They hung on for the rest of the seven minutes, clinging to my arm indifferently, as they would in emergency to some piece of baggage they could not quite decide to abandon. They were dispirited, each in some particular stage of despair, routed, finally, as all men are finally routed, as individuals.
The old man called time and the hands came off my arm like so many birds quitting a branch.
The bartender handed me my ten dollars.
“No hard feelings,” my enemy said. “You were getting pretty sore there.”
“No,” I said, “of course not.” I rubbed my arm, holding it up, offering it to them. “It hurts,” I said.
“It was a good fight,” he said.
“It certainly was,” I said.
Was it? Was it? These particular victims didn’t think David Niven was cute — they thought he was a fag. These particular victims didn’t get spooked in bad neighborhoods. But these particular victims were victims, too. One didn’t do battle with them, one didn’t fight the good fight against them. Not the good fight. I was miserable. Where’s my life, huh, Herlitz? Herlitz?
They wanted to buy me a drink. No, I said. They wanted to challenge me with five guys, with six. With seven. Like the guy in Dallas. With eight. Better than the guy in Dallas. No, I said, though I knew now I could win. No. They offered to empty all the bars, to flag down trucks, to call cops in off their beat. They offered money. They would sponsor me; I would be their boy, their champion. Who needed it? No, I said. No.
I had forgotten first principles. I didn’t mean to be a character in a bar. All right, a strong man is not a bank president, but if he’s on a stage there’s some distance at least. People don’t know anything about him. They don’t even know his name. What was the name of the last magician you saw? Immortality is works — I insist on that. If people remember me I’ll be embarrassed. Damn a man’s body anyhow, as my Uncle Myles, the convulsive, says.
I went back to Penner’s room, straightened it, then went to the market and bought eggs. I got a paper and read the gossip columns. I looked longingly at a picture of a presidential dinner party; the Belgian Ambassador was smiling, his ear cocked aristocratically toward the lips of the woman next to him, the wife of the British Prime Minister. Prime Ministers are prime, I thought.
I crumpled the paper and shoved it away from me. What time was it? There was no clock in Penner’s furnitureless, wardrobeless, eggless world. I had forgotten to look when I was in the street. My arm ached. When would Penner be back? I didn’t even know where he worked. He was “not far.” Yeah, me too.
I went to the window. A lady was passing in the street with a green laundry bundle under her arm. I opened the window. “Lady, what time is it?” I called.
She passed by without answering, without stopping, without even looking around, as though strangers shouting to her from windows for the time of day were one of the hazards of city life she had been prepared for. Meet overtures with silence. Better than judo.
“Thank you, lady, and the same to you.”
I thought I might go out and spend some more of my ten dollars, buy some elegant little something for the man who has nothing, but my heart wasn’t in it. Or I might pretend to rent a room someplace. I had heard that landladies were supposed to be talkative. My heart wasn’t in that, either. Where was my heart, anyway, I wondered. Let Penner come back. We young men could talk over our plans.
I heard the same light footstep in the hall I had heard earlier. It came right up to Penner’s door. Then someone was saying words into Penner’s woodwork. “Marty? Marty? Are you there? It’s me.”
“Come on in, it’s not locked,” I said, using Penner’s favorite ploy — a lie, incidentally, as I discovered at feeding time.
A girl came in. A pretty little thing, but pale and frail-looking, whose passion brought on asthma attacks.
“Where’s Marty?” she asked, surprised.
“Not far,” I said.
“Are you his friend?”
“Like a brother,” I said.
“Is Marty coming back soon?”
“Have a seat,” I said. “We’ll wait for him together.”
“Who are you?”
“Jim Boswell.”
“I don’t remember Marty talking about you.”
“I don’t remember Marty’s talking about you.”
“Oh,” she said, “I’m Alice. I’m Marty’s friend.” I didn’t believe that one, I can tell you.
“Listen,” she said, “are you very close to Marty?”
“Not far.”
“Tell him not to do it.”
“He wants to do it,” I said. “His heart’s set on doing it. You know how Marty is.”
“It will ruin his life,” she said.
“He doesn’t think so,” I said curtly.
“You sound like you think it’s a good idea,” she said sadly.
I shrugged.
“I don’t understand how a friend of Marty’s could feel that way,” she said.
“Marty thinks it will be fun,” I explained.
She looked at me curiously. I had probably made a mistake.
“Does Marty know you’re here?” she said suspiciously. “I could call him,” she threatened. “Who are you?”
“Alice, I told you. I’m Jim Boswell.”
“I’ll come back later,” she said, “when Marty’s here.” She moved toward the door uneasily.
“Alice,” I said sharply, “please sit down. I want to talk to you.”
“I think I’d better come back later, Mr. Boswell.”
“All right,” I said, “but it’s silly to be shy. I know about last night. It was me who called. Didn’t Marty tell you that?”
She turned, troubled and unconfident.
“I don’t think it was very nice — what Marty did.”
“What did he do?” she asked in a dry voice.
I remembered the hand over the mouthpiece. “He threw you out,” I said.
Alice came back to the chair, and sat down. “I thought it was a woman,” she said quietly. She started to cry.
“Oh, don’t do that. Alice? Please don’t cry.”
I moved over to her chair. One hand was across her eyes. I leaned down toward her. “Please, Alice,” I said. “I’m sorry.” There were carbon smudges on her fingers, little bits of eraser rubber under her nails.
“Did you come here from work?” I asked as gently as I could.
She nodded. “Where’s Marty? Where is he?”
“Were you here earlier this afternoon?”
“On my lunch hour,” she sobbed. “I had to take a cab.”
Everybody was always coming up to Penner’s place in a cab. It might have been the Ritz.
“Please don’t cry,” I said. “Please don’t.” I wanted to touch her, to hold her like a little girl in my lap, to squeeze her behind. I wanted to change her life, to cure her asthma, to give her talent and lovers and irony and wealth. I have always had an unreasonable sympathy for certain unmarried working girls. Not waitresses, not stewardesses, not even girls who work in stores — but office girls, girls out of high school who become clerks and typists, girls who file things. (Frequently I am sorry for people without realizing that my own circumstances are substantially the same as theirs; the thought of people having to live in apartment buildings depresses me, yet I have lived in them and they aren’t bad.) When I see such girls on a bus or overhear them on their lunch hour in a cafeteria they make me sad. Where will they meet the fellows, I wonder. Do church functions really work? Who will mix with them at mixers? How about stamp clubs? Pen pals? Travelers Aid?