Had I a Hundred Mouths by William Goyen Read Free Book Online Page B

over coffee, as I am right now, and a change is coming over my mind. I’m going to say it. I don’t even feel like going back to Greenfarm to visit Esther. She’s beginning to shape up in my mind’s eye as something I can do without. Why, I’ve been thinking of some of the things she said about me in public. They’re beginning to come back to me, over coffee. I’m beginning to take them seriously (I mean I can be serious, too). God damn it. I mean, I’m not a fat-ass, like she called me several times, and once at a seated dinner. And perhaps I am a little flat—you know, like I said—but why did Esther bring that to the public eye by shouting it out at lunch at Maude Chez Elle? I feel like disliking Esther now. I feel like she wanted to hurt me. In vino Veritas , my dear. All the terrible things she did to us and said to us are dawning back over me after a week of black coffee, and now I’m going to say it: Who needs Esther Haverton? Screw her! Isn’t that right? I mean, to hell with Esther! I mean, good riddance.
    Well, I guess I’m taking too sober a view. Thinking too much. A stiff drink does —may I add—keep you from taking too sober a view towards things, keeps you from thinking too much. Maybe I should just go on with the bunch. Heaven can wait. You only come around this way once. I mean, life is hard enough. This isn’t church! Why should I go on worrying about Esther Haverton! Maybe I should just go on with the bunch. But why go on with that bunch without Esther. Those creeps. I’m mixed up! Let’s face it: we need her. In the absence of Esther we are nothing—just about like what she is now, without booze. Jesus, it’s like we drank Esther. Oh I’m going crazy. When I go into a place where we used to go, with everybody calling, “Where’s Esther? Where’s Esther?” I feel like a damned ghost. As if nobody saw me . And I hear myself asking the same question. “Where’s Esther?”
    I must admit that the other night, before I went on an alcohol-free diet, on one of our sans-Esther sprees, I found myself, in the absence of Esther, imitating her. Well, I was knocked on my backside within one minute! Do you know what? Only Esther can do it. I feel so drab, so dull, so dead, so plain. And I’m feeling crazy. Nerves jumping out of my skin; rattling the coffee cup. And who sleeps? Just can’t find that spot in the bed—and when I think I have, guess who’s in it? Old Sleeping Beauty, dozing sweet as a choirboy—which he definitely is not . I flee from that . Esther knows.
    Last night I dreamt I went into the most beautiful bar, dark and cool, deep cushions, soft music: and who do you think was there, elbow on bar, Martini hoisted? Yep, Miss You-know-who: divine Esther! Tongue like a serpent’s, poised to strike. Life began! All afternoon we laughed and drank. We drank and we drank. And I was my old self again. Because of Esther. The bar was ours. We never fought, not once. We drank the world away, laughing and laughing. “I want Esther!” I cried when I woke up in the dark. “Esther, Esther! Come back!”
    Who wants this life, without the old days? But I tell you they are surely gone. I can see that a mile a minute, now. All those good times, all that laughing—gone. Oh I think I need some help. I don’t know what to do. If I drink I’m like a bad Esther—and anyway, what’s a drink without her? If I don’t drink, I’m like Esther now, drab, dull, dead, plain. Will somebody please tell me what to do? Now that you’ve heard a little of it? To get over what’s happened to Esther?

P RECIOUS D OOR
    For Reginald Gibbons
    Somebody’s laying out in the field,” my little brother came to tell us. It was eight o’clock in the morning and already so hot that the weeds were steaming and the locusts calling. For a few days there had been word