by Henry Miller
Under the shower I had teased her about her tummy, which was growing rather generous, and I realized at once that she was extremely sensitive about her figure. But I was not critical of her opulent flesh—I was delighted to discover it. It carried a promise, I thought. And then, under my very eyes, this body which had been so generously endowed began to shrink. The inner torture was beginning to take its toll. At the same time the fire that was in her began to burn more brightly. Her flesh was consumed by the passion that ravaged her. Her strong, columnar neck, the part of her body which I most admired, grew slenderer and slenderer, until the head seemed like a giant peony swaying on its fragile stem.
You're not ill? I would ask, alarmed by this swift transformation.
Of course not! she would say. I'm reducing. But you're carrying it too far, Mona. I was like this as a girl, she would answer. It's natural for me to be thin.
But I don't want you to grow thin. I don't want you to change. Look at your neck—do you want to have a scrawny neck?
My neck isn't scrawny, she would say, jumping up to look at herself in the mirror.
I didn't say it was, Mona ... but it may get that way if you keep on in this reckless fashion.
Please Val, don't talk about it. You don't understand...
Mona, don't talk that way. I'm not criticizing you. I only want to protect you.
You don't like me this way ... is that it? Mona, I like you any way. I love you. I adore you. But please be reasonable. I'm afraid you're going to fade away, evaporate in thin air. I don't want you to get ill...
Don't be silly, Val. I never felt better in my life.
By the way, she added, are you going to see the little one this Saturday? She would never mention either my wife or the child by name. Also, she preferred to think that I was visiting only the child on these weekly expeditions to Brooklyn.
I said I thought I would go ... why, was there any reason not to?
No, no! she said, jerking her head strangely and turning away to look for something in the bureau drawer.
I stood behind her, as she was leaning over, and clasped my arms around her waist.
Mona, tell me something ... Does it hurt you very much when I go over there? Tell me honestly. Because if it does, I'll stop going. It has to come to an end some day anyway.
You know I don't want you to stop. Have I ever said anything against it?
No-o-o, I said, lowering my head and gazing intently at the carpet. No-o-o, you never say anything. But sometimes I wish you would...
Why do you say that? she cried sharply. She looked almost indignant. Haven't you a right to gee your own daughter? I would do it, if I were in your place. She paused a moment and then, unable to control herself, she blurted out: I would never have left her if she had been mine. I wouldn't have given her up, not for anything!
Mona! What are you saying. What does this mean?
Just that. I don't know how you can do it. I'm not worth such a sacrifice. Nobody is.
Let's drop it, I said. We're going to say things we don't mean. I tell you, I don't regret anything. It was no sacrifice, understand that. I wanted you and I got you. I'm happy. I could forget everybody if it were necessary. You're the whole world to me, and you know it.
I seized her and pulled her to me. A tear rolled down her cheek.
Listen, Val, I don't ask you to give up anything, but...
But what?
Couldn't you meet me once in a while at night when I quit work?
At two in the morning?
I know ... it is an ungodly hour.... but I feel terribly lonely when I leave the dance hall. Especially after dancing with all those men, all those stupid, horrible creatures who mean nothing to me. I come home and you're asleep. What have I got?
Don't say that, please. Yes, of course I'll meet you—now and then.
Couldn't you take a nap after dinner and...
Sure I could. Why didn't you tell me sooner? It was selfish of me not to think of that.
You're not selfish, Val.
I am too ... Listen, supposing I ride down with you this evening? I'll come back, take a snooze, and meet you at closing time.
You're sure it won't be too tiring?
No, Mona, it'll be wonderful.
On the way home, however, I began to realize what it would mean to arrange my hours thus. At two o'clock we would catch a bite somewhere. An hour's ride on the elevated. In bed Mona would chat a while before going to sleep. It would be almost five o'clock by that time and by seven I would have to be up again ready for work.
I got into the habit of changing my clothes every evening, in preparation for the rendezvous at the dance hall. Not that I went every evening—no, but I went as often as possible. Changing into old clothes—a khaki shirt, a pair of moccasins, sporting one of the canes which Mona had filched from Carruthers—my romantic self asserted itself. I led two lives: one at the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company and another with Mona. Sometimes Florrie joined us at the restaurant. She had found a new lover, a German doctor who, from all accounts, must have possessed an enormous tool. He was the only man who could satisfy her, that she made clear. This frail-looking creature with a typical Irish mug, the Broadway type par excellence, who would have suspected that between her legs there was a gash big enough to hide a sledge hammer—or that she liked women as well as men? She liked anything that had to do with sex. The gash was now rooted in her mind. It kept spreading and spreading until there was no room, in mind or gash, for anything but a superhuman prick.
One evening, after I had taken Mona to work, I started wandering through the side streets. I thought perhaps I would go to a cinema and meet Mona after the performance. As I passed a doorway I heard someone call my name. I turned round and in the hallway, as though hiding from some one, stood Florrie and Hannah Bell. We went across the street to have a drink. The girls acted nervous and fidgety. They said they would have to leave in a few minutes—they were just having a drink to be sociable. I had never been alone with them before and they were uneasy, as if afraid of revealing things I ought not to know. Quite innocently I took Florrie's hand which was lying in her lap and squeezed it, to reassure her—of what I don't know. To my amazement she squeezed it warmly and then, bending forward as if to say something confidential to Hannah, she unloosed her grip and fumbled in my fly. A that moment a man walked in whom they greeted effusively. I was introduced as a friend. Monahan was the man's name. He's a detective, said Florrie, giving me a melting look. The man had hardly taken a seat when Florrie jumped up and seizing Hannah's arm whisked her out of the place. At the door she waved good-bye. They ran across the street, in the direction of the doorway where they had been hiding.
A strange way to act, said Monahan. What'll you have? he asked, calling the waiter over. I ordered another whisky and looked at him blankly. I didn't relish the idea of being left with a detective on my hands. Monahan however was in a different frame of mind; he seemed happy to have found some one to talk to. Observing the cane and the sloppy attire he at once came to the conclusion that I was an artist of some sort.
You're dressed like an artist (meaning a painter) but you're not an artist. Your hands are too delicate. He seized my hands and examined them quickly. You're not a musician either, he added. Well, there's only one thing left—you're a writer!
I nodded, half amused, half irritated. He was the type of Irishman whose directness antagonizes me. I could foresee the inevitable challenging Why? Why not? How come? What do you mean? As always, I began by being bland and indulgent. I agreed with him. But he didn't want me to agree with him—he wanted to argue.
I had hardly said a word and yet in the space of a few minutes he was insulting me and at the same time telling me how much he liked me.
You're just the sort of chap I wanted to meet, he said, ordering more drinks. You know more than I do, but you won't talk. I'm not good enough for you, I'm a low-brow. That's where you're wrong! Maybe I know a lot of things you don't suspect. Maybe I can tell y
ou a few things. Why don't you ask me something?
What was I to say? There wasn't anything I wanted to know—from him, at least. I wanted to get up and go—without offending him. I didn't want to be jerked back into my seat by that long hairy arm and be slobbered over and grilled and argued with and insulted. Besides, I was feeling a little woozy. I was thinking of Florrie and how strangely she had behaved—and I could still feel her hand fumbling in my fly.
You don't seem to be all there, he said. I thought writers were quick on the trigger, always there with the bright repartee. What's the matter—don't you want to be sociable? Maybe you don't like my mug? Listens—and he laid his heavy hand on my arm—get this straight ... I'm your friend, see! I want to have a talk with you. You're going to tell me things ... all the things I don't know. You're going to wise me up. Maybe I won't get it all at once, but I'm going to listen. We're not going to leave here until we get this settled, see what I mean? With this he gave me one of those strange Irish smiles, a melange of warmth, sincerity, perplexity and violence. It meant that he was going to get what he wanted out of me or lay me out flat. For some inexplicable reason he was convinced that I had something which he sorely needed, some clue to the riddle of life, which, even if he couldn't grasp it entirely, would serve him in good stead.
By this time I was almost in a panic. It was precisely the sort of situation that I am incapable of dealing with. I could have murdered the bastard in cold blood.
A mental uppercut, that's what he wanted of me. He was tired of beating the piss out of the other fellow—he wanted some one to go to work on him.
I decided to go at it directly, to deflate him with one piercing lunge and then trust to my wits.
You want me to talk frankly, is that it? I gave him an ingenuous smile.
Sure, sure, he retorted. Fire away! I can take it.
Well, to begin with, says I, still offering the bland, reassuring smile, you're just a louse and you know it. You're afraid of something, what it is I don't know yet, but we'll get to it. With me you pretend that you're a low-brow, a nobody, but to yourself you pretend that you're smart, a big shot, a tough guy. You're not afraid of a thing, are you? That's all shit and you know it. You're full of fear. You say you can take it. Take what? A sock in the jaw? Of course you can, with a cement mug like yours. But can you stand the truth?
He gave me a hard, glittery smile. His face, violently flushed, indicated that he was doing his-utmost to control himself. He wanted to say Yes, go on! but the words choked him. He just nodded and turned on the electric smile.
You've beaten up many a rat with your bare hands, haven't you? Somebody held the guy down and you went at him until he screamed blue murder. You wrung a confession out of him and then you dusted yourself off and poured a few drinks down your throat. He was a rat and he deserved what he got. But you're a bigger rat, and that's what's eating you up. You like to hurt people. You probably pulled the wings off flies when you were a kid. Somebody hurt you once and you can't forget it. (I could feel him wince at this.) You go to church regularly and you confess, but you don't tell the truth. You tell half-truths. You never tell the Father what a lousy stinking son of a bitch you really are. You tell him about your little sins. You never tell him what pleasure you get beating up defenceless guys who never did you any harm. And of course you always put a generous donation in the box. Hush money! As if that could quiet your conscience! Everybody says what a swell guy you are—except the poor bastards whom you track down and beat the piss out of. You tell yourself that it's your job, you have to be that way or else ... It's hard for you to figure out just what else you could do if you ever lost your job, isn't that so? What assets have you? What do you know? What are you good for? Sure, you might make a street-cleaner or a garbage collector, though I doubt that you have the guts for it. But you don't know anything useful, do you? You don't read, you don't associate with any but your own kind. Your sole interest is politics. Very important, politics! Never know when you may need a friend. Might murder the wrong guy some day, and then what? Why, then you'd want somebody to lie for you, somebody who'd go to the bat for you—some low-down worm like yourself who hasn't a shred of manhood or a spark or decency in him. And in return you'd do him a good turn some day—I mean you'd bump some one off some time, if he asked you to.
I paused for just a second.
If you really want to know what I think, I'd say you've murdered a dozen innocent guys already. I'd say that you've got a wad in your pocket that would choke a horse. I'd say that you've got something on your conscience—and you came here to drown it. I'd say that you know why those girls got up suddenly and ran across the street. I'd say that if we knew all about you you might be eligible for the electric chair...
Completely out of breath, I stopped and mechanically rubbed my jaw, as if surprised to find it still intact. Monahan, unable to hold himself in any longer, burst out with an alarming guffaw.
You're crazy, he said, crazy as a bedbug, but I like you. Go on, talk some more. Say the worst you know—I want to hear it. And with that he called the waiter over and ordered another round. You're right about one thing, he added, I have got a wad in my pocket. Want to see it? He fished out a roll of greenbacks, flipped them under my nose, like a cardsharper. Go on now, give it to me ... !
The sight of the money derailed me. My one thought was how to separate him from some of his ill-gained boodle.
It was a bit crazy, all that stuff I just handed you, I began, adopting another tone. I'm surprised you didn't haul off and crack me. My nerves are on edge, I guess...
Don't have to tell me, said Monahan.
I adopted a still more conciliatory tone. Let me tell you something about myself, I continued in an even voice, and in a few brief strokes I outlined my position in the Cosmodemonic skating rink, my relationship with O'Rourke, the company detective, my ambition to be a writer, my visits to the psychopathic ward, and so on. Just enough to let him know that I was not a dreamer. The mention of O'Rourke's name impressed him. O'Rourke's brother (as I well knew) was Monahan's boss and he stood in awe of him.
And you pal around with O'Rourke?
He's a great friend of mine, said I. A man I respect. He's almost a father to me. I learned something about human nature from him. O'Rourke's a big man doing a small job. He belongs somewhere else, where I don't know. However, he seems satisfied to be where he is, though he's working himself to death. What galls me is that he isn't appreciated.
I went on in this vein, extolling O'Rourke's virtues, indicating none too subtly the comparison between O'Rourke's methods and those of the ordinary flat-foot.
My words were producing the effect intended. Monahan was visibly wilting, softening like a sponge.
You've got me wrong, he finally burst out. I've got as big a heart as the next guy, only I don't show it. You can't go around exposing yourself—not on this job. We ain't all like O'Rourke, I'll grant you, but we're human, b'Jesus! You're an idealist, that's what's the matter with you. You want perfection ... He gave me a strange look, mumbled to himself. Then he continued in a clear, calm voice: The more you talk the more I like you. You've got something I once had. I was ashamed of it then ... you know, afraid of being a sissy or something. Life hasn't spoiled you—that's what I like about you. You know what it's like and yet it doesn't make you sour or mean. You said some pretty nasty things a while back, and to tell you the truth, I was going to take a swing at you. Why didn't I? Because you weren't talking to me: you were aiming at all the guys like me who got off the track somewhere. You sound personal, but you ain't. You're talking to the world all the time. You should have been a preacher, do you realize that? You and O'Rourke, you're a good team. I mean it. We guys have a job to do and we don't get any fun out of it; you guys work for the pleasure of it. And what's more ... well, never mind ... Look, give me your hand ... He reached for my free hand and grasped it in a vice. You see, (I winced as he applied the pressure) I could squeeze your hand to a pulp. I wouldn't have
to make a pass at you. I could just sit like this, talking to you, looking straight at you, and crush your hand to a pulp. That's the strength I have.
He relaxed his grip and I withdrew my hand quickly. It felt numb, paralyzed.
There's nothing to that, you see, he went on. That's dumb brute strength; you've got another kind of strength which I lack. You could make mince meat of me with that tongue of yours. You've got a brain. He looked away, as if absent-minded. How is your hand? he said, dreamy-like. I didn't hurt you, did I?
I felt it with my other hand. It was limp and useless.
It's all right, I guess.
He looked me through and through, then laughingly he burst out: I'm hungry. Let's eat something.
We went downstairs and inspected the kitchen first. He wanted me to see how clean everything was: went about picking up carving knives and cleavers, holding them up to the light for me to examine and admire.
I had to chop a guy down with one of these once. He brandished a cleaver. Split him in two, clean as a whistle.
Taking my arm affectionately he led me back upstairs. Henry, says he, we're going to be pals. You're going to tell me more about yourself—and you're going to let me help you. You've got a wife—very beautiful too. I gave an involuntary jerk. He tightened his grip on my arm and led me to the table.
