Rock Wagram Page 2

  “God damn you, Rock,” one of the dark men said. “I’m going to tell that one to my wife tonight.”

  “You and your wife,” Rock said. “What business you got marrying a foreigner? A girl from Van? You’re from Bitlis.” He then said something in a language Paul Key didn’t know, and everybody laughed. But he knew one thing: this bartender, this happy and arrogant hooligan the others called Rock, was an actor.

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon. He had been out in the country near Kerman with the company on location since ten in the morning. He’d had lunch with the director and the two stars, the man and the woman simultaneously flirting and fighting, and the whole thing—his whole life, that is—had once again overwhelmed him as an absurd, hopeless, and wretched thing. If he had to put up with such imbeciles, his life was dirt. He did have to put up with them, and his life was dirt.

  The heat was intense, but there was a kind of dry exhilaration in it. He felt alive in a way he couldn’t remember ever before having felt, and here he was very nearly fifty-three, a man whose height was five feet six, whose weight was never above 140 pounds, whose thick black hair had been gray at the temples since he was twenty. A man whose hands and feet were small, whose head was small, whose eyes and nose and mouth were big. A man whose physical appearance repulsed most women and amused all men.

  “Paul Key?” he had once overheard a famous actor say to an ambitious girl. “See him by all means if you can stand the sight of him. He may make you want to vomit, but he won’t make a pass at you. He loves his wife, and he’s devoted to his kids, two boys and a girl. Don’t be cute with him. He’s got the sharpest eye in town, and maybe if you keep your pretty mouth shut long enough and let him do all the talking, he’ll think you’re intelligent. He is. But what a face!”

  Paul Key listened to the bartender an hour. There was nothing wrong with the fellow going right on being a bartender the rest of his life, but there was something wrong with Paul Key not finding out what made the bartender the way he was. It couldn’t be only his youth, for even at twenty-five Paul Key had been no different from Paul Key at fifty-two.

  Rock Wagram drove along Highway 66, the roadster top down, the radio on, the hot sun overhead, the desert all around, the four wheels rolling swiftly and smoothly, murmuring the haunting theme of death, the good enemy inside listening and speaking.

  “Who are you, Rock? Everybody knows who Rock Wagram is, but do you know? Are you Arak Vagramian? Is that who you are? Well, he was never much, either, Rock. All he ever was was a kid who drove for Murphy two summers, tended bar at Fat Aram’s for three years. What about it, Rock? Who are you, and what do you want?”

  Rock let the forgiving enemy talk, himself singing Cool Water with the cowboys on the radio.

  The Cadillac plunged forward as if it were not on wheels at all, as if it were flying.

  “What about it, Rock?”

  “Shut up,” Rock said. “You know I’m looking for my wife. You know I’m looking for the mother of my kids. You know what I want, so shut up.”

  A man lives his life in ignorance, never knowing the true meaning of any experience, never knowing the great truth about himself. He lives all of his life instantly every minute he is up and abroad, doing, or down and out in his bed, asleep, or turning in sleeplessness, or standing alone in nightmare. A man is suddenly instantaneously alive and out of touch with a secret. He is suddenly an instantaneous thing, and he does not stop being this thing until he is in touch again with the lost secret, and then it is that a man is dead. As long as he lives a man seeks the instantaneous woman, hoping to find in her the everlasting secret. But the man and the women together do not find the secret. Even if they become father and mother of son and daughter, they do not find the secret, they are not healed of their aloneness, and they see their son instantaneously himself and alone, and their daughter also. A man’s own are not his own, for a man himself does not belong to his own instantaneous self. His wife is not his own, nor is his son his own, nor his daughter.

  In an instant a man is, in an instant he is not. He never knew who he was. The nearer he came to finding out, the more hopeless finding out became.

  At thirty-three Rock Wagram was no wiser than he’d been the instant he reached out and took from his small brother’s hand the peach his brother had been eating, and himself ate it: no wiser than he’d been the instant a half hour later he took the boy a bigger peach and said to him, “You eat it.”

  His brother’s name was Haig. He came along when Rock was three, a man who smiled all his life. Rock’s taking of the peach was memorable because Haig didn’t do what he was supposed to do about it. He didn’t fight, cry, or complain. He smiled. Rock ate the peach slowly, looking back at the strange man who was his brother. After that Rock loved him, took him everywhere he went, and explained everything to him. But Haig didn’t love Rock. Had he loved Rock, he wouldn’t have died.

  He couldn’t have loved any of them to have done that.

  “I don’t understand,” Rock’s father said. “He was stronger than any of the rest of us. He had the best manners. But when he smiled, he broke my heart. I loved his mother, and he was born out of that love. Why did he forgive me by smiling? What did I do?”

  “You’ve got to live,” Rock said. “A man has got to keep himself alive. The rudest thing a man can do is die. It’s rude to his mother and father, to his unborn son and daughter. A man’s got to drive his car carefully and stay alive.”

  When he came to Vega, he stopped the car in front of a restaurant called Charley’s and went in. He sat and talked with Charley a half hour, then got up to go.

  “Anybody ever tell you you look like Rock Wagram?” Charley said.

  “I am Rock Wagram.”

  “I thought you were,” Charley said, “but a fellow ought to be able to go any place he likes and not be recognized. I’d be awful mad if I couldn’t go to Amarillo every Saturday night and not have a soul know who I am.”

  “You’re Charley, aren’t you?” Rock said.

  “I am,” Charley said, “but that ain’t the half of it. There’s more to me than just Charley, only I’m going to keep it to myself, the same as ever. I knew you the minute you stepped in here. Anybody would know you. The broken nose for one thing. I kept my mouth shut until you were ready to go, so you could sit in peace and enjoy your coffee. No man ought to be recognized everywhere he goes. It ain’t good for him. Take it easy now.”

  “O.K.,” Rock said.

  He got back into his car and drove off.

  “You’re famous all right,” the cunning friend said. “Charley of Vega knows you. He’s seen you in the movies. Well, what do you want, Rock? You’ve had your coffee, so what do you want now?”

  “I just want to drive to San Francisco and see Mama,” Rock said. “I just want to hear Mama talk in Armenian. I just want to hear the news about all of us from Mama.”

  No man cares about anyone but himself. No man loves anyone but himself. A woman is grateful to the man who plunges her into a passion for herself, and so it is with a man. Together they come to fine or ferocious feelings about themselves, and call it love. But it is actually only another way for them to forget for a moment the nagging truth that it is meaningless to live.

  One day in February he was drinking at a place on Sunset Boulevard called Dirty Dan’s, an after-hours place, when Eddie Lucas stood beside him at the bar and said, “Let’s sit down a minute. I want to talk to you.”

  They took a table in a corner.

  “What’s the matter now?” Rock said.

  “It’s this girl I married last month in Mexico,” Eddie said. “She’s driving me crazy.”

  “The usual way?”

  “No, that was the one before this one,” Eddie said. “This one’s stupid. I think she’s feeble-minded. I’ve got to have somebody around I can say something more than ugh to, don’t I?”

  “Do you?”

  “Listen, Rock. I’m not in this dive at three in the morni
ng because I know what I’m doing. I’m here because I’m desperate. This is my fourth wife. We’re just married. She wants a baby. She claims she’s pregnant. I want to get rid of her before it’s too late. I don’t want to be the father of an imbecile.”

  “She’s very pretty,” Rock said. “Why should she be intelligent, too?”

  “I can’t stand a stupid girl,” Eddie said.

  “Sure you can. She’s just the girl for you. You’ll be crazy about the baby.”

  “I hate babies.”

  “What’s the matter?” Rock said.

  “I’m in love with another girl,” Eddie said.

  “When did you meet her?”

  “Last night, here.”

  “She must be intelligent.”

  “Most intelligent piece I ever ran into.”

  “What seems to be the trouble?”

  “I feel guilty,” Eddie said. “I feel silly about all this trouble I keep getting into all the time. You know all the jokes about me and my wives. Hell, I’m a serious man. It’s no joke with me. I had dinner at Chasen’s tonight with Paul Key. I’m doing the songs for The Great Lover. I began to tell him about this wife of mine, and he listened all night. So did Vida. They went home. I came here because she’s going to meet me here in a half hour. She’s out with that jerk millionaire with the oil wells who’s in town to buy a movie studio. Her mother thinks she’s the kind of girl who ought to marry a rich man, but she’s coming here to meet me the minute she gets rid of him, which she said would be around half past three, most likely.”

  “You feel guilty about what?” Rock said.

  “About the way I haven’t been working for almost a year,” Eddie said. “I’m nothing if I’m not a song-writer, and everybody’s noticed that my songs are lousy lately. I can’t even steal a decent melody any more. I haven’t got time to hunt them out. I’m crazy about this girl from New York, though. I want to marry her.”

  “I think you ought to have two wives,” Rock said.

  “No. This is serious. I mean, as soon as I can get rid of the one I’m married to now. What do you think she said this morning?”

  “What?”

  “Good morning.”

  “What a stupid woman,” Rock said.

  “It was the stupidest remark I ever heard,” Eddie said. “I thought I must be in a whorehouse somewhere, and this was one of the day girls coming with a cup of coffee for a drunk who’d passed out early in the morning. She was carrying a tray with breakfast on it for me.”

  “Anything else?” Rock said.

  “Yes,” Eddie said. “Will you telephone her and tell her I had to fly to San Francisco?”

  “Your wife?”

  “No, this other girl. I’m scared to death. I don’t want to see her for a couple of days. I want to find out if I’m really in love with her before I get a divorce.”

  “Why don’t you wait until she gets here and just tell her you’re scared to death?”

  “She doesn’t know I’m married.”

  “Well, if she’s intelligent, she’s not very well informed. I won’t phone her, but if you’ll tell me what she’s like, when she gets here I’ll tell her you waited until three-thirty and then went home.”

  “She’s blonde, she’s seventeen, she’s got everything,” Eddie said. “You’ll know her the minute you see her. You agree that I ought to stay out of trouble, don’t you?”

  “Not necessarily,” Rock said. “Tell me more.”

  “I made a pass at her last night,” Eddie said. “I even asked her to marry me. I don’t want to fool around any more. I’m tired. I’ve got to write some decent songs for a change. I’m drunk all the time. My wife drives me crazy. I can’t be fooling around this way forever. I’m thirty-six years old.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Rock said. “What else?”

  “She knows I’m married,” Eddie said. “I did try to get a fast lay out of her last night, but I didn’t mind not making it. She asked if I knew you. I said we were old pals. I promised to have you here at three-thirty in case she comes by. You know how these things are. I wasn’t sure I’d remember any of it. But I did try to reach you at your home around midnight. And I came here myself, not expecting to see you, not even expecting her to show up. In case she did, though, I could tell her you couldn’t make it tonight, and maybe try one time more.”

  “Anything else?” Rock said.

  “No,” Eddie said. “That’s it. I don’t know if you ought to meet her.”

  “Why not?” Rock said.

  “Well, for one thing she’s stupid,” Eddie said. “She’s a blonde. She can talk about anything, but she’s a blonde. For another, she’s probably a little crazy. I mean she sounds as if she expects a lot of big things to happen to her just because she’s seventeen and blonde. I don’t think you ought to meet her.”

  “She may not show up,” Rock said. “I want to have a couple more before I go, anyway.”

  They sat and talked a half hour longer, and then the songwriter said, “There she is. That’s that millionaire with her. I’ll bring them over.”

  It was thus that Rock Wagram met Ann Ford.

  Every man is a liar, a crook, a hoodlum, or a bore, and yet no man is any of these things on purpose, or eagerly, or especially, or to the exclusion of other and perhaps nicer things, and he is innocent, he is forever innocent. A man is a liar by accident. The more intense his search for truth the more apt he is to become a bigger liar than ever. He is a crook by accident, too, receiving, for instance, when he gives. He is a thief who does not know when he has stolen, or from whom, or what. His cheating is unknown to him, whether he cheats others or himself.

  A man is a man by accident. He might have been an ape.

  But a man hangs onto his illusion, living and dying a lie that must amuse worms. A man seizes his portion, however paltry it is, and jumps for joy.

  “Yes,” he says, “this is truly myself. I have all this hair and all these teeth. Yes, this is the one I am, and how unfortunate are the others with so much less.”

  But a man also laughs at his vanity, and winks at his death.

  After Vega would be Endee and after Endee Tucumcari. The road map was on the seat beside him, and every now and then he glanced at it as he drove. There was no hurry, except the hurry that is always in a man to get somewhere: to keep a mysterious schedule, to enter into a mystic rhythm that might just somehow bring wonderful things to pass.

  He had plenty of time, but he was letting the car fly: Montoya, Newkirk, Santa Rosa, Moriarty, Albuquerque. One by one they were to be reached.

  He would see his mother in two or three days. They would sit and talk in Armenian. She would tell him some new things about herself, and then she would ask if he had found the girl to be his wife, the mother of his children.

  He would tell her about Ann Ford.

  I was standing at the bar remembering Haig and the fight I had with my father when I was sixteen and how you said shame, and I walked until morning, ashamed, but angry at him for wanting me to be better than I am, angry at you for wanting me to sing at the Armenian Church, angry at Haig for dying—I’ll never forgive him for that—and lonely for all the things a man is always lonely for, when a song-writer I know came up and said he wanted to talk-to me. We sat down and he talked two languages at once, one with words and the other without them and I understood both and neither, but it was no matter because I was thinking about other things anyway. He talked about this girl, the way they talk about them there, and then at half past three in the morning I saw her, a girl something like the Match Girl dressed up and something like Queen Evil herself, and all I wanted to do was get to her because that’s all I’ve ever known to do, the way they are, the way I know they are, the way I am and know I am, angry because I would like to find one to love, to love truly, but at the same time not wanting to take the time to let her be the one to love truly. I saw her and wanted her because the way she’d got her body was something I know you’ll understand, a
way a girl ought to get it, a way that seems to have to do with roses and snow, a lonely and arrogant way, a way few get them, and fewer keep them, the eyes enormous and staring, the hair thick and warm and young and the color of honey that comes from mountains with snow on them, the hands like damned little birds. I was drunk of course but I never got into trouble from being drunk and nobody who ever saw me drunk ever knew I was drunk. I wanted to get to her so badly I didn’t look at her or talk to her but talked to the man she was with, a good man who talked softly and never laughed, while everybody else shouted and laughed, especially this girl. They sat only a few minutes and then went along, and the song-writer said, Here’s her phone number, she asked me to give it to you, so I guess you’re in. That was in February, and here it is September. If she’s a lot of things I’m not sure about just now she’s at least the best yet and she says she loves me. You know that doesn’t mean anything, but she cries when she says it, but you know that doesn’t mean anything, either. Getting to her means something, but you know that doesn’t mean very much, either, but it means something, and she’s the best yet unless you count the ones that are older and love you but can’t say much about it out of pride, the ones that love you when you love them, unless you count the ones that can’t say they love you but do love you when you love them, she’s the best, and I’m so old myself I ought to see that my children get a young mother, a beautiful one, a good place to start. But I don’t know, I don’t know if she ought to be the mother, they’re stuck with their father, I’m the only father they can have, and you know what I am, so I’ve got to be careful about the mother, I’ve got to find them the best one I can, don’t I? They’ll get good bodies from both of us, most likely, and bodies ought to be good, they’ll get heads that are well-shaped, and they’ll be handsome and sound, but you know what I am, and she’s a liar. She’s a young liar but everything she says is a lie, and I know she doesn’t love me, she loves the idea of being married to me, she loves to say my name, she says she wants to become an Armenian, she says she wants to learn to speak to you in Armenian, she wants to teach our children Armenian, she wants to have nine of them because I told her I wanted nine of them, but she’s a liar, I know she’s a liar, and the worst of it is it’s so good getting to her, it must be just as good for children to get out of her, and that’s something, so I don’t mind that she’s thinking of something else when she says she loves me and all the other things she says.