Perhaps my sensitivity because has become blunted somewhere along the disposition of a reasonably normal, happy life. For a long time after Joe Varioni's death I tried to stay away from places where jazz was played. Then I suddenly met Douglas Smith at teachers' college, fell in love with him, and we went dancing. And when the orchestra played a Varioni Brothers' number, I treacherously found that I could use Varioni words and music to date and identify my new happiness for future nostalgic purposes. I was that young and that much in love with Douglas. And there was a wonderful, ungeniuslike thing about Douglas - his arms were so ready to be filled with me. I think if ever a lady, in memory of a gentleman, were determined to write an ode to the immortality of love, to make it convincing she would have to remember how the gentleman used to take her face between his hands and how he examined it with at least polite interest. Joe was always too wretched, too thwarted, too claimed by his own unsatisfied genius, to have had either inclination or time to examine, if not my face, my love. As a consequence, my mediocre heart rang out the old, in with the new.
Intermittently through the seventeen years since Joe Varioni's death, I certainly have been aware and close to the tragedy of it. Often painfully so. I sometimes remember whole sentences at a time of the unfinished novel he read to me when I was a sophomore at Waycross. Oddly, I remember them best while I was bathing the children. I don't know why.
As I have already mentioned, Sonny Varioni is now in Waycross. He is living with Douglas and me in our home about a mile from the college. He isn't at all well, and he looks much older than he is.
About three months ago, Professor Voorhees, very old and dear, opened the door of my classroom during one of my lectures, and asked me if I would kindly step outside for a moment. I did so, prepared for some major announcement or admonition. I was horribly late with my mid- term grades again.
"Sarah, dear," he said, "Sonny Varioni is here."
It registered immediately, but I denied it. "No, I don't believe you."
"He's here, my dear. He came into my office about twenty minutes ago."
"What does he want," I asked, just a little shrilly.
"I don't know," the professor said slowly. "I don't really know."
"I don't want to see him. I just don't want to see him, that's all. I'm married. I have two fine children. I don't want anything to do with him."
"Please, Sarah," Professor Voorhees said quietly. "This man is ill. He wants something. We must find out what it is."
I didn't think my voice would work, so I didn't say anything.
"Sarah" - the professor was gentle but firm - "the man in my office is harmless."
"All right," I said.
I followed Professor Voorhees down the corridor. My legs suddenly weren't too sure of themselves. They seemed in the process of dissolving.
He was sitting in one of the worn leather chairs in the professor's office. He stood up when he saw me.
"Hello, Sarah."
"Hello, Sonny."
He asked me if he could sit down. I said, very quickly, "Yes, please do."
Sonny sat down and Professor Voorhees moved into his place behind the big desk. I sat down, too, and I tried to look unhostile. I wanted to help this man. I think I said something about seventeen years being quite a long time. Sonny made no perfunctory reply. He was staring at the floor.
"What is it you want, Mr. Varioni?" Professor Voorhees asked him deliberately, yet helpfully. "What can we do for you?"
Sonny was a long time making an answer. Finally he said, "I have Joe's trunk with his script in it. I've read it. Most of it's written on the inside of a match folder."
I didn't know what he was getting at, but I knew he needed help.
"I know what you mean," I said. "He didn't care what he wrote on."
"I'd like to put his book together. Kind of type it up. I'd like to have a place to stay while I do it." He didn't look up at either of us.
"It isn't even finished," I said. "Joe didn't even finish it."
"He finished it. He finished it that time you went to California with your father. I never let him put it together."
Professor Voorhees accepted the responsibility of making further comment. He leaned forward over his desk. "It will be a tremendous job," he told Sonny.
"Yes."
"Why do you want to undertake it?"
"Because I hear the music for the first time in my life when I read his book."
He looked up helplessly at both Professor Voorhees and me, as though hoping that neither of us would take advantage of the irony at his expense.
Neither of us did.
8. Both Parties Concerned
THERE really isn't much to tell - I mean it wasn't serious or anything, but it was kind of funny at that. I mean because it looked there for a while as though everybody at the plant and Ruthie's mother and all was going to have the laugh on us. They had all kept saying I and Ruthie were too young to get married. Ruthie, she was seventeen, and I was twenty, nearly. That's pretty young, all right, but not if you know what you're doing. I mean not if everything's Jake between she and you. I mean both parties concerned.
Well, like I was saying, Ruthie and I, we never really split up. Not really split up. Not that Ruthie's mother wasn't wishing we did. Mrs. Cropper, she wanted Ruthie to go to college instead of getting married. Ruthie got out of high school when she was fifteen only, and they wouldn't take her at where she wanted to go to till she was eighteen. She wanted to be a doctor. I used to kid her, "Calling Doctor Kildare!" I'd say to her. I got a good sense of humor. Ruthie, she don't. She's more inclined to be serious like.
Well, I really don't know how it all started, but it really got hot one night last month at Jake's Place. Ruthie, she and I were out there. That joint is really class this year. Not so much neon. More bulbs. More parking space. Class. Know what I mean? Ruthie don't like Jake's much.
Well, this night I was telling you about, Jake's was jam-packed when we got there, and we had to wait around for about an hour till we got a table. Ruthie was all for not waiting. No patience. Then finally when we did get a table, she says she don't want a beer. So she just sits there, lighting matches, blowing the out. Driving me nuts.
"What's the matter?" I asked her finally. It got on my nerves after a while.
"Nothing's the matter," Ruthie says. She stops lighting matches, starts looking around the joint, as though she was keeping an eye peeled for somebody special.
"Something's the matter," I said. I know her like a book. I mean I know her like a book.
"Nothing's the matter," she says. "Stop worrying about me. Everything's swell. I'm the happiest girl in the world."
"Cut it out," I said. She was being cynical like. "I just asked you a question, that's all."
"Oh, pardon me," Ruthie said. "And you want an answer. Certainly. Pardon me." She was being very cynical like. I don't like that. It don't bother me, but I don't like it.
I knew what was eating her. I know her inside out, her every mood like. "Okay," I said. "You're sore because we went out tonight. Ruthie, for cryin' out loud, a guy has a right to go out once in a while, doesn't he?"
"Once in a while!" Ruthie says. "I love that. Once in a while. Like seven nights a week, huh, Billy?"
"It hasn't been seven nights a week," I said. And it hadn't! We hadn't come out the night before. I mean we had a beer at Gordon's, but we came right home and all.
"No?" Ruthie said. "Okay. Let's drop it. Let's not discuss it."
I asked her, very quiet like, what was I supposed to do. Sit around home like a dope every night? Stare at the walls? Listen to the baby bawl its head off? I asked her, very quiet like, what she wanted me to do.
"Please don't shout," she says. "I don't want you to do anything."
"Listen," I said. "I'm paying that crazy Widger dame eighteen bucks just to take care of the kid for a couple hours a night. I did it just so you could take it easy. I thought you'd be tickled to death. You used to like to go out once
in while," I said to her.
Then Ruthie says she didn't want me to hire Mrs. Widger in the first place. She said she didn't like her. She said she hated her, in fact. She said she didn't like to see Mrs. Widger even hold the baby. I told her that Mrs. Widger has had plenty of babies on her own, and I guessed she knew pretty good how to hold a kid. Ruthie said when we go out at night Widger just sits in the living room, reading magazines; that she never goes near the baby. I said what did she want her to do-get in the crib with the kid? Ruthie said she didn't want to talk about it any more.
"Ruthie," I said, "what are you trying to do? Make me look like a rat?"
Ruthie, she says, "I'm not trying to make you look like a rat. You're not a rat."
"Thanks. Thanks a lot," I said. I can be cynic-like too.
She says, "You're my husband, Billy." She was leaning over the table, crying like-but, holy mackerel, it wasn't my fault!
"You married me," she says, "because you said you loved me. You're supposed to love our baby, too, and take care of it. We're supposed to think about things sometimes, not just go chasing around."
I asked her, very calm like, who said I didn't love the baby.
"Please don't shout," she says. "I'll scream if you shout," she says.
"Nobody said you didn't love it, Billy. But you love it when it's convenient for you or something. When it's having its bath or when it plays with your necktie."
I told her I loved it all the time. And I do! It's a nice kid, a real nice kid.
She says, "Then why aren't we home?"
I told her then. I mean I wasn't afraid to tell her. I told her. "Because," I said, "I wanna have a couple of beers. I want some life. You don't work on a fuselage all day. You don't know what it's like." I mean I told her.
Then she tried to make funny like. "You mean," she says, "I don't slave over a hot fuselage all day?"
I told her it was pretty hot. Then she started lighting matches again, like a kid. I asked her if she didn't get what I meant at all. She said she got what I meant all right, and she said she got what her mother meant, too, when her mother said we were too young to get married. She said she got what a lot of things meant now.
That really got me. I admit it. I'm willing to admit it. Nothing really gets me except when she brings up her mother. I asked Ruthie, very quiet like, what she was talking about. I said, "Just because a guy wants to go out once in a while." Ruthie said if I ever said "once in a while" again, I'd never see her again. She's always taking things the way I don't mean them. I told her that. She said, "C'mon. We're here. Let's dance."
I followed her out to the floor, but just as we got there the orchestra got sneaky on us. They started playing Moonlight Becomes You. It's old now, but it's a swell song. I mean it isn't a bad song. We used to hear it once in a while on the radio in the car or the one at home. Once in a while Ruthie used to sing the words. But it wasn't so hot, hearing it at Jake's that night. It was embarrassing. And they must have played eighty-five choruses of it. I mean they kept playing it. Ruthie danced about ten miles away from me, and we didn't look at each other much. Finally they stopped. Then Ruthie broke away from me like. She walks back to the table, but she don't sit down. She just picks up her coat and beats it. She was crying.
I paid the check and went out after her as quickly as I could. Boy, it was cold out all of a sudden. I had on my blue suit, but Ruthie, she only had on her yellow dress. That thing wouldn't keep a flea warm. So all I wanted to do was get to the car fast and take off my coat, and maybe put it around her. I mean it was pretty cold.
She was on her side of the car, all doubled up like, and she was crying - noisy, like a kid cries. I put my coat around her and tried to turn her around to look at me, but she wouldn't turn. Boy, that's a lousy feeling when Ruthie does that. I mean that's a lousy feeling. I'd rather be dead.
I asked her around a million times just to look at me once. But she wouldn't do it. She was half on the floor of the car. She told me to go back and drink a couple beers, that she'd wait for me in the car. I told her I didn't want any beer. All I wanted was she should look at me. I told her not to believe her mother, her always saying we were too young and all. I told her her mother was nuts.
Well, like I said, I kept asking her to turn around, sit up like, and look at me, but she wouldn't do it. So finally I started up the car and drove home. She cried all the way, half on the seat, half on the floor, like a kid. But by the time I'd backed the car in the garage, she'd cut it out a little, was sitting up in her seat more. I'll admit it, usually when we drive in the garage at night we neck a little. You know what I mean. It's dark and all, and you get the feeling you're in your own garage and all, and hers too. I mean it's swell sometimes. But we just right out of the car this time. Ruthie, she almost ran upstairs. By the time I was ready to go upstairs I heard the front door slam. That was Mrs. Widger, going. When we come in at night, she breaks about thirty speed records getting out of the house.
When I got upstairs to our room, and had took off my necktie, Ruthie says to me - it made me sore, "I don't suppose you want to take a look at the baby. How do you know? Maybe it grew a mustache or something since the last time you saw it. Or don't you want to see him at all this month?"
I don't like that cynic-like stuff. I said to Ruthie, "Wuddaya mean I don't wanna see him? Naturally, I want to see him," and I went out of the room.
Ruthie, she leaves the light burning in the hall right outside the kid's room, so it's never pitch dark in there. I bent over the crib and looked at the kid. It had its thumb in its mouth. I took it out but the kid put it right back in again, even though it was asleep. I mean being asleep don't stop the kid from thinking. It's smart. I mean it's not dumb or anything. I took its foot in my hand and held it for a while. I like the kid's feet. I mean I just like them. Then I felt Ruthie come in the room and stand behind me. I covered up the kid and walked out. When we got back to our room, I don't know why I said what I did, because the baby really looked good. Healthy. Like Ruthie.
"It doesn't look so hot to me," I told her.
Ruthie said, "What do you mean it doesn't look so hot to you? What's the matter with it?"
"It looks kind of underweight," I said.
"You're underweight in the head," Ruthie said.
I said, very cynic-like, "Thank you. Thank you very much."
Ruthie, she and I didn't talk to each other again till morning.
Ruthie always gets up to make breakfast and drive me to the bus stop. I always wait till I have my shirt and necktie on before I shake her because she's already awake. But that morning I had to shake the stuffin's out of her. It made me kind of sore that she was sleeping so good - well, I mean - because I hadn't slept good - well, at all. I never sleep good when I'm sort of worried. But finally she opened her eyes.
I says to her, "You wanna get up? You wanna get up? You don't have to, you know."
"I know I don't," she says, cynic-like. But she got up anyway, fixed breakfast and drove me to the bus stop.
We didn't talk at all in the car. I mean we didn't say a word. I just said "So long" to her at the bus stop, then walked quick over to where Bob Moriarty was standing. Then I did something nuts. I slammed Moriarty on the back like he was my long-lost brother - and I can't even stand the guy! He's on fuselages with me, and he always slows down my output. How do you like that?
Boy, I put in a lousy day on the line. I slowed down Moriarty instead of the other way around. He started giving me the razz about it, and I nearly took a poke at him, except that Sidney Hoover was watching. Sidney Hoover's the foreman on fuselages.
Twice during lunch I went in the phone booth, but both times I hung up before I finished dialing our number. I don't know why. I mean, what'd I go in here for in the first place?
That night after work I was supposed to play basketball at the Y, but I only played the first half, then caught the bus. Ruthie wasn't there to meet me, I figured, because she thought I was going to play the whole game. I mean
I didn't get sore or anything because she wasn't there. And, anyway, Joe and Rita Santine gave me a lift in their car, so I was all right.
When I got home, what do you think? Figure it out. Well, I'll tell you. Ruthie, she wasn't there. There was just this note on the table in the hall. I brought it in the living room with me. I didn't even take my hat off. And it was a funny thing. My hands were shaking like. I mean they were shaking.
The note, it said:
Billy,
I just don't see any use of our staying together. You don't seem to realize that we are supposed to grow out of certain things. We are supposed to get a new kind of fun. I don't know how to tell you what I mean. Anyway, there is no use hashing over it again, because you know how I feel, and it only makes you angry anyway. Please don't come around to Mother's. If you want to see the baby, please wait a while.
Ruth
Well, I lit a cigarette and sat there for a long time in the chair we bought together at Louis B. Silverman's. That's the best store in town. Class. Then I started reading Ruthie's letter over and over again. Then I memorized it, really memorized it. Then I started to memorize it backwards, like this: while a wait please baby the see to want you If. Like that. Crazy. I was crazy. I still hadn't even took off my hat. Then all of a sudden Mrs. Widger, she came in.
She says, "Ruthie told me to fix your dinner. It's ready"
Boy, she was a cold number. How I hated her. I figured she put Ruthie up to leaving me.
"I don't want any dinner," I told her. "Go on home."
"It's a pleasure," she says. An A-No.-1 dame.
In a few minutes Widger slams the door and I'm alone. Boy, am I alone! I keep memorizing Ruthie's letter backwards, then I go out to the kitchen. I made myself a little sandwich, then I opened up our bottle of bourbon and brought it in the living room with me. With a glass. I kept thinking about how drunk Humphrey Bogart got in Casablanca when he was waiting for Ingrid Bergman to show up. Humphrey Bogart had that colored piano player, Sam, with him, and after I had a few drinks I began to make believe Sam was in the room with me. Boy, was I nuts!
22 Out-of-print J. D. Salinger Stories Page 6