by John O'Hara
Of the shorter criticism, Phillip Eppard collected some essays in his Critical Essays on John O’Hara (New York: G. K. Hall, 1994), which seems more insightful and various than some previous pamphlet-length attempts at criticism by such authors as Russell E. Carson, Sheldon Norman Grebstein, Robert Emmet Long, and Charles C. Walcutt, who have studied mainly O’Hara’s novels. My own John O’Hara: A Study of the Short Fiction (New York: Twayne, 1999) contains a number of essays on O’Hara’s stories, which Eppard didn’t include (or couldn’t have included), and also a long essay on the stories in which I attempt to chart O’Hara’s story-writing career, more or less systematically.
Although copies of the John O’Hara Journal, published from 1979 to 1983, are all but impossible to come by, there is a website—oharasociety.blogspot.com—sponsored by the John O’Hara Society, a small group of non-academic O’Hara fans who meet on the Internet (and occasionally in New York City, Princeton, or Philadelphia) to discuss the man, his books, his career, and related matters. Those interested in reading O’Hara’s short nonfiction (he wrote columns in various newspapers and magazines from time to time) can find them collected in Sweet and Sour (New York: Random House, 1954) and My Turn (New York: Random House, 1966), while his critical work on writers and writing has been collected by Bruccoli in An Artist Is His Own Fault (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977). Like the prefaces to the short story collections, these collections contain O’Hara’s literary views at their most acerbic, and the Selected Letters of John O’Hara (New York: Random House, 1978), edited also by Bruccoli, contains insights into the composition and themes of many of O’Hara’s stories.
But mostly, for the dedicated reader of the short fiction, there are the stories themselves. O’Hara published more than four hundred of them; reading them all is a satisfying goal for any O’Hara completionist.
A Note on the Text
The stories in this collection have been taken from the periodicals in which they first appeared (mostly The New Yorker) and the hardcover collections they typically appeared in shortly afterward. I have also used some paperback editions and collections published after O’Hara’s death to see how certain textual discrepancies have been resolved.
The difficulty in editing O’Hara is that he declared his independence from convention in rendering colloquial American English, particularly in dialogue and in the dialect he used heavily at the beginning of his career. For example, in the story “First Day in Town,” when he has a show-business outsider speak of “Eli Kazan,” referring to the famous director, a scrupulous proofreader might simply flag this as a misspelling of “Elia,” or it might be O’Hara’s deliberate attempt to show how this outsider had mistaken “Elia” for the more common “Eli,” or how this character clipped the “a” in his pronunciation of “Elia.” Because O’Hara enjoyed playing phonetic tricks to indicate his speaker’s eccentricities, it is never safe to assume that a seeming error was due to O’Hara’s negligence, and so it remains rendered here as “Eli Kazan.” When some editor tried correcting O’Hara’s usage, in a story not included here, of the 1960s slang term “Cloud 90,” saying that the dictionary did not recognize it, O’Hara dismissed him, saying, “Dictionary people consult me, not I them.” O’Hara famously relied on his ear to guide him in rendering spoken English, though I question his infallibility. Anyone who listens closely to English being spoken will commit an error now and then, and I have corrected the occasional obvious error but have mostly left O’Hara’s idiosyncrasies as they appeared in his published works.
In the story “Bread Alone,” the protagonist, a black New Yorker during the Depression, speaks of his “sets” at Yankee Stadium. Is this a dialectal rendering intended to show how this character would have pronounced “seats,” or a typo that O’Hara (and his various editors) did not catch? I was inclined to retain “sets”—it appears this way in the original New Yorker story and the reprinted version in Pipe Night—but I found that in The Collected Stories of John O’Hara, published in 1984, and in Selected Stories of John O’Hara, published in 2003, it is spelled “seats.” So there is precedent both ways; which way is the error? Never having heard the word pronounced by any New Yorker, of any race or background, as “sets,” I’ve decided to follow recent editorial precedent.
Another example of ambiguity: In the story “Good-bye, Herman,” the title character’s last name is “Wasservogel,” which the protagonist’s wife mispronounces slightly as “Wasserfogel.” (The authentic Germanic “v” has a good deal of “f” in its sound.) The protagonist himself, who grew up with Wasservogel, is shown to pronounce it properly, and his rendering is spelled correctly. But toward the end of the story, the wife’s pronunciation seems to change, and in her speech, the name is now spelled with a “v.” Some editors have changed the spelling of “Wasservogel” in her dialogue as the story progresses; because I think it’s interesting that this pronunciation change could reflect a subtle sign of some change in her attitude, I leave it in.
In all cases I have simply tried to do right by O’Hara, and to make changes only where I think he would have concurred. But even in trying to respect his wishes, there are some tricky points. In one early, and wonderful, O’Hara morality tale, the ambiguous moral is expressed in a single word that happens to be the story’s title: “sportsmanship.” Except that isn’t exactly the word O’Hara uses, either in the title or in the climax of the tale—not in The New Yorker or in any of the several hardbound, softbound, or collected reprints. In those, O’Hara has (intentionally or carelessly?) omitted the middle “s,” and the word appears as “sportmanship” throughout. This story is one in which O’Hara is still employing freely the use of dialect (his characters say things like “I think I smell sumpn” and “How long id take you?”), so it is possible that in omitting the “s” he is indicating some obscure local pronunciation, but if he is, as with “sets,” it is a pronunciation that no New Yorker I’ve known has ever employed, nor any dictionary, either. On the off chance that O’Hara is purposefully omitting a letter, and with no precedent for anyone having previously treated “sportmanship” as a typo, I have let it stand, if only as a token of respect for his stylistic idiosyncrasies and innovations.
Elsewhere, O’Hara’s idiosyncratic spellings mostly prevail (“cheque,” “theatre,” “glamor,” etc.), except where they are internally inconsistent—O’Hara uses “gray” and “grey” interchangeably and without any pattern I can find, so I’ve standardized the spelling in the American style. He consistently omits the comma in the phrase “No, thanks,” which would change the meaning from a polite negation to a rude assertion, but I have let that stand, too, in deference to his consistent usage.
STEVEN GOLDLEAF
AGATHA
Both dogs had been out. She could tell by the languid way they greeted her and by the fact that Jimmy, the elevator operator, had taken his twenty-five-cent piece off the hall table. Or was it Jimmy? Yes, Jimmy was on mornings this week; Ray was on afternoons and evenings. Jimmy liked dogs, Ray did not. The day was off to a better start when Jimmy took the dogs for their morning walk; it was nicer to start the day with the thought that Jimmy, who liked dogs, had exercised them, and not Ray, who made no attempt to conceal his distaste for the chore. Ray was paid a quarter, just the same as Jimmy, for taking the dogs down to the corner, but Mrs. Child had very good reason to believe that that was all he did—take them to the corner, and hurry right back without letting them stop at the curb.
“Good morning, boys,” she said, addressing the dogs. They shook their tails without getting up. “Oh, you’re such spoiled boys, you two. You won’t even rise when a lady enters the room. Muggsy, don’t you know that a gentleman always stands up when a lady comes in? You do know it, too, and you’re not a very good example to your adopted brother, are you? How can I expect Percy to have good manners if you don’t show him how? Percy, don’t you pay a bit of attention to Muggsy and his bad manners.” The do
gs raised their heads at the sound of their names, but when she finished speaking they slowly put their heads back on their paws. “Oh, you’re hopeless, the two of you. Really hopeless. I don’t see why I put up with two such uncouth rascals.”
She proceeded to the kitchen door and pushed it open. “Good morning, Mary,” she said.
“Good morning, Mrs. Child,” said the maid. “I heard you running your tub. Will you have toast this morning?”
“Just one slice, please. Maybe two slices, but bring me my coffee first, will you?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“I didn’t see any mail. Was there any?”
“Got it here on the tray. Which’ll you have? Marmalade, or the blackberry jam?”
“Mary, you’re not cooperating at all. You know perfectly well if you mention marmalade or jam, I’ll have marmalade or jam, and I’m trying not to.”
“Oh, if I don’t mention it you’ll ask for it.”
“I’m such a weak, spineless creature. All right, you mean old Mary Moran, you. You know me much too well. I’ll have the blackberry jam. Were there any packages?”
“None so far, but United Parcel don’t usually get here before noontime. That’s the way it works out. Some neighborhoods they only deliver in the afternoon, some in the morning. I guess they have a system.”
“And speaking of other neighborhoods, when am I going to be able to lure you away from Mrs. Brown?”
“Oh—I don’t know about that, Mrs. Child,” said Mary Moran. “Will you have your first cup standing up?”
“No, I’ll wait. I’ll be in the livingroom,” said Mrs. Child.
Mary Moran would have been expensive, and there really wasn’t enough work to keep her busy, but Mrs. Child knew that Mary’s other employer, Mrs. Brown, had been trying to persuade her to give up Mrs. Child and work full-time for her. It did no harm, every once in a while, to remind Mary that she had a full-time job waiting for her with Mrs. Child—and subtly to remind Mary that she had been with Mrs. Child a good two years longer than she had been with Mrs. Brown. There were a lot of things Mary could not do, but in what she could do, or would do, she was flawless. Mrs. Child did not need Mary Moran at all, when you came right down to it. The building provided maid service of a-lick-and-a-promise sort, and you could have all your meals sent up and served by the room-service waiters. But Mary Moran was acquainted with every article of clothing that Mrs. Child possessed; she was a superb laundress of things like lingerie; a quick and careful presser; very handy with needle and thread. She could put together a light meal of soup and salad, and she could do tiny sandwiches and a cheese dip for a small cocktail group. But she would not serve luncheon or pass a tray among cocktail guests; not that she was ever there at cocktail time, but as a matter of principle she had made it one of her rules that serving was not to be expected of her. She was not very good about taking telephone messages, either; it had taken Mrs. Child two years to discover that Mary was ashamed of her handwriting and spelling. Nevertheless she would have been an excellent personal maid, and Agatha Child never gave up hoping that she could lure—lure was the word—Mary away from the Browns, whoever they were beyond the fact that they had a small apartment on Seventy-ninth Street and were away a good deal of the time. It would have been worth the money to have Mary Moran on a full-time basis, not only for the work she did, but because her coming to work full-time would have been an expression of the approval that Agatha Child suspected that Mary withheld.
“We haven’t talked about that for quite some time,” said Agatha Child.
Mary Moran had just brought in the breakfast tray. “What’s that, Mrs. Child?”
“About your coming to work for me full-time.”
Mary Moran smiled. “Well, it suits me, the way it is,” she said.
“You’d make just as much money. And don’t you find it a nuisance, to finish up here and then have to take the bus to Seventy-ninth Street?”
“I usually walk. I enjoy the walk. I get a breath of fresh air.”
“Do you know what I think? I think you have a gentleman friend that you have lunch with. You almost never have lunch here.”
“Well, there may be some truth to that. We have a bite to eat. It’s on the way.”
“Oh, my guess was right? How fascinating. Tell me about him.”
“No, I don’t think I’ll do that.”
“Of course not. It’s none of my business, and I don’t want to appear inquisitive. But of course I’m dying of curiosity. You’ve been with me eight years and this is really the first time we ever got on that subject.”
“Well, you made a good guess for your first try.”
“Is he Catholic?”
“No ma’am.”
“You’d rather not say any more.”
“Rather not. It’s him and I.”
“Yes. Well, I won’t badger you any more. I just want to say that I hope he appreciates you, and if you ever feel the need to talk to someone about it—about him.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Remember, I’ve been married three times.”
“I know that, yes.”
“And I’m a lot older than you. Probably fifteen years.”
“Not quite. I’ll be forty-one.”
“Well, almost fifteen years. How did you know my age? Did you see it on my passport?”
“No ma’am. Your scrapbook, where you have that newspaper cutting of when you eloped and all. The big green scrapbook.”
“Oh, yes. That’s a dead giveaway, isn’t it? Well, what difference does it make? Anybody can find out my age if they want to take the trouble. All they have to do is go to the Public Library, and there it is in big headlines, seventeen-year-old heiress and all that tommyrot. Never lived it down. But that’s where I can be of help to you, Mary, in case you ever need any help.”
“They’d never put me in the headlines, whatever I did.”
“You can be thankful for that,” said Agatha Child.
“Will you want me to—changing the subject—will I send the black suit to the dry cleaner’s, or do you want to give it another wear?”
“I guess it could stand a cleaning. Whatever you think,” said Agatha Child.
“I had a look at it this morning. It’s about ready to go.”
The day’s mail was fattened up by the usual bills and appeals. She put a rubber band around the unopened bills, for forwarding to Mr. Jentzen, who would scrutinize them, make out the appropriate cheques, and send her the cheques for signature. She saw Mr. Jentzen just once a year, at income tax time, when he would deliver his little lecture on her finances, show her where to sign the returns, and have one glass of sherry with her. On these occasions Mr. Jentzen could almost make her feel that he was paying for the sherry and for everything else. Bald, conscientious Mr. Jentzen, who looked like a dark-haired version of the farmer in Grant Wood’s “American Gothic,” and who in some respects knew her better than any husband or lover she had ever had, but who politely declined her suggestion that he call her Agatha. “Not even if I call you Eric? It’s such a nice name, Eric.” And so unlike Mr. Jentzen, she did not add. She could have gone right ahead and called him Eric; she was, after all, at least five years older than he, but she knew that he was afraid of even so slight an intimacy because he was the kind of man who would be afraid to get entangled with a woman who had had three husbands and an undetermined number of gentlemen friends.
It occurred to her now, as she doubled the rubber band about the bills, that her life was full of small defeats at the hands of people who rightfully should have obeyed her automatically. Mary Moran, Eric Jentzen, and Ray the bellboy were three she could name offhand who refused to yield to her wishes. With Ray the bellboy it was a case of attitude rather than outright disobedience; he did what she asked, but so churlishly that his obedience became an act of defiance. Mary Moran, c
rafty little Irishwoman that she was, was practically an illiterate but she was adroit enough to avoid a showdown on the question of giving up the Browns. And Eric Jentzen used his sexual timidity to keep from losing the arrogated privilege of lecturing her on her extravagances. (It was quite possible that Mr. Jentzen got some sort of mild kick out of that safe intimacy.)
The dogs were now sitting up. “One little piece of toast is all you’re going to get,” she said. “No, Percy, you must wait till your older stepbrother has his. See there, Muggsy? If you’d taught him better manners he wouldn’t be so grabby. One piece is all you’re going to get, so don’t bother to look at me that way. Down, boys. I said down. Down, God damn it! Percy, you scratched me, you son of a bitch. You could cause me all sorts of trouble, explaining a scratch like that. If there was anybody I had to explain to.” She lit a cigarette and blew smoke in the dogs’ muzzles. “Now stay down, and don’t interrupt me while I see whose sucker list I’m on today.”
Two of the appeals were for theatrical previews at twenty-five dollars a crack. By an amusing coincidence both contained similarly worded personal touches. “Do try to come” was written across the top of the announcements; one was signed with initials, identifiable by going down the list of patronesses; the other was signed “Mary,” and didn’t mean a damned thing. Mary. What a crust a woman had, to sign just Mary and expect people to know who Mary was. Agatha Child went through the list and discovered three Marys behind the married names and one Mary who was a Miss. “I’ll tell you what you can do, Mary dear. You can invite me to dinner and the benefit and shell out fifty dollars for me and some likely gentleman, and I will do-try-to-come.” She dropped the announcements in the wastebasket. She immediately retrieved them and went over one of the lists again. Yes, there it was: Mrs. W. B. Harris, the wife of her second husband. What a comedown that would be for Wally, if he should ever learn that she had seen that name, which once she bore, and it had failed to register. True, she had always given the name the full treatment: Wallace Boyd Harris. True, too, there were so many Harrises. One too many, or two too many, if it came to that, which was how she happened to become Agatha Child. For the second time she dropped the announcements in the wastebasket, but at least they had given her some amusement. Wally Harris, afraid of his own shadow—more accurately, afraid of the shadow of her first husband. Well, it hadn’t been a mere shadow; more like a London peasouper that lasted four years. Four dark, miserable years that she could recall in every detail and had succeeded in suspending from her active memory, by sandwiching the whole period in between her first marriage and her third, so that it was worthless even as a wasted segment of her time on earth to cry over. He was an intimate man, Wally, wanting to know everything about everything she did, until there was nothing left to learn except all the things she felt and could not tell him, that no one can tell anyone unless she is asked the right questions, at the right moment, in the right tone of voice, and for the right reason which is love. Finally he had learned just about every fact of her marriage to her first husband and had accidentally discovered a few facts about the man who was to be her third. All that time that he had consumed in pumping her about Johnny Johns, in contemning Johnny Johns, in emulating Johnny Johns—a little of that time, only a little, Wally could more profitably have devoted to the maneuverings of his friend Stanley Child. When the blow fell and there was that tiresome scene that Wally had insisted upon (“I want you to hear everything I say to Stanley”), the thought kept running through her mind that Wally hated Johnny much more than he did Stanley. Despite the fact that she had been having her affair with Stanley right under his nose, Wally managed to bring up Johnny Johns, whom she had not seen or heard from in five years. “I thought you were all through with that kind of thing when you got rid of that Johns fellow,” said Wally.
