Jim suddenly sees himself—an old man in a leather vest sitting alone on a turquoise-colored couch in a Southwestern-style living room: stucco walls, wrought iron and reclaimed wood furniture set on terracotta tile. Even a cactus by the window and an old steer skull over the TV. Hell, Jim is from Gladwin, Michigan—what is he doing here?
He met Katie at Central Michigan University, where he ended up majoring in finance and she dropped out to have Jason her junior year. Jim's modest career in accounting and Katie’s desire for warmer weather took them to northern Arizona a few years after Jason moved out. They were both 47 then.
Katie went all in on Arizona, got way into the Southwest stuff, filling the house with turquoise and dream-catchers and all that. She even started getting Jim to wear loose bolo ties on white blouses open at the neck and this leather vest. She spent $900 on this vest.
They grew old this way and Jim retired. She brought home a little white dog.
The crazy thing, Jim thinks, is he had hated all this—the décor, the vest, the fact that she spent $900 on this vest, the skull on the wall. Even the dog. Jim had hated a lot of things.
But she died three years ago, he misses her, and this is still who he is. He wears the vest almost every day, walks the little dog, and turquoise is his favorite color.
He still hates the wrought iron and reclaimed wood furniture. One piece of furniture she got right was this couch. He sleeps on it nightly. Hasn't needed to open the bedroom door in years.
Robert Cohn was a member, through his father, of one of the richest Jewish families in New York, and through his mother of one of the oldest.And,
"How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked.And that phrasing is called back later:
"Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly."
The bull gathered himself, then his head went forward and he went over slowly, then all over, suddenly, four feet in the air.But maybe my favorite part is the chapter in which Jake is drunk in his hotel room, thinking through his views on life. This chapter includes the following:
Women made such swell friends. Awfully swell. In the first place, you had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship. I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the swell things you could count on.
I thought I had paid for everything. Not like the woman pays and pays and pays. No idea of retribution or punishment. Just exchange of values. You gave up something and got something else. Or you worked for something. You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it. You could get your money's worth. The world was a good place to buy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years, I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I've had.
Perhaps that wasn't true, though. Perhaps as you went along you did learn something. I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about.
This is a test. In a few minutes the siren will trail off and the
bullhorn will thank us for participating. Tests, drills: these occur
every other day now. Strap on the oxygen mask, help mask others, duck,
preferably under something sturdy.
I know a seagull. He watches me uncaringly. Sometimes when he flies the sky warms from a restless midnight ink to a delicate warm peach speckled heaven blue. He is overhead now. Hello again, Seagull.
