The Analyst

he poured out his troubles to a sympathetic ear...

I had the barrel of the gun in my mouth and my finger on the trigger when he appeared suddenly in the woods. He stopped in the clearing some 50 feet away and stared at me mutely. He was wearing a long brown overcoat and a brown woolen watch cap pulled down over his ears. It was still mild for November, but a long, soiled yellow muffler was wrapped around his neck and trailing down the front of his coat. A parcel wrapped in brown paper was tucked under his arm. The man was the town idiot, the end product of four generations of inbreeding. He lived in one of the ramshackle tin-and-wooden structures his family had thrown together on a hillside near the abandoned hat factory. His name was Virgil. I had seen him shambling along the back roads often, invariably carrying the parcel wrapped in brown paper tied with string. He would lift his head whenever an automobile went past, and grin widely, and raise the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand in the V-for-victory sign. There were people who said his father had been killed in the Bulge during World War Two. I had no idea how old he was. His chin and cheeks were virtually beardless, his skin unwrinkled, his blue eyes twinkling with secret merriment each time he flashed the V. He grinned and flashed it at me now. It had taken every ounce of courage I could muster to bring myself into these woods and take the gun from my pocket and shove the barrel into my mouth. I pocketed the gun now and turned my back to him and began walking up toward the road where I had parked my car.

"Hello!" he called. "Nice day."

I heard him walking toward me through the fallen leaves.

"Nice day," he said again, and I turned to face him. He was still grinning. He had put his hands into the pockets of the long coat, his head was cocked to the side, his eyebrows raised in expectation of an answer.

"Yes," I said.

"Hope it don't rain," he said.

"I don't think it will."

"I'm Virgil," he said.

"Yes, I know."

"Everybody knows me," he said, and he nodded in self-acknowledgment of his celebrity. "That your car up there?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Nice car."

"Thank you."

"Nice day, too," he said. He seemed to have run out of conversation. He nodded his head and smiled at me. "Hope it don't rain. Did they say rain?"

"I don't know."

"Sure hope it don't. That your car?"

"Yes."

"Could you give me a ride?"

"Where to?"

"The post office. Got to mail this. See?" he said, and he took a soiled and crumpled envelope from his coat pocket. "Is that enough of a stamp on it?"

"Yes," I said.

"It's to Hattie. My sister. Her birthday's Saturday. Will it get there?"

"Where does she live?"

"Same place I do. Is that too far?"

"No, she'll get it in time."

"Sure hope so," he said. "Sure hope it don't rain, too."

We walked up to the car in silence.

"Fender's all bent," he said.

"Yes."

"Tch!" he said, and he opened the door and climbed in. "Well," he said cheerfully, "you can fix it, don't worry."

At the post office, he got out of the car, grinned and Hashed the V sign at me.

I drove back home.

• • •

I did not see him again till the following Wednesday.

I had been in the city looking for a job--it is not easy for an aging unemployed executive to find work. I still could not believe I'd been fired two months before.

"I've been with the company twelve years," I told Ralph. We looked at each other across the polished width of his desk, never any papers on that desk, pencils always sharpened and at the ready, but never a scrap of paper on it. I sometimes wondered what he did with all those sharpened pencils.

"It's not my decision," he said. "It came from upstairs."

"Well, can't you go upstairs and tell them you disagree? Ralph, I've been working here for twelve years."

"Andrew," he said, "what can I tell you?"

"You can tell me you'll go to bat for me."

"I can't do that."

"Ralph," I said, "I've got a fifty-thousand-dollar mortgage and two sons in college; the tuition comes to twenty-five hundred a semester for each of them; they cost me five thousand bucks before I bat an eyelash. I bought the Mercedes on lime, that's another four hundred a month to meet the payments--"

"Trade it in for a Volks," Ralph said.

"Ralph, listen to me for a minute, will you? I'm forty-eight years old, I don't know any other line of work; who the hell is going to hire me at the salary I'm getting here? For Christ's sake, Ralph, can't you please go upstairs and tell them I need another chance is all?"

"Andrew," he said, "you blew the McGregor deal. You blew a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar deal because you were dead drunk at one o'clock in the afternoon. We're not in business for our health here."

"Ralph," I said, "please."

"Andrew," he said, and he shrugged.

Through the windshield, I saw Virgil lift his hand in the V sign. In his other hand, he was carrying the customary parcel, clutched tightly to his chest. I pulled to the side of the road and rolled down the window.

"Want a lift?" I said.

"Hello there," he said, and he climbed in. "Nice day," he said.

"Yeah, just beautiful," I said.

"Just beautiful," he said, completely missing my tone. "Sure hope it don't rain. Did they say rain?"

"No, they didn't say rain."

"Sure hope not," he said.

"Did your sister get her card in time?"

"What card?"

"The birthday card."

"My birthday's June," he said. "June twelfth. Sure hope it's a nice day."

"Where are you coming from?" I asked.

"Oh, just walking," he said. "I walk."

"What's in the package?" I asked.

"A sweater. Case it rains and gets cold. I don't like to get cold. Where you coming from?"

"The city."

"Oh, yeah, the city. I been to the city. I don't like it there, it's noisy. You like it there?"

"Not today, I didn't."

"Was it raining in the city?"

"It seemed like it was raining."

"Oh, yeah, it rains a lot in the city."

"I was looking for a job," I said. "I'm out of work."

"Oh, well, that's all right," he said cheerfully. "You should carry a sweater, like I do. Then, if it rains, you won't get cold. But I don't think it'll rain today. Did they say rain?"

"Where do you want me to drop you, Virgil?"

"That's OK. Any place is fine. I walk, you know."

"How about the post office?"

"Fine," he said. "Maybe there's some mail."

I dropped him off at the post office and then parked the car and went into the bank. Peter Capoletti, the manager, signaled to me as I was filling out a withdrawal slip. I went over to his desk.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"Fine," I said.

"Andrew," he said, "the checking account is overdrawn."

"Is it? My wife," I said, and smiled. "She never has learned how to balance that thing."

"Andrew, it's overdrawn by more than two thousand dollars."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, Pete, why don't you just transfer the necessary funds from the savings account----"

"There's only fifteen hundred dollars in the savings account," he said.

"Well...."

"What do you want me to do, Andrew?"

"Well, let me see, maybe I can--let me talk it over with Beth, OK? I'll stop in tomorrow morning, OK?"

"Andrew, I either have to pay those checks or stamp them 'Insufficient Funds' and return them. I can't pay them, because there isn't enough money in either of your accounts to cover them. Now, Andrew, if I stamp them 'Insufficient Funds,' those people you wrote the checks to are within their rights to bring charges against you. Criminal charges, Andrew. Now, I'm not saying anybody's going to be that rotten, but there's the chance somebody will, and it's a serious offense, Andrew, so please don't let this go longer than tomorrow morning, OK? Please talk it over with Beth and see what you can do and come in early tomorrow morning, OK? I'm talking to you like a brother, Andrew."

"I appreciate it."

"But I'm also an officer of this bank."

"Yes, I know."

"OK, Andrew?"

"Yes, Peter. Thanks."

• • •

I called my father long-distance. His wife answered the phone. He had divorced my mother ten years before and she had slowly drunk herself to death, or rather, had finally drunk herself into a stupor that caused her to crash her (continued on page 247) The Analyst (continued from page 218) automobile into an oncoming milk, truck. "Hello, Andrew," his wife said without enthusiasm, "I'll get him."

When he came onto the line, I told him I'd lost my job and needed at least $3000 right away.

"Where am I supposed to get three thousand dollars?" he said.

"Just to tide me over till I find another job," I said.

"I don't have three thousand dollars," he said.

"Dad," I said, "I know you've got three thousand dollars. I'm desperate, Dad."

"You've always been a pain in the ass," he said wearily.

"Dad, I tried to kill myself last week."

"I don't believe you."

"I had the gun in my mouth."

"You're not that stupid," he said.

"You're not stupid enough to do a thing like that."

"Dad, please, can you wire me three thousand dollars? Can you send it right away?"

"When the hell are you going to grow up, Andrew?"

"Dad?"

"I can manage five hundred," he said.

"Thank you. Thank you, Dad."

"And this is the last time," he said, and he hung up.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, one p.m. on the Coast. He had probably taken the call outside, at the swimming pool. But all he could manage was $500. The gun had been his. He had given it to me when he moved to California. "I won't be needing a pistol in Beverly Hills," he'd told me. I thought of the gun as I went through the house looking for things I could hock. It was a Smith & Wesson .32-caliber revolver. The barrel was short, but the sight had bruised the roof of my mouth that day last week when I was about to take my own life. I thought of the gun and I thought of Virgil coming through the woods and flashing the V sign at me and grinning. I mixed myself a double Scotch and soda and then went into the kitchen.

"Beth," I said, "I want to sell the station wagon."

She turned from the sink. We had fired the housekeeper a month ago, when it had begun to look as though I wouldn't find another job too easily. Beth looked tired. It was a big house and she was having difficulty running it alone.

"Why the station wagon?" she asked.

"The station wagon is my car."

"The station wagon is paid for."

"You can still get more for the Mercedes."

"Beth," I said, "I need the Mercedes."

"Why?"

"If I look like I'm down and out, they'll know it."

"Who will? Your ladyfriends?"

"I don't have any ladyfriends, Beth. I'm talking about prospective employers."

"Do you take prospective employers for rides in your Mercedes?"

"Some of the places I've been going to are in industrial parks. The people I talk to can look out their windows and see what kind of car I'm driving."

"Do they also come outside and leave lipsticked cigarette butts in your ashtray?"

"Beth, I'm going to sell the station wagon, and that's that."

"Do whatever the hell you want," she said, and she went back to rinsing the salad greens.

I sold the station wagon that afternoon. I got $3300 for it. The next morning, I went to the bank and deposited the money in the checking account.

Then I tried phoning Alison.

• • •

She was just leaving the house when I got there. She was wearing dungarees and a Navy pea jacket. This was the middle of November, but she still wore sandals on her feet.

"You shouldn't have come here," she said. "I told you never to come here."

"I tried calling you. Your phone was busy."

"What do you want, Andrew?"

"I want to make love to you."

"I told you no," she said. "I told you we were finished."

"And do you know what I did that day? I tried to kill myself. I went into the woods with my father's pistol----"

"Andrew," she said, "that's a lot of crap, and you know it."

"It's true. I almost did it."

"What stopped you?" she said. "Andrew, your car's right out there in the driveway; if anybody should see it and mention to my husband----"

"The hell with your husband!"

"Sure, the hell with him, I agree. I'm not worrying about him, I'm worrying about myself. I don't want to make waves, Andrew. I've got a very nice life here. I don't want you or anybody else upsetting it."

"You told me you loved me."

"I did. I don't anymore."

"You can't just stop loving somebody."

"Can't I?"

"Alison, look, let's go get a drink someplace, OK? I just want to talk to you, OK?"

"You can talk, to me here. You've got five minutes to talk to me." She looked at her watch.

"I love you, Alison."

"You don't love anyone but yourself, Andrew. Anyway, I don't love you, so that's that."

"Is there someone else? Is that it? Have you taken up with another man?"

"That's none of your business."

"That means yes."

"It means it's none of your business."

"Alison, just come for a drink, OK?"

"I don't want to come for a drink; it's only eleven o'clock in the morning. Besides, coming for a drink means ending up in a motel. I don't want to go to bed with you, Andrew. Can you understand that? Do you think you can understand that?"

"You said it was better with me than with anyone in your life. You said that, Alison."

"It was."

"Then how can----"

"It isn't anymore." She looked at her watch again. "I've got to go," she said.

"Who are you meeting? The man who was on the phone with you?"

"Andrew," she said, "get the hell out of here before I call the police, huh?"

• • •

I looked for Virgil; I don't know why I looked for him. I drove all over the back roads of the town, looking for him. I found him at close to two o'clock. There's a place where the road becomes a wooden bridge that crosses the river. He was standing there, looking down at the water. The collar of his long brown coat was pulled up over his ears, the soiled yellow muffler wrapped tight around his throat, trailing. He was holding the paper parcel against his chest. He grinned and flashed the V sign as soon as he heard the car. I rolled down the window.

"Want a lift?" I said.

"OK," he said, and he got in. "Nice day," he said.

We drove in silence for several moments.

"How have you been?" I asked.

"Fine. You don't think it'll rain, do you?"

"No."

"You been to the city again?"

"No," I said, "not today."

And then, suddenly, I was telling him everything. I told him how I'd registered with an agency that specialized in placing high-salaried executives, but so far I'd struck out each and every time they'd arranged an interview for me. I told him I was beginning to think Ralph was bad-mouthing me around the field, can you imagine that son of a bitch firing me after 12 years, sitting there behind his spotless desk and passing down orders from on high, just obeying orders, chum, that's all, sorry, chum, you drink too much. I told Virgil I honestly didn't believe I drank more than most men with the kind of pressures I had to live with, told him that on the afternoon I'd taken old man McGregor to lunch, he'd, been the one who started tossing down double martinis as if they were going out of style, he'd been the one who'd got me drunk, for Christ's sake, and then had had the gall to phone that same afternoon and tell the company he no longer wished to do business with us.

"Well, that's OK," Virgil said.

Because, what the hell, I told him, a man isn't an alcoholic just because he has a few social drinks every now and then; you'd think I was a goddamn alcoholic the way Ralph was talking, firing me after 12 years with the company, can you imagine that, not even a gold watch, I said, and laughed, and Virgil laughed with me, how do you like that, Virgil, not even a gold watch. And my father, you know, the rotten bastard left my mother when she was 43 years old, can you imagine that, she never was a raving beauty, well, who the hell knows, I'm her son, how can a son judge his own mother? But at 43, her chances of ever finding another man were nil, though he didn't have any trouble finding himself a young floozy, oh, no. She used to be a dancer in a show, Virgil, he took her out to California, bought a big house for her in Beverly Hills, swimming pool, tennis courts, the works, offered to send me $500, would you believe it? Probably pays his goddamn Japanese gardener more than that in a week. Five hundred dollars; I should have told him what he could do with his measly $500.

"Well, yeah," Virgil said, still laughing about the gold watch.

And my wife, I told him, you know, Virgil, you're a wise man never to have gotten married, you're not married, are you, Virgil? I mean, what have I done for her over the years except bust my ass for her? You know how much that house cost, Virgil? A hundred and fifty thousand dollars, I still owe fifty to the bank, you think that doesn't bite into a man's salary each month? And sending the kids to college? Lots of men, when their kids go off to school, they tell the kids they're on their own, no more tuition, fellows, no more expenses, you're on your own. I mean, what the hell, Virgil, I paid their way through private school, both of them, but does my wife consider that when she's yelling about other women, as if I've had a lot of them? Three women, in all the years we've been married, Virgil, that's not a lot. I'm not promiscuous, Virgil, I wouldn't call myself promiscuous. I enjoy it as much as any other man, but I don't go looking around for it, if it comes my way, it comes my way, I'm not a chaser, Virgil. I met Alison at a cocktail party here in town, and if you want to know the truth, she was the one who made all the advances, I'm not kidding, Virgil. Started dancing close right off and, well, you know, generally getting me very excited, and practically to the point of being forced to ask her if she'd like to meet me for lunch one day, it was either that or get arrested, you know what I mean, Virgil?

Virgil laughed. "Oh, yeah," he said. "Yeah."

So today she tells me it's all over, second time she's told me that, as if the first time wasn't bad enough. I don't have to take that kind of crap from anybody, Virgil, especially not a woman, I just don't have to. You know what I did the first time she told me? We were in the motel, same motel we'd been going to for the past two years, yes. Yes, Virgil, two years it was going on, this wasn't a casual thing, we loved each other, or at least I loved her, who the hell knows what she was doing all those years, except screwing her stupid brains out. Tells me while we're in the shower together, tells me she thinks maybe it's time we stopped seeing each other, soaping my back while she tells me, says it's time we moved on, time we experienced new things. I said What the hell are you talking about? She said I'm trying to tell you we're finished, Andrew, through, over and done with, I'm trying to say goodbye, Andrew.

I went home that day, I dropped her off where her car was parked first, and then I drove home and went upstairs to the bedroom where I keep my father's pistol in the top drawer of the dresser, Beth was downstairs, my wife, Beth, she was downstairs. And I loaded the gun, I put six cartridges into the gun, though I knew I'd need only one, six cartridges, and I carried it downstairs tucked into my belt, and I had three Scotches neat before I left the house. The barrel fit easily in my mouth, I was ready to pull the trigger, I had my finger around the trigger when you came into the woods, that's what I was about to do that day, Virgil, I was about to kill myself, can you understand that, I was ready to take my own life, and then you stepped into the clearing and grinned and flashed the V sign.

"Yeah," Virgil said, and he grinned and flashed the V sign now.

Ahh, Jesus, I said, I don't know what I'm going to do next. If I don't get a job soon, I just don't know what the hell I'm going to do. You may find me out there in the woods one day, just lying dead in the leaves, I swear to God, Virgil, I just don't know what I'm going to do next. The whole damn thing has collapsed, the whole damn house of cards has fallen in on my head.

"Well, don't worry," Virgil said. "It don't look like rain."

I dropped him off in front of the post office. He grinned and flashed the V sign at me and then closed the door. I looked at the dashboard clock. We had been driving around for close to an hour.

Fifty minutes, to be exact.

• • •

I began looking for him regularly after that.

I didn't know his exact walking route, but I did know I could find him at the wooden bridge at about two o'clock every day, and I looked for him sometimes two, sometimes three times a week, depending on how much I felt like talking. I didn't know why I was talking to him, of all people. I still don't know. Maybe I just wanted somebody...neutral. Someone who wouldn't criticize me for drinking too much and blowing important company deals, someone who wouldn't tell me I ought to grow up, who wouldn't always accuse me of running around with other women, who wouldn't drop me for a new lover--someone who'd just listen and say, "Well, that's OK, don't worry." I talked to him a lot and he listened, or at least I thought he was listening. His responses never varied, though as the weeks wore on, he seemed to talk less and less, seemed never to laugh at the little jokes I made, just sat in silence as I drove the back roads for close to an hour each time.

I had been telling him that things were no better, I still hadn't found a job, Beth was threatening to leave me if I didn't stop fooling around with other women, which warning might have been amusing if it wasn't so goddamn serious; I hadn't been to bed with anyone else since that day at the beginning of November when Alison had soaped my back and told me we were through. Virgil listened in silence as I told him I was afraid I might try to take my own life again. I glanced at him, his face looked drawn, his mouth was tight, his shoulders were slumped, he seemed to cling more fiercely to the paper parcel tied with string. I stopped the car. I pulled up the hand brake.

"Virgil," I said, "you'd be doing me a very big favor if you took the gun and kept it for me. I've got it in the glove compartment; I'd appreciate it if you took it home with you and hid it someplace. And don't tell me where you've put it, because, Virgil, if things don't change in a little while, I'm going to be tempted to take that gun and stick it in my mouth again and blow out my brains, and I just don't want to know where it is. Will you do me that favor, Virgil?"

He began to whimper and shake his head.

"Virgil," I said, "you've been a better friend to me in these past weeks than you can possibly know. You probably won't understand this, but being able to talk to you has made me feel a lot better; it's been a tremendous relief just to get some of this burden off my shoulders. Talking to you has done that for me, Virgil. And maybe you don't consider yourself my friend, maybe you don't even know what the word friendship means, but I'd appreciate it, I'd sincerely appreciate it if you took this gun and hid it away from me, because I'll sure as hell use it on myself if you don't."

Virgil was still whimpering. I opened the glove compartment.

"Here," I said. "It's loaded, so be careful with it. Just put it someplace, bury it in the woods, for all I care, just so I won't be able to get my hands on it. OK, Virgil? Will you do that for me?"

Virgil shook his head and backed away from me. I thrust the gun into his hands.

"Take it." I said.

He took the gun. In a small frightened voice, he said, "Will it rain? Do you think it'll rain?"

• • •

It was raining the next day when they found him in the woods. A torn piece of brown wrapping paper and a broken piece of string were lying by his side. He was wearing two sweaters under the long brown overcoat. The rain fell steadily on the sodden leaves around him, washing away his blood. The pistol was still in his mouth. Nobody could figure out why he'd done it. He'd always seemed so happy-go-lucky.

I found a job the very next week. I also met a girl on the train. She is 22 years old and I see her every Friday afternoon, when we spend two or three hours together in a motel near my office. I don't drink anymore. But I don't drink any less, either. That's a joke Virgil might have appreciated, he always used to chuckle at my jokes--in the beginning, anyway. He always used to chuckle and say, "Well, that's OK, don't worry."

He was right.

There'd really been nothing to worry about all along.