No, she thought. Stop it. Please.
Yes, yes, she thought, get used to Hell. Get used to staying here and to coming back here and to living with a man who’ll never know and never care. But things will stay the way they are. Always. Forever. You’ll have company, but you’ll be alone for the rest of your goddamn life!
Not She shook her head. No, that isn’t true. No, it—
The front doorbell chimed. The sound startled her. She dropped the lipstick brush and then looked up into the mirror at a pale white face she had never seen before.
From the bed, Don said, “Is that my mother? So early?”
She did not answer him. She kept staring into the mirror at the terrified white face, shaking her head over and over again. Don left the room. The doorbell chimed again. She could hear him as he rushed downstairs to open the door.
“Mom!” he said happily. “Mom!”
When Larry left the Harder apartment at nine o’clock that night, the city was as silent as a tomb. The rain had stopped, and there was a strange glow in the sky, a sense of foreboding in the streets. He started for the garage where his car was parked, and then stopped at a newsstand on the way to pick up the early edition of the morning paper. Hastily, he thumbed through it to the book page. The slug at the top of the review read:
He felt intense sudden pride. He folded back the page and, standing under a street lamp, began reading the column:
When any reviewer’s fortune includes one major novel in any given month, he has reason for rejoicing. When, in the month of August, the traditional doldrum month, he receives two such novels, he has surely heard the heavenly choir. If Roger Altar’s new book, The Fall of a Stone, is not a masterpiece, it comes very close to being one. It is certainly a mature work of art, and one of the finest books published this year, if not this decade. Stone, unlike the earlier August entry which...
Larry could not finish the review. He had not been so excited or honestly happy for another person in as long as he could remember. He was shaking with vicarious joy. He had to see Altar at once. He had to share the writer’s triumph with him, if only for a few minutes. Quickly, he got his car from the garage and drove downtown. He made it to Altar’s apartment in ten minutes. He raced up the steps with the newspaper in his hand, wondering if Altar had seen it yet, hoping he would be the one to bring the good news. He rang the doorbell impatiently, and then knocked on the door. It opened wide. Altar stood there with a drunken grin on his face. He had already seen the review.
“Hot damn!” he shouted ecstatically.
Larry grabbed his hand and slapped him on the back with the newspaper. “Congratulations, you bastard!” he said, and Altar pulled him into the apartment, apparently not at all surprised to see him in New York.
“Hot damn!” he roared ecstatically. “Hot damn! You want a drink?”
“A short one.”
“Did you see it?”
“Did I see it!”
“Hot day-am!” Altar shouted. He reeled to the liquor cabinet and feverishly poured a drink, the whisky sloshing over the brim of the glass. He staggered back to Larry hurriedly, thrusting the drink into his hand. “Drink up!” he said. “Did you read it? A work of art! Crisp sharp dialogue and true characterization! Penetrating! That’s what the man said! A work of art!” he shouted joyously, tensely ecstatic.
Larry grinned at him stupidly.
“This is it, Larry,” Altar said excitedly. “This is it, man! What’s left after this? Man, this is the peak, the top, the gateway to heaven!” He poured whisky down his throat ferociously. “I did it, Larry!”
“Yes!”
“I really did it this time!”
“Yes!”
“I knocked them on their asses,” he said, his eyes bright and glowing hotly, his head nodding nervously. “I did it, I wrote a work of art, I got a...” and suddenly his voice trailed off and the room went silent.
Altar shook his head.
“Who the hell am I kidding?” he asked the wall.
“What?”
“I’ve been sitting up here ever since I read that review and drinking myself silly and trying to get a boot out of it! I’ve been trying to make believe that damn review is the be-all and the end-all, and the plain damn honest truth is that it doesn’t matter at all, it doesn’t matter one goddamn little bit!” He turned to Larry despairingly. “It isn’t enough, Larry!”
“But the review said—”
“Yes, and it isn’t enough! What’s wrong with me? What the hell do I want? Why shouldn’t I be deliriously happy right now? What do I do if I win the Nobel Prize someday? Put a bullet in my head? What’s enough for me? Larry, Larry, I don’t know what I want any more!”
“Hey!” Larry said. “Hey, don’t be—”
“Oh, what a crock!” Altar said. “Oh, what an empty crock success is! Oh, what a phony, what a two-bit phony. Drink. Drink, y’ bastard.” He refilled his own glass. “The two American carrots,” he said. “The man-carrot is Success, and the woman-carrot is beauty. Those are the carrots they dangle. You wanna know something? Carrots are for rabbits, and they stink! We’re people. Don’t you know that?”
“Yes, I know it,” Larry said. “But a man has to strive for success. You can’t—”
“You know what a man has to strive for?” Altar asked. “A man has to strive to be a man, that’s all. What the hell does success mean? I got success and what good is it? I’m riding on top of the world! A work of art, the man said! So where am I? I wish I was a guy who cleaned gook out of the sewers. I wish I could go home to a dumpy wife and eat scrambled eggs and tell her what a goddamn hard day I had down in the sewer. That’s for me! The sewer and the gook!”
“You don’t mean that, Altar.”
“I mean every word I say. Success? Bunk. Bunk! A canard! Tell them! Tell all the white-collar workers and the junior executives in the Brooks Brothers suits. Tell them success is a farce! Tell them you’re never a success until you’re a man—” Altar burst out laughing — “and the stupid bastards’ll answer, ‘You’re never a man until you’re a success!’”
Larry sipped at his drink quietly.
“Here’s to the big successful bachelor house in the exurbs,” Altar toasted. “Long may it serve as a monument to the blood we spilled and the tears we shed and the prizes we brought home from the sewer. You know something?”
“What?”
“I never won a prize.”
“I did.”
“How does it feel?”
“It’s not so hot.”
“Why not?”
“Well, once you’ve got the prize, what’re you going to do with it?”
“Pickle it,” Altar said. “Exactly my point. There are no real prizes left in this goddamn world of ours. If there were real prizes, who’d care what some reviewer thinks about what you do?”
Larry looked at his watch. “I have to leave soon,” he said.
“What time?”
“Before ten.”
“Relax, there’s time.” He paused. “Or is there? Time’s running out, isn’t it, Larry?”
“Time’s running out,” Larry repeated.
“We’re getting old, Larry. We better grab a big handful of life before there’s nothing left to grab. Listen, don’t go.”
“I have to,” Larry said.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like me?”
“I like you.”