Steven Millhauser - Edwin Mullhouse - The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954

One of the missing comics was the very first he had owned, although by dint of judicious trading it was no longer the earliest of his collection. Vividly he saw the pair of yellow skis sticking out of a snowball under a red sky. Vividly he saw himself sitting on the stoop in his Indian headdress, vividly he saw himself lifting a box of marbles and lying on his bed as outside the rain pattered against his windows; and it was as if Arnold Hasselstrom had taken from him a piece of his past, making his life henceforward resemble a jigsaw puzzle from which a piece is missing, so that in the center of a billowing white sail you see a piece-shaped hole, through which the dark green table hideously shows.

And at last he asked Arnold Hasselstrom to look again for the missing comic books. He had found one; perhaps the others were lying in a corner somewhere, or under a sink, or in a pail. “Yeah,” said Arnold Hasselstrom. As he was leaving he reached into his pocket, withdrew his hand, and stared at a palm that held a single dark penny. “You got a nickel?” he said, looking up at Edwin. Instantly Edwin looked away, saying: “A what? A knuckle? No I um maybe Jeffrey.” Even as he spoke he realized that on the top of one of the gray bookcases, beside his little blue-and-gold tin cash-register dime-bank, lay six pennies. Arnold Hasselstrom jerked a thumb at the pennies. “Four cents?” he asked. “I need it.” Edwin said: “Take it, take it,” and sat on the bed while Arnold Hasselstrom, understanding nothing, held his left palm beside the bookcase and with his right index finger pulled four pennies across the wood into his palm.

The next day Arnold Hasselstrom failed to mention the comic books. As he was leaving, Edwin asked if he had looked. “Yeah,” said Arnold Hasselstrom, giving him a look of guilty hatred. “But did you check every single place?” pursued Edwin, who had been taught never to say “yeah” for “yes.” “Yeah,” said Arnold Hasselstrom, a little too quickly, a little too sharply, so that Edwin felt compelled to say: “Well, maybe if you look again. Jeffrey, why is a raven like a writing desk?” “Because a writing desk is a raven in disguise,” I replied with a smile. “No,” said Edwin, “because they both have quills,” and he began to giggle while Arnold Hasselstrom looked off with his lively deadpan.

The next day, as all three of us were playing Parcheesi, Edwin said as he shook the dice: “Did you find those comics?” Instantly Arnold Hasselstrom reached into the tight pocket of his pants, so that his shoulder was pushed up. I wondered whether he was going to shoot both of us or only Edwin. Withdrawing his hand, he tossed onto the Parcheesi board, one at a time, two bright dimes. One slid to a stop against a yellow piece, but the other rolled slowly, round and round, before it fell.

For a moment Edwin stared. Then he said: “It’s not your turn,” and rolled the dice. “Twelve. That puts me”

Arnold Hasselstrom’s hand swept across the board. Most of the pieces and one dime struck the side of the bed, but two pieces and both dice hit the wall and rattled down behind the bed onto the floor. As Arnold Hasselstrom, wide-eyed, rose to his feet, I observed with interest that he did not once look at Edwin, who sat rigid with angry terror, staring at the table. Arnold Hasselstrom hit the table, which wobbled and almost fell. He picked up the Parcheesi board, held it under his chin, and tore it in half along the fold. He flung the halves onto the floor and stamped on them with his right foot. Then he was gone.

“Well,” said Edwin after a pause, “he didn’t have to,” and as he burst into silence I proceeded to pick up the twelve pieces, the two dimes, the two dice, and the ruined Parcheesi board, which even with the aid of masking tape would never, thank goodness, be the same.

THE DECLINE AND FALL of Arnold Hasselstrom would not occupy even a very small place in this biography, had it not occupied a very large place in the imagination of Edwin. Deterioration set in rapidly after the event recorded in the last chapter, an event which did not, incidentally, terminate their friendship: the decisive blow was Edwin’s refusal to see Arnold Hasselstrom when, a week later, he rang the bell. Mrs. Mullhouse said he was sick, Arnold Hasselstrom went away, and that, as Mrs. Mullhouse put it, was that. Within two days Edwin was blaming himself for the whole misunderstanding, and was prepared to receive Arnold Hasselstrom amicably when he next stopped by. But Arnold Hasselstrom never stopped by. Edwin, who was willing to be reconciled, was apparently not willing to make the first move. It was not the first time I had witnessed in my friend a certain stubbornness that is perhaps part and parcel of the creative temperament. Arnold Hasselstrom never did return the dartboard or the roulette wheel, by the way.

Perhaps it was the death of his friendship with Edwin, perhaps it was simply the coming of spring, at any rate as the weather grew warmer a distinct change came over Arnold Hasselstrom. No longer did he sit in sullen silence, brooding darkly about ridiculous periwigs or whatever it was he brooded about: instead he was visibly restless and bored, and squirmed in his seat as if he were chafing against invisible bonds. One morning he fell into a vicious fight in the hall and nearly had his head cracked open against a radiator. Another morning he appeared in class with a dark bruise under one eye. One day he was absent. When he returned the next afternoon, handing Miss Coco a crumpled note that she read with a little frown, I was not surprised when she asked him to go with her to the principal’s office. The forgery raised Arnold Hasselstrom in the eyes of the class, for no one had ever dared one before. A few days later he was absent again, and when he returned he did not even bother to bring a note, merely shrugging when Miss Coco questioned him. The next day he was absent again. This time he returned in a more colorful fashion. Kenneth Santurbano and I were working on a large map of Connecticut at the back of the room, and I had turned to consult the atlas concerning a small indentation in the southern coastline between Bridgeport and Stratford when I noticed a plump smiling man in the front of the room. According to the newspapers, his name was Mr. McKisco. He was wearing a long pale unbuttoned coat over dark clothes, his forehead was shiny, and his thin dark hair was combed straight back in little ripples. Beside him stood Arnold Hasselstrom. Mr. McKisco spoke a few words to Miss Coco, who nodded slowly; then he left, and Arnold Hasselstrom, with a distinct smirk on his face, walked to his seat.

During the next week Arnold Hasselstrom attended school regularly, behaving toward Miss Coco with a sullen obedience just short of insolence. He refused to talk to anyone else at all. On the playground, in the morning and afternoon before the bell, he stayed by himself. I watched him from afar as he sat defiantly alone on the sidewalk by the greening willow with his feet resting on the grass slope and his wrists resting on his knees, or as he stood alone in some empty corner of the playground with his hands in his pockets and his dark face turned against the wind.

One hot morning we entered the side playground, strolled to the back, and saw in the distance a large ring of shouting boys. Edwin and I glanced at one another and instantly looked away. As we hurried toward the noise my brain kept pace with my feet by repeating nonsensically the lines of an old poem: Rose Dorn, Rose Dorn, I am, forlorn, Rose Dorn, Rose Dorn, I am, forlorn. All over the playground groups of children went about their business, quite indifferent to the shouting circle in their midst. One group of girls was jumping rope a mere ten feet from the fight, and as we approached them a noisy chant briefly drowned the shouts: