Thomas Wolfe, page 491
The gentleman threw his head back and laughed right out. “Now you leave that boy alone. He’s all right,” he said. “He doesn’t bother me a bit, and if I know the answers to his questions, I will answer him. And if I don’t know, why, then, I’ll tell him so. But he’s all right,” he said, and put his arm around Robert’s shoulders. “You leave him alone. He doesn’t bother me a bit.”
And I can still remember how he looked, that morning, with his black eyes, his black hair, and with the birthmark on his neck—so grave, so serious, so earnest-like—as he looked out the windows at the apple trees, the farms, the barns, the houses, and the orchards, taking it all in because it was, I reckon, strange and new to him.
It was so long ago, but when I think of it, it all comes back, as if it happened yesterday. And all of you have grown up and gone away, and nothing is the same as it was then. But all of you were there with me that morning, and I guess I should remember how the others looked, but every time I think of it, I still see Robert just the way he was, the way he looked that morning when we went down through Indiana, by the river, to the Fair.
Can you remember how Robert used to look? . . . I mean the birthmark, the black eyes, the olive skin—the birthmark always showed because of those open sailor blouses kids used to wear. . . . But I guess you must have been too young . . . . I was looking at that old photograph the other day—that picture showing all of us before the house in Orchard Street? . . . You weren’t there. . . . You hadn’t arrived. . . . You remember how mad you used to get when we used to tell you that you were only a dish-rag hanging out in Heaven, when something happened?
I was looking at that old picture just the other day. There we were. . . . And my God, what is it all about? . . . I mean, when you see the way you were—Mary and Dick and Robert, Bill and all of us—and then—look at us now! Do you ever get to feeling funny? You know what I mean—do you ever get to feeling queer?—when you try to figure these things out. . . . You’ve been to college, and you ought to know the answer. . . . And I wish you’d tell me if you know. . . .
My Lord, when I think sometimes of the way I used to be—the dreams I used to have. . . . Taking singing lessons from Aunt Nell because I felt that some day I was going to have a great career in opera. . . . Can you beat it now? . . . Can you imagine it? . . . Me! In grand opera! . . . Now I want to ask you. . . . I’d like to know. . . .
My Lord! When I go uptown and look at all these funny-looking little boys and girls hanging around the drug-store—do you suppose any of them have ambitions the way we did? . . . Do you suppose any of these funny-looking little girls are thinking about a big career in opera? . . . Didn’t you ever see that picture of us? It was made before the old house down on Orchard Street, with Papa standing there in his swallow-tail, and Mamma there beside him—and Robert and Dick and Jim, and Mary, Bill, and me, with our feet up on our bicycles.
Well, there I was, and my poor old skinny legs and long white dress, and two pigtails hanging down my back. And all the funny-looking clothes we wore, with the doo-lolly business on them. . . . But I guess you can’t remember. You weren’t born.
But—well, we were a right nice-looking set of people, if I do say so. And there was 86 the way it used to be, with the front porch, the grape-vines, and the flower-beds before the house. And Miss Martha standing there by Papa with a watch-charm pinned to her waist. . . . I shouldn’t laugh, but Miss Martha. . . . Well, Mamma was a pretty woman then—and Papa in his swallow-tail was a good-looking man. Do you remember how he used to get dressed up on Sunday? And how grand he thought he was? And how wonderful that dinky little shop on the Square looked to us! . . . Can you beat it, now? . . . Why, we thought that Papa was the biggest man in town and—oh, you can’t tell me! You can’t tell me! He had his faults, but Papa was a wonderful man. You know he was!
And there was Jim and Dick and Robert, Mary, Bill, and me lined up there before the house with one foot on our bicycles. . . . And I got to thinking back about it all. It all came back.
Do you remember anything about St. Louis? You were only three or four years old then, but you must remember something. . . . Do you remember how you used to bawl when I would scrub you? How you’d bawl for Robert? . . . Poor kid, you used to yell for Robert every time I’d get you in the tub. He was a sweet kid, and he was crazy about you: he almost brought you up.
That year Robert was working at the Inside Inn out on the Fair Grounds . . . Do you remember the old Inside Inn? That big old wooden thing inside the Fair? . . . And how I used to take you there to wait for Robert when he got through working? . . . And Billy Pelham at the news-stand, how he used to give you a stick of chewing-gum?
They were all crazy about Robert. . . . Everybody liked him. . . . And how proud Robert was of you! . . . Don’t you remember how he used to show you off? . . . How he used to take you around and make you talk to Billy Pelham? . . . And Mr. Curtis at the desk? . . . And how Robert would try to make you talk and get you to say, “Robert”? And you couldn’t pronounce the ‘V’—and you’d say “Wobbut.” Have you forgotten that? . . . You shouldn’t forget that, because . . . you were a cute kid, then . . . Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho. . . . I don’t know where it’s gone to, but you were a big hit in those days. . . .
And I was thinking of it all the other day: how we used to go and meet Robert there and how he’d take us to the Midway. . . . Do you remember the Midway? The Snake-Eater and the Living Skeleton, the Fat Woman and the Shoot the Chute, the Scenic Railway and the Ferris Wheel? . . . How you bawled the night we took you up on the Ferris Wheel! You yelled your head off. . . . I tried to laugh it off, but I tell you, I was scared myself . . . And how Robert laughed at us and told us there was no danger. . . . My Lord, poor little Robert! He was only twelve years old at the time, but he seemed so grown-up to us. I was two years older, but I thought he knew it all.
It was always that way with him. . . . Looking back now, it sometimes seems that it was Robert who brought us up. He was always looking after us, telling us what to do, bringing us something—some ice-cream or some candy, something he had bought out of the poor little money he’d got at the Inn. . . .
Then I got to thinking of the afternoon we sneaked away from home. . . . Mamma had gone out somewhere. And Robert and I got on the street-car and came downtown. . . . And my Lord, in those days, that was what we called a trip. A ride on the street-car was something to write home about in those days. . . . I hear that it’s all built up around there now.
So we got on the car and rode the whole way down into the business section of St. Louis. Robert took me into a drug-store and set me up to soda-water. Then we came out and walked around some, down to the Union Station and clear over to the river. . . . And both of us half scared to death at what we’d done and wondering what Mamma would say if she found out.
We stayed there till it was getting dark, and we passed by a lunch-room—an old joint with one-armed chairs and people eating at the counter. . . . We read all the signs to see what they had to eat and how much it cost, and I guess nothing on the menu was more than fifteen cents, but it couldn’t have looked grander to us if it had been Delmonico’s. . . . So we stood there with our noses pressed against the window, looking in. . . . Two skinny little kids, both of us scared half to death, getting the thrill of a lifetime out of it. . . . You know what I mean? . . . And smelling everything with all our might and thinking how good it all smelled. . . . Then Robert turned to me and whispered, “Come on, Sue. . . . Let’s go in. . . . It says fifteen cents for pork and beans. And I’ve got money,” Robert said. “I’ve got sixty cents.”
I was so scared I couldn’t speak. . . . I’d never been in a place like that before. . . . But I kept thinking, “Oh, Lord, if Mamma should find out!” . . . Don’t you know how it is when you’re a kid? It was the thrill of a lifetime. . . . I couldn’t resist. So we both went in and ordered pork and beans and a cup of coffee. . . . I suppose we were too frightened at what we’d done really to enjoy anything. We just gobbled it all up in a hurry, and gulped our coffee down. And I don’t know whether it was the excitement—I guess the poor kid was already sick when we came in there and didn’t know it. But I turned and looked at him, and he was as white as death. . . . And when I asked him what was the matter, he wouldn’t tell me. . . . He was too proud. He said he was all right, but I could see that he was sick as a dog. . . . So he paid the bill. . . . It came to forty cents; I’ll never forget that as long as I live. . . . And sure enough, we no more than got out the door—he’d hardly time to reach the curb—before it all came up. . . .
And the poor kid was so scared and so ashamed. What scared him so was not that he had got sick but that he had spent all that money, and it had come to nothing. And Mamma would find out. . . . Poor kid, he just stood there looking at me and he whispered, “Oh, Sue, don’t tell Mamma. She’ll be mad if she finds out.” Then we hurried home, and he was still white as a sheet when we got there.
Mamma was waiting for us. . . . She looked at us—you know how Miss Martha looks at you, when she thinks you’ve been doing something that you shouldn’t? . . . Mamma said: “Why, where on earth have you two children been?” I guess she was all set to lay us out. Then she took one look at Robert’s face. That was enough for her. She said: “Why, child, what in the world—” She was white as a sheet herself. . . . And all that Robert said was “Mamma, I feel sick.”
He was sick as a dog. He fell over on the bed, and we undressed him, and Mamma put her hand upon his forehead and came out in the hall—she was so white you could have made a black mark on her face with chalk—and whispered to me:
“Go and get the doctor quick; he’s burning up.”
And I went running, my pigtails flying, to get Dr. Packer. I brought him back with me. When he came out of Robert’s room, he told Mamma what to do, but I don’t know if she even heard him.
Her face was white as a sheet. She looked at me and looked right through me. . . . And oh, my Lord, I’ll never forget the way she looked, the way my heart stopped and came up in my throat. . . . I was only a skinny little kid of fourteen. But she looked as if she was dying right before my eyes. . . . And I knew that if anything happened to him, she’d never get over it, if she lived to be a hundred.
Poor old Mamma. You know, he always was her eyeballs—you know that, don’t you?—Not the rest of us!—No, sir! I know what I’m talking about. It always has been Robert—she always thought more of him than she did of any of the others and—Poor kid! I can see him lying there white as a sheet and remember how sick he was, and how scared I was! . . . I don’t know why—all we’d done had been to sneak away from home and go to a lunch-room—but I felt guilty about the whole thing, as if it was my fault. . . .
It all came back to me the other day when I was looking at that picture, and I thought, my God, we were two kids together, and I was only two years older than Robert was. . . . And now I’m forty-six. . . . Can you imagine that—the way we all grow up and change and go away? . . . And my Lord, Robert seemed so grown-up to me even then. He was only a kid; yet he seemed older than the rest of us.
I was thinking of it just the other day, and I wonder what Robert would say now if he could see that picture. For when you look at it, it all comes back—the boarding house, St. Louis and the Fair. . . . And all of it is just the same as it has always been, as if it happened yesterday. . . . And all of us have grown up and gone away. And nothing has turned out the way we thought it would. . . . And all my hopes and dreams and big ambitions have come to nothing.
It’s all so long ago, as if it happened in another world. And then it all comes back, as if it happened yesterday. . . . And sometimes I will lie awake at night and think of all the people who have come and gone, and all the things that happened. And hear the trains down by the river, and the whistles and the bell. . . . And how we went to St. Louis back in 1904.
And then I go out into the street and see the faces of the people that I pass. . . . Don’t you see something funny in their eyes, as if they were wondering what had happened to them since they were kids—what it was that they had lost? . . . Now am I crazy, or do they look that way to you?
My God, I’d like to find out what is wrong. . . . What has changed since then. . . . And if we have that same queer funny look in our eyes, too. . . . And if it happens to us all, to everyone. . . . Robert and Jim and Dick and me—all standing there before that house on Orchard Street—and then you see the way we were—and how it all gets lost. . . .
The way it all turns out is nothing like the way we thought that it would be. . . . And how it all gets lost, until it seems that it has never happened—that it is something that we dreamed somewhere. . . . You see what I mean now? . . . That it is something that we hear somewhere, that it happened to someone else. . . . And then it all comes back again.
And there you are, two funny, frightened, skinny little kids with their noses pressed against a dirty window thirty years ago. . . . The way it felt, the way it smelled, even the funny smell in that old pantry of our house. And the steps before the house, the way the rooms looked. Those two little boys in sailor suits who used to ride up and down before the house on their tricycles. . . . And the birthmark on Robert’s neck. . . . The Inside Inn. . . . St. Louis and the Fair. . . . It all comes back as if it happened yesterday. And then it goes away and seems farther off and stranger than if it happened in a dream.
“This is King’s Highway,” a man said. I looked and saw that it was just a street. There were some new buildings, and a big hotel; some restaurants, “bar-grill” places of the modern kind, the livid monotone of neon lights, the ceaseless traffic of the motorcars—all this was new, but it was just a street. And I knew that it had always been a street and nothing more. But somehow—I stood there looking at it, wondering what else I had expected to find.
The man kept looking at me, and I asked him if the Fair had been out this way.
“Sure, the Fair was out beyond here,” the man said. “Where the park is now. But this street you’re looking for? Don’t you remember the name of the street or nothing?”
I said I thought the name was Edgemont Street, but that I was not sure. And I said the house was on the corner of this street and another street. And then the man said, “What street was that?” I said I did not know, but that King’s Highway was a block or so away and that an interurban line ran past about a block or so from where we lived.
“What line was this?” the man said, and stared at me.
“The interurban line,” I said.
Then he stared at me again and finally, “I don’t know no interurban line,” he said.
I said it was a line that ran behind some houses and that there were board fences there and grass beside the tracks. But somehow I could not say that it was summer in those days and that you could smell the ties, a kind of wooden tarry smell, and feel a kind of absence in the afternoon, after the car had gone. I could not say that King’s Highway had not been a street in those days but a kind of road that wound from magic out of some dim land, and that along the way it had got mixed with Tom the Piper’s son, with hot cross buns, with all the light that came and went, and with cloud shadows passing on the mountains, with coming down through Indiana in the morning, and the smell of engine smoke, the Union Station, and most of all with voices lost and far and long ago that said, “King’s Highway.”
I didn’t say those things about King’s Highway because I looked about me and I saw what King’s Highway was. I left him then and went on till I found the place. And again, again, I turned into the street, finding the place where the two corners meet, the huddled block, the turret, and the steps, and paused a moment, looking back, as if the street was Time.
So I waited for a moment for a word, for a door to open, for the child to come. I waited, but no words were spoken; no one came.
Yet all of it was just as it had always been except the steps were lower and the porch less high, the strip of grass less wide than I had thought. A gray-stone front, St. Louis style, three-storied, with a slant slate roof, the side red brick and windowed, still with the old arched entrance in the center for the doctor’s use.
There was a tree in front, a lamp-post, and behind and to the side more trees than I had known there would be. And all the slaty turret gables, all the slaty window gables going into points, the two arched windows, in strong stone, in the front room.
It was all so strong, so solid and so ugly—and so enduring and good, the way I had remembered it, except I did not smell the tar, the hot and caulky dryness of the old cracked ties, the boards of backyard fences and the coarse and sultry grass, and absence in the afternoon when the street-car had gone, and the feel of the hot afternoon, and that everyone was absent at the Fair.
It was a hot day. Darkness had come; the heat hung and sweltered like a sodden blanket in St. Louis. The heat soaked down, and the people sweltered in it; the faces of the people were pale and greasy with the heat. And in their faces was a kind of patient wretchedness, and one felt the kind of desolation that one feels at the end of a hot day in a great city in America—when one’s home is far away across the continent, and he thinks of all that distance, all that heat, and feels: “Oh, God, but it’s a big country!”
