The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (12 page)

All day I have been in this room freezing, wanting to say something solid and clean about all of us who are alive. But it was so cold I couldn’t do it. All I could do was swing my arms and smoke cigarettes and feel rotten.

Early this morning when I was warm with coffee
I had this great story in my mind, ready to get into print, but it got away from me.

The most I can say now is that it is very cold in San Francisco today, and I am freezing.

Sitting across the table from him, he listened to the girl talking, telling him something that involved each of them, something that had begun in him years ago and would never end, something in man . . . about the earth, being alive on it, going through days and nights, being something with substance and motion, oneself.

From the second-story window he saw a man riding a bicycle in the street . . . two wheels rolling on the levelness of the city and a man on it . . . the girl talking . . .

That must have been the year he had gone with his mother and father to the photographer’s, the year he
was nearly three. He didn’t remember actually going, but he had the photograph, and in it he saw the tall man holding him in his arms, and his mother sitting beside the tall man, all of them smiling. It was the year his father was alive, smiling in the photograph.

The next thing he knew he was holding his mother’s hand, walking in the night through the dark city, in the silence. Where are we going? he asked.

He did not remember an answer, and he continued to walk beside his mother, maybe four years old.

Night came and he sent his sadness into his sleep, weeping softly there without shedding tears.

Once he laughed, but it was not like laughing when you were awake. It was much bigger, it meant all sorts of things; it had to do with everything, and in his sleep he was afraid someone might hear him and ask why he was laughing . . . his mother might want to know, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to tell her . . . but in his sleep he knew why he was laughing, where the laughter came from, what it meant, but it wasn’t in language and it couldn’t be said in words. It was there, though, the whole meaning for himself, the whole picture of the earth and man. To make him laugh.

One morning he found himself in a school building, staring at the horror. To teach you to read, he heard. I don’t want to read, he wanted to tell them, but he couldn’t explain. He knew he didn’t need to read; it was all there already, before him, both at night and during the day, and seeing everything he felt no need for the words. The
things
were the words themselves and he had eyes, he was seeing how it was,
but they led him to a room full of desks and small boys and girls and they said, What is your name?

Oh, he said. You mean me? That lady, he wanted to say, she, the one that was here and went away, she is my mother. The tall man in the picture, who isn’t living any more, he is my father. They call me John. John, he told them. My name is John. The other name is Melovich.

He sat down and forgot what happened for a month.

But the worry got into his sleep. About the other boys in the room, and something they meant to do about him. It was that they were thinking of him, in their own minds, seeing him with their eyes, destroying the secret. They were talking of him, and he didn’t want anyone to do that. He wanted wholeness, to be alone solidly, not talked of, not seen, not recognized; but the boys had him in their minds. John, they said, how far is it to China? Of course he didn’t know. Then one of the boys got on his hands and knees behind him, and another boy pushed him over, and the whole world went up-side down, and all the boys laughed at him and said: China is all the way around the world, ha ha ha.

Oh, I see, he thought. Games, they mean. I thought they meant China, but they mean to play. If you believe what they ask, if you notice the words, then they push you over, laughing at you. The words are not to be listened to. They are for the game, China, and over you go. I see, he thought. That is it.

Also, the teacher. She was angry about him. She said that he was stupid. It was because he wanted
to know, because of the questions he was asking, and she made him stand in the corner. She said, c-a-t is cat, and he said: No, the cat is black hair and whiskers and tail and eyes. That’s all he knew, but it made her very angry and she shook him, and all the little boys and girls laughed at him. C-a-t cat, that wasn’t so. The four legs walking quietly, that was the cat. Why were they making things up?

The worry got into his sleep, and he brought out the cat in his dream and had it walk before the teacher. There, he said, there is the cat, not what you said. You see? The fur walking, and the eyes.

Then it was night and he was awake, standing in the street, looking up at the dark window of the place where he lived. The front door was locked and no one was in the house. He was in the street, crying. My mother, he said to the people who questioned him, she is not in there. He thought everything was going to fall to pieces, and he felt the bigness of the world, other people alive who were not related to him.

He didn’t remember what finally happened. All he remembered was being in the dark street, crying to himself, feeling the whole thing breaking to pieces.

They taught him to read. It was silly, about a dog called Fido. That’s all he remembered, a picture of a dog called Fido, and some print spelling words about the things Fido could do. Bark, bow wow, run and play, and so on. It was all pretty stupid, but it was what they were teaching in the school, so he tried to pretend that it made sense, and he tried hard not to ask too many questions.

He was sitting in a dark theatre beside his mother, looking at pictures of people moving quietly at the front of the theatre, touching one another, even with their lips, making faces, running, doing swift things, making a story. Then he saw the sea, and the sea did nothing. It was splendid, big and simple, so easy for him to believe, all that water, standing quietly, no words and no people making faces and running, all the water quietly. And the sea went into him, appearing again in his sleep, vast and lovely and wordless.

It was not easy to talk, even with his mother: it seemed so much more natural to say nothing, even when he was ill or bewildered, and sometimes she would call him to her.

John, are you all right? Why don’t you say something? Let me see your tongue. John, is anything the matter?

But all he could do was look into her eyes. Sometimes he would be sick, but it was himself and anything that was himself couldn’t be talked about and he would show his mother his tongue and let her hold his hand to see if he had a fever, and when she would say, John, John, you are sick, my poor boy; when she would say this, he would be amazed. That was in her mind, he would feel. She made that up. I’m just standing here. It meant, then, that he was outside, too, everywhere, outside of himself too, in other people’s minds. They could see him and being larger they could see him differently from what he knew, and they could come to conclusions that were impossible for him. They could fix him in their minds as so much height and weight, so much face and mind,
and a condition; but he couldn’t do it. He was merely there, trying to figure it out, waiting.

It was the church then, God in Slavonian, and Jesus. He remembered the people singing, his mother sitting beside him, singing and looking strangely beautiful, something new in her, and a new odor, sweeter now. He wanted to sing with them. It was really beautiful, the Sunday morning light in the church, and everyone singing, but he didn’t know the words. The earth was so lovely, it was so splendid to be alive, sitting in the church. Suddenly he began to pour himself out among the people, into the earth, singing with his mother, making up words, unable to remain silent any longer. That was a lovely time, that time in the church, singing because he was alive.

The locomotive came out of nowhere, big and black and the ringing of bells, the turning of steel wheels, making him afraid. John, his mother said, we are going away. They got aboard the train and sat down. He heard the locomotive begin to puff, and very slowly the train began to move, carrying him with it. He was amazed, sitting in the train. He saw the buildings coming to and going away from him, at first slowly, then swifter, and swifter, and swifter, and pretty soon it was like music, one two three, one two three, solid things hurrying by, flash, a tree, a house, flash, and the music, one two three, one and one and two and two, the wheels grinding, a road, a river, flash, flash, and the scream of the locomotive. It was very sad to see so many things for such a little time, before he had even been able to look at them solidly, and the bigness of the place, one thing at a time,
stretching out endlessly in all directions, the whole earth, nearly broke his heart. He wanted to touch everything. He wanted to have something to do with all of it. He wanted to be aware of, and to mean something to, everything he saw, every tree, every house, every face, all the earth, all the hills covered with grass and flowers, all the streams. And the house where he had lived with his father and his mother . . . where was that now? And where was he that had lived in that house? That little boy who couldn’t learn to read . . .

It was a new place now, no hills, a smaller place, new faces, new streets, and he was still the same, though he was wearing a bigger pair of trousers and a new jacket.

Then it was a dream, carrying him to something new, a newer loveliness, a little girl named Maxine, in the third grade. In the dream he went to her and she saw his love and she loved him. What happened was this: they walked together, holding hands. In the morning, after the dream, he was ill with love for the girl. He could not eat breakfast, and he walked to school in a daze, wishing never to emerge from the dream. When he saw the girl in the classroom he became so ill with love he could barely stand on his legs. She sat two seats in front of him, across the aisle, and all day he sat staring at her soft brown hair, still living in the dream. He forgot that he was at school, and each time he was called on to recite, he could think of nothing to say, there was absolutely nothing to say: all he knew was that he loved the girl, loved her, loved her, nothing else. He wanted
nothing other than to know that the girl loved him. He wondered what it could mean. A whole month he loved her secretly. Then she dwindled away, still coming to class but no longer meaning what she had once meant to him.

It was evening, and he was walking across the school grounds on his way home, singing
It’s a long long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go
. He was singing with all his might, and he hadn’t seen Miss Fargo coming down the school steps. He had felt that he was alone and that he could shout it out the way he liked, but suddenly he saw her, stopping at the foot of the stairs, looking amazed.

Come here, John, he heard her say, and he went to her, feeling ashamed of the noise he had made. He hadn’t known anyone was around. He hadn’t meant to let anyone hear him. He stood before her, holding his cap, feeling embarrassed.

Where is Tipperary, John? she asked.

In Ireland, he replied. He was afraid to look up into her face. She was a young teacher and he liked her very much. She had a lovely sadness and it was fine to sit in a room all day and look at her. Once she sighed sadly, and he sighed sadly, and she saw him and heard him. Then she looked into his eyes and smiled. She smiled at him alone, and when he left the room for recess, he went running through the school grounds with joy, tearing around because it was so fine, Miss Fargo seeing him, he himself, smiling at him.

She stood at the foot of the stairs a long minute,
not speaking; then he felt her hand in his hair. Thank you, John, she said.

He could never forget that; it seemed very strange, very fine.

It was the valley, the hot sun, and he was walking along a road, through the vineyard country, with Fat Garakian, Pete Tobin, and Rex Ford . . . going swimming, in the summer. Then it was the water, cool and clean to the body, and the diving, all the boys naked . . .

He could never forget them diving . . .

The war came along imperceptibly, and he was running through the town shouting. Peace, Peace, The War Is Over . . .

In his sleep the locomotive smashed through the earth, and he felt the longing for remote places, to go away from the valley, to cross the mountains, to reach the sea, alien cities, far places. And he saw vast ships. . . away . . . to all the places of the earth, to Tipperary . . .

He was riding in a train, crossing the mountains, alone, seventeen . . . then a motor bus . . . nineteen . . . then the subway in New York . . . twenty . . .

The snow, the multitudes alive . . . twenty-one . . . one day, one night, the earth, himself, over and over again, one day, one night, the earth again, and again himself, and again himself, again and again . . .

He was sitting in the small room, drinking . . . twenty-two . . . and the girl was sitting across the
table from him, watching him. He had been silent a long time, ten minutes perhaps, drinking . . .

Then he said, What is it you asked?

She had been crying . . . one day, one night, to this, a new moment of talk, of being, and again himself, outside, in another’s mind, with another meaning . . .

John, he heard her say, John, talk to me . . . what are you thinking? . . . John, is anything the matter? . . .

He saw himself standing before the house, crying . . . and he heard the girl talking to him, saying the same things over and over again . . . John, John, is anything the matter? . . .