On the way home we always rode through dreary, sombre patches of land studded with gas tanks, smoking chimneys, grain elevators, car barns and other bio-chemical emulsions of our glorious civilization. The way home bore in on me the fact that I was just a shit, another piece of stinking offal like the burning garbage piles in the vacant lots. All the way in there would be the acrid stench of burning chemicals, burning refuse, burning offal. The Poles were a race apart and their language clung to me like smoking ruins from a past I had never known. How was I to guess, then, that one day I would be riding through their outlandish world in a train filled with Jews who shivered with fear when ever a Pole addressed them? Yes, I would be having a fight in French (me the little shit from Brooklyn) with a Polish nobleman—because I couldn't bear to see these Jews cowering in fear. I would be traveling to the estate of a Polish count to watch him paint maudlin pictures for the Salon d'Automne. How was I to imagine such an eventuality, riding through the swamp lands with my savage, bile-ridden friend Stanley? How could I believe that, weak and lacking ambition, I should one day tear myself away, learn a new language, learn a new way of living, like it, lose myself, sever all ties, look back on this which I am riding through as if it were a night-mare told by an idiot in a railway station on a bitter cold night when you change trains in a trance?

On this particular night little Curley happened to drop in. Maude had no use for Curley either, apart from the thrill he gave her when he slyly caressed her bottom as she stooped to put the meat in the oven. Curley always thought he did these things without any one noticing him; Maude always let people do these things to her as if they happened by accident; Stanley always made it very clear that he saw nothing, but under the table you could distinctly observe him pouring nitric acid over his rusty brass knuckles. Myself, I noticed everything, even the new cracks in the plaster wall which I stared at so intensely when alone that, if I were given time, I could read back at top speed, without missing a comma or a dash, the whole history of the human race leading up to the particular square inch of plaster on which my eyes were focused.

This particular night it is warm outdoors arid the grass is velvety. There is no reason to stay indoors and silently murder one another. Maude is eager for us to evacuate; we are polluting the sanctuary.

Besides, she is going to menstruate in a day or two and that makes her more than ever weepy, miserable and despondent. The best thing would be for me to step outdoors and accidentally walk into a fast truck; that would be such a marvelous relief to her that it seems incredible to me now why I never did a little tiling like that to oblige her. Many a night she must have sat alone and prayed that I would come back to her on a stretcher. She was the sort of woman who, if a thing like that were to occur, would say very frankly—«Thank God, he's done it at last!»

We walked to the park and lay flat on our backs in the short grass. The sky was friendly and peaceful, a bowl without limits; I felt strangely at ease, detached, serene as a sage. To my surprise, Stanley was whistling a different tune. He was saying that I owed it to myself to make a break, that as a friend of mine he was going to help me do what I couldn't do alone.

«You leave it to me,» he muttered, «I'll fix it for you. But don't come to me afterwards and say that you regret it,» he added.

How was he going to fix it? I demanded.

That was none of my business, he gave me to understand. «You're desperate, aren't you? You want to get rid of her, that's all, isn't that so?»

I shook my head and smiled, smiled because it seemed utterly preposterous that Stanley, of all people, could be so confident of arranging such a decisive coup. He acted as if he had plotted it all out a long time ago, as if he had merely been waiting for the opportune moment to broach the subject. He wanted to know more about Mara—was I absolutely sure of her?

«Now about the kid,» he said, in his usual cold-blooded way, «that's going to be tough on you. But you'll forget about her after a time. You were never meant to be a father. Only, don't come to me and ask me to fix it up again, understand? When I do this job it's going to be settled once and for all. I don't believe in half-way measures. Now, if I were you I'd go to Texas or some place like that. Don't ever come back here! You've got to start all over again, as if you were just beginning your life. You can do it, if you want to. I can't. Tm trapped. That's why I want to help you. I'm not doing this for your sake—I'm doing it because it's what I'd like to do myself. You can forget me too while you're at it. I'd forget everybody if I were in your boots.» Curley was fascinated. Wanted to know immediately if he couldn't go with me.

«Don't take him along, whatever you do!» Stanley blurted savagely. «He's no good—he'd be in the way, that's all. Besides, he's not to be trusted.» Curley was hurt and he showed it. «Listen, don't rub it in,» I said. «I know he's no good, but what the hell...»

«I don't mince matters,» said Stanley bluntly. «As far as I'm concerned, I don't want to see him ever again. He can go away and die for all I care. You're soft—that's why you're in such a lousy mess. I haven't any friends, you know that. I don't want any. I don't do anything for anybody out of pity. If he's hurt it's too bad, but he'll have to swallow it as best he can. I'm talking seriously. I mean business.»

«How do I know I can trust you to handle this right?»

«You don't have to trust me. One day—I won't say when—it'll happen. You won't know how it happened. You'll get the surprise of your life. And you won't be able to change your mind because it'll be too late. You'll be free whether you like it or not—that's all I can tell you. It's the last thing I'll do for you—after that you take care of yourself.

Don't write me that you're starving because I won't pay any attention to you. Sink or swim, that's the size of it.»

He got up and brushed himself off. «I'm going,» he said. «It's settled then?»

«O.K.,» I said.

«Give us a quarter,» he said, as he was about to walk off.

I didn't have a quarter on me. I turned to Curley. He nodded, to indicate he understood, but made no move to hand it over.

«Give it to him, will you,» I said, «I'll return it to you when we get home.»

«To him?» said Curley, looking at Stanley contemptuously. «Let him beg for it!»

Stanley turned his back and walked off. He had the loping gait of a cowboy. Even from the back he looked like a thug.

«The dirty bastard!» mumbled Curley. «I could stick a knife in him.»

«I almost hate him myself,» said I. «He'll wither and die before he softens. I don't know why he's doing this for me—it's not like him.»

«How do you know what he's going to do? How can you trust a guy like that?»

«Curley,» I said, «he wants to do me a favor. Something tells me it's going to be unpleasant, but I don't see any other way out. You're just a kid. You don't know what it's all about. I feel relieved somehow. It's a turn in the road.»

«Reminds me of my father,» said Curley bitterly. «I hate him, hate his guts. I'd like to see the two of them hanging from the same post: I'd like to burn them up, the dirty bastards.»

A few days later I was sitting in Ulric's studio waiting for Mara to arrive with her friend Lola Jackson. Ulric had never met Mara.

«You think she's good stuff, eh?» he was saying, meaning Lola. «We won't have to stand on too much ceremony, what?»

These feelers which Ulric always put out amused me highly. He liked to be guaranteed that the evening would not be entirely wasted. He was never certain of me when it came to women or friends; in his humble opinion I was just a wee bit too reckless.