Robert Pirsig - Lila. An Inquiry Into Morals

She didn’t even have enough to even pay for the drinks. There was going to be trouble.

She felt sick. She had to go to the toilet.

When she went past the waiter he looked like he already knew she wasn’t going to pay.

The toilet stunk. She tried to wash but there wasn’t any soap. This was a god-damn dump, this place. Her face was dirty too, but there was nowhere to wash. This dirty city. She saw in the mirror that her hair was dirty too. She needed to wash.

If she used the coins to call some friends they could come and help. But it was four years now. Nobody stayed still for four years in New York.

When she got to the phone, on the first coin, she tried Laurie’s number. The phone rang and rang. While it was ringing she realized that if she wanted to she could go out the door right from where this phone was and they wouldn’t be able to stop her.

The waiter was watching her. He’d stop her. He looked mean. He looked like he’d been around.

Laurie’s phone didn’t answer. That was all right. That meant she got the coin back. But then it answered and the voice asked who was calling. She said, Lila Blewitt. The woman went away and Lila waited. Thank God Laurie was still here.

But then the voice came back and said, You must have the wrong number, and hung up.

What did that mean?

She tried two other numbers and got her coin back. She was going to call another address but she realized she really didn’t know her. She wouldn’t help even if she remembered her. The waiter was still watching.

Lila thought about him for a while. What could he do? She might as well get it over with.

She braced herself and went over and told him. Somebody stole my money. I can’t pay.

He just looked at her. He didn’t say anything.

She wondered if he heard what she said.

Then he said, What were you puttin in the telephone?'

That was coins, Lila said. They took my billfold.

He just stared at her some more. She could see he didn’t believe her.

After a while he said, They took your billfold.

Yes, she said.

He stared some more.

Then he said, I just work here. The manager isn’t here.

He turned and went out to the kitchen.

When he came back he said, They said to leave your name and address.

I don’t have an address, she said. He stared some more.

You don’t have an address, he repeated.

That’s what I said.' She was starting to get mad.

Where do you live?

On a boat.

Where’s the boat? he asked. She wondered why he wanted to know that. What was he going to do now?

On the river, she said. It doesn’t matter. I have to leave tonight. I don’t know where the boat is.

The waiter kept staring at her. Jesus Christ, what a starer!

Well, just sign the name of the boat, he said.

He looked at where she signed the piece of paper. Then he gave her a dirty look and said, And now, when you get back to your boat please get some money from your boat and bring it back here, OK? Because other people gotta live too, ya know?

She picked up her purse and shirts from the floor by the telephone and saw him smile at somebody back in the kitchen and shake his head as she went out the door. At least he wasn’t as bad as she thought he was going to be. He could have called the cops or something. He probably thought she was some kind of crazy person.

It was getting cold and the street looked spooky now in the dark.

The restaurant door closed behind her. She could have left this box of shirts to pay for it, she thought. Now she had to carry them. But he never asked.

She thought about going back and giving them to him… No, it was all over. He wouldn’t take them, anyway…

But there was no reason for him to look dirty at her like that, Lila thought. She buttoned her cardigan. They didn’t pay him to look like that.

Maybe the Captain would like them when he saw them. Then he could give her some money to pay the restaurant and they could go back and have a meal and he wouldn’t give the waiter any tip. No, they’d give him a super big tip just to make him feel bad.

She didn’t have any money to take a cab now. She couldn’t call the police. Maybe she could call the police. They probably wouldn’t remember her. Nobody remembered her. But she didn’t want to do that.

Everybody was gone. Where has everybody gone? she wondered. What’s happening that everybody’s gone? First the Captain is gone and then Jamie is gone. And Richard too, even Richard is gone. She never did anything to him. Something really bad was happening. But they weren’t telling her what it was. They didn’t want her to know.

Lila began to feel her hands shake a little.

She reached in her handbag for her pills and then remembered they were gone too.

She began to feel scared.

This was the first time since the hospital that she didn’t have them.

She didn’t know how far it was to the boat… It was toward the river, in this direction, she thought… Maybe not… She’d try not to think about anything bad and maybe her hands would stop shaking… She hoped this was the right direction… It was so dark now.

It’s dark out, Phædrus thought. Beyond the large sliding glass doors of the hotel room there was no trace of light left in the sky. All the light in the room came from the wall lamp where the moth was still fluttering.

He looked at his watch. His guest was late. About half an hour late. That was traditional for Hollywood celebrities. The bigger they are the later they come, and this one, Robert Redford, was very big indeed. Phædrus remembered that George Burns had joked that he’d been at Hollywood parties where the people were so famous they never showed up at all. But Redford was coming now to talk about film rights and that was vital business. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t be here.

When Phædrus heard the knock on the door it had that special metallic sound of all the fireproof hotel doors in the world, but this time he was suddenly filled with tension. He got up, walked over to open it, and there in the corridor stood Redford with an expectant, unassuming look on his famous face.

He seemed smaller than his film images had portrayed him to be. A golf cap covered his famous hair; odd, rimless glasses drew attention away from the face behind them and a turned-up jacket collar made him even more inconspicuous. Tonight he didn’t look anything at all like the Sundance Kid.

Come on in, Phædrus said, feeling a real wave of stage fright. This was suddenly real time. This is the present. It is as though this is opening night and the curtain has just gone up and everything is up to him now.

He feels himself force a smile. He takes Redford’s coat, tensely, trying not to show his nervousness, being smooth about all this, but accidentally he bunches the coat in the back, clumsily, so that the Kid has trouble getting one arm out… My God, he can’t get his arm out… Phædrus lets go and the Kid gets the coat off by himself, and hands it to him with a questioning glance, then hands him the hat.

What a start… Real Charlie Chaplin scene. Redford goes ahead into the sitting room, walks to the glass doors and looks over the park, apparently orienting himself. Phædrus, who has followed behind, sits down in one of the overstuffed silk-upholstered gilded Victorian chairs they have put in this room.

Sorry to be so late, Redford says. He turns from the glass doors and then moving slowly, at his own discretion, settles down on the opposing couch.

I just got in from Los Angeles a half-hour ago, he says. You lose three hours coming this way. At night they call it the "Red-Eye" flight… His eyes dart in for a reaction. Well named… you don’t get any sleep at all…