WAS DOWN SHINING UP the car yesterday, Saturday morning, and three old ladies came along, one in a wheel chair, two pushing. Old, old ladies, and I was feeling great and I said Enjoy the day, ladies. They smiled, they looked at each other, they thanked me and they wished me the same, and as they pushed away they turned around and I knew they were talking about me. They were saying What a nice boy, does he live around here? And they liked me, they liked what I had said, because people don’t dig old ladies very much or often. People steer clear, look askance, try to forget old ladies. And old ladies know this. But I had said Enjoy the day, ladies, because as soon as I saw them I knew that, an hour before, they had looked from their windows and seen the beauty of the day and wondered whether to go abroad, whether to hoist one of themselves into the wheel chair, work it onto the elevator, down the front steps. A large question, this going to the river, or just to the corner and back, a question equal in their youth to going away for the weekend. Shall we submit to the fuss, the packing and unpacking, dare we chance the car (I don’t like that rear tire, Frank said we ought to get a new one, and I should have, but I’ve kept postponing, and the garage is probably closed now) , and they were nice-looking old ladies. What I mean is they seemed to know the woman business. Years before, they were made much of, I could tell, by girlfriends who were jealous, by parents eager that they have dignity and self-esteem, by young men trying to make out and in. And nobody wants anything of them any more except their absence, no daddies want to be adored by them, no mommies want them to become what they were not, no boyfriends dream of final contentment in their coozies, no merchants fawn for their gold and expected gold. All these attentions were long ago. Now one is riding, two are walking. Soon one of them will be gone, and another will ride, with only the third left to push, slowly, fearful of the curbs, and I had said Enjoy the day, ladies. And I was young, I could have been ten or fifteen as well as twenty-one, so distant was I from them. How did I know enough to tell them to enjoy the day? How did I know, being what they were once and weren’t any more? I mean, the fresh sweat was dripping inside my T shirt, my hair was matted, my muscles ached. I was taking the car’s dirt onto myself, and in a little while I would commend that dirt to the shower drain, and then both of us, the car and I, would be clean to ride the second law of thermodynamics, spreading our heats through the universe. We have great heats in us, the car and I, high caloric potentials, great descents from heat to cold, while these old ladies emit small resources cautiously. This warm clear day was undemanding, would not draw unduly on their diminished stores. So they chanced it, put their bodies to the expedition in order that their minds might experience the world again, not the world of room and bed, but the world of ragged kids and pregnant women and ice-cream men and frowning cops and dark shoulders hunched in darker windows. How to spend these daily pieces of the remaining month, year, decade? Yesterday they opted for life, bought a few minutes of the earth with a nickel of their fund, and I had said Enjoy the day, ladies. We understood each other, the old ladies and I. In a little while they came back, smiling as they came. I put down the Simonize and smiled. You must have a girl, the one in the wheel chair said. Yes, I said, I do. And she looked to the others for credit. I must have a girl, and I thought after they had gone, this is how old ladies see it. Boys have girls, girls are had by boys. From these old ladies childhood admonitions about and against sex had dropped away. It no longer seemed to them a problem to be female, you choose a man, he chooses you, he has his way with you, but you with him, he works, you bear, you both donate your bodies to the future and you die. Why do the young females make such a thing of it, the old ladies think now. Here is this nice boy, who only means them well, and they whirl, whirl, whirl. Lie still, young girl, commit yourself to, what, yourself. You know, I’m wondering if life really is as hard as they say. At Jose’s behest I read a book by Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life, which showed how all great philosophic inventions are merely artful attempts to prove one or another kind of immortality, that it is a universal human hope to live forever. I don’t feel it. I mean, I don’t want to die today, or tomorrow, but let the body wear out and I’ll go. We had this argument once before, didn’t we? You said I’d feel differently when the time came, that then I’d ask for a little more, and then a little more, and finally go out screaming. Well, maybe. I mean, who knows? But if I plant seeds now, and my garden grows, why won’t I be willing to leave off? If the seeds don’t grow, ah that’s another matter. But why shouldn’t they grow? I’m not asking for redwoods. I’ll tell you what I mean. I was shining the car because I was going up to Prudence’s for dinner. She likes to stay in the country on weekends, we thought we’d miss each other, and since her mother was doing a dinner for a friend of her own, why not? So I drove up. Once you get out of the city the highway works between trees, goes up and down and around curves, the river breaks into sight and disappears. Only the true comprehenders of entropy appreciate this road, we transformers of cold air into hot breath, we tilters of axles, sounders of horns. Well, Mamma’s friend turned out to be a pudgy, balding lay-priest type, bright baby eyes and ever-ready chuckles. I disliked him right off and looked to Prudence and Billy—not to Mamma because he was, after all, her friend—for signs of repulsion. But they liked the guy, listened to his stories—he was a great traveler—ohing and ahing him at every stop. Then halfway through the meal I decided Who was I? This wasn’t my party, it was Mamma’s party, and she enjoyed the guy, so sit back and relax. Not everybody has to be made for my delight to be worthy of existence. And I did, I sat back, the guy liked to talk, and with the others I listened and I enjoyed. I think I had disliked the guy because I wanted Mamma to have herself a friend more like the dead daddy. But maybe she had had the dead daddy, maybe she just wanted something moderate, a male of sorts, gentle and articulate, and no more. So settle down, I told myself. There was another aspect. Secretly I had hoped that Prudence and her mother would ask me to stay the night. O it’s such a long trip back to town, and it’s so late now, why don’t you? And secretly secretly I had hoped that deep in the darkness of the early morning my unsqueaking door would open and Prudence would come in. Funny, I want to go to bed with Prudence and I don’t have to. There’s something very tender about her, which I must not injure, a tenderness in her and a tenderness in me about her tenderness, and properly worked together I think they will make a third very strong thing. Well, anyway, Mr. Pudgybald had come up by train, and it was arranged before I arrived that he would drive back with me. Boy! But, as I said, it went well, once I relaxed. I had the same feeling I had the first time I visited Prudence, a sense that I was getting through as an equal. In my own family, my mother always listened and agreed, but it didn’t mean anything, she agreed with everything. And my father agreed with nothing. Every response he made was intended to shift my opinions in a useful direction. As an instance, if I had asked him whether he believed in free will, he wouldn’t tell me his own feelings, he’d say what was calculated to be for my best interest. I never actually asked my father about free will, but it occurs to me now because I did once ask Professor Duffy about it. He was also interested in my well-being, but I guess he thought it would be best served by telling me what he really thought. He said that when he was young he had put just this question to a particularly wise friend, and the friend had said it was an unanswerable question, but one thing was sure, if man does have free will he can lose it by not believing in it. A kind of Pascal’s Wager, only practical. Now, that was an answer, and I went away believing in free will. O I guess I shouldn’t disparage my old man, he did his best by me and everybody. But what I mean is that neither time at Prudence’s house did I or Prudence or Billy or Mamma fake. We practiced discretion and all, but we could speak our minds without fear of disapproval or correction. Each of us was interested in the others as they were. Billy with her big eyes and crooked bottom teeth knew and accepted the fact that being the youngest she could learn seventy-five per cent and teach twenty-five, Prudence proud at what I said and the way I said it because I was hers. And Mamma—it’s hard to describe Mamma—you probably think of her as a pleasant middle-aged lady, complaisant and mildly permissive. No. For one thing, she has Prudence’s face. It’s older but not less. Just as beautiful, only it shows more living. Same curling hair, same build. The arms are a little looser, the waist a little thicker, but otherwise the same, just a body that’s been around more. I mean, I don’t want to sound horny or anything, but on a desert island I could go for Mamma as well as for Prudence, the only drawback being that Mamma wouldn’t last as long. And I want Prudence to last long. I want her to outlast me, so I’ll never be without her. Am I in love? Huh? I hope it doesn’t impair my taste for obscenity. Fuck it, never! Anyway, we left early because Mr. Pudgybald had to catch a morning plane, drove back through the green-smelling night. The trees would break and show the moon and the shimmering river, and he’d sigh, and there were moments when I felt like kicking him out of the car. I mean, it should have been, could have been, Prudence beside me. But the Old Stoic in me saved him. I listened. He works for Standard Oil as a kind of welfare expert. Wherever Standard Oil goes he goes and makes suggestions about what American personnel need in the way of social and cultural activity, education for the children, how single men are likely to fare sexually, how friendly the local people are, whether they accept newcomers, what to do about it if they don’t. It’s a kind of undefined and important job. He splits his time between America and foreign stations, and the way he lives was a revelation. He’s a kind of professional bachelor. He met Prudence’s mother at a neighbor’s, a dame who wanted to bring the lonely widow and civilized bachelor together. Little did she realize that Mr. Pudgybald was a pro, giving in to every housewife’s compulsion to marry him off, to the extent of exchanging his wares, which are an experience of the world and a clever way of expressing himself, for good food, good liquor and a good audience. Maybe near the end, when he wants to stop working, he’ll settle for the wealthiest widow or aged maiden about, but till then he’ll travel along on other people’s illusions and expectations. He didn’t say any of this, mind you, but it was plain from the texture of his life as he unrolled the cloth and I rubbed my hand on it. So I learned something last night, that there are good lives possible outside the compass of Hollywood, priests, my mother, and myself for that matter. I don’t know what Mr. Pudgybald’s sex life is like, or even if he has any. But I doubt that it’s important to him. He chooses to touch life lightly. And life, I expect, rather appreciates that for a change. Tonight about eight o’clock I was going out for some beer, and who should come up the front steps but Mary. What a wonderful surprise! Gee whiz, gosh almighty, holy mackerel, I said, desperately trying to think up quick answers for all the questions in her eyes. Which were, why hadn’t I answered the letter she sent me, why hadn’t I phoned, why hadn’t I visited—in short, why hadn’t I acted like the engaged man I am? I mean, if you ask a girl to marry you, and the girl says yes, it’s reasonable to assume you’re engaged, right? It reminded me of my relationship with the library when I was a kid. They’d send me cards, then letters, then they’d phone. Please return the book. The tone of their communications ran from formal to puzzled to outraged. But nothing worked. The book would be worth, say, three bucks, and as these pressures built up, I’d figure that soon they’d conclude they were throwing good energy after bad and forget me. They never did. They’d get to my parents, just as Mary, my mother told me, had been calling her every few days for news of me. With the library, it got so that when my mother woke me in the morning she’d remind me to return the book that day, and when my father came home from work at night the first thing he’d ask was whether I had returned the hook. It began to seem that the whole world was focusing its attention on getting me to return the book—not that I wanted the goddamned thing at that point. Well, in the same way I had been hoping that if I didn’t get in touch with Mary she would forget about me. Jesus, I didn’t know what to say to her. Fortunately she provided a gambit. I think I know what you’ve been going through, she said. A religious crisis, haven’t you? Yes, I said. I knew it, I knew I couldn’t force you to confession and expect you to change overnight. I guess that’s right, I said. I want to tell you something, something that may sound funny coming from me. What, I asked. I want to tell you that I’m sorry I made you go to confession. I went of my own accord, I said. No, no, I forced you, I had no right to, I had no right to say I’d marry you only if you were a Catholic. They’re two different things, getting married and being a Catholic, she said. Well, I don’t know if they are, I said, you have a perfect right to want to marry a Catholic, there might be all sorts of difficulties if you were a Catholic and I wasn’t. Maybe there would be, she said, but that’s still no excuse for me forcing you the way I did. Maybe not, I said. No maybes about it, and that’s what I came here to tell you. So Mary was in my apartment, and she still had that great face. We were sitting on the couch, I leaned over and kissed her and she burst out crying. Well, I patted her on the back and kissed her and patted her on the back and before long I had her blouse off and then her bra and before longer I was lying beside her. I mean, the great face and the injured eyes and the honey hair on the dirty couch cover and the skinny shoulders and the frightened boobies—I’m not willing to say I love her or loved her but she got to me. And there was no resistance, nothing, I moved along at my own pace. I don’t know if she enjoyed it or if she just thought it was OK for engaged couples, but I could do anything I wanted, so I put my hand on her rosebush finally. What are you doing, she said, and it wasn’t a rhetorical question, she really wanted to know what I was doing. She was so appalled that I was appalled. I retreated, but after a while I pressed her skirted to me, and voom. Well, then about three hours ago, we were still tying there and Harvey knocked on the door. Mary rushed through the bedroom, trailing garments like pennants in the wind, and locked herself in the bathroom. But old eagle-eye knew immediately that I was, as they say, not alone. He spoke out in a loud formal voice about the weather and national news while making obscene gestures toward the bedroom. I told him he was mistaken, and to prove it opened the bedroom door. She had dropped a shoe, it lay like a road-sign in front of the bathroom. I tried dragging him out—he had flopped on the couch—but he hooked his legs over the arm. After a while, when I thought Mary would be crazy with anxiety in the bathroom, I went in to talk to her through the locked door. It’s only Harvey, I said, and he knows we are engaged, there’s nothing to be ashamed about. Get rid of him, she said, can’t you get rid of him? He thinks it’s another girl, I said, he’s convinced it’s another girl, and he wants to find out who. Did you tell him it was me? Yes, I said, but it’s OK, we’re engaged. Ooo, she said. I couldn’t let him think I was fooling around with someone else, I said, and this seemed to touch her, so that in five minutes she emerged, reconstructed but white-faced, with great hauteur, which amused the hell out of Harvey, so that he treated her with elaborate politeness. I could have rapped him, because she accepted the politeness at face value, which amused him even more. Anyway, we drove her home, the three of us crowded over the bucket seats, and when she got out she gave me the kind of kiss that meant all was well with us. Then I drove Harvey home, and he told me the latest with his aging paramour, but I’m weary, man, it will have to wait.