venience. And it ain’t convenient anymore.”
“What’s he done?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. When do we leave?”
Sal and Prosper parted at the Assembly Building, Sal to go hand in her
resignation (as she put it) and Prosper to go back to Z Street and pre-
pare for a journey, a train journey with no aid but what Sal, who came
up just past his waist, could provide. He was headed that way when he
felt the presence of someone large coming up behind.
“Listen,” Larry said, without other preface. “What are you going to
do, are you going to do what he asked, go collect him and that?”
“Yes,” Prosper said, looking ahead with dignity, and some fear.
“Alone?”
“Sal Mass just said she’d come too.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake. The two of you? That’s ridiculous. You’ll
pull into town like some carny show. Nobody’ll take you seriously.
There’s legal matters there to resolve.”
Prosper kept on, following his nose.
“Look,” Larry said. “I’ve got no responsibility for this. None. But I
can help. I’ll come along. You can’t do it, you and her.”
372 / J O H N C R O W L E Y
Prosper let that sink in for a few steps. “You can get the time off?”
Larry stopped suddenly, and Prosper did too. Larry fetched breath
and looked to heaven. “Well,” he said, “actually, I’m quitting.”
The doors of the Assembly Building were rolling open, the little
tractors arriving to do their duty. The nose of another completed Pax
was revealed, then its wide wings.
“Well this is quite a day,” Prosper said.
All that Prosper would ever learn about what had caused Larry to turn
in his badge and resign his stewardship wasn’t enough to make a story,
and Prosper wasn’t about to delve deeply. There was a woman, a
woman at the plant, and an angry husband: Larry seemed visibly to
break out in a sweat, like a comic strip worrier, when he let even that
much slip. Prosper’d been tempted to say a lot then, maybe tell Larry
Pancho’s theories about war and the sex urge: but no.
“Well anyway,” Prosper said. They were all three on the local train
from Ponca to this city over the state line where Pancho lay dead. Sal in
the opposite seat was asleep, her small feet not reaching the floor. “I’m
sorry I whacked you with the stick there. I’ve been meaning to say.”
Larry touched the side of his face. “Didn’t hurt.”
“Good. Anyway thanks for not punching my lights out.”
“What?” Larry tugged at his collar. He was wearing a fawn-col-
ored suit, a bit too tight, and his suitcase was in the overhead rack: he
was headed farther, somewhere.
“Oh. You know.” Prosper punched the air.
Larry was watching him with an odd look, a look Prosper had seen
in the faces of women more than men: that look toward themselves as
much as at you, waiting to hear their own permission to say some-
thing, maybe something they’ve never said before.
“Well,” he said. “Look. There’s a lot of stories about me. That aren’t
all what you’d call true.”
“Oh?” The stories that Prosper had heard about Larry were all Lar-
ry’s telling. Prosper removed all suggestion of an opinion from his face,
but Larry seemed to strangle on the effort of saying whatever it was
that might come next, and instead removed his hat and furiously wiped
the sweatband with a large handkerchief.
F O U R F R E E D O M S / 373
Midday the train they’d taken toddled into the central station,
which had no platforms, only a little wedding-cake building beside the
tracks. Sal went out the door and down, leaping from the last step as
the conductor looked on. Then Larry. Then Prosper, who stood at the
door looking at the steep declivity. Easy enough maybe to go down the
first two steps, handy rails to hold: but the last drop to the ground was
going to take some thought. The conductor, ready to wave the engineer
on, gazed up at him in a kind of disinterested impatience. Finally Larry,
perceiving him stuck, stepped up.
“Come on!” he said. “I’ll getcha!”
All the things that Larry standing there arms open was capable of
doing or not doing passed as in a shiver over Prosper, but he didn’t
seem to have a choice. He dropped himself down the first step and then
bent forward as far as he could so that Larry could take him under the
armpits. Then he gave himself over to him. Strong as he was, Larry
staggered for a second under the weight and Prosper knew they were
going to go over, but Larry held and Prosper got his crutches set and
propped himself, removing his weight from Larry. Larry blew in impa-
tience or embarrassment, twisted his hat right on his head, and walked
away; neither man ever mentioned the moment.
The hotel was across a wide bare street from the station, a wooden
structure with a long front porch where a row of rockers sat. The words
grand hotel painted across the facade were worn somewhat; they
were supplemented by the same words in neon above the porch. Not the
kind of place important oil millionaires would be found, in Prosper’s
view, not that he knew anything about it. Beyond this place and rising
above, the newer buildings, like Ponca City’s, plain or fancy. Even as
they crossed the street to reach it, they could see what they should not
have been able to see, and they could do and say nothing until they were
entirely sure it was what it certainly seemed to be: Pancho Notzing,
seated in a rocking chair, feeding bits of something to a little dog.
“Now what,” Larry said, striding forward. “Now what in hell.”
When all three of them stood before the porch Pancho said, “Hello,
friends.”
“You’re supposed to be at the morgue,” Sal said. “I came a long way
to see that. If you just got out to come and greet us I suggest you beat it
back there.”
374 / J O H N C R O W L E Y
“What in hell,” Larry said again.
“Hello, Pancho,” Prosper said. “I’m glad to see you.”
Pancho nodded solemnly but without seeming to feel that a quick
explanation was in order. The little dog put a paw on his leg to remind
him of what he’d been up to as the others arrived. For the first time it
occurred to Prosper that Pancho, who spent his life and time and
energy planning for the true deep happiness of men and women, every
one of them different and precious, didn’t really perceive the existence
of actual other people. “Well as you see,” he said at last, “I did not in
the end take the step I wrote you about. I was on the point of sending
you a telegram to say so, but approaching the dark door and then
retreating took such an effort that I could do nothing further.”
“It’s all right,” Prosper said.
“All those common questions and tasks that I said had flown away
came right back again—in prospect anyway—and it was a bit appall-
ing. Stops you cold.”
“It’s all right.”
“Life,” said Pancho. He took a bit of something from a plate in his
lap and gave it to the dog, who snapped it up and looked for more.
“Who’s the dog?” Sal asked, unable to frame a different question.
“A stray, belongs to no one,” Pancho said. “As far as I can tell.”
“So you mean to say,” Larry said, “that we came all this way, ready
for a funeral, wearing the suit and tie, and there was never a reason for
it?”
“Larry,” said Pancho. “I can’t imagine why you’ve come, and I’m
sorry to have disappointed you, but I am honored. I am deeply hon-