Authors: James Jones
She had tried. God knew, she had tried. Takin all them cookin lessons. And she kept that house immaculately clean. She had fixed it up real pretty. And she had changed all her friends. She had done everything she knew. She had even watched her language, always saying “taking” instead of “takin”—except maybe when she got mad or excited. Takin! she thought wildly: What the hell difference did it make if you said “takin” instead of “taking”? Damn them! All of them! She had done everything she knew. But most of all, she had tried to be a lady for him, because she knew ladies was what he liked—real ladies, like that schoolteacher Gwen French. She had tried to be one. And it was right there that she had failed, and she guessed she knew it. And she wasn’t no lady. She was a bum. And always had been, she thought sorrowfully. A pig! Like ’Bama Dillert was always callin her behind her back. Oh, she knew what he said about her: a pig. A bum. All right, damn them! She hadn’t done nothing, hadn’t been out with nobody, ever since she got home from Kansas. She had tried her very level best.
But it wasn’t good enough, was it? All right then, she’d show them. And wiping her eyes dry on her little lacy handkerchief she headed on up to town—but not for the Festival Week: She headed for Ciro’s. And after that, by God, she’d go out to Smitty’s, too, if she had to. Because, if she went to the festival tonight, by God, it would be with a man.
It wasn’t Dave’s fault. It was hers. And she guessed she knew it. Something in her had done it, no matter how hard she had tried, and kept her from bein a lady; and hating herself for whatever it was in her that had done it, she went resolutely on uptown to Ciro’s. Told her to get out! Of her own home! But it wasn’t his fault. It was hers.
Two or three times as she walked along she felt like somebody was following her, but when she looked around there was nothing.
Dave sat for a long time at the kitchen table after she had gone, thinking it all over. Something had happened; some light had gone out; and he could feel it. It wasn’t the busting of the typewriter so much, it was the way both of them had reacted to the
act,
afterwards. He shouldn’t have told her to get out like that, and he was sorry for that. And she shouldn’t have thrown the saucepan, and she was probably sorry for that. But neither one of them had reacted like they really felt: sorry. Why? Pride? Stubbornness? Yes, but also no. Basically, they had both reacted as they did because both of them were afflicted with—certain—ahh—desires. They each had in them a sort of superimposed picture, like a celluloid overlay on a map, of what life was, or was not, and also of what it should be—or, rather, what they
wanted
it to be. And each saw his own picture so clearly that they actually made them exist. And Ginnie’s picture of the world and his picture of the world could not be made to coincide: because both of them existed just as factually and as materially as the
real
world existed. And so it was just exactly like the physical impossibility of two bodies trying to inhabit the same space at the same time.
Perhaps—no, almost undoubtedly—he thought elaborating it as he sat there—undoubtedly no two humans on earth ever lived in identical worlds. So he was probably wrong when he had thought Frank and Agnes were happily married, and that Dawnie and Shotridge were happily married.
Because each had his own private world, and what was more wanted to keep it. And not only that, wanted to if possible impose it upon everyone else that he possibly could. And that was always where the trouble came. Because the other man—or woman—or nation, for that matter—was doing the same identical thing. Consequently, only clash resulted—and trouble.
And from the trouble came the pain: the pain of defeat, the pain of victory and the hate it brought, but most of all the pain of being forced to relinquish part or all of that illusory world each has built up for himself.
Ginnie—poor old Ginnie—with her illusory world of what she thought a happy respectable marriage ought to be—Ginnie, who wanted to be respectable more than anything else in the world—so much so that she even convinced herself that it was distasteful for a “lady” to even sleep with her own husband.
And was he any better? with his illusory world of what he thought would be a safe, sane, peaceful, work-producing life being married to a good dumb writer’s wife?
For the first time, really—sitting there at the little kitchen table, smoking a cigarette—Dave thought he could get a glimpse of what Bob French had been driving at when he talked about “illusions” all the time.
And for the first time in his life, as this window opened up, giving him a glimpse beyond the frosted pane into the cold wintry scene outside, Dave Hirsh realized with complete finality just how much he was, after all, alone—and would always be alone. Just how alone it was almost ghastly to contemplate—because no one would ever just exactly see the illusory world he lived in, nor would he ever be able to get out of it. But perhaps you could get out: in writing, in creating. It wouldn’t make you less alone, but it
would
at least make other people’s illusory world more real—to you. But even so, such utter and complete loneliness—such aloneness—was almost physically unbearable. And no way out of it; not through love, not through work, not through play, not through courage, not through fear. No way.
And the
real
world: What about it? Was there even a real world? If there was, no human would ever see it. To all intents and purposes, there was no real world, only a sharply jostling collection of private spheres. You could love a million women, and be loved by the million in return, and never would you be able to show them your private world, or have them show you theirs; never would either of you be able to escape from your private illusory world. It was not only frightening, it was devastating.
Sitting there with terror quivering all through him like mercury, Dave thought he could realize what Bob French had been driving at when he spoke of “Glamours.” Everything that exists is “Glamours;” because there isn’t anything but “Glamours.” And simultaneously, he thought perhaps he understood—a little bit anyway—of what Bob meant by Karma that he was always talking about. He didn’t understand it clearly. But he had made Karma with Ginnie, and simultaneously made Karma
in
Ginnie. By clashing his private illusory world against hers. Just like he had made Karma with and also
in
everyone he had come in contact with since he first came back to Parkman. Frank, and Agnes, Gwen and Bob and ’Bama, Dewey, Hubie, Wally. And that Karma would stay with all of them until the day they died. And perhaps, as Bob maintained, would stay with them afterwards, too. And, as Bob also said so often, perhaps they had all met before somewhere, too? And perhaps, if it was so, they were all also working out
old
Karma, at the same time they were making new. He wished there was just some way he could actually
know.
Some Sign, some Voice, some Something that would speak to him. But nothing did.
Poor old Ginnie: with her illusory world of what respectability should be. And him, with his “Glamour” of the safe, calm, productive life. Man, what a match they were! In his illusory picture, he had tried to bring about, he had caused her pain—and in so doing, had caused “Karma.” She had caused him pain, too; but he was more responsible than she was because he was smarter. He knew more, or should have. Whatever Ginnie did or hadn’t done, he was responsible for his own illusions. He had run to her and, in a wildly self-imposed illusion, had taken her on—because he was afraid after having lost Gwen, afraid of being alone. And whatever Ginnie had to do with the whole thing just simply did not count. Only what he did—as far as he himself was concerned.
“Each man must find his salvation in himself alone. It is not to be found outside. In another person.” Bob French’s statement came back in his mind clearly, with an understanding of it he had never had before. It was really very simple: There just wasn’t
any other way.
There just wasn’t any other place to find it. And nothing that anyone did
to
you, or
for
you, made one damn bit of difference, in the end. And Bob’s other statement came back, too: “It was the most painful thing I ever had to learn in my life, dear Dave.”
Tonight, somehow, had broken two illusions: God knew how many more both of them had. But tonight had broken two: Ginnie’s illusion of what a happy respectable marriage was—and his own—which was an even greater one—that there existed a way in which a man need not be alone. Whatever happened from now on to either of them was not the other’s responsibility anymore. And perhaps, never had been.
Stubbing out his cigarette—his third since she had gone—Dave got up and went to pack. The terror that had slid mercurially along his veins had subsided. And in its place was left only that bone-cold aloneness, frozen as the moon. He packed only one bag. He looked, once, at all his war ribbons; then left them in their drawer. In the bag, with the few clothes he was taking, he carefully packed the stack of manuscript. And as he did so, he knew something else: That love affair didn’t belong in this book at all; Bob French had been right all along; and if it made a slim volume, to hell with it; and if it didn’t sell because there wasn’t enough sex in it, why to hell with that, too. That love affair didn’t belong in there. And when he got settled in someplace, wherever it might be, he would start working on it from that theory. And after that? Well, there was that novel about his childhood and Parkman that he wanted to write. And then, there was that novel on Ginnie’s life that he wanted to write. That one would be an awful lot better now than if he had written it when he first conceived it. And then, in addition to those, there was still the
true
novel he wanted to write about Francine and the group in Hollywood. He figured, as he packed, that he would have plenty to keep him busy quite a while.
The only other thing he packed was his broken typewriter in its battered little case. He could leave it and buy another one somewhere wherever he was going but somehow—sentimentally, perhaps—he did not want to leave it. After all, it had been through as much with him as his head had, the past two years. The broken platen he padded into the case with rags, then he set it on the floor of the kitchen with the bag and looked all around to see if there wasn’t something else he wanted to take. There wasn’t. He was ready to go.
But then, just as he was ready to pick them up and go, a sort of an idea struck him: Only God knew where he might be the next few weeks until he got settled in, or what might happen to him. And lighting another cigarette, he sat down again at the kitchen table and decided to write himself out a Last Will and Testament. Really, he didn’t know what made him do it—probably the manuscript more than anything else, he didn’t want anything to happen to it; but after he had done it, he felt strangely better. There really wasn’t much to leave: the house, and its contents; his little old Plymouth; and his little share of the taxi service. That was all. He left all of these to Ginnie: She deserved them. The manuscript he left to Bob and Gwen French jointly. It didn’t take very long to write it out. But then, sitting looking at it, he had an afterthought and wrote out two more exact copies of it. One he put in an envelope and addressed to Judge Deacon, and the other he put in another envelope and addressed it to Gwen French. He would like to see her—and Old Bob—once more before he left; but it would only be painful to them all. Could a man really live and not cause pain? Dave wondered. It was an interesting thought. Old Bob would probably say: No; we were all
supposed
to cause each other pain. In the envelope addressed to Gwen, he stuck an added little note:
Should anything happen to me,
the love affair should come out—entirely.
The two letters he put in his pocket to drop in the mailbox, and the third will he left lying on the table. Then he picked up the bag and typewriter and left the house.
There was a mailbox on the corner of Wernz Avenue, and he dropped the letters in. From where he stood, he could see all the bright lights decorating the square for Festival Week and hear the loud laughter and the music of the bands, and the whine and grind of the ride machines, and like a thin, tart salad dressing over all the rest binding it together the tinny music of the merry-go-round. For a moment, he stood and looked up the hill at it, sadly. Was it really the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, being enacted over again? Perhaps not. Perhaps that was only another of his illusions. God, he had so many. Anyway, he hoped it wasn’t. He loved this country—and this town, too—loved them deeply. But perhaps that was an illusion, too? Why should a man love one country—or one town—or one person—more than he loved another? Well, he sincerely hoped we weren’t living in the beginning of the Decline and Fall.
He did not want to go up through town, and so he crossed Wernz Avenue and went two blocks north before he turned back west. That street would bring him out just at the end of the business district on North Main, the cross street, and from there he could go on back out north to the bypass and catch himself a ride with some trucker riding west. He only had fifty bucks on him, and he didn’t intend to waste any of that on a bus ticket. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d hitched a ride. He didn’t feel brave or adventurous at the prospect of getting out and seeing “life.” In fact, he felt scared, if not actually terrified: He knew enough of the road and of job-hunting to know it wasn’t going to be any picnic for him. But he did feel free. And, with the kind of bone-cold aloneness that was in him now, mere loneliness was hardly even a bother.
Taking his time, he walked west toward North Main, and all the time two blocks over he could hear the gaiety of Festival Week. It did not seem incongruous to him. Not at all. In a way, it was the best time to be leaving. Once, he felt as though someone were following him, but when he turned around there was nothing there.
But then, when he emerged on North Main and turned north along the last dingy block of little jerry-built stores—far from the gaiety and light behind him—he saw the man step out of the shadow of the alley in front of him about fifteen feet away and the glint of white metal in his hand, and he knew—instantaneously. His heart leaped up into his throat—not from fear, just from sheer adrenaline. It was the first time they had ever actually seen each other, but Dave recognized the lanky figure and the prominent cheekbones and the lips drawn back in a simultaneous sneer-grin. The .45 Service Automatic glinted white. If you can talk to them, Bob French had said that night. But there wasn’t time for that. There wasn’t even time to laugh at the supreme irony of it. Poor guy, Dave thought, poor guy.