William Saroyan - The Laughing Matter

For Henry Saroyan, and Little Henry

“I want a drink,” the boy said.

“Me, too,” the girl said.

“Well, we’re almost there,” the man said. “When we get there you can drink all you want.”

“Is that the house?”

“No, it’s a little farther on.”

They walked on, moving down the dusty road beside the irrigation ditch choked with grass, the afternoon hot, the air full of the smell of leaves, water, fruit, and insects.

The house was old, faded white, and foolish-looking, but that was the way they made them.

“You’ve got the key?” the woman said.

“Certainly I’ve got the key.”

“Let’s see it.”

“Well, if I didn’t have it,” the man said, “we’d get in all right, don’t worry about that.”

He showed the key.

“I suppose we had to walk.”

“Didn’t you enjoy the walk?” the man said. “I did. What’s the good of being in the country if you don’t walk?”

“A mile? After a five-hour train ride?”

“Why not? You get settled. I’ll go back for the suitcases.”

“I suppose you’ll walk?”

“I will.”

“With two heavy suitcases.”

“They’re not heavy.”

“Oh, take a taxi!”

“I want to walk. Do you like the house?”

“It doesn’t look like much from the outside,” the woman said.

“Not you,” the man said. “Red . Do you like it?”

“Isn’t it falling to pieces?” the boy said.

“Yes, with laughter.”

They went up the steps to the front porch, the man put the key into the lock, turned it, then pushed the door open. The boy turned to look again at the vines. He was the last to enter the house, which was dark and cool.

“Where’s the water?” he said.

“You can have some out of the tap right away,” the man said, “or you can wait a minute until I get the pump primed, and then drink some out of the earth.”

“I’ll wait,” the boy said.

They were soon in the yard, the pump was primed with water out of the barrel under the mouth of it, and then water was pouring out steadily, as the man pumped.

“Go ahead,” he said. “We’re going to be here a while. Take off your shoes and walk around in the water.”

The boy flung off his shoes and walked in the puddle.

“O.K.,” the man said. “Now, duck your head under there and drink all you want.”

“No cup?”

“No. Watch me.”

The man put his face alongside the water, and drank; after him the boy, getting his whole face wet. The girl and the woman came out of the house, the girl tried, and got her face wet, too.

The girl removed her shoes and walked in the puddle with the boy. The man walked to the fig tree, took hold of a branch, stretched his body upon it, then lifted himself, the woman watching, the boy and the girl parading in the puddle. The man poked about in the tree and found four ripe figs, one of which he ate, peeling and all. He then peeled one and handed it to the woman, and peeled the others for the boy and the girl.

“What is it?” the girl said.

“Fig,” the man said. “Well, I’ll go get the suitcases. Sit around and talk.”

He turned and wandered off, but there was the boy beside him.

“I’ll go with you.”

“It’s a mile, and a mile back.”

“It’s the same place.”

“Yes. The depot.”

At the depot a man smiled at the boy and said to the man, “You’re Dade’s brother, aren’t you? I’m Warren Walz. I know this is your boy because he looks so much like you.”

His father stood out on the platform in front of the tracks talking to Warren Walz, who wore a stiff straw hat. When he took it off Red saw that he had no hair on the top of his head.

Over there was a locomotive. The man leaning out of it was looking straight at Red.

“Hi,” Red said.

“Is that your father?” the man said.

“This one,” Red said.

“That’s the one I meant,” the engineer said. “That other one’s got three girls.”

“Smart aleck,” Walz said to Cody Bone, the engineer, “Cody, this is Dade’s brother, Evan.”

“You the professor?”

“Well, I’m at the university.”

“What are you professor of?”

“English.”

“They got professors of that? ”

“They’ve got them of just about everything.”

“They got professors of locomotives?”

“No, but maybe they ought to.”

“Get me in up there,” Cody said, “wherever it is.”

“Stanford.”

“Stanford? A young fellow like you?”

“Forty-four.”

“You don’t look any forty-four. Dade don’t look any fifty either, or whatever it is, and you don’t look any forty-four.”

Cody Bone looked down at Red, who had walked to the engine and was looking straight up at him now.

“Why is it hot and black?”

“This is one of the old babies,” Cody said. “I’ve pushed this baby twenty-five years myself, right here in Clovis. You going to be a professor like your father?”

“Yes.”

“Hope you stay around awhile.”

“Week.”

“Well, you be sure and come up here and sit beside me before you go back to Stanford with your father.”

The engineer looked over at the two men, saluted, and put the locomotive to work. Red watched it go. Far down the tracks he saw the big black baby come to three boxcars and bump them. He then saw the engine draw the three cars forward a hundred yards or so, switch across to another set of tracks, then hurry away. He watched until there was nothing more to see, except the vines spread out on either side of the tracks.

“Red,” his father said. “You want to ride home in Mr. Walz’s car?”

“Do you?”

“Well, we’ve been invited to. It’s up to you.”

“I don’t care.”

“He wants to walk,” the man said. “Thanks just the same.”

“Well, at least let me take the suitcases.”

“O.K., and thanks. I’ll see you when I get there.”

“No,” Walz said. “I’ve got to get home, but I know May would love to come over some night and meet Mrs. Nazarenus and the kids. I mean, she’d like all of us to meet, and so would I.”

“We would, too,” Red’s father said, “so make it tonight.”

“I’ll leave them on the porch.”

Walz picked up both suitcases and hurried around the depot to his car.

“Are the bricks hot?” Evan said to the boy.

“They’re not cold.”

“Feet feel good?”

“Yes. Now, look over there in the tracks. There’s grass there , too.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Why is it everywhere?”

They began to walk home, moving slowly and lazily.

“It’s strong stuff,” the man said. “I was on a train once in France that stopped close to a castle somewhere. All solid rock. One rock was cracked. Out of the crack grass was growing straight up.”

“How did it get there?”

“The wind.”

“The wind blew the grass into the cracked rock?”

“Blew dust and stuff,” the man said, “and the seeds of grass. Rain got in among the stuff and seeds, and pretty soon green grass was growing out of the rock. And it was green.”

“Real green?”

“Yes. You like it around here?”

“Yes, especially the grass.”

“Did you like the fig?”

“I ate them before.”

“But not off a tree. Was it the same?”

“No, it was better off the tree.”

“You want to sit up with Cody in the locomotive sometime?”