Tom Wolfe returned to Earth at the end of eight weeks.
He arrived in fire as he had left in fire, and his huge steps were burned across space, and in the library of Henry William Field's house were towers of yellow paper, with lines of black scribble and type on them, and these were to be separated out into the six sections of a masterwork that, through endurance, and a knowing that the sands were dwindling from the glass, had mushroomed day after day.
Tom Wolfe came back to Earth and stood in the library of Henry William Field's house and looked at the massive outpourings of his heart and his hand and when the old man said, "Do you want to read it, Tom?" he shook his great head and replied, putting back his thick mane of dark hair with his big pale hand, "No. I don't dare start on it. If I did, I'd want to take it home with me. And I can't do that, can I?"
"No, Tom, you can't."
"No matter how much I wanted to?"
"No, that's the way it is. You never wrote another novel in that year, Tom. What was written here must stay here, what was written there must stay there. There's no touching it."
"I see." Tom sank down into a chair with a great sigh. "I'm tired. I'm mightily tired. It's been hard, but it's been good. What day is it?"
"This is the fifty-sixth day."
"The last day?"
The old man nodded and they were both silent awhile.
"Back to 1938 in the stone cemetery," said Tom Wolfe, eyes shut. "I don't like that. I wish I didn't know about that, it's a horrible thing to know." His voice faded and he put his big hands over his face and held them tightly there.
The door opened. Bolton let himself in and stood behind Tom Wolfe's chair, a small phial in his hand.
"What's that?" asked the old man.
"An extinct virus. Pneumonia. Very ancient and very evil," said Bolton. "When Mr. Wolfe came through, I had to cure him of his illness, of course, which was immensely easy with the techniques we know today, in order to put him in working condition for his job, Mr. Field. I kept this pneumonia culture. Now that he's going back, he'll have to be reinoculated with the disease."
"Otherwise?"
"Otherwise, he'd get well, in 1938."
Tom Wolfe arose from his chair. "You mean, get well, walk around, back there, be well, and cheat the mortician?"
"That's what I mean."
Tom Wolfe stared at the phial and one of his hands twitched. "What if I destroyed the virus and refused to let you inoculate me?"
"You can't do that!"
"But—supposing?"
"You'd ruin things."
"What things?"
"The pattern, life, the ways things are and were, the things that can't be changed. You can't disrupt it There's only one sure thing, you're to die, and I'm to see to it."
Wolfe looked at the door. "I could run off."
"We control the machine. You wouldn't get out of the house. I'd have you back here, by force, and inoculated. I anticipated some such trouble when the time came; there are five men waiting down below. One shout from me—you see, it's useless. There, that's better. Here now."
Wolfe had moved back and now had turned to look at the old man and the window and this huge house. "I'm afraid I must apologize. I don't want to die. So very much I don't want to die."
The old man came to him and took his hand. "Think of it this way: you've had two more months than anyone could expect from life, and you've turned out another book, a last book, a fine book, think of that."
"I want to thank you for this," said Thomas Wolfe, gravely. "I want to thank both of you. I'm ready." He rolled up his sleeve. "The inoculation."
And while Bolton bent to his task, with his free hand Thomas Wolfe penciled two black lines across the top of the first manuscript and went on talking:
"There's a passage from one of my old books," he said, scowling to remember it. "... of wandering forever and the Earth . . . Who owns the Earth? Did we want the Earth? That we should wander on it? Did we need the Earth that we were never still upon it? Whoever needs the Earth shall have the Earth; he shall be upon it, he shall rest within a little place, he shall dwell in one small room forever . . ."
Wolfe was finished with the remembering.
"Here's my last book," he said, and on the empty yellow paper facing the manuscript he blocked out vigorous huge black letters with pressures of the pencil:
FOREVER AND THE EARTH, by Thomas Wolfe.
He picked up a ream of it and held it tightly in his hands, against his chest, for a moment. "I wish I could take it back with me. It's like parting with my son." He gave it a slap and put it aside and immediately thereafter gave his quick hand into that of his employer, and strode across the room, Bolton after him, until he reached the door where he stood framed in the late-afternoon light, huge and magnificent. "Good-bye, good-bye!" he cried.
The door slammed. Tom Wolfe was gone.
They found him wandering in the hospital corridor.
"Mr. Wolfe!"
"What?"
"Mr. Wolfe, you gave us a scare, we thought you were gone!"
"Gone?"
"Where did you go?"
"Where? Where?" He let himself be led through the midnight corridors. "Where? Oh, if I told you where, you'd never believe."
"Here's your bed, you shouldn't have left it."
Deep into the white death bed, which smelled of pale, clean mortality awaiting him, a mortality which had the hospital odor in it; the bed which, as he touched it, folded him into fumes and white starched coldness.
"Mars, Mars," whispered the huge man, late at night "My best, my very best, my really fine book, yet to be written, yet to be printed, in another year, three centuries away . . ."
"You're tired."
"Do you really think so?" murmured Thomas Wolfe. "Was it a dream? Perhaps. A good dream." His breathing faltered. Thomas Wolfe was dead.
In the passing years, flowers are found on Tom Wolfe's grave. And this is not unusual, for many people travel there. But these flowers appear each night. They seem to drop from the sky. They are the color of an autumn moon, their blossoms are immense, and they burn and sparkle their cold, long petals in a blue and white fire. And when the dawn wind blows they drip away into a silver rain, a shower of white sparks on the air. Tom Wolfe has been dead many, many years, but these flowers never cease. . ..
The Better Part of Wisdom
The room was like a great warm hearth, lit by an unseen fire, gone comfortable. The fireplace itself struggled to keep a small blaze going on a few wet logs and some turf, which was no more than smoke and several lazy orange eyes of charcoal. The place was slowly filling, draining, and refilling with music. A single lemon lamp was lit in a far corner, illumining walls painted a summer color of yellow. The hardwood floor was polished so severely it glowed like a dark river upon which floated throw-rugs whose plummage resembled South American wild birds, flashing electric blues, whites, and jungle greens. White porcelain vases, brimming with fresh-cut hothouse flowers, kept their serene fires burning on four small tables about the room. Above the fireplace, a serious portrait of a young man gazed out with eyes the same color as the ceramics, a deep blue, raw with intelligence and vitality.
Entering the room quietly, one might not have noticed the two men, they were so still.
One sat reclining back upon the pure white couch, eyes closed. The second lay upon the couch so his head was pillowed in the lap of the other. His eyes were shut, too, listening. Rain touched the windows. The music ended.
Instantly there was a soft scratching at the door.
Both men blinked as if to say: people don't scratch, they knock.
The man who had been lying down leaped to the door and called: "Someone there?"
"By God, there is," said an old voice with a faint brogue.
"Grandfather!"
With the door flung wide, the young man pulled a small round old man into the warm-lit room.
"Tom, boy, ah Tom, and glad I am to see you!"
They fell
together in bear-hugs, pawing. Then the old man felt the other person in the room and moved back.
Tom spun around, pointing. "Grandpa, this is Frank. Frank, this is Grandpa, I mean—oh, hell—" ' The old man saved the moment by trotting forward to seize and pull Frank to his feet, where he towered high above this small intruder from the night.
"Frank, is it?" the old man yelled up the heights.
"Yes, sir," Frank called back down.
"I—" said the grandfather, "have been standing outside that door for five minutes—"
"Five minutes?" cried both young men, alarmed.
"—debating whether to knock. I heard the music, you see, and finally I said, damn, if there's a girl with him he can either shove her out the window in the rain or show the lovely likes of her to the old man. Hell, I said, and knocked, and"—he slung down his battered old valise—"there is no young girl here, I see —or, by God, you've smothered her in the closet, eh!"
"There is no young girl, Grandfather." Tom turned in a circle, his hands out to show.
"But—" The grandfather eyed the polished floor, the white throw-rugs, the bright flowers, the watchful portraits on the walls. "You've borrowed her place, then?"
"Borrowed?"
"I mean, by the look of the room, there's a woman's touch. It looks like them steamship posters I seen in the travel windows half my life."
"Well," said Frank. "We-"
"The fact is, Grandfather," said Tom, clearing his throat, "we did this place over. Redecorated."
"Redecorated?" The old man's jaws dropped. His eyes toured the four walls, stunned. "The two of you are responsible? Jesus!"
The old man touched a blue and white ceramic ashtray, and bent to stroke a bright cockatoo throw-rug.
"Which of you did what?" he asked, suddenly, squinting one eye at them.
Tom flushed and stammered, "Well, we—"
"Ah, God, no, no, stop!" cried the old man, lifting one hand. "Here I am, fresh in the place, and sniffing about like a crazy hound and no fox. Shut that damn door. Ask me where I'm going, what am I up to, eh, eh? And, while you're at it, do you have a touch of the Beast in this art gallery?"
"The Beast it is!" Tom slammed the door, hustled his grandfather out of his greatcoat, and brought forth three tumblers and a bottle of Irish whiskey, which the old man touched as if it were a newborn babe.
"Well, that's more like it. What do we drink to?"
"Why, you, Grandpa!"
"No, no." The old man gazed at Tom and then at his friend, Frank. "Christ," he sighed, "you're so damn young it breaks my bones in the ache. Come now, let's drink to fresh hearts and apple cheeks and all life up ahead and happiness somewhere for the taking. Yes?"
"Yes!" said both, and drank.
And drinking watched each other merrily or warily, half one, half the other. And the young saw in the old bright pink face, lined as it was, cuffed as it was by circumstantial life, the echo of Tom's face itself peering out through the years. In the old blue eyes, especially, was the sharp bright intelligence that sprang from the old portrait on the wall, that would be young until coins weighted them shut. And around the edges of the old mouth was the smile that blinked and went in Tom's face, and in the old hands was the quick, surprising action of Tom's, as if both old man and you, had hands that lived to themselves and did sly things by impulse.
So they drank and leaned and smiled and drank again, each a mirror for the other, each delighting in the fact that an ancient man and a raw youth with the same eyes and hands and blood were met on this raining night, and the whiskey was good.
"Ah, Tom, Tom, it's a loving sight you are!" said the grandfather. "Dublin's been sore without you these four years. But, hell, I'm dying. No, don't ask me how or why. The doctor has the news, damn him, and shot me between the eyes with it. So I said instead of relatives shelling out their cash to come say good-bye to the old horse, why not make the farewell tour yourself and shake hands and drink drinks. So here I am this night and tomorrow beyond London to see Lucie and then Glasgow to see Dick. I'll stay no more than a day each place, so as not to overload anyone. Now shut that mouth, which is hanging open. I am not out collecting sympathies. I am eighty, and it's time for a damn fine wake, which I have saved money for, so not a word. I have come to see everyone and make sure they are in a fit state of half-graceful joy so I can kick up my heels and fall dead with a good heart, if that's possible. I-"
"Grandfather!" cried Tom, suddenly, and seized the old man's hands and then his shoulders.
"Why, bless you, boy, thanks," said the old man, seeing the tears in the young man's eyes. "But just what I find in your gaze is enough." He set the boy gently back. "Tell me about London, your work, this place. You too, Frank, a friend of Tom's is as good as my son's son! Tell everything, Tom!"
"Excuse me." Frank darted toward the door. "You both have much to talk about There's shopping I must do—"
"Wait!"
Frank stopped.
For the old man had really seen the portrait over the fireplace now and walked to it to put out his hand, to squint and read the signed name at the bottom.
"Frank Davis. Is that you, boy? You did this picture?"
"Yes, sir," said Frank, at the door.
"How long ago?"
"Three years ago, I think. Yes, three."
The old man nodded slowly, as if this information added to the great puzzle, a continuing bafflement
"Tom, do you know who that looks like?"
"Yes, Grand-da. You. A long time ago."
"So you see it, too, eh? Christ in heaven, yes. That's me on my eighteenth birthday and all Ireland and its grasses and tender maids good for the chewing ahead and not behind me. That's me, that's me. Jesus I was handsome, and Jesus, Tom, so are you. And Jesus, Frank, you are uncanny. You are a fine artist,1 boy."
"You do what you can do." Frank had come back to the middle of the room, quietly. "You do what you know."
"And you know Tom, to the hair and eyelash." The old man turned and smiled. "How does it feel, Tom, to look out of that borrowed face? Do you feel great, is the world your Dublin prawn and oyster?"
Tom laughed. Grandfather laughed. Frank joined them.
"One more drink." The old man poured. "And we'll let you slip diplomatically out, Frank. But come back. I must talk with you."
"What about?" said Frank.
"Ah, the Mysteries. Of Life, of Time, of Existence. What else did you have in mind, Frank?"
"Those will do, Grandfather—" said Frank, and stopped, amazed at the word come out of his mouth. "I mean, Mr. Kelly-"
"Grandfather will do."
"I must run." Frank doused his drink. "Phone you later, Tom."
The door shut. Frank was gone.
"You'll sleep here tonight of course, Grandpa?" Tom seized the one valise. "Frank won't be back. You'll have his bed." Tom was busy arranging the sheets on one of the two couches against the far wall. "Now, it's early. Let's drink some more, Grandfather, and talk."
But the old man, stunned, was silent, eyeing each picture in turn upon the wall. "Grand painting, that."
"Frank did them."
"That's a fine lamp there."
"Frank made it."
"The rug on the floor here now—?"
"Frank."
"Jesus," whispered the old man, "he's a maniac for work, is he not?"
Quietly, he shuffled about the room like one visiting a gallery.
"It seems," he said, "the place is absolutely blowing apart with fine artistic talent. You turned your hand to nothing like this, in Dublin."
"You learn a lot, away from home," said Tom, un-_ easily.
The old man shut his eyes and drank his drink.
"Is anything wrong, Grandfather?"
"It will hit me in the middle of the night," said the old man. "I will probably stand up in bed with a hell of a yell. But right now it is just a thing in the pit of my stomach and the back of my head. Let's talk, boy, let's talk."
And
they talked and drank until midnight and then the old man got put to bed and Tom went to bed himself and after a long while both slept.
About two in the morning, the old man woke suddenly.
He peered around in the dark, wondering where he was, then saw the paintings, the upholstered chairs, and the lamp and rugs Frank had made, and sat up. He clenched his fists. Then, rising, he threw on his clothes, and staggered toward the door as if fearful that he might not make it before something terrible happened.
When the door slammed, Tom jerked his eyes wide.
Somewhere off in the dark there was a sound of someone calling, shouting, defying the elements, someone at the top of his lungs crying blasphemies, saying God and Jesus and Jesus and God, and finally blows struck, wild blows, as if someone were hitting a wall or a person.
After a long while, his grandfather shuffled back into the room, soaked to the skin.
Weaving, muttering, whispering, the old man peeled off his wet clothes before the fireless fire, then threw a newspaper on the coals, which blazed up briefly to show a face relaxing out of fury into numbness. The old man found and put on Tom's discarded robe. Tom kept his eyes tight as the old man held his hands out toward the dwindling blaze, streaked with blood.
"Damn, damn, damn. There!" He poured whiskey and gulped it down. He blinked at Tom and the paintings on the wall and looked at Tom and the flowers in the vases and then drank again. After a long while, Tom pretended to wake up.
"It's after two. You need your rest, Grand-da."
"I'll rest when I'm done drinking. And thinking!"
"Thinking what, Grandpa?"
"Right now," said the old man, seated in the dim room with the tumbler in his two hands, and the fire gone to ghost on the hearth, "remembering your dear grandmother in June of the year 1902. And there is the thought of your father born, which is fine, and you born after him, which is fine. And there is the thought of your father dying when you were young and the hard life of your mother and her holding you too close, maybe, in the cold beggar life of flinty Dublin. And me out in the meadows with my working life, and us together only once a month. The being born of people and the going away of people. These turn round in an old man's night. I think of you born, Tom, a happy day. Then I see you here now. That’s it."
Bradbury, Ray - SSC 21 Page 18