The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [275]
somebody would die and leave me everything. This was bad, for who could benefit me by dying that I shouldn't love and want to keep on earth? And what good did finding coins do, even if each was a quarter, in the consummation and final form of my life? Why, no good, friends, not. the least bit. It also gave amusement that I was after a teaching certificate for grade school, for I hardly looked to be the type, I suppose. Yet this I was persistent about. I loved the practice teaching. It moved me while I did it; it was no problem to be my natural self with the kids-- as why, God help us, should it be with anyone? But let us not ask questions whose answers are among the world's well-kept secrets. In the classroom, or outside in the playground holleration, smelling pee in the hall, hearing the piano trimbles from the music room, among the busts, maps, and chalk-dust sunbeams, I was happy. I felt at home. I wanted to give the kids my best and tell them all I knew. At this same school, teaching Latin and algebra, was my onetime neighbor, Kayo Obermark. Bushy, sloppy, and fat, he used to lie on his bed at Owens' when he had the room next to mine in his underpants, his thighs curl-haired and feet smelly, and stare at the wall with determined thought as he put out cigarettes behind him without looking in the grease of an old skillet in which he fried salami. He kept a milk bottle by the bed to do duty in, disliking trips to the bathroom. Now the kids were springing like locusts around him while he walked in the schoolyard, sullen, like an emperor. His face was big, moody, white, unevenly scraped. Crumbled Kleenexes stuck to him; he smelled of a cold and sounded snotty. But he wasn't really sullen, this was just his dignity, and I was pleased that he was a teacher here. He said, "I saw you drive up here in your car." "It started this morning for a change." I did in fact own a ten-year- old Buick on which a very pleasant guy had gypped me like fury. It wouldn't start on cold mornings and was a trial to me. I put in two batteries on Padilla's advice but there was a fundamental defect in that the rods were bent. However, with a push it would go, and as it had a rumble seat and a long hood it looked powerful. "Are you married yet?" said Kayo. ' "No, I'm sorry to say." "I have a son," he said proudly. "You better get on the ball. Don't you have anybody? Women are easy to get. It's your duty to have sons. There was an old philosopher caught by his disciple behind the Stoa 448 ~ with a woman, and he said, 'Mock not! I plant a man.' But I've been hearing all kinds of things about you, that you went to Mexico with a circus or carnival and that you were nearly assassinated too." He was in quite a mood, and he walked me round the schoolyard several times, being extremely kind in his haughty way and quoting various poems in his tense tenor voice. Perish strife, both from among gods and men, And wrath which maketh even him that is considerate cruel, Which getteth up in the heart of a man like smoke, And the taste thereof is sweeter than drops of honey. Les vrais voyageurs sont ceux-la seuls qui portent Pour partir; caws legers, semblables aux ballons, De lew fatalite jamais Us ne s'ecartent, Et, sans savoir powquoi, disent toujours: Allans.' This last was probably aimed at me and accused me of being too light of heart and ignorantly saying good-by. I seemed to have critics everywhere. However, for a cold day this had a very bright sun, the trains were passing in blackness over an embankment of yellow concrete, the kids were screaming and whirling over the whole vast play yard, around the flagpole and in and out of the portables, and I felt especially stirred. "You should get married," said Kayo. "I'd like to. I think about it often. As a matter of fact I dreamed last night that I was, but it wasn't so pleasant. I was very disturbed. It started out all right. I came home from work and there were gorgeous little birds by the window, and I smelled barbecue. My wife was very handsome, but her beautiful eyes were filled with tears and twice as big as