Pilgrim Son: A Personal Odyssey (48 page)

There was an energy in the air — (walking up Fifth Avenue on an October morning; pushing down the midway at a New England county fair) — that one felt like a charge in the blood. Whether the energy was always properly directed we were not sure; but we were happy because the surrounding life-force entered us too, and we saw, thought, did, indeed
were
more than we had been.

A people cannot be praised or blamed for their variety, or for the space surrounding them, but these were both factors in our feeling for the country. The Big Sky was not a mere phrase — we had run under its canopy from the Missouri to the western ocean. The diversity of peoples and ways of life were not a legend — we had spoken with them, eaten with them, worked and danced with them: yet we were all Americans.

America was a shared experience now, like a concert, the mighty fire on the beach at Nag's Head, the light dancing on the children's awed faces and the heavy mutter of the Hatteras surf behind; flashing lights along the shore, Montauk facing England, our old home, the Half Way Light on its rock among the whales; the diffused murmur of sound at the Polo Grounds, suddenly concentrating, Willie Mays is ten feet up the centre field wall, glove upflung — the sound cracks like a cannon shot, echoing, echoing; it comes back now as the roar of the cadets at Michie Stadium, third and goal on the Penn State two-yard line; and that, like a record in reverse, is the swing of the music on the Plain as the Colours and guidons go by; then silence, but for the whirr of the tyres down the endless avenues of the Michigan forest, Barbara at the wheel, the children asleep behind and a dawn mist carpeting Lake Superior; a gradual growing of sound, the crackling of the fallen leaves underfoot as we walked among the silent aisles of tulip trees in Bear Mountain, and found ice in the mouth of a mine shaft where the pioneers had once forged iron for their tools; and there was the silence of the night in Trident Shelter, broken by the freight calling from the Androscoggin; and the thunderous night ride up Sherman Summit in the cab of a Big Boy, and taking the whistle cord myself to send out that moaning minor call over Wyoming, in case someone was listening, hearing the labour of our exhaust, as Barbara and I had once listened and heard, and New York nights, when the lights blazed like a shivering sea below, above, all round, and we walked the streets, hungry, drunk, we too charged, electric; back, to the dream come true, Manhattan rising from the bay, a greater, more magical, more mystical Venice, by the golden door.

'I have discovered the secret of American games,' I pronounced, for I had had several bourbons. 'When the British invented the games they had only one ending, or climax, at the end. The Americans split them up into a series of orgasms — innings in baseball, first downs in footballs...

'Balls!' Phil Morse said. 'American games are split up so that they can put in the commercials.'

'That comes well from the most pear-shaped voice on the commercial air waves,' Alan Anderson said.

Phyllis Kauffmann gave me a big hug — 'Oh God, I'm so happy for you,' she said. Davy Itkin grabbed my arm and pumped it -'Four straight, you bastard! How do you do it?' Phyllis gradually transferred her hug from me to Davy.

Ralph Barker said to Don Ettlinger, 'Prime time rates per unit delivered have got to go up, because...' Don looked interested.

Old Mellors said, 'Looks like you might have to put some new lath on the east side of the house, where the wisteria was.' His eyes followed a shapely female behind across the grass, but whether in memory or anticipation he was too experienced to show.

Young Mellors sat on the brickwork staring at the woman seated beside him, but we all knew what that gaze meant: yesterday, today, tomorrow. Their mating had been amazingly public and the marvel was only that her husband and his wife had not come across them, locked like dogs, at various spots along South Mountain Road. Barbara announced, 'I am five ft. five in., and weigh 130, but my reach is one inch longer than Rocky Marciano's, and I can carry any man here around that tree.' She picked up Harold Guinzburg, and carried him round the lawn, under one arm. I have never seen a more amazed publisher. The party continued.

We walked late in the silent orchard, Barbara and I, and saw that the fires were out. The moon rode among a fleet of clouds, casting intermittent shadows of the maple boughs on the grass. We went into the house and closed the door, but did not lock it. Barbara cleaned the sink and I weighted the papers on my desk, that the breeze through the open window might not blow them away. We turned out the lights. My father and mother were long in bed and asleep. Our children slept, though Martin had kicked off his blanket. We went to our own bed, content, but aware of a distant thunder, so far that it could barely be heard, so deep that it shook our bodies, and the house, and the earth.

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen