almost ten now,” he said. “I will be there at two.”

  “I will be waiting,” the doctor said.

  “I wish to ask,” he said, “how is my son?”

  “He is well.”

  “May I speak to him, please?”

  “He is asleep,” the man said. “Shall I wake him up?”

  “No,” he said. “Let my son sleep. How is my daughter?”

  “She is also well.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There will be little difficulty at the inquiry,” the man said. “You must not believe it was not an accident.”

  “I will be there at two,” he said. “I must see the faces of my children asleep.”

  “Yes,” the man said.

  He left the house, got into the car, and drove off. He was driving swiftly down the summit of Pacheco Pass toward Los Banos when the front inside tire exploded. The car plunged off the highway, struck and smashed the curved plate fence, dived, fell, struck the mountainside, fell again, and then stopped.

  The man’s head and face were torn and smashed, and he was not quite conscious, but he moved to go, to get to the inquiry in the morning. He moved on his belly almost three inches, then came to metal. He became conscious enough to know that he was trapped under the car, broken and bleeding late at night, far from the highway. There would certainly be no one to come by and notice the small spot of wreckage a quarter of a mile down the mountainside. He tried to move again, to get out, to pick up and go, to get to Red’s sleeping face, to Eva’s sleeping face, but he couldn’t go, and then something began to laugh. He had no way of knowing if it was himself, his life, his father’s life, his wife Swan’s life, his brother’s life, the smashed junk of the automobile, or the smashed junk of matter itself laughing.

  Whatever it was, the laughter took the form and meaning of fire. He could not see it. He could see nothing, but he could smell it, and then he heard it, first as an explosion, as if lungs needing air badly had suddenly reached air, then softly, as a hum. And finally he felt the laughter. It was an accident, though. It was one accident after another, ending in laughter.

  “Swan?” he said. “Red? Eva?”

  In the house on the vineyard in Clovis, five hours later, Dr. Altoun, asleep on the sofa in the parlor, sat up suddenly, for he heard sobbing.

  He got up and went in the dark to the door of the boy’s room.

  The boy was crying in his sleep. Dr. Altoun turned on the hall light and listened.

  “Papa?” the boy said. “Mama?”

  The boy sobbed again, then fell back to sleep. The man looked at his watch
and wondered what had delayed the boy’s father. He went back to the sofa, but instead of stretching out on it, he sat there to wait.

  A Note on the Author

  William Saroyan (1908–1981) was an internationally renowned Armenian American writer, playwright, and humanitarian. He achieved great popularity in the thirties, forties, and fifties through his hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, memoirs, and essays. In 1939, Saroyan was the first American writer to win both the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his play The Time of Your Life. He famously refused to accept the Pulitzer Prize on the grounds that “Commerce should not patronize art.” He died near his hometown of Fresno at the age of seventy–two.

  Discover books by William Saroyan published by Bloomsbury Reader at

  www.bloomsbury.com/WilliamSaroyan

  Boys and Girls Together

  Chance Meetings

  The Laughing Matter

  Rock Wagram

  For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been removed from this book.

  The text has not been changed, and may still contain references to missing images.

  This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  First published in 1953 by Doubleday & Company

  Copyright © 1953 William Saroyan

  Used with permission of Stanford University

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The moral right of the author is asserted.

  eISBN: 9781448214761

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