Henry Miller - NEXUS

And next year, at this same ungodly season of the year, you will probably ask me all over again if I am still writing and I will say yes and you will ignore it or treat it like a drop of wine that was accidentally spilled on your best tablecloth. You don't want to know why I write, nor would you care if I told you why. You want to nail me to the chair, make me listen to the shit-mouthed radio. You want me to sit and listen to your inane gossip about neighbors and relatives. You would continue to do this to me even if I were rash enough, or bold enough, to inform you in the most definite terms that everything you talk about is so much horse shit to me. Here I sit and already I'm in it up to the neck, this shit. Maybe I'll try a new tack—pretend that I'm all agog, all a-twitter. What's the name of that operetta? Beautiful voice. Just beautiful! Ask them to sing it again ... and again ... and again! Or I may sneak upstairs and fish out those old Caruso records. He had such a lovely voice, didn't he now? (Yes, thank you, I will have a cigar.) But don't offer me another drink, please. My eyes are gathering sand; it's only age old rebellion that keeps me awake at all. What I wouldn't give to steal upstairs to that tiny, dingy hall bedroom without a chair, a rug or a picture, and sleep the sleep of the dead! How many, many times, when I threw myself on that bed, I prayed that I would never more open my eyes! Once, do you remember, my dear mother, you threw a pail of cold water over me because I was a lazy, good for nothing bum. It's true, I had been lying there for forty-eight hours. But was it laziness that kept me pinned to the mattress? What you didn't know, mother, was that it was heartbreak. You would have laughed that off, too, had I been fool enough to confide in you. That horrible, horrible little bedroom! I must have died a thousand deaths there. But I also had dreams and visions there. Yes, I even prayed in that bed, with huge wet tears rolling down my cheeks. (How I wanted her, and only her!) And when that failed, when at long last I was ready and able to rise and face the world again, there was only one dear companion I could turn to: my bike. Those long, seemingly endless spins, just me and myself, driving the bitter thoughts into my arms and legs, pushing, plugging away, slithering over the smooth graveled paths like the wind, but to no avail. Every time I dismounted her image was there, and with it the backwash of pain, doubt, fear. But to be in the saddle, and not at work, that was indeed a boon. The bike was part of me, it responded to my wishes. Nothing else ever did. No, my dear blind heartless parents, nothing you ever said to me, nothing you did for me, ever gave me the joy and the comfort which that racing machine did. If only I could take you apart, as I did my bike, and oil and grease you lovingly!

Wouldn't you like to take a walk with father?

It was my mother's voice which roused me from my reverie. How I had drifted to the arm-chair I couldn't remember. Maybe I had snoozed a bit without knowing it. Anyway, at the sound of her voice I jumped.

Rubbing my eyes, I observed that she was proffering me a cane. It was my grandfather's. Solid ebony with a silver handle in the form of a fox—or perhaps it was a marmoset.

In a jiffy I was on my feet and bundling into my overcoat. My father stood ready, flourishing his ivory-knobbed walking stick. The air will brace you up, he said.

Instinctively we headed for the cemetery. He liked to walk through the cemetery, not that he was so fond of the dead but because of the trees and flowers, the birds, and the memories which the peace of the dead always evoked. The paths were dotted with benches where one could sit and commune with Nature, or the god of the underworld, if one liked. I didn't have to strain myself to keep up conversation with my father; he was used to my evasive, laconic replies, my weak subterfuges. He never tried to pump me. That he had some one beside him was enough. On the way back we passed the school I had attended as a boy. Opposite the school was a row of mangy-looking flats, all fitted out with shop-fronts as alluring as a row of decayed teeth. Tony Marella had been reared in one of these flats. For some reason my father always expected me to become enthusiastic at the mention of Tony Marella's name. He never failed to inform me, when mentioning the name, of each new rise on the ladder of fame which this dago's son was making. Tony had a big job now in some branch of the Civil Service; he was also running for office, as a Congressman or something. Hadn't I read about it? It would be a good thing, he thought, if I were to look Tony up some time ... never could tell what it might lead to.

Still nearer home we passed the house belonging to the Gross family. The two Gross boys were also doing well, he said. One was a captain in the army, the other a commodore. Little did I dream, as I listened to him ramble on, that one of them would one day become a general. (The idea of a general born to that neighborhood, that street, was unthinkable.)

What ever became of the crazy guy who lived up the street? I asked. You know, where the stables were.

He had a hand bitten off by a horse and gangrene set in.

You mean he's dead?

A long time, said my father. In fact, they're all dead, all the brothers. One was struck by lightning, another slipped on the ice and broke his skull ... Oh yes, and the other had to be put in a strait-jacket ... died of a haemorrhage soon after. The father lived the longest. He was blind, you remember. Toward the end he became a bit dotty. Did nothing but make mouse-traps.

Why, I asked myself, had I never thought of going from house to house, up and down this street, and writing a chronicle of the lives of its denizens? What a book it would have made! The Book of Horrors. Such familiar horrors, too. Those everyday tragedies which never quite make the front page. De Maupassant would have been in his element here...

We arrived to find every one wide awake and chatting amiably. Mona and Stasia were sipping coffee. They had probably asked for it; my mother would never dream of serving coffee between meals. Coffee was only for breakfast, card parties and kaffee-klatches. However...

Did you have a good walk?

Yes, mother. We strolled through the cemetery.

That's nice. Were the graves in good condition?

She was referring to the family burial place. More particularly her father's grave.

There's a place for you too, she said. And for Lorette.

I stole a glance at Stasia to see if she were keeping a straight face. Mona now spoke up. A most inopportune remark it was too.

He'll never die, were her words.

My mother made a wry face, as if she had bitten into a tart plum. Then she smiled compassionately, first at Mona, then at me. Indeed she was almost at the point of laughter when she answered: Don't worry, he'll go like all of us. Look at him—he's already bald and he's only in his thirties. He doesn't take care of himself. Nor you either. Her look now changed to one of benevolent reproval.

Val's a genius, said Mona, putting her foot in still deeper. She was about to amplify but my mother stalled her.

Do you have to be a genius to write stories? she asked. There was an ominous challenge in her tone.

No, said Mona, but Val would be a genius even if he didn't write.

Tsch tsch! He certainly is no genius at making money.

He shouldn't think about money, came Mona's quick reply. That's for me to worry about.

While he stays home and scribbles, is that it? The venom had started to flow. And you, a handsome young woman like you, you have to go out and take a job. Times have changed. When I was a girl my father sat on the bench from morning till night. He earned the money. He didn't need inspiration ... nor genius. He was too busy keeping us children alive and happy. We had no mother ... she was in the insane asylum. But we had him—and we loved him dearly. He was father and mother to us. We never lacked for anything. She paused a moment, to take a good aim. But this fellow, and she nodded in my direction, this genius, as you call him, he's too lazy to take a job. He expects his wife to take care of him—and his other wife and child. If he earned anything from his writing I wouldn't mind. But to go on writing and never get anywhere, that I don't understand,