Plexus

  “Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and begins laughing. He’s laughing about something that happened eight years ago. Something tragic usually.”

  “I’ll be damned,” said Ulric.

  “Sometimes he laughs that way because things are so hopeless he doesn’t know what to do. It worries me when he laughs that way.”

  “Shucks,” I said, “it’s only another way of weeping.”

  “Hear that!” said Ulric. “Golly, I wish I could see things that way.” He raised the empty glass for Marjorie to replenish.

  “It sounds silly to ask, perhaps,” he continued, gulping down a good throatful, “but when you get into a state like that isn’t it usually followed by a rather painful fit of depression?”

  I shook my head. “It might be followed by anything,” I answered. “The important thing is to first have a good meal. That usually sets me up, gives me equilibrium.”

  “You never drink to drive away a mood, do you? Pshaw! don’t bother answering… I know you don’t. That’s another thing I envy about you.… Just a good meal, you say. How simple!”

  “You think so?” I said. “I wish it were.… Well, let’s skip that! now that we have Marjorie, food is no longer a problem. I never ate better in my life.”

  “I can well believe that,” said Ulric, smacking his lips. “It’s strange—with me it’s often a job to work up an appetite. I’m the worrying sort, I guess. A guilty conscience, probably. I inherited all the old man’s bad traits. Including this”—and he tapped the glass he was holding.

  “Nonsense,” I said, “you’re just a perfectionist.”

  “You ought to get married,” said Mona, knowing that this would provoke a reaction.

  “That’s another thing,” said Ulric, making a wry grimace. “The way I treat that girl of mine is a crime. We’ve been going together for five years now—but if she dares to mention the word marriage I take a fit. The very thought of it scares the life out of me. I’m selfish enough to want her all for myself and yet I’m ruining her chances. I sometimes urge her to leave me and find someone else. That only makes things worse, of course. Then I make a halfhearted promise to marry her, which I forget about the next day, to be sure. The poor girl doesn’t know where she stands.” He looked at us half-sheepishly, half-roguishly. “I’ll be a bachelor all my life, I guess. I’m selfish to the core.”

  At this we all laughed uproariously.

  “I think we should be thinking about dinner soon,” said Marjorie. “Why don’t you men go for a walk? Come back in an hour and dinner will be ready.”

  Ulric thought it a good idea.

  “You might try to find a good piece of Roquefort,” said Marjorie as we sauntered out. “And a loaf of sour rye, if you can.”

  We walked aimlessly along one of the sedate, spacious streets peculiar to this neighborhood. We had had many walks together through similar vacuums. Ulric was reminded of the days long ago when we used to promenade along Bushwick Avenue of a Sunday afternoon, hoping to catch a glimpse of the shy young girls we were in love with. It was like an Easter Parade every Sunday—from the little White Church to the reservoir near Cypress Hill cemetery. Midway one passed the lugubrious Catholic church of St. Francois de Sales, situated a block or two away from Trommers’ beer garden. I speak of a period before the first war, the period when in France men like Picasso, Derain, Matisse, Vlaminck and others were just becoming known. It was still the “end of the century.” Life was easy, though we weren’t aware of it. The only thought in our heads was girls. If we succeeded in stopping them long enough to chat for a few minutes we were in seventh heaven. Weekdays we sometimes repeated the promenade in the evening. Then we became bolder. If we had the good fortune to encounter a couple of girls—near the reservoir or in the dark lanes of the park, or even at the confines of the cemetery—we would really attempt some daring advances. Ulric could remember the names of all of them. There was one couple he particularly remembered—Tina and Henrietta. They had been in the same class with us at graduation time, but, being somewhat backward, were two or three years older than the rest of the class. Which meant they were quite mature. And not only mature but bursting with sex. Everyone knew that they were just a pair of sluts. Tina, who was really audacious, was like one of Degas’ women; Henrietta was bigger, juicier, already a wench. They were always whispering smutty stories under their breath, to the amusement of the class. Now and then they drew their dresses up above their knees—to give us a look. Or sometimes Tina would grab Henrietta by the teat and squeeze it playfully—all this in class, behind the teacher’s back, of course. What more natural, therefore, than to be on the lookout for them when out for a walk in the evening? Now and then it happened. Hardly any words exchanged. Pushing them back against the iron railing, or against a tombstone, we slobbered all over them, fingered them, mauled them—everything but the real thing. It took older, more experienced boys to get away with that. At best we could manage a dry fuck. And go home limping, our balls aching like sixty toothaches.

  “Did I ever tell you,” said Ulric, “how I tried to make Miss Bairnsfeather, the graduating teacher? I mean, of course, several years after we had graduated. What a gawk I must have been! Well, you know what a juicy piece of tail she was.… I could never get her out of mind. So one day I wrote her a note—I had just taken a little studio and thought myself quite an artist, I can tell you—and to my surprise she answered it, urging me to look her up some time. I was so excited I nearly pissed in my pants. I called her up and invited her over to the studio. Of course I had prepared for her coming—all kinds of drinks, delicious little cakes, my canvases casually strewn about, a few nudes conspicuously placed over the divan, and so on… you know what I mean. What I had forgotten was the difference in age. She was still appetizing, of course, but so much of a woman now that I was intimidated. It took a bit of maneuvering to establish the right footing. I could see that she was trying to help me, but I was so damned shy, so gauche, that I nearly had nervous prostration. After all, one doesn’t just rip the pants off one’s favorite teacher.”

  He interrupted himself to chuckle and waggle his ears.

  “Did you manage it eventually?” I asked, to help him out.

  “I did indeed,” said Ulric, “but only after a heap of drinks. By that time she was so damned eager for it that she just fished my pecker out and pulled me on top of her. I had one of those eternal hardons that you get sometimes from drinking. We did just about everything, I can assure you, and still it wouldn’t go down. She was lying on the divan with just a blouse on, panting like a bitch. I had just washed myself with cold water, hoping that would do the trick. ‘Come here,’ she said, ‘I want to have a good look at that tool of yours. Ulric, why didn’t I know about this when you were in my class?’ I looked at her in amazement. ‘You mean you would have let me…?’ ‘Let you?’ she said—’I would have eaten you alive. Didn’t the other boys ever tell you about me?’ I could hardly believe my ears. All the while, Henry, I was standing over her, my prick pointing heavenward. Suddenly she sat up and grabbed it; I thought she would break it in two. Soon she was on her knees, sucking me off. Even then I didn’t come. I tell you, I was getting frantic. At last I turned her over, put it in from behind—until she began to moan. Then I eased it out, dragged her off the divan and, lifting her by the middle, I walked her around the studio on her hands. It was just like pushing a wheelbarrow upside down.… And even that had no effect. Desperate, I sat down in the big easy chair and let her straddle me. ‘Just let’s sit and fuck,’ I said. ‘Or don’t fuck—just leave it there till it melts.’ We had another drink, sitting there like that, and then another, and then another. It was still a brute of a bird when we unhitched. But limp.… But get this Henry. What do you suppose she says to me at that moment?”

  I looked at him blankly. Then I said: “Don’t tell me! For Christ’s sake, let’s turn around. I’ll have to tear off a piece before we sit down to eat.”

  He blinked his
eyes like an owl. He was just going to open his mouth again, when I said: “By the way, have you tackled Marjorie yet? She’s dying for it, you know.”

  “Not a bad idea,” said Ulric. “Do you suppose we can manage it… er… circumspectly?”

  “Leave it to me!”

  We hastened our steps. By the time we reached the door we were almost on the double trot.

  I took Mona aside and broached the idea.

  “Why don’t you wait till after dinner?” she suggested. “I mean, for Marjorie and Ulric.” We closed the door after us and had a quick one while Ulric and Marjorie talked it over. When we joined them Marjorie was sitting on Ulric’s lap, her skirt up over her knees.

  “Why don’t you get into something comfortable?” said Mona. “Something like this,” and so saying, she opened her kimono and revealed her naked flesh.

  Marjorie lost no time in following suit. Ulric and I had to don pajamas. In this fashion we sat down to eat dinner.

  A meal which is going to culminate in a sexual orgy has a way of traveling direct to the parts which need nourishment, as if directed by the little switchman who regulates the traffic throughout the autonomic system. It began with oysters on the half shell and caviar, followed by a delicious oxtail soup, porterhouse steak, mashed potatoes, French peas, cheese, sliced peaches and cream, all to the tune of a genuine Pommard which Marjorie had unearthed. With the coffee and liqueurs we had a second dessert—a French ice cream swimming in benedictine and whisky. Between courses Marjorie fiddled with Ulric’s pecker. The kimonos were now wide open, the breasts exposed, the belly buttons gently rising and falling. Inadvertently one of Marjorie’s nipples fell into the whipped cream, giving me the opportunity to suckle her breast for a brief moment or two. Ulric tried to balance a saucer on his pecker but unsuccessfully. Everything was proceeding merrily.

  Still nibbling at the tarts, cream puffs, napoleons and what not which the women had provided, we fell into an easy conversation about the good old days. The women had shifted position and were now ensconced in our laps. It took quite a bit of wriggling and jiggling before they could get themselves properly adjusted. Now and then one of us had an orgasm, fell silent for a while, then recovered with the aid of ice cream, benedictine and whisky.

  After a time we moved from the table to the divans and, between cat winks, kept up a running conversation about the most diverse subjects. It was easy, natural talk, and no one felt embarrassed if he dropped off into a snooze in the midst of a sentence. The lights had been dimmed, there was a warm, fragrant breeze sifting through the open windows, and we were all so thoroughly sated that it didn’t matter in the least what was said or what answer was given.

  Ulric had dropped off to sleep during a conversation with Marjorie. He hadn’t been asleep more than five minutes when he awoke with a jerk, exclaiming as if to himself: “Golly, I thought so!” Then, realizing that he was not alone, he mumbled something inaudible and raised himself on one elbow.

  “Was I asleep long?” he asked.

  “About five minutes,” said Marjorie.

  “That’s funny. It seemed to me like hours. I had one of those dreams again.” He turned to me. “You know, Henry, those dreams in which you try to prove to yourself that you are only dreaming.”

  I had to confess that I had never had one.

  Ulric could always describe his dreams in great detail. They terrified him somewhat because, to his mind, they indicated that he never really fell into a state of complete unconsciousness. In the dream his mind was even more active than in the waking state. It was his logical mind which came to the fore when asleep. It was that which disquieted him. He went on to describe the endless pains he took, when dreaming, to prove to himself that he was not awake but dreaming. He would take a heavy armchair, for example, and lift it high in the air with two fingers, sometimes with his brother seated in the chair. And in the dream he would say to himself: “There, nobody can do that if he’s awake—it’s impossible!” And then he would perform other impossible feats, some of them quite extraordinary, such as flying through a partially opened window and returning the same way, without disarranging his clothes or mussing his hair. Everything he did led to a suspected Q. E. D. which proved nothing, so he averred, because—“Well, I’ll put it this way, Henry: to prove to yourself that you are dreaming you would have to be awake, and if you are awake you can’t be dreaming, can you?”

  Suddenly he recalled that what had started him dreaming was the sight of a copy of “Transition” lying on the dresser. He reminded me that I had once loaned him a copy in which there was a wonderful passage on the interpretation of dreams. “You know the man I mean,” he said, snapping his fingers.

  “Gottfried Benn?”

  “Yes, that’s the fellow. A rum one, that bird. I wish I could read more of him.… By the way, you don’t have that issue here, do you?”

  “Yes, I do, Ulric me lad. Would you like to see it?”

  “I tell you what,” he said, “I wish you would read that passage aloud to us—that is, if the others don’t mind.”

  I found the copy of “Transition” and turned to the page.

  “ ‘Let us now turn to psychological facts. “At night all leaping fountains speak with a louder tone; my soul, too, is a leaping fountain,” says Zarathustra.… “Into the night life seems to be exiled”—these are the famous words from Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams—“into the night life seems to be exiled what once ruled during the day.” This sentence contains the entire modern psychology. Its great idea is the stratification of the psyche, the geological principle. The soul has its origin and is built in strata, and what we learned before in the organic field apropos of the construction of the big brain from the anatomic-evolutionary standpoint of vanished aeons, is revealed by the dream, revealed by the child, revealed by psychosis as a still-existing reality. We carry the ancient…’”

  “Hear, hear!” exclaimed Ulric.

  “ ‘We carry the ancient peoples in our souls and when the later acquired reason is relaxed, as in the dream or in drunkenness, they emerge with their rites, their prelogical mentality, and grant us an hour of mystic participation. When the…’”

  “Excuse me,” said Ulric, interrupting again, “but I wonder if we could have that passage once again?”

  “Sure, why not?” I reread it slowly, allowing each phrase to sink in.

  “The next sentence is a honey, too,” said Ulric. “I almost know the damned thing by heart.”

  I continued: “‘When the logical superstructure is loosened, when the scalp, tired of the onslaught of the prelunar states…’”

  “Golly! What language! Excuse me, Henry, I didn’t mean to interrupt again.”

  “ ‘When the scalp, tired of the onslaught of the prelunar states, opens the frontiers of consciousness about which there is always a struggle, then there appears the old, the unconscious, in the magical transmutation and identification of the “I,” in the early experience of the everywhere and the eternal. The hereditary patrimony.…’”

  “ ‘Of the middle brain!’ exclaimed Ulric. “Jesus, Henry, what a line, that! I wish you would explain that to me a little more fully. No, not now … afterwards, perhaps. Excuse me.”

  “ ‘The hereditary patrimony of the middle brain’,” I continued, ‘lies still deeper and is eager for expression: if the covering is destroyed in the psychosis there emerges, driven upward by the primal instincts, from out the primitive-schizoid substructure, the gigantic archaic instinctive “I,” unfolding itself limitlessly through the tattered psychological subject.’”

  “ ‘The tattered psychological subject!’ Wow!” exclaimed Ulric. “Thanks, Henry, that was a treat.” He turned to the others. “Do you wonder sometimes why I’m so fond of this guy? (He beamed in my direction.) There isn’t a soul who comes to my studio capable of bringing me that sort of pabulum. I don’t know where he gets these things—certainly I never stumble on them by myself. Which only goes to show, no doubt, how dif
ferently we’re geared.”

  He paused a moment to fill his glass. “You know, Henry, if you don’t mind my saying so, a passage like that could have been written by you, don’t you think? Maybe that’s why I like Gottfried Benn so much. And that Hugo Ball is another guy—he’s got something on the ball, too, what? The curious thing, though, is this—all this stuff, which means so much to me, I’d never have known about it if it weren’t for you. How I wish sometimes that you were with me when I’m with that Virginia bunch! You know they’re really not unintelligent, but somehow this sort of thing seems to repel them. They look upon it as unhealthy.” He gave a wry smile. Then he looked at Marjorie and Mona. “Forgive me for dwelling on these things, won’t you? I know it’s not the moment to indulge in windy discussions. I was going to ask Henry something about the hereditary patrimony of the middle brain, but I guess we could leave it until some more suitable occasion. How about a stirrup cup?—and then I’ll be off.”

  He filled our glasses, then went over to the mantelpiece and leaned against it.

  “I suppose it will always be a thing of wonder and mystery to me,” he said slowly, caressing his words, “how we ran into each other that day on Sixth Avenue after a lapse of so many years. What a lucky day it was for me! You may not believe it, but often when I was in some weird place—like the middle of the Sahara—I would say to myself: ‘I wonder what Henry would have to say if he were here with me.’ Yes, you were often in my thoughts, even though we had lost all touch with one another. I didn’t know that you had become a writer. No, but I always knew that you would become something or somebody. Even as a kid you gave off something which was different, something unique. You always made the atmosphere more intense, more sparkling. You were a challenge to all of us. Maybe you never realized that. Even now, people who met you only once continue to ask me—’How is that Henry Miller?’ That Henry Miller! You see what I mean? They don’t say that about anyone else I know. Oh well… you’ve heard this a dozen times or more, I know.”