TEN

vi?cis?si?tude n. 1. Usually plural. Any change or variation in something; mutability. 2. Natural change or variation; alterations manifested in nature and human affairs. 3. a. An alteration or variation in

fortune…

AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY

An unsatisfying sort of day. I was feeling lazy at first, so I just sat around talking to Jim for a while. I asked him if he had ever married. He said, “Oh, yes. Had three children, too. The youngest was born a free man.”

“What ever became of them?”

“They moved away. They’re all dead now. We never saw much of them, except for the one who…” His voice trailed off and he looked troubled.

“Who what?” I said.

“Who was… different.”

“Retarded?”

“No.”

“Crippled?”

“It doesn’t matter. We kept her with us, and it was all right. But she couldn’t have gotten an education anyway, because she was a girl as well as a Negro, so it doesn’t matter. She was a sweet little girl, all her life.”

I looked at him for a while, wanting to ask him more about his family, but then I decided that perhaps I should not. He said, “You ever married?”

“I was engaged once.”

“Oh? What happened?”

“I met Kellem.”

“Oh. I wonder if she was ever married.”

“Yes, she was.”

“Really? What ever became of her husband?”

“Make a guess, Jim.”

He frowned. “You mean, she-”

“Right.”

“Oh.” He spent some time thinking about that, then looked at my chest again and said, “I wonder if that bothers her.”

I threw away a snappy answer and actually thought about it, wondering too, but I couldn’t make up my mind. How much of Laura did it explain? What happens when you’re driven to something by your animal needs and then come to regret it? I don’t know. I avoid that problem by never doing anything I’ll have cause to regret, but in her case-

Rubbish. What difference does it make? She is who she is, and how she got that way is none of my concern.

Still, it does give one to think.

Jim said, “You’ve been writing a great deal.”

“Yes,” I said. “It eases my mind.”

He frowned. “Sometimes when you say things, I don’t know if you’re being ironic.”

“Sometimes neither do I,” I said.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Why are you so involved in writing down everything that happens?”

I shrugged. It made me uncomfortable to talk about; I don’t know why. I said, “When it’s all done I’ll have it published and I’ll become a famous author.”

“Now,” he said, “you are being ironic.”

“Yes.”

“I had a friend who wrote a book once.”

“Oh?”

“He said it was more work than it was worth.”

“It probably is,” I said.

We drifted off onto other subjects that I don’t remember very well. After a while I became restless and left, making my way over to Susan’s, where I made certain that she was alone before I knocked on the door.

She was in a mood to go out, so I took her to a motion picture at one of those places with about nineteen screens under one roof. The picture was called Another 48 Hours, and it was an enjoyable film, if mindless. I thought the girl in the cage was quite attractive.

So did Susan.

After the movie we went back to her house and sat around for a while, just talking.

She said, “Jonathan, are you ever going to spend the night with me?”

I felt, I admit, a certain thrill at the question, along with worry that she might insist on an answer. I said, “I’m glad that you want me to.”

We were sitting on the couch, my arm about her shoulders. She moved a little closer to me. I said, “There will be a time to talk of the future, perhaps, but now isn’t it.”

“I hadn’t been speaking about the rest of our lives.”

“No. Nor am I encouraging you to. If we decide that we want to talk of such things, we always can. There is no need to just now, don’t you think?”

“I agree,” she said, which took care of the discussion of sleeping arrangements for the moment. I moved toward her, pressing her very gently back onto the couch. I was careful; she was so very, very sweet.

Sometime later I returned home to this faithful typewriting machine to pour out my confusions; or, at any rate, to recount the experiences of the day. Now they are recounted, and there is nothing to add.

I went over to the Tunnel today to look at the sights and to think. There was a tall, bearded, scraggly-looking fellow standing in the recess of a building, and as I passed he asked if I could give him some money.

“No,” I said.

He said, “Are you sure, man? Even five dollars would help.”

That stopped me. I turned to him and said, “Five dollars? Five dollars? What happened to ‘can you spare a dime’?”

He looked puzzled, and I walked on. If I’d been him, I’d have made a remark about inflation, but I don’t think he was of entirely sound mind. The result, however, was that I happened to notice a United Way billboard that I’d passed a hundred times before, and it got me thinking about charities.

I’ve never given anything to charity; I don’t know why. I am not a heartless man, but something about giving money to I know not what organization to do I know not what with is repugnant to me. I have helped my friends when they needed help, and I expect them to do the same, and it isn’t even that I don’t care what happens to complete strangers, and don’t wish them the best.

Maybe it’s that it all seems so futile.

No answers, here, but it is another thing to think about, since I seem to have become involved in self- examination lately, for whatever reason.

Everyone, and I include myself, has a need, I think, to feel that he is helping other people. Some of us limit it to friends, others want to help strangers, while still others eschew what they consider trivialities and find whatever cause seems to them to strike at either the most important issues or the most fundamental. It’s hard to say that any of these methods is better or worse than any others.

No, I take that back. I don’t like being approached on the street, or by charities, because they make me think

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