The Man Who Cried I Am (19 page)

Max was trembling. He shouted into the phone, “Harry don't try to fuck up my mind like that, Harry, don't! What's the matter with you?”

A shocked silence of a long moment's duration hung like lead between them, then Harry said, “Max, I'm not trying to fuck up your mind. I'm trying to straighten it
out
, man, let you know where it is. I've known those fellows for years. I know what goes on, Max. Listen, I'm sorry, really sorry, but Max, you got to let this go. Get out of it. Write, Max, don't let them get to you. There's more than what shows and everybody's looking at the top. Get your crumbs together and meet us in Europe. I go to see the man tomorrow, the interview for the Lykeion. After that, it'll be getting near cut-out time. C'mon, Max. What do you say?”

Max stiffened against his trembling. “Europe. Harry you're trying to straighten out my mind, but I don't understand yours. Why run to Europe? There are more white people there than here. They haven't built any ovens here
yet;
I keep hearing about concentration camps, but
I've
never seen one here. What is this, with all you niggers running off to Europe? Man, don't you know
they started this shit that we're stuck in? Don't you know that, Harry?
”

“Okay, Max. The thing is, Europe is closer to Africa. Africa is where I'm aiming, Max. I know what's happened, and why. You got to cool it, man. Sounds to me like you're a little shaky. Want to come down?”

“No.”

“I'll grab a train and come up.”

“No, I'm all right.”

“Can I say something to you without you blowing your top?”

“You've said everything else. Go on.”

“You'd better knock off drinking alone. Get a broad, get that pussy, lots of it and maybe it'll pass. You got to try to help it. Max? Max, you listening to me?”

“I hear you, Harry.”

“Do it, Max, go ahead.”

“Goddamn it, Harry, I don't think I could even get it up. The blues got me and turning me every way but loose. I can't do anything. I don't want to do anything.”

“You sound just like a white man, Max.”

“Get up off me, Harry. I'm going to be all right. I'm going to be just fine. I'm going to be whole again. One day, you'll see.”

“That's a deal?”

“Man, that's for real.”

“Okay. And eat once in a while too, will you?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure you're okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Harry Ames hung up, stretched and walked into the room where Charlotte was listing items they would have to take with them to Europe. “How is he?” she asked.

Harry sat on the arm of the chair. He liked Charlotte in horn-rimmed glasses; they gave her a settled look. “I guess he'll make it.”

“You were shouting.”

“So was he.”

“Bad boys, both of you. I suppose you suggested that he get himself a girl or two?”

“Nah. Just told him to stop drinking so much and eat a little bit.”

“Of course.”

Harry bent forward to look at the list and Charlotte said, “I guess we'll have to get little Max's clothes a couple sizes too large. He can grow into them.”

“Hell no. Buy things that fit.” Harry was thinking of all the too-large clothes he had ever worn: socks pulled back under the foot half a length; pants rolled up two or three times, the tops pinned together to fit at the waist; the shoes packed in the toe with cotton or toilet paper … “Charlotte, you don't know what it does to a kid to have his clothes not fit properly.”

“Insecure?”

“Yes.”

“Then you'll have to make more money and we can buy brand new, two complete outfits each year. How about it?”

Harry rose. “Don't get smart. Just don't buy them so big that he gets lost in them.”

“What's the interview to be like, dear?”

“I don't know. Didn't even know that there was to be one until I got the note. Kierzek said it was just routine.”

“I like him.”

“Who, Kierzek? He's all right, for an editor.”

“You've had much worse.”

“It'll be good for us, Charlotte.”

“What?”

“Europe.”

Charlotte lowered her pencil and said softly, “Yes, it will. The big break. But I do wish you'd mute some of this talk about Africa. You're not African, Harry.” She bent back to her pad.

“But I'm black.”

“Really. I always thought you were brown. You've deceived me, dear.”

“You know what I mean.” Harry had retreated to the kitchen. “Want one of these?”

“No, just water. You're not going to get me high tonight and take advantage of me.” She smiled to herself.

“Why would a man have to get his own wife high?”

She laughed aloud. “Because it's fun sometimes.” She paused. “Darling?”

“I'm getting the water.”

“Yes, but put a little Scotch in it, will you, like a good seducer?”

Harry Ames sat down across from the man. “Tell me about yourself, Mr. Ames.” The handshakes were over; it was time to get down to business. “I started your last book, but haven't finished it. I'm about halfway through.”

Harry stared across at the man, Mr. Kittings, director of the Lykeion in Athens.
Tell me about yourself
. Something's wrong, Harry thought, but he talked carefully, watching Kittings' eyes. “I've not been a member of the Communist Party for almost ten years,” Harry said.

“We're interested in your art, Mr. Ames, not your politics.” Kittings nodded affably and Harry continued, uneasily. Perhaps it was a look in Kittings' eyes, perhaps in his tone of voice as he broke in to cover more fully some point in Harry's monologue. Whatever it was, Harry felt suddenly and shockingly that he was in hostile territory. He stumbled for a moment, trying to find some reason for this judgment, but he could not. He went on until he had nothing more to say. Then he asked questions about Athens which Kittings answered with a reserve that was not communicated to his secretary. She said, “Oh, you'll have a fine time there. We'll make the best possible accommodations aboard ship for you and your family.” Why, Harry wondered, did he shoot his secretary such a sharp look?

The handshakes once more. “You'll hear from us,” Kittings said.

“Hear from you?” Harry said in sudden alarm. “About what?”

“It is usually the practice for us to stay in touch with—people who—er—ah—come in for interviews.”

Outside, on the way home, Harry thought it all very strange. Kierzek had said that the interview was routine. No one selected by the panel of judges had ever been refused admission to the Lykeion. Well, then, who was this prick, Kittings, to tell him he would hear from him? The decision was made! Seven of the best writers in America (Harry considered himself the eighth, now) had chosen him, Harry Ames, to receive the Lykeion Fellowship for the year. What in the hell had Kittings to do with it?

I'm cracking up. Just routine, like Kierzek said. Maybe Max is right. I'm into this thing too goddamn far. What did he say, Kittings? Nothing really. Maybe it was what he didn't say. But his eyes, his eyes? So? Maybe the bastard's just got naturally shifty eyes. Harry, man, ease up, eeease on up. By the time he arrived home, most of the feeling of foreboding had gone. It was going to be all right. The thing was, you couldn't distrust them
all
the time.

The sap of the earth began to run beneath the ground that Friday; spring teased the air. Windows that had been bolted against the winter were opened briefly. A few elderly people bundled themselves up and sat on the park benches, their pale faces lifted to the sun. Now the scarves of the students hung about the necks and coats and jackets were left unbuttoned. Charlotte went out and was a long time shopping, but Harry understood; it was the kind of day he would have liked to go walking in, but he couldn't. There was too much to do: the inventory of the things in the apartment, finding a broker to handle the sublet, plus the writing. There had to be time for that.

When Charlotte came in, she handed Harry the square envelope marked,
The American Lyceum of Letters
. Harry took the letter without comment; he had not said anything to Charlotte about the interview except that it had gone all right. Charlotte went to the kitchen with the groceries. Little Max paused, wondering if he was going back out or was in to stay.

“Don't open it until I come back,” Charlotte said. “Help him with his clothes. It's pretty nice out, but too much of this uncertain weather isn't good for him.”

“C'mere, Max. Let Dad help you out. Attaway.” Harry felt sad as he helped him out of his outer garments. He looked at the café-au-lait face and smiled. “Now come up here and kiss your old Dad. Big ones, now, Pow! How to go. Another. Pow! Pow!”

Charlotte was back, smiling expectantly. “All right, go into your room. Play. But go. Kiss first. Smack, smack. Bye-bye. Peanut butter and jam sandwiches coming up.” She watched him go. “Open it, open it,” she said, feigning extreme anxiety.

Harry passed a hand over his forehead and carefully broke open the flap of the envelope. His eyes raced down the short paragraph.

“We regret to inform you that another candidate, also recommended by the American Lyceum of Letters, was awarded the Fellowship in creative writing …”

There was more, but Harry's eyes swept back to:

“We regret to inform you that …”

“We regret to …”

Charlotte had moved to him, was crouching, one hand on his knee, ready to sit on the floor, but seeing his face, she paused, became motionless, awkward, half down and half up, and read his face once more, suddenly gone lifeless, suddenly fulfilled, invertedly, and she struggled upward, taking the letter from his dead hands and screaming before she started to read it, “My God, Harry, they did it, didn't they, they
did
it!”

Harry rolled his eyes up at her. How painful it was to move them; he hadn't noticed that before. Charlotte's eyes raced along the letter. They were cold, her eyes, and a blue growing darker. There was a vast silence between them. It took a couple of minutes before Harry could begin to think. Another candidate? How could that be? The first letter said he had been
chosen
, selected, preferred; there had been congratulations. He, Harry Ames had been
the best
. Now he was nothing. There was someone else. What a fool he had been! Of course, he had seen it in Kittings' eyes as he had seen it in white eyes all his life. But
why?
They had had former Communists at the Lykeion. Clifford Jacobs, the composer, was Negro and had won a Fellowship in music there. Bolton Warren had been there as a Fellow in creative writing. Why? Charlotte, or rather, Charlotte and
himself?
Why? Did he have to be a faggot? Why, why, why? Would they ever tell him why? Could he find out why?

“Why?” his wife said.

Very carefully he said, “Charlotte, I don't know why.”

“The Party?”

“I don't know.”

“Us, you and I?”

“I don't know.”

“But they said you'd been
chosen!
”

Harry didn't want to look at her face. “I know, dear. That's what they said.”

“Well what do they mean, ‘another candidate'?”

“Darling, really, I don't know.”

Charlotte folded the letter along its original creases. “You said it wouldn't be easy.”

“I guess I did. It's the kind of thing you'd say in our situation. The important thing—look, Charlotte—let's not hate each other …”

“But, Harry, I don't,” she said with her eyes wide, her mouth held open. “Darling, I don't.”

Harry nodded, but he didn't believe her. Even he, thinking for her in times of crisis, thought how nice it would be to have married a white man. And why hadn't he, Harry Ames, married a Negro woman?

“I don't want you to hate either, Harry,” Charlotte said, for she knew that he too could think how much easier it would have been if he had married a Negro woman.

“No,” Harry said, reaching for the letter. “They offer some consolation money. Let's take it and run.”

“Whatever you say.”

“It's not much.”

“It would be hard, Harry. The baby.”

Harry sighed. “I have to think about it. Hard. The motherfuckers, the lousy, rotten cocksuckers, the bastards, the sonsofbitches, the faggots, the—”

“Harry,” Charlotte said, thinking of the child, for although he was not shouting, he was speaking slowly, distinctly and clearly and without anger, with rather a kind of helplessness, a resignation.

“—the shiteaters, cornholers, hermaphrodites, pricks, assholes, cunts and cunteaters—”

“The boy, Harry.”

“Let him learn it from me. He should learn it from me. Why can't he learn
some
thing from me, like
pain
, Charlotte,
pain!
”

“Harry,” she said, “Harry!”

“What!” he flung at her.

“It hurts us, too. It hurts like hell, you can't imagine.”

Harry went to her and rubbed her shoulder. Goddamn it! They were almost out of it, almost. “Let me think about the other money. As soon as I can.” He smiled. “They kinda took old Harry by surprise.”

John Kierzek had had it, really had had it. Everyone in the office knew by now that Harry Ames had gotten
the
barbed shaft from the Lyceum, but all they said was, “How strange!” or “Gee, what happened?” or grimly said, “Those dirty bastards, how could they?” But no one came up with an answer. Now, Kierzek pounded down the carpeted floor to Donald Kenyon's office. Kenyon was the president of the company.

“Isn't that a goddamn shame about poor old Harry Ames?” Don Kenyon asked. He was blond, in his forties and liked being a publisher. Kierzek was fifty, bent, with a pot and too many jobs in too many New York publishing houses under his belt. Kierzek closed the door behind him and pulled up a chair.