Enter Without Desire

CHAPTER THREE

ONE OF THE CORNY JOKES you heard in the army was: “You never had it so good.”

That was pretty true for me, I got more than my share of breaks in the army. At the start I remained at Fort Dix for nearly three months. Guys were being shipped out on all sides of me, but my name was never called. Our regiment, company, battalion, or whatever we were, was made up of a small permanent cadre of several enlisted men, all “old” army men, meaning they had been in six months or a year, and a Captain Drake, a dapper little man about thirty-five years old. His uniform was always sharply pressed, he walked with an inflated strut, spoke with a drawl, and happily was rarely seen. I was made a barracks orderly, meaning after morning inspection I had nothing to do for the rest of the day.

On week-ends I came in to New York and saw Mary Jane, and one day I walked into Kimball on Lexington Avenue and she made a fuss over my being in uniform and bought me a fine wrist-watch on the spot.

I was taking things easy, doing a lot of sketching of the various faces in camp, plenty of reading, and soaking up hours of sack time. For the first time in my life I had no worries about rent or food, and the army showed me the fallacy of this goosing finger of fate we call ambition. I mean, a joker hustles and wears the correct clothes and puts up a big front to impress his boss—and zowie, the army calls him and all that energy is wasted because now he's merely another buck-ass private under a non-com who happened to be called a few months before our joker-buddy. So he bucks like hell for stripes in the army, brown-noses everybody in sight, and maybe by the time the war is over, he has sergeant stripes and then—zowie, they discharge him and he's a nobody civilian again and has to start the apple polishing all over again. Now I don't mean a guy shouldn't try to get ahead—but not too hard, should make that his whole life. You push so much, you never get a chance to enjoy life, and one day you'll push yourself into the grave and they'll shovel dirt on your face and on your tombstone they'll chisel, Where Did It All Get You?

The trouble was, after a time I got restless at Dix. I dropped in to see Captain Drake, gave him a clumsy salute, asked if my records had been lost or something. He said, “Jameson, you're a Kentucky boy and ah'm from the South, too. Figured ah'd rather have you getting these soft jobs around here than any of these here Northern boys. Sick to my belly with talking to Jews and wops and micks. About a year or so, they'll throw mah can out of here and ah'll take you with me. All right with you, boy?”

“Yes, sir. Only—well there is a war on. I sort of feel useless here.”

“You got spunk, son. But ah let you go and sure as shooting you'll be shipped to the infantry. Know you don't want that. Boy, what were you doing in civilian life?”

It was a good thing I wasn't drunk on PX beer at the moment—one more “boy” and I might have socked his skinny jaw. I said, “I was an artist—advertising art.”

Drake was impressed, said, “See what I can do for you, Jameson.”

I cinched the deal by giving him a pen-and-ink drawing of himself. A week later I was sent out of Dix on a one-man shipping list, stationed at Lexington Avenue and 46th Street. I was part of a special-service outfit that made posters. We had a chicken officer who must have got a rake-off from the shoe polish companies. We had to march along crowded Lexington Avenue, trying to look like soldiers, and all the people staring at us as though we were. I felt more of a fraud than in Dix. It was very frustrating.

Also, I was seeing Mary Jane every night and I wanted to get away from her. Poor Mary was at least working in a defense plant in New Jersey and I didn't want to be a tin soldier. I casually mentioned to the first looey who was our CO. that I didn't think the war effort was really dependent upon whether we shined our damn shoes or not. Two days later I was back in Dix and out the same night on a troop train heading for Fort Benning, Georgia.

Infantry basic wasn't as rugged as football training and it felt fine to get into shape again. But one morning when they had us hitting the dirt—running and throwing ourselves on the ground—breaking the fall by digging the butt end of our rifles into the hard earth—I took a heavy fall and had a headache that scared hell out of me.

On sick call I told the doc about having had a concussion and they took X-rays and stuff. To my surprise I was soon on my way to an artillery outfit in Kansas where I worked at painting camouflage. It was interesting work and I learned a lot about blending colors. Most of the fellows were artists and I became pals with Sid Spears, who'd been studying sculpture when he got his greetings.

Sid was a tall, thin fellow with a sensitive Jewish face, but he'd been a college boxer and for some unknown reason his skinny frame packed a hell of a wallop. The two of us became a jerky goon squad; we made a good combination—Sid so thin and me so short. We'd get a little liquored up in some dive, start talking a lot of high sounding “art” talk—which was bait for characters who thought wearing a uniform made them rugged, entitled them to make snide cracks about us being “ball-bearing Wacs, charging over the top with fixed paint-brushes.”

It was stupid fun, Sid flooring guys with one punch and me tackling them if he didn't floor them, or throwing them against the walls.

Sid and I came to New York together on leave and had a good time at his place. I wasn't going to see my wife, but I felt like a bastard and finally spent my last two days with her.

After nearly two years in Kansas we were all shipped to Camp Patrick Henry in Newport News, Virginia, I called Mary J. and she bawled over the phone and then I was jammed on a Victory ship for a slow and pleasant crossing of the Atlantic, spent some weeks hangings around Oran in North Africa, sketching the Arabs and the ruined tanks. Then Sid and I and four other fellows were flown to London, and after D-Day, we followed the real soldiers into Paris, lived at a small hotel on Place Clichy, worked eight hours a day drawing maps, making scale topographic models of future battlegrounds.

Of course Paris was terrific and Sid had been there in 1935 and seemed to know a lot of people on the so-called Left Bank. He introduced me to a huge old man with a flowing white beard named Bonard. Bonard liked nothing better than to tell us about the old days of the Left Bank and the Montmartre—as he smoked our cigarettes and took our rations home. He was a sculptor and “home” was a large, dirty old barn on the outskirts of Paris which was also his studio. He had a few heads and small figures around, and I don't think he'd touched any clay in years, but I began fooling around with clay and right away I knew I'd found my medium—this was what I wanted to do. Sculpting was far more satisfactory, more creative than working with paints and brushes. When you made a statue of a woman, by God, there it was—nothing on flat canvas, but something you could touch and handle and feel proud of, as though you had almost created life.

I spent the war in Paris, working on maps during the day, visiting the famous old cafes at night with Bonard, as he talked about Saint-Gaudens, Rodin, Malvina Hoffman, Epstein, about Stein and Hemingway. I heard about the successes, the suicides, and the love affairs of the “old days.” I knew most of the time Bonard was merely repeating gossip, and I didn't believe him when he said he'd been a personal buddy of Gauguin, had in fact urged him to go to the South Seas. Bonard was a grand old liar but he did give me valuable lessons in the human anatomy, and when I slipped him a few cartons of cigarettes, he came up with some plaster and I began making casts of my fingers, my hand, my fist. The first time I tried it, I didn't know plaster grows hot as it hardens, and I screamed like a madman that I was losing my hand as Bonard roared with laughter. Under his instruction I even tried a few heads and one figure, was pleased when he said I had talent. Whenever I could get a jeep, the two of us would drive around examining the various statues with which Paris is studded, Bonard pointing out the good and bad techniques. I became very fond of the old man.

Mary wrote me faithful, insipid letters, sent me packages of stale cookies every week. I sent her perfume, sent Kimball a bottle, and one to my mother—all purchased with packs of cigarettes.

In a sense, Paris was a school for me, with Bonard my teacher. And I studied hard—read everything I could about Rodin, buying pictures of his works, going over them with Bonard.

I imagine Bonard was more amused by Sid and myself than really interested in our work. He could drink two or three quarts of wine at a bull session, and he had a secret supply of wine which he flatly refused to share with us.

“Waste of time, waste of wine. You Americans and your hard liquor—always in a hurry. Wine is a slow sensation, a long delight. Hard liquor, that's for idiots who receive no sensation unless hit over the head. Like I see your soldiers running after the girls on the Pigalle... push, push, and it's over.”

“We're a very sexy bunch,” Sid said, kidding him. Both Sid and myself were so damn scared of getting a dose we left the street-walkers alone.

“Americans understand sex the way you understand wine. You get no satisfaction. In the old days a man went with a woman, even an ugly man and a dumpy woman, and they enjoyed each other. But today the movies have ruined young people. In France too, but especially in America, where the movies are more a part of life.”

“What's movies got to do with it?” I asked.

Bonard fixed his watery eyes on me. “You go with a woman but are you thinking of her? Bah! Her arms are around you and her eyes are closed, but she is seeing Clark Gable, Boyer. And in your mind you are with a Jean Harlow, Mary Pickford, Rita Hayworth or...”

“I don't know about Mary Pickford,” Sid said, winking at me.

“I saw you wink!” Bonard roared. “A wink—shallow as your work, you have not the heart or understanding for art! For you art is like a woman. You Americans, always chasing, hoping in the next woman to find the full enjoyment you do not have with this one—and only because you are thinking of the next, instead of the woman you have.”

“That's too complicated for me,” Sid said. “Bet you were hell with the gals in your day.”

Bonard kissed his fingertips. “Ah, my youth, when there was true love! The dancing of Avril and La Goule in the Moulin Rouge, the singing of pale Yvette Guilbert. Or sitting at the Chat Noir, with Seurat, and Toulouse-Lautrec... the lucky ones, the sons of the rich.”

“Stop it, old man,” Sid said. “That was about 1880, make you at least eighty now.”

“You dare call me the liar?” Bonard screamed, clutching his wine bottle, but looking around for something to throw.

It was a wonderful way of sitting out the war, working hard during the day and believing the maps, your work, was important... spending all my spare time with Bonard. For a time Sid was cool to me. I think he was jealous of Bonard's interest in my work. Sid had reached his art level long ago, a mediocre level, and while he was still the better sculptor, I was progressing and he was standing still. He started hanging out with the other GI's, which was okay with me, since I had Bonard all to myself. One evening the old man asked, “When will you have a free week-end?”

“Get a three-day pass most any time, I think.”

“Good. It is time you work from a model.”

“You mean a live model?”

Bonard groaned, pulled his beard, said in French I had the sense of a mule's rear, then added in English, “The purpose of a model is to get the breath of life into your work. For a death mask we need the lifeless, for now you need the living—a nude woman.” The old man puffed on a cigarette, waited for me to say something.

I didn't know what to say. Finally I said, “Okay.”

Bonard banged his big hands together. “The croak of the idiot... okay, okay, okay! Mon Dieu, you show no interest. I, an old man, am wasting precious time with you!”

“Sure I'm excited. How do we get a model?”

“I will bring the model, a great-grandchild of mine, Yvonne. Her face leaves much to be desired, but the lines of youth are in her body. Three days of intense work in my studio. Of course, it will not be cheap.”

“How much?”

“One carton of cigarettes for her mother. At least two cartons for Yvonne—she needs clothes. As for myself, I only ask two cartons—and some cans of rations, so we may eat as we work.”

Bonard had been smoking (and selling) my butts for months. I shook my head, said, “Take me a month to save that many. Can't we do it for less?”

“Yvonne has never posed before, it will take much pleading for her mother to trust the child in my care. Your friend Sidney, it would do him no harm to stir his lazy soul, strain his small talent—join us for a week-end of work.”

I told Sid about it that night, and at first he wasn't interested. But after a lot of sales talk on my part, he agreed. We went through our outfit borrowing cigarettes, telling everybody we had a terrific “shack job” coming up, mortgaging our PX rations for the next two months.

We arrived at Bonard's barn on a Thursday night with the butts, cans of C rations and boxes of K rations, candy bars, a couple bottles of coke, plus a bottle whose label claimed it was cognac.

Bonard soon had a hot meal going and, as usual, his bottle of wine. Yvonne was disappointing: a sullen, horse-faced thin kid about IS years old, she was dressed in her worn best, ate greedily, and never spoke.

After supper, she immediately went to sleep in a room at one end of the barn as Bonard showed us our straw beds, set up the work tables, helped us make two small wire armatures. He had managed to get fifteen pounds of raw clay, which was wrapped in a dirty, wet cloth.

The old man was in one of his talkative moods. For the tenth time he told us about his true love—a laundress who'd been the best can-can dancer in the Montmartre. He went into modest details about his ability in bed, the firm body of the laundress... while Sid and I numbed ourselves with cognac, which tasted like a poor-grade shellac. When Sid began to yawn, Bonard shouted, “Sleep, idiot, it is a waste of air to talk to this generation! Sleep may give cleverness to your fingers tomorrow—surely nothing else will!”

Sid stood up, a little angry. “Time magnifies everything, even your sex life. Bet you couldn't even pay your way into that laundress' bed.”

Bonard staggered to his feet, looking around madly for something to throw. As he reached for the armature on my table, I grabbed him, said, “Easy, he only jokes.”

“Jokes!” Bonard slapped his flowing beard, suddenly pointed a fat finger at us. “I tell you one thing that is no joke—I have never been a pimp!”

“You've had too much wine, old man,” I said. “Nobody said you...”

He pointed toward Yvonne's stall-like room. “I will stand no funny business with her, understand? She is in my trust.”

Sid burst out laughing. “You have no reason to worry, not with her.”

I grinned. “As you said yourself, she is only a child with a face that leaves much to be desired.”

“I warn you, for your sakes, the little one is well able to protect her honor.” Bonard took a last swig of wine, staining his beard and killing the bottle. “Now we sleep the good sleep.”

Sid and I lay on our straw beds, listening to the old man snoring, the running of mice—sorry we hadn't thought to bring mattress covers along. To my surprise I slept well, without battling any bugs.

The morning was muggy and after a quick breakfast, we started working the clay. At a nod from Bonard, Yvonne mounted a box, fumbled with her dress, let it slip to her feet.

She stood there, blushing a bit, and she was still a scrawny kid, but the lines of her thighs were soft, and her tiny breasts two delicate buds. Stepping out of her dress, she told Bonard to fold it neatly, then he had her move about till she found a relaxed pose she was able to hold for five or ten minutes at a time.

We worked hard, Bonard fussing over us, full of sarcastic cracks about Sid and I being unusual men—born with ten thumbs. By lunch we both had a rough sketch, about a foot high. As she made lunch—dressed again, of course—Sid kept watching Yvonne. He said, “More I see of her, prettier she gets.”

“I know. It's because we haven't been with a woman for so long.”

Sid said, “Don't make a pass at her, kiddy. She's just a kid and after all, Bonard is doing us a favor.”

“Stop it. What you think I am, a slob?”

Sid winked. “I merely think you're like me, not made of stone.”

I was happy with my work that afternoon. While Sid's figure was mechanical and stiff, mine held a certain flowing movement—the clay seemed to come alive in my hands. When it grew dark and we stopped, Bonard said to Sid, “Your work looks like a human being, not a cow. That can be called progress, I suppose.” Looking at my figure, he added, “You have the lines of the legs very well.”

“Marshal Rodin, Jr.,” Sid said, curtly.

It was too muggy that night to sleep. The damn barn seemed full of the chatter of mice, the musty odor of hay. Bonard was snoring like a motor, and in the middle of the night I heard Sid get up and leave the barn. He accidentally awoke me when he returned and I asked, “Cooler outside?”

“Yeah,” Sid said sleepily.

Putting on pants and shoes, I stepped outside. The weeds and grass around the barn were high—it was easy to see where Sid had walked—the trampled grass led straight to Yvonne's window. There was enough moonlight to see her—wearing a thin slip—stretched out on the straw, eyes open. She was slowly eating a candy bar. Sid had come prepared.

We stared at each other for a moment, then she came noiselessly to the window. I whispered in my best French that she was beautiful.

“Merci.” A tiny smile gave her face a Madonna quality.

I suddenly took her in my arms and she kissed me hard, then pulled away, shaking her head and saying, “Fini, fini.”

I blew a kiss at her like a fool and walked away... jealously wondering if Sid had been with her, thinking what a lousy thing it was to do... and wanting her something fierce.

On Saturday I couldn't keep my mind on sculpting, Yvonne's skinny body seemed to take on sensuous curves. My fingers were listless and Bonard ranted and raved. Sid did better, had luck with the head and face. Yvonne had the same blank expression on her face, although Sid and I tried to joke with her at lunch.

After supper I went to the musette bag we were sharing and all the candy bars were gone. When I asked Sid, he acted surprised, said, “I got hungry, ate them. Why?”

“You dirty bastard 1” I said, and walked out of the barn.

I was too angry to sleep. Sid got up as soon as Bonard started to snore. I waited a moment, then followed him. He was at the window, giving Yvonne five bars of candy, when I said, “Damn it, she's only a child!”

He spun around. “That's why I'm giving her candy. I never touched...”

“Bull! She Bonard's great-grandchild and you have to mess up like a dog in heat!”

“Take it easy, Marsh. I didn't do a damn thing... but how come you're out here? What did you want the candy for, kiddy?”

Yvonne was eating the candy, watching us without interest.

“I came out to protect the kid.”

“I bet!”

Yvonne held a finger to her lips for silence.

I whispered, “I'm going to beat the slop out of you! Raping this...”

“Stop talking like a jerk. No point fighting, nothing happened,” Sid said. “And let's get away from here, before we wake the old gent.”

We walked out to the road and I suddenly turned and measured Sid, swung on him.

The night turned very dark and when I came to, I saw Sid's thin face over me, wet with tears. I was lying with my head in his lap. He moaned, “Marsh! Thank God you're alive!”

I sat up, my head spinning, felt of my jaw... I'd forgotten how he could punch.

Sid was still crying. “I could cut off my hand! Marsh, you're my best pal and I slugged you, you with your concussion...!”

“That was years ago,” I said, standing up, brushing myself off.

Sid jumped to his feet. “Honest, Marsh, you feel okay?”

“Sure,” I said, rubbing my jaw. “Must have been nuts to swing on you, way you wallop.”

Sid began laughing so hard he started to cry again. “Marsh, you scared the living crap out of me. I thought you were dead! And listen, I never laid the kid. That's the truth.”

I wanted to grin but my jaw hurt. “I know. I couldn't get no place with her last night, either. Now let's get some sleep and stop acting like dopes.”

We worked till late Sunday afternoon and Bonard was fairly happy with my work—I thought it was great. As we were dressing to go back to the hotel, he said, “About Yvonne, I am glad you both acted with honor. For the sake of my family and your health. Watch.”

We were sipping the last of the alleged cognac, and Yvonne was nibbling those horrible K-ration crackers that tasted like dog biscuits. Bonard opened a sharp little gold pen knife and handed it to her, then tossed part of a cracker in a corner of the barn. He held up a hand for silence, pointing toward the cracker.

I thought he was off his rocker, but after a few minutes a gray rat came out and sniffed at the cracker, Yvonne suddenly threw the knife—a clean expert motion—the blade went through .the rat, pinning him to the rotten floor.

We stared at the tiny pool of dark blood forming under the rat, who thrashed about for a second and then quietly died. It was a hell of a knife throw. I glanced at Sid and he was sweating too. I mumbled, “This is a rough war.”

Sid said, “M-Marsh, you saved my life.... Why we could of been killed!”

With the invasion of Germany we moved out of Paris and for a time were soldiers again, sleeping in tents, eating out of mess kits. We even rushed into the Battle of the Bulge—after a few hours of frantic carbine practice—but got there too late.

When the war was over I didn't exactly know what I wanted to do. I would have liked to stay overseas as long as possible, but I couldn't bring myself to sign up for the occupation army, so I was sent to a repple-depple in the south of France, and there was little chance of getting to Paris. I made a half-hearted attempt to get a job as a truck driver with the Red Cross, so I could be discharged overseas, but nothing came of it.

The repple-depple was crowded, noisy, and uncomfortable, and being among combat soldiers made me a little ashamed. Sid was sent back to the States in October, 194S. Although I had enough points to get out—I'd been in longer than most of the other men—I kept trying to get back to Paris on some sort of assignment. There was talk about going to a French college under the G.I. Bill, but nobody at the camp knew how to go about it, and it ended up as a latrine rumor. There wasn't any privacy in the camp and I couldn't do any sculpting. Finally, in December, I was fed up with the damp cold, stopped ducking shipping lists, and returned to the States. I didn't bother with a leave, but was sent back to Dix and discharged.

I hadn't been a soldier, merely a tourist with corporal stripes.

Mary Jane was living in a large four-room apartment in Flushing. She had spent several years working in an aircraft instrument plant, had over two grand in the bank besides a lot of new furniture. Mary looked swell, slim and even a bit sophisticated. For a few weeks we just hung around the apartment, doing a lot of bottle and bed work. I thought for a time we might make a go of it, but things wore thin again. We simply didn't have anything in common.

For the hell of it I saw Kimball once and that turned out to be a disappointing evening—now she was an elderly woman with wrinkles and dyed hair, trying so desperately hard to be young and gay. New York had been one big Smorgasbord table for Kimball during the war years, and she was bubbling over with stories about all the soldiers she had been “friends with.” Somehow the stories seemed old hat to me.

For many months I didn't do a thing but sleep a lot, lounge around the apartment, write to Bonard, tell myself that “tomorrow I'll start sketching, maybe buy clay...”

Mary Jane gave me a wise, patronizing look, as though I'd just been released from a nut-house and had to be humored. One of the current myths of the time was that all soldiers needed “adjustment and readjustment.” It was true I was trying to find myself, but the war had nothing to do with it.

I didn't see Sid for awhile and when we did meet he had changed, no longer wanted to slug somebody after a few shots to demonstrate his punch. He was about to marry a “nice” young girl and work in his in-law's big hardware office. He had paid a thousand under the table for a small apartment in the Village, was going to art school at night, suggested I do the same under the G.I. Bill.

I finally purchased some clay and tools, tried my hand at carving wood—for some stupid reason—and became thoroughly discouraged. I felt too unsettled to do anything for any length of time. I was sending Bonard CARE packages and he wrote once, but his French scrawl was too much for me.

1946 slipped by and we were broke. In '47, Mary tried to get work in an aircraft instrument factory, but they weren't hiring women. She took out her anger with a week's drunk, being sick most of the time, then went back to office work. She began making cracks about me getting off my rear—we couldn't live on her pay—and of course she was right.

Kimball was opening her own agency, having rooked Barrett out of two of his best accounts, and gave me a job doing layout. Little things annoyed me, like having to shave every day, wear a fresh shirt and tie each morning... I didn't have the heart any more for this rat race. I gave it up after a month and went back to my old real estate office, and into the soft routine of collecting rents. With apartments as hard to find as uranium, people were paying their rent promptly, not asking for repairs, so the job was even more of a comfortable rut than before. Although with no repairs, the petty graft was out.

I spent a lot of time at Sid's place, sometimes making a pest of myself. I mean, after all, they only had a two-room place. And if I didn't come home till early morning, or stayed out all night, Mary J. never complained, and that made me feel like a heel. Sometimes I'd try to be a good husband to her, but no dice. I always had this restless feeling, as though waiting for something to happen. And seeing the headlines didn't make me feel any better. Seemed to me the war had been a waste of time, the Nazis were being released as though killing of thousands of people had been as dangerous as passing a red light. Everything had been a waste of time, so far, especially my life.

I got a sudden desire to go home and, to my surprise, Mary thought that was a good idea, and when I got my vacation, I went back to Kentucky.

My answer wasn't there.

Somehow I expected a big change, but nothing had changed, it was like stepping back into my life. Mom looked the same, as if she had grown as old as she ever would while she was young. Pop still looked as though a light breeze would carry him off. I had a new sister who was five years old, the mill was still the mill. Home was still a shack—a shack with a radio and electric toaster and even an electric heater. My oldest brother had left part of his toes in the cold of Dutch Harbor, and another brother had decided to stay in the army and was in Japan.

I was still glad to get away from home.

When I returned to New York, Sid told me he had heard from a friend in Paris that Bonard had died. That was a shock, a kick in the heart. The death of this old wino, this great liar, really upset me. Over a brace of drinks I took stock of one Marshal Jameson and the inventory wasn't much. Bonard's death made me realize life was rushing by and I was still not doing anything I wanted to, cared about. I was getting past the “young man” stage and it was about time I stopped being a bum.

I staggered home about three in the morning, sat on the bed and awoke Mary, told her, “Baby, this is all cockeyed—been wrong from the start. No sense holding on to a vacuum. I want out.”

“You mean, we should separate?”

“That's it.”

“Will you give me a divorce?”

“Of course. That's the best thing I can give you.”

“Marsh,” she asked slowly. “Are you sure it won't... hurt you?”

“Be good medicine for the both of us. When do you want to see a lawyer, get this going and...?”

“Tomorrow.”

Mary must have seen the surprise on my face. I'd expected a lot of hysterics and screaming, and oddly enough, Mary Jane was still so helpless, I couldn't bring myself to hurt her.

Now she said, her voice low and clear in the still room, “I know we haven't been happy. But I didn't want to be the one to bring things to a head. I knew you'd been through a lot in the war and I felt...”

“Stop it, I wasn't a hero. The war was a breeze for me.”

“Marsh, are you sure you can make out okay—alone? I owe you that, at least.”

“Don't worry about me. God, you don't owe me anything. I'm the one who owes. What will you do?”

“I'll see a lawyer in the morning. I think you should sleep on the couch from now on.”

“Sure. You can have the apartment, everything we have. And thanks for taking all this so... bravely.”

“Marsh, this is as good a time as any to tell you. And I meant to tell you, no sneaky stuff, understand. I met a guy during the war. Alfred...”

“What?”

“Don't be angry, I was all alone and worried and... well, there was Alfred. I still see him. He wants to marry me. He's a mechanic, got his own garage now in Jamaica. I would have told you sooner, but at first you were just back from overseas and I couldn't tell you, and then you seemed so... so... upset, I didn't want to do anything to... make you sick. Marsh, I know it was wrong to...”

“It wasn't wrong. What we were doing was the wrong thing—all this pretending. Marry this Alfred, Mary. Have a houseful of kids and be happy,” I said, getting up.

“Marsh, you really don't mind?”

“Everything's all right.” And that night I slept on the couch and pounded my ear like I was drugged, the best sleep I'd had in years.

Four months later Mary got her final decree and remarried. Alfred was a stocky, plodding-type, joker about thirty-five, and rather handsome, even with a bald dome.

At one of Sid's parties I'd met a Mexican girl, Ofelia, who had ideas about making marionettes and going on TV. She had a good singing voice, wasn't a bad actress. I was to make the marionettes. Ofelia was exciting in a sort of nervous way—I never knew what she'd do next. She had a furious temper and was always biting me. The second time I saw her we ended up between the sheets, and she was nervous there, too. She agreed to be the corespondent in our divorce, and we even thought it was rather clever to go to Mary Jane's wedding, where Ofelia was the center of attraction, by dint of passing out.

I gave up my real estate job and moved into a loft Ofelia had made over into an apartment, without much success. I spent all my time experimenting with marionettes, and couldn't make them. They either looked awful, were out of proportion, or didn't work. Ofelia and I began screaming at each other about money, borrowing from all our friends. Finally we were busted and we both got jobs in a factory, and Ofelia started seeing a psycho-analyst, who advised her to get the hell away from me.

I found a crummy room and was bored by factory work. I decided there wasn't any sense in letting the G.I. Bill go to waste, so I enrolled at N.Y.U. to get my degree. I managed to finish a year, but living on $75 a month was tough, and I always had the feeling college was unreal—a time killer. Somehow it was silly for a guy of twenty-eight to be acting like a school-boy. And what good would a B.A. do me?

I tried to change to art school, which made more sense, but they were filled up. So I stayed at school and thought about starting with clay again, but never got past the thinking stage. For one thing I couldn't spare the extra bucks. I tried not to hang around Sid's too much. Sometimes I saw Kimball, mainly when I wanted a decent meal. Kimball was okay, she'd even give me a ten spot when I looked too beat—without a pep talk.

During the following summer I decided to take a vacation from school, meaning no more subsistence money. I got Kimball to buy me a few shirts and took a job as a temporary salesman in one of the big department stores. The place was air-cooled, and not a bad way to spend the summer. I stole paints and brushes from the art counter and did some work.

Sid had bought this shack out at Sandyhook and when I went out there for a week-end, I fell in love with the place. It was a real artists' colony, even had a natural red-clay pit and the clay could be used, if you kept wetting it. There was a beach within walking distance, fine fishing and swimming, and at night a lot of characters anxious to drink and shoot the breeze.

That week-end made me snap out of my daze. I decided I was going to be a sculptor, no matter if I starved. I wasn't eating too regularly anyway. Sculpting was the one thing in life I wanted to do and I was going to give myself a crack at it, stop drifting around. Sid was leaving the place in September and when I asked if I could stay there, he said, “You're welcome to it, Marsh, only... be rough. No heat or hot water. I don't even know if they keep the electricity on in these shacks during the winter.”

“I'll manage. I figure I can live on a buck a day. I want to try it for six months. Save like crazy during the summer, maybe get a night job, too. Then I'll go back to school for a month, get that $75 check. If I can start out with about $250—I'll be in.”—

I got an evening job as a bus boy, which meant I didn't have to pay for my meals. The summer passed in a haze of work, sweating, penny-pinching, and little sleep. But I enjoyed it, I was happy, I was working towards something, had a goal, a purpose. During September I managed to hold on to my two jobs and enroll at college—cutting most of my classes, so that when I went out to Sandyhook the first week in October I had nearly $300.

I spent over seventy bucks for a small oil heater, a hot plate, lead pipes for armatures—to support the figures I'd make, wire, cutters, proportional calipers, and other tools, along with a book on anatomy and a plaster female figure for study.

October was a mild month and I dug up pails of clay and went to work. I was pushing myself, trying to knock out a major work in my first attempt... with the result I developed a very trite idea. I tried doing a small tableau to be called, Mankind, which would have as a base a woman on her stomach and trying to get up, and a man stepping on her back, then part of a leg and a high-heeled slipper on his back—with a section of a man's foot on the knee of this leg. Sure, it was obvious, a corny piece of cynicism, but for some reason I liked the idea and worked hard at it. Didn't bother with sketches or models, just started working on what I was certain would be a “masterpiece.”

October was a good month. I caught up on all the sleep I'd missed during the summer by not getting up till noon. I'd work all afternoon—long as the light held—then go down to the beach for surf casting. Evenings I'd listen to the radio, read, or drop in on the Alvins.

Tony and Alice Alvins were local people who had been influenced by the summer invasion of artists. Tony started doing some bad water-color abstractions, while Alice turned writer and, after doing a trashy novel, she threw it away and started a long book about the Long Island Indians— which was rather good, in spots. They had a comfortable all-year-round house and Tony worked at the Grumman Aircraft factory and made a good salary.

I guess they were glad to have me around: Sandyhook is pretty isolated and lonely in the winter. I'd drop in and bull with them about art, Paris, the Village, and the world in general. Tony had been a combat man, had a Purple Heart, and we often talked about the European towns we'd both been in.

It got so I'd barge in without ringing their bell, get a beer out of the icebox, thumb through their newspapers and magazines, even read Alice's novel over her shoulder as she typed. I'd bring them fish, and sometimes a bottle of rye.

There's such a thing as being too intimate and two petty things came up that ruined our friendship—for me, at least. One day when I was in their house and Alice was out shopping and Tony at work, I was searching through his desk for a pipe cleaner, when I came upon a Luger in one of the drawers. I admired the deadly beauty of the gun, left it where I'd found it. Later, when I casually mentioned it to Tony, he got angry, snapped, “Thought I had that hidden away. Don't see why you had to snoop around and...”

“Sorry. I wasn't snooping,” I said, stiffly. “Well, I don't like people to know about me having a gun.”

“I certainly won't go around blabbing about it I know it's against the law and...”

“I have a permit,” Tony said. “It's... the gun brings back a lot of unpleasant memories. I took it off a dead Nazi—guy I killed. The point is I might have captured the guy alive, but it was in my first combat and I was trigger-souvenir-happy... Well, forget it. Gun means things to me other people can't understand and... Just forget it.”

“Sure, I never saw it,” I said, still angry.

Several weeks later we were sitting around the table after I had helped them put away a duck supper and Alice was talking about the summer colony—some of the people had sent her cards from Mexico. She said, “They have money to travel, but out here they're nothing but spongers. They'll eat you out of house and home and never even think about reciprocating.”

I'm sure she didn't mean that as a dig at me, but it made me uncomfortable, as though I'd outlasted my welcome. From then on I only saw them once or twice a week, instead of every day, never stayed for supper or took a drink. Tony and Alice didn't seem to notice the difference, so maybe it was a hint.

My troubles started in November when Nature lowered the boom on me. It got so cold the water pipes busted and it cost me twenty bucks to have them fixed, and after that I had to keep the water running all the time and the noise drove me crazy. I'd spent far too much money—I had less than a hundred dollars left—so I began cutting down on everything, eating lots of starches and fish. I found a kerosene lamp in one of the empty cottages and used that to save electricity. My radio broke and I didn't bother to fix it. As it grew colder I became a hermit. I'd get up in the morning, force myself to leave the warm blankets. Not wanting to buy oil, I'd made a stove out of some tin cans and I'd run around the beach to find driftwood, and any frozen fish, then dash back to my shack and start the wood fire going.

I'd stuff the door and windows with paper to keep the cold out, and by early afternoon the place would be comfortably warm and I'd start working. By six it would begin to grow dark and I'd knock off. But I stayed in the shack, for to open the door would let out all my precious heat. I'd eat fish and a can of beans, then huddle around the kerosene lamp and read anything I could find—usually this old World Almanac, then climb into my bed, the stuffy air giving me a headache.

Actually I was bored stiff with myself. I knew my “masterpiece” was junk, but I wanted to finish it. The only thing that gave me any confidence was a piece I did of two dogs mounting each other. I saw them on the beach one day, did a quick sketch of them, and later did it in clay as a gag. I'd really caught their movements, and as it turned out, it was the best work I did during those months.

The damn weather turned colder and colder. The clay froze and I had to keep washing it down with a hot damp rag before it was workable. During the second week in December my armature broke and the figure dropped to the floor. Being hard and frozen, the clay broke into a million pieces and... that was that.

I felt trapped. I couldn't go back to New York—I didn't have enough money for carfare and a room, so I started working again, but everything went screwy. Most times I was so hungry I couldn't think of anything but food. Like a pregnant woman, I'd get a driving yen for a steak or a soda, or a drink, and sometimes I'd give in—go to the tavern, have a few shots, watch TV, feel warm and almost human again.

By Christmas I had less than $20 and spent a lot of time on the beach, bundled up in all the clothing I had, picking up frozen fish. I must have eaten fish and beans in every form possible, including a few I invented. I was sick of fish, of the cold, of myself, of being alone. The Alvins asked me over for Christmas dinner, and for some crazy reason I refused—and felt good about it.

I hung around my shack as though it was a jail. I felt completely frustrated, getting no place. Sometimes I told myself I had to start from scratch, remembered Bonard's long conversations about a sculptor knowing as much about the body as a doctor. I'd read my anatomy book, then spent long hours studying my facial muscles in the mirror, or feeling the muscles in my arms and legs... and often wondered if I wasn't going mad.

I'd put my money in a postal savings account, so I wouldn't piss it away. On December 31 I had a dollar and seventy cents in cash on me, and seven bucks in the saving account. It was rainy and windy, the water running in the sink seemed to be streaming through my brain, and I couldn't get the damn shack warm. While trying to find driftwood, 'I stopped and had a few beers. Then I drank some raisin wine I had aging, but it didn't do any good. I tried fooling with some clay but it was too cold to work. I was ready to admit I was licked... I wasn't a sculptor, I wasn't anything but a jerk.

While I heated a pan of water, so I could wash and shave and get out of there, my inner mind kept calmly telling me I had to stick it out, that all my life I'd run from things... that I really hadn't given myself a chance to see if I had any ability.

But I knew I couldn't take it any longer, at least not that night. New Year's Eve never meant a damn to me, but now I had this terrific longing to see people, to be around noise and lights, and I knew I'd really blow my top if I spent another hour in the gloomy shack. I washed and dressed and as I walked toward the road I passed Tony coming home with an armful of packages. He asked, “What time you coming over tonight?”

“Can't make it. Got something on in the city.”

“Oh. We were sort of counting on you—the three of us tying one on. How's the work coming?”

“Great! Happy New Year!” I said, walking on. The goddamn wind nearly tore me apart as I walked to the highway. I stood there, bending to the wind, when I saw this sleek roadster coming and gave it the thumb.

To my surprise it stopped. The driver was a young fellow wearing a tux and I sat down beside him, on my way to New York... to nothing.

I'd blacked out. Now, when I opened my eyes, for a time I didn't know where I was. I stared up at this old boxlike wooden private house and the little garage with the angular roof. All I could see was the ugly square of the house, the sharp roof of the garage. I wanted to see soft curves... it was horrible to realize these dull, conventional designs, this stupid scene, might be my final picture of our earth.

The pain was so absolutely complete it drowned out everything else; I didn't feel it—didn't feel a damn thing. The burning bullet hole in my stomach seemed like part of a different body, vaguely connected to the rest of me. I knew I was bleeding badly, hanging on to life by a thread, corny as that may sound. Only when you're dying nothing seems trite or real, or matters overmuch. In fact, it's difficult to believe you are dying or...

Logan asked, “What is this?”

I shut my eyes.

First the square house and now his face coming into focus—a face so average as to represent all the ugliness of life, a memo of all things banal. It was comical—after all these hustling years, I had to end up a horrid bloody mess in a Bronx back yard.

I still had one thing to do, see Elma again, explain it all to her. Elma baby, I gave it all I had, but it wasn't enough, not nearly enough to...

Hearing the rustle of clothing, I opened my eyes. Logan had his belt and tie off, was bending over me, blotting out the sky. He seemed to be fooling with my guts.

“Trying to get a tourniquet around your thighs,” he said. “Want you alive till the cops get here, so you can explain....”

“Listen,” I said, and it was a great big effort to speak. “Hell with cops. Get my... my... wife. Phone is... Sandyhook... 7... 3... 6. Riverhead operator... Long Island. Mrs. Elma Jameson. Have to... hurry.”

He straightened up. His face looked overbig as he shook his head slowly, repeating, “Mrs. Elma Jameson, Sandyhook.. L.I.?”

I tried to nod, gave that up.

Getting to his feet, he said, “Damn, this sure is...”

“Come on... hurry...!”

He said, “Yeah, that's best,” and left.

What does a dying man think about? Above the house I saw the sky all a clean blue, and the sun out somewheres. Elma be at the beach, take her at least an hour's fast driving to reach me. How could I explain all this to her? What would I say, what made sense? Elma, because I'm so wonderfully crazy in love with you I killed a man, tried to murder this private detective...?

That sounded so melodramatic I wanted to laugh. Oh God, my poor Elma, the headlines would crucify her. If I could only save her from that, or...

The dick was looking down at me again, the uninteresting lines of his clean-cut face. There was a change in his eyes, they held a different sort of puzzled look. He said, “Broke into this house, found a phone. Your wife's on her way. Damn it, why did you go for your gun? Guns are my line, what I'm good at—you didn't have a chance, Mr. Jameson.”

MISTER Jameson! This was a respectful dick, this goddamn snooping bird-dog who'd been sticking his nose into my life these last few months. The crummy things men do for money, for a job.

“If you only hadn't pulled a gun...?”

“Had to,” I told him, my voice like a distant echo. “You were closing the trap on me. Did... lot of trapping... when I was a kid in Kentucky. Used to catch... Will I last till Elma gets here?”

“You're bleeding like a pig but that tourniquet seems to be holding... some. I sure hope you last, Mr. Jameson, till she gets here—or the cops. Christ—the cops!” He began to sweat, it ran down his lean face in big glistening drops.

His wet face disappeared from view. I stared up at the wash-blue sky. Everything was so quiet and peaceful— the only sound was the steady throbbing of my heart, even that was a small sound.

My life was being pumped out in this forgotten Bronx alley... That was okay with me—only Elma would get here a few seconds before that marvelous little machine they called a heart, stopped.

The thought hit me hard.... Suppose I didn't die? That would be a worse mess... the trial, the chair... all be so stupid. Perhaps if I could get the tourniquet loose....

I tried to sit up, tried to raise my arms... a thick black wave washed over me....

... Kept washing over me, as though I was lying on a dark beach....

I heard somebody cursing, quick little cuss-words. I could hear them distinctly because everything else was so quiet... but the words sounded as though they were filtered through a heavy screen.

It took time to open my eyes. The air seemed a little thick, misty, smelted oversweet. I got Logan in focus. He was bending over me... doing something to my wrist... then he was smashing it and my wrist-watch against the cold stone sidewalk. He squatted beside me, asked, “Mr. Jameson, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Get this, I'm giving you a break and it can mean my neck. Remember this, Mr. Jameson, you got shot NOW, busted your watch when you fell. Got that, not a half hour ago but NOW, Mr. Jameson?”

“Yes,” I had to swallow a few times to clear the thick air out of my throat. It was an absurd comedy—he'd just shot me and he was so-so polite.

“Remember that. I'm calling the cops now, an ambulance, so...”

“I thought you... called...?”

“Mr. Jameson, guess you won't be in no shape to say much, but keep remembering you got shot now. I'm going to slip the cops a phony yarn. After I called Mrs. Jameson I fell off the chair in my excitement and ripped the phone out of the wall. It's just a silly enough yarn to hold up. Stupid me, an accident, see? I don't know where I'll find another phone around here, take me time. But I'm going now to phone the cops. I'm giving you a break. Want your wife to get here before the cops do. Then we'll see. Mr. Jameson, buddy, you got to understand how I'm sticking my neck out. I can be in a holy mess of trouble, real trouble, but I'm doing this for you. Understand?”

“Thanks,” I said, not knowing what he was talking about.

“All you got to do is hold on, live till Mrs. Jameson gets here. Mean, I couldn't say much over the phone and...”

“I'll live... till Elma comes,” I said, wishing he would go away. When you have minutes left in life, no point in wasting them talking to a stranger.

Something was wrong with Logan, he looked worried, still sweating. I could see him pretty clear through the thick air. He'd nothing to be afraid of, shot me in self-defense... that clumsy, long gun barrel.

I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, the lids were too heavy. As I closed them, he said something. I felt him walking away, feeling the jar of each of his steps on the stone—shaking me a bit.

I felt all soft and weak, terribly lazy. The only thing that kept me from drifting away on the dark wave was the throbbing of my heart, which seemed to nail me to the spot.

I wondered how long it would hold me there. “Elma, Elma,” I said to myself, and how beautiful the mere sound of her name was! “Darling... hurry... please.”