William Saroyan - The Laughing Matter

“It’s awful big,” Red said. “Hot and heavy, too. Does it scare you?”

“Yes,” Cody said. “It does.”

“It scares me, too,” Red said. “If you want to be my grandfather, I want you to.”

“All right,” Cody said. “I’m your grandfather and you’re my grandson, but call me Cody. That’s what I’d ask you to call me if you were Pat’s boy.”

“Does Pat’s boy call you Cody?”

“Pat hasn’t got a boy. He’s got two girls, but when he gets a boy, the boy is going to call me Cody. Now, look, Red, we’re going to bump these three boxcars and push them to the depot. Ready?”

“Ready,” the boy said.

They bumped the three boxcars. The man standing near the track went quickly to where the engine had bumped them, worked there a moment, signaled Cody, then Cody made the engine push the cars ahead.

After a few minutes they saw the depot, and there was his father Evan Nazarenus and his sister Eva.

When he came down with Cody Bone from the engine Red went to his father and put his arms around him, hiding his head in the small of his back, not saying anything, because the truth was that something lately had made him feel he might not see his father again.

When the man got home he found the woman lying on the sofa in the parlor, and he saw that she had been crying. He saw that she was desperate and needed help. He saw her eyes say to him, Help me, you’re my husband, you’re the father of my kids, whatever I am, whatever it is that I’ve done, whatever it is that I may do if you do help me, help me, it’s not wrong to help those who have betrayed you, they too are alone, they too are betrayed, help me, Evan.

“I drove the locomotive,” Red said. “I drove it myself. Cody Bone sat beside me, but I was the one who drove it. Wasn’t I, Papa?”

“Yes, you were.”

“Yes, he was,” Eva said. “I saw him. He went up with the man, and he was the one, Mama. Yes, he was. Weren’t you?”

“Ah, Eva,” Red said, “I just said I was.” He turned away from Eva to the woman, who was standing now. “I wish you’d seen me, Mama. Papa saw me. I wish you’d seen me, too.”

“The man phoned,” the woman said, her voice itself saying help me .

“What man?”

“I forget his name. He said he was sorry but the children wanted to go away.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The one you asked to dinner. He said they couldn’t come.”

“Who is it, Papa?” Red said.

“Warren Walz,” the man said.

“Yes, that’s the one,” the woman said. “He said they’d love us to go to their house sometime.” She looked at him, to ask for help again, but again he couldn’t look at her. He’d glanced at her when he’d come in, and then he’d not looked at her again. “I’ve got lunch for the children on the table,” she said. “I wonder if they both shouldn’t have naps after lunch. It’s a hot day and so many things have happened, I wonder if—— Wouldn’t you like to lie down and rest after lunch, Red?”

“Well,” Red said. “Well, Mama, I didn’t think of it, but I could go to my room and close the door and just be there a while, I guess. I might lie down, too. I don’t know.”

“I thought,” she said to the man, “perhaps we could speak quietly while they rested.”

The boy watched them, feeling, but not understanding, what was going on. The smell of the locomotive was still with him—the smell of coal, fire, steam, and steel—but he could still smell the rocks, too, only he hadn’t found any rocks in the house. He smelled something else now, too. It was something that didn’t come from things but from people. It wasn’t a glad thing at all.

“I thought——” she said.

“How about washing up, Red?” the man said. “You, too, Eva.”

Red and Eva went off together to the bathroom.

They were alone in the parlor, the woman waiting for him to look at her, but he couldn’t. All he could do was stand there. He couldn’t go, or talk.

“I thought——” she said again.

“You didn’t think anything,” he said. He spoke quietly, perhaps because there was no other way to talk to her now, or because he didn’t want the children to hear.

“You didn’t think anything, so just shut up.”

She went to the kitchen, and he went out to the front porch, but that was where she’d told him, so he went down the steps, across the lawn, and then into the vineyard. The vines he saw were ribiers. The grapes would be ready in another couple of weeks. Some of them were ready now. They were a magnificent grape, big and black. He pushed leaves aside to look at some of the bunches that were hidden and found a number that were ready and just about perfect. The leaves were drying now, but they were still green, especially the shaded ones.

Have pity, he thought. What’s the good of not having pity?

I’ll have Dade find somebody to help her, he thought. He’ll know somebody. Somebody in San Francisco. I’ll take her there. I can’t help her. Whoever helps her, he won’t know who she is, he won’t know who I am, and he won’t know why he’s helping her, he’ll just help her. He’s helped others. He does it every day. It happens every day. It happens to all kinds of people.

He wandered among the vines and came at last to the end of the vineyard, bordered by a row of alternating pomegranate and olive trees. The pomegranates were still small, their casings still whole, not burst as they would be when they ripened. They were red, their crowns small and perfect, the spears straight now, not curved as they would be later on. The olives were small and green, the branches heavy with them. He wandered down the row until he came to another end of the sixty acres. The border here was an irrigation ditch only about a fifth full, the water moving slowly. He sat down on the bank of the ditch, looking at the weeds growing in the bottom of the ditch, growing in the water, being bent a little by the slow flowing of the water.

We couldn’t wait to have the third, he thought. Well, here’s the third. If it’s not mine, it’s hers , it’s at least half Red’s, half Eva’s. What do I do about it? What do I do about her? Go away? Do I go back to Paterson? Do I go to the slums we lived in, take a furnished room, write the story of my death, writing it until I am dead? What do I do? Do I pick up Red and Eva and go back to the house in Palo Alto and tell her to go to her man? Do I ask her to introduce me to him, so I can speak to him about what’s happened? Do I say to him, “What do you want to do? Do you want to start a family with her? Is that it?” What do I do? Do I speak calmly, and then stop his breathing?

He got up, wandered back to the house, searched through the fig tree, picked a dozen, and took them into the house. He put them on the tile table in the kitchen, then went into the parlor. She was lying on the sofa again. He saw her sit up, and he turned away.

“What do I do?” he said.

“The woman just called,” she said. “She was very nice. She said they would come, after all. The little girl has a cold. They decided it would be better not to go. They’ll be here at six. It’s not a bad cold, it’s just that they thought a trip wouldn’t help it any.”

“It must have meant a lot to you,” he said. “It must have meant more than anything else in the world, more than Red, more than Eva, more than——”

“If they’re coming,” she said, “I think we’d better try to talk, first. I don’t want anything like what happened last night to happen again. I slammed the door in her face. I don’t want to be rude to people who are trying to be nice.”