The same day, after nightfall. Still plugging on, digging deeper and deeper into the South. I’m coming away from a little town by a short road leading to the highway. Suddenly I hear footsteps behind me and soon a young man passes me on the trot, breathing heavily and cursing with all his might. I stand there a moment, wondering what it’s all about. I hear another man coming on the trot; he’s an older man and he’s carrying a gun. He breathes fairly easy, and not a word out of his trap. Just as he comes in view the moon breaks through the clouds and I catch a good look at his face. He’s a man hunter. I stand back as the others come up behind him. I’m trembling with fear. It’s the sheriff, I hear a man say, and he’s going to get him. Horrible. I move on towards the highway waiting to hear the shot that will end it all. I hear nothing – just this heavy breathing of the young man and the quick eager steps of the mob following behind the sheriff. Just as I get near the main road a man steps out of the darkness and comes over to me very quietly. “Where yer goin’, son,” he says, quiet like and almost tenderly. I stammer out something about the next town. “Better stay right here, son,” he says. I didn’t say another word. I let him take me back into town and hand me over like a thief. I lay on the floor with about fifty other blokes. I had a marvellous sexual dream which ended with the guillotine.
I plug on … It’s just as hard to go back as to go forward. I don’t have the feeling of being an American citizen any more. The part of America I came from, where I had some rights, where I felt free, is so far behind me that it’s beginning to get fuzzy in my memory. I feel as though some one’s got a gun against my back all the time. Keep moving, is all I seem to hear. If a man talks to me I try not to seem too intelligent. I try to pretend that I am vitally interested in the crops, in the weather, in the elections. If I stand and stop they look at me, whites and blacks – they look me through and through as though I were juicy and edible. I’ve got to walk another thousand miles or so as though I had a deep purpose, as though I were really going somewhere. I’ve got to look sort of grateful, too, that nobody has yet taken a fancy to plug me. It’s depressing and exhilarating at the same time. You’re a marked man – and nobody pulls the trigger. They let you walk unmolested right into the Gulf of Mexico where you can drown yourself.
Yes sir, I reached the Gulf of Mexico and I walked right into it and drowned myself. I did it gratis. When they fished the corpse out they found it was marked F.O.B. Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn; it was returned C.O.D. When I was asked later why I had killed myself I could only think to say – because I wanted to electrify the cosmos! I meant by that a very simple thing – The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western had been electrified, the Seaboard Air Line had been electrified, but the soul of man was still in the covered wagon stage. I was born in the midst of civilization and I accepted it very naturally – what else was there to do? But the joke was that nobody else was taking it seriously. I was the only man in the community who was truly civilized. There was no place for me – as yet. And yet the books I read, the music I heard assured me, that there were other men in the world like myself. I had to go and drown myself in the Gulf of Mexico in order to have an excuse for continuing this pseudo-civilized existence. I had to delouse myself of my spiritual body, as it were.
When I woke up to the fact that as far as the scheme of things goes I was less than dirt I really became quite happy. I quickly lost all sense of responsibility. And if it weren’t for the fact that my friends got tired of lending me money I might have gone on indefinitely pissing the time away. The world was like a museum to me: I saw nothing to do but eat into this marvellous chocolate layer cake which the men of the past had dumped on our hands. It annoyed everybody to see the way I enjoyed myself. Their logic was that art was very beautiful, oh yes, indeed, but you must work for a living and then you will find that you are too tired to think about art. But it was when I threatened to add a layer or two on my own account to this marvellous chocolate layer cake that they blew up on me. That was the finishing touch. That meant I was definitely crazy. First I was considered to be a useless member of society; then for a time I was found to be a reckless, happy-go-lucky corpse with a tremendous appetite; now I had become crazy. (Listen, you bastard, you find yourself a job … we’re through with you!) In a way it was refreshing this change of front. I could feel the wind blowing through the corridors. At least “we” were no longer becalmed. It was war, and as a corpse I was just fresh enough to have a little fight left in me. War is revivifying. War stirs the blood. It was in the midst of the world war, which I had forgotten about, that this change of heart took place. I got myself married overnight, to demonstrate to all and sundry that I didn’t give a fuck one way or the other. Getting married was O.K. in their minds. I remember that, on the strength of the announcement, I raised five bucks immediately. My friend MacGregor paid for the licence and even paid for the shave and haircut which he insisted I go through with in order to get married. They said you couldn’t go without being shaved; I didn’t see any reason why you couldn’t get hitched up without a shave and haircut, but since it didn’t cost me anything I submitted to it. It was interesting to see how everybody was eager to contribute something to our maintenance. All of a sudden, just because I had shown a bit of sense, they came flocking around us – and couldn’t they do this and couldn’t they do that for us? Of course the assumption was that now I would surely be going to work, now I would see that life is serious business. It never occurred to them that I might let my wife work for me. I was really very decent to her in the beginning. I wasn’t a slave driver. All I asked for was carfare – to hunt for the mythical job – and a little pin money for cigarettes, movies, et cetera. The important things, such as books, music albums, gramophones, porterhouse steaks and such like I found we could get on credit, now that we were married. The instalment plan had been invented expressly for guys like me. The down payment was easy – the rest I left to Providence. One has to live, they were always saying. Now, by God, that’s what I said to myself – One has to live! Live first and pay afterwards. If I saw an overcoat I liked I went in and bought it. I would buy it a little in advance of the season too, to show that I was a serious-minded chap. Shit, I was a married man and soon I would probably be a father – I was entitled to a winter overcoat at least, no? And when I had the overcoat I thought of stout shoes to go with it – a pair of thick cordevans such as I had wanted all my life but never could afford. And when it grew bitter cold and I was out looking for the job I used to get terribly hungry sometimes – it’s really healthy going out like that day after day prowling about the city in rain and snow and wind and hail – and so now and then I’d drop in to a cosy tavern and order myself a juicy porterhouse steak with onions and French fried potatoes. I took out life insurance and accident insurance too – it’s important, when you’re married, to do things like that, so they told me. Supposing I should drop dead one day – what then? I remember the guy telling me that, in order to clinch his argument. I had already told him I would sign up, but he must have forgotten it. I had said, yes, immediately, out of force of habit, but as I say, he had evidently overlooked it – or else it was against the code to sign a man up until you had delivered the full sales talk. Anyway, I was just getting ready to ask him how long it would take before you could make a loan on the policy when he popped the hypothetical question: Supposing you should drop dead one day – what then? I guess he thought I was a little off my nut the way I laughed at that. I laughed until the tears rolled down my face. Finally he said – “I don’t see that I said anything so funny.” “Well,” I said, getting serious for a moment, “take a good look at me. Now tell me, do you think I’m the sort of fellow who gives a fuck what happens once he’s dead?” He was quite taken aback by this, apparently, because the next thing he said was: “I don’t think that’s a very ethical attitude. Mr. Miller. I’m sure you wouldn’t want your wife to …” “Listen,” I said, “supposing I told you I don’t give a fuck what happens to my wife when I die – what then
?” And since this seemed to injure his ethical susceptibilities still more I added for good measure – “As far as I’m concerned you don’t have to pay the insurance when I croak – I’m only doing this to make you feel good. I’m trying to help the world along, don’t you see? You’ve got to live, haven’t you? Well, I’m just putting a little food in your mouth, that’s all. If you have anything else to sell, trot it out. I buy anything that sounds good. I’m a buyer not a seller. I like to see people looking happy – that’s why I buy things. Now listen, how much did you say that would come to per week? Fifty-seven cents? Fine. What’s fifty-seven cents? You see that piano – that comes to about 39 cents a week, I think. Look around you … everything you see costs so much a week. You say, if I should die, what then? Do you suppose I’m going to die on all these people? That would be a hell of a joke. No, I’d rather have them come and take the things away – if I can’t pay for them, I mean …” He was fidgeting about and there was a rather glassy stare in his eye, I thought. “Excuse me,” I said, interrupting myself, “but wouldn’t you like to have a little drink – to wet the policy?” He said he thought not, but I insisted, and besides, I hadn’t signed the papers yet and my urine would have to be examined and approved of and all sorts of stamps and seals would have to be affixed – I knew all that crap by heart – so I thought we might have a little snifter first and in that way protract the serious business, because honestly, buying insurance or buying anything was a real pleasure to me and gave me the feeling that I was just like every other citizen, a man, what! and not a monkey. So I got out a bottle of sherry (which is all that was allowed me), and I poured out a generous glassful for him, thinking to myself that it was fine to see the sherry going because maybe the next time they’d buy something better for me. “I used to sell insurance too once upon a time,” I said, raising the glass to my lips. “Sure, I can sell anything. The only thing is – I’m lazy. Take a day like to-day – isn’t it nicer to be indoors, reading a book or listening to the phonograph? Why should I go out and hustle for an insurance company? If I had been working to-day you wouldn’t have caught me in – isn’t that so? No, I think it’s better to take it easy and help people out when they come along … like with you, for instance. It’s much nicer to buy things than to sell them, don’t you think? If you have the money, of course! In this house we don’t need much money. As I was saying, the piano comes to about 39 cents a week, or forty-two maybe, and the …”
“Excuse me, Mr Miller,” he interrupted, “but don’t you think we ought to get down to signing these papers?”
“Why, of course,” I said cheerfully. “Did you bring them all with you? Which one do you think we ought to sign first? By the way, you haven’t got a fountain pen you’d like to sell me, have you?”
“Just sign right here,” he said, pretending to ignore my remarks. “And here, that’s it. Now then, Mr. Miller, I think I’ll say good day – and you’ll be hearing from the company in a few days.”
“Better make it sooner,” I remarked, leading him to the door, “because I might change my mind and commit suicide.”
“Why, of course, why yes, Mr. Miller, certainly we will. Good day now, good day!”
Of course the instalment plan breaks down eventually, even if you’re an assiduous buyer such as I was. I certainly did my best to keep the manufacturers and the advertising men of America busy, but they were disappointed in me it seems. Everybody was disappointed in me. But there was one man in particular who was more disappointed in me than any one and that was a man who had really made an effort to befriend me and whom I had let down. I think of him and the way he took me on as his assistant – so readily and graciously – because later, when I was hiring and firing like a 42 horse calibre revolver, I was betrayed right and left myself, but by that time I had become so inoculated that it didn’t matter a damn. But this man had gone out of his way to show me that he believed in me. He was the editor of a catalogue for a great mail order house. It was an enormous compendium of horse-shit which was put out once a year and which took the whole year to make ready. I hadn’t the slightest idea what it was all about and why I dropped into his office that day I don’t know, unless it was because I wanted to get warm, as I had been knocking about the docks all day trying to get a job as a checker or some damned thing. It was cosy in his office and I made him a long speech so as to get thawed out. I didn’t know what job to ask for – just a job, I said. He was a sensitive man and very kindhearted. He seemed to guess that I was a writer, or wanted to be a writer, because soon he was asking me what I liked to read and what was my opinion of this writer and that writer. It just happened that I had a list of books in my pocket – books I was searching for at the public library – and so I brought it out and showed it to him. “Great Scott!” he exclaimed, “do you really read these books?” I modestly shook my head in the affirmative, and then as often happened to me when I was touched off by some silly remark like that, I began to talk about Hamsun’s Mysteries which I had just been reading. From then on the man was like putty in my hands. When he asked me if I would like to be his assistant he apologized for offering me such a lowly position; he said I could take my time learning the ins-and-outs of the job, he was sure it would be a cinch for me. And then he asked me if he couldn’t lend me some money, out of his own pocket until I got paid. Before I could say yes or no he had fished out a twenty dollar bill and thrust it in my hand. Naturally I was touched. I was ready to work like a son of a bitch for him. Assistant editor – it sounded quite good, especially to the creditors in the neighbourhood. And for a while I was so happy to be eating roast beef and chicken and tenderloins of pork that I pretended I liked the job. Actually it was difficult for me to keep awake. What I had to learn I had learned in a week’s time. And after that? After that I saw myself doing penal servitude for life. In order to make the best of it I whiled away the time writing stories and essays and long letters to my friends. Perhaps they thought I was writing up new ideas for the company, because for quite a while nobody paid any attention to me. I thought it was a wonderful job. I had almost the whole day to myself, for my writing, having learned to dispose of the company’s work in about an hour’s time. I was so enthusiastic about my own private work that I gave orders to my underlings not to disturb me except at stipulated moments. I was sailing along like a breeze, the company paying me regularly and the slave-drivers doing the work I had mapped out for them, when one day, just when I am in the midst of an important essay on The Anti-Christ, a man whom I had never seen before walks up to my desk, bends over my shoulder, and in a sarcastic tone of voice begins to read aloud what I had just written. I didn’t need to inquire who he was or what he was up to – the only thought in my head was, and that I repeated to myself frantically – Will I get an extra week’s pay? When it came time to bid good-bye to my benefactor I felt a little ashamed of myself, particularly when he said, right off the bat like – “I tried to get you an extra week’s pay but they wouldn’t hear of it. I wish there was something I could do for you – you’re only standing in your own way, you know. To tell the truth, I still have the greatest faith in you – but I’m afraid you’re going to have a hard time of it, for a while. You don’t fit in anywhere. Some day you’ll make a great writer, I feel sure of it. Well, excuse me,” he added, shaking hands with me warmly, “I’ve got to see the boss. Good luck to you!”
I felt a bit cut up about the incident. I wished it had been possible to prove to him then and there that his faith was justified. I wished I could have justified myself before the whole world at that moment: I would have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge if it would have convinced people that I wasn’t a heartless son of a bitch. I had a heart as big as a whale, as I was soon to prove, but nobody was examining into my heart. Everybody was being let down hard – not only the instalment companies, but the landlord, the butcher, the baker, the gas, water and electricity devils, everybody. If only I could get to believe in this business of work! To save my life I couldn’t s
ee it. I could only see that people were working their balls off because they didn’t know any better. I thought of the speech I had made which won me the job. In some ways I was very much like Herr Nagel myself. No telling from minute to minute what I would do. No knowing whether I was a monster or a saint. Like so many wonderful men of our time. Herr Nagel was a desperate man – and it was this very desperation which made him such a likeable chap. Hamsun didn’t know what to make of this character himself: he knew he existed, and he knew that there was something more to him than a mere buffoon and a mystifier. I think he loved Herr Nagel more than any other character he created. And why?
Because Herr Nagel was the unacknowledged saint which every artist is – the man who is ridiculed because his solutions, which are truly profound, seem too simple for the world. No man wants to be an artist – he is driven to it because the world refuses to recognize his proper leadership. Work meant nothing to me, because the real work to be done was being evaded. People regarded me as lazy and shiftless, but on the contrary I was an exceedingly active individual. Even if it was just hunting for a piece of tail, that was something, and well worth while, especially if compared to other forms of activity – such as making buttons or turning screws, or even removing appendixes. And why did people listen to me so readily when I applied for a job? Why did they find me entertaining? For the reason, no doubt, that I had always spent my time profitably. I brought them gifts – from my hours at the public library, from my idle ramblings through the streets, from my intimate experiences with women, from my afternoons at the burlesque, from my visits to the museum and the art galleries. Had I been a dud, just a poor honest bugger who wanted to work his balk off for so much a week, they wouldn’t have offered me the jobs they did, nor would they have handed me cigars or taken me to lunch or loaned me money as they frequently did. I must have had something to offer which perhaps unknowingly they prized beyond horsepower or technical ability. I didn’t know myself what it was, because I had neither pride, nor vanity, nor envy. About the big issues I was clear, but confronted by the petty details of life I was bewildered. I had to witness this same bewilderment on a colossal scale before I could grasp what it was all about. Ordinary men are often quicker in sizing up the practical situation: their ego is commensurate with the demands made upon it: the world is not very different from what they imagine it to be. But a man who is completely out of step with the rest of the world is either suffering from a colossal inflation of his ego or else the ego is so submerged as to be practically non-existent. Herr Nagel had to dive off the deep end in search of his true ego; his existence was a mystery, to himself and to every one else. I couldn’t afford to leave things hanging in suspense that way – the mystery was too intriguing. Even if I had to rub myself like a cat against every human being I encountered, I was going to get to the bottom of it. Rub long enough and hard enough and the spark will come!