Now and on Earth Page 11

  Nothing is settled, you see. We have spent something tonight that we can never replace—that I, I know, cannot replace—and we have solved nothing. It is futile to hope that we ever will. One of us—I think any one of us—alone, might solve something. But he would have to be alone, be far away. If we were away, where the poisons in us could not be refreshed and restored daily, there might be a chance. Or if I could change things so magnificently that we could have separate rooms, a separate way of life, freedom of action without impinging upon others, so that we would not have to struggle against one another to preserve our own identities, so that we could become acquainted gradually as strangers should.…But—there’s no chance of that either.

  I was sitting in the dinette late tonight, typing, when Mack came through to get a drink of water. I’d worked three hours and I must have had all of thirty words—I, who used to knock out five thousand in a day.

  He pulled a chair up to the sink, turned on the faucet, filled a glass, and drank it. Then he brought one to me.

  “Saw a bitey inna hall,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yop. Inna hall, Daddy.” He waited. “Saw a bitey inna hall, Daddy.”

  I turned my head away.

  “You sick, Daddy?”

  “You’d better learn a new joke, boy,” I said. “Better learn a lot of new jokes.”

  The first time I called at Roberta’s house she and her mother were in the kitchen. Roberta let me in and whispered I’ll be right with you, honey; and then she went back into the kitchen and I could hear her and her mother talking in low voices. I wanted to smoke, but I couldn’t find an ashtray; I looked around for something to read and there wasn’t anything. Not a newspaper, not a book or a magazine of any kind. I began to get nervous. I wondered what in the name of God they were talking about, whether the old lady was trying to talk her out of going out with me. Lois’ mother hadn’t been exactly fond of me either, and her father, who was in the School of Economics at the college, felt that Lois needed someone a little more stable. But it hadn’t been like this.…

  There:

  “My dear boy! Aren’t you just frozen? Lois will be right down. She’s had such a cold today; barely able to drag herself around. I don’t suppose I could persuade you two to spend the evening here? The doctor and I are going out, and—goodness gracious! You’re sneezing! Aren’t you afraid that Lois will catch—?”

  “It’s nothing serious,” I’d say. “Just t.b.”

  “Oh…now, you’re teasing me, aren’t you? By the way, I’ve a book you must take with you when you go. Dear, dear Willa! I do know you’ll enjoy her. What sacrifices she must have made! What a lonely life she must have led!”

  “Willa? Which Willa do you mean?”

  “Why, Miss Cather!”

  “Oh. I thought you were talking about the other one.”

  “Which—what other—is there another—?”

  Then the doctor, chuckling: “Martha, Martha!…By the way, Jim. I’ve just received my copy of the Prairie Schooner. Your story is very well done. Too bad there isn’t some money in that sort of thing. Too bad.”

  That’s the way it had been at Lois’ house. They didn’t hide in the kitchen there. They seated you in a room with a baby grand and more books than a branch library, and then they pelted you with words until your hide became so sore that you began to shout and snarl even before you were touched, until you made such a fool and a boor of yourself that you could never go back.

  But at Roberta’s:

  I got up and began to pace the floor, and finally, call it eavesdropping if you will, I stopped where I could hear:

  “Why Mother! You don’t mean it!”

  “Yessir, that’s just what she did! She took a little cornmeal and beat it up with some canned milk and water, and she dipped the bread in that. And it made the finest French toast you ever saw!”

  I thought, well for the love of— But it went on and on:

  “Mrs. Shropshire’s husband came back.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. I was standing out in the—no, I was coming up from the cellar—when I saw him getting out of the car. I don’t know where he’d get the money to buy a car with, do you?”

  “Now I just wonder, Mother.”

  And:

  “You can’t guess how much I paid for eggs today.”

  “Well, now—how much was that last dozen?”

  …When we were outside in the car, I said, “Do you always keep your dates waiting while you discuss the price of eggs?”

  Roberta said, after a minute, “I don’t have very many dates.” She flared out, too, with, “But if they don’t want to wait, they know what they can do!”

  “This one knows,” I said, and I drove back around the block and opened the door of the car.

  “I didn’t mean to make you mad,” she said, not stirring.

  “It’s hereditary. You didn’t do it.”

  “You know what I mean. Mother and I have always been pals. I’m about the only person she really enjoys talking to. I’m away all day, and she looks forward to being with me at night.”

  “What about your father?”

  “He’s not much company. Anyway, he’s on the night shift with the police department.”

  “Well, look,” I said, “suppose I hadn’t come around; suppose no one had come around. What would you have done all evening? Just sat there and talked about nothing?”

  “We weren’t talking about nothing. I enjoy being with Mother just as much as she enjoys being with me.”

  “But—but don’t you ever read anything, girl?”

  “Mother can’t—Mother doesn’t care much for reading.”

  “But, you! What about you, Roberta?”

  “I guess I’d be a fine one to sit with my nose in a book when Mother couldn’t—didn’t have anyone to talk to! Now wouldn’t I?”

  She did like to read—I found that out after we were married—but nothing that would help her to a better understanding of herself and me. I was working on an assignment for a string of puff sheets—a cent a word six weeks before publication, and I had to pay travel out of that. Across Iowa, the Dakotas, and Missouri, down through Oklahoma and Texas. When we wanted amusement, we had to fall back on the public libraries. And I was a long time in learning not to be exasperated; I suppose I never learned.

  “But why can’t I have what I like, Jimmie?”

  “Why? Because Edgar Wallace is only a man, not a factory.”

  “Now you tell me why.”

  “Oh, my—! Roberta, here’s an adventure story. It’s all about a city way off in Africa, and goddesses, and battles, and stuff like that. A guy named Flaubert wrote it. I think he’s going places. I think you’ll like him better even than Max Brand. Now please read it, honey.”

  “I did read it.”

  “When?”

  “Well—I sort of looked through it.”

  “Roberta! Why, in the name of God, won’t you just once read a book?”

  I knew why, in time—the why of the books and everything else. She was afraid. She wasn’t sure of me, and she was afraid that in traveling those paths which might make her sure, which would bind us together, she would only fail in front of me. Now, I only thought—I didn’t know. It was better to leave it that way.

  She didn’t mind my reading aloud. Not a bit. Not until Jo came.

  “But, Jimmie, you’re keeping her awake. You’ll make her nervous.”

  “No, I won’t. She’ll go to sleep when she gets tired listening.”

  “Listening! A three-months-old baby!”

  “What’s the matter? Are you afraid she’ll learn something?”

  “Oh, go ahead. I suppose she may as well get used to it early.”

  Then:

  A one-room apartment in Fort Worth, or Dallas, or Kansas City. Jo watching my face; Roberta, lying on the bed, watching both of us:

  “Now, listen carefully, Jo. What’s the little girl’s name next door?”
br />   “Woof.”

  “That’s fine. Ruth. And the other little girl—the one down the hall?”

  “Mawy?”

  “That’s right. You’re all little girls, but you’ve got different names. Isn’t that funny?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Three little girls, and…now look at this thing again—this thing here on the wall. Remember what I told you about the little girls? Three different names? All right, what is this?”

  “Cwack?”

  “Crack. We already had that. Now what’s another name? Remember the three—”

  “Kwe-vis?”

  “Why of course! Crevice! One more, now. Fis—Fish—”

  “Fis-ser?”

  “Fissure! That’s doing it! Want to see if you can find it in the dictionary?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well.…No, No! A-B-C-D-E-F— You remember that! You wouldn’t look for my shoes up around my neck, would you? Well. Why look for an f with the a’s.”

  And then:

  “Ha, ha. Clever youngster you’ve got, Dillon. Very. Has she really read La Fitte?”

  “Yes, and Children of Strangers, too.”

  “Poor child. Probably hold a grudge against me all her life—ha, ha. Very clever. Are you giving me dinner, by the way? I think I’ll insist on it. I really shall. If I told you about the luncheon I had— Ugh! Revolting! Actually revolting, old man.”

  “Well—Mrs. Dillon won’t be—I can get some stuff from the delicatessen—”

  “Oh, horrors!…Ha, ha. Never mind. Just my way of speaking. Got to run, anyway. Really must.”

  And then:

  “Of course he knew you were here. Do you think he’s deaf? Why the hell did you have to start running the vacuum cleaner, anyway?”

  “Because I wanted to, that’s why. And I thought it’d be a doggone good hint to him that someone around this house had something to do!”

  “I guess he took it.”

  “If you can’t hold your job without feeding everyone that drops in from Washington or New York or New Orleans, you’d better get another one.”

  “I may have to.”

  “Jimmie—you don’t mean that, do you?”

  “What difference does it make? What difference does anything make? What’s the use in having the best job I ever had in my life, in selling everything I can write? What’s the use in anything?…Oh Christ! Let’s take a drink and forget about it.”

  “I couldn’t do it, Jimmie. I just can’t do things like that. I can’t sit there like a bump on a log and when someone says something not know what—I just can’t, Jimmie!”

  I’m not blaming anyone, unless it’s myself. Not Roberta. I’ve only been telling you about Roberta, not blaming her. She couldn’t have been any different, under the circumstances, just as Jo couldn’t have been any different, or I couldn’t have been any different. Abe Lincoln could have, but I couldn’t. Maybe he couldn’t.…

  And, no, it would have been the same story with a different twist with Lois. We found that out the hard way.

  One day, after she was married and I was married, we met on the street in Lincoln. And I undressed her with my eyes and she me with hers. And nothing mattered but that we should be together again. We drove to Marysville, Kansas, and registered at a hotel. We even wrote letters—unmailed, fortunately—explaining why we had had to do what we had done. Then the physical reunion, and after that, talk, lying there together in the dusk. She had it all planned. She had a sorority sister whose husband owned a big advertising agency in Des Moines, and he was a perfectly gorgeous person. If I would just be nice to him—

  “What do you mean, nice? I’ve never spit in anyone’s face yet.”

  “Well, that’s what I mean, dear. You say so many things that are misunderstood. They give people the wrong impression of you. They think that—”

  “—that I’ve been in some pretty nasty places. Well, I have been. And anyone who doesn’t like it can lump it.”

  “Please, dear. I think it’s marvelous the way you’ve worked to make something of yourself—”

  “—with so little success, is that what you mean? Well, what do you want me to do? Never mind—I’ll tell you.…‘Ooh, my deah Mrs. Bunghole, what a delightful blend of pee—excuse me, tea! And what are your beagles doing this season, Mrs. Bunghole? Beagling? Why how gorgeously odd! Do tell me—’ ”

  “Now you’re becoming impossible!”

  “Perhaps I always was.”

  “Perhaps.”

  We went back to Lincoln that same night.

  Five years later I would have admitted, in the security I had then, that she was not superficial, and she would have conceded that the common streak in me was no broader than it needed to be. And each would have borrowed from the other, and profited by it.

  And yet I wonder.…I’m pretty sure that those five years did things to me which made her wince when she thought of our one-time intimacy. And I can say positively that I felt the same way about her. If I had been her husband, I think I should have put a saddle on her and trotted her around the countryside until she had worked off about forty pounds.

  The fool shouldn’t have let her get that way. She wouldn’t have with me.

  15

  This is a typical day for me.

  I arise at four, shave, wash and dress, and at four-thirty I start writing. Or, at least, I sit down to my typewriter. I sit there until six—and I usually get something done—by which time Mom has such breakfast as I care to eat. When I have eaten, I lie down on the lounge and rest and smoke until about a quarter of seven. Then I go outside and wait for Murphy to arrive.

  He seldom gets here with any time to spare. (We’ve been more than five minutes late twice.) I can hear him coming several blocks away, and when I do, I get over on the other side of the street and hop in as he slows down.

  I grit my teeth and close my eyes as we start down the hill to the bay, and I have a theory that he does, too. We make the descent in twelve jumps—one for each intersection. A good half of the time either the front or rear wheels, or both, are in the air. Stop-signs, children playing ball, switch engines across our path mean nothing. Maybe we jump over them.

  At the boulevard he forces his left front wheel between the bumpers of two other cars. Usually, one is forced to give way. If not, he shoots the car into reverse, then darts ahead with the right wheels on the sidewalk and the others scraping fenders with those in the procession until he sees another “opening.” And so on until he is able to crash through.

  The road leading to the plant is only two-lane, and the night shift is coming off duty at the time. But Murphy doesn’t mind them. He stays on the left side of the road, and if the night workers want to eat breakfast at home instead of in the hospital, they will pull off on the bay shore. Well, Murphy will give way, but I think he feels imposed upon when he has to. After all, he is only a few seconds in getting to the plant while they are minutes on the road.

  We arrive at the plant midway between the first and last whistle and punch in as the last one is blowing.

  He smiles with satisfaction. “Thought we were going to be late, didn’t you?”

  “I thought we were going to be dead.”

  “Ha, huh. Didn’t scare you, did I?”

  “Oh, no!”

  The stockroom floor is covered with piles of parts that have come in during the night. I list the travelers on each pile, then check the list with my books. Any parts that are short on the assembly lines are sent out at once. I have to see that the travelers match the parts they accompany—the move-boys delight in dropping the right traveler on the wrong part—and that lefts and rights of a certain part have not come in on the same traveler. Frequently, a part that has been universal is changed into left and right or inboard and outboard without our being notified. Engineering forgets about it, or the office makes one of its many slips, and we have the same number on more than one part. This, obviously, won’t do.

  But my chief trouble
is with the stockchasers or expediters.

  There is one expediter for every two positions on Final Assembly, and one each for Wing and Control Surfaces. It is their job to see that there is a continuous flow of parts from the manufacturing departments to their assemblies or “projects”; to see that never, at any time, is there a delay in production because of parts’ shortages.

  It is my opinion and the opinion of every other stockroom worker that they are damned nuisances who actually slow things down instead of speeding them up. But I suppose we’re prejudiced. Practically every defense plant has them; if they weren’t a necessity, they wouldn’t be there. Blueprints and work orders get mislaid; foremen keep putting off a difficult job for an easy one; parts become buried in the various stockrooms; move-boys pile finished parts in with unfinished. So the expediters, who speed from one end of the plant to the other, who keep themselves informed of plans before they are reduced to paper, who are bursting with knowledge of every phase of production connected with their project—they really are necessary.

  Any shortage means a reproof for them. Many shortages mean dismissal. So shortages are their only concern.

  They pour through the gate the moment it is opened, grab up such parts as they need to stay an immediate shortage, and dash out again—without the formality of telling me what they have taken.

  I or Murphy or one of the others will call out:

  “Hey, there! Where you going with that?”

  “Position 4,” the stockchaser calls back. “They’re waiting for—”

  “Let ’em wait. What you got, anyway?”

  “Oh, hell. Just a half dozen pieces. I’ll tell you about it after—”

  “Half a dozen, hell! I can see eight from here. What are those anyway? Tank-support brackets?”

  “Yeah. I’ll give you the number after—”

  “You’ll give it right now. What’s the matter with you guys? Don’t you know we have to keep records here? That’d throw us off in two places. The traveler’d be short and Final’d be long.”