QUARTO FALL '65
THE WRITERS CLUB SCHOOL OF GENERAL STUDIES COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
$1
QUARTO is the literary magazine of the Writers Club of the School of General Studies, Columbia University. The magazine is published at Room 606A, Lewisohn Hall, Columbia University, Morningside Heights, New York City, New York 10027. Manuscripts may be addressed to the Editor at the above address, and return postage should be included. Stephen T. Sohmer, Editor-in-Chief Frank Hight, Managing Editor Fern Field, Business Manager Denault Blouin Stanley Brown Louise Gluck Ralph Perry Micaela Slattery THE WRITERS CLUB Irvin Bar ash, President Agnes Dennes, Vice-President Joyanne Bashlow, Secretary
QUARTO 1965
FALL I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar
In this issue: Louise Gluck
SURVIVALS
Page 2
POPEYE
Page 10
Linda Friedman
THE APOTHEOSIS OF JACK GREEN. Page 18
Denault Blouin
THREE POEMS
Page 26
Noel Evans
A LEGACY OF ELVES
Page 30
Frank Hight
WINTER MORNING
Page 37
Steve Sohmer
THE HONORARIUM
Page 38
Copyright 1965 by Columbia School of General Studies
SURVIVALS The poems of LOUISE GLUCK Louise Gluck
(rhymes with click) attended
Sarah Lawrence College after a year at GS, and returned to Columbia last fall. Born in New York City, she is at present studying with Stanley Kunitz and Leonie Adams. Miss Gluck's poetry has appeared in Mademoiselle and her paintings have been shown at the Panoras Gallery. A cluster of her poems is soon to appear in Poetry Magazine.
2/Louise Gluck
LABOR DAY/
Requiring something lovely on his arm, Took me to Stamford, Connecticut, a quasi-farm, His family's; later picking up the mammoth Girlfriend of Charlie, meanwhile trying to pawn me off On some third guy also up for the weekend. All Friday though, we still were paired and spent It clenched together, sprawled across That sprawling acreage until the grass Grew limp with damp. Like me. Johnston-baby, I can still see the pelted clover, Burr's prickle fur and gorged pastures Spewing infinite tiny bells. You pimp.
Survivals/3
DEAD END/
I said, "Listen, angel, wean me from this bit." I said, "Divorce me from this crap, this steady diet Of abuse with cereal, abuse With vodka and tomato juice, Your planted billets doux among the bric-a-brac." Staying was my way of hitting back. I tended his anemia and did the dishes Four months—the whole vicious, Standard cohabitation. But, my dear, my dear, If now I dream about your hands, your hair, It is the vividness of that dead end I miss. Like chess. Mind against mind.
4/Louise Gluck
MONOLOGUE AT NINE A.M./
"It's been no small thing, this coming To this cantabile. Living With him's been fever from the outset Sixteen year ago. For sixteen years I've sat And waited for things to get better. I have to laugh. You know, I used to dream that I might ebb to death Or else he fall in love again and turn the hose On someone else. Well, I suppose he has. I thought I sensed an absence and today he left his poached Egg staring like a dying eye, his toast untouched."
Survivals/5
THE LIVING DEAD/
These, as far as I'm concerned, Are his remains: old books, not bones returned To the proverbial dust. Proust, Lowell (Robert), some Hemingway. His green towel Sits like a tombstone By the tub. I guess I own It now—unless he should return one day To pick it up or stay— Which I doubt. I've grown to love them Lately, Things Past and the towel memorial. Some Evenings I just walk about touching things—This Was Stephen's, this or this— To savor the apostrophe That once belonged to me.
6/Louise Gluck
ANNIVERSARY/
Well, November's hit Paris again. The Times records a mean temperature Of thirty eight. Bunched about the Madeleine, Flower sellers ostrich the future With their noses rigorously immersed In stale roses. Or so I remember. Incredibly, it was the twenty-first Last week. And my affections turned out limber After all. Oh Stephen, we'd have been Married now. I've still got Our china, some broken, and some linen, But the first I've really thought Of you in months was just tonight when, with my fork Suspended, I was saying how I loved New York.
Survivals/7
LATE SNOW/
Seven years I watched the next-door Lady stroll her empty mate. One May he turned his head to see A chrysalis give forth its kleenex creature. He'd forgotten what they were. But pleasant days She'd walk him up and down. And croon to him He gurgled from his wheelchair, finally Dying last Fall. I think the birds came Back too soon this year. The slugs Have been extinguished by a snow. Still, all the same, She wasn't young herself. It must have hurt her legs To push his weight that way. A late snow hugs The robins' tree. I saw it come. The mama withers on her eggs.
I
8/Louise Gluck
EARLY DECEMBER IN CROTON-ON-HUDSON/
Spiked sun. The Hudson's Whittled down by ice. I hear the bone dice Of blown gravel. BonePale, the recent snow fastens like fur to the river. Standstill. We were trying to deliver Christmas presents when the tire blew. A year ago. About the stalled Ford, pines pared Down by the storm stood, limbs bared . . . I want you.
Survivals/9
CANYON TOWER
ROGER, STEVE. SOME G. 9. WRITERS
JUST WENT
In which some G.S. writers go down the rabbit Warhol. 10/Popeye
CALL ME UNCAS IT was an uncertainly lively party. Electric guitars rumbled in the background. The song was Sleepwalk. Uncertain, I said, because everyone was so overwhelmingly drunk. Because that quality which elevates the so-called human being above the animal level—intelligence—was lulled to a near insensibility. The human morphology remained, but each organism was in doubt as to the dimensions of its environment. The party took place in a leafy suburb of Boston. A large house abounding in mahogany paneling inside and Georgian whitewash outside served as the setting. The neighborhood was imperturbable, yielding no secrets. "Hi. I'm Kathy. What's your name?" "Mark Warren. We met before. Remember?" "Oh, yes. You wouldn't talk to anyone until you had eaten some salad? Why was that?" "Roughage, Kathy. One must consume a certain amount of roughage every day, or his sperm goes rancid. I'm not prepared for any evening until I've eaten some roughage." "Are you serious ?" Pressing close to him. "Would I tell you this, in my present uninhibited state, were it not the truth?" A quick pinch at the point of the left tit conveyed his sincerity. "Ono." Quickly followed by, "Stop that," and each was smiling. "Kathy, you don't flinch easily, do you? No harm meant, of course. Can I get you a drink?" "Thanks, but I'm fine. Do you have a date here ?" "Yes. The little blonde over there. She thinks of any party as a flirting ground. Trouble is, she's pretty enough to do it. But I prowl around and talk, keeping a close eye on bourbon and bathrooms all the while, and scouting out people like you to talk with. I feel like the last of the Mohicans: always alert. Call me Uncas." "Or Tonto ?" Malicious grin. "Watch it, Chica. I understand Spanish, too. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to prove my membership in the I.B.B.C." "What's the I.B.B.C?" "Iddy Biddy Bladder Club. See you later, Kathy." Mark Warren drifted silently toward the bathroom door. Only his white shirt showing below dark jacket revealed his movement through the hallway. Call Me Uncas/11
Dormant couples remained undisturbed, lips and hands searching unendingly. Mark Warren, a man with a purpose, arrived at his goal. He knew it would be a good night for drink. He was unfailingly fulfilling the essentials of continuous indulgence. "Piss and burp. That's all you need. Keep going forever." Glancing in the mirror, he was pleased with his image: brown hair, studied mocking grin, half-shut but alert eyes. Aware that the fight to survive had been brought to a truce for this evening at least, this party. The guitars droned in the background, their low crackle calling for his return. Blonde Annette held court in the den. A petite beauty and a nearvisible halo drew men to her. Especially young men in blazers. She never discouraged them. "Oh, I liked San Francisco much more than Los Angeles. Didn't you think Chinatown was simply provocative?" "Well, Annette, I didn't really explore Chinatown that deeply," hornrimmed student replied. "You see, I spent most of my time in Sausalito. We usually went to the Trident or The Bar With No Name at night. We invested our days in visits to the beach. It was a real bikini beach. As a matter of fact, one day our group was lying around in the sun, and one of the girls said, 'Hey, look at her.' You know what we saw?" "I couldn't imagine." "It was this crazy girl. And she was walking around in her panties and her BRASSIERE!" "Gosh." "Of course, most of us thought the display was tasteless, but there were, well, a few fetishists in the group who were entertained." Annette: "My, my. I can't see how any girl would go to the beach in her underwear." A slight pressure at her shoulder and Annette turned. "Hi, Mark." "Hello, Annette. Good time?" "Yes, it's simply provocative." Horn-rimmed student looked away with open ears. "Where have you been?" "Annette, I have plumbed the depths of souls." Unknown to hornrimmed student, they exchanged seditious glances. "I have observed kitchen camaraderie and bemusement at the bar. Guitars grumbling and females fumbling. Alcoholic truth to them and me, but it's all in tonight only." Explosive belch; horn-rimmed student lurches as if goosed. "Excuse me. It's a marvelous party. No professional virgins, from what I can see." Meaningful nod. "I also detect that you're charming people again." Struggle to disguise grin. "Oh Mark, you promised not to be jealous." 12/Popeye
"Of course. You underestimate my interest in all of humanity. I spoke with an enchanting girl, most appreciative of humor. She likes salad, and also scotch. Do you like salad?" "Caesar salad?" "Caesarean salad." Demure smile. "Do you like bourbon?" "Does the sun rise? Does a bear shit in the woods?" "Mark, you're impossible." "I don't like blazers." Retreating horn-rimmed movement. "Annette, it's time to wend our way homeward. You'll notice that many couples have pooped out, and I'm ready to drive now or never. The white line will be my guide." "OK. Let's get our coats." "Right. You're happy, aren't you? It's late." Questioning face. "Yes. I don't mind leaving." A shrug. Glass smile. "You'll be pleased to know I attracted a diverse group of men tonight: bank trainees, college students, ad men, lawyers." "Your taste is perfect. How about me ?" She stared at him for that moment at the threshold; the door was swinging shut on the party behind them. "You, too," she said. They drove home by instinct. —Ralph Perry
ASI ES/
After it has passed away there is A platitude. Masonry phrase of hardened words. Secretly and well-cloaked It travels in a whistle full of death. And we built an altar? —Ellen Morgan
Call Me Uncos/13
WAS LA FONTAINE A FOUNTAIN AT VERSAILLES?
Time, said he to Clock, is indubitably unfilled empty moments. And Space, it responded, is at the same time filled, unempty vacancy. Yes, he concurred, but it occupied is with also fatness. Said clock: Look, forget let's about moment's pregnancy. But life, protested he, nothing is if not with bulging filled. What's bulging only is pendulum from my bottom hanging. Said pendulum: Baby, revved up all am I so let me go. —Denault Blouin
14/Popeye
A SINGULAR PERSON BILL was wiser in the ways of sex since Shirley, an almond-eyed Greenwich Village poseur who wore custom-made sandals in the wintertime. He had met her at a party, and they sacked out the very first night. She was a coffee shop waitress and once attended classes at The New School. She talked of free will and slunk about her tiny, cluttered pad, tantalizing him. Shirley waged an anxious search for identity through love in a string of illicit affairs. Bill thought this a common and uninspired excuse for being a slut. One night their passion took precedence over precaution; two days after her period was due, Shirley went hysterical. Bill was terrified with thoughts of a baby and a forced marriage. He sweated through every day while she upbraided him incessantly for his sudden disinterest in her. Ranting and cursing both their existences, she denounced him for destroying her control over her own destiny. She demanded that he underwrite an abortion; somehow Bill managed to accept this demand at last. When she did have her period—eight days late—she cooed apologies, suggested they resume their affair. Whatever was between them, Shirley thought she could turn it off and on like a faucet. Bill's dramatic decision was final; with immense relief, he walked out on her. Then Carrie, a schoolteacher from Queens, came along. Nice girl, nice family, gentle and considerate, she was one of Bill's prettiest: tall, browneyed, a brunette. His relationship with her was unique; he didn't think of her principally in terms of physical attraction. They had much in common—even though she wistfully admitted starry visions of love, marriage, many children, and a home in the suburbs. Bill's fledgling career could not afford him such thoughts. He considered them unrealistic, considering his meager salary. Four months he dated Carrie steadily, never getting past the petting stage. His restraint made him wonder if he might finally be in love. She proclaimed that she loved him on the night that he had her, and he knew that she meant it. He was filled with confused notions of guilt over his true intentions. In retrospect his decision to end their relationship sometimes seemed to him selfish; there was a time when he indulged in subjective nostalgia about Carrie with a modicum of regret. On this particular Saturday morning Bill awakened with thoughts of seeing the beautiful Janine. The drawn yellow shade, the film of light, gave only a subtle hint of daytime although it was nearly noon. The familiar tread •
A Singular Person/15
of his father padding about in the hall ended with a soft closing of the door to the street. Heavy with melancholy, Bill lay motionless in bed, searching for a specific cause, something definite and mentally accessible, to explain his mood. No particular event seemed to be the catalyst of his involuntary boredom. It could have been a creeping awareness that things went wrong in spite of his best efforts. He couldn't shake the doldrums. He decided to get up. Barefoot, dressed in a frayed terry bathrobe, he shuddered a moment, his body unacclimatized to the morning chill. The house was unusually quiet; he wondered what his mother might be doing. Upon entering the kitchen to pour himself a glass of grapefruit juice, he found a note to the effect that she had gone shopping. It was just as well. The living room was drab. Light through the windows revealed telltale worn spots on the rug and upholstery, and the scuffed edge of the hardwood floor. Parting the chintz curtains, he peered upward past the adjoining house at a wedge of slate-blue sky. In his bedroom again, he put a brace of jazz records on the phonograph, dialing the volume high. A rousing Four Brothers—the original Woody Herman rendition—filled the room with a fast and resonant chorus of saxes. Reacting to the vitality of the music, Bill broke into a scat vocal. The record was familiar; his singing was glib. Afterward, he listened to the unfettered nights of Charlie Parker—Bird Gets the Worm and Half-Nelson—before turning the phonograph off in despair midway through Yardbird Suite. The music had failed to enthuse him: he couldn't rise above the burden of mind-clogging but non-specific thoughts. He was dismayed as he flopped back on the bed. He wondered uneasily if he might simply be turning into a square. He decided to go to the park for a few hours. When he had shaved and lingered in the shower, he dressed in a pair of old chinos, a bulky Shetland sweater, and dirty sneakers. Outside on the sidewalk he passed several small children who played noisily with each other —the usual Saturday morning scene. —Alfred Coorey
16/Popeye
POP STORM/
Wind, slashing fitfully East flings oblique rain that ricochets off the masonry of brown Manhattan and soaks AT LEAST a million copies of the Daily News. A murderous day for umbrellas: insideout and abandoned on streetcorners, they are prey for the carrion sanitation man. I lean against the rain and do not step on them— any more than I would have trampled the arid skulls of crippled cattle that once marked the trail to Santa Fe. I've seen those bones and I've seen the same west wind blow dust in John Wayne's eyes. —Frank Hight
Pop Storm 117
THE AP
OSIS OF
JACK LINDA FRIEDMAN begins a novel
Linda Friedman
was graduated from the
University of Wisconsin in January, and is currently studying novel-writing under Ken McCormick. A native New Yorker, Miss Friedman's credits include the 1963 Sigma Delta Chi Prize at Wisconsin for short fiction.
18/Linda Friedman
THE mountains were already noticeably smaller: the last laps of a trip. Train wheels riding down through the snow from Quebec. Flakes throwing with a dead, incessant fall against the window. A mile gone, another two. Already the foreshadowing of the buildings: iron towers stunted by a memory—or a vision— of which these hills were the last remnant. Hunchback Mountain, stumbling over itself, rolling into the next, crippled. The trees like neat floral arrangements, pine cones fallen from a larger tree. They descended rapidly, each one lower than the one before, swooping down to sea level with a giant and prolonged sigh. Yet, it was inevitable. Jack felt them all slipping past him, felt them fading as he was forced above them. The train would soon resolve it all into flatness. In New Jersey these little hills would finally seem proud. Something in them, too, Jack thought. Something. He heard the wheels clacketing to go back, not forward. Teach me to stand still.
So into the snow: a somewhere stillness. Because of the turning. Conversations were muted around him. He saw, by the dim overhead light a passenger had turned on, here and there, the places where the voices were coming from. "Because it turns, you see," one said. "Are you sure it goes into New Jersey?" "Yes. You see it turns there, where Jersey is west of the Hudson. Manhattan's a funny place." "I'm glad," the other said. "I thought maybe I was on the wrong train." No, it's because of the turning of the flakes that there is a stillness, Jack thought. The train knifed through the turning stillness and still, since he could see it out there, he caught himself up in it. In a moment the train would be landing at Le Havre. In a moment, the plane at Orly. In a moment, the ship at Quebec. Still landing. The train, in a moment, would dock at Penn Station. The Apotheosis/19
What difference did it make? There was no abrupt change in landings. Merely something new to catch, to keep you knifing the air, to keep you in a forward thrust. Every returning is a leaving of something else. Arriving in Quebec instead of New York was Jack's idea of easing into the situation. But it was no different after all. He had not been sorry to leave Europe. It was the arriving in New York that was really difficult. Just as leaving New York before was OK. But he had wished Europe would never come. First, it had been South America. The other way around the world that time. Still no difference. Then he had gone to Brussels to avoid the White Cliffs of Dover. There was something so much like a gateway about England. It would definitely be easier to arrive in Brussels, he had decided. Besides, he had no relatives in Belgium窶馬one in Canada either. All the obvious parts of the world were swarming with them. Greens all over the place, and all of them rich. His Greens were successful. And they were successful no matter what form the name took. There were Gruens (even in New York) who wouldn't change their names. They got it from all sides: from German-hating Jews and Jew-hating Germans. Neither side would claim a Gruen. Rather suspect them at first. He imagined he was probably even related to Guiseppe Verdi. Any successful Green had to have something to do with his family. Probably it was because of the earth and fertility and resurrection. They all made their money that way. They were landholders in Europe and raised green things like grapes. In the United States, there was oil out of green derricks, and green pasture dairies in Wisconsin, and green money growing out of Wall Street. Anyway, money was made out of paper. And most of it was theoretical today. There was something poetic or at least intellectual about anything that was basically theoretical. So it, too, was an earth-green that Jack associated with his family. And Verdi had written a terribly fertile requiem. The other Greens all over the world were naive green, raw green, timid green. More pastel and attempting than fertile and summer-strong. Still, you could never tell, and Jack was always careful when he met a Green, even a Chartreuse green, like the monks. They could be Greens gone bad. Like a bad wine season from a drought. You could never tell what tropism had brought a Chartreuse monk into the order. It might have been severe religiosity. And then again, it might have been the name, the family hold, the great meaning of the name for the family. Chartreuse monks were certainly a money-making organization. They even advertised in The New Yorker. He thought there even might be a good Chartreuse that was actually a faded Green. 20/Linda Friedman
Red neon lights had replaced snow white and the many blacknesses. Nothing more to this, Jack thought. Soon the tunneling, soon the gothic station and the omnipresent grayness. Maybe this had been the wrong way. He hadn't executed properly. That was it. That would have to be changed in the future. He should have taken the boat all the way to New York as originally planned. Jack pictured himself getting right back on another train for Quebec, sailing for Le Harve, and starting all over again for New York. Straight to New York and into the freshness of the wharves and the last avenues of the island. Hardly as formidable as this. So much better than this. Suddenly seeing Penn Station; suddenly plunked down into the middle of it all. "What's happened here?" The porter stared. "This isn't Penn Station." "Sure it is." "All wrecked down around our heads?" It was crumbling and dark and looming. The porter began to move away. There was a whirl of people. Jack held the porter's arm a last moment—only brushed it with his fingers really—and then the whirl again. He felt that the roaming through the tunnels would never end. Maybe better this way. Maybe. He looked at the high, distant vaulting. This American cathedral. A last of it. Anonymous, enormous, and impressive. Stones placed by hands unknown, still not, never known. "Poor Penn Station," someone said and took Jack's arm. He saw the face, but that did not matter. He was not ready to see her face. He was racing to the next train out. Out and out anywhere. "You look awful." "I'm about to fade away." "You're surprised to see me; you didn't think I'd find you," she said. "How did you?" "There are ways." She was pulling him towards the door. Ellin. Christ. The very one he wanted to avoid. "Your baggage came before you did," she said. It was because he had sent it on his other ticket, on the boat he was supposed to take. He thought his baggage would warrant his name on the passenger list. But it probably did not, and then she had figured it out and checked. So damned snoopy. "Not snoopy, Jack. Just impatient. Let me look at you." The Apotheosis/21
I
She held him at arm's length and stepped back to scrutinize him, biting her lip, trying to do a complete portraiture. Her mind was a canvas and a tape recorder, a concert hall, a stereo record player, a whole goddamned cinemascope movie with sound track. Not even nouvelle vague with some shadows, some suspense. Just a blaring extravaganza, a full-blown reiterative device. Jack looked marvelous to her. Completely aesthetic. He was wearing a tweed jacket and carried only a book—a shiny black composition notebook. Just like Jack not to be loaded down with a million bags. Not even a present for me, she thought. How delightful. There was something so fresh about him. She loved his surprises. It dawned on her that his lack of surprises was the biggest surprise. Anyone else would surprise her with a painting or at least perfume. Not Jack. He surprised her with nothing. She loved tracking him down, too. He made her feel as if they were in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. "Come, Jack. Come, Jack, let's go home." She was pleased with her discovery. As if he were all new. As if home did not mean his mother and her mother—who was practically his aunt and really his mother-in-law from the day Ellin was born. "Not yet." "No, dear? All right. I'd like to be alone, too, for a bit." She was guiding him towards a coffee shop. It was true then: one vehicle left you off, another picked you up. He was always ready to be shunted, if not quite knifed through this ever-familiar opening and closing air. He was caught tunneling through it. How could I have planned better? he thought. How sneaked into Manhattan and moved in it under my own impetus? How to get off the track, loosen the jet engines? He looked up at her from under dark eyelids. He could see the blackness of his own eyelids clouding his vision of her. He could see the face. They were sitting down. He sensed that. But he was concentrating on the fall of his own body, on what he was holding in his hand, on what colors were coming in; but more, what he was eliminating by— "Coffee with cream, dear?" "Blackness," he said. "Well." Ellin sat back as if one issue had been closed, one thing already accomplished, another about to be begun. The diner-restaurant was empty of its noon-hour rush, but was filled with the restless stir that hordes of 32nd Street New Yorkers had left in their wake: a hush disturbed by cigarette butts lying in scars of mud on the linoleum floor and the clatter and crash of mountains of coffee cups off in the distance; a waitress lolling over a sandwich in a rear booth, a ketchup stain winding down her apron; nondescript stains on the chairs, the walls, in the air. A niche carved out of what hillside? These hill22/ Linda Friedman
sides above you? Call it a hillside. Always aware, Jack thought. It was both what he embraced and what he shunned that frightened him. It made him the writer he wanted to be; it also made him that kind of man. The kind of man sitting next to Ellin, watching all that apple-red fuzz of hers bounce around, spray-netted. And just watch it, not hear her saying: Too cliche to ask you about your trip, Jack. Giggle. "What should I ask you?" He sat there on the faded plastic chair, running his finger around the chipped rim of the blue china cup. "Ah, Jack." He was looking into the coffee, deep into it, still feeling the pink crease of her mouth opening and closing and the eyes, saucer-like, circling around. The sudden and complete stillness. Both of them staring into their coffee, concentrating on it. Deep, nut-brown, Amazonian stillness. South American silence. I almost love her for this stillness. The large hard stone at the mouth of the Inca cave coming up out of the Colombian beans. A faraway jungle. Unending, unmoving. Lost antiquity and deeper than earth. Sun beats radiating through like drums. Far. Caught-far. Lost. Caught. Lost while traveling through it. Crispinian memory. I almost love her for this silence, he thought, and destroyed the image. "It must be strange to be back," she said, and destroyed the image. "Are you thinking of the trip?" Of what I tried to memorize, he thought. Memorize and then fail to recall when I am called upon in examination. What was so intimately clear. Gone. "I don't want to, but it's killing me," she was saying. "I hate to ask you. I have to know." What? Jesus, what could she ask of me? He wriggled down into a crack by the round, brown stone. Felt its smoothness with his hands, and the diminishing bumps of primitive bas-relief, hardly recognizable. What was the man doing, in his feather cap and animal-skin robe? Who could answer that now? "So I'll ask you." A silence again. "Jack, did you write?" He fingered the book beneath his hand, felt its smoothness now as he had then. His hand on it on all the tabletops of Europe. He picked up the book, carelessly throwing a few centimes onto the dish. They walked slowly across the cobblestones into the pension and up the stairs, breathing together the quiet, shutting out the lives pulsating behind all the closed doors. They The Apotheosis/23
were together alone in the hallway. Other tenants were within inches, impending. They transmitted the ineffable to each other by a touch. That tingling cool contact of nurturer and sucking, of caretaker and tended. Tingling, cold contact. His hand kept running on the book surface, pressing into it cold beads of perspiration, smearing them in. "Is that book it?" she asked. "What?" "Is that book it?" "It? What it?" "There's no need to shout, Jack," she said. "No. No need. Only tell me." She could not bear the way he was looking at her, all withdrawn, almost withered down into himself. No longer flower or stem. She felt he was no more than a tube of phloem and xylem running vertically. All his life was so within him. All his energy was in his hand that kept moving and pressing and growing wetter. "Well, I mean," she said. "Is that part of what you're writing? In there? In that book?" "Notes," he said. "Notes? Your notes? It's so hard to talk to you, Jack, when you're like this. A diary?" "If it's so hard, don't talk." "Just answer me. Is it a diary?" "Why do you have to know?" "I have to." "Well," he said. "It's my notes." "But is it a diary?" "You keep saying that over and over. Diary, diary. OK. It's a diary." She smiled and leaned back. "Not too personal, I hope." Always coy, he thought. So easy for her to go from melodrama to flirtation. Whenever she did that, it made him notice her hair. He could see the lights in it now. Yellow in red. It made her head look like a mass of moving flakes. "Come, come," she was saying. "What could Jackie do in Europe that he can't tell his little Ellin?" "True." He had to laugh. "You are my little Ellin, aren't you?" He had to laugh. Jesus, I even compliment her. "Women of Greece and Rome, I call upon you as witnesses," he said. "Women of the Thames, women of the Po, women of Ely and Arno and Seine, come to my rescue." 24/Linda Friedman
"That many?" She giggled. "Their laughter is like the bells of the ages. Deep and throaty above the square, hoarse and gnarled in the long throat of the campanile, kissed by lips murmuring women's names: O Catherine, Marie, Madalena. O Santa, Santa, Santa." "I know," Ellin said. "It's your novel." "It's my novel. It will be." "You're quoting." "Not verbatim." "Is that what's written in that book?" "No. Not yet." "Well, what is in that book?" "It will be written in." "But what's in it now?" The questions, the questions. They ceased to have meaning. Thick and furious. He saw them written out on paper. Ellin clacking like a typewriter, each question, a question mark at the end of the page, accentuated by the ping of the bell. What's in it—question mark—ping. Are you writing or—ping. Do you still want to write for me or—ping. Do you love me or—ping. How many days in a year, who is the Emperor of Ice Cream, is there treeness or just trees or—ping. Ping. Ping. Her hand was on the book. "What's in the book, Jack?" He shouted: "PING!" "Jack?" He was standing now, rising above her, rising higher and higher, misting her from view. A myopic vision of bounding pink fuzz and aquamarine lights. "Jack, what's the matter?" He grabbed his book and ran out of the restaurant.
The Apotheosis/25
DENAULT BLOUIN BloUin was graduatedfrom Bowdoin College in 1962, and has been studying under Stanley Kunitzfor the last year. Before coming to GS Mr. Blouin taught English at a private school in upper New York State.
26/Denault Blouin
THREE ESTABLISHMENTS ON UPPER BROADWAY, LATE AT NIGHT (For Jed & Peni Golden)
The sun-drained patriotic stripes have ceased their drowsy spinning. Inside, the seven vacant chairs, horse-hard seats rubbed butt-smooth, squat on the sinking linoleum floor. An aged, glue-yellow Western Union sign hangs in each empty window. Frosted light globes dangle over the sticky, varnished message desk. Dust motes float in the ticking silence. Through waxed panes of plate glass, down rows of desks and white formica counters glazed by fluttering light I seek within a wilderness of surfaces one scrape from use, a single mark of age.
Three Poems 127
ENDINGS/ The scant sky sifted through criss-crossed looping strands of your hair. Brittle branches shivered, twisting in the wind; bent, leafless twigs clicked and scraped against each other. Even from below I could feel the numb hollowness of the empty hemisphere of bud exposed at each twig's nub-end.
28/Denault Blouin
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY WALKER EVANSMain Street of County Seat, Alabama, 1936 Black cars stand angle-parked along the main drag of a southern town. A truck driver twists his head out the cab window to see what's coming— a car, its windshield, glare-silvered, moves past him down the thin seam in the scoured concrete. On the sidewalk ahead people stand around a vegetable stall set up beneath a striped awning; a dark-skinned woman waiting among them holds a galvanized pail— the split-flaked surface flashing in the light. Beyond the last gas station the boughs of trees rise up in hazy clumps and spread out into the yellowing heat unstirred, motionless. Three Poems/29
A of
NOEL EVANS
Noel Evans lives in Clinton, New York, is a writing major, and spends his afternoons at The New Yorker Magazine.
I
30/Noel Evans
A MAN put his cigar through an elaborate flourish which ended at his mouth, and growled back at his mumbling audience, "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy." Faltering, but guffawing, shuffling his feet, "Yes sir," clapping his hands, "I remember the night my mother-in-law..." and he was heard no more for the chanting. "The hook, the hook" thundered through his grin, and he stumbled towards a wing, still smiling around his black cigar. The chanting ended abruptly, a thin waft of violin music took up, and the man danced towards a stage wing, the curl of a staff around his neck. "That was comedy!" a strong voice announced through the straining music. The comedian was frozen, flickering black and white, half off-stage, and half held in a motionless flail before the audience. "Yes sir, that was comedy. This unfortunate old vaudevillian was given no notice that his act was over. The comics made it or were finished with the first few jokes in their acts, and the hook let them know the hard way. One minute on stage, the next flying through the air on the end of a pole. That was comedy!" A Model-T careened through a busy street, knocked over a fruit stand, and skidded on through the rolling oranges. Finn had seen enough, just as he had walked enough when he entered the movie house. He stood up, and then bent his frame under a heavy murmur from behind. About to sit down again, he raised his eyes to see that his shadow was not cast on the screen, and then looked again towards the aisle. Brushing through the knees, pulling himself along by the seat backs, Finn was large, and the only person leaving at that moment. He had a marionette frame, shot up like a weed, and standing a weed on an otherwise smooth slope of sea beach. He finally brought himself past the last craning neck onto the carpet that rushed smooth from one end of the theater to the other. He walked down the inclining aisle, throwing long shadows, until he reached a cross aisle and turned with a lurch towards the exit sign. He turned corners urgently, tiny destinations suddenly noticed, demanding another direction, commanding like bright baubles sparsely hung along the walls of a black maze. Drawn, pulled, and finally yanked, a fever curling in the hairs at the back of his neck as firmly as vaudeville's hook. Finn fled the gaudy theater foyer, and went in the very next doorway, as if he might enter every lighted doorway along the block. He toppled through the open door, and settled only when he had lit upon the blunted stem of a lunch counter stool. Shying from the night hovering beyond auroral neon, Finn A Legacy of Elves/31
chose the cheap twilight of fried air and glaring bare bulbs. He thought of the bus that would take him to where he could find an elderly lady, related on his his father's side, and what they might say. "Orange Drink," he said. She was his grandmother, and she was proud of him, enjoyed being with him, served him good drinks and cookies, coddled him, very old, partially deaf, and endless shattered talk. The batteries in her hearing aid disconnected sporadically, which led Finn to talk as he liked to best, spreading his words around like the trinkets that collect on a small boy's dresser. His plans bolstered him, and he smiled at the counterman he did not know, and then spoke to him. "You probably haven't seen me here before." "Uh?" said the counterman, throwing his head back, raising his eyebrows, and wiping his hands on a rag. "You probably haven't seen me here before." "Oh yea, I saw you." "I haven't been here before." "Yea," said the man, taking quick looks down the counter in both directions. Finn also scanned the counter, and then continued when he saw only one other customer, his cup full. "Places like this dot the city, and to find the same place twice is like finding an initial you carved in your tree ten years later." The counterman screwed up his face. Finn talked as he would to his grandmother, as small children do telling stories to their parents, excited growing rush. "I mean, finding the tree you carved your initials in. Mechanical, that's what they say about people who trot down to the same lunch counter every day. But that's what I want, I want to hear the world's gears click once. So far I haven't even heard the infernal ticking. I want to find a place to go every night." The counterman continued grinding his wet gum wad and casually washing glasses in a sink below. "I lurch. That means I walk down streets for one block only, and then I turn, on dim nights towards more light, and on lit nights in either direction. I never turn around and go back where I came from, and I never come across where I've been before." The steady squish of chewing gum and a rag being pushed into soapy glasses continued. Finn heard it and then listened to what he was saying. "I can't really explain this word 'lurch'. It's a word, describing a type of movement, and meaning what I mean. You will just have to accept the five letters, 1-u-r-c-h, as meaning what I mean." 32/Noel Evans
Finn had lost his spell of easy-minded sputtering, tried to halt and settle it, and finally left a quarter spinning beside an inch of flat Orange Drink. "Your Grandfather Finn-Wayland is sitting correctly on that horse, and I'll tell you why. Here, Finney, Marian made these, and Lord knows they're old for pity sake, but I know you don't like to spend your money on little treats, so have some more. Put some in your pockets to take back, or I can wrap them up in wax paper, or in the ice box . . . look at the men around him, won't you, folded over on their stomachs, he's looking straight out between the horse's ears. No monkey business. Where in Sam Hill he got those clothes, I don't know, but you can see he cuts a figure in anything, and, good night, he always did! I wish I could see him better, but you can see him, and I know he looks like he was born on a horse—isn't that the way they say?" (Finn's Grandmother leaned back and tittered until she felt that he was in on the joke.) "I hope you look like that when you're that old, Finney. I'm sure you will. You're not as stocky, but there have always been stocky Finn-Waylands and wirey Finn-Waylands, don't you know. That's what he used to say to your father, too. He'd sit him up there on a horse just like this one and say, 'Willie, you're not so husky, but you're wirey, just like your Uncle Bob.' Your father never liked being on the horse, and he probably didn't know just what your grandfather meant, but he liked his Uncle Bob and always smiled when he heard it. I think Uncle Bob is here, too. It's some sort of veteran group which they all belonged to. They fought in India, or China, cavalry, years ago, don't you know, and half the family belonged. My heavens . . . Those women are wives, there in all those bonnets, sitting on the iron lawn furniture, and, yes, Finney, I'd wager half of them were Finn-Waylands. Now Bob is the man in the checkered wesc't, serving drinks to the ladies. He would usually go off with the children at these gatherings. I don't think he really liked the horses and riding and such. Just joined because they all did. He would just as soon be sitting with his wife, Vivian, she's the one in that big brim bonnet, counting up the new Finn-Waylands, getting their names straight, noticing that this one takes right after such and who, and that one will be pretty with her mother's eyes and all. Those woods, Finney, behind the garden, way past the left wing of the house, are riddled with children. And everyone stays in this house, packed from the dormers to the cellar. You'd think all the people and horses would ruin the lawns. Your grandfather told me there was enough lawn to trample some, and manure always helps." A Legacy of Elves/33
While his grandmother was explaining the lawns and horses and bonnets, Finn looked at a snowman, his father, and his grandfather, grinning and squinting back at him from a winter day. His father was about the age of Finn's little brother Chris, and he was bundled up the way Chris had been the last winter Finn had been home. Finn stood up and walked to the widest of the three windows in his grandmother's tiny apartment. With a hand in each of his hind pockets, he stared out the middle of the window, rather than drawing the curtain back from the side. His eyes opened and closed slowly several times. His father was dressing Chris from winter clothing hanging in the kitchen. Chris held his foot firm while his father pushed on black rubber boots for him, and then he made a fist around his sweater sleeves while the winter coat was pulled on. The smell of wool that has been dried out over a steam radiator, red wool, plaids, mittens, scarf, cap, clinking boot buckles, bundled walking out to roll huge snowballs, rest, put together a snowman, and finally Chris and his father would stand beside the winter man, grinning and squinting. His grandmother kept talking, but Finn was responding very little this visit. It was the first time he had seen the picture album. "Do you have any more of just a few people?" Finn asked, coming back from the window. "Well, I should say so. This brown one, they used to take brown ones, is your grandfather and his sister, Marian's mother, about to go around on carousel ponies. His sister doesn't look too happy about him having the bigger one, and she probably said something to try and take him down a peg or two. You know how big sisters are, and you can bet Lillian, this is Lillian, had to keep on her toes with your grandfather. Just look at him here, like a little fox, clever and quick. One hand on the rein, smiling about the bigger horse, lording it all over Lillian. Finn looked at Lillian, who was about to say something to his grandfather, and saw his older brother about to tell him of the Sunday drive with the family which for some reason Finn had missed. Of all the drives to miss, this time the whole family had stopped to have root beer floats, which was just what his older brother told him the minute he was inside the front door. With his chin protruding like Lillian's, the older brother listened while Finn quickly dismissed 34/Noel Evans
the crushing fact of the floats, and changed the subject. "Who cares about root beer? Did you know that the sky never ends? The air goes on forever and ever." "It must stop somewhere." "Well, where do you think it stops?" "Maybe all the planets and all the air are in a giant's wooden box." "Then what comes after the box. I'll tell you. More air!" "The giant's world must be in an even bigger box of another, bigger giant." "And there's more air after that box. There's more air after everything you say." "Nothing goes on forever. It's got to end somewhere!" "It doesn't." "This is the day I bought Willie, I mean your father, a two-wheeler. When his father died, you know, he was very quiet and moped around the house, never went out for days. I was worried to death about him, so sad like that. So I went out and bought this two-wheeler. He never said anything about it, but he rode for hours every afternoon. It helped, why, you can see him almost smiling there." Finn's own bicycle had just come, and he dragged it into a dark corner of the garage, a ham-bone to be gnawed in secret, cool, and shade, away from the hands that gave it. With a wet rag he fondled every spoke until they could play their own fanfare against the sun when wheeled out. Finn rode the length of his driveway time after time, every afternoon, going out for help and coming back with word that help was on its way. "I used to watch Willie from the corner window, because I knew his father, rest his heart, would have been proud, long rides alone and all. That bicycle seemed to help, I don't mean that a bicycle can make that much difference. Heavens, the boy's father died, but I used to tell him bed-time stories too. He couldn't go to sleep unless I lay on his bed and told him stoies, fairy stories with magic wands and friends among the Brownies who would get you in and out of their tiny caverns safe and sound. "One of the Elves said, 'This way, Willie, its getting dark and your mother will call you for dinner soon. I'll have to blindfold you before we go through the spun gold; it's too bright for you.' I held onto his arm until we A Legacy of Elves/35
were outside, and just then I heard my mother calling 'Willie, time for dinner.' Quick as a wink he changed me back into a little boy and I ran home for supper." The story continued by swollen breathing alone for a few minutes, and then Finn gave up trying to breath as slowly as his father and slid towards his own dreams. "Tired, Finney?" the old lady interrupted, "You haven't said much, and you usually talk the crannies up tight. I'll get you a nice hot something to drink or iced tea or split pea. You go out on the lawn and I'll bring you something." Finn was not tired, but when he found a large shade tree he gave himself up completely to the broad trunk and moss at its base. Hair on bark, back between two wooden muscles that bulged downward, then spread over and into the earth on either side of his sprawled legs. His eyes closed on a cloud of leaves and sunlight far overhead, splashing green and winking bursts of gold, delicate dance of shattered gems, shimmer until the Elves jump in to spin. Little men with padding feet, purple costumes, green costumes, hats cocked and peaked in all directions, some with small white clay pipes, some with beards, crooked canes, beady eyes, sniffing, darting, chattering, spun gold floss clinging where they brushed an elbow or shoulder. They point Finn towards a platform edge, footlights, white iron lawn furniture, Finn-Wayland ladies drinking tea, knees crossed beneath long dresses, nodding bonnets in close for talking. Suddenly, heads up in unison, laughter and applause for the stage, for Finn, but the hook is pushing slowly from a dark wing. Finn is frozen, then laughs at the joke as the Elves rush out cackling, frantic, jabbing wildly in the air with the curled pole. They disappear into the other wing. Finn claps his hands once and runs after them, "Come on, come on!" they scream, but are gone, too fast, Finn slows to a walk, panting tired, before the movie house, walks on by the closed lunch counter door. Barefoot down his worn driveway back home, stepping double to each stride of a taller man on his left, a taller man on his right, his father, his grandfather, who ask in unraised, unrushed voices that he talk of old times. Finn's eyes opened on a tray, a damp pitcher, and a small silver cup. "Orange Drink?" he asked aloud, and smiled as he tilted the pitcher and watched milk pour into the tarnished christening mug. 36/Noel Evans
WINTER MORNING/
My west wall glows; spidery flowers faintly crawl up varicose wallpaper. Impetuous radiator, do not assert yourself yet. And you, clockkeep still. Night was not easy . . . The lamp no longer moves. Chair and curtains are hushed. I, the obsequious host, have eluded my wispy guests. The turbid flood is beneath me, but the panic of my ascent stays on. And I must pause while it crumbles away like the ice that will slip from scowling statues at midday. -Frank
Hight
Winter Morning/37
THE HONORARIUM Short fiction by STEVE SOHMER Steve Sohmer
is the holder of the Doubleday
Fellowship in Creative Writing for 1964-65. He was born in Savannah, Georgia, and attended Yale before coming to GS in 1963. His work has appeared in two national magazines. Mr. Sohmer is a copywriter at the Bureau of Advertising of the American Newspaper Publishers Association.
38/Steve Sohmer
"THE last eight months, I've been working for the Warren Commission," Harvey Greenberg said. Conrad didn't believe him; but, even though he should have been insulted, he gave Greenberg the gift of a nod as an honorarium. "Down in Virginia," Greenberg said. "For G.S.—Government Service. Just poking into people's lives. Not much pay." The waiter leaned in beside them. Greenberg wanted another cup of coffee, yes, thank you. There was a brass button missing from the sleeve of his blazer and his eyeglass frames were mended with cellophane tape. Greenberg looked down at his coffee. "I've been ostensibly married for the last year and a half," he said. "You married June Hartell, didn't you?" "Yes." Conrad balled his napkin, set it beside his plate. He wasn't going to mind taking the check. He knew before he suggested lunch that the check would have to be his. But he was thinking about letting it lie there for a moment before picking it up; letting it lie there at the foot of the empty bottle of Moselle, white and enormous, face down and yet terrible and indiscreet in a cold, leveling way. Conrad himself would be inconvenienced until Friday by that check. But he hadn't seen Greenberg in a long time. "We've been at it for two years now," Conrad said. "Almost three. We have a daughter." "I heard that," Greenberg said, hesitating over his coffee. "Well, what do you mean by 'ostensibly' ?" Conrad finally said. Greenberg looked up. His face was rubescent and Conrad remembered his childhood acne. Greenberg showed him the uneven spaces between his teeth. "Excuse me ?" he said. "You said you were ostensibly married." "Oh, a little blonde Virginia shiksa." Greenberg's head rocked back and forth on his long, peculiar neck. "While I was with G.S. and before that. She was a grad student in psychology at American U." He blinked modestly enough, but that was only the bravado in him coming full circle. "A very nice girl," he said. "Very nice." Then he added, "I was in Europe before that," with a little cough afterwards. "Just traveling ?" Conrad said. The Honorarium/39
"Studying French Lit at Marseilles. Artie Tierstein was over there. He bought a Renault. We mostly toured." "Did you get to Naples ?" Conrad said. "June and I were over on our honeymoon. Naples was the whole trip for us." Greenberg shrugged. "I think we passed through it," he said. Conrad warmed up. "Did you get a chance to go to the Piazza San Marino and the church?" he asked, knowing there was no San Marino in Naples. "They have a whole room of Giottos and Fra Angelicos." "We just gave it a fast glance," Greenberg said. "We met a couple of babes, and weren't exactly playing tourist. Get me ?" He laughed as if he had said something extremely indelicate. "Yes," Conrad said, but felt oddly ashamed of what he had done. It hadn't been necessary to lay a trap. He had known from the instant of their chance meeting on Lexington Avenue. The glister had gone out of Greenberg's eyes; they had given him immediately away. Conrad picked up the menu. "Look, let's have some dessert. What do you say?" Greenberg held up his miniature hands. "Impossible." "Now don't be ridiculous," Conrad said. "You used to eat like someone twice your size." Greenberg said, "Impossible," over again, dully, distantly. He sat across the table, neither bigger nor broader than he had been at thirteen, his frayed shirt collar out of phase with the walnut panelled room, his child-sized, unpressed tie at daggers with the smart liveries of the waiters and their swift French service. Conrad made himself smile as if he could enjoy the joke alone. "Listen," he said quickly. "When I take somebody to lunch it's the whole lunch or no lunch at all." But that wasn't just right either; he looked away from the table. "Where on earth is that waiter? You just can't seem to get a waiter anywhere these days." He turned back to Greenberg. "Even the best restaurants don't have the right kind of help anymore," he said. And his voice trailed off at the end of that small-talk in self-consciousness and despair. Greenberg said, "Virginia's tops." "Have you kept in touch with any of the old crowd ?" Conrad said. "Oh, I see them, I suppose." "Who ?" Conrad said before he realized his mistake. The question was
40/Steve Sohmer
unfair; Greenberg had no common ground of success to share with Conrad, much less any of the others—who were all professional men. Their chance meeting had been Conrad's doing. Greenberg had pretended not to see him, had tried to cross the street, had tried to flee. Conrad said, "I heard from Allan Wales the other day." Greenberg made a little kissing sound with his mouth. "What's that schlemiel up to ?"
I
"He's working for—" and then Conrad didn't say anything about the law firm in Boston. Instead, he said, "Al is working for his father." Greenberg shook his head. "You mean he's an electrician?" "Well—" Conrad shrugged— "not exactly. His father's out of that line, you know." He had to be careful about things like that. "So what's the old man doing ?" Greenberg said. Conrad reached for his wine glass. It was empty. "He's... he's in real estate." The thought of Wales as an electrician tickled him. "No kidding?" Greenberg said. "So the bastard's making his million after all." Conrad worked his fingers against the sweat in his palms. "Well, I wouldn't go so far as that," he said, and smiled. "There's real estate and there's real estate." "Yeah." Greenberg emptied his coffee cup. "Did he finish up at NYU or what?" Conrad tilted his head off to one side as if he were going to be droll. "With Wales it's hard to tell," he said. "Yeah," Greenberg said. "Hey, I've been thinking about going back to Rutgers or Columbia General Studies now that I'm in New York." "Is that so ?" Conrad doted on the thought of Wales flunking out of NYU. "Sure. I'd get a little pad over in Jersey City. You know. That kind of thing. Get some chick. Have it nice." He finished up coughing and had to cover his mouth. Conrad caught their waiter's eye. "Bring us another pot of coffee, would you?" he said. "And two shortcakes." Greenberg pushed his plate away from him. "Not for me, thanks." "Well, just one shortcake then. You're sure you don't care for any ?" "Couldn't touch it." Greenberg produced a cigarette and became engrossed with putting a match to it. "What do you hear from Peanut Head ?" The Honorarium/41
"Sherman?" The old nickname rang inside Conrad. He thought of how Associate Professor of Mathematics Sherman might like to hear his students calling him by that. "Sherman's a walking novel," Conrad said, and hoped it might be enough. Greenberg said, "Yeah ?" and sat, waiting. "Well. Well, you know he finally came back from Lehigh after a hundred and fifty semesters," Conrad said, coming forward to put his elbows on the vermillion cloth as if to be confidential. "His mother said he was teaching down there at the last, but that's how mothers are." Conrad remembered Greenberg's mother: squat, possessive, savagely domineering. He remembered her insistence upon keeping the lights on at their high school parties. He remembered her warmly, with nostalgia: tenderly, as he tenderly cultivated many of those comfortable memories. "Say, how's Estelle?" Conrad said. "A good cook. A pathological crier," Greenberg said. "So what's with Sherman?" Conrad leaned out of the way while the waiter set down the shortcake before him. He didn't touch his fork. He wished he hadn't brought up their old bunch, even if it was all he and Greenberg had left. He didn't enjoy this perjury, regardless of his intentions. "I went by Sherman's home about six months ago," he said. "Sherman had just become a member of the besttrained, best-equipped fighting force in the world." "No joke?" Greenberg said, and his teeth opened up again. "Peanut Head and the Army. Isn't that a bitch?" A little gulf of silence settled between them. Conrad touched his tongue into the corners of his mouth. "Sherman had finally gotten the . . . his father to give him money for a car." "Oh, yeah?" Greenberg slouched in his chair. "So what kind of car did he get?" "An Aston-Mar—" Conrad tried to swallow the word, but couldn't. "An Aston-Martin," he said with an off-hand wave, and hoped that Greenberg didn't recognize all the implications. Greenberg nodded his head; he also said, "Yes," quite distinctly. "Well, you don't have to buy a new one, you know," Conrad said, but knew it was gone. "His father let him have, well.. . three thousand... or so he said. And there was a . . . a '58 Aston for about that, so he was all wound up." "Where was that?" Greenberg said. "Down on Hillside Avenue in one of those dollar-down lots ?"
42/Steve Sohmer
"Out in Great Neck. Northern Boulevard." Greenberg's skimpy brows flexed. "What the hell was Peanut Head doing all the way out there ?" He should have let it go at Hillside Avenue. Great Neck and all the wonderful girls with perfect, plastic noses had been no part of Greenberg. Getting dates in Great Neck was always a touchy business. Neither he nor Sherman had wanted Greenberg along to sneer if they failed. Ten years ago Conrad didn't think about it as charitably as he was thinking about it now. Greenberg had never broken anyone's heart. Conrad said, "I guess Sherman was just roaming around," and it seemed to pass. "Anyhow, he asked me to go out and look the car over." "You?" "A hobby of mine. Cars are." Conrad cleared his throat. Everything he said sounded like an apology. He wasn't going to mind that. He cast about for the specific detail that would make it all sound valid. "Sherman's father asked me to put him off the car, and I said I'd do my best. I mean, look." Conrad opened his hands. "Nobody buys a used Aston-Martin when the odometer admits to 45,000. It's probably had 90,000 and been driven like . . . well. I told him to forget it and buy a Ford." Greenberg's attention only hovered cautiously on the brink of interest and commitment. "So what did he say?" Conrad laughed. "He got mad as the dickens. Said that I was just jealous. Do you believe that? I told him to buy it and suffer." "So?" He had to find a way out. He said, "About a month later Sherman was driving down to Fort Dix on the Jersey Pike and the damn engine exploded." Greenberg roared. It was a clever story. Conrad found himself intrigued at the thought of Sherman's $10,000 car blown to bits. "Now let me tell you one," Greenberg said when he came down. "Remember Paula Newman?" But Conrad couldn't. "The dark one. Linda Cohen's best friend. With freckles. Come on, Conrad. She went with Richie Sachs." Greenberg's tiny hands were flying. "Lived off Wicklow Terrace. Her mother was a Christian Scientist. Paula played the ukelele. Was about five-eight. Took Latin at Forest Hills. Jesus, Conrad." Greenberg puffed his cheeks. "She was always wearing Richie's sweater with the big, red FH. Studied modern dance. Was in the Drama Club.
The Honorarium/43
You've got to remember. She was Treasurer of the school when we were seniors." "Let me think," Conrad said. He knew it must come back to him. Greenberg remembered her too well for him to have forgotten. He remembered Greenberg's face, less crumpled, less aware. Music. Dancers and their antigraceful contraposto. Someone's shadow came between Greenberg and the light. Greenberg had been fifteen. Conrad had been fifteen. Greenberg had been an acquisition to the girls collectively, nothing to them individually. He carried the soda over to their sorority meetings when they asked him. He came to dances alone. Played the guitar. Never bragged of getting pussy. Was small, fragile, doll-like, dwarf-like. Then there was the instant in which a dancer's shadow fell across Greenberg's face just as Conrad glanced his way. He couldn't remember who the dancer was. She was Conrad's partner, and he couldn't remember who she was. He dug at her identity until, very suddenly, he realized that he didn't want to remember why he owed Greenberg so much. "She went to Wheaton first, then came to General Studies," Greenberg said. "Cut Richie Sachs dead. Had some guy from Dartmouth. Wore his lavaliere. Drove a Buick convertible. A green one. Conrad?" "Let me have a second, would you?" Conrad began to reconstruct it. That party. Greenberg was almost hidden behind the guitar, playing along with the phonograph. Greenberg could do that. Conrad spun his partner; and she was between Greenberg and the light when Conrad read the jealousy and desperation in his face. It had thrilled Conrad to see that. It had intoxicated him. Because he was fifteen and Greenberg looked up to him. Or for other reasons which still clung as he sat with Greenberg across the table and tried to repay him for the thrill that had betrayed the friendship, and for the invitation to Great Neck that had never been given. He was feeding Greenberg untruth and Greenberg was paying him in kind. Only the jealousy and desperation were left. And the little Conrad owed for that betrayal. It didn't matter that he couldn't remember who his dancing partner was. Perhaps it had been Paula Newman by some chance. It didn't bother Conrad and he didn't pursue it. Greenberg had lost patience. "Then she went to General Studies," he
44/Steve Sohmer
was saying. "Jesus Christ, guys got thrown out of Princeton, Queens College, the School of Engineering, C. W. Post. There must have been forty guys in it before the thing was over. "She had a place on West 110th Street. Didn't go out for a week at a time. Just had one guy after another and didn't even charge. I was going to General Studies then and heard it from two guys from Brooklyn College. So I called her up and tried to turn her ofT." Conrad looked at his shortcake. He was going to force himself to sit there and listen to the lie that turned the limelight on Greenberg. He didn't blame Greenberg. He thought of how he'd probably do that same thing if his need to be admired were so great. After he had listened and nodded appreciatively he would be rid of Greenberg forever. He would pick up the check and pay it. "What came of your phone call to her ?" Conrad said. "Not a goddam thing. It was like a play in her mind," Greenberg said. "She was star, director, audience, the whole works. She was frigid-chick, get me? Guys from Med School. Everywhere. I gave her my number if she ever needed help. See, she'd been hung up on some beauty named Ken who shot her down," Greenberg said, and broke off. Conrad picked up his fork. He asked, "Who was that?" as he thought he should. "How the hell would I know?" Greenberg said. "But she had some Med School guy in there and she started calling him Ken and the guy blew his lid and let her have it with a bottle. The whole shmeer. Big slashes in her breasts. Then she calls me up. Find Ken for her. Just find her goddam Ken for her. Crying. Now how did I know where to get him ?" Conrad felt the muscles around his eyes stiffening under the weight of his little smile, but he tried to ignore that. "Did you find him ?" "Well, how could I? So I just ran down there myself. It was about six blocks from my place. She wouldn't open the door, then she did. She was standing behind it in a slip with just red from head to floor. I mean, real cuts." Greenberg touched his shirtfront. "After the bottle breaks and the edge is jagged. All over." He ran his hand around. "I said, Come on, I'll get you over to St. Luke's, and threw a raincoat on her. Looking for a cab. And then she sees the cops, which is what I really need. She's an attention-hungry chick, and she shouts, Police, at the top. So, of course, they come and we pile in and I say, St. Luke's, please. Which is where they take us. And the one cop walks
The Honorarium/45
her in but the other grabs me and gives me the grill. Grabbing my collars and being real tough, saying, What'd you do that to a girl for? In one chair and against the wall with all this, How could you cut a girl up like that ? And she saw this going on, see, but she wouldn't... I mean . . . she didn't... she didn't say it wasn't me that beat her." Greenberg began to cough. He raised his hand in front of his mouth, and Conrad recognized that signal. He was going to hear Greenberg tell him about being arrested, about being jailed. About how courts and police and newspaper reporters looked at him and questioned him and quoted him. About how the girl finally broke down and exonerated him at the last possible minute. And he wasn't going to mind being lied to by Greenberg. He told himself that. No more than Greenberg should have resented a fifteen-year-old taking pleasure in the jealousy of a friend. Conrad knew that he had never really needed Greenberg's adulation. No more than Greenberg would have wanted Conrad to tell the truth and jar him out of his synthetic world. Greenberg had always been a vulnerable boy; he was best left behind his defense of fictions. Conrad would be generous for the sake of their old friendship. He would pretend to believe the lie without any reservations. Greenberg's cough had stopped. He was looking up to Conrad as if, perhaps, he once might have glimpsed Sherman and the $10,000 Aston-Martin or heard something about Allen Wales passing his bar examinations. As if he had some notion that Conrad didn't lunch in restaurants like this one every day. He said, "But she did tell them it wasn't me, Conrad. She did. And they had her in the emergency room on a table. With these two beautiful young doctors and the two cops." Conrad didn't move at all. Greenberg's voice went down to gentleness. He put his chin down over the knot of his child-sized tie and pushed his coffee cup out from between them. "We go back too far to kid each other," he said. "I know a lot of guys who got better breaks than either of us."
46/Steve Sohmer
CONTRIBUTORS: F r a n k H i g h t is Managing Editor of QUARTO, a rock-and-roll musician, a pilote of sporting automobiles, and on the verge of entering Amherst College. No stranger to the milieu of the blue pencil, Mr. Hight received his baptism offire as editor of the Andover Lit. He is the hottest young unknown teenage writer in America today.
Alfred Coorey U a student of the School of General Studies.
R a l p h Perry was graduated from Yale University in 1961, and has been studying with Stanley Kunitz at GS since 1963. Mr. Perry is Print Media Supervisor with the Warwick & Legler advertising agency. He is currently doing research for an encyclopaedia of New York City's watering places.
Ellen M o r g a n is working for her Doctorate in English at Columbia. QUARTO/47
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