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PARTISAN REVIEW
tine with new determination and stricter discipline, everyone behaved the
same more or less. Apparently Jackson had let on to no one what had oc–
curred, only winking at me when we passed each other once by the elevator,
a wink of conspiracy. About my debt to him, he said nothing. To Bernie, of
course, I had to say something, so I acknowledged that I had lost, though I
omitted the amount. I added that they had treated me okay over there.
"You seem pretty matter-of-fact about the whole thing," he remarked
chomping on a corned beefsandwich on Monday.
"Yeah, I guess it was kind of ... disappointing. Not as exciting as I had
imagined."
Hitting my arm, he noted, "I knew you weren't exactly any Legs Di–
amond."
I said nothing, and returned to my sorting and cataloguing.
On Thursday, my despair still filling me, the literary man with the gruff
voice and gray fedora came around, and asked how I was getting on.
"Fine, Mr. Barrett,just fine."
"Did you get to that Rimbaud?" he faced me sternly.
"Yes, I did actually."
"And-the verdict?"
I nodded. "He was all right, really all right. Had a mind of his own.
Wrote his own way. Moved around a bit too. And," I tried to think of the
right words, but what came out surprised me, "he did a good job of fucking
up, didn't he? Ifyou'll excuse the language."
A hearty laugh was his response, and he proceeded to sit on the bench
alongside me, removing his hat. "Who doesn't who's anybody?"
I stared at him, in disbelief. "Really?"
"Really. I've done some ofthat myself." He had a high forehead, I saw
now, and a kind ofoval pallid face, and ifhe had worn a high collar, he would
have been a dead ringer for a priest. Was he putting me on now, trying to
make me feel better?
"Maybe only those who do mess up, or fuck up as you say, will be able
to tell us something new-about feelings, morals, conduct." His small gray
eyes fixed me, as though to ask, "What do you think?"
"Well, I'll tell you something then, sir-I'm not sure you have to go so
far away, as far as Rimbaud did, to make a real mess of things, see? I mean
you can do it right here, right under your nose."
He smiled, folded his arms, said, "Yes, go on."
"Well, maybe that's about it, I mean, I enjoyed, no that's not really the
right word-did you really fuck up a lot in your life, a man like you?" Was I
getting too bold, my curiosity reaching too fur?
The smile changed on his face, and he paused, in mid-expression I
