Philip Roth - Letting Go

He stood up, shaking out his legs. “The son-of-a-bitch little bum,” he mumbled, and then he and his nephew exchanged a glance. Afterwards their gaze dropped to the pavement. Any embarrassment they felt had not to do with the truth or falsity of Asher’s story, but with some plot that the two of them seemed to share.

From the church steps to Astor Place they said nothing. There was a crowd around the subway entrance; businessmen hurried into banks on two corners, and Village housewives swarmed around the supermarket. The rushing and scurrying made Paul even more certain that he and Asher were somehow accomplices. They might have been about to rob the Chemical Corn Bank across the street. Asher said, “The movies on Forty-second Street are open all day.”

“I told you I wouldn’t jump out of any windows.”

“Then what then?”

It was not out of trust or love for Asher that once again he told him a secret; it was simply that he was thrown in with him. “I’m going to look for a job.”

“Is that the plan you woke up with? Does that explain the silence?”

“I suppose so.”

“Because,” his uncle said, reaching into his jacket, “I don’t want to influence you unduly. This decision is yours.” From his pocket he took a dark tie like the one he himself was wearing. “There’s a little thief downstairs from me that sells everything. I bought two. You want to come?”

Paul’s hand was smacking his forehead. “Asher, what are you trying to do? Tempt? Tease? What, test me? Haven’t things been difficult enough without this? Do you consider this a helpful suggestion?”

“I only think,” said Asher, not so definite about himself, “you should do what you want to do.”

“What do you think—” Several shoppers turned to look at him; he lowered his voice. “What do you think I’ve been sweating my insides out about since I got here? Put that tie away, will you? Get it away! What’s the matter with you!”

“I don’t know,” Asher said. “A funeral … I might have talked too much.” He rolled the tie up into a ball. “I don’t want to be responsible for your flying in the face of your real nature.”

“My real nature,” Paul said, exercising immense control, “is just what I’m expressing. Put the tie away, please! ”

“It’s away. Calm yourself.” When he moved into the mouth of the stairway leading down to the subway, Paul didn’t follow. Asher asked, “What kind of job are you getting?”

“A high-paying one.”

“That’s your real nature?”

“Let me map it out for you,” Paul said. “You and I are different types. Let’s keep that straight.”

“Granted—”

“I can’t preserve only myself. That’s not what I want to do. I’m going to have to preserve my wife too. She’s a helpless girl without a lot of strength, you understand? I took away her youth from her — don’t stop me, don’t interrupt. My leaving is going to be a big blow despite all the horror we have had together. She’s going to need psychoanalysis — don’t stop me, please. ” But Asher had only been showing him a pair of skeptical eyes. “Whatever you think is beside the point anyway. If she thinks she needs one, then I’ll give her one, and put her on her feet, and then maybe someday I’ll be through and free and get some peace. I’ll get a high-paying job and I’ll send money every week, and we’ll live separate lives, and that’s my way of working things out. You work your life out one way—”

“What could I do with five kids?”

“I’m not questioning anything!” In talking they had moved down the stairs and stood now in the grim half-light. Trains rushing through the station beneath them whisked candy wrappers up against their cuffs. Paul was all but pleading. “You work your life out one way, I work mine out another. I’ve figured this all out, Asher, and maybe I’ll be a better man for it. A happier one.” But he could not help sighing. Was Asher a happy man for what he had worked out? He swallowed and tried to harden his insides. “Today is the day for acting things out. It’s a crucial day and it’s not gotten off to a good start. To tell you the truth, I don’t know why you had to taunt that bum, for one thing—”

“I don’t approve of begging,” said Asher sharply. There was another rush beneath them, and until the noise passed they had to stand silently facing each other. And Paul realized that he despised this uncle of his — as much as Asher had despised that bum. An equation began to work itself out while that interminable train roared north: he was to Asher as Asher to the bum—

“—public nuisance. Shouldn’t be allowed—”

“Nobody likes begging,” Paul said. “I didn’t think that was the point.”

“We don’t share the same attitude about human needs. I, for instance, wouldn’t worry about my ex-wife’s psychoanalysis. I wouldn’t consider that cutting the bonds.”

Asher tried to move down a step, but Paul was holding on to his sleeve. Now they could both see into the change booth, where a Negro was reading a book. “It’s not easy, Asher, giving birth to yourself all over again at twenty-seven. I’m cutting plenty of bonds, don’t kid yourself. Plenty. Look at you,” he said, holding his uncle. “Even you feel obliged still to go to my father’s funeral. Isn’t that right? If you were all you claim you were, or are, why bother?” That off his chest, he felt in the right; since he had watched Asher ironing his suit at eight in the morning, he had wanted to say it. “Why bother with ceremonies or institutions or anything?”

“Funerals give a sharper edge to myself. In a funeral yard I often arrive at further refinements in my quest for self-understanding.”

“That isn’t where people usually go to get a better grip on the objective facts.”

“Another thing that separates me from people.” A train had pulled into the station, and Asher was waving an arm at it and running.

Paul charged after him, and, despite the people nearby, he called, “What about your mother’s plants, Asher — what about — Asher, you’re going because nobody cuts all—” But Asher had slid safely behind the subway doors.

The crumb! The saboteur! The sloppy—

But he left off with condemnations, experience having taught him that what he chose to curse in others was sometimes what he was not much at home with in himself. He raced up the stairs and, in the sunlight again, headed for Cooper Union. He made another effort at hardening himself in the area between his neck and his groin. Alas, he succeeded. Jesus! He was getting better at it. What a thing — he thought, having a light philosophical moment while boarding the Madison Avenue bus — is a man.

In the Fifties, one could not see the sidewalk for the shoppers. While lights changed, he stood beneath a clock and tried to figure out exactly what to do. He crossed in the next swarm forward and made his way into a luncheonette, where he had a cup of coffee. When he was finished, the empty cup gave him something to stare into. There were two sets of events to contemplate: Libby waking alone in Chicago, and what was happening in Brooklyn. Absent from both he nevertheless saw both unraveling at the bottom of his cup. The counter girl came along with the Silex pot and poured, wiping out his imaginings. He rose and made his way to the telephone booth at the end of the counter.

In the Yellow Pages he found a longer list under “Employment Agencies” than he had expected. The length of the list set him back for at least two minutes. Finally he settled on writing down the names of all the agencies beginning with A and B. He also wrote down a name beginning with S, so as not to narrow his chances, then closed the book and left the store.