Plexus (27 page)

I nodded my head smilingly, urging him to continue.

“Of course I realize also that this life which you're now leading is rich in ways that are beyond me… rich to you as a writer, I mean. I know that a man doesn't choose the material of life which is to make his art. That's given, or ordained, by the cast of his temperament. These queer characters who seem attracted to you as if by a magnet, no doubt there are vast worlds to be plumbed there. But at what a cost! It would exhaust me to spend an evening with most of them. I enjoy listening to you telling about them, but I don't think I could cope with all that myself. What I mean, Henry, is that they don't seem to give anything in return for the attention you bestow on them. But there I go again.
I'm wrong, of course
. You must know instinctively what's good for you and what's bad.”

Here I had to interrupt him. “About that you
are
wrong, I think. I never think of such a thing—what's good or what's bad for me. I take what comes my way and I make the best of it. I don't cultivate these people deliberately. You're right, they're attracted to me—but so am I to them. Sometimes I think I have more in common with them than with you or with O'Mara or any of my real friends. By the way, have I got any real friends, do you think? I know one thing, I never can count on you in a pinch, not any of you.”

“That's very true, Henry,” he said, his lower jaw dropping to a queer angle. “I don't think any of us are capable of being quite the friend you should have. You deserve much better.”

“Shit,” I said, “I don't mean to harp on that. Forgive me, that was just a random thought.”

“What's become of that doctor friend of yours…
Kronski?
I haven't heard you speak of him lately.”

“I haven't the slightest idea,” I said. “He's probably hibernating. He'll show up again, don't worry.”

“Val treats him abominably,” said Mona. “I don't understand it. If you ask me, he's a real friend. Val never seems
to appreciate his real friends.
Except you, Ulric
. But sometimes I have to remind him to get in touch with you. He forgets easily.”

“I don't think he'll ever forget
you
easily,” said Ulric. With this he gave his thighs a thumping wallop and broke into a sheepish grin. “That wasn't a very tactful remark, was it? But I'm sure you know what I mean,” and he put his hand over Mona's and squeezed it gently.

“I'll take care that he doesn't forget me,” said Mona lightly. “I suppose you never thought we would last this long, did you?”

“To tell the truth, I didn't,” said Ulric. “But now that I know you, know how much you mean to each other, I understand.”

“Why don't we get out of here?” I said. “Why not come over to our place? We could put you up for the night, if you like. O'Mara won't be home tonight.”

“All right,” said Ulric, “I'll take you up. I can afford to take a day or two off. I'll ask the
patron
to give us a bottle or two.… What would you like?”

When we threw on the lights in the apartment Ulric stood a moment at the threshold taking it in appraisingly. “It sure looks beautiful,” he said, almost wistfully. “I hope you can keep it for a long time.” He walked over to my worktable and studied the disarray. “It's always interesting to see how a writer arranges his things,” he said musingly. “You can feel the ideas bubbling from the papers. It all seems so intense. You know”—and he put an arm around my shoulder—“I often think of you when I'm working. I see you huddled over the machine, your fingers racing like mad. There's always a marvelous look of concentration on your face. You had that even as a boy—I suppose you don't remember that. Yeah, yeah! Golly, it's funny how things turn out. I have a job, sometimes, to make myself believe that this writer I know is also my friend, and a very old friend. There's something about you, Henry—and that's what I was trying to get at in the
restaurant—something legendary, I might say, if that doesn't seem too big a word. You understand me, don't you?” His voice was a pitch lower now, extremely suave and mellow, honeyed, in fact. But sincere. Devastatingly sincere. His eyes were moist with affection; he was drooling at the mouth. I had to shut off the current or we would all be in tears.

When I came back from the bathroom he and Mona were talking earnestly. He still had his hat and coat on. In his hands was a long sheet of paper with fantastic words which I kept by my side in case of need. Evidently he had been pumping Mona about my work habits. Writing was an art which intrigued him enormously. He was amazed, apparently, to see how much I had written since we last met. Lovingly he fingered the books which were stacked up on the writing table. “You don't mind?” he said, glancing at a few notes lying beside the books. I didn't mind in the least, of course. I would have opened my skin to let him peer inside, were I able to. It tickled me to see how much he made of each little thing. At the same time I couldn't help thinking that here was the only friend I had who displayed a genuine interest in what I was doing. It was reverence for writing itself which he evinced—and for the man, whoever it might be, who had the guts to struggle with the medium. We might have stood there the whole night talking about those queer words I had listed, or about that little note I had made anent “The Diary of a Futurist,” which I was then laboring on.

So this was the man of another epoch whom my friends dubbed “old-fashioned”! Yes, it had indeed become old-fashioned to show such naive mystification over mere words. The men of the Middle Ages were another breed entirely. They spent hours, days, weeks, months discussing minutiae which have no reality for us. They were capable of absorption, concentration, digestion to a degree which seems to us phenomenal if not pathological. They were artists through and through. Their lives were steeped in art,
as well as in blood. It was one life through and through. It was this kind of life which Ulric craved, though he despaired of ever realizing it. What he secretly hoped was that perhaps
I
would recapture and bequeath to others this unitive life in which everything was woven into a significant whole.

He was walking around now with glass in hand, gesticulating, making guttural sounds, smacking his lips, as if he had suddenly found himself in Paradise. What an idiot he had been to talk that way in the restaurant! Now he could see that other side of me which he had touched on so lightly before. What richness the place exuded! The very annotations in the margins of my books spoke eloquently of an activity which was foreign to him. Here was a mind seething with ideas. Here was a man who knew how to work. And he had been accusing me of wasting my time!

“This cognac isn't too bad, is it?” he said, allowing himself time to pause. “A little less cognac and a little more reflection—that would be the path of wisdom, for me.” He made one of those typical grimaces which only he knew how to combine into a compound of abjection, adulation, flattery, vilification and triumph.

“Man, how do you find time to do it all, will you tell me that?” he groaned, sinking into an easy chair without spilling a drop of the precious liquid. “One thing is evident,” he added quickly, “and that's this: you love what you're doing.
I don't!
I ought to take the hint and change my ways.… That sounds rather fatuous, I guess, doesn't it? Go ahead, laugh; I know how ridiculous I sound at times.…”

I explained that I wasn't laughing at him but with him.

“It doesn't matter one way or the other,” he said. “I don't mind if you laugh at me. You're the one person I can count on to register real reactions. You're not cruel, you're honest. And I find damned little of that commodity among the fellows I associate with. But I'm not going to bore you with that old song and dance.” Here he leaned forward to
ooze forth a warm, genial smile. “Perhaps this is inapropos, but I don't mind telling you, Henry, that the only time I work with vim and vigor, with anything approaching love, is when that darkie, Lucy, poses for me. The hell of it is I can never get my end in. You know Lucy—how she lets me
manipulate
her and all that. She poses in the nude for me now, you know. Yeah! A wonderful piece of ass.” He chortled again. It was almost a whinny. “Golly, those poses that critter strikes sometimes! I wish you were there to see it. You'd die laughing. But in the end she leaves me dangling. I have to douse the old boy in cold water. It gets me down. Oh well.…” He looked up at Mona, who was standing behind him, to see how she was reacting.

To his utter amazement she came out with this: “Why don't you let me pose for you sometime?”

His eyes began to roll wildly. He looked from her to me and back again at her.

“By Jove!” he said, “how is it I never thought of that before? I suppose this bird doesn't mind?”

The night wore on with reminiscence, talks of the future, plans for explorations into the night life, and ended as always with the names of the great painters ringing in our ears. Ulric's last remark before dropping off to sleep was: “I must read Freud's essay on da Vinci soon.… Or would you say it wasn't so important after all?”

“The important thing now is to sleep well and wake up refreshed,” I replied.

He signified his assent by giving a loud fart—quite unintentionally, of course.

A few nights later we went to dinner with the man from the candy store. We sat in a cellar on Allen Street, that dreariest of all streets, where the elevated trains thunder overhead. An Arabian friend of his ran the restaurant. The
food was excellent and our host was most generous. It was a genuine pleasure to talk to the man, he was so sincere, upright, plain-spoken. He talked at length about his youth which had been one long nightmare relieved only by intermittent dreams of being able one day to get to America. He described in simple, moving language his vision of America, conceived in the ghetto of Cracow. It was the same Paradise which millions of souls have fabricated in the darkness of despair. To be sure, the East Side wasn't exactly as he had imagined it, but life was good nevertheless. He had hopes now of moving to the country some day, perhaps to the Catskill Mountains, where he would open a resort. He mentioned a town where I had spent my vacations as a boy: a little community long since taken over by the Chosen Tribe, bearing no resemblance to the charming little village I once had known. But I could easily imagine what a haven it would be for him.

We had been talking thus for some time when he suddenly thought of something. He got up and searched his overcoat pockets. Beaming like a schoolboy, he handed Mona and myself two little packets wrapped in tissue paper. They were little gifts, he explained, in appreciation of the way we had worked to make the candy business a success. We opened them at once. For Mona there was a beautiful wrist watch, for myself a fountain pen of the finest make. He thought they would be useful.

Then he proceeded to tell us of his plans for our future. We were to continue working just as we had been for a while and, if we trusted him sufficiently, we were to leave with him each week a portion of our earnings, so that he could lay something aside for us. He knew that we were incapable of saving a penny. He wanted very much to set us up in business, rent a little office somewhere and have people work for us. He was certain we would make a go of it. One should always start from the bottom, he thought, and use cash instead of borrowing, as Americans do. He took out his bankbook and showed us his deposits. There
was over twelve thousand dollars to his credit. After selling the store there would be another five to ten thousand dollars. If we did well, perhaps he would sell his store to us.

Again we were at a loss how to disillusion him. I intimated gently, very gently, that we might have other plans for the future, but seeing the look on his face I quickly dropped the subject. Yes, we would carry on. We would become the candy kings of Second Avenue. Maybe we would move to the country too, help him run his resort in Livingston Manor. Yes, we would probably soon have children too. It was time to be getting serious. As for the writing, after we had built up a good business it would be time enough to think of that. Hadn't Tolstoy retired to write only late in life? I nodded agreement rather than disappoint him. Then, in dead earnest, he asked if I didn't think it would be a good idea to write up
his
life—how he rose from a worker in the marble quarries to the owner of a big resort. I said I thought it an excellent theme; we would talk it over when the time was ripe.

Anyway, we were hooked. For the life of me I couldn't run out on the man. He was just too damned decent. Besides, Cromwell had yet to give the final word about that column. (He wouldn't be in town again for a few weeks.) Why not stagger along in the candy business until then? As for Mona, she thought it would do no harm to try out the real-estate business in the daytime. Mathias was only too eager to advance her money on account until she made her first sale.

Despite all our good intentions the candy business was doomed. Mona could scarcely sell a box or two of an evening. I had taken to accompanying her again, waiting outside the joints with the two valises and myself with Elie Faure. (By now my blood was so saturated with the
History of Art
that I could close my eyes at will any time and recite whole passages, embroidering them with fantastic elaborations of my own.) Sheldon had mysteriously vanished, O'Mara had left for the South, and Osiecki was still
in Canada. A dreary stretch. Tired of the Village and the East Side, we tried our luck uptown. It wasn't the same old Broadway that George M. Cohan sang of. It was a noisy, rowdy, hostile atmosphere breeding nasty encounters, threats, insults, scorn, contempt and humiliation. All during this period I had a frightful case of the piles. I can see myself now all over again as I hung by the arms from a high picket railing opposite the Lido, thinking to ease the pain by lifting the weight off my feet. The last visit to the Lido ended with an attempt by the manager, an ex-pugilist, to lock Mona in his office and rape her.
Good old Broadway!