Thoreau in Love (25 page)

It took Henry forever to collect himself, and then all he said was, “Ben. . . . I. . . . Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. We could leave right here, right now. I don’t have to go back to the ship. I’ve got some money.”

“Ben.” Henry looked in Ben’s eyes. They were expectant, excited. “Oh, Ben, I wish I could. Part of me would love to.”

Crushed, Ben said, “I’m sorry. That was stupid.”

“No, not stupid. Being with you, Ben, I wish I could. When I’m with you is the only time I feel . . . normal. It’s true. But right now, well, I’m just getting established here. I’m meeting people and. . . .” Henry remembered and told Ben that he’d submitted his story to
Brother Jonathan
. “You started to say what you thought. You didn’t like it, did you?”

“It’s not that I didn’t like it. As I said in my note, but you didn’t get my note. . . . Parts of it I did like. I liked it because you wrote it. Is it finished?”

“Finished?” Henry was indignant. “Yes it’s finished.”

“And how much do you care about it?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“I think it’s the most important question. Look, who am I? I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just a dumb kid you met on a sailing ship.”

“Ben, stop.”

“Your story. That’s what matters to you, right? Don’t worry what I say. I don’t know nothing about writing except what I read.”

“Ben, I am sorry. I can’t go. Not now, anyway.”

“Really, Henry. It was a crazy thought. I don’t even have my clothes or my razor. So, tell me more about your story. You submitted it?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, it’s being published.”

“Is it? Terrific! So what difference does it make what I think? Henry, that’s wonderful.” Ben’s excitement disarmed Henry.

“Well, it’s not positive yet. But I’m pretty sure.”

“But that’s stupendous! Not two weeks in New York and already the publishing world is clamoring for you. No wonder you don’t want to leave.”

“More important to me. I wish you liked it.”

“I did like it. I just, I didn’t get the feeling you cared so much about the tavern-keeper, and he’s the main person in the story.” Ben stopped, looked up at the sun. “Henry, I must get back to the ship.” Ben’s eyes roamed Henry’s face. “I think about you all the time.”

“Me, too,” said Henry. “You’re practically all I ever think about.”

Ben’s face lit up. “I don’t know what it is about you, Henry, but when I’m with you I feel like I’m who I’m supposed to be. I wish we were naked and I could feel your arms around me. There’s nothing like the feeling of being in your arms.” Ben’s crescent smile squinched as he lifted his shoulders and said coyly, “Except maybe when your organ’s inside me.”

Stunned, Henry whispered, “you see what you’re doing to me?” And looked down. As did Ben. Henry said, “When will I see you again?”

“We dock in a fortnight, maybe three weeks. May I visit you on Staten Island?”

“Would you? I’ll draw you a map.” His fingers trembling, he ripped a page from his journal and drew a shaky map.

“We’ll find a place in the woods,” said Ben, taking the map. “I love you, Henry Thoreau.” He pecked Henry’s lips, turned and ran off.

As Henry watched Ben disappear into the crowd, he said softly, “I love you.”

Henry was still glowing when he dusted off his coat and boots and walked through the front door of
Brother Jonathan
. John Neal summarily returned his manuscript, saying without looking up from his work, “Sorry, not quite up to our standards. It’s not from your heart. But do try us again.” Instinct guided Henry out of the building and down the Broad Way. The ferry was halfway across the bay when he awoke from his trance, and when he did, anger rose in waves from his gut. What kind of paper was
Brother Jonathan
! And what kind of editor John Neal, with his oh-so-high forehead and his little boy curly locks? Henry pulled the
Brother Jonathan
he’d bought out of his pocket and began to read.

“Not up to our standards?” he muttered. “What standards I see, John Neal, are nowhere near my standard.”

The woman sitting to his right coughed politely and edged away.

Henry put down the newspaper, took out his story, and began to read. “Believe me, John Neal, my ‘Landlord’ is a better standard than anything in your
Brother Jon
,” he growled, then awkwardly stood, nearly losing his balance, took hold of the brass rail suspended from the ceiling and went on deck.

A seagull riding a wake of wind turned its smug beak to Henry, cawed, dove and skimmed the surface of the water, then rose to Henry’s eye level. “Half his damn paper is a piece he wrote and published twenty years ago!” The gull turned its head toward Henry, opened and closed its beak, soared away on an updraft. But it wasn’t just John Neal. Was it something Ben said? “No, I thought John Neal would offer me the world, make my career.”

The Snuggery never looked so good to Henry. Susan greeted him cheerily and asked when
Brother Jonathan
would be printing his story. Henry shook his head no.

“No? They are not going to publish it? Why not?”

“He didn’t like it.”

“How could he not like it? I hope you gave him a piece of your mind.”

“He’s the editor of an important paper. I daren’t alienate him. But guess who I saw?”

Coyly, Susan said, “Beatrice?”

“No. Ben.”

“Oh, Ben.” Susan’s face dropped. “From the boat.”

“Yes, it was quite a surprise.”

“Isn’t that nice.”

“When he’s in port again he would like to visit. Would that be all right?”

“Of course,” said Susan, dismissively. “All your friends are welcome here.”

“Thank you. If you don’t mind, I need to go for a walk.”

As Henry went into the front hall, Susan said, “That paper’s just a rag, Henry. They never publish anything good.”

Henry crossed rutted, dusty Richmond road, climbed over the rail then ran across the fields to the beaten path that led into the woods, the cool dark woods. The woods gave comfort. The woods didn’t betray, didn’t hurt or ask anything; the woods freely gave shelter and solace, shade and hope. The woods were beautiful no matter the day or the month or the weather, but they were especially full of the fresh scent of hope on this late May afternoon, with the spring green glowing overhead and sprigs of late day sunlight dappling the tree trunks and the soft carpet of brown needles. But nothing, not the cathedral beauty or the blossoming dogwood or the chirping birds or the spring green mosses sprouting on the rocks or the wintergreen underfoot or the flowering laurel or even the heavy scent of cedar could quite overcome Henry’s desolation. He tramped in a daze, picking at leaves, touching bark, talking aloud.

“Am I deluded to hope for a writing career? John Neal hated my essay. Margaret never liked anything I wrote. Even Ben didn’t seem all that keen on my writing.” And then a thought stopped him short. “Did Emerson only pretend to like my writings? Was it only because I kept his wife out of his hair that he put my writings in
Dial
?” Henry slumped against a tall cedar, slid down until his knees were propping up his chin. But as bad as he felt about his failed writing career, worse for him was that he couldn’t keep Ben out of his mind. There was Ben, looking up at him, saying how handsome he was. Ben by his side as they walked down the Broad Way. Ben on the omnibus, at the Society Library, pecking his lips in broad daylight! “Maybe I should have said, Yes, let’s go west, where no one knows us. . . . Where I won’t need to write. But isn’t that also a delusion?” Beatrice came into his mind.

He held out his palms, weighing his dilemma. “Ben,” he said, feeling the weight in his left hand. “Beatrice,” feeling the weight in his right. Ben was life. Beatrice was the chance to be normal and have a place in society. “No one wants me to be with Ben. No one except me. Reason says choose Beatrice. And after all, my love for Ben is Platonic. We could always be friends.” Ben again came into his mind—saying, “I wish we could be naked”—and Henry’s prick jumped. “Who am I fooling? I have never felt this way about anyone. My heart aches for Ben. I ache for Ben.” He lumbered through the cedar forest back toward the Snuggery, wondering why he felt so good and at the same time so alone. As he walked through the grape arbor, Henry remembered Ben’s note not delivered. Anger rose from his gut. William was in his library. Henry entered William’s inner sanctum without knocking, a punishable offense. But before he could say anything, William said, “I have a letter for you, Henry. I meant to give it to you last night, but it completely slipped my mind. I found it this morning on my way to work.”

Henry took the letter and stomped out. Before he reached the stairs, he remembered a book he wanted in William’s library. He went back in without knocking and grabbed Plato’s
Symposium
from one of the bookcases that lined the walls, not saying a word. In his room, he undressed, got into bed and read Ben’s letter.

My dear Henry, We just arrived in port. Skipper has allowed me all day tomorrow off ship. Exploring Manhattan with you has been on my mind since we parted. There are many parts of “The Landlord” I like, and other parts I don’t. How much do you care about it? But I am sure you will have great success as a writer of poems and portraits. I shall wait at Castle Garden Thursday morning at 9 in the a.m. High tide is near 4 in the afternoon, and
Dahlia
will be sailing after that, to “ride the tide” out of the harbor, as Cook says. So I will need to be back on board by 3. I long to see you. I miss you so
.

Your loving Ben

Henry thought about how angry he’d be if he hadn’t seen Ben and had just gotten his letter from William. He was sure William had withheld it on purpose. He reread Ben’s letter and thought about his day with Ben. Because they had met up with one another, Ben didn’t care for more than a moment that William had not delivered his letter. “That’s Ben,” said Henry, smiling. “He seizes the day, lives only in the present.” Henry picked up Plato’s great work. Soon he was in Athens with Socrates and Alcibiades at that most famous drinking party, contemplating love. As he read Pausanias’s discourse, he imagined how wonderful it would be if he and Ben were in ancient Greece, able to love freely. In Athens, he could marry Beatrice and have Ben as his beloved. He imagined Ben entering his little attic room and standing over his bed. But then John Neal’s voice boomed, “Not quite up to our standards.”

The air went out of Henry’s dream. Plato was dead, Ben not here. He slumped and shook his head as reality returned. Then the only words of wisdom his reclusive father ever imparted came into his mind: “Sleep is the greatest escape there is.”

Saying, “Take me, Morpheus, my friend,” Henry lay his head on the pillow and immediately fell into a sound sleep.

He awoke with a jolt a few hours later: “It’s not from your heart. That’s what John Neal said. And Ben, what did he say? How much do you care about it? Maybe they’re right.” He took “The Landlord” from his coat pocket and in the moonlight began to read. Before he’d finished four sentences, he hated it. He rifled his drawers for “A Winter Walk,” afraid he’d feel the same way about that. But “Winter Walk” was better—much better. Good as it was, though, it wasn’t his but what his brother John would have written.

Owls hooted in the distance. Henry looked out the window, to the huge old elm casting a crisp moon shadow on the cut grass. “I am not my brother John,” he told the night. “I must pull myself from his shadow once and for all. And from Emerson’s shadow. And Ben’s. I’m not Emerson and I’m not Ben. I must make my life my own.”

Sure of his new confidence, Henry got back in bed. His thoughts drifted to Ben on
Dahlia
. He lifted his knees and pulled down his underwear, and, imagining every detail from the moment they met, he drew sap and cut down his tree.

13

Sunday morning brought more tension, but, as always, church seemed to calm the Emerson beast. At their noon dinner, Susan said they’d seen Miss Biddle, who had asked to be remembered to Henry. Henry nodded, chewing his field greens. After they finished, Henry said he was going out for the afternoon. He put on his old straw hat and left, intending to go to the sea beach. Instead, he turned down Richmond road, and soon found himself at the gates to the Biddle house. He went to the door and knocked. A maid invited Henry inside and went to fetch her mistress.