wine, don’t you think?”
We hailed a taxi and made for an Italian joint he frequented. It was a cozy place, smelling strongly of wine, sawdust and cheese. Virtually deserted too.
After we had ordered he said: “You don’t mind if I talk about myself, do you? That’s my weakness, I guess. Even when I’m reading, even if it’s a good book, I can’t help but think about myself, my problems. Not that I think I’m so important, you understand. Obsessed, that’s all.
“You’re obsessed too,” he continued, “but in a healthier way. You see, I’m engrossed with myself and I hate myself. A real loathing, mind you. I couldn’t possibly feel that way about another human being. I know myself through and through, and the thought of what I am, what I must look like to others, appalls me. I’ve got only one good quality: I’m honest. I take no credit for it either . . . it’s a purely instinctive trait. Yes, I’m honest with my clients—and I’m honest with myself.”
I broke in. “You may be honest with yourself, as you say, but it would be better for you if you were more generous. I mean, with yourself. If you can’t treat yourself decently how do you expect others to?”
“It’s not in my nature to think such thoughts,” he answered promptly. “I’m a Puritan from way back. A degenerate one, to be sure. The trouble is, I’m not degenerate enough. You remember asking me once if I had ever read the Marquis de Sade? Well, I tried, but he bores me stiff. Maybe he’s too French for my taste. I don’t know why they call him the divine Marquis, do you?”
By now we had sampled the Chianti and were up to our ears in spaghetti. The wine had a limbering effect. He could drink a lot without losing his head. In fact, that was another one of his troubles—his inability to lose himself, even under the influence of drink.
As if he had divined my thoughts, he began by remarking that he was an out-and-out mentalist. “A mentalist who can even make his prick think. You’re laughing again. But it’s tragic. The young girl I spoke of—she thinks I’m a grand fucker. I’m not. But she is. She’s a real fuckeree. Me, I fuck with my brain. It’s like I was conducting a cross-examination, only with my prick instead of my mind. Sounds screwy, doesn’t it? It is too. Because the more I fuck the more I concentrate on myself. Now and then—with her, that is—I sort of come to and ask myself who’s on the other end. Must be a hangover from the masturbating business. You follow me, don’t you? Instead of doing it to myself someone does it for me. It’s better than masturbating, because you become even more detached. The girl, of course, has a grand time. She can do anything she likes with me. That’s what tickles her . . . excites her. What she doesn’t know—maybe it would frighten her if I told her—is that I’m not there. You know the expression—to be all ears. Well, I’m all mind. A mind with a prick attached to it, if you can put it that way. . . . By the way, sometime I want to ask you about yourself. How you feel when you do it . . . your reactions . . . and all that. Not that it would help much. Just curious.”
Suddenly he switched. Wanted to know if I had done any writing yet. When I said no, he replied: “You’re writing right now, only you’re not aware of it. You’re writing all the time, don’t you realize that?”
Astonished by this strange observation, I exclaimed:
“You mean me—or everybody?”
“Of course I don’t mean everybody! I mean you, you.” His voice grew shrill and petulant. “You told me once that you would like to write. Well, when do you expect to begin?” He paused to take a heaping mouthful of food. Still gulping, he continued: “Why do you think I talk to you the way I do? Because you’re a good listener? Not at all! I can blab my heart out to you because I know that you’re vitally disinterested. It’s not me, John Stymer, that interests you, it’s what I tell you, or the way I tell it to you. But I am interested in you, definitely. Quite a difference.”
He masticated in silence for a moment.
“You’re almost as complicated as I am,” he went on. “You know that, don’t you? I’m curious to know what makes people tick, especially a type like you. Don’t worry, I’ll never probe you because I know in advance you won’t give me the right answers. You’re a shadowboxer. And me, I’m a lawyer. It’s my business to handle cases. But you, I can’t imagine what you deal in, unless it’s air.”
Here he closed up like a clam, content to swallow and chew for a while. Presently he said: “I’ve a good mind to invite you to come along with me this afternoon. I’m not going back to the office. I’m going to see this gal I’ve been telling you about. Why don’t you come along? She’s easy to look at, easy to talk to. I’d like to observe your reactions.” He paused a moment to see how I might take the proposal, then added: “She lives out on Long Island. It’s a bit of a drive, but it may be worth it. We’ll bring some wine along and some Strega. She likes liqueurs. What say?”
I agreed. We walked to the garage where he kept his car. It took a while to defrost it. We had only gone a little ways when one thing after another gave out. With the stops we made at garages and repair shops it must have taken almost three hours to get out of the city limits. By that time we were thoroughly frozen. We had a run of sixty miles to make and it was already dark as pitch.
Once on the highway we made several stops to warm up. He seemed to be known everywhere we stopped, and was always treated with deference. He explained, as we drove along, how he had befriended this one and that. “I never take a case,” he said, “unless I’m sure I can win.”
I tried to draw him out about the girl, but his mind was on other things. Curiously, the subject uppermost in his mind at present was immortality. What was the sense in a hereafter, he wanted to know, if one lost his personality at death? He was convinced that a single lifetime was too short a period in which to solve one’s problems. “I haven’t started living my own life,” he said, “and I’m already nearing fifty. One should live to be a hundred and fifty or two hundred, then one might get somewhere. The real problems don’t commence until you’ve done with sex and all material difficulties. At twenty-five I thought I knew all the answers. Now I feel that I know nothing about anything. Here we are, going to meet a young nymphomaniac. What sense does it make?” He lit a cigarette, took a puff or two, then threw it away. The next moment he extracted a fat cigar from his breast pocket.
“You’d like to know something about her. I’ll tell you this first off—if only I had the necessary courage I’d snatch her up and head for Mexico. What to do there I don’t know. Begin all over again, I suppose. But that’s what gets me . . . I haven’t the guts for it. I’m a moral coward, that’s the truth. Besides, I know she’s pulling my leg. Every time I leave her I wonder who she’ll be in bed with soon as I’m out of sight. Not that I’m jealous—I hate to be made a fool of, that’s all. I am a chump, of course. In everything except the law I’m an utter fool.”
He traveled on in this vein for some time. He certainly loved to run himself down. I sat back and drank it in.
Now it was a new tack. “Do you know why I never became a writer?”
“No,” I replied, amazed that he had ever entertained the thought.
“Because I found out almost immediately that I had nothing to say. I’ve never lived, that’s the long and short of it. Risk nothing, gain nothing. What’s that Oriental saying? ‘To fear is not to sow because of the birds.’ That says it. Those crazy Russians you give me to read, they all had experience of life, even if they never budged from the spot they were born in. For things to happen there must be a suitable climate. And if the climate is lacking, you
