The Pursuit of Happiness (2001) (14 page)

Hell, E - I’ve never even fallen in love. So no wonder nothing happens when I sit down at the typewriter.

I sent the letter c/o Poste Restante, Zihuantanejo, DF, Mexico. Eric was temporarily living in this corner of the Mexican tropics, having rented a house on the beach. Seven weeks later, I received a reply - scribbled in dense tiny print on a postcard, date-marked Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

S,

What you’re really saying in your letter is that, as yet, you don’t think you have a story to tell. Believe me,
everybody
has a story to tell - because all life is narrative. But knowing that is probably of little comfort to somebody suffering from writer’s block (a condition of which I have ongoing experience). The rule of the game is a simple one: if you want to write, you
will write.
And know this: if you want to fall in love, you will find someone to fall in love with. But take it from your older, battle-scarred brother: you should never set out to fall in love. Because those sort of romances always seem to end up as the stuff of cheap melodrama. Real love, on the other hand, sneaks up on you unawares … then gives you a kick in the head.

I should never have left Mexico. The best thing about Tegucigalpa is the bus out of Tegucigalpa. I’m heading south. Will write again when I’ve unpacked somewhere.

Love,

E

Over the course of the next ten months - as I worked hard at
Life
and spent every free moment roaming New York - I tried not to rue too much my stalled literary career. And I certainly met nobody with whom I felt like falling in love. But I did receive plenty of postcards from Eric, date-marked Belize, San Jose, Panama City, Cartagena, and eventually Rio. He returned to New York in June of ‘45, dead broke. I had to lend him two hundred dollars to see him through his first month home, during which time he moved back into his apartment and scrambled for work.

‘How’d you manage to run through all that money?’ I asked him.

‘Living the high life,’ he said, sounding sheepish.

‘But I thought the high life was against all your political principles.’

‘It was. It
is.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I blame it all on too much sun. It turned me into a very generous, very dumb
loco gringo.
But I promise to resume wearing a hairshirt immediately.’

Instead, he landed a job writing a few episodes of
Boston Blackie.
When he was fired off of that show, he talked his way on to
The Quiz Bang Show,
churning out gags for Joe E. Brown. He never mentioned the play he was supposed to be writing during his year away - and I never asked. His silence said it all.

But he dropped right back into his wide circle of arty friends. And on the night before Thanksgiving of ‘45, he threw a party for all of them.

I had already been invited to an annual soiree given by one of
Life
‘s senior editors. He lived on West 77th St between Central Park West and Columbus - the street where the balloons for next morning’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade were being inflated. I promised Eric that I would drop by his bash on my way home. But the editor’s party ran late. Thanks to the Macy’s balloons (and the crowds who had come out to watch them being pumped up), all the streets around Central Park West were closed, so it took over half an hour to find a cab. It was now midnight. I was dead tired. I told the driver to take me to Bedford Street. As soon as I walked into my apartment, the phone rang. It was Eric. In the background I could hear his party in full swing.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ he asked.

‘Playing office politics on Central Park West.’

‘Well, get over here now. As you can hear, the joint is jumping.’

‘I think I’ll pass, E. I need to sleep for a week.’

‘You have the rest of the weekend to do that.’

‘Please let me disappoint you tonight.’

‘No. I insist you hop a fast cab, and present yourself
tout de suite
at
chez moi,
ready to drink ‘til dawn. Hell, it’s the first Thanksgiving in years without a war. Surely that’s a good enough excuse to destroy some brain cells …’

I sighed loudly, then said,

‘Will you provide the aspirin tomorrow?’

‘You have my word as a patriotic American.’

So I reluctantly put my coat back on, headed downstairs, hailed a cab, and within five minutes, found myself smack dab in the middle of Eric’s party. The place was packed. There was loud dance music on the Victrola. A low cloud of cigarette smoke bathed his tiny apartment in a fuggy haze. Someone pushed a bottle of beer into my hand. I turned around. And that’s when I saw him. A fellow around twenty-five, dressed in a dark khaki Army uniform, with a narrow face with sharply etched cheekbones. His eyes were also scanning the room. They suddenly happened upon me. I met his gaze. Only for a second. Or maybe two. He looked at me. I looked at him. He smiled. I smiled back. He turned away. And that was it. Just a simple glance.

I shouldn’t have been there. I should have been home, fast asleep. And I’ve often wondered: had I not turned around at that very moment, would we have missed each other completely?

Fate is such an accidental thing, isn’t it?

T
HE FRONT DOOR
suddenly flew open. Ten more folk tumbled into the apartment. They were all very loud, very boisterous, and very well lubricated. The room was now so crowded it was impossible to move. I still couldn’t see my brother - and was beginning to get a little cross about being talked into coming to this absurd party. I loved Eric’s friends, but not
en masse.
Eric knew this - and often teased me about being anti-social.

‘I’m not anti-social,’ I’d retort. ‘I’m just anti-crowds.’

Especially - I could have added - crowds in tiny apartments. My brother, on the other hand, adored mob scenes, and being part of a pack. He always had tons of friends. A quiet night at home was never pondered. He had to be meeting pals at bars, or finding a party to crash, or hitting jazz joints, or (at the very worst) squandering the evening in one of those all-night movie houses that lined 42nd Street - and showed triple features for twenty-five cents. Since his return from South America, his talent for gregariousness had reached new heights - to the point where I was beginning to wonder if he was ever finding time to sleep. He’d also reluctantly changed his appearance to get that job as a gag writer for Joe E. Brown. He’d trimmed his hair and stopped dressing like Trotsky - because he knew he wouldn’t be hired unless he conformed to the buttoned-down sartorial norm that was demanded back then.

‘I bet Father’s rolling with laughter in his grave,’ he said to me late one evening, ‘knowing that his redder-than-Red son now buys his clothes at Brooks Brothers.’

‘Clothes mean nothing,’ I said.

‘Stop trying to sweeten the pill. They mean
everything.
Everyone who knows me understands what these clothes mean:
I’ve failed.’

‘You’re not a failure.’

‘Anyone who starts off thinking he’s the next Bertolt Brecht - but finally ends up churning out jokes for a quiz show - is allowed to call himself a failure.’

‘You’ll write another great play,’ I said.

He smiled sadly.

‘S - I’ve never written a
great
play. You know that. I’ve never even written a
good
play. And you know that too.’

Yes, I did know that - though I would never have said so. Just as I also knew that Eric’s increasingly manic social life was a form of anaesthetic. It deadened the ache of disappointment. I knew he was blocked. And I also knew what was causing the block: a total collapse of confidence in his talent. But Eric refused to let me sympathize with him - always changing the subject whenever I brought it up. I finally took the hint and dropped the matter completely - ruing the fact that I couldn’t get him to talk about his obvious distress, and feeling rather helpless as I watched him obsessively fill every waking moment with a binge of diversions … of which this party was yet another syndrome.

As the noise level in his living room reached the level of uproar, I quickly decided to make an exit if I didn’t see my brother in the next sixty seconds.

Then I felt a hand lightly touch my shoulder, and heard a male voice in my ear.

‘You look like someone who’s looking for an escape hatch.’

I spun around. It was the fellow in the Army uniform. He was standing inches away from me, a glass of something in one hand, a bottle of beer in the other. Up close, he looked even more damn Irish. It was something about the ruddiness of his skin, the squareness of his jaw, the touch of mischief in his eyes, the fallen angel face which hinted at both innocence and experience. He was a less pugnacious version of Jimmy Cagney. Had he been an actor, he would have been perfect casting as the sort of idealistic young neighborhood priest who gave Cagney last rites after some rival gangster peppered him with lead.

‘Did you hear me the first time?’ he shouted over the roar of the party. ‘You look like someone who’s looking for an escape hatch.’

‘Yes, I did hear you. And yes, you’re very perceptive,’ I said.

‘And you’re blushing.’

I suddenly felt my cheeks redden a little more. ‘It must be the heat in here.’

‘Or the fact that I am the most handsome guy you’ve ever seen.’

I looked at him with care, and noted that he was raising his eyebrows playfully.

‘You’re handsome, all right … but not drop-dead handsome.’

He studied me admiringly for a moment, then said, ‘Nice counterpunch. Didn’t I see you fight Max Schelling at the Garden?’

‘Would you be talking about the Bronx Botanical Gardens?’

‘Your name wouldn’t happen to be Dorothy Parker, would it?’

‘Flattery will get you nowhere, soldier.’

‘Then I’ll have to try getting you drunk,’ he said, pushing a bottle into my empty hand. ‘Have a beer,’ he said.

‘I already have a beer,’ I said, raising the bottle of Schlitz in my other hand.

‘A two-fisted drinker. I like that. You also wouldn’t happen to be Irish, would you?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Surprise, surprise. I was certain you were an O’Sullivan from Limerick … and not some horsey Kate Hepburn type …’

‘I don’t ride horses,’ I said, interrupting him.

‘But you’re still a WASP, right?’

I scowled at him.

‘That’s a WASP smile, right?’

I tried not to laugh. I failed.

‘Hey! She has a sense of humor. I thought that didn’t come with the WASP package.’

‘There are always exceptions to the rule.’

‘Delighted to hear it. So … are we getting out of here?’

‘Sorry?’

‘You said you were looking for a way out of here. I’m offering you one. With me.’

‘But why should I go with you?’

‘Because you find me funny, charming, absorbing, alluring, appealing …’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Liar. Anyway, here’s another reason why you should leave with me. Because we’ve clicked.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says me. And says you.’

‘I’ve said nothing.’

I heard myself saying, ‘I don’t even know you.’

‘Does that matter?’

Of course it didn’t. Because I was already smitten. But I certainly wasn’t going to let on just how smitten I was.

‘A name might help,’ I said.

‘Jack Malone. Or Sergeant Jack Malone, if you want to get official about it.’

‘And where are you from, Sergeant?’

‘A paradise, a Valhalla, a place where White Anglo-Saxon Protestants fear to tread …’

‘Known as?’

‘Brooklyn. Flatbush, to be exact.’

‘I don’t know Flatbush.’

‘See! My point exactly. When it comes to WASPs, Brooklyn has always been a no-go zone.’

‘Well, I have been to Brooklyn Heights.’

‘But have you been to the Depths?’

‘Is that where you’re bringing me tonight?’

His face brightened.

‘Game, set, match
already?’

‘I never concede that easily. Especially when the opponent in question has forgotten to ask me my name.’

‘Whoops!’

‘So go on - pop the question.’

‘Vat ist your name?’ he asked in a mock German accent.

I told him. He pursed his lips.

‘That’s Smythe with a
y
and an
e?’

‘I am impressed.’

‘Oh, we’re taught how to spell in Brooklyn.
Smythe
…’

He rolled the name around on his tongue, pronouncing it again in an arch English accent.

‘Smythe
… I bet you anything that, once upon a time, it was good old plain
Smith.
But then one of your hoity-toity New England forebears decided it was far too common, so he changed it to
Smythe
…’

‘How do you know I’m from New England?’

‘You’ve got to be kidding. And if I was a betting man, I’d put a ten-spot on the fact that you probably spell Sara without an
h.’

‘And you’d win the bet.’

‘I told you I was a sharp cookie.
Sara.
Very pretty … if you like New England Puritans.’

I heard Eric’s voice behind me.

‘You mean, like me?’

‘And who the hell are you?’ Jack asked, sounding a little annoyed at having our banter interrupted.

‘I’m her puritanical brother,’ Eric said, putting his arm around my shoulder. ‘More to the point: who the hell are you?’

‘I’m Ulysses S. Grant.’

‘Very funny,’ Eric said.

‘Does it matter who I am?’

‘I just don’t remember inviting you to this party, that’s all,’ Eric said, all smiles.

‘This is your place?’ Jack asked pleasantly, without a hint of embarrassment.

‘Excellent deduction, Dr Watson,’ Eric said. ‘Mind telling me how you ended up here?’

‘A guy I met at the USO club near Times Square told me he had this friend who had a friend who had another friend who knew of this bash on Sullivan Street. But listen, I don’t want to make any trouble, so I’ll leave now, if that’s okay.’

‘Why should you leave?’ I said so quickly that Eric gave me a questioning, wry smile.

‘Yes,’ Eric said, ‘why should you leave when certain people obviously want you to stay.’

‘You sure you don’t mind?’

‘Any friend of Sara’s …’

‘I really appreciate it.’

‘Where were you serving?’

‘Germany. And I wasn’t serving exactly. I was reporting.’

‘For
Stars and Stripes?’
Eric asked, mentioning the official newspaper of the United States Army.

‘How did you
ever
guess?’ Jack Malone asked.

‘I think the uniform tipped me off. Whereabouts were you stationed?’

‘England for a while. Then, after the Nazi surrender, I was in Munich. Or, at least, what was left of Munich.’

‘Did you ever get to the Eastern Front?’

‘I write for
Stars and Stripes
… not the
Daily Worker.’

‘I’ll have you know that I read the
Daily Worker
for ten years,’ Eric said, sounding a little too self-important.

‘Congratulations,’ Jack said. ‘I used to read the funnies every day as well.’

‘I don’t get the connection,’ Eric said.

‘We all outgrow the juvenile.’

‘The
Daily Worker is
your idea of juvenilia?’

‘Badly written
juvenilia … like most propaganda sheets. I mean, if you’re going to write a daily jeremiad on class warfare, at least write it well.’

‘A
jeremiad,’
Eric said, sounding arch. ‘My, my. We do know some big words, don’t we?’

‘Eric …’ I said, glowering at him.

‘Have I said something wrong?’ he said, the words slightly slurred. That’s when I realized he was drunk.

‘Not wrong,’ Jack said. ‘Just
classist.
Then again, talking as an illiterate Brooklyn mick …’

‘I never said that,’ Eric said.

‘No - you simply implied it. But, hey, I’m well used to
parvenus
making fun of my inelegant vowels.’

‘We are hardly parvenus,’ Eric said.

‘But you are impressed with my command of French,
n’est-ce pas?’

‘Your accent could use some work.’

‘Just like your sense of humor. Of course, speaking as one of your intellectual inferiors from the wrong side of the Manhattan Bridge, I always find it amusing that the biggest snobs in the world also happen to whistle the “Internationale” through their Ivy League teeth. Or maybe you read
Pravda
in the original Russian, comrade?’

‘And I bet you’re one of Father Coughlin’s most devoted admirers.’

‘Eric, for God’s sake,’ I said, appalled that he would make such an inflammatory comment - as Father Charles E. Coughlin was an infamous right-wing priest; a precursor of McCarthy who had a weekly radio broadcast, in which he hectored on against communists and all foreigners and anyone who didn’t bow down and kiss the flag. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence hated him. But I was relieved to see that this Jack Malone fellow wasn’t rising to my brother’s bait.

His voice still calm, he said, ‘Consider yourself fortunate that I’m going to file that one away under
banter.’

I nudged my brother with my elbow. ‘Apologize,’ I said.