Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [210]
The reason why the Ulicks of this world (and also the Cantabiles) had such sway over me was that they knew their desires clearly. These desires might be low but they were pursued in full wakefulness. Thoreau saw a woodchuck at Walden, its eyes more fully awake than the eyes of any farmer. Of course that wood-chuck was on his way to wipe out some hard-working farmer’s crop. It was all very well for Thoreau to build up woodchucks and fume at farmers. But if society is a massive moral failure farmers have something to sleep about. Or look at the present moment. Ulick was awake to money; I, with a craving to do right swelling in my heart, was aware that the good liberal sleep of American boyhood had lasted half a century. And even now I had come to get something from Ulick—I was revisiting the conditions of childhood under which my heart had been inspired. Traces of the perfume of that sustaining time, that early and sweet dream-time of goodness still clung to him. Just as his face was turning toward (perhaps) his final sun, I still wanted something from him.
Ulick treated his two Cubans as deferentially as the Polish Casey treated him. These were his indispensable negotiators. They had gone to school with the proprietors. At times they hinted that they were all cousins. To me they looked like Caribbean playboys, a recognizable type—strong fatty men with fresh round faces and blue, not especially kindly, eyes. They were golfers, water-skiers, horsemen, polo-players, racing-car drivers, twin-engine pilots. They knew the Riviera, the Alps, Paris, and New York as well as the night clubs and gambling joints of the West Indies. I said to Ulick, “These are sharp guys. Exile hasn’t dulled them any.”
“I know they’re sharp,” said Ulick. “I’ll have to find a way to put them into the deal. This is no time to be petty—my God, Chuckie, there’s plenty here for everybody this time,” he whispered.
Before this conversation occurred we had made two stops. As we were returning from the peninsula, Ulick said he wanted to stop at a tropical fruit farm he knew. He had promised Hortense to bring home persimmons. The fish had been eaten. We sat with him under a tree sucking at the breast-sized, flame-colored fruit. The juice spurted over his sport shirt, and seeing that it now had to go to the cleaner anyway he wiped his fingers on it as well. His eyes had shrunk, and moved back and forth rapidly in his head. He was not, just then, with us. The Cubans took Hortense’s golf bag from the trunk of the car and began to amuse themselves by driving balls across the fields. They were superb powerful golfers, despite their heavy bottoms and the folds of flesh that formed under their chins as they addressed the ball. They took turns, and with elastic strength whacked the elastic balls—crack!—into the unknown. It was pleasing to watch this. But when we were ready to leave it turned out that the ignition keys had gotten locked up in the trunk. Tools were borrowed from the persimmon farmer, and in half an hour the Cubans had punched out the lock. Of course they damaged the paint of the new Cadillac. But that was nothing. “Nothing, nothing!” said Ulick. He was burned up, too, naturally, but these Gonzalez cousins could not be freely hated now. Ulick said, “What is it—some hardware, a touch of paint?” He rose, heavy, and said, “Let’s stop now and get a drink and something to eat.”
We went to a Mexican restaurant where he devoured an order of chicken breasts with molé sauce—a bitter spicy chocolate gravy. I could not finish mine. He took my plate. He ordered pecan pie à la mode, and then a cup of Mexican chocolate.
When we got home I said I would go