Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (35 page)

“But you are not, we hope, about to go on strike against the Workshop.” This caused more laughter. “You are not trying to unionize your fellow workers. You are paid a living wage. And you are young to be considering marriage.” He reconsidered: “Young, certainly, that is, from a
legal
point of view.” He watched me. “We do not think that you have entered into the problems of the young taxi driver at all. We do not think you understood them. We doubt, frankly, that you so much as considered them. You were bombastic, hysterical, and self-pitying. You sounded like a schoolboy who has been beaten up at school. We found it hard to imagine that Florrie would wish to marry you. Frankly, our entire sympathy was with her brother.”

He had me; he knew it; there was nothing I dared say.

“As we said earlier to Mr. Parker, there is nothing wrong with aiming too high. Frankly, we think it possible that you
must
aim too high. We are not here to discourage. But we must tell you when we feel that you are aiming at a target which it will simply be impossible for you ever to reach.” He paused again. “But you are—ah—a
spirited young man, and—ah—we will see what we can do. You will enroll in the Speech class. And we will speak with you concerning an improvisation in the next few days.” He looked at his watch. “That is all, for the present.”

The class applauded. I stepped out of the alcove.

Barbara had been cornered by Saul. The others did not quite know what to say to me. I walked outside. The car stood in the driveway. Jerry sat in the car.

I walked over to him. It may be odd, but I felt that he was just about the only friend I had in the world. But we couldn't be friends, either.

I stood at the car door, and we stared at each other. He looked very tired. His hair was dirty. He hadn't shaved.

“How's it going?” he asked. His voice sounded dry—light, as though the wind were turning it over, playing with it, blowing it about.

“Jerry,” I said, “I'm sorry. I just want you to know I'm sorry. I wouldn't have hurt you for anything—anything in the world. I swear it. If I'd known—I swear—I'd have gone away.”

He said, “It's not your fault. I know that.”

“It isn't anybody's fault,” I said, “is it?”

“Not that I know of,” he said. He switched the ignition on, then switched it off. “I just mowed a lawn. Now, I've got to get to my Life class.” He looked at me. “I figured you'd need the car. I put some gas in her.” He patted the dashboard. “So. I'll be getting along.”

“You want me to drive you? I'll drive you.”

“They'll be needing you here, won't they?”

“They can go fuck themselves,” I said. I got in the car. He moved over. “Fuck 'em.” I started the car, and we
rolled down the driveway. We hit the streets of the town. I said nothing because I did not know what to say. I hurt for Jerry, and I hurt for me. Neither did Jerry say anything. Everything seemed such a waste.

We stopped before the headquarters of the fig-leaf division.

“Well,” Jerry said, and opened his door, “I'll be seeing you, kid. Thanks for the ride.” Then, with his last words hanging on the air, we stared at each other.

“Jerry,” I said—why was I frightened?—“please forgive me. I didn't mean to hurt you. I really didn't mean to hurt you.”

“It's not you who hurt me,” he said. He slapped me on the neck quickly, and smiled. “I love you, too,” he said. He got out of the car, and slammed the door. He started walking away, then turned. He said, “You got any money?”

I said, “No.”

He walked back to the car and handed me a dollar. “I'll have more tonight. I guess we'll be changing rooms.” He smiled, frowned, and shook his head. “I didn't mean that. I got to be hauling ass out of here. I just don't know.” He shook his head again, and his tears spangled the air. He turned away. “So long, Leo.”

“So long, Jerry.”

I watched him walk into the house and watched the door close behind him. I sat in the car. I lit a cigarette. Automatically, I turned the car around, to go back to the Workshop. Then I thought, Fuck it, and I turned the car around again, and drove out of town and hit the highway for New York.

T
HE BOY
sat on the bed, watching me. Everything seemed tilted, he and the bed, as though about to slide off a cliff; this was because of my weariness and the angle at which I lay in the bed and the fact that it was so early in the morning.

I was a little frightened for a moment: but the boy smiled.

“Do you always get up so early?—what time is it?”

He laughed. “No. But I got some people to see today. It's about seven.”

He was staring at me, making up his mind about something.

“Do you want me to make you some coffee?”

“No. No, stay in bed. You've really had it.” He watched me. “You were pretty drunk last night.”

“I know.”

“You remember everything?”

“Well—I think I do. Why? Did I do something terrible?”

He laughed again. “No. You were fine. You danced a lot and you laughed a lot. I think you were happy.”

“I think I was. Were you?”

He looked away, still smiling a little. “Oh, yeah,” he said.

I wanted to get back to sleep, but he was beginning to
intrigue me, to wake me up. It was his smile. It made his face like a light. And his voice was rough, like a country boy's voice, and he was big, and his manner was rough. But his smile was very shy and gentle.

“I've got to go now. Can I come to see you later?”

“I'll be home all day—until it's time to go to the theater.”

“Well. I'll call you later.” He stood up. “If I don't make it back before you go, you want me to pick you up after the show?”

“Yes. That'll be good.”

“All right. See you.” He leaned down and kissed me quickly on the forehead. He started for the bedroom door.

“You got enough money?”

“I'm all right.” He smiled again, and disappeared. I heard the front door close behind him.

I wondered what I had got myself into.

I am at last about to leave the hospital. Pete has brought me my clothes. I do not want to see Caleb, but Caleb will be meeting the plane in New York—in spite of everything, or perhaps because of everything, I am still his little brother, and besides I am famous. Barbara cannot come East with me because the show is still running—though not doing very well—and she will be along presently to take me off to her suite, where I will spend what is left of this day and where I will spend the night. In the morning, I fly away.

Presently, some of the cast will be here with champagne; also, some of the press. But Barbara will be here before them. Pete is here already. I am dressed, and standing in the office with Dr. Evin. And since I am
dressed and my hair has been cut and I am wearing
my
clothes and standing in my own skin, I feel—in a way—absolutely in control, delivered again to the land of the living. It is not yet and not now that Leo Proudhammer gives up the ghost! Not yet. Not now. Leo is a very tough little mother.

I am ready: dark-blue suit, blue tie, impeccable handkerchief, white shirt, Brazilian cufflinks, black pumps. I am a star again. I look it and I feel it. It is as though I had never been ill.

But Dr. Evin does not agree with me.

“You have been very ill. I counsel you not to forget that fact.” He looks at me very hard. “If you do not remember how ill you have been, you may very well become ill again. I tried to warn you at the beginning—do you remember?”

“Yes. Of course, I remember.”

He smiles. “I am not absolutely persuaded that you do—but I will not scold you any more. After all, I was very pleased, like the selfish man I am, to make your acquaintance. And I have more respect now than I did for the—stamina—of your tribe. I am not being racist.” We both laugh. “I mean the tribe of show business people.” Then, his face changed, he stood up. “Ah! Here is Miss King. Miss King, we deliver him back to you—very slightly damaged, but, with care, he should last”—he looks at me speculatively, smiling; I realized that he really had grown to like me—“oh, twenty, thirty years. If you do not try to drive him up the steep slopes.”

“I,”
said Barbara, “will do anything you say, doctor. But you know, by now, what a stubborn child Leo is.” She kissed me. “Look at him! Where do you suppose he thinks he's going, Dr. Evin? He's dressed for an opening
night. Darling,” she said, “you are merely going to walk to an elevator which is just down the hall and then be gently handed into a car which will drive you straight to my house, where you will immediately take off all those clothes and lie about in state.”

“I thought,” I said, “that I should look my best, in case of the newspapers. So all my fans will know that I'm recovered.”

“Oh” said Barbara, and looked at Dr. Evin, “
I
see. You certainly got him well, doctor, and all his fans are grateful.” She smiled, very happy, looking like a little girl. “Some of the cast have come by, and they've brought some champagne. Come, join us, doctor—then
you
can go home and have a nice, quiet heart attack.”

She laughed and took us both by the arm and we walked down the corridor to my old room.

There they were, the people with whom I'd been in the play so long. Perhaps, for others, it was only a play, but it was more than that for us, it was a part of our lives and this meant that we were now a part of each other. There really is a kind of fellowship among people in the theater and I've never seen it anywhere else, except among jazz musicians. Our relationships are not peaceful and they certainly are not static, but, in a curious way, they're steady. I think it may be partly because we're forced, in spite of the preposterous airs we very often give ourselves, to level with each other. Everybody knows what's going on in the business, everybody has to know and so some lies cannot be told. One's disasters are as public as one's triumphs, and far more numerous; and everybody knows how it feels. And I think it's also because we're forced to depend on each other more than other people are. I shouldn't think, for example, that
trapeze artists are in the habit of having bitter fights with each other just before they climb the high ladder, and start somersaulting about in space. If the bar or the hand isn't there when it's supposed to be, well, then, without a net, that's it. And in the theater, one's always operating without a net. Of course, the theater is full of people whom no one can stand, and careers the mere existence of which fill one with wonder; but one becomes philosophical about this, for not even the most outrageous or destructive theatrical career can begin to rival some of the careers taking place in the world. Here was Andy, an Italian character actor who was playing a featured part in the play—we hadn't worked together for years, but when we met again it was as though we'd never parted; and Amy, blonde, young, wispy, from the Bronx, with whom I'd never worked before, but whom I liked very much; and Sylvia, a fine, tough, mannish Negro character actress, whose age would now never be known, because her hometown courthouse had been burned to the ground—by Sylvia, some people said, and it wasn't hard to see her doing it; and my adored, my steady and steadying Pete; and the chief electrician, Sando; and the doorman, John, and his wife; and my understudy, Alvin, whom I'd never liked very much, but liked today—he seemed to like me, too, and it wasn't only because he knew I wasn't coming back to the show; and some others. The room was crowded, very beautifully crowded. There were flowers and records and boxes of candy. Amy, her face very bright beneath a stylish velvet toque, came over to me with an envelope and an oddly shaped package. First, she kissed me ceremoniously, on both sides of my face.

“Everybody couldn't come,” she said. “You know—some people take jobs on radio and television and stuff
like that—and
those
peasants”—now she held the envelope very distastefully with her thumb and one finger—“have asked me to give you
this.
” I took the envelope from her, and opened it. It was a big card, with a caricature of me on the front as the skinniest boxer you ever saw, with the biggest, most frightened eyes, and the most awkward stance. On the outside, it said—because I'd scored a great triumph when I'd played this part in
Cabin in the Sky
—L
ITTLE
J
OE
! And on the inside, it said, “We Glad You Win!” It was signed by every member of the crew and company. It was very nice. We were all laughing. My little nurse came in, with a tray of glasses.

“And now,” said Amy gravely, “you must open this. This is from all of us.”

I took the package, which was surprisingly heavy. I wondered how Amy had managed to carry it. I sat down on the bed, to open it. They were all watching me.

I finally got the package open. Inside, there were two bronze lions, replicas of the lions in Trafalgar Square. The card said, “For Leo, the lion. Long may he wail.”

“You can use them as bookends. Or paperweights,” said Amy.

“Or in order to get a taxi,” said Barbara.

We all broke out laughing, and that saved me from crying. I grabbed Amy and kissed her and I kissed Sylvia and Barbara and I hugged all the men and Pete said, “Here goes,” and he opened the champagne. “A toast,” said Pete, and he raised his glass and looked at me.

Some moments in a life, and they needn't be very long or seem very important, can make up for so much in that life; can redeem, justify, that pain, that bewilderment, with which one lives, and invest one with the courage not only to endure it, but to profit from it; some
moments teach one the price of the human connection: if one can live with one's own pain, then one respects the pain of others, and so, briefly, but transcendentally, we can release each other from pain. Something like this message I seemed to read in Pete's eyes as he raised his glass and looked at me. His eyes held my journey, and his own. His eyes held the years of terror, trembling, hatred, scorn, inhuman isolation; the YMCA, the Mills Hotel, the winter streets, the subways, the rooftops, the public baths, the public toilets, the filthy socks, the nights one wept alone on some vermin-infested bed; the faithless loves, the lost loves, the hope of love; the many deaths, and the fear of death; in all of this, some style evolving, some music endlessly being played, ringing inexorable changes on the meaning of the blues. His look was shrewd, ironic, loving. He knew how frightened I had been. He knew how frightened he had been.