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no, he replied: “You’re writing right now, only you’re not aware of it. You’re writing all the time, don’t you realize that?”
Astonished by this strange observation, I exclaimed:
“You mean me—or everybody?”
“Of course I don’t mean everybody! I mean you, you.” His voice grew shrill and petulant. “You told me once that you would like to write. Well, when do you expect to begin?” He paused to take a heaping mouthful of food. Still gulping, he continued: “Why do you think I talk to you the way I do? Because you’re a good listener? Not at all! I can blab my heart out to you because I know that you’re vitally disinterested. It’s not me, John Stymer, that interests you, it’s what I tell you, or the way I tell it to you. But I am interested in you, definitely. Quite a difference.”
He masticated in silence for a moment.
“You’re almost as complicated as I am,” he went on. “You know that, don’t you? I’m curious to know what makes people tick, especially a type like you. Don’t worry, I’ll never probe you because I know in advance you won’t give me the right answers. You’re a shadowboxer. And me, I’m a lawyer. It’s my business to handle cases. But you, I can’t imagine what you deal in, unless it’s air.”
Here he closed up like a clam, content to swallow and chew for a while. Presently he said: “I’ve a good mind to invite you to come along with me this afternoon. I’m not going back to the office. I’m going to see this gal I’ve been telling you about. Why don’t you come along? She’s easy to look at, easy to talk to. I’d like to observe your reactions.” He paused a moment to see how I might take the proposal, then added: “She lives out on Long Island. It’s a bit of a drive, but it may be worth it. We’ll bring some wine along and some Strega. She likes liqueurs. What say?”
I agreed. We walked to the garage where he kept his car. It took a while to defrost it. We had only gone a little ways when one thing after another gave out. With the stops we made at garages and repair shops it must have taken almost three hours to get out of the city limits. By that time we were thoroughly frozen. We had a run of sixty miles to make and it was already dark as pitch.
Once on the highway we made several stops to warm up. He seemed to be known everywhere we stopped, and was always treated with deference. He explained, as we drove along, how he had befriended this one and that. “I never take a case,” he said, “unless I’m sure I can win.”
I tried to draw him out about the girl, but his mind was on other things. Curiously, the subject uppermost in his mind at present was immortality. What was the sense in a hereafter, he wanted to know, if one lost his personality at death? He was convinced that a single lifetime was too short a period in which to solve one’s problems. “I haven’t started living my own life,” he said, “and I’m already nearing fifty. One should live to be a hundred and fifty or two hundred, then one might get somewhere. The real problems don’t commence until you’ve done with sex and all material difficulties. At twenty-five I thought I knew all the answers. Now I feel that I know nothing about anything. Here we are, going to meet a young nymphomaniac. What sense does it make?” He lit a cigarette, took a puff or two, then threw it away. The next moment he extracted a fat cigar from his breast pocket.
“You’d like to know something about her. I’ll tell you this first off—if only I had the necessary courage I’d snatch her up and head for Mexico. What to do there I don’t know. Begin all over again, I suppose. But that’s what gets me . . . I haven’t the guts for it. I’m a moral coward, that’s the truth. Besides, I know she’s pulling my leg. Every time I leave her I wonder who she’ll be in bed with soon as I’m out of sight. Not that I’m jealous—I hate to be made a fool of, that’s all. I am a chump, of course. In everything except the law I’m an utter fool.”
He traveled on in this vein for some time. He certainly loved to run himself down. I sat back and drank it in.
Now it was a new tack. “Do you know why I never became a writer?”
“No,” I replied, amazed that he had ever entertained the thought.
“Because I found out almost immediately that I had nothing to say. I’ve never lived, that’s the long and short of it. Risk nothing, gain nothing. What’s that Oriental saying? ‘To fear is not to sow because of the birds.’ That says it. Those crazy Russians you give me to read, they all had experience of life, even if they never budged from the spot they were born in. For things to happen there must be a suitable climate. And if the climate is lacking, you create one. That is, if you have genius. I never created a thing. I play the game, and I play it according to the rules. The answer to that, in case you don’t know it, is death. Yep, I’m as good as dead already. But crack this now: it’s when I’m deadest that I fuck the best. Figure it out, if you can! The last time I slept with her, just to give you an illustration, I didn’t bother to take my clothes off. I climbed in—coat, shoes, and all. It seemed perfectly natural, considering the state of mind I was in. Nor did it bother her in the least. As I say, I climbed into bed with her fully dressed and I said: ‘Why don’t we just lie here and fuck ourselves to death?’ A strange idea, what? Especially coming from a respected lawyer with a family and all that. Anyway, the words had hardly left my mouth when I said to myself: ‘You dope! You’re dead already. Why pretend?’ How do you like that? With that I gave myself up to it . . . to the fucking, I mean.”
Here I threw in a teaser. Had he ever pictured himself, I asked, possessing a prick . . . and using it! . . . in the hereafter?
“Have I?” he exclaimed. “That’s just what bothers me, that very thought. An immortal life with an extension prick hooked to my brain is something I don’t fancy in the least. Not that I want to lead the life of an angel either. I want to be myself, John Stymer, with all the bloody problems that are mine. I want time to think things out . . . a thousand years or more. Sounds goofy, doesn’t it? But that’s how I’m built. The Marquis de Sade, he had loads of time on his hands. He thought out a lot of things, I must admit, but I can’t agree with his conclusions. Anyway, what I want to say is—it’s not so terrible to spend your life in prison . . . if you have an active mind. What is terrible is to make a prisoner of yourself. And that’s what most of us are—self-made prisoners. There are scarcely a dozen men in a generation who break out. Once you see life with a clear eye it’s all a farce. A grand farce. Imagine a man wasting his life defending or convicting others! The business of law is thoroughly insane. Nobody is a whit better off because we have laws. No, it’s a fool’s game, dignified by giving it a pompous name. Tomorrow I may find myself sitting on the bench. A judge, no less. Will I think any more of myself because I’m called a judge? Will I be able to change anything? Not on your life. I’ll play the game again . . . the judge’s game. That’s why I say we’re licked from the start. I’m aware of the fact that we all have a part to play and that all anyone can do, supposedly, is to play his part to the best of his ability. Well, I don’t like my part. The idea of playing a part doesn’t appeal to me. Not even if the parts be interchangeable. You get me? I believe it’s time we had a new deal, a new setup. The courts have to go, the laws have to go, the police have to go, the prisons have to go. It’s insane, the whole business. That’s why I fuck my head off. You would too, if you could see it as I do.” He broke off, sputtering like a firecracker.
After a brief silence he informed me that we were soon there. “Remember, make yourself at home. Do anything, say anything you please. Nobody will stop you. If you want to take a crack at her, it’s O.K. with me. Only don’t make a habit of it!”
The house was shrouded in darkness as we pulled into the driveway. A note was pinned to the dining-room table. From Belle, the great fuckeree. She had grown tired of waiting for us, didn’t believe we would make it, and so on.
“Where is she, then?” I asked.
“Probably gone to the city to stay the night with a friend.”
He didn’t seem greatly upset, I must say. After a few grunts . . . “the bitch this” and “the bitch that” . . . he went to the refrigerator