Ishmael

“The Leavers are those who live in the hands of the gods.”

TWELVE

1

Along about three o’clock, the rain stopped and the carnival yawned, stretched, and went back to work separating the rubes from their money. At loose ends once again, I hung around for a while, let myself be separated from a few bucks, and finally had the idea of tracking down Ishmael’s owner. This turned out to be a hard–eyed black man named Art Owens, who was five and a half feet tall and spent more time lifting weights than I do at the typewriter. I told him I was interested in buying his gorilla.

“Is that a fact,” he said, not scornful, not impressed, not interested, not anything.

I told him it was and asked how much it would take.

“Would take about three thousand.”

“I’m not that interested.”

“How interested are you?” Just curious, not seriously interested himself.

“Well, more like a thousand.”

He sneered—just a little, almost politely. For some reason, I liked this guy. He was the type who has a law degree from Harvard stuck away in a drawer somewhere because he never found anything to do with it that appealed to him.

I told him: “This is a very, very old animal, you know. He’s been here since the thirties.”

This got his attention. He asked how I happened to come by that piece of information.

“I know the animal,” I replied briefly, as if I might know thousands more like him.

“Might go twenty–five hundred,” he said.

“Trouble is, I don’t have twenty–five hundred.”

“See, I already got a painter in New Mexico workin’ on a sign for me,” he said. “Paid him two hundred in advance.”

“Uh huh. I could probably raise fifteen hundred.”

“Don’t see how I could go below twenty–two, that’s a fact.”

The fact was, if it was right there in my hand, he’d be delighted to take two thousand. Maybe even eighteen hundred. I said I’d think about it.

2

It was a Friday night, so the suckers didn’t start going home till after eleven and my senectuous bribee didn’t come round to collect his twenty dollars till midnight. Ishmael was asleep sitting up, still bundled up in his blankets, and I didn’t feel any qualms about waking him; I wanted him to reassess the charms of the independent life.

He yawned, sneezed twice, cleared his throat of a mass of phlegm, and fixed me in a bleary, malevolent glare.

“Come back tomorrow,” he said in the equivalent of a mental croak.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday—hopeless.”

He wasn’t happy about it, but he knew I was right. He managed to put off the inevitable by laboriously rearranging himself, his cage, and his blankets. Then he settled down and gave me a look of loathing.

“Where did we leave off?”

“We left off with a new pair of names for the Takers and the Leavers: Those who know good and evil and those who live in the hands of the gods.”

He grunted.

3

“What happens to people who live in the hands of the gods?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what happens to people who live in the hands of the gods that does not happen to people who build their lives on the knowledge of good and evil?”

“Well, let’s see,” I said. “I don’t suppose this is what you’re getting at, but this is what comes to mind. People who live in the hands of the gods don’t make themselves rulers of the world and force everyone to live the way they live, and people who know good and evil do.”

“You’ve turned the question round back to front,” said Ishmael. “I asked what happens to people who live in the hands of the gods that doesn’t happen to those who know good and evil, and you told me just the opposite: what doesn’t happen to people who live in the hands of the gods that does happen to those who know good and evil.”

“You mean you’re looking for something positive that happens to people who live in the hands of the gods.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, they do tend to let the people around them live the way they want to live.”

“You’re telling me something they do, not something that happens to them. I’m trying to focus your attention on the effects of this life–style.”

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I just don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“You do, but you’re not used to thinking about it in these terms.”

“Okay.”

“You remember the question we started out to answer when you arrived this afternoon: How did man become man? We’re still after the answer to that question.”

I groaned, fully and frankly.

“Why do you groan?” Ishmael asked.

“Because questions of that generality intimidate me. How did man become man? I don’t know. He just did it. He did it the way birds became birds and the way that horses became horses.”

“Exactly so.”

“Don’t do that to me,” I told him.

“Evidently you don’t understand what you just said.”

“Probably not.”

“I’ll try to clarify it for you. Before you were Homo, you were what?”

“Australopithecus.”

“Good. And how did Australopithecus become Homo?”

“By waiting.”

“Please. You’re here to think.”

“Sorry.”

“Did Australopithecus become Homo by saying, ‘We know good and evil as well as the gods, so there’s no need for us to live in their hands the way rabbits and lizards do. From now on we will decide who lives and who dies on this planet, not the gods.’