One More for the Road (28 page)

“That is,” he caught himself, “if I shut up and you had time to read.” He let his faint smile fade. “Why are we here on this dock?”

“Sir,” I said. “There is the sea, where you should go forever.”

“Swim round the Cape? Surprise China?”

“Why not?”

“Do you see this old man's hand palsied from stamping and stamping the damned inspection forms?”

“No,” I said, “I see a sailor at sea with a dark islander, all tattoos, and a lost first mate whose captain struck God's sun when it insulted him.” I continued: “Oh, dear Melville, stay off the land. The sea is yours. You're like that ancient god who, thrown down, revived his life. Held high, he lost his power. On earth, his life grew tall. But your power is water! Cast off now, be a sea beast reborn to compass points, arms spread to smite hurricanes from white whales' flukes. Take St. Elmo's fires to shave. Earth, shore, town, and docks are tombs, coffin law-sheds, sunless days, lost burials. Earthbound, you dig your grave. Curse the land, throw down the customs stamp, be young ape-clambering the mast to dive, swim fast, the fair isles wait. I'm shut.”

“Shakespeare opened you.”

“Forgive.”

“Forgive me, then, who gave the White Whale's oil to light the towns. Be you a Christian?”

“God counts me in.”

“Then Christian soul, be still as I judge ships and guess the tides.”

Old Melville stared long at the horizon, then gazed at the salt-worn fronts of the customhouse which knew no sound but the eternal stamping and stamping of sea forms out and in.

“Jack!” I whispered. Melville flinched. I caught my breath and thought: Jack, young Christ, far from Galilee, fine of form and face, Jack, good shipmate, like the morning sun. And Hawthorne? Do we kidnap and jog along with him? Such talks you'd have! I'll serve him for our feast of Time, while Jack thrusts his gaze to seize your heart and crack your eyes. Hawthorne for loud noons. Jack for speechless midnights, endless dawns.

“Jack,” whispered Herman Melville. “Alive?”

“I can make him live.”

“Your God machine, does it bless or curse? Does it create or act Time's infidel?”

“It's nameless, sir. A centrifuge to spin off years to make us young.”

“Can you do this?”

“And win King Richard's crown? Yes!”

“Ah, God.” Melville's voice broke as he pulled at his feet. “I cannot move!”

“Try!”

“It's late,” he said. “I'm neither fish nor fowl. On land, Stonehenge. At sea I sink. Is there no place between?”

“Here.” I touched my head. “And here,” I touched my heart.

The old man's eyes burned with tears.

“Oh! If I could live in that head or hide in that breast!”

“You are safely there.”

“I accept a night's lodging,” he wept.

“No,
Pequod
's captain,” I said. “A thousand days.”

“This joy breaks me! Hold!”

I held his quaking elbows.

“You,” he said, “have opened the library and let me breathe my past. Am I taller? Straighter? Is my voice clear?”

“Most clear.”

“My hands?”

“Are the hands of a sailor newborn.”

“Stay off land?”

“Stay off.”

“But look.” He pointed. “My legs are anchors! Much thanks for your miracle of words. Oh, thanks …”

And he wandered off into the customs shed.

I looked in upon this old man a thousand miles distant on the dark earth, saw his hand fly up, down, up, down, stamping the forms, eyes shut, gone blind, as I backed off to feel the huge wings brush my neck. I spun to let the great moth take me.

“O, Herman, stay!” I cried, but the shed was gone.

And I was spun forth in another time, a house, a door opened and shut, a small round man confronting me.

“How,” he said, “did you get in?”

“Down the chimney, under the door. And you are?”

“Count Leo Tolstoy!”

“Of
War and Peace?
”

“Is there another!?” he exclaimed. “How did you enter? For what purpose?”

“To help you run away!”

“Run—?”

“Away,” I said, “from home. For you are crazed. Your wife is berserk with jealousy.”

Count Leo Tolstoy froze. “How—?”

“It's all in the books.”

“There are no books!”

“Not now, but soon! To claim your wife accused the chambermaids, the kitchen help, the gardener's daughters, your accountant's mistress, the milkman's wife, your niece!”

“Stop!” cried Count Leo Tolstoy. “I refuse those beds!”

“They lie?”

“Yes, maybe, no, how dare you!”

“Because your wife threatens to tear the sheets, burn the bed, lock the door, decapitate your modus operandi.”

“No, yes! Guilty, innocent, guilty, innocent! Damn! Guilty! What a wife. Repeat!”

“Home. Run away from it.”

“That is what boys do!”

“Yes!”

“And you'd have me act half a life younger? You are a lunatic of solutions.”

“Better than a maniac of punishments.”

“Lower your voice!” he whispered. “She's in the next room.”

“Then, let's go!”

“She has stolen my underwear!”

“Wash and wear on the way.”

“To?”

“Anywhere!”

“But how long do I hide?”

“Until she swoons, apoplectic!”

“Superb! Who are you?”

“The only man on earth who has read
War and Peace
and remembered the names. Shall I list them?”

At this a fierce blow hit a far door.

“Thank God,” I said, “it's locked.”

“What shall I pack?”

“A toothbrush! Quick!”

I threw the outer door wide. Count Leo Tolstoy stared out.

“What is that mist made of transparent leaves and milkweed?”

“Salvation!”

“It is beautiful.”

There was more banging on the door, a bray like an elephant.

“The maniac,” he cried.

“Do you wear running shoes?”

“I …”

“Run!”

He ran. The machine enfolded him.

The library door burst wide. A face of fury raged, an open furnace. “Where is he?” she cried.

“Who?” I said and vanished.

 

Perhaps I materialized to Billy Barlow, perhaps he materialized to me. But suddenly my machine took root in my library as Billy was glancing up Tolstoy, Melville, and Papa.

“Two losses and a win!” I said.

Billy shut Melville, closed Papa, smiled at Tolstoy.

“I made him leave madame,” I said.

“Did she enact
Anna Karenina?
”

“Throw herself under a train? No.”

“Pity. You off on more travels? White House, April '65, maybe. Steal Mary Todd Lincoln's theater tickets?”

“And risk her bite? No. Gangway!”

 

The golden wings soughed to touch by the waters of the marble fount near the Hotel Plaza. The fountains lifted quiet jets on a summer night. In the fount, wading, staggering, laughing, martini glasses raised to the moon, swayed a handsome man in a drenched tuxedo and a lovely woman in a silver gown. They whooped and hollered until my shout.

“Time!” I cried. “Zelda! Scottie! Everyone out!”

W
ELL
, W
HAT
D
O
Y
OU
H
AVE TO
S
AY FOR
Y
OURSELF?

 

“W
ell, what do you have to say for yourself?”

He looked at the telephone he had just picked up, and put it back near his ear.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Aren't you wearing your watch?”

“It's by my bed.”

“It's six thirty-five.”

“My God, so early, and the first thing you say is, ‘What do you have to say for yourself?' I'm not awake yet.”

“Go make some coffee and talk. What's the hotel like?”

“At six thirty-five in the morning, what's the hotel like? I don't like hotels. Three bad nights now with no sleep.”

“How do you think I've been sleeping?”

“Look,” he said, “I just got out of bed, let me put on my glasses and look at my watch, can I come over?”

“What for, what's the use?”

“You asked what I had to say, I want to say it.”

“Then say it.”

“Not on the phone. It'll take some time. Give me half an hour. Fifteen minutes. All right, then, ten.”

“Five,” she said, “and talk fast.”

She hung up.

At ten minutes after eight he watched her pour coffee and let him pick up his own cup. She crossed her arms over her breasts and waited, looking at the ceiling.

“It's already five minutes and all we've done is pour the coffee,” he said.

She looked at her watch, silently.

“Okay, okay,” he said, and burnt his lips taking the coffee, putting it down, rubbing his mouth, shutting his eyes, clenching his hands together in a kind of tight prayer mode.

“Well?” she said.

“Don't say it again,” he said, eyes shut. “Here goes. All men. All men are alike.”

“You can say that again,” she said.

He waited, eyes shut, to be sure she was done speaking.

“At least we agree on one thing,” he said. “All men are alike. I'm like every other man that ever lived. They are all like me. That has never changed, that will never change. That is a given. That is a rock bottom basic genetic truth.”

“How did genetics get into this?”

He had to force himself to remain silent, and then he said, “When God touched Adam, the genetics were put there. Can I continue?”

Her silence was a kind of grim affirmative.

“Let's agree for the moment, we can argue it later, that all the billions of men that ever grew up racing and yelling and behaving like lunatics were one and the same, some smaller, some taller, none different. I'm one of those.”

He waited again, but since there was no comment he clenched his eyes, worked his fingers, interlaced, and went on.

“Along with all those circus animals, the other humans came, the ones nearer that name human, who had to put up with the carnival atmosphere, clean the cages, pick up the cave or the parlor, raise the kids, go mad, recover, go mad again, make do.”

“It's getting late.”

“It's only eight-fifteen in the morning. Give me until eight-thirty, for God's sake. Please.”