Boswell by Stanley Elkin Read Free Book Online Page B

you.”
    “Well, I guess I’ll be going,” he said, backing into the car.
    “Watch the way you park it from now on,” I advised him.
    I went around to the wife’s side. I could see her push the little button down that locks the door. She was looking up at me as her husband drove off. I winked at her and waved. I tried to let her know in that wink, and I think she may have understood, that there are forces in the world against which even David Niven is helpless, against which cuteness is about as effective as snow piled against a tire for traction.
    I put the two dollars in my pocket next to my key and walked off whistling. It was the first time I had ever turned my strength to account. My uncle would have thought I was crazy, but Herlitz, Herlitz would have been proud!
    I called Penner.
    “Penner?”
    “Yes. Who is this?”
    “Boswell.”
    “Who?”
    “James Boswell. From the gym.”
    “Oh. Sure.”
    “Listen—Penner? I wonder if you could put me up for a few days. I’ve had some trouble with my uncle.”
    “Oh.”
    He put his hand over the receiver. There was somebody there. I knew what he was feeling. You just hate to turn people down if they don’t mean anything to you.
    “I’m still here,” he said. “You need a place for tonight, is that it?”
    “Well, for a few nights. Until I decide what to do.”
    “This place is awfully small. Just a room.”
    “Oh. Well, that’s all right. Thanks anyway.”
    “Have you got much luggage? I mean there aren’t any bar bells or anything, are there? I’ve got limited closet space.”
    I remembered what my uncle had said about circus trailers. “I haven’t any luggage.”
    “Well, come on over. We’ll work something out.”
    “That’s all right, if the room’s that small, I’m not offended if—”
    “No, it’s all right. Come on over. I’m glad you called.”
    “You’re sure it will be all right?”
    “Sure I’m sure. Certainly. It’s okay. Listen—” He lowered his voice. “I’m glad you called.”
    “Well, if it’s all right. I’m leaving now.”
    I took a taxi to Penner’s and gave the driver the rest of my two dollars. A spender spends. What’s $1.90? This was all in the old days, you understand. I wasn’t established and I was more or less innocent and everybody’s secrets were important to me. I had no discrimination, no taste in these things. If a man clapped a hand over a receiver he had something to hide. If he turned around two minutes later and lowered his voice and told you he was glad you called, he had two things to hide and maybe more. He was a good person to put up with. Who knew? Penner could turn out to be a queer, an embezzler, somebody into the mob for a few thou. I needed an intimacy badly. What innocence!
    I’ve been going over some of my notes. What can I do with this stuff? I feel nasty tonight. From the old days: Boris Schlockin, the professor, joined the Communist Party after the Depression. Noel and Elizabeth Sarrow’s baby, Eileen, was adopted. The girl is 17 and doesn’t know. Philip Paris wrote his wife’s doctoral dissertation. Dr. Fernan Bidwell, who lobbies for the AMA against socialized medicine, does illegal operations. Herman Ote, the Boy Scout official, is a homosexual. Cardinal Fellupo was a suicide. Murray Butcher, the famous racer, drinks while driving. These are people I don’t even know, you understand, just that I’ve heard about. Usually I do not spread gossip. I use it to trade with, of course, but I am no gossipmonger. It is just that I must know it. I can’t help myself.
    The driver let me out in front of Marty Penner’s rooming house. (It has just occurred to me that Penner must have been my first host.) There was a directory in the hall, a blue slate with the roomers’ names and room numbers written in chalk. (Later I copied some of the names down on file cards and asked Penner about them casually.) Penner lived on the first floor all the way in the back. I knocked.
    “It’s