So Little Time (54 page)

“I know what you mean,” Minot said. “Jeff, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll stake you. You wouldn't mind that, would you?” And Minot leaned forward impulsively. “Jeff, you're too damned good. You're too good to waste your time working for a bunch of Jews in Hollywood.”

“They pay for what I give them,” Jeffrey said.

“God damn it,” Minot said, “why do you always think about money?”

“I suppose you think it's funny of me,” Jeffrey said. “There's only one thing I've ever done, and I want to keep on doing it. I want to run my own show.”

Minot was silent and Jeffrey could see that he was puzzled.

“Jeff,” Minot asked, “are you afraid?”

Jeffrey raised his head sharply.

“Afraid of what?” he asked.

Minot was watching him intently. Minot's knees were crossed, and he was moving one ankle nervously, so that Jeffrey could see the light from the fire reflected on Minot's patent-leather pump.

“Afraid that anything you do won't be any good.”

Jeffrey sat looking at the fire. He did not want to take it, but he had to take it.

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose so, in a way. Maybe, Minot, it's pretty late to try.”

“It's never too late,” Minot said.

The problems of human beings could not be expressed in such simple terms, but Minot did not see that.

“I don't know,” Jeffrey said. “I've lived with myself for quite a while. Maybe I'll try it sometime, but I can't right now.”

“You ought not to go to Hollywood,” Minot said, “and work for a bunch of Jews.”

“Why Jews, particularly?” Jeffrey asked. “You'd be surprised. They're about the same as anyone else.”

“You know what I mean,” Minot said. “It's just a figure of speech.”

“Well, I wouldn't use it,” Jeffrey said. “It doesn't make any sense.”

Somehow, even talking to one's friends in these days you came to racial issues that bordered on a party line. Somewhere in the background, the old phrases were dangling. He could almost hear Minot saying that Jews were all right if there were not too many of them and that he was just as broad-minded as Jeffrey and that he liked Jews as individuals.

“I'm not saying anything against them,” Minot said. “You know more about them than I do.”

“Well, let's leave it at that,” Jeffrey said. “I've got to go out to Hollywood, Minot, and there is something I want to ask you.”

Minot looked up from the fire.

“Go ahead and ask it, Jeff,” he said. “Anything at all.”

Then Jeffrey's irritation at Minot evaporated. It was true that he could ask him anything at all. If he hesitated, it was only because he himself could not fully understand what disturbed him. After all, it was only another trip to Hollywood—simply a matter of the Twentieth Century to Chicago and the Super Chief out in the afternoon—Kansas City, the plains and Albuquerque, the sagebrush and the desert.

“I'll be there for a month or six weeks,” Jeffrey said. “It's hard to put a definite time on it, but it won't be long. Anyone can get me on the telephone in five minutes. I can take the Stratoliner and get back here overnight. I don't know why it seems so far away this time. I suppose it's because no one can tell exactly what's going to happen.”

“How do you mean,” Minot asked, “what do you think's going to happen?”

“Nothing,” Jeffrey answered, “nothing, really. Well, I'll tell you, Minot. While I'm away, I wish you'd keep an eye on Jim. Maybe you could see him and talk to him. You know, he thinks a lot of you.”

“Jim?” Minot asked. “What's the matter with Jim?”

“There's nothing the matter with him,” Jeffrey answered, “nothing the matter at all. I don't know why it is, Minot, I feel a little differently about Jim from the way I do about the other kids. It may be because he's pretty well grown-up. You know, he's nearly twenty-one. I keep worrying about Jim.”

“Listen,” Minot said, “Jim's all right.”

“I don't worry in the way you think,” Jeffrey said. “I'll tell you something, Minot. Do you remember last spring, almost a year ago—the night of the Contact Club dinner—you gave Jim a fifty-dollar bill and told him to spend it all that night?”

“I know,” Minot said. “I remember.”

“Do you remember what you said to me afterward,” Jeffrey asked, “when you were telling me why you did it? I suppose it's clearer with me than it is with you. You said he didn't have much time.”

Minot looked up from the fire.

“I remember,” he said, “I was a little tight.”

“Maybe you were,” Jeffrey said, “but maybe it's true.”

Then Minot spoke suddenly.

“He isn't mixed up with some woman, is he?”

“Not the way you mean it,” Jeffrey said. “But try to remember, Minot. There's always a girl in a boy's life, isn't there, when he's going on twenty-one? Well, Jim has a girl. I don't know whether it's serious or not.”

“Who is she?” Minot asked.

“Well, as a matter of fact, she's a nice girl,” Jeffrey said. “Her name is Sales—Sally Sales. She lives somewhere around Scarsdale.”

“Sales,” Minot said. “I've never heard of anyone named Sales. Do you know them?”

“I met them last autumn,” Jeffrey said, “at Fred's and Beckie's. They're all right. Not particularly interesting, but they're all right.”

“Does Madge know about it?” Minot asked. “Fred and Beckie know the darnedest people.”

Jeffrey nodded.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “of course she does.”

“Well, what does Madge think?”

Jeffrey moved uneasily.

“Oh, you know what Madge would think—that it's too bad for anyone of Jim's age to be so intense. The little girl isn't good enough for Jim. She says the Saleses are suburban.”

Minot nodded.

“Madge makes a lot of sense sometimes,” he said. “Have you seen the little girl?”

All at once, Jeffrey realized that he had gone further than he had intended, that Jim had really grown up, that he was betraying a confidence of Jim's, but now it was too late to stop.

“Yes,” he said, “I've seen her.” He put his hands in his pockets and took them out again. “I asked her out to lunch.”

“Did you tell that to Madge?” Minot asked.

Jeffrey stirred uneasily. He had wanted to tell Minot something and not to answer questions.

“No,” he said, “because it's Jim's business, really.” He stopped to control the irritation in his voice. “It's up to Jim to tell his mother what he wants. You know the way Madge worries.”

“What's she like?” Minot asked.

“Well,” Jeffrey said, “I can't really tell you, Minot. Have you ever noticed how all girls in their teens look alike?”

He had simply wanted to talk to Minot casually, and now Minot had reached in the pocket of his quilted smoking jacket and had taken out a pipe and a pigskin tobacco pouch.

“I can always think better,” Minot said, “when I smoke a pipe. Jeff, did you ever try this mixture? A little man makes it down on Broad Street, to order.”

“But I don't want you to think,” Jeffrey said, “I just wanted to tell you.”

But he knew that Minot wanted to think. Minot was turning him into the Distraught Father, whose son was sowing wild oats. Minot was tamping the tobacco into his pipe, like the Old Friend of the Family.

“You mean, you think this is serious?” Minot asked.

“I told you,” Jeffrey answered. “I don't know. I've never thought of it that way.”

“Well,” Minot said, and he lighted his pipe. “I guess I've got this straight now.”

“There isn't anything to get straight,” Jeffrey said. “I was just telling you about Jim.”

“Well, it's a good thing you have,” Minot said. “It's clearer when you talk something out instead of keeping it to yourself. Anyone Jim's age can't know what he wants.”

“I don't know,” Jeffrey said; “why can't he?”

“Don't be soft about it,” Minot said. “Jim can't know what he wants. We've got to break it up.”

“No,” Jeffrey said, and he knew that he should never have told Minot Roberts. “That's the whole point of it. I don't want to break it up.”

“You don't?” Minot repeated.

“No,” Jeffrey said, “I want Jim to do what he wants. I don't want to interfere with Jim.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Minot said. “You don't want Jim to do anything he'll be sorry for.”

Jeffrey moved in his chair and looked up at the Sèvres vases that were too large for the mantelpiece.

“I don't think it matters so much—not right now,” he said.

“My God,” Minot said, “you don't think it matters?”

Minot and everything in the room seemed to surround him with cold incredulous reproof. Jeffrey sighed and shook his head.

“You ought to know what I mean,” he said. “It doesn't matter, because he hasn't got much time.” And then he found himself speaking more quickly. “It's the way things are going, Minot. I haven't any right to interfere, and Madge hasn't. No one has, if he hasn't got much time. I thought you'd agree, or I wouldn't have brought it up. All I want, when I'm away, is for you to tell Madge not to worry, if she speaks about it. And if Jim should speak to you about it be nice and don't give him advice. Try to think of it as though you were Jim.”

He paused, and then he began again.

“Let him work it out for himself. It's true what I'm saying. It isn't fair to interfere.”

Minot listened attentively, and then his expression brightened.

“I see, now,” Minot said. “You mean he wants to live with her?” Minot stared at the bowl of his pipe and pressed the ashes gently with his finger. “I hear they do quite a lot of that nowadays.”

“Do what?” Jeffrey asked.

“Live together,” Minot said. “Maybe it's not such a bad idea.”

“Minot,” Jeffrey said, “never mind it. Either forget it, or be nice to Jim. Will you be nice to Jim?”

Then he saw that Minot was smiling. The curves about his mouth and the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes were kind and tolerant.

“Why, Jeff,” he said, “of course I will. Don't worry about Jim and me.”

Jeffrey drew a deep breath, and the tension which had been built up inside himself relaxed suddenly.

“And there's one thing more,” he said. He stopped for a moment. “Jim's a little restless. He called me up not so long ago. He's taking Military Science. Last week the officer wanted three of them to go to the School of Fire at Fort Sill as enlisted students.”

“By God,” Minot said, “only three of them? You must be awfully pleased.”

“I told him to wait,” Jeffrey said, “and keep his shirt on.”

Minot's lips puckered slightly. “You did?” he said. “By God I don't understand you, Jeff. First you want him to run his own life, and then you won't let him do what he wants. If he went to Sill, he'd forget about that girl.”

Jeffrey felt his nerves grow taut again.

“We're not in this war, and he's not your son,” he told him.

“Don't get so excited, Jeff,” Minot answered.

“I'm not excited,” Jeffrey said, “I'm just telling you.” And then he paused, trying to speak carefully. “This is a bad time to have a son growing up. I don't think it's the same thing with daughters. You don't identify yourself with them as you do with a son. I don't see him much, but I think a lot of Jim. I'd like to have Jim have a happier life than mine. I suppose that's what every father wants—”

“Look here,” Minot asked, “what's the matter with your life?”

“Never mind it now,” Jeffrey answered, “I'm talking about Jim.”

And then he made a final effort to express himself.

“Wait, Minot—think of it this way. People like you and me—we've pretty well seen the show, but Jim has no perspective or background. I have an idea he may need someone older to talk to, and he thinks a lot of you, Minot. Just keep an eye on him, but don't make up his mind for him. That's all I'm trying to say.”

Jeffrey had seen a play years before, “The Return of Peter Grimm,” in which a man appeared after he was dead and watched the living. Sitting there in that overdecorated room, he did not seem to belong to the present any more than that portrait of Minot's mother, and Minot did not, either.

“Of course, Jeff,” Minot said.

“Thanks,” Jeffrey said. “Well, that's about all. I'd better be going.”

“Good-by, boy,” he heard Minot say. “We had a swell afternoon, didn't we?”

The elevator was descending slowly and he stood looking at the back of the elevator man's white head and at the uniform that looked like a Prince Albert coat. The coat made him think of a period with which even he was too young to be familiar, of hansom cabs and of horses' hoofs on the Avenue, and Sherry's and Delmonico's and Jack's and Rector's. He had a sense of having done something wrong, of having said something wrong; without in the least knowing why, he wished that he had not talked to Minot Roberts about Jim.

33

Where the Initials Are Marked in Pencil

“Good evening, Mr. Wilson,” the doorman said. “It's a pretty good day for March.”

“Good evening,” Jeffrey said. “Yes, it hasn't been a bad day.”

The doorman's solid face was middle-aged, like his own. He pulled back the door with a flourish and closed it quickly to keep out the March wind.

“March is always a bad month,” the doorman said, “but it's the beginning of spring.”

It occurred to Jeffrey that he and the doorman had exchanged those same remarks for a long while without knowing much about each other. You gave him a Christmas present and now and then another present, but he maintained his private life inviolate. That impersonality was all a part of a complicated society. It was a defense against knowing too many human beings.