Millstein shrugged. “Everybody’s too political. It’s tiresome. I’m tired of protest songs, Joyce.”
“And I’m tired of passive pseudo-Zen navel-gazing,” Joyce said. “There’s a world out there.”
“A world run by men in limousines who don’t much listen to music. As far as the world is concerned, guitar playing is a minor-league activity.”
Joyce inspected the depths of her beer. “Maybe Susan’s right, then. I should be doing something more direct.”
“Like what? Freedom riding? Picketing? Essentially, you know, it’s still guitar playing. It’ll be tolerated as long as it serves some purpose among the powerful—federalism, in the present instance. And tidied up when they’re done with it.”
“That’s about the most cynical thing I’ve heard you say, Lawrence. Which covers some territory. Didn’t Gandhi make a remark about ‘speaking truth to power’?”
“Power doesn’t give a flying fuck, Joyce. That should be obvious.”
“So what’s the alternative?”
“Il faut cultiver notre jardin. Or write a poem.”
“Like Ginsberg? Ferlinghetti? That’s pretty political stuff.”
“You miss the point. They’re saying, here’s the ugliness, and here’s my revulsion—and here’s the mystery buried in it.”
“Mystery?”
“Beauty, if you like.”
“Making art out of junk,” Joyce interpreted. “You could say that.”
“While people starve? While people are beaten?”
“Before I starve,” Millstein said. “Before I’m beaten. Yes, I’ll make these beautiful objects.”
“And the world is better for it?”
“The world is more beautiful for it.”
“You sound like the Parks Commission.” She turned to Tom. “How about you? Do you believe in poetry or politics?”
“Never gave much thought to either one,” Tom said.
“Behold,” Lawrence said. “The Noble Savage.”
Tom considered the question. “I suppose you do what you have to. But we’re all pretty much impotent in the long run. I don’t make national policy. At most, I vote. When it’s convenient. Henry Kissinger doesn’t drop in and say, ‘Hey, Tom, what about this China thing?’ ”
Millstein looked up from his drink. “Who the hell is Henry Kissinger?”
Joyce was a little drunk and very intense, frowning at him across the table. “You’re saying we don’t make a difference?”
“Maybe some people make a difference. Martin Luther King, maybe. Khrushchev. Kennedy.”
“People whose names begin with K,” Millstein supplied.
“But not us,” Joyce insisted. “We don’t make a difference. Is that what you mean?”
“Christ, Joyce, I don’t know what I mean. I’m not a philosopher.”
“No. You’re not a repairman, either.” She shook her head. “I wish I knew what the hell you were.”
“There’s your mistake,” Millstein said. “Dear Joyce. Next time you go to bed with somebody, make sure you’re formally introduced.”
Millstein drank until he loved the world. This was his plan. He told them so. “It doesn’t always work. Well, you know that. But sometimes. Drink until the world is lovable. Good advice.” The evening wore on.
They parted around midnight, on the sidewalk, Avenue B. Millstein braced himself against Tom’s breastbone. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I mean, about before. I was an asshole!”
“It’s okay,” Tom said.
Millstein looked at Joyce. “You be good to her, Tom.”
“I will. Of course I will.”
“She doesn’t know why we love her and hate her. But it’s for the same reason, of course. Because she’s this … this pocket of faith. She believes in virtue! She comes to this city and sings songs about courage. My God! She has the courage of a saint. It’s her element. Even her vices are meticulous. She’s not merely good in bed, she’s good—in bed!”
“Shut up,” Joyce said. “Lawrence, you shit! Everybody can hear you.”
Millstein turned to her and took her face between his hands, drunkenly but gently. “This is not an insult, dear. We love you because you’re better than we are. But we’re jealous of your goodness and we will scour it out of you if we possibly can.”
“Go home, Lawrence.”
He wheeled away. “Good night!”
“Good night,” Tom said. But it didn’t feel like such a good night. It was hot. It was dark. He was sweating.
He walked home with Joyce leaning into his shoulder. She was still somewhat drunk; he was somewhat less so. The conversation had made her sad. She paused under a streetlight and looked at him mournfully.
She said, “You’re not immortal anymore!”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“No, no! When you came here, Tom, you were immortal. I was sure of it. The way you walked. The way you looked at everything. Like this was all some fine, wonderful place where nothing could hurt you. I thought you must be immortal—the only explanation.”
He said, “I’m sorry I’m not immortal.”
She fumbled her key into the front door of the building.
The apartment was hot. Tom stripped down to his T-shirt and briefs; Joyce ducked out of her shirt. The sight of her in the dim light provoked a flash of pleasure. He had lived in this apartment for more than a month and familiarity only seemed to intensify his feelings about her. When he met her she had been emblematic, Joyce who lived in the Village in 1962; now she was Joyce Casella from Minneapolis whose father owned Casella’s Shoe Store, whose mother phoned twice monthly to plead with her to find a husband or at least a better job; whose sister had borne two children by a decent practicing Catholic named Tosello. Joyce who was shy about her thick prescription lenses and the birthmark on her right shoulder. Joyce who carried a wonderful singing voice concealed inside her, like a delicate wild bird allowed to fly on rare and special occasions. This ordinary, daily Joyce was superior to the emblematic Joyce and it was this Joyce he had come to love.
But she was ignoring him. She rummaged through a stack of papers by the bookcase, mainly phone bills; Tom asked her what she was looking for.
“Susan’s letter. The one I was telling Lawrence about. She said I could call. ‘Call anytime,’ she said. She wants me to go down there. There’s so much work to do! Jesus, Tom, what time is it? Midnight? Hey, Tom, is it midnight in Georgia?”
He felt a ripple of worry. “What do you mean—you want to call her tonight?”
“That’s the idea.”
“What for?”
“Make arrangements.”
“What arrangements?”
She stood up. “What I said wasn’t just bullshit. I meant it. What good am I here? I should be down there with Susan doing some real work.”
He was astonished. He hadn’t anticipated this.
“You’re drunk,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m a little drunk. I’m not too drunk to think about the future.”
Maybe Tom was a little drunk, too. The future! This was both funny and alarming. “You want the future? I can give you the future.”
She frowned and set aside the papers. “What?”
“It’s dangerous, Joyce. People get killed, for Christ’s sake.” He thought about the civil rights movement circa 1962. What he recalled was a jumble of headlines filtered through books and TV documentaries. Bombs in churches, mobs attacking buses, Klansmen with riot sticks and sawed-off shotguns. He pictured Joyce in the midst of this. The thought was intolerable. “You can’t.”
She held out the letter, postmarked Augusta.