Plexus (19 page)

“Val's a writer, not a typist,” said Mona sharply.

“I know he's a writer,” said MacGregor, “but a writer has to eat once in a while, doesn't he?”

“Does he look as though he were starving?” she retorted. “What are you trying to do, bribe us with your good meal?”

“I wouldn't talk that way to a good friend,” said MacGregor, his dander rising. “I merely wanted to make sure he was O.K. I've known Henry when he wasn't sitting so comfortably.”

“Those days are past,” said Mona. “As long as I'm with him he'll never starve.”

“Fine!” snapped MacGregor. “Nothing better I'd like to hear. But are you sure you'll always be able to provide for him? Supposing something were to happen to you? Supposing you become an invalid?”

“You're talking nonsense. I couldn't possibly be an invalid.”

“Lots of people have thought that way, but it happened just the same.”

“Stop croaking,” I begged. “Listen, give us the truth. Why are you so eager for me to take that job?”

He broke into a broad grin. “Waiter!” he shouted, “some more wine!” Then he chuckled. “Can't put anything over on you, can I Henry?
The truth
, you say. The truth is I wanted you to take the job just to have you around. I miss you. Fact is, the job pays only fifteen a week; I was going to add the other five out of my own pocket. Just for the pleasure of having you near me, just to listen to you rave. You can't imagine how dull these bastards are in the law business. I don't know what they're talking about half the time. As for work, there's not much to do. You could write all the stories you like—or whatever the hell it is you're doing. I mean it. You know, it's over a year since I last saw you. At first I was sore. Then I figured, hell, he's just got married. I know how it is.… So you're serious about this writing business, eh? Well, you must know your own mind. It's a tough game, but maybe you can beat 'em at it. I toy with the idea myself sometimes. Of course I never considered myself a
genius
. When I see the crap that's peddled around I figure nobody's looking for genius anyway. It's as bad as the law game, believe it or not. Don't think I've got a cinch of it! The old man had more sense than either of us. He became an ironmonger. He'll outlive all of us, that old buzzard.”

“I say, you guys,” O'Mara broke in, “can I get a word in edgewise? Henry, I've been trying to tell you something for the last hour or more. I met a chap today who's nuts about your work. He coughed up a year's subscription for the
Mezzotints.…”

“Mezzotints?
What's he talking about?” MacGregor exclaimed.

“We'll tell you later.… Go on, Ted!”

It was a long story, as usual. Apparently, O'Mara hadn't been able to fall asleep after our talk about the orphan
asylum. He had got to thinking about the past, and then about everything under the sun. Despite the lack of sleep he arose early, filled with a desire to do something. Packing my scripts—the whole caboodle—in his brief case, he set out with the intention of tackling the first man he should bump into. To change his luck he had decided to go to Jersey City. The first place he stumbled into was a lumber yard. The boss had just arrived and was in a good mood. “I fell on him like a ton of bricks, just swept him off his feet,” said O'Mara. “I don't know what I was saying, to tell you the truth. I knew only that I had to sell him.” The lumberman turned out to be a good egg. He didn't know what it was all about either, but he was disposed to help. Somehow O'Mara had managed to transpose the whole thing to a very personal level. He was selling the man his good friend Henry Miller, whom he believed in. The man wasn't much for books and that sort of thing but the prospect of aiding a budding genius, oddly enough, appealed to him. “He was writing out a check for the subscription,” said O'Mara, “when the idea came to me to make him do something more. I pocketed the checks first, of course, and then I dug out your manuscripts. I put the whole pile on his desk, right in front of him. He wanted to know immediately how long it had taken you to write such a slew of words. I told him six months. He nearly fell off his chair. Naturally, I kept talking fast so that he wouldn't starting reading the bloody things. After a while he leaned back in his swivel chair and pressed a button. His secretary appeared. ‘Get out the files on that publicity campaign we had last year,' he ordered.”

“I know what's coming,” I couldn't help remarking.

“Wait a minute, Henry, let me finish. Now comes the good news.”

I let him ramble on. As I anticipated, it was a job. Only I wouldn't be obliged to go to the office every day; I could do the work at home.

“Of course you'll have to spend a little time with him
occasionally,” said O'Mara. “He's dying to meet you. And what's more, he's going to pay you handsomely. You can have seventy-five a week on account, to begin with. How's that? You stand to make between five and ten thousand before you're through with the job. It's a cinch. I could do it myself, if I knew how to write. I brought some of the crap he wants you to look over. You can write that stuff with your left hand.”

“It sounds fine,” I said, “but I just had another offer today. Better than that.”

O'Mara wasn't too pleased to hear this.

“Seems to me,” said MacGregor, “that you guys are doing pretty well without my help.”

“It's all foolishness,” Mona put in.

“Listen,” said O'Mara, “why don't you let him earn some money honestly? It's only for a few months. After that you can do as you please.”

The word honestly rang in MacGregor's ears. “What's he doing now?” he asked. He turned to me. “I thought you were writing. What is it, Hen, what are you up to now?”

I gave him a brief résumé of the situation, making it as delicate as I could for Mona's sake.

“For once I think O'Mara's right,” he said. “You'll never get anywhere this way.”

“I wish you people would mind your own business,” blurted Mona.

“Come, come,” said MacGregor, “don't stand on your high horse with us. We're old friends of Henry's. We wouldn't be giving him bad advice, would we now?”

“He doesn't need advice,” she replied. “He knows what he's doing.”

“O.K. sister, have it your way then!” With this he turned abruptly to me again. “What was that other proposition you started to tell about? You know—China, India, Africa.…”

“Oh
that,”
I said, and I began to smile.

“What are you shying off for? Listen, maybe you'll
need me for a secretary. I'd give up the law in a minute if there was anything to grab hold of. I mean it, Henry.”

Mona excused herself to make a telephone call. That meant she was too disgusted to hear a word about the “proposition.”

“What's griping her?” said O'Mara. “What was she weeping for when I came home?”

“It's nothing,” I said. “Family troubles.
Money
, I guess.”

“She's a queer girl,” said MacGregor. “Don't mind my saying that, do you? I know she's devoted to you and all that, but her ideas are all wet. She'll be getting you into a jam if you don't watch out.”

O'Mara's eyes were glistening. “You don't know the half of it,” he chirped. “That's why I was so keen to do something this morning.”

“Listen, you guys, stop worrying about me. I know what I'm doing.”

“The hell you do!” said MacGregor. “You've been telling me that as long as I know you—
and where are you?
Every time we meet you're in a new predicament. One of these days you'll be asking me to bail you out of jail.”

“All right, all right, but let's talk about it some other time. Here she comes—let's change the subject. I don't want to rile her more than necessary—she's had a hard day of it.”

“And so you've really got many fathers,” I continued without a pause, looking straight at O'Mara. Mona was lowering herself into her seat. “It's like I was saying a moment ago…”

“What is this—double talk?” said MacGregor.

“Not for
him,”
I said, never moving a muscle. “I should have explained the talk we had the night before, but it's too long. Anyway, as I was saying, when I came out of the dream I knew exactly what I had to tell you.” (Looking steadfastly at O'Mara all the while.) “It had nothing to do with the dream.”

“What dream?” said MacGregor, slightly exasperated now.

“The one I just explained to you,” I said. “Listen, let me finish talking to him, will you?”

“Waiter!” called MacGregor, “Ask these gentlemen what they would like to drink, will you?” To us—“I'm going to take a leak.”

“It's like this,” I said, addressing O'Mara, “you're lucky you lost your father when you were a kid. Now you can find your real father—and your real mother. It's more important to find your real father than your real mother. You've found several fathers already, but you don't know it. You're rich, man. Why resurrect the dead? Look to the living! Why shit, there are fathers everywhere, all around you, better fathers by far than the one who gave you his name or the one who sent you to the asylum. To find your real father you first have to be a good son.”

O'Mara's eyes were twinkling. “Go on,” he urged, “it
sounds
good even though I don't know what the hell it all means.”

“But it's simple,” I said. “Now look—
take me
, for instance. Did you ever think how lucky you were to find
me?
I'm not your father, but I'm a damned good brother to you. Do I ever ask you any embarrassing questions when you hand me money? Do I urge you to look for a job? Do I say anything if you lie in bed all day?”

“What's the meaning of all this?” demanded Mona, amused in spite of herself.

“You know very well what I'm talking about,” I replied. “He needs affection.”

“We all do,” said Mona.

“We don't need a thing,” said I. “Not really. We're lucky, all three of us. We eat every day, we sleep well, we read the books we want to read, we go to a show now and then… and we have one another.
A father?
What do we need a father for? Listen, that dream I had settled everything—for me. I don't even need a bike. If I can have
a dream ride now and then, O.K.! It's better than the real thing. In dreams you never puncture a tire; if you do, it doesn't matter a straw. You can ride all day and all night without getting exhausted. Ted was right. One has to learn to dream it off.… If I hadn't had that dream I wouldn't have met that guy McFarland today. Oh, I haven't told you about that, have I? Well, never mind, some other time. The point is I was offered a chance to write—for a new magazine. A chance to travel, too.…”

“You never told me a thing about it,” said Mona, all ears now. “I want to hear.…”

“Oh, it
sounded
good,” said I, “but the chances are it would turn out to be another flop.”

“I don't understand,” she persisted. “What were you to write for him?”

“The story of my life, no less.”

“Well…?”

“I don't think I can do it. Not like he wanted me to, at any rate.”

“You're crazy,” said O'Mara.

“You're going to turn it down?” said Mona, completely mystified by my attitude.

“I'll think it over first.”

“I don't undersand you at all,” said O'Mara. “Here you've got the chance of a lifetime and you… why, a man like McFarland could make you famous overnight.”

“I know,” I said, “but that's just what I'm afraid of. I'm not ready for success yet. Or rather I don't want that kind of success. Between you and me—I'm going to be damned honest with you—I don't know how to write. Not yet! I realized that immediately he made me the offer to write the damned serial. It's going to take a long time before I know how to say what I want to say. Maybe I'll never learn. And let me tell you another thing while I'm at it.… I don't want any jobs between times…neither publicity jobs nor newspaper jobs nor any kind of job. All I ask is to dawdle along in my own way. I keep
telling you people I know what I'm doing. I mean it. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but it's
my
way. I can't navigate any other way, do you understand?”

O'Mara said nothing, but I sensed he was sympathetic. Mona, of course, was overjoyed. She thought I had underrated myself but she was terribly pleased that I wasn't going to take a job. Once again she repeated what she had always been telling me: “I want you to do as you please, Val. I don't want you to think about anything but your work. I don't care if it takes ten years or twenty years. I don't care if you never succeed. Just write!”

“If
what
takes ten years?” asked MacGregor, returning just in time to catch the tail end.

“To become a writer,” I said, giving him a good-natured grin.

“You're still talking about that? Forget it! You're a writer no v, Henry, only nobody knows it but you. Have you finished eating? I've got to go somewhere. Let's get out of here. I'll drop you off at the house.”

We cleared out in a hurry. He was always in a hurry, MacGregor, even to attend a poker game, as it turned out. “A bad habit,” he said, half to himself. “I never win either. If I really had something to do I suppose I'd get over such nonsense. It's just a way of killing time.”

“Why do you have to kill time?” I asked. “Couldn't you hang on with us? You could kill time just as well by chewing the fat. If you
must
kill time, I mean.”

“That's true,” he answered soberly, “I never thought of that. I don't know, I've got to be on the go all the time. It's a weakness.”