“I don’t go back to Ann Arbor, either. What’d you do?”
“Wrestled. One forty-five. We wrestled against Carleton and Macalester and those places. I wasn’t very good.”
“Those are good schools, though.”
“They are good schools,” Walter said. “Though you don’t hear much about them. I guess everybody wants to talk about sports, right?” Walter looked at me seriously.
“Sometimes,” I said. “But I don’t mind it. Other people know a lot more about sports than I do, to tell you the truth. It’s a pretty innocent part of people, and talking has the effect of bringing us all together on a good level.” I don’t know why I started talking to Walter in this Grantland Rice after-dinner speech way, except that he seemed to want that and it was truthfully the only thing I could think of. (It’s also true that I believe every word of it, and it’s a lot better than talking about some pretentious book that only one person’s read.)
Walter moved the ice around in his drink using his finger. “What would you say’s the worst part about your job, Frank? I hate traveling myself, and I have to do it. I bet that’s it, right?”
“I don’t mind it,” I said. “There’re things about it I’m not sure I could live without anymore. In particular, now that I’m home alone.”
“Okay, sure.” Walter drank down his scotch in one gulp and signaled for another in one continuous finger-wiggle gesture. “So it’s not the travel. Okay, that’s good.”
“I think the hardest part about my job, Walter, since you asked, is that people expect me to make things better when I come. If I come to interview them or write about them or just call them up on the phone, they want to be enriched. I’m not talking about money. It’s just part of the natural illusion of my profession. The fact is, we can sometimes not make things worse, or we can make things worse. But we can’t usually make things better for individuals. Sometimes we can for groups. But then not always.”
“Interesting.” Walter Luckett nodded as though it was anything but interesting. “What do you mean, worse?”
“I mean sometimes things can seem worse just by not being better. I don’t know if I ever thought about it before,” I said. “But I think it’s right.”
“People don’t have any right to think you can make life better for them,” Walter said soberly. “But it’s what they want, all right. I agree.”
“I don’t know about rights,” I said. “It’d be nice if we could. I think I once thought I could.”
“Not me,” Walter said. “One lousy marriage proved that.”
“It’s a disappointment. I don’t mean marriage is a disappointment. Just ending it.”
“I guess.” Walter looked down at the fishermen at the dim-lit end of the bar, where they were huddling over some playing cards with fat Evangelis. One of the men laughed out loud, then another man put the cards in his coat pocket and smirked, and the talk got quiet. I would’ve given anything for a peek at those cards and to have had a good laugh with the fishermen instead of being land-locked with Walter. “Your marriage wasn’t disappointing to you, then?” Walter said in a way I found vaguely insulting. Walter had just the tips of his slender fingers touching the glass of scotch, and then he looked at me accusingly.
“No. It was really a wonderful marriage. What I remember of it.”
“My wife’s in Bimini,” Walter said. “My ex-wife, I need to say now. She went down there with a man named Eddie Pitcock, a man I’ve never seen and know nothing about except his name, which I know from a private detective I hired. I could find out a lot more. But who cares? Eddie Pitcock’s his name. Isn’t that a name for the guy who runs away with your wife?”
“It’s just a name, Walter.”
Walter pinched his nose again and sniffed.
“Right. You’re right about that. That isn’t what I want to talk about anyway, Frank.”
“Let talk about sports, then.”
Walter stared intently at the fish pictures behind the bar and breathed forcefully through his nose. “I feel pretty self-important hauling you over here like this, Frank. I’m sorry. I’m not usually self-important. I don’t want this to be the story of my life.” Walter had completely ignored my offer of a good sports conversation, which seemed to mean something more serious was on the way, something I was going to be sorry about. “It isn’t a very amusing life. I’m sure of that.”
“I understand,” I said. “Maybe you just wanted to have a drink and sit in a bar with someone you knew but didn’t have to confide in. That makes plenty of sense. I’ve done that.”
“Frank, I went in a bar in New York two nights ago, and I let a man pick me up. Then I went to a hotel with him — the Americana, as a matter of fact — and slept with him.” Walter stared furiously out into the fishing pictures. He stared so hard that I knew he would like nothing in the world better than to be one of those happy, proud khaki-clad fishermen displaying his fat stripers to the sun on a happy July day, say, in 1956, when we would have been, Walter and me, eleven years old — assuming we are the same age. I would’ve been doubly happy at the moment to be there myself.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me, Walter?”
“Yes.” Walter Luckett said this as if stunned, looking deadly serious.
“Well,” I said. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
“I know that,” Walter said, his chin vaguely moving up and down in a kind of secret nod to himself. “I knew that ahead of time. Or I thought I did.”
“Well, that’s fine, then,” I said. “Isn’t it?”
“I feel pretty bad, Frank,” Walter said. “I don’t feel dirty or ashamed. It’s not a scandal. I probably ought to feel stupid, but I don’t even feel that way. I just feel bad. It’s like it’s loosed a bad feeling in me.”
“Do you think you want to do it again, Walter?”
“I doubt it. I hope not, anyway,” Walter said. “He was a nice guy, I’ll just say that. He wasn’t one of these leather bullies or what have you. And neither am I. He’s got a wife and kids up in north Jersey. Passaic County. I’ll probably never see him again. And I’ll never do that again, I hope. Though I could, I guess. I certainly don’t think anyone would care if I did. You know?” Walter drank down his scotch and quickly cut his eyes to me. I wondered if we were talking loud enough for the fishermen to hear us. They would probably have something to say about Walter’s experience if we wanted to include them.
“Why do you think you told me, Walter?”
“I think I wanted to tell you, Frank, because I knew you wouldn’t care. I felt like I knew the kind of guy you are. And if you did care, I could feel better because I’d know I was better than you. I have some real admiration for you, Frank. I got your book out of the library when I joined, the group, though I admit I haven’t read it. But I felt like you were a guy who didn’t hold opinions.”
“I’ve got a lot of opinions,” I said. “But I tend to keep them to myself, usually.”
“I know that. But not about something like this. Am I right?”
“It doesn’t matter to me. If I have an opinion about it, I’ll only know about it later.”
“I’d be happy if you wouldn’t tell me about it then, frankly, if you do. I don’t think it would do me any good. I don’t really think of this as a confession, Frank, because I don’t really want a response from you. And I know you don’t like confessions.”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “I think most things are better if you just let them be lonely facts.”
“I agree,” Walter said confidently.
“You did tell me, though, Walter.”
“Frank, I needed a context. I think that’s what friends are for.” Walter jiggled ice in his glass in a summary fashion, like a conventioneer.