Sexus, Page 52

  “Well, don’t worry, Ned’ll have some money. We’ll make him take us to dinner. I suppose nobody will think to give us a wedding present. That’s the hell of getting married in this informal fashion. You know, when Maude and I got married we pawned some of the wedding gifts the next day. Never got them back again either. We wouldn’t want a lot of knives and forks sterling, would we?”

  “Please don’t talk that way, Val.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a bit screwy today. That ceremony let me down. I could have murdered that guy.”

  “Val, stop, I beg you!”

  “All right, we won’t talk about it any more. Let’s be gay now, what? Let’s laugh . . .”

  Ned had a warm smile. I liked Ned. He was weak. Weak and lovable. Selfish underneath. Very selfish. That’s why he could never get married. He had talent too, lots of talent, but no genius, no sustaining powers. He was an artist who had never found his medium. His best medium was drink. When he drank he became expansive. In physique he reminded one of John Barrymore in his better days. His role was Don Juan, especially in a Finchley suit with an ascot tie about his throat. Lovely speaking voice. Rich baritone, full of enchanting modulations. Everything he said sounded suave and important, though he never said a word that was worth remembering. But in speaking he seemed to caress you with his tongue; he licked you all over, like a happy dog.

  “Well, well,” he said, grinning from ear to ear, and already half-cocked, I could see. “So you went and did it? Well, come on in. Hello Mona, how are you? Congratulations! Marcelle isn’t here yet. I hope she doesn’t come. I don’t feel so terribly vital today.”

  He was still grinning as he sat down in a big throne chair near the easel.

  “Ulric will certainly be sorry he missed this,” he said. “Will you have a little Scotch—or do you want gin?”

  “Gin.”

  “Well, tell me all about it. When did it happen . . . just now? Why didn’t you let me know—I would have stood up for you. . . .” He turned to Mona. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  “Jesus, let’s talk about something else,” said Mona. “I swear I’ll never get married again . . . it’s horrible.”

  “Listen, Ned, before you get drunk, tell me something . . . how much money have you got on you?”

  He fished out six cents. “Oh, that’s all right,” he said. “Marcelle will have something.”

  “If she comes.”

  “Oh, she’ll come, don’t worry. That’s the hell of it. I don’t know which is worse—to be broke or to have Marcelle on one’s hands.”

  “I didn’t think she was so bad,” I said.

  “No, she isn’t really,” said Ned. “She’s a darned nice gal. But she’s too affectionate. She clings. You see, I’m not made for conjugal bliss. I get weary of the same face, even if it’s a Madonna. I’m fickle. And she’s constant. She’s bolstering me up all the time. I don’t want to be bolstered up—not all the time.”

  “You don’t know what you want,” said Mona. “You don’t know when you’re well off.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Ned. “Ulric’s the same way. We’re masochists, I guess.” He grinned. He was a little ashamed of using a word like that so readily. It was an intellectual word and Ned had no use for things intellectual.

  The doorbell rang. It was Marcelle. I could hear her giving him a smacking kiss.

  “You know Henry and Mona, don’t you?”

  “Why sure I do,” said Marcelle brightly. “I caught you with your pants down . . . you remember? That seems a long time ago.”

  “Listen,” said Ned, “what do you think they did? They got married . . . yeah, just a little while ago . . . in Hoboken.”

  “That’s wonderful!” said Marcelle. She went up to Mona and kissed her. She kissed me too.

  “Don’t they look sad?” said Ned.

  “No,” said Marcelle, “I don’t think they look sad. Why should they?” Ned poured out a drink for her. As he handed it to her he said:

  “Have you any money?”

  “Of course I have. Why? Do you want some?”

  “No, but they need a little money. They’re broke.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Marcelle. “Of course I have money. What can I give you—ten, twenty? Why certainly. And don’t pay it back—it’s a wedding present.”

  Mona went over to her and took her hand. “That’s awfully good of you, Marcelle. Thank you.”

  “Then we’ll take you to dinner,” I said, trying to express my appreciation.

  “No, you’re not,” said Marcelle. “We’re going to make dinner right here. Let’s settle down and get comfy. I don’t believe in going out to celebrate. . . . Really, I’m very happy. I like to see people get married—and stay married. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I believe in love. I want to stay in love all my life.”

  “Marcelle,” I said, “where the devil do you hail from?”

  “From Utah. Why?”

  “I don’t know, but I like you. You’re refreshing. I like the way you hand the money out too.”

  “You’re joshing me!”

  “No, I’m not. I’m serious. You’re a good woman. You’re too good for that bum over there. Why don’t you marry him? Go on! It would scare the life out of him, but it might do him a lot of good.”

  “Do you hear that?” she gurgled, turning to Ned. “Haven’t I been telling you that all along? You’re lazy, that’s what. You don’t know what a prize I am.”

  At this point Mona had a fit of laughing. She laughed as though her sides would burst. “I can’t help it,” she said. “It’s too funny.”

  “You’re not drunk already, are you?” said Ned.

  “No, it’s not that,” said I. “She’s relaxing. It’s just a reaction. We put it off too long, that’s what’s the matter. Isn’t it, Mona?”

  Another peal of laughter.

  “Besides,” said I, “she’s always embarrassed when I borrow money. Isn’t that so, Mona?”

  There was no answer—just another explosion.

  Marcelle went over to her, spoke to her in a low, soothing voice. “You leave her to me,” she said. “You two get drunk. We’ll get out and get some food, won’t we, Mona?”

  “What made her so hysterical?” said Ned, after the two had left.

  “Search me,” I said. “She’s not used to getting married, I guess.”

  “Listen,” said Ned, “what ever made you do it? Wasn’t it a little impetuous?”

  “You sit down,” I said. “I’m going to talk to you. You’re not too drunk to follow me, are you?”

  “You’re not going to give me a lecture, are you?” he said, looking a little sheepish.

  “I’m going to talk turkey to you. Now listen to me. . . . We just got married, didn’t we? You think it’s a mistake, eh? Let me tell you this. . . . I never did a better thing in my life. I love her. I love her enough to do anything she asks of me. If she asked me to cut your throat . . . if I thought that would make her happy . . . I’d do it. Why was she laughing so hysterically? You poor bugger you, I don’t know what’s the matter with you. You don’t feel any more. You’re just trying to protect yourself. Well, I don’t want to protect myself. I want to do foolish things, little things, ordinary things, anything and everything that would make a woman happy. Can you understand that? You, and Ulric too, thought it quite a joke, this love business. Henry would never get married again. Oh no! Just an infatuation. It would wear off after a time. That was how you looked at it. Well, you were wrong. What I feel for her is so damned big I don’t know how to express it. She’s out in the street now, Mona. She could be run over by a truck. Anything could happen. I tremble when I think what it would do to me, to hear that something had happened to her. I think I’d become a stark-raving lunatic. I’d kill you right off the bat, that’s the first thing I’d do. . . . You don’t know what it means to love that way, do you? You think only of the same face for breakfast every day. I think how wonderful her face is,
how it changes every minute. I never see her twice the same way. I see only an infinity of adoration. That’s a good word for you—adoration. I bet you’ve never used it. Now we’re getting somewhere. . . . I adore her. I’ll say it again. I adore her! Jesus, it’s wonderful to say that. I adore her and I prostrate myself at her feet. I worship her. I say my prayers to her. I venerate her. . . . How do you like that? You never thought, when I first brought her up here, that I was going to talk this way someday, did you? Yet I warned you both. I told you something had happened. You laughed. You thought you knew better. Well, you know nothing, neither of you. You don’t know who I am or where I came from. You see only what I show you. You never look under my vest. If I laugh you think I’m gay. You don’t know that when I laugh so heartily sometimes I’m on the verge of despair. At least it used to be so. Not any more. When I laugh now I’m laughing, not weeping inside and laughing outside. I’m whole again. All one piece. A man in love. A man who got married of his own free will. A man who was never really married before. A man who knew women, but not love. . . . Now I’ll sing for you. Or recite, if you like. What do you want? Just name it and you’ll have it. . . . Listen, when she comes back—and God, just to know that she will come back, that she didn’t walk out of that door and disappear—when she comes back I want you to be gay . . . I want you to be naturally gay. Say nice things to her . . . good things . . . things you mean . . . things you find it hard to say usually. Promise her things. Tell her you’ll buy her a wedding gift. Tell her you hope she’ll have children. Lie to her, if you must. But make her happy. Don’t let her laugh that way again, do you hear me? I don’t want to hear her laugh like that . . . never! You laugh, you bastard! Play the clown, play the idiot. But let her believe that you think everything is fine . . . fine and dandy . . . and that it will last forever. . . .”

  I paused a moment for breath and took another swallow of gin. Ned was watching me with mouth wide open.

  “Go on!” he said. “Keep it up!”

  “You like it, do you?”

  “It’s marvelous,” he said. “Real passion there. I’d give anything to be able to get worked up to that pitch. . . . Go ahead, say anything you want. Don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings. I’m nobody . . .”

  “For God’s sake, don’t talk like that—you take the steam out of me. I’m not putting on an act. . . I’m serious.”

  “I know you are—that’s why I say go ahead! People don’t talk this way any more . . . leastways not the people I know.”

  He rose to his feet, slipped an arm in mine, and gave me that charming klieg-light smile of his. His eyes were big and liquid; the eyelids were like chipped saucers. It was amazing what an illusion of warmth and understanding he could give. I wondered for a moment if I had underestimated him. Nobody should be spurned or rejected who gives even the illusion of feeling. How could I tell what struggles he had made, and was still making perhaps, to rise to the surface? What right had I to judge him—or anybody? If people smile at you, take your arm, give off a glow, it must be that there is something in them which responds. Nobody is altogether dead.

  “Don’t worry about what I think,” he was saying in that rich pastoral voice. “I only wish Ulric were here . . . he would appreciate it even more than I.”

  “For Christ’s sake, don’t say that, Ned! One doesn’t want appreciation . . . one wants a response. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what I want of you, or of anybody, for that matter. I want more than I get, that’s all I know. I want you to step out of your skin. I want everybody to strip down, not just to the flesh, but the soul. Sometimes I get so hungry, so rapacious, that I could eat people up. I can’t wait for them to tell me things . . . how they feel . . . what they want . . . and so on. I want to chew them alive . . . find out for myself . . . quick, all at once. Listen . . .”

  I picked up a drawing of Ulric’s that was lying on his table. “See this? Now supposing I ate it?” I began to chew the paper.

  “Jesus, Henry, don’t do that! He’s been working on that for the last three days. That’s a job.” He tore the drawing from my hand.

  “All right,” I said. “Give me something else then. Give me a coat. . . anything. Here, give me your hand!” I made a grab for his hand and raised it to my mouth. He pulled it away violently.

  “You’re going nuts,” he said. “Listen, hold your horses. The girls will be back soon . . . then you can have real food.”

  “I’ll eat anything,” I said. “I’m not hungry, I’m exalted. I just want to show you how I feel. Don’t you ever get this way?”

  “I should say not!” he said, baring a fang. “Christ, if it got that bad I’d go to a doctor. I’d think I had the d.t.’s, or something. You’d better put that glass down . . . that gin isn’t good for you.”

  “You think it’s the gin? All right, I’ll throw the glass away.” I went to the window and threw it into the courtyard. “There! Now give me a glass of water. Bring a pitcher of water in. I’ll show you. . . . You never saw anybody get drunk on water, eh? Well, watch me!

  “Now before I get drunk on the water,” I continued, following him into the bathroom, “I want you to observe the difference between exaltation and intoxication. The girls will be coming back soon. By that time I’ll be drunk. You watch. See what happens.”

  “You bet I will,” he said. “If I could learn to get drunk on water it would save me a lot of headaches. Here, take a glass now. I’ll get the pitcher.”

  I took the glass and swallowed it down in one gulp. When he returned I swallowed another in the same fashion. He looked on as if I were a circus freak.

  “After five or six of these you’ll begin to notice the effect,” I said.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a wee drop of gin in it? I won’t accuse you of cheating. Water is so damned flat and tasteless.”

  “Water is the elixir of life, my dear Ned. If I were running the world I’d give the creative people a bread and water diet. The dullards I’d give all the food and drink they craved. I’d poison them off by satisfying their desires. Food is poison to the spirit. Food doesn’t satisfy hunger, nor drink thirst. Food, sexual or otherwise, is only satisfying to the appetites. Hunger is something else. Nobody can satisfy hunger. Hunger is the soul’s barometer. Ecstasy is the norm. Serenity is the freedom from weather conditions—the permanent climate of the stratosphere. That’s where we’re all headed . . . towards the stratosphere. I’m already a bit drunk, do you see? Because, when you can think of serenity it means that you’ve passed the zenith of exaltation. At one minute past twelve noon night begins, say the Chinese. But at zenith and nadir you stand stock-still for a moment or two. At the two poles God gives you the chance to leap clear of the clockwork. At the nadir, which is physical intoxication, you have the privilege of going mad—or of commiting suicide. At zenith, which is a state of ecstasy, you can pass fulfilled into serenity and bliss. It’s now about ten minutes after twelve on the spiritual clock. Night has fallen. I am no longer hungry, I have only an insane desire to be happy. That means I want to share my intoxication with you and everybody. That’s maudlin. When I finish the pitcher of water I’ll begin to believe that everybody is as good as everybody else: I’ll lose all sense of values. That’s the only way we have of knowing how to be happy—to believe that we are identical. It’s the delusion of the poor in spirit. It’s like Purgatory equipped with electric fans and streamline furniture. It’s the caricature of joyousness. Joy means unity; happiness means plurality.”

  “Do you mind if I take a leak?” said Ned. “I think you’re getting somewhere now. I feel mildly pleasurable.”

  “That’s reflected happiness. You’re living on the moon. As soon as I stop shining you’ll become extinct.”

  “You said it, Henry. Jesus, having you around is like getting a shot in the arm.”

  The pitcher was almost empty. “Fill it up again,” I said. “I’m lucid but I’m not drunk yet. I wish the girls would come back. I need an incentive. I hope
they didn’t get run over.”

  “Do you sing when you get drunk?” asked Ned.

  “Do I? Do you want to hear me?” I began the Prologue to Pagliacci.

  In the midst of it the girls returned, loaded with packages. I was still singing.

  “You must be high,” said Marcelle, glancing from one to the other of us.

  “He’s getting drunk,” said Ned. “On water.”

  “On water?” they echoed.

  “Yes, on water. It’s the opposite of ecstasy, he says.”

  “I don’t get you,” said Marcelle. “Let me smell your breath.”

  “Don’t smell mine . . . smell his. I’m satisfied to get drunk on liquor. Two minutes after twelve it’s nighttime, says Henry. Happiness is only an air-conditioned form of Purgatory . . . isn’t that it, Henry?”

  “Listen,” said Marcelle, “Henry’s not drunk, you’re the one who’s drunk.”

  “Joy is unity; happiness is always in the majority, or something like that. You should have been here a little earlier. He wanted to eat my hand. When I refused to oblige him he asked for a coat. Come on in here . . . I’ll show you what he did to Ulric’s drawing.”

  They looked at the drawing, one corner of which had been chewed to a frazzle.

  “That’s hunger for you,” Ned explained. “He doesn’t mean ordinary hunger—he means spiritual hunger. The goal is the stratosphere where the climate is always serene. Isn’t that it, Henry?”

  “That’s it,” I said, with a grave smile. “Now Ned, tell Mona what you were telling me a moment ago . . .” I gave him a hypnotic blink and raised another glass to my lips.

  “I don’t think you’d better let him drink all that water,” said Ned, appealing to Mona. “He’s finished one pitcher already. I’m afraid he’ll get dropsy—or hydrocephalus.”

  Mona gave me a searching look. What’s the meaning of this act?—it said.

  I put my hand on her arm, lightly, as if I were laying a divining rod on it. “He has something to say to you. Listen quietly. It will make you feel good.”