The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze Read online

  I walked the streets again until nine in the morning when I returned to the bookie joint. The Russian was already there, waiting to see how it was with me. He hadn’t slept either and a four day beard was on his face. He looked angry and miserable and disgusted with himself. I handed him the package of cigarettes and we smoked.

  Around ten in the morning he went away without saying a word, and when he returned a half hour later I knew that something was troubling him. He wanted to get us out of the mess we were in and he had an idea, no doubt, but it was troubling him. I hoped he wasn’t thinking of trying to steal, but I could tell that the idea, whatever it was, was not a pleasant one. At last he called me to him, and I knew for the first time since we had known each other that he was a man who had once been greatly respected, a man of dignity. I could tell this from the polite manner in which he requested my company alone, out of the bookie joint. We stepped into Opera Alley, and he removed an envelope from his inside coat pocket. On the envelope was a French stamp. He looked distressed, disgusted and ill.

  I want to speak to you, he said with an accent. I do not know what to do, and this is the only thing I have. It is up to you. I will do my best, then maybe we can have a little money.

  He said this without looking into my face, and I began to feel unclean. This is all I have, he said. These are dirty pictures, he said. Rotten dirty French pictures. If you want, I will try to sell them ten cents each. I have two dozen of them.

  I was disgusted with myself and sorry for the tall Russian. We walked down Opera Alley to Mission Street. I could not think of anything to say. It was really amazing, and I wanted to say something that would show I wanted him above all things to preserve his dignity; I wanted him to do nothing he himself did not wish to do, anything he certainly would not even be thinking of doing except for the fact that he knew I was broke and hungry and homeless. We stood at the curb on Mission Street. I could not speak, but I must have looked miserable, and at last he said, Thank you, I am grateful to you. There was a garbage can near the corner, and I saw him turn from me smiling like Christ himself is sometimes pictured as smiling and he walked away. When he reached the garbage can, he lifted the lid and I saw him drop the envelope into the can. Then he began to walk swiftly, thinking to himself, I thought, Well, at least, I offered to try to help him, even this way, and now I am free, and I saw him hurrying away, moving among the ragged men, still himself, still not wholly disgraced.

  Three Stories

  I. GREENLAND

  Monday or Tuesday morning each week the postman brings me the Herald Tribune Books, from New York, and it is about writing of all kinds, and all kinds of writers. Many are being printed, many more are not, and I would like to know of a single city block where there is not at least one writer, and if there is a small village of fifty people somewhere in which a writer does not live I would like to know of this village. I would like to go to such a village and try to find out why one of the fifty people is not trying to tell the story of man on earth. I would like to walk into the village some morning and go quietly down the main street and all around it, looking at the houses and studying the movements of the inhabitants, because fifty people are many people and the moments of their lives are many. I would like to know of such a village, but I am sure there isn’t such a place, not even in Greenland, and if you think I am joking, all you have to do is go down to the public library and look up the literature of Greenland, and you will find that the country is full of poets and writers of prose, and very good ones too. It is Greenland, though, and this is what I am coming to. The poetry is Greenland, and the prose is Greenland. Our country, America, is large dimensionally, and we have many writers, mostly unprinted, and my own writing is San Francisco, and it is not all of San Francisco; it is the western part, from Carl Street to the Pacific Ocean. It is Greenland, and not some clever young man, and you can praise God that this is so; not cleverness but the place, not art exactly but inevitability, the only thing, Greenland.

  I am of Frisco, the fog, the foghorns, the ocean, the hills, the sand dunes, the melancholy of the place, my beloved city, the place where I have moved across the earth, before daybreak and late at night, the city of my going and coming, and the place where I have my room and my books and my phonograph. Well, I love this city, and its ugliness is lovely to me. And the truth is that I am not at all a writer and it is the truth that I do not want to be a writer. I never try to say anything. I do not have to try. I say only what I cannot help saying, and I never use a dictionary, I never make things up. All the prose in the world is still outside of books and largely outside of language, and all I do is walk around in my city and keep my eyes open.

  Each Monday or Tuesday I turn the pages of this paper that is brought to me from New York and I look at the pictures in the paper and now and then I read a few words here and there, the names of new books and the names of writers. I want to know what is being written by the men who are being printed, because when I know what is being printed I can understand what is not being printed, and I think the greatest prose of America is the prose that is secret, and everybody knows that for every book printed there are twenty or thirty or forty that are not printed: America, as it was Greenland, the same.

  Myself, I am a very poor writer. It is because I have never read the works of great writers, or because I have never been to college, and it is because the place is more important to me than the person: it is more solid, and it does not talk, and printed writers talk very much, and it is largely nonsense. I would like to know this: Is there anything to talk about, as a writer? I know there is much to be silent about, as a writer. I know there is much to talk about, not as a writer, the weather especially, ah, lovely, lovely, the sun so lovely this morning, and so on, but of course in different words, meaning the same. And this is so: today is the fourth day of sunny loveliness, and it is the first day that I have stayed in my room. It has been too good and I have been too happy, and now I must stay in my room in spite of the clear and warm air. I must stay here and try to speak quietly of this city, and not as a writer.

  What it amounts to is this: I would like to try to say what all the unprinted writers would be apt to try to say if they were here, if they had lived during these three days of fine weather. And I am certainly not trying to write a story. The story is here of course. It is impossible to omit the story. It is always present, even if you write about the manufacture of clocks or electric washing machines—always present. It is my city, San Francisco, and it is the sun, very bright, the place, and it is the air, very clear, and it is myself, alive, and it is the earth, Greenland, not cleverness, America, not talk. This is the first story, and if you do not like the style you can stop reading, because this is it, the whole thing, the place and the climate of the place, and what we think is less important than what we feel, and when the weather is this way we feel that we are alive, and this feeling is great prose and it is very important, being first the place and then ourselves, and it is everything, Greenland, America, my city, San Francisco, yourself and myself, breathing, knowing that we are alive, drinking water and wine, eating food, walking, seeing one another, and it is all the unnamed and unknown writers everywhere, and they are saying what I am saying: that all of us are alive and that we are breathing, so if the style is unpleasant to you you can read the evening newspaper instead, and to hell with you.

  II. VLADIMIR

  Vladimir Horowitz was here a number of days ago, and one evening at the San Francisco Opera House he played the piano, and rich ladies applauded, and it made conversation. They are still talking of Vladimir’s hands, and much of the talk is nonsense, and apparently it is impossible to get away from talking nonsense.

  Vladimir came to this city and on Tuesday evening, February 27, 1934, he played the piano, and all the fat and thin ladies of wealth applauded him, and he took his money and went away, to Los Angeles, I think, and the ladies are still talking of him, breathlessly, though of course unsexually, art being of the spirit and not
of the flesh. Well, it is laughable, and I myself heard several of the ladies talking of Vladimir’s hands, and the talk was not of the spirit, not by a long shot; but of course this is not the point, and everybody has heard rich ladies talking. It is pleasant in a way, and it may be just as well that the talk was not of the spirit, and even the rich are basically only alive, breathing. If they go to concerts in order to have something to talk about, something other than the climate, it is because they are rich and because it is considered, in the best circles, shameful to talk about the weather. And the ladies must talk about something, and they cannot go on talking about Russia forever. But the point is this: myself again. I must explain that nothing I ever say is purely autobiographical, and the fact is that I am always speaking and thinking of the place and of the time of the place, and that I myself am included in the thought because it is inevitable. It is not a question of pride, but a question of accuracy and truth. I do so objectively: myself, of this place, of this time.

  The evening Vladimir played the piano for the rich ladies I sat alone in my room, listening to him. The concert began at 8:30 o’clock, and I was in my room an hour earlier. I have seen the outside of the San Francisco Opera House many times, and I once sneaked in and saw the inside, at night, so I could see the place, sitting in my room. Around eight o’clock I began to see the big automobiles coming up to the Opera House, and I began to see the rich ladies alighting from the automobiles, and every lady was dressed in the most stylish mode. After a while the automobiles began to arrive in great numbers and special police began to blow whistles, getting the situation under hand.

  Vladimir walked onto the stage and the ladies began to applaud; he played and bowed and played and bowed and the ladies applauded; then he took his money and went on to Los Angeles, and I sat in my room, smiling about it. What I hope is this: that Vladimir got a lot of money: this is the important thing.

  From where I was in the city I could not hear the concert well, and as a matter of fact I could not hear it at all: I could only imagine Vladimir playing. Well, finally, at eleven o’clock at night I decided to listen to a concert of my own, and I walked swiftly to the beach, by the ocean: the beach is the place where hot dogs are sold and where you can ride the chutes and other things, and there is a merry-go-round at the beach: I went to the merry-go-round and listened to its music: this is the second story and it is probably a little more difficult than the first, and the whole point is this: that Vladimir did not play the merry-go-round music and the music of the merry-go-round happened mechanically and it was very bad but very splendid, being the music little children hear when they ride the merry-go-round horses and goats and lions and camels and it was the music of remembrance, so very bad, and so difficult to talk about, and still, it was very splendid and I sat alone listening to the concert and at midnight the music stopped and I applauded loudly and I said bravo, the second story, Vladimir and myself and the rich ladies.

  III. AN OLD WOMAN BREATHING

  The third story I will not write, because it is not a story that can be written: this morning from my window I saw the old woman who is bent half way to the earth and she was out in the sunlight, walking and breathing, and she was in black as she always is, locomotor ataxia, scientifically, and she was walking through the sunlight and I knew it was a story I could not write, and I said, I will say only this: that the old woman was in the light this morning, she herself, still alive, breathing, the little old woman bent half way to the earth, breathing this place and this time, the place, not cleverness, Greenland and America, the moment of our breathing, our greatest literature, not writing, being, not talking. Vladimir himself, not conversation, and his playing, and the machine music of the merry-go-round, and no children there at midnight, only the ghosts of all children, and finally the latest moment, the moment of the walking and breathing of the old old woman in the sunlight, and myself at the window, myself finally, Vladimir and the rich ladies and the Opera House and the ocean and the writers here and there in the sun and the warmth of the sun and clear air and the old woman, myself writing great prose in the only language, the language of being, Greenland and America, the young Russian at the piano, the unturning merry-go-round, and forever the Pacific Ocean, my beloved city, San Francisco.

  Love

  A little before midnight the thick fog that had been falling over the city became rain, and, walking along Sixth Street, Max stepped out of the rain into a doorway, wiping the rain from his face with a handkerchief. We can get out of the rain here, he said to his friend Pat Ferraro. We can go upstairs and sit down until the rain stops.

  O. K., said Pat, but no fooling around.

  Max pressed the button, and promptly, a bit too promptly, the door swung open. Business must be rotten, Pat thought. At the top of the stairs they saw a plump, middle-aged colored maid. She was smiling, trying to seem pleased to see them.

  Good evening, Pat said to her. How are you, anyway?

  Good evening, boys, said the maid. Right up front. Take the front room.

  They entered the small front room, closed the door, and sat down. The maid went down the hall to get the girls. The place was very quiet, and they could hear the maid going down the hall. There were three chairs in the room, and a low tea table with a colored tile surface and an ash tray on it. On two of the walls were amateur oils of nudes. The nudes looked unhappy, a bit lopsided. On the lower shelf of the tea table were three copies of a pulp paper magazine called Love. The room overlooked the street, but the blinds of the two windows were drawn. Looking out the window, Pat watched the rain falling to the street.

  It’s coming down pretty heavy now, he said. Good thing we got out of it.

  He sat down again. Do you know these girls? he asked.

  No, said Max. This is the first time I ever came to this place. All the small hotels along this street are like this. You can stop anywhere along this street when it rains. These hotels don’t rent out rooms.

  No fooling around, though, said Pat.

  Sure, said Max. We’ll just talk till the rain stops.

  They heard the girls coming up the hall. The girls weren’t talking, they weren’t laughing, and somehow their coming sounded a bit sad to Pat. He lit a cigarette. I hope they don’t make me feel sorry for them, he thought. I hope I don’t go away from here worrying about them.

  The door opened, and the girls entered, three of them, in the usual sort of clothes. At first it was their bodies that he noticed, but after a while this bored him and he began to look into their faces, watching their eyes and their lips, wanting to know how they felt.

  Each of the girls uttered the usual invitation, to which neither Pat nor Max made any reply. Instead, they remained silent, smiling. Then the girls seemed to forget the business they were in, and stopped using trade language.

  Raining, isn’t it? said the smallest of the girls. She was about nineteen, and she looked about as frightened as anyone Pat had ever seen. He began immediately to want to destroy the fear in her, to give her the sort of support she could never get in such a place, to get himself inside of her, simply by being in her presence, extend his strength to her.

  Yes, he replied simply. Come here. I want to talk to you.

  He saw her amazement. Defensively, she made another trade remark, and sat on his knees. He did not touch her, but held her hand. It was cold and the nails were long and ugly, tinted red.

  What’s your name? he said. He knew she would not tell him her name, but he wanted to find out what name she had made up for herself, and he wanted to talk with her.

  Martha, she replied. Come on, she said, let’s go to a room and have a party.

  Martha what? he said. You look Jewish.

  Martha Blum, she replied. Come on, honey, let’s go make whoopee.

  Cut it, he said. How’ve you been?

  All right, I guess.

  Max entertained the other two girls. The largest, who was very large, actually fat, sat in his lap, and Max began to touch her. She liked it ve
ry much because she imagined that after a while Max would go with her to a room and it would make a good impression on the landlady.

  My, said Max, what lovely features you have, and he fondled her breast. You’d make a great mother.

  Come on, honey, said the fat girl, let’s go get married, let’s go be man and wife.

  Sure, said the third girl, why don’t you two go to a room and enjoy yourselves?

  Apparently, Pat thought, business had been terribly bad, and it had gotten the girls down. Maybe they were going to lose their jobs. They looked worried. They sounded very worried. It was pathetic the way they were wanting to seem desirable.

  My, said Max, what solid thighs you have.

  He got up suddenly, lifting the fat girl with him, and went to the window. He became suddenly severe, ignoring the fat girl, and when he sat down again she was afraid to sit in his lap. She looked a bit dazed, a bit bewildered. Her big body, her thick lips, the sensuousness of her, and these fellows sitting around as if she was made of wood or something. Pat could see that she was deeply hurt, and when she began trying again to interest Max, Pat began to feel rotten.

  This is wrong, he felt; this is lowdown and rotten, a dirty trick. This will make these girls feel rotten for weeks. They’ll never get over this.

  He looked across the room at Max. Come on, he said. Let’s scram.

  Don’t talk nonsense, said Max. It’s raining outside. It’s not every night these girls can be touched by a couple of handsome young fellows like us.