I learned that there were now about a dozen customers left on the books. No new ones forthcoming, of course. It was like the passing of the buffaloes. The man with the yacht who had ordered two precious suits of clothes, for which he was in no apparent hurry, used formerly to order a dozen at a time, to say nothing of cutaways, overcoats, dinner jackets, and so on. Nearly all the great merchant tailors of the past were either out of business, in bankruptcy, or about to give up. The great English woolen houses which had once served them were now shrunk to insignificant size. Though we have more millionaires than ever, fewer men seem inclined to pay two hundred dollars for an ordinary sack suit. Curious, what!
It was not only pathetic, it was ludicrous, to hear him talking about those two suits which, by the way, I was to remember to ask his partner not to leave hanging on the rack by the front window because they would be faded by the time the man called for a fitting. They had become mythical, legendary—the two suits ordered by a millionaire in the year ’37 or ’38 just prior to a short cruise in the Mediterranean. If all went well why possibly two years hence there would be ten or fifteen dollars accruing to the old man as his share of the transaction. Wonderful state of affairs! Somehow the two legendary suits belonged with the oil burner and the frigidaire—part and parcel of the same system of luxurious waste. Meantime, just to take a random shot, the fumes from the copper smelting plant at Ducktown, Tennessee, had rendered absolutely deathlike and desolate the whole region for fifty miles around. (To see this region is to have a premonition of the fate of still another planet—our Earth—should the human experiment fail. Here Nature resembles the raw backside of a sick chimpanzee.) The president of the plant, undisturbed by the devastation, to say nothing of the premature deaths in the mines, may possibly be getting ready to order a hunting jacket on his coming trip to New York. Or he may have a son who is preparing to enter the Army as a brigadier-general for whom he will put in an order for the appropriate outfit when the time comes. That disease which boss tailors acquire, just like other people, won’t be such a terrifying thing to the president of Copper Hill, should it strike him down, because with trained nurses to irrigate him every few hours and a specialist to summon by taxi when he has a little pain, he can have quite a tolerable time of it—perhaps not as much rich food as he is used to having, but plenty of good things just the same, including a game of cards every night or a visit to the cinema in his wheel chair.
As for my father, he has his little pleasure too every month or so, when he is given a joy ride to the doctor’s office. I was a little annoyed that my father should be so grateful to his friend for acting as a chauffeur once a month. And when my mother began to lay it on about the kindness of the neighbors—letting her telephone free of charge and that sort of thing—I was about ready to explode. “What the devil,” I remarked, “it’s no great favor they’re doing. A nigger would do as much for you—more maybe. That’s the least one can do for a friend.”
My mother looked aggrieved. She begged me not to talk that way. And in the next breath she went on to say how good the people next door were to her, how they left the morning paper for them at the window every evening. And another neighbor down the block was thoughtful enough to save the old rags which accumulated. Real Christians, I must say. Generous souls, what!
“And the Helsingers?” I said, referring to their old friends who were now millionaires. “Don’t they do anything for you?”
“Well,” my father began, “you know what a stinker he always was. . . .”
“How can you talk that way!” exclaimed my mother.
“I’m only telling the truth,” said the old man innocently.
They had been very kind and thoughtful too, my mother tried to say. The proof of it was that they had remembered on their last visit—eight months ago—to bring a jar of preserves from their country estate.
“So that’s it!” I broke out, always enraged by the very mention of their name. “So that’s the best they can do, is it?”
“They have their own troubles,” said my mother reprovingly. “You know Mr. Helsinger is going blind.”
“Good,” I said bitterly. “I hope he grows deaf and dumb too—and paralyzed to boot.”
Even my father thought this a bit too vehement. “Still,” he said, “I can’t say that I ever knew him to do a generous deed. He was always close, even from the beginning. But he’s losing it all now—the boy is going through it fast.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I hope he loses every penny of it before he croaks. I hope he dies in want—and in pain and agony.”
Here my sister suddenly popped up. “You shouldn’t talk that way,” she said, “you’ll be punished for it. Pastor Liederkranz says we must only speak good of one another.” And with the mention of the pastor’s name she began to ramble on about Greece which his holiness, the Episcopal cheese of the diocese, had visited last year during his vacation.
“And what have they done for you all?” (meaning the church) I asked, turning to my father and mother.
“We never belonged to any church, you know,” said my mother softly.
“Well, she belongs, doesn’t she?” I said, nodding in my sister’s direction. “Isn’t that enough for them?”
“They have their own to take care of.”
“Their own!” I said sneeringly. “That’s a good excuse.”
“He’s right,” said my father. “They could have done something. You take the Lutheran Church—we’re not members of that either, but they send us things just the same, don’t they. And they come and visit us, too. How do you explain that?” and he turned on my mother rather savagely, as if to show that he was a bit fed up with her continuous whitewashing of this one and that.
At this juncture my sister, who always became alert when the church was involved, reminded us that a new parish house was being built—there would be new pews installed too, we shouldn’t forget that either. “That costs something!” she snarled.
“All right, you win!” yelled my father. I had to laugh. I had never realized before what an obstinate, tenacious creature my sister could be. Half-witted though she was, she seemed to realize that she needn’t let my father bulldoze her any longer. She could even be cruel, in her witless way. “No, I won’t get any cigarettes for you,” she would say to the old man. “You smoke too much. We don’t smoke and we’re not sick.”
The great problem, the old man confided to me when we were alone for a few minutes, was to be able to have a quarter in his pocket at all times—“in case anything should happen,” as he put it. “They mean well,” he said, “but they don’t understand. They think I ought to cut out the cigarettes, for instance. By God, I have to do something to while away the time, don’t I? Of course it means fifteen cents a day, but. . . .”
I begged him not to say any more about it. “I’ll see that you have cigarettes at least,” I said, and with that I fished out a couple of dollars and blushingly thrust the money in his hand.
“Are you sure you can spare it?” said my father, quickly hiding it away. He leaned forward and whispered: “Better not let them know you gave me anything—they’ll take it away from me. They say I don’t need any money.”
I felt wretched and exasperated.
“Understand,” he went on, “I don’t mean to complain. But it’s like the doctor business. Mother wants me to delay the visits as long as possible. It’s not right, you know. If I wait too long the pains get unbearable. When I tell her that she says—“it’s your condition.” Half the time I don’t dare tell her I’m in pain; I don’t want to annoy her. But I do think if I went a little oftener it would ease things up a bit, don’t you?”
I was so choked with rage and mortification I could scarcely answer him. It seemed to me that he was being slowly tortured and humiliated; they behaved as if he had committed a crime by becoming ill. Worse, it was as if my mother, knowing that he would never get well, looked upon each day that he remained alive as so much unnecessary expense. She
delighted in depriving herself of things, in order to impress my father with the need of economizing. Actually the only economy he could practice would be to die. That’s how it looked to me, though I dare say if I had put it to my mother that way she would have been horrified. She was working herself to the bone, no doubt about that. And she had my sister working the treadmill too. But it was all stupid—unnecessary labor for the most part. They created work for themselves. When any one remarked how pale and haggard they looked they would reply with alacrity—“Well, some one has to keep going. We can’t all afford to be ill.” As though to imply that being ill was a sinful luxury.
As I say, there was a blend of stupidity, criminality and hypocrisy in the atmosphere. By the time I was ready to take leave my throat was sore from repressing my emotions. The climax came when, just as I was about to slip into my overcoat, my mother in a tearful voice came rushing up to me and, holding me by the arm, said: “Oh Henry, there’s a thread on your coat!” A thread, by Jesus! That was the sort of thing she would give attention to! The way she uttered the word thread was as if she had spied a leprous hand sticking out of my coat pocket. All her tenderness came out in removing that little white thread from my sleeve. Incredible—and disgusting! I embraced them in turn rapidly and fled out of the house. In the street I allowed the tears to flow freely. I sobbed and wept unrestrainedly all the way to the elevated station. As I entered the train, as we passed the names of familiar stations, all of them recalling some old wound or humiliation, I began enacting in my mind the scene I had just been through, began describing it as if I were seated before the typewriter with a fresh piece of paper in the roller. “Jesus, don’t forget that about the head that was sewn on,” I would say to myself, the tears streaming down my face and blinding me. “Don’t forget this . . . don’t forget that.” I was conscious that everybody’s eyes were focused on me, but still I continued to weep and to write. When I got to bed the sobbing broke out again. I must have gone on sobbing in my sleep for in the early morning I heard some one rapping on the wall and awoke to find my face wet with tears. The outburst continued intermittently for about thirty-six hours; any little thing served to make me break out afresh. It was a complete purge which left me exhausted and refreshed at the same time.
On going for my mail the next day, as if in answer to my prayers, I found a letter from a man whom I thought was my enemy. It was a brief note saying that he had heard I was back and would I stop in to see him some time. I went at once and to my astonishment was greeted like an old friend. We had hardly exchanged greetings when he said to me: “I want to help you—what can I do for you?” These words, which were wholly unexpected, brought on another weeping fit. Here was a Jew whom I had met only once before, with whom I had exchanged barely a half dozen letters while in Paris, whom I had offended mortally by what he considered my anti-Semitic writings, and now suddenly, without a word of explanation for his volte face, he puts himself completely at my service. I want to help you! These words which one so seldom hears, especially when one is in distress, were not new to me. Time and again it has been my fortune to be rescued either by an enemy or by an utter stranger. It has happened so often, in fact, that I have almost come to believe that Providence is watching over me.
To be brief, I now had a sufficient sum in my pocket for my needs and the assurance that more was forthcoming should I need it. I passed from the anguish of utter doubt and despair to radiant, boundless optimism. I could return to the house of sorrow and bring a ray of cheer.
I telephoned immediately to communicate the good news. I told them I had found an editor for my work and had been given a contract for a new book, a lie which was soon to become a fact. They were amazed and a bit skeptical, as they had always been. My mother, in fact, as though failing to grasp what I had said, informed me over the telephone that they could give me a little work to do, if I wanted it, such as painting the kitchen aad repairing the roof. It would give me a little pocket money anyway, she added.
As I hung up the receiver it came back to me in a flash how long ago, when I had just begun to write, I used to sit at the window by the sewing table, and batter my brains trying to write the stories and essays which the editors never found acceptable. I remember the period well because it was one of the bitterest I have ever gone through. Because of our abject poverty my wife and I had decided to separate for a while. She had returned to her parents (so I thought!) and I was returning to mine. I had to swallow my pride and beg to be taken back to the fold. Of course there had never been any thought in their mind of refusing my request, but when they discovered that I had no intention of looking for a job, that I was still dreaming of earning a living by writing, their disappointment was soon converted into a deep chagrin. Having nothing else to do but eat, sleep and write I was up early every morning, seated at the sewing table which my aunt had left behind when she was taken to the insane asylum. I worked until a neighbor called. The moment the bell rang my mother would come running to me and beg me frantically to put my things away and hide myself in the clothes closet. She was ashamed to let any one know that I was wasting my time at such a foolish pursuit. More, she was even concerned for fear that I might be slightly touched. Consequently, as soon as I saw some one entering the gate I gathered up my paraphernalia, rushed with it to the bathroom, where I hid it in the tub, and then secreted myself in the clothes closet where I would stand in the dark choking with the stink of camphor balls until the neighbor took leave. Small wonder that I always associated my activity with that of the criminal! Often in my dreams I am taken to the penitentiary where I immediately proceed to install myself as comfortably as possible with typewriter and paper. Even when awake I sometimes fall into a reverie wherein, accommodating myself to the thought of a year or two behind the bars, I begin planning the book I will write during my incarceration. Usually I am provided with the sewing table by the window, the one on which the telephone stood; it is a beautiful inlaid table whose pattern is engraved in my memory. In the center of it is a minute spot to which my eyes were riveted when, during the period I speak of, I received one evening a telephone call from my wife saying that she was about to jump in the river. In the midst of a despair which had become so tremendous as to freeze all emotion I suddenly heard her tearful voice announcing that she could stand it no longer. She was calling to say good-by—a brief, hysterical speech and then click! and she had vanished and her address was the river. Terrible as I felt I nevertheless had to conceal my feelings. To their query as to who had called I replied—“Oh, just a friend!” and I sat there for a moment or two gazing at the minute spot which had become the infinitesimal speck in the river where the body of my wife was slowly disappearing. Finally I roused myself, put on my hat and coat, and announced that I was going for a walk.
When I got outdoors I could scarcely drag my feet along. I thought my heart had stopped beating. The emotion I had experienced on hearing her voice had disappeared; I had become a piece of slag, a tiny hunk of cosmic debris void of hope, desire, or even fear. Knowing not what to do or where to turn I walked about aimlessly in that frozen blight which has made Brooklyn the place of horror which it is. The houses were still, motionless, breathing gently as people breathe when they sleep the sleep of the just. I walked blindly onward until I found myself on the border of the old neighborhood which I love so well. Here suddenly the significance of the message which my wife had transmitted over the telephone struck me with a new impact. Suddenly I grew quite frantic and, as if that would help matters, I instinctively quickened my pace. As I did so the whole of my life, from earliest boyhood on, began to unroll itself in swift and kaleidoscopic fashion. The myriad events which had combined to shape my life became so fascinating to me that, without realizing why or what, I found myself growing enthusiastic. To my astonishment I caught myself laughing and weeping, shaking my head from side to side, gesticulating, mumbling, lurching like a drunkard. I was alive again, that’s what it was. I was a living entity, a human being capable of
registering joy and sorrow, hope and despair. It was marvelous to be alive—just that and nothing more. Marvelous to have lived, to remember so much. If she had really jumped in the river then there was nothing to be done about it. Just the same I began to wonder if I oughtn’t to go to the police and inform them about it. Even as the thought came to mind I espied a cop standing on the corner, and impulsively I started towards him. But when I came close and saw the expression on his face the impulse died as quickly as it had come. I went up to him nevertheless and in a calm, matter of fact tone I asked him if he could direct me to a certain street, a street I knew well since it was the one I was living on. I listened to his directions as would a penitent prisoner were he to ask the way back to the penitentiary from which he had escaped.
When I got back to the house I was informed that my wife had just telephoned. “What did she say?” I exclaimed, almost beside myself with joy.
“She said she would call you again in the morning,” said my mother, surprised that I should seem so agitated.
When I got to bed I began to laugh; I laughed so hard the bed shook. I heard my father coming upstairs. I tried to suppress my laughter but couldn’t.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, standing outside the bedroom door.
“I’m laughing,” I said. “I just thought of something funny.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he said, his voice betraying his perplexity. “We thought you were crying. . . .”
I am on my way to the house with a pocketful of money. Unusual event for me, to say the least. I begin to think of the holidays and birthdays in the past when I arrived empty-handed, sullen, dejected, humiliated and defeated. It was embarrassing, after having ignored their circumstances all these years, to come trotting in with a handful of dough and say, “Take it, I know you need it!” It was theatrical, for one thing, and it was creating an illusion which might have to be sadly punctured. I was of course prepared for the ceremony my mother would go through. I dreaded that. It would have been easier to hand it to my father, but he would only be obliged to turn it over to my mother and that would create more confusion and embarrassment.
The Henry Miller Reader Page 13