The Listener

  If the man behind the curtain was impressed, he gave no sign. Mrs. Sloane became smaller in her chair, like a girl. “One has obligations,” she offered. The pale warm light beamed down at her from the ceiling. “One has duties,” she offered again. “One mustn’t consider just oneself, must one?”

  Did the man say “No” in a very gentle voice? She leaned toward the curtain again. “You do understand, don’t you?” she said. “Really, I am taking up a great deal of your time with my silly story. What did I say earlier? Oh yes, an appointment with death.” She considered. “Once I read somewhere that when we love we have become acquainted with death. I am very irrelevant, am I not? I am ashamed of myself, too. My husband has at least eight million dollars; why should I complain of anything?

  “Oh yes, that day in May. You see, I’d known Clyde Bennett since we were children together. He was of a very distinguished family too. He built a tree house on the land of our summer home. We used to climb up there together and talk. About the most childish things. A leaf, perhaps, from the elm. Full of veins. It was very wonderful, thinking of the sap in the leaf. Clyde had a magnifying glass. We’d look at things through it. The leaf. Green and living. An insect. We’d stare at it, and it would be frightened, just like a child, and we’d be sorry and let it go. I wonder what it felt. I’m sure it must have felt something. I never thought of that before; I never wondered if insects — and people — felt anything important. What is importance?”

  She waited. There was no sound. But a sense of vigor came to her, like a memory of her childhood. She laughed tearfully. “Why, everything’s important, isn’t it? Certainly. Everything in the sight of — of” She put her hands over her face and whispered, “God.”

  After a long time she lifted her head and faced the curtains resolutely. “I really don’t know why I am complaining! Clyde’s family lost their money; so did ours. So marriage was out of the question! I remember that last day I saw him. We were in the tree house, and it was spring, and May, and it was raining. Do you remember what rain sounds like in a tree, with the leaves rustling and dripping and gleaming about you, and no sound at all but the rain? And everything green and hushed and safe? Clyde and I were eighteen then. He asked me to wait for him. He had an uncle in Hartford who might help him. I never knew. I only knew what my father had said that last night, ‘Clyde is going away, perhaps for a long time. Our family is very distinguished, and famous. You have a duty; you are my only daughter and you have three younger brothers who must be educated to live up to our standard in life. Old families must never wither away; they owe a responsibility to their country. Only money can save them, and we have no money.

  “ ‘But there is Merrill Sloane in my office. A country bumpkin, the son of a rich buccaneer. No family, of course. Pirates. Blackguards. But they have money. He wants to marry you’. ”

  Mrs. Sloane bit her lip. Her tears were like acid on her cheeks. “I knew Merrill. A big, awkward, stumbling, bumbling young man. A university graduate; I simply don’t know what education is coming to when a man like Merrill can graduate — with honors! Summa cum laude. Think of that! I always thought that universities were above bribery, but now I simply don’t know! Besides, he didn’t have Clyde’s elegance and delicacy, and sensitiveness of character. A dull brute.”

  She looked at the curtains. “A man of no family, no background; a family without learning and tradition. Peasants, really. Summa cum laude, as if he were a wise man! Isn’t that ridiculous? A wise man — Merrill! At least he had the intelligence not to try to appear wise; he was very quiet when I would see him in Papa’s office. Did I tell you that Papa had a lumber company? His father acquired it as a sort of joke; Grandfather was a banker, and he foreclosed on a fine farm with much timber on it. That is how Papa became interested in lumber — if he really was. But Papa really preferred Meissen china; he had quite a collection. Of course it sold for practically nothing. I never cared about it, myself.

  “Merrill came in as Papa’s assistant. Such a joke in the family, the lumber, and then Merrill. Of course I must admit that Merrill had — has — a feeling for wood. He carves almost lovely things in his spare time. He has no social graces whatsoever; he belongs to no clubs, except nominally. Yet people seem to like him; I don’t know why.

  “Oh, please forgive me. I forgot to tell you that I married Merrill when I was nineteen. For his money. For Papa. He saved all of us. My brothers went to Harvard and made excellent marriages. Merrill — I must give him credit again — didn’t seem to care much about all the money he had. He gave my brothers large, permanent allowances. Settled trusts on their children. That was quite unnecessary, you know. They could have tried to do something for themselves. One must have a little independence. I think Merrill really did that — ” Mrs. Sloane dropped her wet handkerchief, and her gray face became strained and startled. “I think Merrill did that for me! For me! To please me! I never thought of that before!”

  She burst into wild tears and bent her head. “I never thought of that!” she sobbed. “To please me, to do something he thought I wanted!”

  She shrank deeper into the chair. “Merrill! I married him because he said he loved me. And I despised him. I have despised him — all these years. Only a dull brute with dirty money he had inherited from his father. I couldn’t talk to him about anything — why couldn’t I? Summa cum laude. I thought that was such a joke. Was it a joke? Oh, God, was it a joke?”

  She stood up and approached the curtain, and she was trembling. “I was so lonely all these years! But now I am wondering if Merrill hasn’t been lonely too. The children — our children. They all love Merrill; they talk with him. I never could. I say to them, ‘What can you talk about with your father?’ And laugh. They never laughed back. They looked at me — they look at me — as if they despised me, as if I were dull and stupid — Oh, God, are you listening?

  “My children hate me! They have nothing to say to me. The girls avoid me; the boys are indifferent. But they are always with Merrill. I have no one. I hear them laughing with him, and talking, talking, talking. I’m so lonely! I’m so terribly lonely!”

  She stammered, sobbed, wept. “Merrill. Are you lonely? What did I ever give you but scorn? Merrill! Poor Merrill! Why were you so patient? Why did you not leave me long ago? What am I to you?”

  She went closer to the curtain, and it was within reach of her hand.

  “What am I to you, who’ve offended you so? Can you ever forgive me? Oh, God, can you forgive me?”

  Her shaking hand reached out and touched the button. The curtains stirred. She could see them through her tears. They blew as if in a slight wind. They separated, and a light shone out. Now the curtains rolled apart swiftly, and Mrs. Merrill Sloane stood and looked in silence. The light shone all about her.

  “Yes, yes,” she whispered, gazing at the man fully revealed to her. “You forgive. I hope Merrill will too.”

  She looked again and murmured. She walked through the rear exit, and she walked as a girl walks, running to someone who is waiting for her, and she is free, and full of joy and love. In the springtime.

  SOUL TWO

  The “Underprivileged”

  ‘Tis not in mortals to command success,

  But we’ll do more, Sempronius — we’ll deserve it.

  Addison

  “Well, it’s like this,” said Tab Shutts sullenly, clasping his callused hands together on his knees. “O.K. Listen. You can listen your head off, see if I care. Bet you never worked a day in your life. I know you guys, college grads. I never went beyond seventh grade. Maybe you don’t understand fellers like me, huh? Well, anyway, they say you listen. God damn it, who listens, anyways? Nobody I ever heard of. So, you listen. You’re goin’ to get an earful, mister. You and your college!

  “I never had a chance. First thing, after school, I get a job. Know what comes then? The goddamn Army, that’s what. But maybe I’d better tell you about my folks.

  “Dad never had a chance, neither. Worked
twelve hours a day, six days a week. Then he fell in bed. That’s all. Eight of us kids. Don’t know how he got them, workin’ like that.” Tab grunted. “Mom worked too. Doin’ washin’. Could be they just passed in the doorway. What doorway? The whole place was full of us kids, doorways too.

  “The priest comes around and says, ‘Why aren’t the children in school?’ Mom says, ‘Father, they work around, just like Joe and me’. And the priest looks sad, and he’s no well-fed specimen, either. Thin and young, and pale like a ghost. And he says, ‘Our Lord worked around too’. Kind of silly, wasn’t he, the priest? Christ knew He was God, but what do we know? The priest says, ‘He was a carpenter’. Stupid answer.

  “My name ain’t really Tab. It’s Timothy. A saint. I ain’t no saint. Ain’t been to confession or Mass for years. What for? What’s a guy like me got to live for? Here I am, thirty-two, and putter around in a factory, can’t even operate a machine. There’s automation too. No use for us guys anymore. Where they goin’ to sweep us?” He chuckled. “Under the carpet? Maybe.”

  The soft white light beamed down on him, and he looked at it and shifted uneasily. “Oh, they tell us they’ll train us! They’ll make jobs for us. What do I need trainin’ for, at my age? All I want is just to work, like always, and earn a decent livin’. No fancy stuff. Hell, come to think of it, why work, anyways? Factory stiff. A nobody. Kids yellin’ for television, and I’m loaded up to here in debt for the refrigerator and the washin’ machine. Only fun I get is goin’ for a glass of beer and talkin’ with the other guys who got gripes too.

  “About my folks. Dad dies when I’m fourteen. Law says I got to go to school until I’m sixteen. I got a paper route, and I wash cars at the gas station. And there’s this chick.

  Dad’s a factory bum too, but she’s got lipstick and jeans and a big fat can. I met her when I was seventeen and she’s fifteen. Same class together, with Sister Mary Dominic, and is she tired! No wonder, all those kids. Oh, we ain’t hungry. Who goes hungry, with the Welfare and all that stuff? We got our orange juice and vitamins and hot lunches and milk. We’re big as horses; make our folks look like midgets. Sister Mary Dominic’s half our size. Guess she never had a chance, neither.”

  Tab paused, and his big tanned face darkened and became more uneasy. He shifted impatiently on the marble chair. “Nobody’s ever got a chance,” he muttered. “Hey, you, behind that curtain, what chance did you have? Your folks had money, eh? Sent you to college? Sure! So you can sit there and listen to jerks like me and smile to yourself. We ain’t nothin’ to you. Anyway, you’re paid to listen, ain’t you? All the time in the world!

  “About my folks. Mom keeps up the laundry, then all at once she dies. I’m seventeen. Never did know why she died. Eight of us, some younger than me, some older. Who cares? We get the hell out. I’ve got this job, and it pays me fifteen dollars a week, spare time. Not enough to live on. Then I go into this factory. New war’s on. Make big money. All the money there is. War’s going to last forever. That’s what the foreman says. Then they pull me out for the Army. What chance does a guy have?

  “I don’t know what the hell I’m doin’ here talkin’ to you. But Fran — she’s my wife, she’s the one with the jeans and the lipstick and the big fat can — she tells me to go talk to you. What’ve I got to lose, shootin’ off my mouth? At least you listen. What’re you doin’ behind that curtain, anyways? Listenin’! What d’you know about jerks like me who never had a chance?

  “So I’m in the Army. What’s the Korean war about? Who cares? Had a hell of a good time. Tokyo. All those places. If I’d had an education I could’ve stayed there in one of these houses, with maids and everything, and big pay from the gov’mint. But I never had a chance, and they shipped me back, and there’s this chick, waitin’ for me. Oh, we fooled around. She’s kind of pretty, if you like a kid who shows all of her upper teeth and her tongue and squints her eyes and tries to look like Hollywood and the movies. First thing you know, there’s a kid comin’ along. I wanted to duck the whole thing, but she brings around a priest, not the young, sick kind I used to know, but a big guy, and he won’t stand for no foolin’. Big hams on him; like to break your neck if you say anythin’. Well, anyway, we got to get married. And then this priest says, ‘What about the G. I. Bill?’ Well, what about it? Here I am, married, though I don’t want to be, and a kid comin’, and my dad had three of us at my age. Who wants to get educated and sit around in an office drawin’ maybe thirty bucks a week? I can go in a factory and get three times that, with fringe benefits. So I go, and Fran howls, and I slam her in the jaw, and the cops come and I get a suspended sentence. Nobody made a big noise when Dad slammed Mom around, except us kids. Jesus, how we howled! I remember I bit Dad in the leg, and I was only four then.”

  Tab grinned, then scowled. “Why’d he hit her, anyway? She was doin’ her best, wasn’t she? And she half his size. Wonder what makes people do the lousy things they do. Maybe they never had a chance.”

  Tab looked belligerently around the room, one hand clenched on his knee. But there was no one there. The light flowed down upon him, warm and soft. “Hell,” he muttered.

  “Well, now I got three kids, and they want everythin’. Fran says they can’t have it. She’s got this budget. Baby-sits, too, as if she ain’t got enough work to do without that. She thinks money in the bank’s somethin’ everybody should have. Why? Money’s made to spend and have a good time on. But not Fran. Come to think of it, she ain’t so pretty anymore. Gettin’ old, though she’s only thirty. Maybe that’s old for a dame, I guess. And she’s always readin’ and listening to newscasts. Hates sports. Ain’t that somethin’?

  “What do I get? I can tell you this: I get more than the schoolteachers, even if I’m only a factory stiff! Yes sir! Think that one over. Is Fran satisfied? Oh no. Not my old girl. She wants me to go to this automation school the factory has. Learn somethin’, she says. And she shoves her damn books at me from the library. You know somethin’? Women make me sick. Always tryin’ to be bigger than they are, and not the way you think, either! They never know a guy don’t have a chance these days.”

  The warm and mutely lit room was silent. Tab glared at the curtain. “One of those headshrinkers, huh? Listen and then write books about us poor jerks who never had a chance. What’m I here for? Well, I’ve had all there is. I’m pullin’ out. I’m on my way, and Fran and the kids can go on Welfare. Why not? That’s what taxes are for, ain’t they? Anyway, the way they’re throwin’ the atom bombs around, there won’t be no world soon, anyway. Or maybe it’s the hydrogen bomb. Or missiles. So why not live it up? Well, Fran seems to know what I’ve got in mind, and she says, ‘Go to that place Mr. Godfrey built’. I say no, and she begs and cries, and what the hell can you do with women? Hey, are you a priest back there? I hear you’re a Jew. Know what I think about Jews? There’s this guy in the Army

  Hell, who cares? I’m filled right up to here, never havin’ a chance or anythin’. One guy tells me the Jews’ve got the whole money cornered. And the factory’s full of niggers and Puerto Ricans. A white man don’t have a chance these days.”

  He scowled surlily at the curtain. “Maybe you’re thinkin’ about the bonus I got from the state. That wasn’t Fran’s business. Had a good time on it; four hundred dollars. A guy’s got a right to have a good time once in his life, don’t he? What’ve I got to live for? Bet you never saw a lathe or a saw or a hammer in your life. What do you guys know about workin’? I work forty hours a week, and then I fall on my face.” He paused, then grinned sheepishly. “Hell, my dad worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. The sucker. Wonder how he did it. Yeh, I wonder how he did it. Did you ever work twelve hours a day?”

  The silence of the room appeared to enlarge and to hold him. He rubbed his jaw. “Hell, Fran ain’t a bad kid. I’m not complainin’. It’s just I never had a chance. Maybe Fran didn’t, neither. She worked, too, in this diner. And now there’s these kids. Molly’s kind of cute, but the two boys just yell all
the time.” He laughed shortly. “Just like me and my brothers yelled. No wonder Dad and Mom used to clip us.

  But Molly’s kind of cute. She was real cute in that Christmas bit at St. Aloysius. An angel. She looks kind of like Fran. Yeh. Come to think of it, women don’t have such a hot time, do they? They get pretty and then they marry — ”

  He looked at the curtain. He was a big and burly young man; he stood up, his hands hanging at his sides, his face thrust forward. He said softly, “And then they marry jerks like me. That’s what they do. They marry jerks like me.”

  His face changed, became heavy and sober. He rubbed his chin again. He said, “Poor Mom. Poor Fran. Poor Molly.” He moved toward the curtain and said earnestly, “But I guess you don’t have a mother now, do you, and I guess you don’t know about women.”

  The curtain did not move. He looked at it uncertainly. Then he cried out, “Why don’t you talk? Why don’t you tell me what to do? I’ve got Fran and Molly, haven’t I?”

  He ran to the curtain and pushed the button savagely. The curtains rolled apart swiftly, and the inner light rushed out upon him. He looked, and stood in utter silence. Then his eyes filled, and the tears ran down his full cheeks as if he were a child again.