“Surprise,” Nick said lazily when he saw him.
“I think we ought to get together on this Atlanta business,” Pierro said.
Nick looked at him for a long moment.
“There isn’t going to be any Atlanta business,” Nick said. “You might as well know.”
“What do you mean?” Pierro said.
“I’m calling off the marriage, that’s what.”
“How long have you known? Since you came back?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think you could have been decent enough to say something then?” Nick sensed the disappointment and defeat in Pierro’s voice.
“I suppose,” Nick said. “For you, I’m sorry. But I just can’t go through with it.”
“You’re detestable,” Pierro said in an ugly way.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Nick said as Pierro walked from the office.
Nick waited now for Old Pete’s secretary. But Old Pete himself came in gray-faced. “Come in my office,” Old Pete said, his voice quivering. Nick followed him into his office. Old Pete sat down behind his desk. Nick could see that his hands were trembling.
“It’s true,” Nick said. “I’m not going through with it.”
“You bum. You dirty rotten bum.”
“I can’t help it,” Nick said. “I can’t.”
“You destroy everything you touch. Everything! You disgrace your family. You break Pierro’s heart. You hurt the girl. My best friend’s daughter. You’re killing your mother. You’re nuts! Crazy! Disgrace,” he practically screamed, his fist coming down on the desk. “Disgrace.” Then, suddenly, he was swearing loathingly at Nick in Greek.
Nick turned and walked out of the office. He went home and told Mary. Mary cried. Then Nick went upstairs to write Pat a letter. Mary went into the kitchen and took two large shots and rinsed her mouth with Lavoris. When Nick finished writing the letter, he called George Stratos down at the office and told him. George went and told Charlie right away. Charlie smiled. It was the first time in years George had seen Charlie smile. Yvonne heard about it from Mary and went upstairs and called Nick a dirty bastard, then said she was sorry, was there anything she could do for him. After Nick had talked to Yvonne, he went down the back stairs and around the house and drove down to Gus. He sat on the edge of the bunk in the shack and told Gus.
“You must go your way, Nick,” Old Gus said reassuringly. “I do not think in the eyes of God you have committed any great sin. What will you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have spent what money you have?”
“Yes.”
“You should have some money. As the son you should have that anyhow. In all these years. I have never asked your father for anything. I will ask him for money for you.”
“I don’t think it will do any good,” Nick said. “But thanks, Gus.”
“The last weeks have not been so much fun for you. Come. We will go down to Greektown and get Little Joe and drink and dance. Tonight we should do that.”
Nick hesitated a moment. “Yes, let’s.”
They went down to Little Joe’s diner. It was crowded. Old Gus went down around the counter and spoke to Little Joe. Little Joe told everyone to hurry up and eat; he was closing. He went into the kitchen and brought out some ouzo and poured a glass for Gus and Nick. Then began to prod his customers to hurry up and get out and began to clean up the range.
They went to a coffee house first.
“What’s this business, Nickie?” Little Joe asked. “What’s this high business this old one said is so important?”
“Nick, I think, goes away soon,” Old Gus said. “Is it not right we gather?”
“You are not marrying.” Little Joe said. “Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Ha! Old Gus said you would not marry, probablies.”
“Probably,” Nick said, grinning.
“Probilies,” Little Joe tried but in vain. “What will you do?” Little Joe asked.
“He does not know. I think he should have money.”
“Yes, he should have money. The son of Old Pete Stratton should have monies,” Little Joe said. “Maybe now Old Pete will know that monies will not buy everything.”
“He won’t give me money,” Nick said.
“You have monies,” Little Joe said. “For years, since he has been bankrupt he has carried the stocks in your name, my name, your sainted mother’s name, your good sister’s name. Did you not know?”
“I have signed many things for him. I don’t know.”
“We will get you money,” Little Joe said. “Old Gus and I will get it for you. But what will you do?”
“He does not know. How would he know now? If he has money he will do one thing. Without it he will do another. He is not like us—always without money.”
“I have money,” Joe said proudly, pressing his hand to his money belt.
“Money,” Old Gus said.
Nick was laughing.
They drank and sang and danced and went from place to place. Nick got home at five in the morning.
He came down to breakfast around noon. Mary drank coffee while he ate in the breakfast nook. She had had a terrible time with Old Pete last night, she said. He was disgraced, he felt. He had taken a bag when he left this morning and was going to Hot Springs with Lou Duck for a few days.
Then Nick told Mary he was going away, on his own, that he would like some money. Mary, too, thought he should have it. “Your father should do something for you while he’s still alive,” she said. “What is the pleasure in doing it for your own when you are dead? I wish you every happiness, son. In a way, I’m very proud of you.
Nick felt choked up and did not answer for a moment.
“I don’t know where I’m going,” he said finally.
“You’ll find what you want,” she said in that secure way that mothers have of saying it, and making you believe it, because they want to believe it so badly, and because you want to believe it so badly.
Nick told Mary that Old Gus was going to approach Pete for him and Mary said she thought it was a fine idea, then asked Nick if he would drive her to Evanston so she could shop. He said he would be glad to and she told him to be sure and put on a sweater, it was a little chilly.
Nick asked where Yvonne was and Mary said she had gone shopping with Ellen, Ellen was buying her wardrobe for her impending marriage to Raul. Before Nick left for Evanston with Mary, he called Nora and told her he had broken the engagement. She seemed very casual about the breaking of his engagement and was very busy, she needed the money very badly she said, and they made a date for two nights later.
Yvonne too was very busy, now that Old Pete was away, attending parties for Ellen and Raul. It was lonely for Nick when he was not with Nora, waiting for Old Pete to return. Two days before Old Pete returned, Nick came back from a walk on the beach around four. Mary was paralyzed drunk, was crying, was maudlin, threw her arms around Nick and begged him not to go away. Yvonne called the doctor and he came over and gave Mary a sedative. Yvonne said she was disgusted with the whole mess and went off in a convertible with a young naval officer Nick had never seen before. She hadn’t even waited for the officer to come to the door but walked rapidly towards his car when it pulled up.
Nora looked very bad that night. She had lost considerable weight lately and there were dark circles under her eyes and her eyes seemed yellowish and large shiny bright as if she were sick in some way. Nick told her that he thought she was working too hard but she laughed at that. She, who had always drunk so well, drank hardly at all this night but got sick and Nick took her home and held her head while she vomited. She was terribly sick but wouldn’t let him call a doctor. He stayed up most of the night listening to the way she breathed but finally he went to sleep and when he got up she was fine, it seemed. She kidded him about his thinking he was going to get any money off of Old Pete.
“I must be screwed up to think that,” he was force
d to laugh at himself. She agreed. They were having one of their homey breakfasts. She hardly ate at all. He wondered if she had TB or cancer and asked her seriously if she wouldn’t go see a doctor. “A week in the Florida sun and I’ll be fine,” she said.
So they sat there placidly, it seemed, having their coffee. Each, it seemed, in his own way (tentatively at least) sated. Yet, it seemed, not sated of each other. She had been so very casual about the breaking of his engagement. She was never conscious of it giving her pleasure. She was not aware, or was he, that her attitude toward him had changed. But the last two times they had been out she had reprimanded him about his gambling and drinking and the way he spent money, but it was in such a nice way, and he seemed to take pleasure in this new interest she had in him. And she was not aware, or was he, that his attitude toward her had changed. They had been to bed only once since he had picked her up last night and now in the morning there didn’t seem to be any desire and it seemed that he had known her always.
She kissed him oddly when he left a little later. It was such a tender kiss, a kiss of longing it seemed, and she had never before held his head in her hands when she had kissed him. She said, “Goodbye, Nick,” oddly too, he thought walking to his car in the gray September morning. He wondered if she was sick, was going to die. He had a strange feeling that he would never see her again but as he drove home the feeling vanished. But he did not call her that afternoon as he said he would. And when he called the next day the answering service said they had a message for him: she had gone to Florida. That was all.
He went out to the bar at Los Caballeros and stood there from five until twelve. Yvonne and her naval officer, and Tuttle and Tuttle’s bride-to-be, Raul and Ellen, and Raul’s father all walked in at twelve. Nick was very drunk. He was introduced to Yvonne’s naval officer and made some kind of sarcastic remark to him, and Yvonne whispered something to the officer and they left Nick and went off to dance. Louie, the bartender, said it would be best if Nick went home and called him a cab. Raul’s father and Louie took Nick out to the cab, Nick mumbling something about “finalities of finalities of finalities.”
The next day when the mail came there was a package addressed to Nick from Atlanta. It was the ring. No note, just the ring. Nick took it right downtown to a jewelry store and sold it for three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars, two thousand less than Old Pete had paid for it. When Old Pete arrived and heard the ring had been returned he asked Nick for it. Nick said he had sold it. He and Old Pete had a violent argument over the ownership of the ring. Old Pete grabbed a kitchen knife and Mary thought he was going to kill Nick and threw herself between them and fainted. Yvonne became hysterical. Old Pete left the house with Yvonne’s screams ringing in his ears, and Nick trying to revive his mother, and went to the Drake and took a room for the night.
The next day the Stratos brothers informed Old Pete that Nick owed Interstate over five thousand dollars. They had a terrible argument, Pete contending that the Stratos had no right to lend Nick the money without his consent, that he, Old Pete, didn’t owe it, Nick owed. They said Nick had stock in the company and if he couldn’t pay it back it should come out of the value of Nick’s stock. Old Pete argued with them in Greek for over two hours and finally stormed out and went down to the shack to see Old Gus. He told Old Gus all his troubles and, when he was done, Old Gus said, “I have never asked a thing of you. Now I am going to ask of you a favor.”
“Whatever you want, Gus,” Old Pete said.
“I want you to give Nick money,” Old Gus said and saw the red come into Old Pete’s face. “Little Joe and I have a good idea of your worth. We want you to give him fifty thousand dollars.”
Old Pete ranted and raved and swore at Old Gus and said he was crazy with his old age, Nick would never get a dime, not a goddamn dime from him ever, the rotten punk son-of-a-bitch. When he had talked himself out, Old Gus very soothingly told Old Pete that, according to the study he had made of Old Pete’s finances, Old Pete had violated the bankruptcy laws and if the government ever found this out Old Pete was in serious trouble. Old Pete knew that Old Gus did not fool and walked from the shack with head bowed and went home to Mary and up on the chaise longue cried pitifully and told her how his whole family that he had worked so hard for had turned upon him. In her arms, he was like a scared child and she listened to him and gave him brandy and took his pulse and patted him and read to him from the horoscope book about what a long life he had ahead of him, and the great success in store for him, everything would be fine. She gave him a sedative and he went to sleep exhausted.
Nick saw Old Gus that night and Gus told him he was going to get the money and suggested Nick move into a hotel until it could be arranged.
“That is much money,” Old Gus said. “Money is to be used to the advantage of things, remember that, Nick. Your father owes you nothing now, nor you him. Go your way.”
“Should I give some of this money to Pierro? I know he needs it bad.”
“If money is going to be used to pacify your guilts, you are making no better use of it than your father. Go back to work for him if that is what you want money for. That is all I can tell you.”
“I think I understand,” Nick said. “I’ll see you before I go.”
“Go slow,” Old Gus said, “until you see a rent and when you see the sky, some day, go like hell for it.”
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE next morning Nick drove far out into the country near St. Charles in the Fox River Valley. He drove with the top down in the crisp fall morning along the twisting, turning, rolling little road that lay close paralleling the river. The sun reflected through the slight morning mist from the river onto the trees that were all gold, yellow, red now in the fall. And already the county workers were burning the leaves along the road. On the river there were ducks and several boats and men fishing in the boats. When he was a small boy he had fished for sunfish and catfish on this river in the very same boats. He had no idea why he had driven out here so early in the morning. Finally he had pulled off the road near the river, near a roadside table. He sat on a log near the table and looked out at the river.
Objectless anxiety in the present, he thought, and a future of sacrifices that amounted to nothing. Or was it sacrifice that made him know he must go away. Is it sacrifice or was it truly because I have the great vanity and believe now that I am ostracized from this society in which I have been raised, that those very -persons whom I consider stupid and ignorant and base will be frowning upon me. Is it because of that? Or because I am too weak to face them? I have committed no crime yet in a way I have been made to believe so. Was there really anything in this world that we were not forced to do?
I mean, he asked himself, am I going away because I want to or because I am forced to. And if I should choose to stay would it be because I really want to stay or because I am forced. And if it were true that I am forced then everything in life is governed by force and there is no such thing as the ultimate freedom.
His mind was full of such things and he sat there a long while. He saw now no victory in his final severance of the cord. To the contrary, he saw only hopeless destruction. He had lost. Old Pete had lost. Mary had lost. Nora seemed to have been forever lost.
DESTRUCTION: It was all, it seemed, that he had ever known and ever done.
Then suddenly he thought of Old Gus, and Red, and Boomer pulling him bleeding through the snow. It was so vague (it must have been the shock) being dragged through the snow. He remembered the blood tracks that were like rabbit tracks in the dry white snow and the blackpowder-smoke of the artillery exploding around them on the hill but it wasn’t until later, from the others, the few that ever got off that hill, that he found out the miracle of what Boomer had done.
I wonder what he is doing now? Nick asked himself. I wonder if he has capitulated and gone back to the mines? No, that was silly. He would not capitulate. He would not even have exposed himself to the thought. And had he, he wouldn’t cringe or pa
nic or act as you are acting now—wounded (didn’t Ellen tell you how easily you wounded), and lost, and afraid—of the loneliness.
No, Boomer would not act this way. Nor Red. Nor Old Gus. Nor—Nor—he thought suddenly seeing it, but not wanting to see it, but seeing it nevertheless, nor would Old Pete. Already Old Pete would be going ahead, Nick knew. He would not tear at his own entrails like some wounded hyena. It is only for you that this world ends. Maybe that is why you have so often wondered whether, had it been Boomer instead of you, you would have so unhesitatingly pulled him through the snow?
It was mid-morning now and the mist had cleared from the river and the fall sun shone on the river and the crisp breeze from the north and the fall colored leaves rustled in the trees overhead and fell and he studied several of the leaves as they drifted away with the current of the river.
Then suddenly he knew that he, too, must go away. That even in the short time that he had been at home, he had fallen into a habit, almost a technique of life, and was weaving about himself a web which he soon would not be able to see beyond and he would only live blindly on to certain blind death.
He knew suddenly now that what he wanted was somewhere within him, only that never had he had the courage to pay for it. To go away would be to cut through the web, to free himself for an objective responsiveness to his own existence, to see once again the most humble of realities with its unique fact of existence, thus restoring to each living thing, each object, its miraculous worth.
For what were the things that he had loved so in Boomer, and Red, and Old Gus? Yes, he realized, in three months he was almost blind to all the things that they stood for, had been to each other. The trouble with him was that he went into each situation as if the situation were the cause not the effect of the way he reacted, when in reality it was he that was the cause, the situation the effect upon him.
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