Stanley Elkin - Boswell

I went back to Penner’s room, straightened it, then went to the market and bought eggs. I got a paper and read the gossip columns. I looked longingly at a picture of a presidential dinner party; the Belgian Ambassador was smiling, his ear cocked aristocratically toward the lips of the woman next to him, the wife of the British Prime Minister. Prime Ministers are prime, I thought.

I crumpled the paper and shoved it away from me. What time was it? There was no clock in Penner’s furnitureless, wardrobeless, eggless world. I had forgotten to look when I was in the street. My arm ached. When would Penner be back? I didn’t even know where he worked. He was “not far.” Yeah, me too.

I went to the window. A lady was passing in the street with a green laundry bundle under her arm. I opened the window. “Lady, what time is it?” I called.

She passed by without answering, without stopping, without even looking around, as though strangers shouting to her from windows for the time of day were one of the hazards of city life she had been prepared for. Meet overtures with silence. Better than judo.

“Thank you, lady, and the same to you.”

I thought I might go out and spend some more of my ten dollars, buy some elegant little something for the man who has nothing, but my heart wasn’t in it. Or I might pretend to rent a room someplace. I had heard that landladies were supposed to be talkative. My heart wasn’t in that, either. Where was my heart, anyway, I wondered. Let Penner come back. We young men could talk over our plans.

I heard the same light footstep in the hall I had heard earlier. It came right up to Penner’s door. Then someone was saying words into Penner’s woodwork. “Marty? Marty? Are you there? It’s me.”

“Come on in, it’s not locked,” I said, using Penner’s favorite ploy — a lie, incidentally, as I discovered at feeding time.

A girl came in. A pretty little thing, but pale and frail-looking, whose passion brought on asthma attacks.

“Where’s Marty?” she asked, surprised.

“Not far,” I said.

“Are you his friend?”

“Like a brother,” I said.

“Is Marty coming back soon?”

“Have a seat,” I said. “We’ll wait for him together.”

“Who are you?”

“Jim Boswell.”

“I don’t remember Marty talking about you.”

“I don’t remember Marty’s talking about you.”

“Oh,” she said, “I’m Alice. I’m Marty’s friend.” I didn’t believe that one, I can tell you.

“Listen,” she said, “are you very close to Marty?”

“Not far.”

“Tell him not to do it.”

“He wants to do it,” I said. “His heart’s set on doing it. You know how Marty is.”

“It will ruin his life,” she said.

“He doesn’t think so,” I said curtly.

“You sound like you think it’s a good idea,” she said sadly.

I shrugged.

“I don’t understand how a friend of Marty’s could feel that way,” she said.

“Marty thinks it will be fun,” I explained.

She looked at me curiously. I had probably made a mistake.

“Does Marty know you’re here?” she said suspiciously. “I could call him,” she threatened. “Who are you?”

“Alice, I told you. I’m Jim Boswell.”

“I’ll come back later,” she said, “when Marty’s here.” She moved toward the door uneasily.

“Alice,” I said sharply, “please sit down. I want to talk to you.”

“I think I’d better come back later, Mr. Boswell.”

“All right,” I said, “but it’s silly to be shy. I know about last night. It was me who called. Didn’t Marty tell you that?”

She turned, troubled and unconfident.

“I don’t think it was very nice — what Marty did.”

“What did he do?” she asked in a dry voice.

I remembered the hand over the mouthpiece. “He threw you out,” I said.

Alice came back to the chair, and sat down. “I thought it was a woman,” she said quietly. She started to cry.

“Oh, don’t do that. Alice? Please don’t cry.”

I moved over to her chair. One hand was across her eyes. I leaned down toward her. “Please, Alice,” I said. “I’m sorry.” There were carbon smudges on her fingers, little bits of eraser rubber under her nails.

“Did you come here from work?” I asked as gently as I could.

She nodded. “Where’s Marty? Where is he?”

“Were you here earlier this afternoon?”

“On my lunch hour,” she sobbed. “I had to take a cab.”

Everybody was always coming up to Penner’s place in a cab. It might have been the Ritz.

“Please don’t cry,” I said. “Please don’t.” I wanted to touch her, to hold her like a little girl in my lap, to squeeze her behind. I wanted to change her life, to cure her asthma, to give her talent and lovers and irony and wealth. I have always had an unreasonable sympathy for certain unmarried working girls. Not waitresses, not stewardesses, not even girls who work in stores — but office girls, girls out of high school who become clerks and typists, girls who file things. (Frequently I am sorry for people without realizing that my own circumstances are substantially the same as theirs; the thought of people having to live in apartment buildings depresses me, yet I have lived in them and they aren’t bad.) When I see such girls on a bus or overhear them on their lunch hour in a cafeteria they make me sad. Where will they meet the fellows, I wonder. Do church functions really work? Who will mix with them at mixers? How about stamp clubs? Pen pals? Travelers Aid?

Alice continued to cry, her sobs coming in dry little wheezes. Her nose was running. I thought of the man in the bar whose hand had to be guided to my arm. I thought of my muscles. Who had given them to me? I had. Free enterprise had. Let Alice lift weights. Didn’t Weinbuhr himself say that compassion is the retreat of the impotent?

“Alice,” I said, “suppose Marty comes in? You don’t want him to see you like this.” Now I was speaking her language. She stopped sobbing and looked up at me gratefully. I helped her to her feet. “Don’t chase him, Alice,” I said. “A man doesn’t respect a woman who chases him.”

“That’s right,” she said.

“Of course,” I said. “And a girl’s got to look attractive for her friend. Nobody looks good with puffy red eyes and a runny old nose.”

“That’s for sure,” she said.

“Now you go on home and when Marty comes in I’ll talk to him.”

“Yes,” she said.

“That’s better,” I said. I opened the door for her. “Go on home now.” I winked at her as she went out. “And, Alice—”

“Yes?”

“Wash those fingernails, sweetie.”

Penner came in about ten minutes after Alice went out.

“You’re not at the gym,” he said for a greeting.

“No.”

He took off his coat and immediately began to prepare his dinner. When he pulled out the coffee can he saw the eggs I had bought. Without a word he put one egg in the pan.

Alice, I thought, you don’t know how lucky you are.

I let Penner scramble his egg in peace. When it was ready he took the pan and sat down on the bed. “Father,” he said, “for that which I am about to receive I thank Thee.” He chewed the egg solemnly, and when he had finished he brought the pan to the sink, scraped some bits of egg into a small bag, and washed out the pan. Then he took the bag and went to the window. “When you came last night, I forgot about the birds,” he said. He emptied the egg onto the ledge, then returned to the bed. Seeing the newspaper I had crumpled, he picked it up, smoothed it out and turned the pages.

“Where’s the classified section?”

“It’s all there,” I said.