Ed Lacy - Enter Without Desire
“... Now,” Hal boomed, “here's an easy question— what's the finest soap for home washing? Why, of course... Liquid Bubbles!”
A big, six-foot pigeon-toed girl in skin tights suddenly pushed a large box of soap into my hands, nearly knocking me over, another in Elma's. She towered so over me, the audience laughed. I wondered if there was anything the audience wouldn't laugh at.
Hal was looking through several little file cards in his hand as he said, “Listen carefully to question number one. You're to pick out the nearest correct answer from several I give you. Now, for a hundred TAX-FREE dollars: How many counties in New York State? 10? SO? 100? 500? 1000?”
Elma looked blank, then almost angry. I said, “I believe there are about sixty-two counties in the state.”
“Correct! Right on the nose for Mr. Jameson, the sculptor! You have a hundred dollars and Uncle Sam receives...”
He pointed to the register in the cardboard Uncle Sam's mouth, which rang up $21 in taxes. I snapped out of my daze —I now had fifty bucks, could eat—even ask Elma to join me—make a night of it.
Hal held up a fat hand for silence. “For another hundred TAX-FREE dollars: Which of the earth's continents has the highest waterfalls in the world?”
“Niagara...” Elma began. I nudged her, said, “Venezuela—South America.”
“On the nose again, Mr. Jameson!” Hal roared as the audience clapped like mad. “Yes, sir, there is a waterfall in Venezuela that is over 3,000 feet high, while our own Niagara is only a puny 169 feet,” Hal read from one of the cards.
Elma whispered, “Aren't you the quiz kid! My God, two hundred bucks. And he's sore at me, giving us the hard ones so....”
“All right now,” Hal said, after Uncle Sam registered more tax money. “Quiet, please. For another hundred TAX-FREE bucks, let's go. In what states is the largest reservoir in the U. S. A.? I mean largest in terms of water supply?”
“Arizona and Nevada,” I said promptly, as Hal shouted correct again and the audience cheered. I felt a little drunk —I had a hundred and fifty dollars, a fortune.
Hal said, “Mr. Jameson, you have a unique knowledge of little known facts. May I ask how you know these things, sir?”
“Sure. I've been living in a shack in the country all winter. There was last year's World Almanac and... that was about all I had to read.” There was a moment of silence and then this “clever” line brought the house down, Hal's inane laughter beating against my ears till they hurt. Elma was staring at me, amazement in her eyes.
Hal waved his hands again for silence. “Mr. Jameson, because you've been so quick at answering, and because you've really run into some hard questions, I'll give you a break. For your last question, you can tell me the name of the reservoir, or I'll give you a new...”
“It's Lake Mead, but it may also be called Hoover Reservoir,” I said, like a kid reciting homework.
“Lake Mead is good enough! You have four hundred TAX-FREE dollars. Now, if you'll kindly sit at the table —along with the other couple—in a few seconds you'll get a chance at the grand prize and the money balloon. But first a word about Liquid Bubbles...”
At another mike three girls sang of the wonders of Liquid Bubbles, as the amazon who'd nearly floored me with the box of soap took us over to the table. We sat down and Elma said, “You're simply terrific. Was that really true, about having nothing to read but the Almanac?”
“Yeah. See, in order to get the shack heated, I had to stuff the door cracks and windows with paper. What I mean is, once I got set, I wouldn't go out to get a paper or anything, because if I opened the door, damn shack would be like an icebox for the rest of the day.”
“That sounds so...”
Hal came over, carrying a hand mike. “Ladies and gentlemen, you each have a dart in front of you. I shall read a line of poetry, give you one hint, and then you will have exactly ten seconds to tell me the name of the author. Now, if you think you know the answer, before you tell me, try to hit the money balloon with your dart. If you hit the balloon and if you have the correct answer, you will receive the bonus bill, but whether you hit it or not, if you have the right answer, you will receive the big $2,000 TAX-FREE prize.
“Quiet in the audience please, I can only say the line once. And please, no help from the audience. Ready? What famous Irish writer penned these words:
“'Each great passion is the fruit of many fruitless years'?”
The stage was full of an unreal, heavy silence. A clock was ticking off the seconds loudly. When four seconds had passed, I was about to take a chance and say, “Shaw,” when Elma grabbed her dart and threw it with one neat and clean motion. There was a mild pop as the balloon disappeared and a fifty-dollar bill sailed through the air in lazy circles, finally glided to the floor. A kind of dull roar from the audience and Hal held up his hand, as though directing traffic, said, “Wait a minute, Mrs. Morse, what's your answer?”
“George Moore!” Elma said, trying to keep her voice even.
Hal's booming “Correct!” hit me like a wallop in the gut. I opened my mouth like a jerk and gasped for air. For Christsakes, I had over a thousand bucks! I never had that much dough at one time in my whole life. At the moment I didn't believe it. I didn't even believe I was on the stage, although over the noise of the audience I could hear that awful bass-drum voice of Hal's saying, “You and your partner have won a grand total of two thousand, four hundred and fifty TAX-FREE dollars!”
Vaguely, in dream fashion, I knew Elma was shaking my hand, and maybe I was pressing hers. The big girl in the skin tights came over and handed Elma a bunch of roses—I remember the delicate light-red color. The main thing was the noise—there were all sorts of noises in the air. I guess we were off the air, for Hal called over the accountant and he gave each of us a statement about the tax being paid, asked, “Shall I give you a certified check?”
“Hell no, cash,” I said. In my mind I was already ploughing through a steak.
“Lot of money to carry around on a New Year's Eve....”
“We're a big boy and girl, we'll take the cash,” Elma said.
There was a lot more talk and people milling around us, asking questions—for publicity, I suppose; then Hal handed me a thin pile of twenty-four 100-dollar bills, and a fifty. I turned and gave Elma a dozen of the bills, said, “I don't have change for the fifty.” And I almost burst out laughing because I didn't have change for fifty cents, much less fifty bucks. “Neither have I.”
“You take it,” I said. “You won the folding money.”
“Nonsense, if you hadn't answered those other questions....”
I took her arm. “Look, Miss Newly-Rich, I'm a little dizzy in here, let's blow.”
“Take the loot and run,” Elma said.
I elbowed my way out of the crowd, Elma following me. Hal was yelling about pictures, but we reached the stage door and came out on the street. It was still raining.
We stood there and she said, “Well, thanks for....”
“No.”
“No?”
“Look, it's New Year's Eve and... well, back there you said... your husband....”
“We've been separated for several months.”
“Elma, let's blow the fifty, have a big evening?”
“Well—okay, Marshal, only I don't drink much and... God yes, I've been cooped up for a lot of dreary weeks. Let's go.”
I hailed a cab and as we stepped in she said, “Let's get rid of these goddamn boxes of soap.”
“Just a couple of ingrates,” I said, as we left the boxes on the curb.
I told the cabbie to cruise around and he said, “Have a heart, Mac, not on a rainy New Year's Eve. That real soap in them boxes?”
I nodded and he got out and picked up the boxes, said, “The wife can use this. Made up your minds yet?”
I asked Elma if she was hungry and she said yes, so I told the cabbie to drive to a steak house on 33d Street. I grinned at Elma, “God bless America—we're rich.”
“Yes, the 500-to-l shot came in and the hell with the other 499 losers. Marshal, you amaze me: a character who reads the Almanac like it was a novel should be... a dull, mechanical sort. And you're just the opposite.”
“I was reading it because I was bored with myself. How did you know that George Moore line?”
She shrugged. “Stayed in my mind. First because I thought the fruitless years would be a good theme for a song lyric. Then, because it's so true. Our values are all based on comparison, and if you go along on a pretty even level, you never will know great passion, great love or great sorrow.”
“Yeah, but isn't that learning it the hard way?”
“Lately I've found you don't learn anything the easy way. Like tonight, because both of us are down on our luck, the money we have seems like a million dollars to us. A rich slob wouldn't be excited about winning a...”
The cabbie double-parked, said, “Here ya are.”
The meter said we owed him 70 cents, and when I gave him the fifty-dollar bill, he said, “Mac, you must have been celebrating since yesterday. I ain't got change for no green this long.”
“I'll see if I can get change in the restaurant,” I said, embarrassed. “Don't have anything smaller.”
Elma took a dollar out of her bag, handed it to him. As we went into the restaurant, I said, “I'll pay you, soon as I change....”
“Stop it, Marsh, stop acting like we're still poor people. We're a pair of the most highly paid people in the world— over two thousand dollars for less than ten minutes work,” she said, teasing me.
It was about nine-thirty and the place was pretty empty. We took a corner booth and ordered cocktails and two thick steaks with all the trimmings. Now that the excitement was over—or just beginning—I looked at Elma more closely. Her blue suit, the gray blouse, the cloth coat trimmed with some sort of cheap fur—all seemed well kept; the way a person with only a few clothes takes care of her things.
Her face was far from pretty, in the classical sense, but then what the hell is classical beauty? Her features might even be called sloppy, the odd slanted eyes, and the contrasting overlarge mouth. But the soft lines were interesting, and whatever makes for warmth and intelligence in a face was there—lots of it.
“Okay,” she said, “I stared at you, so it's your turn.”
“You have an exciting face.”
“You just say that because I have money.”
“As a sculptor, I say you have a wonderful face.”
“Tell me about your work. I don't know a thing about statues. There you see, I'm sure there's more to sculpting than 'statues.'”
“Statues is good enough. I go in for what they call objective realism. See, I'm crazy for Rodin's works, and strictly against non-objective shapery that...”
“Good Lord, what's that?”
“All this so-called extreme modernism—that's usually only understood by the artist himself. I'm striving for art that can be understood at once, don't go for this stuff about you-got-to-educate-the-people before they can enjoy your work. In one of Malvina Hoffman's books on art she quotes a Paul Valery who wrote:
It depends on him who passes by
Whether I'm a tomb or a treasure,
Whether I speak or keep silent.
This rests with you,
Friend, do not enter without desire.
“Well, I see it this way....”
“I like that,” Elma said. “Sometimes a poem really gets under your skin. This does.”
“And the same for art. If the average person can't tell if your work is a treasure or a tomb, then it's your fault. Before the war I was a half-ass artist, an advertising man. I went in for this symbolism, made art something mystic—and in reality only because I myself was confused. But over in Paris I met this drunken old French sculptor, and he started me on Rodin. Rodin was an honest joker—in everything he did. Know what he...”
As the waiter brought our steaks, Elma said, “Honesty is the key to all things. Why I'm here with you, even back in the radio studio when you were snotty, it was a snotty kind of honesty. Say, does that make sense?”
I nodded. “Everything about you makes sense. That's what I see in your face, realness... honesty. And it can't be merely skin deep. Why in 1914 when Rodin heard about the war breaking, he said, 'Oh civilization—the civilization of man! It's a bad coat of paint that comes off when it rains.' See what I mean, he was honest in all his thoughts— art was life to him. Why next to da Vinci, Rodin was one of the greatest all-around men the world has ever...”
I talked and talked, even talked my steak cold. I rambled on and on as if to make up for all the months of loneliness, of not talking. I made a jerk of myself, but I had to talk myself out to her. I even told Elma about working like a dog all the previous summer to save a few bucks to last me for the winter... and how cockeyed things went.
“What was supposed to happen after the winter?” she asked, pushing her plate away with a sigh.
“First, I had to see if I had any ability. This was my first attempt at sculpting full time. If I can do it, I want to make small works, nothing more than a foot high, so they'll be within anybody's pocketbook range Not that size alone determines price, but for Christsakes, where could a family living in two or three rooms put a six-foot figure, even if they got it as a gift? I'll make small objects of beauty, capture the realism of nature and life in my clay, solid, yet living-in movement. I figure there will be a market among people who never had a chance before to buy anything except an insipid cupid doll, or a gaudy figurine, or one of those crummy brass horses. But I didn't get started, ran out of dough.”
