The Twilight of the Bums (5 page)

The wife is the woman you end up with who is neither your mother nor your mistress. She's the one who visits your sickroom every day, and when you complain to her that you don't want to be there she replies that she doesn't either. The mistress and the mother cannot be lived with, they can only be visited. But the wife is the woman you live with, as she lives with you, and not with her father or her young lover with the thick hair and the slick mustache. She is the one who brings you clean socks and fresh underwear, who double-checks your checkbook figures, and has just a few weeks ago completed the plans for the removal of your body. Then, as she leaves, she bends to kiss you, and you look up to receive her smooch, knowing that her dear face is the one you'll see first tomorrow, if you make it, and even if you don't.

The above material Bum One has just read to Bum Two, implicitly seeking his opinion. Two shakes his head soberly, affirming both the justice and the insight of the prepared remarks. Awesome, he says, snapping the paper with his fingernail, but don't show it to Sophie.

Our situation is truly delicate, Bum Two told Bum One as they set out one morning for the day's occupations. What I mean is this: What fine things, what momentous things, are we going to miss through fear, fear of falling back into the old errors, fear of not finishing in time, fear of reveling, for the last time, in a last outpouring of misery, impotence, and senility.

To which Bum One replied calmly: Don't worry like this. The forms are many in which Bums like us can seek relief from laziness.

As one ages one tends not to become richer or wiser or kinder, etc., no. There tends, rather, simply to be more of what one is. We mean the character thing. This, for example, Bum A is showing forth as a frustrated infant in perpetual rage, whereas Bum B is developing into a destructive fourteen year old. This is as far as both of them got in the character development department.

So we find them on this day flying along coastal highway 101 north of Los Angeles in a snappy rental convertible, its top down, the boombox blasting Shostakovitch piano preludes, when suddenly Bum A says, I gotta go pipi! Bum B doesn't react and continues to speed up the highway. If you don't stop, whines Bum A, I'll pee in my pants. Bum B rather than slowing down presses harder on the accelerator and cries out into the wind, You're a real baby, you know! Okay, I'll stop as soon as I see the proper tree, meanwhile cross your legs and shut the fuck up so I can listen to the music.

Um & Laut are flying somewhere. On U.S. Air. It's a long flight, but we cannot tell you where they are going because the bums themselves don't even know why they are on this plane. They are bored. They have already seen the dumb movie that is being shown (HOME ALONE), they have read all the magazines, and they don't even feel like flirting with the flight attendants. Air hostesses used to be sexy and pleasant, but nowadays they all seem well past their prime and indifferent to the needs of the passengers. Anyway, Um & Laut are bored. Sleep is also out of the question because they have already slept for a couple of hours (old men never sleep more than a few hours at a time).

Let's play a game, says Um.

What kind of game? inquires Laut.

Let's see how far we can count numbers, suggests Um.

Hey, that's not a bad idea, agrees Laut, but let's do it this way. We take turns counting, but each time we double the numbers.

What do you mean?

Well, you say 1, I say 2, then you say 4, and I say 8, and you say 16, so on.

Okay. You begin.