Aspirations II

Here's another of my early, unpublished stories. You'll see it owes a huge debt to Ernest Hemingway. In fact, it's my attempt at something like "Hills Like White Elephants," his bitter little story about a couple's estrangement in romantic surroundings. The sensibility in his story is so youthfully romantic, as it is in mine.



TO THE WORLD’S END

The Alcove had always been a good place to meet because it was close to his paper and close to the office of her magazine. It was close to everything they knew between the hours of nine and five, but now it was after six and the last light was lovely against the tall apartment buildings that rose like twin towers of Babel on the river front. She had arrived late, and now she pushed at her hair and stared at passers-by on the sidewalk as she waited for her beer.

She was beautiful, he reminded himself, more beautiful than any of the other young women in this sidewalk bar on this summer evening. Her hair was short and curled prettily into the corners of her eyes. Her skirt too was stylishly short and her legs, in seamless stockings, were extremely fine. The man, who sat with his beer in front of him, was himself as sleek, as sharp-looking as any other man here in his buttoned-down collar, his thin tie, and his tailored suit.

"You know, I’ll kind of miss this place," the girl said. She took a deep breath and folded her hands on the table. "Because, of course, I won’t be coming here after you’re gone."

"Why not?" he wondered.

"Oh, you know. Too many memories."

"Oh."

Her beer arrived. She sipped at it and stared at the twin towers.

"We’ve watched them go up, haven’t we," she said. "A year."

"Yup," he said, "a year. I hated to see them finish."

"Oh, they’re not quite finished," she said.

He caught the waiter’s eye and raised a finger. "Want another?"

"Not yet."

The waiter brought him another beer. He poured some into his glass and drank it off. Then he poured the rest and finished it.

"How many is that, Eddie?"

"Two."

"Liar."

"All right, four. No more."

"You’ve certainly taken to drinking since we met."

"I guess I have."

She picked up her purse and began playing with the leather handle, twisting and pulling at it.

"Your stuff all packed?"

"Yeah. I leave at eight. Have to rise early."

"That’ll kill you." She smiled.

"Naw. I’ll be starting my travels," he told her. "I’ll be excited."

"Where will you go first?"

"London. There’s a place, a pub, somewhere in London that I heard about from somebody. Called The World’s End. I like the sound of that. I’m going to look for it. After that . . ."

"Sounds lonely," she said. "A lonely quest."

"Come with me. It won’t be lonely then."

"You know I can’t."

"I know."

He lifted his eyes to the twin towers and saw the evening light seeming to burn at the tops of them. Once he had been stirred by the sight of the sun against the high buildings of this city, and that first cold beer at the end of the working day, and by this girl, who finally was as exhausting as the rest of his life here. It was all exhausting. Everything was exhausting, but now, after a year and a half of it, he was leaving. He was leaving the whole white-collar, nine-to-five scene, that stultifying, soul-destroying wad of commitment and responsibility you were asked to swallow when you worked as a reporter for "the world’s greatest newspaper" (by its own admission, he and his fellow reporters always added, which always got a laugh), a paper whose chief concern, finally, was not to report the news but to maintain the status quo, to attract advertisers, to make money. He was done with that, done with wearing a buttoned-down collar and knotted tie that was like a noose around his neck. He was finished, too, with that midnight anguish when, after too much drink and empty conversation, in an upsurge of false hope, he’d abruptly, almost frantically, feel the need to make up for lost time, to stop wasting time, to begin again, now, this instant, when really there was nothing to do but stop drinking and take the El home to bed so that you could get up in the morning and go back to work. But he was through with it now. He was through with the white collar. No more white collars, or rather he could wear a white collar now, or a blue collar, or no collar at all, because now he was free.

He raised a finger.

"Don’t have another. Please."

"Yes," he said. "Just one more."

"You’re drinking yourself into a breakdown."

"Precisely. Going all the way. To the world’s end!" he cried and raised his empty glass to the glory of the twin towers.

"I love you," he told her. "I love you, Susan, do you believe that? But I’ve got to leave."

She looked away.

"Come with, why don’t you."

"The only reason you offer that—for the second time, by the way—is that you know, you know, I can’t possibly."

Of course. She had an invalid mother. Wasn’t that convenient? Her mother was a nice-enough old lady, uncomplaining but virtually helpless, and of course demanding in her nice way. Susan had an older married sister and a well-off married brother, but she, the youngest and unmarried, had been delegated, it seemed, to look after their mother. The entrapment of that. That loving, dutiful entrapment. It was Eddie’s warning not to get involved. But then he had.

"You could leave her," he told Susan, after their first time together. It was upstairs in her mother’s house, with her mother asleep (they hoped) downstairs. "Let your busy sister and her asshole husband or your rich brother and his smug wife take over now. "We could go away," he told her.

Now he said again, "You could leave your mother. Let your brother or sister take a turn."

"We’ve been over that,"she said. "And you’re drunk. Our last night together, and you’re drunk."

"I’m sorry, baby, I really am." He really was. "I’m so sorry. But I have to get out of here. I hate this goddamn town."

"You don’t hate it."

"No, that’s the trouble. I really love it. I love you."

He looked fervently at her, to show how much he loved her, and abruptly she leaned toward him across the table, her face intense, her eyes shiny.

"I’ll go then," she said.

"What?"

"I’ll go with you."

"No you won’t."

"I will, I will," she told him.

"What about your mother?"

"I’ll let somebody else take care of her. I want my own life," she said. "I want a life with you."

"You mean it?"

"Yes. Yes," she said.

Her hand was gripping his. He took a swig of his beer. It might have been the beer, it might have been nervous exhaustion, it might have been the light gleaming golden on the twin towers, on those proud, cold, elegant monuments to something or other, but whatever it was, he was crying. Okay, maybe not crying exactly, but there were tears in his eyes, as there were in hers, and he put down his beer and ran his hand up the firm softness of her arm.

"Oh, Susan," he said, "sweet Susan. You can’t, you know you can’t. You leave your mother and you’re selfish goddamn brother and sister will put her in a Home. Won’t they? You can’t leave your mother any more than I could leave mine, if I was in your situation." That was a guess; he wasn’t sure what he’d do in her situation. "She needs you, after all, we both know she needs you," he told her. "You have to stay. And I have to leave, don’t you see?"

"Yeah, I see." She reached over and touched his face.

"Christ," he said. "You’re so beautiful."

"Don’t go," she pleaded. "You can find another job. We’ll get married."

"No," he said. "I don’t want another job, and I don’t want to marry you—not the way things are. I’m not worthy of you," he told her.

"Bullshit."

She dropped her hand. He drained his beer. He was trying to remember something, something he’d read sometime ago. Then it came to him.

"‘A system of restless wandering . . . ‘" he quoted. He stared hard at his empty glass. "'Detachment . . . a means of passing through life without suffering and almost without a single care . . . invulnerable because elusive.’"

"What’s that?" she asked.

"Conrad. Wrote about exile. That’s me, I guess. An exile."

"You filthy romantic," she said. "Would you excuse me a minute? I have to pee."

She rose with her purse in one hand and with the other smoothed the front of her short skirt. Her exciting body, her tough, lovely face: it was all there in front of him and his belly contracted, suddenly, with hunger for her.

"We going to your place later? Please," he said.

We’ll talk about it when I get back."

But fifteen minutes later she was not back, and at length he realized she might never come back. She must be waiting it out in the ladies room, or maybe she’d slipped out when he wasn’t looking.

"Waiter!" he called.

The waiter came over. He was smiling.

"Another round for the gentleman and his lady?"

"No, thanks. The check, please."

The waiter began writing out the check and the man looked over at the door marked Ladies. He felt suddenly fiercely proud of the girl and was sure now that he loved her. He loved her, and yet he was so relieved, so grateful to her for helping him, in this way, to end it.

"Would you tell the lady, if you see her," he said brightly, thinking of her and how much he loved her, "that I couldn’t wait? And tell her it was all my fault."

Then he paid the check and walked away down the sidewalk. At the corner he stopped and turned around. If she comes out now, he thought, if she comes out by the time I count to ten, I’ll go back. If she comes out by the time I count to twenty. He counted to thirty, to forty, but she didn’t come out and he didn’t go back.

Finally, he turned the corner and it was all behind him.

1963