A Collection of short stories
Volume 1
by
Wes Patterson
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Wes Patterson on Smashwords
Cover art/design: Debra Cortese (debracortese.com)
A Collection of Short Stories
Volume 1
Copyright © 2010 by Wes Patterson
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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I dedicate this collection of short stories to four special people.
First, my thanks go to my mother, Margaret Patterson, and my father, Henry M. Patterson, without whom this book would not come into existence. Then, I'd like to thank my wife who shares my passion for good literature, who read the manuscript many times and always gave it to me straight. I am also indebted to Samantha Friedman for countless hours she spent putting the finishing touches on the manuscript. And finally, my sincere thanks to Debra Cortese who designed a beautiful cover for this and many other of my books. Thank you all.
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This volume of short stories follow Cal Rowland though his University days, his attempts to understand the meaning of it all, why are we here and where do we go, and how to influence girls to do what he wants.
When John Kennedy opened his eyes that morning, he was lying on his back and he saw the ceiling in his bedroom. Had he seen anything else, he would have truly been surprised, as he had been married now for quite some time and almost as if to prove it, he glanced towards his right, and saw his beautiful, blond, chic, half nude wife sleeping soundly, yet still sexually appealing. Most mornings, he would just grab a newspaper and playfully tap her on the rump to wake her up or devise other interesting ways to awaken her or play any kind of friendly trick. He might use his fingers to tickle her spine, waking her slowly but gently, to start the morning right, but this day he just lay there thinking what a charmed life he had, truly charmed in every way.
It seemed there was nothing he did not have or could not have if he wanted it, the only trouble being that he could only have one wife at a time, he could only eat one meal at a time, he could only drive one car and he could only pilot one plane at a time. There was only so much he could do in a lifetime, even if that lifetime was so full of excitement, leisure, everything, and anything that anyone could ever want. The limits were set for everyone, no matter how fortunate or unfortunate. He would still grow old as fast as everyone else would. Of course, he could employ plastic surgery to look younger. He might even live a little longer than most people, because he could employ the best doctors but nevertheless the limits were set for him, fortunate as he was, just as it was set for the most unfortunate, generally. He found that to be so unfair, because he had so much to live for and in the whole scheme of things, his time to do all these marvelous things was very limited indeed. There were so many things that he wanted to experience, and wanted to do, and yet thinking cosmically, there was so little time to do these things, and yet he had political ambitions. So he could not live a completely hedonistic life and had to use various stratagems to appear to be a leader, a man of the people, normal, sane, intelligent, handsome, and forgo many of the things he would do had he not had ambitions, great ambitions for political office.
So, he was not only limited by time but by his desire to be a so-called somebody in the public eye, be a leader of the people, be the leader of the greatest nation on earth. And so he had to curb some of the things he would really like to do because it would impinge upon his image to the public. He even had to marry a certain type of woman. He had to dress in a certain type of way. He had to act, talk, and behave in a certain manner that would appeal to a great or the greatest percentage of the population. And anything that he might do that would not appeal to the so-called population had to be very carefully hidden. He mulled these matters over briefly, but there was very little he could about them. He could either lead a completely hedonistic life and not care what anyone thought or he could go for the whole pie, so to speak, and be remembered, be immortal. He chose the latter. So again, he was somewhat confined in the things he could do. Things that he might want to do, he might not be able to, for fear of discovery by all the sneaky photographers/reporters and scandal sheets.
As a matter of fact, a leading politician had been scandalized recently by his activities. He had been made all the more aware of the same sort of thing, though maybe not exactly the same thing, likewise happening to him which would ruin all his carefully laid plans, going back even before these plans, to his mother’s carefully laid plans, probably even before he was born. So he lay in bed mulling the advantages and disadvantages of a political life. He chose that life because first of all he chose immortality as opposed to mere hedonism. Secondly, because he had everything, money, charm, education, taste, style, everything a politician might need. He didn’t figure on any serious opposition and really didn’t figure there was any way that he could not reach the highest office of the land.
And possibly after that, after serving his term as a politician, he would be less scrutinized. Of course he would be older then, but then possibly he could indulge in all these other activities, fantastic activities which he had thought about and had well enough money for and probably would be able to do after his term in office was over. But he would be an old man then, fairly old, and would he be able to enjoy all these other more or less forbidden activities? Again, he found it so unfair that he would live approximately the same life span as a person who had practically nothing to live for. He had so much money that he could hardly keep track of it, whereas there were many people who would gladly give up their life in a second because they found it so completely devoid of pleasure, happiness or fulfillment. Whereas everything he did, every person he met, everywhere he went, was a complete delight.
People fawned over him, wanted his autograph, wished to exchange a word, continually congratulated him on merely being alive, on being himself, on the hopes they had for him as a leader, as a political leader, and every day was a new adventure in narcissism. How much adulation and idolatry could one person possibly have and enjoy?
Every day something was planned after work, usually with his wife and they would enjoy themselves with others so that the most could be obtained from life. He had to do something constructive in order to keep in the public eye, to appear valuable, needed and interesting and always in the news so that he could lay the ground work for the political campaign to come. Then he thought all this thinking about the limitations of life, and especially of his own life, limitations imposed by time, really didn’t help in any way and only served to slightly depress him as he lay there, listening to the slow methodical breathing of his wife.
There was something planned for today after work, as usual, but today or rather this evening, might be a little more pleasurable than merely going to a dinner party, being fawned over, and exchanging meaningless words with important people, and having his wife being bored to death and invariably complaining afterwards about the lack of intellectual stimulation as most of his associates were more politically inclined than intellectually inclined, although there were some that provided some intellectual stimulation for him and his wife. But what he was actually thinking about was not work, the so-called work that he did every day which was really not work of any kind but appeared to be and everything was in appearances. Appearing to the general public as if he was actually running an important political magazine was extremely important, and valuable, although people didn’t have the slightest idea of what it was that he actually did. So his mind turned towards the evening, being as every day was pretty much the same, and he felt far more bored than people with much less intelligence, charm and less to offer the world than he, because they were freer to do what they wanted, and he returned to that topic, the topic of being free to do whatever he wanted to do and that he wasn’t free to do what he wanted to most of the time and then his mind returned again to the evening.
There was a vacation, actually a wedding was planned or a wedding reception, he wasn’t sure which but he would be able to indulge in one of his socially approved and seemingly gallant, or avant-garde hobbies… his airplane. Instead of taking the private jet or the usual plane, he would be able to pilot his own little single engine Piper Saratoga II from a small New Jersey airport to the family residence in Hyannis Port about 300 miles away and they would get there in about an hour and a half and he would have the company of his wife and her sister who wanted to come along.
Here he was, in addition to everything else, a pilot, a pilot not of a jet or a passenger plane but of a single engine fun type plane in which he could take people on short jaunts from one place to another and he enjoyed immensely flying and people were always so impressed that John Kennedy could do so many things, even fly.
He thought maybe he could learn to operate a submarine, but that sounded ridiculous, for what reason would he learn to operate a submarine? Things like this often came to his mind, because of the confinement he felt. He felt that he might want to learn about a submarine but that would not in any way be logical for his position and place in the world. Submarines were out and that was it even if he had a great interest in them, which he didn’t anyway. But he did look forward to the plane ride. He had flown this route many times with his wife and she was both afraid and bored with the whole thing and preferred private transportation and only after his urging with the idea that there would be photographers, and paper reporters there at the airport when they took off would she agree. And every little thing counted as he built up his image to appear the all American man, the pilot, dancer, the connoisseur, etc. and this was one thing that he actually enjoyed because he felt there truly was an element of danger involved as he was not a very experienced pilot.
Finally after contemplating life’s inequities, he reached over with his index finger and tickled his wife’s spine until she turned over and omitted some soothing, comforting sounds and he kissed her lightly before getting up and starting to dress, to begin a day which promised to be a day much like all other days.
Eventually the so-called workday ended and he had made arrangements to meet his wife and her sister at the small New Jersey airport where they would take off if conditions were right. First he would check weather conditions from his office, before leaving and if all was ok, at that point, he would call his wife first, his wife would then call her sister, and they would all arrange to meet at the airport. When he checked the weather reports everything seemed fine for the short hop of 300 miles and he put in the call to his wife.
As he was driving to the small airport in New Jersey where they were to meet, about 50 miles away, he thought of the disintegrating state of his marriage. He reached down to the console and picked up a plain brown bag with an open bottle of white wine and took a large swig. He then patted his left shirt pocket to check that he had remembered to bring the Vicodin pills that had been prescribed for him after the paragliding accident where he broke his ankle. As a matter of fact, he just had the cast removed yesterday. His mind then returned to the subject of the state of his marriage. He had married the right women in every way, externally and politically. But, after the initial rush of romance and sex had worn thin, after about 6 months, they realized that their interests were completely different. She had little interest in the political–sports arena in which he devoted almost all his time. He would come home from work and find strange people in the penthouse which were her intellectual friends, gathered to hear some professor or some eastern yogi who would expound on some esoteric subject on which he had no knowledge. As a matter of fact, the rift lately had become wider and wider and she actually left the penthouse for three nights, that is left him all alone while she gallivanted around with all her intellectual friends and didn’t even bother to return home for three days and three nights. This acerbated the rift between them and he had no idea just how far this whole thing was going to go. He hoped this little plane jaunt might help to ameliorate things, at least for a while. This was becoming a major issue in their marriage as each tended to gravitate towards a different group of friends and were seeing less and less of each other. So, although to the public at large it appeared to be a perfect marriage, in actuality they were having bitter arguments and seeing less and less of each other. The possibility of divorce occurred to him but even that seemed to be precluded because it would again impinge on his political image. He couldn’t understand why she just couldn’t be content with eventually being the first lady of the land and forget about all these intellectual pretensions and interests which she cultivated with her own group of friends.
As he was driving it occurred to him that it would take him longer to drive to the airport than it would to fly to where he was going. But of course, it was all a calculated political thing anyway and one that he actually enjoyed.
The ridiculousness of his life occurred to him at times but he accepted these things because he knew that the photographers would be at the airport and he dressed just so, for the occasion. He had trained personnel pick out his wardrobe so that it would contrast with that time of the evening. His wife was also an expert on fashion and undoubtedly would make a stunning appearance and he also made sure beforehand that the sister was passably attractive so that reporters and photographers would have the perfect little story for their next scoop, would have the perfect little story of the dashing young pilot, flying his wife and her sister to the wedding reception rather than traveling like the common people by commercial jet or train or any such mundane avenue.
When they got to the airport, after posing for the appropriate photos and answering the same questions with the same answers over and over, which he had well memorized by this time, it became all business as far as the flight was concerned. He had used the small Essex County airport many times before and was familiar with the personnel. And now all that was left to do was have them check out his plane and call for a last minute weather report for the immediate vicinity and everything en route to and including the landing field where they would have the reception. They had planned to make this a day flight and leave at 6:00 p.m. but his wife’s sister had to work late and consequently they had to leave just before 9:00 p.m., making it a night flight. When he made his calls, all the weather reports were well within the safety limits of his license, which was restricted to flying in good weather, although he felt he was perfectly capable of navigating in a storm should one come up. Weather reports are never 100% accurate, but he never wanted to take even the slightest chance, if there was a chance, that there would be inclement weather, heavy clouds or a storm. But when he made that final call, everything was well within limits and he anticipated no problems.
This would be the high point of the day, as he certainly didn’t look forward to the reception itself. What he really liked was the plane ride and the power, the control he had over three people’s lives, and the feeling of power it gave him over everyone, as he hoped he would feel politically, maybe in the far future or maybe even sooner depending on political events.
The photographers were still shooting as he opened the quaint doors of the small monoplane. As he opened the door for the sister, because of the ever increasing problems in his marriage, he considered the possibilities, knowing all the while it was very slim that anything would develop.
He then boarded the plane, strapped himself in, checked all the gauges by the book, and then proceeded to warm up the engine and took his time to allow the photographers to continue to flash away. In fact, he enjoyed all the rigamarole involved in flying just as much as the flying itself.
Then there was the take off to look forward to. The take off and the landing were always the most exciting times, if you can call that exciting. Just floating up there in the wild blue yonder required no skill at all, and sometimes it even got embarrassing as the conversation would lag and when that happened he would busy himself with the instruments unnecessarily, as if he actually had something to do on a clear calm night. He might actually cause the plane to go in one direction or another and then correct it if embarrassing lags in the conversation ensued and on this trip it did ensue, at least for him, as the two women were talking about their college days, reliving all their delightful experiences during college and after and he already knew everything his wife had to say ten times over so he began to amuse himself by daydreaming of whatever might come into his mind and whenever he was asked something he tried to catch the final drift of the conversation to emit the appropriate grunt and generally agree with whatever was said.
These after-college stories seemed so much the same only varying in whether a certain girl married such and such who did such and such and made such and such or she married a more influential and interesting person who did such and such and made such and such and lived in a more desirable location and was therefore one step ahead in the social pecking order. Of course, this became increasingly tiresome. He tried to relax in the perfect atmospheric conditions, but his mind continued to wander, mostly into the future to pleasurable activities he might be able to engage in at the wedding reception. He might even be able to flirt occasionally with someone, if his wife was not in the immediate vicinity.
Suddenly he received an emergency message to descend immediately as he was directly in the flight path of American Airlines flight 1484. This certainly woke him up and he descended immediately, watching the big airliner zoom overhead. From then on, things resumed their usual boring state and then he remembered he had to turn right and go out to sea, and then at another point he had to turn left and approach the airport and come coasting right in and he had already made his turn to the right and was starting to descend towards the airport which was clearly visible when unexplainably he ran into thick fog. At this time of the evening the haze was usually thick and it made it impossible to discern the horizon because the sea blended right into the sky. So in essence, there was no horizon. He knew he was descending at a quite a rapid rate to land so he pulled up and intended to circle the field until he could break through the haze and make a landing. He looked at the altimeter and it indicated that he was flying level, but he felt that he was descending and continued descending so he pulled up to get up higher. He certainly didn’t want to take a chance of flying too low and crashing or narrowly avoiding a crash. Again he looked at the altimeter and it showed a quite rapid climb but he felt surely it must be malfunctioning as he felt they weren’t climbing at all. He felt they were flying completely level, and his concern was such that he said to his wife, “Honey, do you think were climbing, flying level, what do you think?”
“Why are you asking me?” she shot back, “Don’t you have your instruments?”
“Yeah, I know, I know but what do you think? The instruments may be wrong. Are we level or are we climbing?”
“I think we’re level,” she said. “It seems like we are level to me.”
“How about you Melanie?”
“I don’t know,” said Melanie. “Everything seems fine to me.”
“Well then,” he said. “We must be level. This altimeter must be wrong. I checked everything out at the airport. But these gauges sometimes fail you know, this being the computer age and all.”
And so getting confirmation from both of his passengers and flying by the so-called seat of his pants, that is how he felt and he felt they were perfectly level also, he relaxed, and the sweat on his shirt slowly began to dry out. He saw that the altimeter registered an unbelievable 15000 feet and he commented again “Remember we got to get these gauges checked out. This altimeter is completely non functional.” But he had no sooner said these words than they broke through the fog and to his horror he saw from the nose of the plane that they were actually in a very steep climb and the altimeter was right.
Not only were they in a steep climb but the engine was already going phutt, phutt, and as soon as he heard that distinctive sound, right then, even with his limited knowledge as soon as he heard that distinctive phutt, phutt, he knew there was only one thing that would happen next. The nose would go down into a dive and only a very, very experienced pilot could ever pull this plane out of that dive. Immediately he tried to level the plane before it stalled but it was all too late, and the plane went into a death spiral and no matter what he did, they were going down.
Amid the screams of the women which only added to his panic, the only thing he could see was the Democratic National Convention of 2012 and he was walking off the stage after his inaugural speech to the applause of thousands in the convention centre and millions of TV viewers at home and for some reason that’s about all he wanted to see and when they hit the water all time stopped like a gigantic clock.
This was in 1999.
Exactly 70 years before, in 1929, when aviation was in its primitive stages, a man named Charles Lindbergh was attempting the seemingly impossible, to cross the Atlantic solo to prove that international flight might be possible. He was a man of mathematics and physics, of weight and thrust, not of emotion and a man who did things his way, alone, by himself. He had put together this plane called the Spirit of St. Louis and there was an international race, with the Orteig prize of $25,000, to see who could cross the Atlantic first either way, from New York to Le Bourget, or the reverse. Many pilots from both sides of the Atlantic had tried, failed and died already. He decided to start the next day but he couldn’t sleep and got up at 3am. It was pouring rain and the runway was gutted and muddy.
“Put it off for some other time,” they all said. “You can’t possibly take off in this mud because you can’t get the speed up to clear the trees and telegraph poles.”
“Just fill up the tanks to the top,” said Lindbergh and started walking down the runway. He took his handkerchief out, tied it to a stake, and drove the stake into the ground at a certain point on the runway. The plane would have to leave the ground when he passed that handkerchief or he would never make the trees. He could abort the take off at that point if he had to.
Again they said, “Lindy put it off for another day. You’ll never get the speed up on this muddy, gutted runway. You’ll never clear the trees.”
But he couldn’t wait any longer. He hadn’t slept for 24 hours and he wouldn’t get any more for another 36 hours. He got in the plane, warmed up the engine, checked his gauges, just like John Kennedy did 70 years later. He could see the handkerchief and it told him which way the wind was blowing. He knew he would have to be up by that point and he backed the plane up to the far end of the hanger, raced the engine a couple of times, swung around and took off down the runway as everybody cheered. He kept his eye on the handkerchief and when he reached that point the plane made a sudden lunge off the ground and he then gave it full throttle but unfortunately it bounced back to the ground but there was no choice at this point and he kept the throttle on full. He thought, “Damn it. I hope I make those trees and the telephone poles and don’t join the legions of other pilots who went down.” He gave it maximum thrust and saw the trees rapidly approaching and as he passed over the trees he felt the plane’s vibration.
“Another foot or so and I would be down on the ground,” he thought.
But he had made it. “Made it,” he thought, “all I have done is get into the air.”
The real test lay ahead. The last land he saw was Newfoundland and then he flew interminably across the ocean and was blessed with clear weather. He dozed off more than once only to be awakened 10 or 20 feet above the sea by a fly in the cockpit. He thought about the physics of flying and that fly. Did it actually add any weight to the plane? He had even thrown out half of his sandwich to lighten the load and conserve fuel. That fly had saved his life a number of times and he wondered if it weighed anything as he crossed the ocean.
Eventually he saw a number of fishing boats and circled low to ask them where Ireland was, but all he got was waves. Then he saw land and it was the Irish coast, and the word got out all over the world that he had made Ireland but he did not have enough fuel to make Le Bourget airport. The word was that he was running low and might have to crash land.
Lindbergh cleared the English Channel and made his way to France with his maps. It was easy to find his way to Paris and he could see the huge searchlights of the airport but the cloud cover was like thick soup and he couldn’t see the runway. All he could see was the large search lights swinging back and forth and all he could hear was the hundreds of thousands of people shouting below, and he looked at the gauges and saw that the fuel gauge registered empty so he leveled off around 2000 feet and started circling while descending slowly. Watching his altimeter and his fuel gauge, he hit 1800, 1700, 1600, and continued to circle while dropping and still couldn’t see the field. He dropped lower, flying completely by instruments and descended to 1500, 1450 when suddenly there was a break in the clouds and he saw the runway lights. But he was in no position to land and he had to circle one more time and hope that the cloud cover hadn’t closed by the time he returned. He made that last circle and the runway lights came into view and he put the Spirit of St. Louis down on the runway at Le Bourget just as light as a feather.
“There was nothing to it,” he thought as he glanced at the empty fuel gauge and Lucky Lindy just sat in the plane while the crowd went wild and tore open the door and carried Lindy off on their shoulders, even though he was not one of their own. It had been done. He had proved it. And when all the reporters came to interview him they found him with a small bottle and a fly in it and the bottle had held some juice because nothing he carried was superfluous and the reporters asked in French “Is this your gift to France, a fly?” And he said “No my gift to France is intercontinental travel. This fly saved my life twice or I would have went down if he hadn’t wakened me.” Lindy wanted to fly back to the US but the crowd tore the plane apart and it was impossible so he had to come back by the slow method, by ship. At home the whole country celebrated and he rode in a ticker tape parade honoring him before hundreds of thousands of cheering fans in New York City.
And that was in 1929.
And a decade later, in 1939, after Hitler had rolled over Poland and threatened that whole part of the world, Germany had come rapidly to power and had the fastest plane on earth, the Messerschmitt 109. Lindbergh had personally gone to Germany and had learned that they were building a bullet-proof tank and that they had plans of actually launching rockets all the way from Germany to England. Lindbergh went to see the President and advised him, “He who rules the air will rule the world and Germany has the Messerschmitt, the fastest plane on earth, and not only that but Germany has already achieved a complete war machine, the likes of which no one has ever seen and is far in advance of any opposition.” He advised uniting with Germany in the war against England and Russia. The President thanked him for his advice but knew you don’t necessarily go with the nation that has the fastest plane at a certain point in time and you never go with a dictatorship. Lindbergh had under estimated what the U.S. could do in 6 months as far as ruling the sky was concerned because the U.S. developed the F48 which equaled the Messerschmitt and turned the war around and we all know what happened after that. That was the only mistake Lucky Lindy ever made and you’ll never read about it in any high school history book. Lindbergh was a great pilot but he was no politician.
And in 1999, in the electronic age, John Kennedy tried to fly 300 miles along the North-East coast and encountered a little haze or it might have been fog and instead of relying on his instruments and circling the field, he went with his emotions and ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic. John Kennedy might have become a great politician but he was no pilot.
After Lindbergh, four decades later in 1969, we went to the moon, Lucky Lindy was still alive to see that, and you tell me who you would rather be? Lucky Lindy in 1929, flying 10 feet above the ocean, for thousands of miles with a fly for a companion in the cockpit, looking for the coast of Ireland, or, an astronaut shooting towards that eternal symbol since the beginning of man, the moon. If you tell me you’d rather be an astronaut I would tell you, “Both are ok but it’s one thing to do it all yourself, to do it all alone, to pit yourself against all the elements, and it’s another thing to do it helplessly strapped down, lying on your back, powered by gigantic rockets with five other astronauts and aided by ten thousand controllers on the ground.”
That morning when the sun rose there was no wind, but the waves began to break farther from shore. Slowly, they grew larger and finally one rolled far up on the beach and left something. Then, there was a larger one which came and took it back. Sometimes the land would gain and sometimes the water. Another wave came but left nothing. Close by, a lone shark effortlessly moved to deeper water.
Somewhere between the dream and the real, between the shifting, lying, laughing faces that were so interesting because they had no bodies and the wet sand where he lay he felt the touch of a hand. He paused for a second, desperately awakening and then turning instantly, he saw the frightened face of an old man who was just about to go through his pockets. Slowly, he surveyed the beach, but there was no one else to be seen. He reached out and grabbed the old man’s arm and forced him down on the sand and proceeded to search his pockets for any change.
Finally, half stifled by the sand, the old man broke the silence. “Don’t rob me,” he said. “I ain’t got much. I got to live.”
The young man who had been sleeping merely laughed and began to twist the old bony arm. With his other hand he searched the pockets and came up with some change.
“No you don’t,” he said, “you don’t got to live. Nobody’s got to live. You understand old man?
The sweat and odor came to his nostrils and he shrank back releasing his grip. He watched the old man lying there as if dead. Then he stood up slowly and as he kicked the inert figure with his foot, he could feel the thin bones through the soft flabby flesh.
The old man sat up and dropped his head on his arms. His hands hung outstretched and brushed the surface of the sand. The young man knelt with one hand on the sand and for the first time felt pity as though he might return the money. Then, while looking at the old man, he began to think of money and the meaning of money and dying and life and he realized that it did not make any difference, this matter of the money, and he might just as well keep it.
“Why are your eyes so blood-shot, old man? Why are you here on the sand all alone, with hardly a dime in your pocket? What are you going to do tomorrow and the next day and the next?”
When the old man looked back, his eyes rolled in their sockets and the white was suffused with red. He reached his hand out and when it trembled, he brought it back. “How ‘bout a dime,” he pleaded. “Thas’ all I want.”
He just looked at the old man, not really seeing him but seeing something of what happened in places he had not seen for what seemed like a long time. Some of the people he once knew
and some of the things he remembered doing, interested him even now.
“I’m old,” said the man, “and hungry and sick. I’m goin’ to die. I’m goin’ to die. D’you hear?”
He heard the last of what he said and thought it a very truthful statement indeed. “I’m going to die, too,” he said, “but right now I’m alive, and do you know what that means, old man? It means nothing at all. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
The old man shivered and tried to speak again. “How c’n you steal from an old man? How c’n you do that?”
He laughed. “I’m not stealing from you old fellow, believe me. I’ve got nothing to do with what happened. It’s just as if I weren’t here and so I couldn’t possibly steal from you.”
“Once when I was young, why d’you know...”
But the young man heard no more for he already was walking down the beach and then he started to run and for a long time he did not stop. When he ran into the water, it rose to meet him, engulfing him and forcing him to strike out with his hands. He went to the bottom and tried to see, but the water was too dirty and only reminded him of a dream. Then he surfaced and struck the waves with his fists, cursing their timelessness. He threw his body onto the waves, he fought them and then he became one with them. Like a piece of wood, they washed over him and brought him up to the shore. For a while, half-covered with sand, he lay face down where the sand meets the water. He could feel the pounding of the waves and then through the rush of water over his senses, he could feel their eternity. Desperately, he wished to be a part of them, to share their existence. Finally, he rose and went into the water once more before coming up to lie on the beach.
Overhead he could see a star and thought, “For all I know, that star is no longer there. The star might have died five million years ago, but I have no way of knowing this.” Suddenly a strange thought came to him. “I’m dead already but don’t know it. Of course, I’ve always been dead. I know it with certainty because I have never been alive and know there is no such thing as life.”
He shifted his toes in the sand and with his chin on his knee, he stared at the waves. Their regularity fascinated him and he wondered how long he could watch them and if each were different. For a long time he watched and tried to understand, but when he rose to leave, he just muttered, “It’s there. It’s all there…But it isn’t.”
He hadn’t eaten much for many days and so now he very seldom felt hungry. He walked up the beach to the street and searched for a person he could touch for a coin or two. He saw an old lady in front of him and asked her if she might have a dime for a coffee. She turned and with a frightened look on her face, crossed to the other side of the street. Under his breath, he cursed her ugliness and the way she clasped her handbag tightly when he approached. Then he thought that one day she was a woman, even a girl and she too had at one time cursed the old and the ugly and the miserly. She too had once thought of love and beauty. She too had once danced lightly, had once been kissed. But now she stared at him from the other side of the street, partly out of fear, partly out of curiosity, still tightly grasping her bag.
Next a prosperous-looking man dressed in a suit and even a tie approached and he said, “How ‘bout a dime for a coffee?”
“How come you don’t even have a dime?” said the well-dressed man.
“Just down on my luck, that’s all. I’ll be rich some day.”
“Well you sure as hell ‘aint rich now.”
“Well, you got a dime, or you want to talk high finance?”
“Yeah that’s a good one. High finance.”
“Sure, I can give you a good tip. Lefcourt Realty on the stock exchange.”
“Never heard of it. Probably some $2 stock.”
“As a matter of fact, it is a $2 stock,” he replied. “But it bounces around from $2 to about $3.50 and all you’ve got to do is buy 1,000 shares at $2 and sell them at $3.50. Ever hear of anything so easy to practically double your money every two or three weeks?”
“Yeah, sure. Double my money every two or three weeks. That’s a good one.”
“Well it’s true, I just don’t have the money now.” “You’re damn right you don’t. You don’t even have a dime,” said the well-dressed man. “But for your great advice, here’s a quarter. I’ll double your money in two minutes.” He caught the quarter in mid-air and said, “Head or tails for the quarter.”
“Boy you like to bet, don’t you,” said the man.
“I’ll take heads.” He flipped the coin and it came up tails and the man flipped him another quarter. “I better stop right here,” he said, “or my high finance fantastic luck might run out.”
“Yeah, I think you’d better,” said the man, walking along. “Did you say Lefcourt?”
“Yeah, Lefcourt, don’t forget it. You can become rich.” And they passed each other like two tugs in the bay. Now he had plenty enough for something to eat. And right ahead of him he saw a large “EAT” sign in front of a diner. He went inside and sat beside a young girl who looked up when he came in. His eyes came to rest on a large cross hanging on a chain from her neck and he wanted to take it and twist it around her neck until it snapped. Her dark hair fell over her thin shoulders and when he saw the beautiful sadness of her eyes and the way she looked at him and the perfect whiteness of her face, he knew. He knew that she was suffering, that one suffered for truth and goodness, for sacrifice and denial, that she suffered like Christ suffered. He knew. He could tell. She was the child born without evil, probably never to know evil. All this he knew and he smiled confidently in this knowledge.
A girl approached who was young and had her hair tied back. She seemed so mechanical and stereotyped that it occurred to him sitting there that she could be replaced completely, even the more subtle aspects of her personality, by a well-designed robot.
“What can I do you for?” she smartly quipped. He wondered how many times she had used those same words and if she never tired of the same sequence. The pencil in his hand flicked back and forth in time to some tune which he could not hear.
“My name,” he smiled, “is Ellsworth and...”
“I’m married,” she interrupted. “I ain’t got no business goin’ out.”
He looked at her face, at the unknowing eyes, at the coarseness of her features. “What made you think I would ask you out?”
She appeared surprised. “Whatcha’ give me your name for then?”
He thought for a second and realized he had no reason.
“You know what it was?” he asked.
“No, what is it?” she demanded curiously.
He motioned for her to come close and whispered into her wet stringy hair. “It was like popping every balloon, one by one...pop--pop--pop.”
Her heart skipped a beat and her eyes opened wide in amazement. “What’s like that? What’s that got to do with what?” She stared in disbelief but not knowing quite what to disbelieve in.
He felt sleepy again and very bored and asked, “Where are my eggs?”
“What eggs? You didn’t order nothin’.”
“You got an imagination?” he asked.
“Sure I got an imagination.”
“Well, imagine the most beautiful delicious meal you have here.”
She closed her eyes and swayed slightly on the counter. “Got it,” she said.
“Good girl. Good girl.” With relief and a rustle of her white uniform, she left for the kitchen.
He stared at the back of a menu and started writing...”What if Lefcourt divides by the condition of the track times the number of the jockey divided by the state of the market subtracting the demand schedule multiplied by previous times in the money, is this necessarily the essence of life?”
He tossed the menu aside and glanced at the girl with the crucifix who was only eating a bowl of soup. His hunger for the girl grew as he watched her slowly consume the soup. Soon, he thought, the soup would be gone, the girl would be gone and...
He stood up and went to the phone. He would call a girl he met one day on the beach. He would take her to the beach again and he would tell her how bums came to Coney Island because the subways ran there and boys came for girls and girls came for rides and boys and some got some and some got nothing and some got only rides and fell in love with the Cyclone and...
He would tell her about love and its mirage on the infinite surface of some forever vanishing reality which he once thought was there... He would think of something to tell her. He might even tell her about being it and tagged and out and gone and a figment and part of something which is it and past and present and future.
He dropped a dime in the slot and dialed information.
“Information.”
“Hello information,” he answered cheerfully, hoping for some response and at the same time reclaiming his dime from the return slot.
“Good morning sir. What can I do for you?”
“Could you look up the number of Joan Van Eyck?”
There was a long pause as the operator went through the phone book.
“Her number is BR 2-9375. Please deposit thirty cents.”
He put two dimes and two nickels into the machine and the connection was made and he heard the ringing once, twice, three times and then a click.
“Joan baby,” he drawled lustfully into the phone before she could answer.
“Hendley darling,” came back the answer with just as much spirit.
For over ten minutes he held the phone in his hand whispering into it, laughing, sometimes shouting, cursing, cajoling. He told her about the virtue of vice. He told her about music being nothing but sound waves and about objectivity being defined by the perceiver. He even told her he loved the rain because it made such a natural sound when it fell. He told her just about every inane and intelligent thing he could think of and ended up by calling her a bitch and hanging up.
He had just gotten out of the booth when the phone rang. He went back into the booth, closed the door and picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Sir, you owe forty cents. Please deposit the money.”
“But I don’t have any money.”
“You don’t have any money. But you told me you would pay after the call was over.”
“I’m sorry operator, but that was a lie. I told you an outright lie.”
“What is your name and address, sir?” came the now stern voice over the line. “We’ll send the bill to your home.”
“I have no real name and certainly no address,” he answered.
“Sir, I have no choice but to connect you with the chief operator.”
He heard a click and a new voice came over the phone.
“Hello, what seems to be the problem here?”
“There has been a definite misunderstanding,” he began, “which cannot be corrected. You see, I misunderstood how much the operator said to put in the phone and I put in eighty cents instead of forty cents and now I can’t get my money back.”
“That is quite easily corrected sir. Just leave us your name and address and we will gladly refund your money.”
He heard the other operator break into the line and try to explain the problem and for a second he decided to give the name and address of a stupid character he had once known. He heard the argument go back and forth.
“Eighty cents minus forty cents...”
“No, no forty cents. He owes forty cents.”
“But he said he...”
Again he became too bored to listen or engage further and leaving the phone off the hook, he went back to his seat. The waitress had left a steak dinner with all the trimmings and pie at his place. He had not eaten for a long time and was full after three or four bites. The food began to nauseate him but he forced himself to eat most of the meal, always watching the waitress for an opportunity to leave. The opportunity never presented itself, however, and as the waitress waited behind the cash register, he started to walk out.
“Hey, where you goin’?” she asked.
“I don’t know exactly where,” he answered. “Through the next town and maybe further on.”
“I don’t mean that, stupid. I mean that meal costs $2.50 and you pay up here.”
“But I don’t have any money.”
She laughed as if she thought it was truly funny. “Chally, c’mere,” she shouted to the back of the diner.
A huge hairy man with a decidedly evil face almost immediately filled the room. His tremendous hands were already spread and the sweat was dripping off his face.
“This wise guy don’t have no money to pay his bill,” she said still smiling.
“Oh, a wise guy, huh?” said the hairy man, grabbing hold of his arm. “I’ll knock your head around like a baseball, huh?”
“Wait a minute,” he said in desperation. “I didn’t order that meal. I didn’t order that steak or the pie.”
“Did he order it?” the hairy man asked the waitress.
“Sure... no, wait a minute. He didn’t exactly order it.”
“Then what the hell did you give him a steak for?” He let go of his arms and approached the waitress. “He don’t order nothin’ at all and you go ahead and give him a god-damned steak dinner and pie. What the hell d’you think I’m runnin’ here, an orphanage? Why’nt you give him a cup of coffee if he ain’t ordered nothin’?”
The waitress began to tremble behind the register and wrung her hands. “He confused me with imaginations,” she pleaded. “He said for me to imagine somethin’ and I imagined steak.”
“You musta lost your mind,” said the fat man. “You must be crazy or somethin’.”
Two older people who had been eating left money on the table and quickly squeezed through the door. Hendley looked longingly at the exit and then his gaze fell on the girl with the large crucifix.
“What you goin’ to do to him?” asked the waitress.
“I’m goin’ to kill him,” said the fat man grabbing him by the collar with one hand. For a long second the two men glared at each other until Hendley, realizing the power that was his and without a hint of malice, but in a controlled tone of strength said, “Feed me and you feed the Lord.”
The fat man released his grip and shrank back. “He must be a nut,” he said. “He’s loony or somethin’.”
Hendley, the semblance of a smile on his face, stood with his shoulders back. “The truth shall make you free,” he gestured dramatically.
“No, he’s right. He’s right,” said the waitress quickly. “Feed him and you feed the Lord. That’s what the Bible says.”
“You shut up. I know what the Bible says.”
The young girl slowly got up from her seat and paid her bill to the waitress who rang it up without thinking.
“Nice to know someone’s paying today,” he said. Then he turned to Hendley who by now had an ecstatic look on his face. “You get outa here and if you don’t have no money don’t order no steak dinner, understan’?”
Hendley pretended not to hear him but instead walked over to the waitress and said, “Just imagine that you were going someplace and you didn’t know...”
“You stop that,” she interrupted. “You get outa here and don’t come back no more.”
He turned his back on all that was not his, on all for which he had no use and walked across the room to the door. Outside, in the glare of the sun, the girl was waiting for him. He looked at her eyes and the sadness there was so beautiful that he wanted to tell her he loved her. Her long hair blew with the wind, but her eyes remained the same and told him nothing.
“Who are you?” she asked slowly. He was struck by the strange music that came in the sound of her voice but when he saw the crucifix again, suddenly he knew. He knew who he was.
“I’m a prophet,” he said with the same tone of strength he had used in the diner. He was afraid she’d laugh, but she only touched his arm where the shirt was torn and the skin was bruised.
“You musn’t say that,” she whispered. “It might not be true... But maybe those who are, always know...”
Again, he was moved by the sound of her voice and wished to hear her without understanding in a language he did not know.
“My child,” he began, “wouldn’t it be a pity if a man were a prophet and didn’t know it?”
She touched him softly where his arm hurt and was fascinated by the face which had gone unshaven for weeks and the eyes which never seemed to see, were just there and focused, she thought, on some profound reality that was not here but was the meaning of all life and she could not perceive what it was. She remembered his question. “I really don’t see what knowing has to do with it.”
“With knowledge comes the strength and the power,” he said. “When I walk the streets of a small town, a star is as far as the next town and time has no meaning.”
For the first time she smiled. “You’re beautiful,” she said, “because you’ve given up everything. This world means nothing to you for you have seen a greater one.”
Suddenly it occurred to him that there was indeed a certain religious similarity in his position, but taken further the analogy became grotesque.
“Yes,” he said thinking of her. “I’ve given up everything.”
They walked slowly towards the sea. Coming off the wooden walk to the beach, she almost fell and reached for his arm. He held her with both his hands and once he drew her up to him he saw that her eyes had finally changed and were no longer beautifully sad and timeless. He reached for the crucifix and slowly twisted the chain into the whiteness of her neck.
“Tell me something true,” he demanded.
She knelt down on the sand and lay her head on his arm. “I know the power and the beauty,” she said. “I know love and I know God. I know you, whoever you are, and I know God.”
For some time neither said anything. He felt like lighting a cigarette but remembered not to. “What do you know which is true?” she finally asked.
He touched her face with his hands and again he saw that the beauty of her eyes had gone. “I know that tonight is the beginning of time and the end of time. I know nothing more.”
For a long time they sat on the sand and watched the waves break without ever stopping. When night came there was only a moon and it made their bodies appear strange and unreal. It gently caressed the soft whiteness of her form but it was her immaculate soul that made the night so hideous and yet so beautiful.
After a while he said, “You’ve been mine since the beginning of time, since man first walked the earth... even before that... even before...
He lay down on the sand with his arm around her waist and sought the peace that sleep would bring. Slowly she stroked his hair and felt the muscles in his back. She kissed his ear and whispered, “When, prophet, when did you first know?”
Half asleep, thinking of people he did not know, things he would never do, he still heard her words. He rose and turned to face her.
“Once when I was young,” he began, “beautiful thoughts came to me. I realized in one instant the futility of life and death and hate and love and God.” He began to laugh softly but even in the dim light cast by the moon he could see the beautiful sadness coming back into the young girl’s eyes as the cold horror of his words struck her.
“Invoke the name of the Lord,” he said in the same tone used in the diner, “and thou hast great power. Strong men runneth away and beautiful women falleth into thine arms.”
She ran down the beach and he watched her until she disappeared into the night. “I am the Lord thy God,” he shouted again. “I’m a God-damn God.” No one heard him and then he turned over and went to sleep.