LITMIR.BIZ

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would not dare poke a nose out of his hole. To accost a stranger on such a day and ask him for alms would be unthinkable. In that biting, gnawing cold, the icy wind whistling through the glum, canyoned streets, no one in his right mind would stop long enough to reach into his pocket in search of a coin. On a morning like this, which a comfortable banker would describe as “clear and brisk,” a beggar has no right to be hungry or in need of carfare. Beggars are for warm, sunny days, when even the sadist at heart stops to throw crumbs to the birds.

      It was on a day such as this that I would deliberately gather together a batch of samples in order to sally forth and call on one of my father’s customers, knowing in advance that I would get no order but driven by an all-consuming hunger for conversation.

      There was one individual in particular I always elected to visit on such occasions, because with him the day might end, and usually did end, in most unexpected fashion. It was seldom, I should add, that this individual ever ordered a suit of clothes, and when he did it took him years to settle the bill. Still, he was a customer. To the old man I used to pretend that I was calling on John Stymer in order to make him buy the full-dress suit which we always assumed he would eventually need. (He was forever telling us that he would become a judge one day, this Stymer.)

      What I never divulged to the old man was the nature of the unsartorial conversations I usually had with the man.

      “Hello! What do you want to see me for?”

      That’s how he usually greeted me.

      “You must be mad if you think I need more clothes. I haven’t paid you for the last suit I bought, have I? When was that—five years ago?”

      He had barely lifted his head from the mass of papers in which his nose was buried. A foul smell pervaded the office, due to his inveterate habit of farting—even in the presence of his stenographer. He was always picking his nose too. Otherwise—outwardly, I mean—he might pass for Mr. Anybody. A lawyer, like any other lawyer.

      His head still buried in a maze of legal documents, he chirps: “What are you reading these days?” Before I can reply he adds: “Could you wait outside a few minutes? I’m in a tangle. But don’t run away. . . . I want to have a chat with you.” So saying he dives in his pocket and pulls out a dollar bill. “Here, get yourself a coffee while you wait. And come back in an hour or so . . . we’ll have lunch together, what!”

      In the anteroom a half-dozen clients are waiting to get his ear. He begs each one to wait just a little longer. Sometimes they sit there all day.

      On the way to the cafeteria I break the bill to buy a paper. Scanning the news always gives me that extrasensory feeling of belonging to another planet. Besides, I need to get screwed up in order to grapple with John Stymer.

      Scanning the paper I get to reflecting on Stymer’s great problem. Masturbation. For years now he’s been trying to break the vicious habit. Scraps of our last conversation come to mind. I recall how I recommended his trying a good whorehouse—and the wry face he made when I voiced the suggestion. “What! Me, a married man, take up with a bunch of filthy whores?” And all I could think to say was: “They’re not all filthy!”

      But what was pathetic, now that I mention the matter, was the earnest, imploring way he begged me, on parting, to let him know if I thought of anything that would help . . . anything at all. “Cut it off!” I wanted to say.

      An hour rolled away. To him an hour was like five minutes. Finally I got up and made for the door. It was that icy outdoors I wanted to gallop.

      To my surprise he was waiting for me. There he sat with clasped hands resting on the desk top, his eyes fixed on some pinpoint in eternity. The package of samples which I had left on his desk was open. He had decided to order a suit, he informed me.

      “I’m in no hurry for it,” he said. “I don’t need any new clothes.”

      “Don’t buy one, then. You know I didn’t come here to sell you a suit.”

      “You know,” he said, “you’re about the only person I ever manage to have a real conversation with. Every time I see you I expand. . . . What have you got to recommend this time? I mean in the way of literature. That last one, Oblomov, was it? didn’t make much of an impression on me.”

      He paused, not to hear what I might have to say in reply, but to gather momentum.

      “Since you were here last I’ve been having an affair. Does that surprise you? Yes, a young girl, very young, and a nymphomaniac to boot. Drains me dry. But that isn’t what bothers me—it’s my wife. It’s excruciating the way she works over me. I want to jump out of my skin.”

      Observing the grin on my face he adds: “It’s not a bit funny, let me tell you.”

      The telephone rang. He listens attentively. Then, having said nothing but Yes, No, I think so, he suddenly shouts into the mouthpiece: “I want none of your filthy money. Let him get someone else to defend him.”

      “Imagine trying to bribe me,” he says, slamming up the receiver. “And a judge, no less. A big shot, too.” He blew his nose vigorously. “Well, where were we?” He rose. “What about a bite to eat? Could talk better over food and wine, don’t you think?”

      We hailed a taxi and made for an Italian joint he frequented. It was a cozy place, smelling strongly of wine, sawdust and cheese. Virtually deserted too.

      After we had ordered he said: “You don’t mind if I talk about myself, do you? That’s my weakness, I guess. Even when I’m reading, even if it’s a good book, I can’t help but think about myself, my problems. Not that I think I’m so important, you understand. Obsessed, that’s all.

      “You’re obsessed too,” he continued, “but in a healthier way. You see, I’m engrossed with myself and I hate myself. A real loathing, mind you. I couldn’t possibly feel that way about another human being. I know myself through and through, and the thought of what I am, what I must look like to others, appalls me. I’ve got only one good quality: I’m honest. I take no credit for it either . . . it’s a purely instinctive trait. Yes, I’m honest with my clients—and I’m honest with myself.”

      I broke in. “You may be honest with yourself, as you say, but it would be better for you if you were more generous. I mean, with yourself. If you can’t treat yourself decently how do you expect others to?”

      “It’s not in my nature to think such thoughts,” he answered promptly. “I’m a Puritan from way back. A degenerate one, to be sure. The trouble is, I’m not degenerate enough. You remember asking me once if I had ever read the Marquis de Sade? Well, I tried, but he bores me stiff. Maybe he’s too French for my taste. I don’t know why they call him the divine Marquis, do you?”

      By now we had sampled the Chianti and were up to our ears in spaghetti. The wine had a limbering effect. He could drink a lot without losing his head. In fact, that was another one of his troubles—his inability to lose himself, even under the influence of drink.

      As if he had divined my thoughts, he began by remarking that he was an out-and-out mentalist. “A mentalist who can even make his prick think. You’re laughing again. But it’s tragic. The young girl I spoke of—she thinks I’m a grand fucker. I’m not. But she is. She’s a real fuckeree. Me, I fuck with my brain. It’s like I was conducting a cross-examination, only with my prick instead of my mind. Sounds screwy, doesn’t it? It is too. Because the more I fuck the more I concentrate on myself. Now and then—with her, that is—I sort of come to and ask myself who’s on the other end. Must be a hangover from the masturbating business. You follow me, don’t you? Instead of doing it to myself someone does it for me. It’s better than masturbating, because you become even more detached. The girl, of course, has a grand time. She can do anything she likes with me. That’s what tickles her . . . excites her. What she doesn’t know—maybe it would frighten her if I told her—is that I’m not there. You know the expression—to be all ears. Well, I’m all mind. A mind with a prick attached to it, if you can put it that way. . . . By

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