He continued to work at the bookkeeping office. The idea of the university became dimmer and dimmer. When he was twenty-one he met another girl. This one was tall and dark and quiet. Her treasure was sold dearly; he found himself married, all at once, living in a one-room apartment, watching her string bras and underpants across the bathroom, smelling the starch and iron in the kitchen, and the eternal mechanical presence of pin curls next to him on the pillow.
The marriage lasted only a few months. Sometime between it and the Second World War—he never knew just when—the last memory of college faded from his mind, to be lost and forgotten forever. When the reed broke he put his oboe away in the closet. The stutter had disappeared, and he had grown a small dark mustache. But his hands shook when he lit a cigarette; there was still a too-quick nervous motion about him.
Liquor helped that. Liquor allowed him to laugh at things that normally shut him up tight for days. He found himself beginning to get an edge on men; they were no match for his rapid tongue, his developing razor wit. A hard chilliness was slipping into him, into his speech. It carried him a long way; it was good to have.
When the War came he joined the army. He was too small and light to be much good; but they didn’t like to lose a man whose mind worked so fast He finished out the war teaching others to do the things he couldn’t.
The mustache disappeared, and he learned just how much he could drink before there was no turning back. His hair began to thin. It became soft and wispy. He put on horn-rimmed glasses and discovered French cuffs. The kind of music he had once played on his oboe was almost forgotten. Somehow, in the rarified classical strata, he felt more cut off and alone than usual; he was more separated than before, from the things he wanted. What did he want? He was not sure. He did not intend to let anything stand in his way, but he did not know in which direction that way might be found.
But a man can face the knowledge that he has not found his rut, his depth, his way and people, only so long. Then he stops worrying about it. Verne married again. This girl was plump and competent; she had been secretary to very important people. In her, he saw the drive and direction that he, himself, seemed still to lack. She knew exactly what she wanted: a husband, a home, a kitchen, furniture, clothes. She moved in a tight little circle, as hard and brittle as the red polish on her neatly-trimmed nails.
Whatever there was left in Verne of his memory of books and music, model airplanes and his ticket seller’s bright uniform soon disappeared. With Anne, music and books and ideas were real enough, but they existed only as a means to something else. He found himself listening to things as background music that had, at one time, been intimate parts of his life.
One night he got up from the expensive couch in the graciously furnished living room, turned off the immense television set, and headed for the nearest bar.
Sometime, during the hazy, indistinct days that followed, he was rolled, left to lie in the freezing gutters of Washington in deep winter, and booked at the city jail. They let him go the next day. He wandered around, his hands in his pockets, watching the children sledding in the snow.
With his second marriage over, he gathered up what things were his and set off for New York. The taste that he had had for music had spoiled. He began to sit long hours in dark bars, tapping with a fifty cent piece, watching the people and listening to the sour, bitter music from the little Negro and mixed combos. His knowledge of jazz eventually became of use to him. He got a job with a small station, turning over jazz records in the early hours of morning; after a year or so he had his own program.
He had begun to slide into a kind of existence that seemed to fit. Why? He did not know. He was too small a man to drink as much as he did; there were many mornings when he could scarcely drag himself out of bed. His friends were stooped, preoccupied cultists, occasional natty homosexuals, hard-voiced Lesbians. Smoke and sour sounds, half-dollars and endless commercials. Once he stopped, staring into the mirror, rubbing the yellow, hanging flesh of his neck. The tiny hairs stuck out like pin feathers; his eyes gazed blindly back at him. He was like some runt of a chicken, some plucked and charred creature that had been hung from a hook, drying slowly, corroding through the years. A wrinkled, dried-up runt of a bird...
But then he shaved, washed, put on a clean shirt, drank some orange juice, shined his shoes, and it was all forgotten. He put on his coat and went to work.
Teddy stirred. Verne snapped back, glancing down at her. He put his cigarette out and stood up, stiff and cold. He went over and pulled down the shades and turned on the lamp.
Presently the girl rolled over toward him. He could see her teeth, small and even, her long mouth, much too long for such a lank face. Suddenly she opened her eyes. She blinked, gazing at him fixedly, unwinking. Then she began to struggle to a sitting position.
“Jesus.” She shuddered, gagging. “Christ.”
“How do you feel?”
“How long have I been lying here?”
“It’s about seven-thirty.”
“That late? Help me up like a dear, won’t you?”
She got up unsteadily. Verne took her arm. She pulled her stockings up and smoothed her skirt. Then she went into the bathroom.
Verne lit another cigarette and waited.
At last she came out and picked up her shoes. She put them on, sitting at the foot of the bed.
“Do you want to take me home?” she said.
“Now?”
“Would you?”
“Sure.” He brought her the coat and purse she had left in the living room. Her hair was shaggy and disarrayed. Her clothes were messy and crumpled. When he went by her to let her into the hall he got a whiff of a sour, unhealthy odor: perspiration and urine and liquor.
They went downstairs silently and got into the car.
As they drove along the road Teddy said little. She stared out the window at the passing lights and signs, the window rolled down. Several times Verne started to speak, but gave it up and remained silent. They reached her place and he drew the car over to the curb.
Teddy pushed the door open and got out Suddenly she stopped. “Verne, do you want to see what my apartment looks like? You’ve never seen it.”
“Not particularly,” he said slowly. “It’s late.”
“Suit yourself.” She hesitated. “It’s not so late.”
“It is for me.”
She turned and moved slowly away from the car, across the sidewalk toward the building. Verne got out. He rolled up the windows and locked the doors. Teddy stood waiting for him.
“You changed your mind?”
“Just for a few minutes.” Verne gazed off down the dark street. The houses were tall and close together, uniform in appearance and unattractive. At the bottom of a hill was the beginnings of a commercial district, a dank, ratty cluster of grocery stores, hardware stores, Italian bakeries, a boarded-up candy shop. The wind blew a newspaper along, against a gaunt telephone pole.
“Coming?” Teddy said, from the steps.
They went up to her floor. She opened her apartment door and turned on the light, walking quickly through the room. The place was in disorder. On a low table were two half-empty whiskey bottles and ashtrays spilling over with cigarette stubs. Clothes were strewn over everything, the chairs, the lamp, the bookcase, even the floor. He went slowly inside.
“I’ll change,” Teddy called, going into the bedroom. He caught a glimpse of an unmade bed, open dresser drawers, more clothes. On the wall over the bed was a big photograph, a thin nude girl, lank and bony, with little breasts like pears. He moved in to look at it. Teddy disappeared into the bathroom. “I’ll be right out.”
The picture was of her.