Sleep isn’t so important. I’ll go up there to the monument and talk to him a little while. Let the world sleep! You see. I’m free to do as I please. I’m really better off than a millionaire. . . .”
“Then there’s nothing more we can do for you?” I said, cutting him short. “You’ve got everything you need, you’ve got your health, you’re happy. . . .”
I had no more than uttered the word happy when his face suddenly changed and, grasping me by both arms with a steely grip, he wheeled me around and gazing into my eyes with a look I shall never forget, he broke forth: “Happy? Listen, you’re a writer—you should know better than that. You know I’m lying like hell. Happy?
Why, brother, you’re looking at the most miserable man on earth.” He paused a moment to brush away a tear. He was still holding me firmly with both hands, determined apparently that I should hear him out. “I didn’t bump into you accidentally tonight,” he continued. “I saw you coming along and I sized you both up.
I knew you were artists and that’s why I collared you. I always pick the people I want to talk to. I didn’t lose any glasses at the bar, nor did I give my car to a dealer to sell for me.
But everything else I told you is true. I’m just hoofing it from place to place. I’ve only been out of the pen a few weeks. They’ve got their eye on me still—somebody’s been trailing me around town, I know it. One false move and they’ll clap me back in again.
I’m giving them the runaround. If I should go up to the circle now and accidentally fall asleep on a bench they’d have the goods on me. But I’m too wary for that. I’ll just amble about leisurely and when I’m good and ready I’ll turn in. The bartender’ll fix me up in the morning. . . . Look, I don’t know what kind of stuff you write, but if you’ll take a tip from me the thing to do is to learn what it is to suffer. No writer is any good unless he’s suffered. . . .”
At this point Rattner was about to say something in my behalf, but I motioned to him to be silent. It was a strange thing for me to be listening to a man urging me to suffer. I had always been of the opinion that I had had more than my share of suffering. Evidently it didn’t show on my face.
Or else the fellow was so engrossed with his own misfortunes that he was unable or unwilling to recognize the marks in another. So I let him ramble on. I listened to the last drop without once seeking to interrupt him.
When he had finished I held out my hand for the last time to say good-bye. He took my hand in both of his and clasped it warmly. “I’ve talked your head off, haven’t I?” he said, that strange ecstatic smile lighting up his face. “Look, my name is So-and-So.” It sounded like Allison or Albertson.
He began digging for his wallet. “I’d like to give you an address,” he said, “where you could drop me a line.” He was searching for something to write on, but couldn’t seem to find a card or blank piece of paper among the litter of documents he earned in that thick wallet. “Well, you give me yours,” he said. “That will do. I’ll write you some time.”
Rattner was writing out his name and address for the fellow. He took the card and put it carefully in his wallet. He waited for me to write mine.
“I have no address,” I said. “Besides, we’ve got nothing more to say to each other. I don’t think we’ll ever meet again. You’re bent on destroying yourself, and I can’t stop you, nor can anybody else. What’s the good of pretending that we’ll write one another?
Tomorrow I’ll be somewhere else and so will you. All I can say is I wish you luck.” With that I pulled the door open and walked into the lobby of the hotel. Rattner was still saying good-bye to him.
As I stood there waiting for the elevator boy he waved his hand cheerily. I waved back. Then he stood a moment, swaying on his heels and apparently undecided whether to go towards the monument or turn round and look for a flop. Just as the elevator boy started the lift going he signalled for us to wait.
I signalled back that it was too late. “Go on up,” I said to the boy. As we rose up out of sight our friend stood there in front of the hotel door peering up at us with a blank expression. I didn’t feel that it was a lousy thing to do, leave him standing there like that. I looked at Rattner to see how he felt about it.
He sort of shrugged his shoulders. “What can you do with a guy like that?” he said, “he won’t let you help him.” As we entered the room and turned on the lights, he added: “You surely did give him a jolt when you told him he was happy. Do you know what I thought he was going to do?
I thought he was going to crack you. Did you notice the look that came over him? And when you refused to give him your name and address, well that just about finished him. I couldn’t do that. I’m not reproaching you—I just wonder why you acted that way. You could just as well have let him down easy, couldn’t you?”
I was about to smile, but so many thoughts entered my head at once that I forgot and instead I frowned.
“Don’t get me wrong,” said Rattner, misinterpreting my expression. “I think you were damned patient with him. You hardly said a word all evening. . . .”
“No, it’s not that,” I said. “I’m not thinking of myself. I’m thinking of all the fellows like him I’ve met in one short lifetime. Listen, did I ever tell you about my experience with the telegraph company? Hell, it’s late and I know you’re fagged out.
So am I. But I just want to tell you one or two things. I’m not trying to defend myself, mind you. I’m guilty, if you like. Maybe I could have done something, said something—I don’t know what or how.
Sure, I did let him down. And what’s more I probably hurt him deeply. But I figured it would do him good, if you can believe that. I never crossed him once, did I, or criticized him, or urged him to change his ways?
No, I never do that. If a man is determined to go to the dogs I help him—I give him a little push if needs be. If he wants to get on his feet I help him to do that. Whatever he asks for. I believe in letting a man do as he pleases, for good or bad, because eventually well all wind up in the same place.
But what I was starting to tell you is this—I’ve heard so many terrible tales, met so many guys like this Allison or Albertson, that I’ve hardly got an ounce of sympathy left in me. That’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s true.
Get this—in one day, sometimes, I’ve had as many as a half-dozen men break down and weep before me, beg me to do something for them, or if not for them, for their wives and children. In four years I hardly ever had more than four or five hours’ sleep a night, largely because I was trying to help people who were helpless to help themselves. What money I earned I gave away; when I couldn’t give a man a job myself I went to my friends and begged them to give a man the work he needed.
I brought them home and fed them; I fixed them up on the floor when the beds were full. I got hell all around for doing too much and neglecting my own wife and child. My boss looked upon me as a fool, and instead of praising me for my efforts bawled hell out of me continually.
I was always between two fires, from above and from below. I saw finally that no matter how much I did it was just a drop in the bucket. I’m not saying that I grew indifferent or hardened. No, but I realized that it would take a revolution to make any appreciable change in conditions.
And when I say a revolution I mean a real revolution, something far more radical and sweeping than the Russian revolution, for instance. I still think that, but I don’t think it can be done politically or economically. Governments can’t bring it about.
Only individuals, each one working in his own quiet way. It must be a revolution of the heart. Our attitude towards life has to be fundamentally altered. We’ve got to advance to another level, a level from which we can take in the whole earth with one glance. We have to have a vision of the globe, including all the people who inhabit it—down to the lowest and the most primitive man.
“To come back to our friend. . . . I wasn’t too unkind to him, was I? You know
