to make myself useful. I wanted to avoid falling asleep. Eddie had his back to me. He’d been silent for almost ten minutes. He seemed absorbed, contemplating his little nylon string. Without turning around, he suddenly started talking.
“I was wondering what’s going on with you two. I was wondering what’s wrong…”
They were ham sandwiches. Nothing is sadder than a ham sandwich, when the little edge of fat hangs overboard. I rewrapped them. They were kind of soggy, too. Since I hadn’t answered, he forged ahead.
“My God, I’m not saying this to bother you, but have you taken a good look at Betty lately? She’s white as a ghost. She spends most of her time biting her lip and staring into space. Shit, you never say anything, so how am I supposed to know if there’s anything we can do to help…?”
I watched his line drift downstream, growing taut. The water rippled over it.
“She thought she was pregnant,” I said. “But we were wrong.”
There was a fish on the end of his line. It was the first of the day, but there was no comment-his death went practically unnoticed. Eddie stuck the pole under his arm to unhook the fish.
“Yeah, but don’t be ridiculous. These things don’t work every time. It’ll come out better next time.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I said. “She doesn’t even want to hear about it, and I’m not really man enough to overpower an IUD.”
He turned to me, with the sun in his wild hair.
“You see, Eddie,” I said, “she’s chasing after something that doesn’t exist. She’s like a wounded animal, you know? She gets a little weaker all the time. I think the world’s too small for her, Eddie. That’s where all her problems start.”
He cast his line out farther than he had before, his mouth set in a sort of grimace.
“Still, there ought to be something we could do…” he said.
“Yeah, sure. Make her understand that happiness doesn’t exist, that paradise doesn’t exist, that there’s nothing to win or lose, and that essentially you can’t change anything. And that if you think despair is all that’s left after that, well, you’re wrong again, because despair is an illusion, too. All you can do is go to bed at night and get up in the morning, with a smile on your lips, if possible. And you can think whatever you want-it only complicates matters and doesn’t change a thing.”
He looked up at the sky and shook his head.
“Gee, I ask him if there’s some way to pull her out of all this, and all he has to say is she’d be better off putting a bullet through her head…!”
“No, not at all. What I’m saying is, life’s not a carnival. There are no booths or Kewpie dolls to win by knocking over bottles; and if you’re crazy enough to place a bet, you’ll see that the wheel never stops turning. That’s when the suffering starts. To set goals in life is to tie yourself up in chains.”
Eddie pulled another fish out of the water. He sighed.
“When I was a kid, there were more fish than there was water,” he muttered.
“When I was a kid I thought someone would light my path,” I said.
We took off around noon, as planned. I hadn’t tried to fish. I just couldn’t get into it. In the end, we took our three lousy fish and went back to Bob’s house. Everyone was in the yard, the three girls busy spreading things on toast. Bob watched, talking. I hopped over the fence.
“We have a problem,” I said. “Barring a miracle, I can’t see how we’re going to feed thirty or forty people on three fish.”
“Oh yeah? What happened?”
“Hard to say. Bad year, maybe…”
Though there were no more fish in the river, there were still, luckily, a few cows left on the prairie-or wherever cows hang out-at least a few skewers’ worth. Bob and I handled it.
There were so many little things to take care of that I didn’t even feel the afternoon go by. I had trouble getting interested in anything-people had to repeat things two or three times to me. I just stood around buttering the bread or folding the napkins, which is what I preferred to do, leaving my mind behind. After the discussion I’d had with Eddie, I wasn’t very excited by the upcoming evening. To tell the truth, I knew that the less I saw of people the better off I’d be. The weight of things kept me from leaving, though. Between getting-away-from and putting-up-with, the first solution is not always the best-after a while it, too, gets old. The weather was nice in a stupid kind of way, the sun barely even shining. The only time I felt any warmth was when I got close to Betty, ran my hands through her short hair. The rest of the time I spent sighing and tossing finger sandwiches to Bongo.
Night was falling when the people came. I recognized some of them, and the ones I didn’t know looked like the ones I knew, all categories being confused. There were at least sixty people. Bob jumped from one group to another like a flying fish. He came up to me, rubbing his hands together.
“Boy oh boy, is this going to be fun…” he said.
Before leaving, he guzzled down my drink. I hadn’t touched it. I found myself standing apart, my empty glass in my hand. I didn’t move. I wasn’t thirsty, I didn’t want anything. Betty seemed to be having a good time. So did Lisa, Eddie, Bob, and Annie. Good time-that is to say that I was the only one standing by myself, trying to get my lips to muster a circumstantial smile. It gave me a cramp. Okay, so I was probably the only pale-face in the crowd. Still, when I looked behind the faces of those around me, all I saw was insanity, unrest, and anguish, or suffering, fear, and loneliness; or boredom, or solitude, or rage and impotence-shit, what was there to be happy about? Some fun, right? I saw a few pretty girls, but they seemed ugly to me, and the men seemed stupid-I’m generalizing, but I had no desire to delve any deeper. What I wanted was to fade into the shadows. I wanted a sad world, a cold one-a world without hope, without substance, without light. That’s how it was. I wanted to plunge to the bottom. I’d lost the faith. Sometimes you just want to see the whole show fold-the sky fall. Anyway, this was my state of mind, and I hadn’t drunk a drop.
Not wanting to call attention to myself, I started walking back and forth, acting very busy. Suddenly Betty tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked. “I’ve been watching you for quite a while now.”
“I was testing you to see if you still loved me,” I joked. “GirIs avoid me, because of my black eye.”
She smiled at me. I was standing at the gates of Hell and she was smiling at me. God in Heaven, oh Great God in Heaven above…
“You’re exaggerating,” she said. “You can hardly see it any more…”
“Take my hand,” I said. “Take me where I can get my glass refilled.”
I had barely gotten it refilled, when Bob stuck himself between us, drank it, and led Betty away by the arm.
“Bob, you’re a real motherfucker,” I said. “And you’re…”
But he was already far away, his ears glowing like bicycle reflectors. I found myself alone again. Thanks to Betty I felt a little less depressed. I allowed myself a small convalescent smile, then turned to the bar, in the hopes of getting a drink without being trampled. It was easier said than done. Everyone was talking louder than me, their arms reaching over my head. I finally had to go behind the bar and serve myself. The ambience was improving. Somebody turned the music up a few notches. I took a lawn chair and went to sit under the trees like an old grandma, except I didn’t have my knitting with me and I still had a few miles to go before I slept. My soul was tired. My emotional ebb was at its lowest. People were moving around, talking, yet nothing was really going on. The problem of the age seemed to be about how to dress, how to trim one’s hair. It didn’t seem worth going inside the store to ask for something you hadn’t seen in the window. O my poor generation-born of nothing, knowing neither effort nor revolt, eating itself alive, no way out. I decided to toast my good health. I had set my drink down on the grass, and when I went to reach for it, Bob kicked it over with his foot.
“What are you doing?” he said. “Sitting down already?”
“Tell me, Bob. Didn’t you feel anything just now? Your foot hitting something…?”
He backed up, tottering. I, who didn’t have one drop of alcohol in my veins, saw how wide the distance was between us. No sense explaining-I put the glass in his hand and turned him to face the right direction. I gave him a push.
“Go in peace, my son,” I said.
My generation was committing suicide, and I had to sit there waiting for a drunk to come back with my drink. I told myself that, decidedly, we’d be spared nothing tonight. Luckily the night was warm, and I was in a good spot
