Эд Макбейн - Strangers When We Meet

Altar shook his head.

“Who the hell am I kidding?” he asked the wall.

“What?”

“I’ve been sitting up here ever since I read that review and drinking myself silly and trying to get a boot out of it! I’ve been trying to make believe that damn review is the be-all and the end-all, and the plain damn honest truth is that it doesn’t matter at all, it doesn’t matter one goddamn little bit!” He turned to Larry despairingly. “It isn’t enough, Larry!”

“But the review said—”

“Yes, and it isn’t enough! What’s wrong with me? What the hell do I want? Why shouldn’t I be deliriously happy right now? What do I do if I win the Nobel Prize someday? Put a bullet in my head? What’s enough for me? Larry, Larry, I don’t know what I want any more!”

“Hey!” Larry said. “Hey, don’t be—”

“Oh, what a crock!” Altar said. “Oh, what an empty crock success is! Oh, what a phony, what a two-bit phony. Drink. Drink, y’ bastard.” He refilled his own glass. “The two American carrots,” he said. “The man-carrot is Success, and the woman-carrot is beauty. Those are the carrots they dangle. You wanna know something? Carrots are for rabbits, and they stink! We’re people . Don’t you know that?”

“Yes, I know it,” Larry said. “But a man has to strive for success. You can’t—”

“You know what a man has to strive for?” Altar asked. “A man has to strive to be a man , that’s all. What the hell does success mean? I got success and what good is it? I’m riding on top of the world! A work of art, the man said! So where am I? I wish I was a guy who cleaned gook out of the sewers. I wish I could go home to a dumpy wife and eat scrambled eggs and tell her what a goddamn hard day I had down in the sewer. That’s for me! The sewer and the gook!”

“You don’t mean that, Altar.”

“I mean every word I say. Success? Bunk. Bunk! A canard! Tell them! Tell all the white-collar workers and the junior executives in the Brooks Brothers suits. Tell them success is a farce! Tell them you’re never a success until you’re a man —” Altar burst out laughing — “and the stupid bastards’ll answer, ‘You’re never a man until you’re a success!’”

Larry sipped at his drink quietly.

“Here’s to the big successful bachelor house in the exurbs,” Altar toasted. “Long may it serve as a monument to the blood we spilled and the tears we shed and the prizes we brought home from the sewer. You know something?”

“What?”

“I never won a prize.”

“I did.”

“How does it feel?”

“It’s not so hot.”

“Why not?”

“Well, once you’ve got the prize, what’re you going to do with it?”

“Pickle it,” Altar said. “Exactly my point. There are no real prizes left in this goddamn world of ours. If there were real prizes, who’d care what some reviewer thinks about what you do?”

Larry looked at his watch. “I have to leave soon,” he said.

“What time?”

“Before ten.”

“Relax, there’s time.” He paused. “Or is there? Time’s running out, isn’t it, Larry?”

“Time’s running out,” Larry repeated.

“We’re getting old, Larry. We better grab a big handful of life before there’s nothing left to grab. Listen, don’t go.”

“I have to,” Larry said.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like me?”

“I like you.”

“I like you too, Larry.”

“Good.”

“It’s very good. I like you. I love you, y’ bastard. You’re a good guy. And that’s the whole secret, Larry. Love. Not success and not beauty and not the gook in the sewer. Love. You know something?”

“What?”

“I’m gonna get married someday. I’m gonna kick all the tarts out of my apartment, and I’m gonna get a wife. A sweet little wife who doesn’t give a damn what the reviewers say, and who’ll cook me scrambled eggs.”

“You like scrambled eggs?”

“I hate scrambled eggs,” Altar said. “Let’s go down the Village and find some girls.”

“I’ve got to go,” Larry said.

“Sure, excuse me. Forgive me. Home to your wife. I know. You worked it out, didn’t you?”

“Altar...”

“Sure, I can see you worked it out. I told you, didn’t I? Don’t lose your head, just don’t lose it. Love, that’s the secret. Home to the wife, home to the woman. That’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take a woman to bed tonight.”

“That’s not love, Altar,” Larry said.

“I know, I know, that’s only the success carrot of love. You got love. What you got with your wife is love. I told you it’d work out, didn’t I? Sure. Jesus, I wish I could love some girl. Listen, I love your wife. What’s her name? Eve? I love her. I love Eve. The mother of all men, Eve, I love her. Listen, you go home to her, hear me?”

“I...”

“Hurry up, ’cause this bitchin’ storm’s gonna catch her all alone with the hurricane lamps. Hurry up, Larry. Go to her and love her, love that wonderful goddamn Eve! And keep designing those magnificent houses, man, let them pour out of you. And love your wife and bring forth men children only and love your wife! Fill the earth, Larry! Fill it with your houses and your kids and you’re on the road to eternity! Go home to Eve, man, and thank God your life doesn’t rise and fall on what a review says about a goddamn cloth binding stuffed with paper!”

Larry looked at his watch. “I’ve really...”

“Sure, sure. Wait for me. I’ll get my coat and then I’ll come down with you. I’m gonna get my coat and drive with the top down and let the damn storm crash all around me! And I’m gonna get me a woman and come back here and let the storm call the music!”

He got his coat and they walked downstairs and they stood together on the sidewalk. The storm was ready to break. The wind furiously hurled newspapers across the sidewalk. There was a sullen roar in the streets. The skies were swollen and ready to burst in fury.

“So the house is finished,” Altar said.

“Yes.”

“And now what?”

“I don’t know.”

“The age of uncertainty,” Altar said. He nodded bleakly, the wind whipping at his hair. “Only one thing’s sure, Larry.”

“What’s that?”

“People come and go. You meet as strangers... and most of the time you part as strangers. And if you ever really get to know another human being, it’s a miracle.” He took Larry’s hand in a firm grip. “I get the feeling I won’t be seeing much of you now that the house is finished. I get that feeling. Take care of yourself, y’ bastard.”

“I will. You too.”

Altar dropped his hand. Larry felt there was no more he should say, and he sought words, and then the moment was gone. Altar turned abruptly and started down the street toward his convertible, walking quickly for a big man, his broad shoulders pushing against the wind which swept sullenly through the narrow concrete canyon. Larry watched him as he climbed into the car. He heard the engine start, and then the top of the car came down slowly, slowly.

Larry went back to his own car and began driving toward the bridge.

He felt rather good when the storm broke around him.

It broke suddenly. There was a stillness one moment and then instant and absolute raging fury which shook the car. He was still miles from the bridge when the rain burst from the sky. He could feel the sudden lurch of the automobile as a stronger wind captured it. He clung tightly to the wheel, picking up the challenge of the storm like a dropped gauntlet, grinning into the suddenly flooded windshield. Rain swept across the glass in successive sheets, impervious to the sniping of the windshield wipers. The glass became a blurred dissolving pane of pinpoint lights through which he squinted to see the road. He did not slow the car. With the wind shrieking around him, shrilling at the windows, screaming over the roof, combining with the incessant rain which smeared red, green and white lights across the windshield, he felt he was locked in a safe metal chamber which hurtled straight and true into an indistinct tunnel of howling furies.