SEIZE THE DAY
379
you want to keep on with a business you know already, and not have
to meet a whole lot of new contacts."
Wilhelm again thought, Why does it have to be me and my life
that's discussed, and not him and his life? He would never allow it.
But I am an idiot. I have no reserve. To me it can be done. I talk. I
must ask for it. Everybody wants to have intimate conversations, but the
smart fellows don't give out, only the fools. The smart fellows talk
intimately about the fools, and examine them all over and give them
advice. Why do I allow it? The hint about his age had hurt him. No,
you can't admit it's as good as ever, he conceded. Things do give out.
"In the meanwhile," Dr. Adler said, "Wilky is taking it easy and
considering various propositions. Isn't that so?"
"More or less," said Wilhelm. He suffered his father to increase
Mr. Perls's respect for him. The WPA ditch had brought the family into
contempt. He was a little tired. The spirit, the peculiar burden of his
existence lay upon him like an accretion, a load, a hump. In any moment
of quiet, when sheer fatigue prevented him from struggling, he was
apt to feel this mysterious weight, this growth or collection of nameless
things which it was the business of his life to carry about. That must
be what a man was for. This large, odd, excited, fleshy, blond, abrupt
personality named Wilhelm, or Tommy, was here, present, in the
present-Dr. Tamkin had been putting into his mind many suggestions
about the present moment, and here and now-this Wilky, or Tommy
Wilhelm, forty-four years old, father of two sons, at present living in
the Hotel Gloriana, was assigned to be the carrier of a load which
was his own self, his characteristic self. There was no figure or estimate
for the value of this load. nut it is probably exaggerated by the subject,
T.W. Who is a visionary sort of animal. Who has to believe that he
can know why he exists. Though he has never seriously tried to find
out why.
Mr. Perls said,
"If
he w.ants time to think things over and have
a rest, why doesn't he run down to Florida for a while? Off season it's
cheap and quiet. Fairyland. The mangoes are just coming in. I got
two acres down there. You'd think you were in India."
Mr. Perls utterly astonished Wilhelm when he spoke of Fairyland
with a foreign accent. Mangoes-India? What did he mean, India?
"Once upon a time," said Wilhelm, "I did some public relations
work for a big hotel down in Cuba.
If
I could get them a notice in
Leonard Lyons or one of the other columns it might be good for another
holiday there, gratis. I haven't had a vacation for a long time, and I
could stand a rest after going so hard. You know that's true, Father."
He meant that his father knew how deep the crisis was becoming, how
badly he was strapped for money, and that he could not rest but would
be crushed if he stumbled, and that his obligations would destroy
him.
He couldn't falter. He thought, 'The money! When I had it, I flowed
money. They bled it away from me. I hemorrhaged money. But now
it's almost all gone, and where am I supposed to turn for more?'
He said, "As a matter of fact, Father, I am tired as hell."
