“So this hasn’t happened before.”
“No. Other times, like with Jill, if there’s someone in her life, I either ignore him or deal with him, as the case may be.”
“But this is different.”
“That’s right,” I said. “This is different.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to kill her?”
“Susan?”
“No, this friend of hers.”
“Oh. Jennifer. No, I’m not going to kill her. I wouldn’t do that to Susan.”
“Yo shonuff gots it, don’cha?”
“Cut it out.”
Jim graced me with one of his rare smiles and said nothing else.
After several minutes I said, “So, what would you do?”
“What would I do? Why ask me? I’m not even alive.”
“You’re more alive than most of the people I pass on the street. Besides, what does being alive have to do with anything? You’re human, aren’t you? What would you do?”
He turned around and watched the cold fireplace for a moment, then he said, “I don’t know, Jack.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
He just shrugged. I heard myself growling, and I suddenly wanted to take myself away from there. It was exactly the same as when I’d run away from Jill so I wouldn’t kill her, although I knew I couldn’t really hurt Jim.
I take that back. I think I could hurt Jim, and perhaps I even have. But leave that; there is no way I can hurt Jim physically. I thought I ought to type until the feeling passed, but it hasn’t.
I must get out of the house for a while.
I’m back once more, feeling maybe just a little better, and a little worse at the same time. I left the house and walked about in the immediate neighborhood, until at last all the walls came down, and then I ran. I jumped the fence into Bill’s yard, and there was a growl and a yelp and whine, and then I was gone.
Sometime later I remember walking the streets. I can’t tell you how warm or cold it was, or whether there was a wind, or what people or animals were on the street. I just walked.
I eventually made my way to Little Philly, and found where the girls were enduring the cold. I picked a tall black girl named Stacy who had long legs and a haughty look that set my teeth on edge.
She said, “Hey, honey, wanna date?”
I said, “Sure, honey. I don’t have a car. Where do you live?”
“Not far, sweets.”
“I have the money,” I said. “You have the product.”
She laughed a phony laugh and showed me to a greasy-looking hotel, and when I left she was no longer wearing her haughty look. I left her with a hundred dollars, which was five times what she’d asked, and I left her still healthy enough that she’d probably survive, which I had not originally intended. I didn’t care a great deal if she didn’t; I’m perfectly willing to let the embalmers finish what I start.
I came back home after that, and I sit here filled with that horrible mixture of physical well-being and emotional self-disgust that I’ve had before on such occasions, which is, at any rate, a distraction from thoughts of Susan.
It makes no sense to me that I should feel this way about picking up whores, though; if it is still the remainder of my upbringing (my parents belonged to the Reformation Church and took it very seriously), then all I can say is that one’s upbringing has more power than even the head doctors think, because I don’t know one of them who has ever said that childhood conditioning can stay with you beyond the grave.
NINE
urge v.- tr. 1. To drive forward or onward forcefully; impel; spur… n… 2. An irresistible or impelling force, influence, or instinct.
Another day passed. Physically, I’m as well as I have ever been; I feel young and full of energy. Some of this has crept into my mood, I suppose because the mind wants to follow the body wherever it may lead. But I am now feeling more rational about Susan and Jennifer.
No, I certainly am not going to kill Jennifer, nor am I going to harm Susan in any way; although we certainly must find an opportunity to talk. But that need not be today. I do not wish to see Jill again until she has had a chance to make a more complete recovery, and as for Susan, well, she obviously did not think she was doing anything wrong, and perhaps, by her lights, she wasn’t. And in a sense I have invaded her life; it seems that it behooves me to, if not follow her rules, at least to pay some attention to them.
For today, at least, I cast all of this aside. I turn my attention to my dear old friend Laura Kellem; for if, within my limitations, I can thwart her, I will do so. I must recognize the truth that Susan has another lover; she is no less herself, and my life remains sweeter for her share in it. I will live if I can.
The last reddish tint of sunset is fading, and my typing room is warmer than usual, I suppose because the sun, weak though she be, has visited my sanctum and prepared it for me.
Some days ago, I think the day after Susan told me about her lover, I was walking through Little Philly and I chanced to overhear a lady, speaking to her companion, give forth a piece of contemporary folk wisdom: “The world would be easier to live in if men weren’t stupid and women weren’t crazy.”
At the time I noted it but gave it no thought. Now it comes back to me, and I think that, if it is not altogether wrong (no folk wisdom is altogether wrong; that’s its nature), then at least it is wrong with respect to me. It refers, I think, to how slow men are to see what is before them, and how given women are to self-deception and wild variations of mood. If so, then I am more woman than man, if I am not, in fact, androgynous in this fashion.
I say this because I am discovering how much variation of mood commands my activity. At first, reflecting on Susan’s infidelity, I had been shocked, and so had done things of which I was not proud; pride-true, honest pride-is always the result of overcoming our animal nature, of acting in accordance with principles or ideals which have been learned, cognized, and assimilated.
The athlete who takes pride in running faster than another knows that he has overcome his natural lethargy and trained his body to accept the punishment of the race. The musician who takes pride in his composition or his performance has the right to be proud, because he has created an expression of his discipline and his control. Insofar as we may do a good thing from instinct, we feel, or ought to feel, less pride in the accomplishment than if we had done it through self-control and careful thought; through the domination of the brain over the body. I think my entire life is an effort to secure the command of my brain over my body.
I was not proud, then, that in my frustration I allowed my animal nature to guide me, and as I sat in this room a few scant hours ago and felt sleep overtaking me, I believed that I had come to terms with this nature, and could face Susan’s actions as a rational man. But, as I slept, the animal returned, for as I dreamed my mind created images of Susan and Jennifer; what they might be doing together, the things that perhaps they would say-difficult, because I do not know Jennifer’s appearance, nor do I ever wish to. In the end, I lay awake, unable to move, unable to control my thoughts. Would I care as much if her lover were a man? Would I care more? I cannot tell; all of the tremblings of rage, of fear, of hurt, and of confusion cry out for some sort of action; experience tells me that anything I do from such a motive will diminish me in my own eyes. It seemed to be hours that I lay there alone with these thoughts, gnashing my teeth and cursing under my breath.
When at last I was able to rise, I came back to my typewriting sanctuary, to set down these thoughts, hoping
