The Town and the City: A Novel

  Before Peter could muster up any sort of reply, Levinsky came rushing back. They left Jack sitting alone, worrying and brooding anxiously, and went out to take the subway.

  “Everyone’s mad around here,” commented Peter sullenly, with a sense of foolish loneliness.

  “But that’s not the half of it! Just wait till you see my subway experiment which proves conclusively that the atomic disease has already made great headway!”

  “You’re not serious about all this, Leon! What the hell’s happened to you?” cried Peter, exasperated.

  For the first time that evening Levinsky grew serious, or seemed to, pursing his lips judiciously, glancing at Peter gravely and nodding his head. “Yes, I’m serious, but only in a way you see—”

  “Only in a way—bull!”

  “But no. Actually, you see, in a sense it’s the invention of Dennison’s sister Mary. There’s no doubt about the fact that Mary Dennison is mad, but that’s only because she wants to be mad. What she has to say about the world, about everybody falling apart, about everybody clawing aggressively at one another in one grand finale of our glorious culture, about the madness in high places and the insane disorganized stupidity of the people who let themselves be told what to do and what to think by charlatans—all that is true! All the advertising men who dream up unreal bugaboos for people to flee from, like B.O. or if you don’t have such-and-such a color to your wash you’re an outcast from society. Listen!—all the questionnaires you have to fill out in this bureaucratic system of ours asking all kinds of imaginary questions. Don’t you see it, man? The world’s going mad! Therefore it’s quite possible there must be some sort of disease that’s started. There’s only one real conclusion to be drawn. In Mary’s words, everybody’s got the atomic disease, everybody’s radioactive.”

  “It’s a dumb conclusion,” muttered Peter. “I wish you’d be serious.”

  “The amazing thing is this!” cried Levinsky gaily. “All the horror that Mary Dennison sees, and incidentally participates in—and there’s more horror in that girl and in her view of the clawing world than Dennison himself ever dreamed in his greatest heroic moments—the amazing thing is that it all might be awfully true. Now I’m serious. Supposing it were! supposing it were! what then?”

  “That’s silly,” muttered Peter again.

  “But wait! There’s a lot more to it!”

  They were in the subway station. Levinsky picked out an old newspaper from a trash barrel and began folding it and tearing out sections, with a grave air, glancing slyly at Peter as he did all this.

  “What does this remind you of?” he demanded.

  “What?”

  “This!—tearing and folding this old newspaper, haven’t you ever seen mad people, how they behave?”

  “Yes,” laughed Peter, suddenly inexplicably amused by the performance, “that’s pretty good.”

  When a train pulled in, they got on, and Levinsky stationed Peter at the door to keep a sharp eye on everyone in the car. “Remember,” he instructed gleefully, “you watch closely anybody I pick on with my … my magical newspaper performance. With both you and I staring at the victim, he’ll begin to feel vibrations of paranoid persecution. You’ll see how everyone has become essentially mad—the whole insane world.” He flung his arms around with a look of rapture. “Now watch.”

  Levinsky sat down, wild-eyed and fantastic in his military raincoat and flowery scarf, and the train got underway on the express run up to Seventy-Second Street. He sat opposite a distinguished-looking old man who had a little boy of four with him—a melancholy severe old man staring meditatively into space, full of stately thoughts, and a gleeful little child looking around at everyone with curiosity. They sat there holding hands as the train rocked along.

  Levinsky opened up his newspaper and seemed to begin reading it, but suddenly Peter realized with horror that there was a hole torn in the middle of the page, through which the incredible Levinsky was intently studying the old man across the aisle. At first no one noticed anything. But gradually, of course, the old gentleman’s eyes roved to Levinsky’s newspaper. There, with an awful shock, instead of headlines he saw a great living picture, the beady glittering eyes of a madman burning triumphantly into his through a hole in the page.

  Peter saw the old man flush. He himself had to turn away, blushing furiously with mortification. Yet at the same time he felt a wicked and delightful sense of pleasure. He had to watch, and he peeked around the door in a convulsion of horror and glee. What was most incredible and funny was that Levinsky himself continued to stare—through the hole—intently at the old man with perfect gravity and seriousness, as though he believed with his whole heart in the full significance of his experiment.

  To cap everything, just as everyone across the aisle was beginning to notice Levinsky’s stupendous act—and indeed, just as they began to fidget nervously, and look around furtively, sometimes glancing over to Peter as though they sensed his conspiracy in the matter (though he tried to look innocent and unconcerned), just as they were beginning to look to each other for confirmation of the fact that it was Levinsky who was mad, not they—the madman himself with delicate propriety, pleasure, and gentle absorption, began tearing strips out of the newspaper and dropping them to the floor one by one from gentle fingers. Meanwhile he smiled fondly at the page, never looking away, but eager, intense, pleased, and preoccupied with what he was doing, alone in the joys of pleasant perusal.

  It was the maddest thing Peter had ever seen. Levinsky was perfect in his performance, solemn and serious. For just a moment he looked up from what he was doing to stick his forefinger in his ear and hold it there in deep thought, as if his brains might come spilling out if he didn’t hold them in.

  It was even more horrible to realize the small pitiable truth in his statement that everyone in the subway was somewhat insane. Some who noticed what Levinsky was doing looked away nervously and preferred to imagine that nothing at all was happening; they were perfectly stolid in their refusal of the situation, they sat like stones and brooded. Others were irritable and undertook every now and then to glance suspiciously at the performance; they seemed indignant and refused to look any more, they would not “be tricked” as Levinsky considered it. And there were those in the car who simply did not notice; they were coming home from work too tired to notice anything. Some were reading the paper, others were sleeping; some were chatting eagerly, others were just brooding without having looked, and others thought that he was some harmless nut and paid no attention.

  There was one element Levinsky had not bargained for—the people in the car who had a profound curiosity and everlasting concern with things and a sense of funniness. All these elements, including the old gentleman’s little companion, a Negro coming home from work, an eager young student, and a well-dressed man carrying a box of candy, stared with delight at Levinsky’s antics. The old gentleman, who was the direct victim of the performance, was too painfully involved in the personal aspects of the matter to make up his mind whether it was funny, or absurd, or horrible: he was fixed by a pair of mad burning eyes and could only look away with deep embarrassment.

  Meanwhile he held on to the little boy’s hand, almost frightened for his sake now, and certainly confused, while the little boy stared gape-jawed at Levinsky.

  “What’s he doing?” he cried, turning to the old man.

  The old man shook his head warningly, tightening his grip on the little hand. The little boy was fidgety, and sat with his feet up on the seat gazing almost solemnly at Levinsky.

  Suddenly the little boy unleashed a crazy screaming laugh and bounced off the seat across the aisle and stuck his face in the hole in the newspaper and began staring pop-eyed at Levinsky with huge delight, knowing it was a game, jumping up and down and clapping his hands and giggling with glee, and crying: “Do some more, mister. Hey, do some more!”

  And at this, the eager young student, the Negro man, and the man with the box of candy all smiled and
chuckled heartily, even Peter doubled up laughing helplessly—and then it was altogether too much. Levinsky himself became embarrassed, looked bashfully around the car at all the faces, blushed, stared sad-eyed at the mess he had made on the floor, snickered, and looked helplessly towards Peter. The whole experiment became disorganized. Others in the car who had been frightened or indignant a moment before began to laugh also. Everybody was grinning and craning and looking around and sensing something funny. Peter, like the rat deserting the sinking ship, hurried into the next car and hid himself in a corner and tried to keep from exploding. Once he peeked back to see Levinsky sitting there among all those people, absently musing.

  He met the sad, subdued Leon Levinsky on the platform when they got to Seventy-Second Street.

  “But don’t you see, Pete, it all worked out the way I told you,” he said, fingering his lips, “except for the little kid. Actually though,” he reflected seriously, “it was in a way beautiful, because it showed that children cannot recognize madness. That is, they understand what is mad and what is not mad, they simply understand. And finally—they haven’t had time to burden themselves with character structure and personality armors and systems of moral prejudice and God knows what. Therefore they’re free to live and laugh, and free to love—like those few other men in the car.”

  Peter gazed at him with amazement.

  Levinsky went back to the downtown side of the platform—while Peter had to go uptown to see Judie. When he last saw him, Levinsky was standing there among the subway crowds, gaping around and musing darkly about the puzzle of himself and everybody else, as he would always do.

  [4]

  Judie Smith had an apartment on 101st Street, not far from Columbus Avenue, near the wild Spanish neighborhoods, yet within a short distance of the Irish tenements and saloons of Amsterdam, the blazing kosher-marts, hotels, and movie theaters of Upper Broadway, and the sleek towers of Central Park West. The park itself was nearby, big and doleful and gardened inside the walls of the city rising seven miles around it.

  She lived six flights up in neatly furnished rooms, where she occasionally hid herself for days, knitting and thinking darkly with the terror of a child. Sometimes she worked as a model, or as a cigarette-girl in a night club, at one time as a girl longshoreman on the docks, but mostly she lived on her aunt’s allowance checks from Philadelphia, and “waited” for something. She was furiously involved with Peter now, she was “waiting” for him.

  It had begun raining hard, and Peter was dripping with rain when he got to her door. He smiled happily, took her in his arms and put his cheek against hers. He wanted to say everything he could think of saying, all in one instant, all about Galloway and what had happened there and all about the sadness of the bus and his thoughts, and Levinsky. But he only kissed her and turned away mournfully. “Honest, Judie, I had a lousy trip, I don’t know why I went. You were right, I should have stayed here.”

  “Did you just get back?” Judie demanded, peeking around at him as he brooded, and finally putting her arms around him again and shivering against him.

  “Just now, two hours ago. Why?” he grinned.

  “Oh—just wondering. I thought maybe you went to Brooklyn to see your parents again.” She brought that out with a curl of her lips, but suddenly bit her fingernails and looked flustered again. She loved Peter in a furious way.

  “No, I didn’t go and see the folks yet, are you satisfied? And now what’s wrong? What are you so scared about tonight?”

  “Scared?” she asked dumbly.

  “What’d you do, buy another expensive fur rug with the dough I left?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that!” she cried joyfully, yet wincing a little at the sight of him. “Well, actually—no, wait, you take your shower first and I’ll make you some coffee and give you a sandwich, and when you’re all dry and clean and fed, I’ll tell you.”

  Peter yawned and pretended that he didn’t care, and went in and took his shower. When he came out she was sitting stiffly and primly on the edge of the couch with a look of new contented joy. She had a letter on her knees, and the sandwiches and coffee on a tray beside her.

  “Petey, it’s awful. While you were taking your shower, I’ve been trying to figure out what to say to you, one by one I tried to figure it all out—”

  “Go ahead and tell me what it is, whatever you bought I don’t care!” he laughed.

  “No, no, no! Nothing like that!” she scoffed darkly. “I forgot all about that. This is something else. Petey, it’s something else,” she pleaded, “it’s everything about us. I wanted to tell you everything! Do you realize that I knew that you were coming back this very night just because it was raining? You always come back when it’s raining.… I knew you were coming, honest I did, so I sat down and wrote you a letter you could read when you walked in. Yes! And also I had it all figured out what I’d say to you—but, Petey, when you actually walked in, I didn’t know what to do. I was cold and I trembled. Did you notice me tremble?” she cried anxiously.

  Peter sat on a chair directly in front of her and gazed at her.

  “Yes,” he grinned.

  “But don’t look at me like that, you make me bashful, Petey!”

  “I’m not looking at you like that!” he cried, peeved.

  “Petey!” she blurted, “I wanted to tell you I love you, but in a big nice way like in the books you made me read. In this letter I wanted to tell you how I feel deep down inside when I think of you, how it hurts! It hurts!”

  Peter turned around in the chair and stared down at the floor. “The world isn’t as sad as that,” he spoke up finally. “Everybody’s bats around here and I’m the battiest,” he added mournfully and he really felt that.

  “Oh, I wish I could feel like we used to back home,” she cried. “We used to go on wild rides in cars and go skating in the winter. All the boys wanted to do was neck, everything was so simple. That’s the way you were, Petey—only you buried it, huh? The first time I met you that night, when you wore your bow tie and that sharp sport jacket, I fell in love with you. That bow tie!—You were so good-looking and sexy and collegiate. But nothing ever happens!” she cried contemptuously. “What a crazy place New York is. Nobody ever does anything, all they do is talk, nobody ever plays any more. We used to just drink and sit around, burping, back home at big beer parties. That’s true, you know!” she cried sheepishly when Peter laughed. “There’s something to that, it’s not so silly as it sounds. You know, the high school crowd.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “I hate all these intellectuals around here. Why do you have to hang around with intellectuals?”

  “Who’s an intellectual?”

  “Everybody’s always talking about Rimbaud or something. Kenny Wood and Jeanne and Dennison and all them. I want fun, good things to eat, rushing around, beer! Don’t you see all that, Petey? Didn’t you ever do things like that?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “What did you do with that bow tie? You never wore it since. All you wear now is dirty old sloppy clothes, khaki pants, and that old black jacket. But I like that jacket, it’s you. But the bow tie, why don’t you wear it again? Petey, let’s dress up real sharp sometime and go out and eat lobster in a seafood place and go to a dance or something, or go riding with somebody, and laugh and sing with everybody and get plastered.” She jumped gleefully on his lap. “You know what we used to do? We used to have a whole crowd and everybody who didn’t belong to the crowd were frumps, that’s what we called them. We used to yell out ‘Hey, Frump!’ or ‘Hey, Cherry!’ That was our yell. You never knew Bob Randall, he was so funny! He used to go up to old women and say ‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Boonyak, how is Mr. Boonyak’—all kinds of things like that in Philly.”

  “Well, the kids around here aren’t like that,” said Peter absent-mindedly. “They’ve got more on their minds.”

  “Huf! Lot they know! All they can do is talk about books. They don’t know how to have a good time
. I hate everybody!” she concluded darkly, and pouted. She went to a dresser and took out a ball of wool from a knitting basket.

  “What’s that you’re knitting?”

  “Oh, never mind!—you don’t deserve them.”

  “Socks?”

  “Argyle socks. I’m going to give them to Bob Randall instead of you. Petey, what were you like in Galloway?” she suddenly asked, desperately.

  “Just like Bob Randall.”

  “All right then, I’ll give them to you.”

  They were silent for several minutes while Judie knitted in fierce pouting concentration and Peter stared gloomily into space. Meanwhile it began to rain hard outside, the rain slashed on the windowpane, and suddenly he got up and sat down at Judie’s feet and leaned his head on her knee. She stopped knitting and started stroking his hair.

  “That’s not what I wanted, but that’s all right,” mumbled Peter. “What you were trying to tell me when I came in—you don’t have to tell me, I can guess, I had the same things to tell you. We know each other by heart. We get all excited and nervous when we see each other after a long time, but that’s the beauty of it,” he pointed out almost slyly.

  “Between us?”

  “Yeah, but in the whole world too. Everybody’s like that.”

  “The hell with the whole world. Why not just us?”

  “Well, there’s more to it than just us—”

  “Oh, the hell with it!”

  “That’s women for you—”

  “The hell with women. I’m not women, I’m me.”

  “You’re you, you’re you,” grinned Peter. “Let’s make believe I’m a mill worker,” he said with a sudden happy grin of discovery, leaping up and grabbing her by the arm. “You’re the boss’s daughter and I’m calling on you on a Wednesday night and your father is sleeping in the next room, and we’re sitting on the couch real coy and necking and whispering, waiting for your old man to start snoring. Then we start.”