Stanley Elkin - Boswell

I went around to the wife’s side. I could see her push the little button down that locks the door. She was looking up at me as her husband drove off. I winked at her and waved. I tried to let her know in that wink, and I think she may have understood, that there are forces in the world against which even David Niven is helpless, against which cuteness is about as effective as snow piled against a tire for traction.

I put the two dollars in my pocket next to my key and walked off whistling. It was the first time I had ever turned my strength to account. My uncle would have thought I was crazy, but Herlitz, Herlitz would have been proud!

I called Penner.

“Penner?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Boswell.”

“Who?”

“James Boswell. From the gym.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“Listen — Penner? I wonder if you could put me up for a few days. I’ve had some trouble with my uncle.”

“Oh.”

He put his hand over the receiver. There was somebody there. I knew what he was feeling. You just hate to turn people down if they don’t mean anything to you.

“I’m still here,” he said. “You need a place for tonight, is that it?”

“Well, for a few nights. Until I decide what to do.”

“This place is awfully small. Just a room.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right. Thanks anyway.”

“Have you got much luggage? I mean there aren’t any bar bells or anything, are there? I’ve got limited closet space.”

I remembered what my uncle had said about circus trailers. “I haven’t any luggage.”

“Well, come on over. We’ll work something out.”

“That’s all right, if the room’s that small, I’m not offended if—”

“No, it’s all right. Come on over. I’m glad you called.”

“You’re sure it will be all right?”

“Sure I’m sure. Certainly. It’s okay. Listen—” He lowered his voice. “I’m glad you called.”

“Well, if it’s all right. I’m leaving now.”

I took a taxi to Penner’s and gave the driver the rest of my two dollars. A spender spends. What’s $1.90? This was all in the old days, you understand. I wasn’t established and I was more or less innocent and everybody’s secrets were important to me. I had no discrimination, no taste in these things. If a man clapped a hand over a receiver he had something to hide. If he turned around two minutes later and lowered his voice and told you he was glad you called, he had two things to hide and maybe more. He was a good person to put up with. Who knew? Penner could turn out to be a queer, an embezzler, somebody into the mob for a few thou. I needed an intimacy badly. What innocence!

I’ve been going over some of my notes. What can I do with this stuff? I feel nasty tonight. From the old days: Boris Schlockin, the professor, joined the Communist Party after the Depression. Noel and Elizabeth Sarrow’s baby, Eileen, was adopted. The girl is 17 and doesn’t know. Philip Paris wrote his wife’s doctoral dissertation. Dr. Fernan Bidwell, who lobbies for the AMA against socialized medicine, does illegal operations. Herman Ote, the Boy Scout official, is a homosexual. Cardinal Fellupo was a suicide. Murray Butcher, the famous racer, drinks while driving. These are people I don’t even know, you understand, just that I’ve heard about. Usually I do not spread gossip. I use it to trade with, of course, but I am no gossipmonger. It is just that I must know it. I can’t help myself.

The driver let me out in front of Marty Penner’s rooming house. (It has just occurred to me that Penner must have been my first host.) There was a directory in the hall, a blue slate with the roomers’ names and room numbers written in chalk. (Later I copied some of the names down on file cards and asked Penner about them casually.) Penner lived on the first floor all the way in the back. I knocked.

“It’s Boswell.”

“Come in. The door’s not locked.”

Penner was frying eggs on a hot plate. The coil looked barely warm. “It takes a half hour,” he said, “but they’re usually delicious.”

I nodded. There was only one bed and we were both big men. I wondered where I would sleep.

“Did he throw you out?” Penner asked.

“What?”

“Your uncle. Did he throw you out?”

“No. I think I left on my own. Maybe it was both.”

Penner took the pan off the hot plate and stuck a fork into the eggs. He ate them out of the pan. “Out of the frying pan into my mouth,” he said with his mouth full of yellow egg. “Sorry I haven’t got any more or I’d offer you something. You’ve probably eaten, though. It’s pretty late.”

As a matter of fact I hadn’t, but it was pretty late. I made allowances, as I always do for my hosts. Whatever it was that had been upsetting Penner when I spoke to him on the phone, he seemed pretty jaunty now. “How long do you think you’ll need the place?” he said.

I told him it would be a terrific favor if he could let me stay three days. I hadn’t the slightest idea where I would go after that, but things happen.

“Three days,” he said as though that were what he was chewing in his mouth. “Three days. We’ll, well see.”

This was some Penner, I thought. Well, we’ll see, indeed. He was pretty sprightly about other people’s troubles. I am not a rude man. I decided to let him control the moods in that small room. I told him about the car lift. I made it very funny, but Penner didn’t laugh. I resented his indifference, but then I wondered where I got it, my resentment, my expectations of how people ought to act, to me and to each other. What was I? A booted- around guy who since age seven had never managed to run up more than four years in any one place. A guest in my own family, for God’s sake. How would I know anything about these things?

But I knew, all right. Penner was being lousy. And I knew this because whatever else I am or am not, I am a social person. I came into the world knowing.

I let Penner finish his eggs. They took as long to eat as they did to make. When he finished he went over to a tiny washstand in the corner of the room and rinsed out his pan. Then he took a coffee pot from behind a green-cloth-covered apple crate and put in some water and a single tablespoon of coffee. “There’s only the coil,” he said, “so if I make eggs I have to eat them before I make the coffee.”

“I see.”

“It makes for a long meal. Aids digestion.”

“It would.”

“Just one coil, one cup of coffee, one room, one closet, one bed, one faucet in the sink. And me, I’m single,” he said. “Simplicity. Functional, right?”

“Listen,” I said, “you could have told me on the phone. I don’t want to put you to any trouble. I’ve got a key to the gym. I’ll sleep there.”

“No, no,” Penner said. “Don’t be silly. Are you putting me to any trouble?”

I had to admit that I didn’t seem to be.

“Look,” he said, “this is a rooming house. There’s always an empty room. I’ll find you one when it’s time to go to sleep.”

“What about the landlady?”

“Deaf.”

Penner picked up a newspaper. He read for a while and then remembered that I was sitting there on his one chair. “Have you seen the paper?”

“No,” I said.

“Here.” He handed me the classified section.

“Have you got the society section there?” I asked.

“Oh. Sure. Here.”

I read every word. I usually do, but tonight I was compulsive about it; I was damned if I would say another word to Penner until he spoke to me. I stared at the sons of, the daughters of, the announcements of, and read the character lines in the faces of important-looking bankers at their winter homes in Florida, and the character lines in the butts of their nieces on the white sand beaches. What was he thinking of? Was everyone crazy? What did he mean with his sotto voce “I’m glad you called”? Was he a master ironist? Who had been in the room with the rude bastard? If I’d had any brains I would have stood up and gotten the hell out of there. At least I could be silent.