Thomas Murphy by Roger Rosenblatt Read Free Book Online Page B

while he speaks up again. Yes, he says, it is how the world will go on that you ought to be worried about. And judging from the way you have behaved so far, I’d say you were in the soup. Soup? says a lady in a mink stole. Soup? says a happy cobbler. Soup, says Moses. You already have fucked up mightily, he goes on. A regular shit storm. And I know from shit storms. God himself could not have imagined the damage you’ve done. So, God is a he? says a woman with a briefcase. I don’t know, says Moses. I was with him only a minute or two. He might have been a she, I guess. The light was poor.
    By now we’ve reached Riverside Drive, and the crowd has swelled to a thousand or more—everyone clamoring and elbowing everyone else to get closer to the old man. Is there something we can do to correct our course? I ask. No carbs, he says. Now, we all are at the river, where our leader walks to the end of a pier, makes swinging motions with his arms, and the waters of the Hudson part. Just like that. Anyone for New Jersey? he asks. At that, most of the crowd draws the line. But several jump in to follow the prophet, myself included.
    THAT EVENING, a couple of sheets to the wind, I’ll confess, I look up from my work and there was that picture ofSarah. I was beginning to understand why Jack was having such a difficult time screwing his courage to tell the girl he was dying. He was brave enough with his own verdict, but he could not bear to break her heart. I studied the picture a bit longer. The sentimental Irishman in me was taking over for the old fart who ought to know better. A crazy person is crazy all the time.
    Bleary of eye, I hoist another sheet, and before you know it, or I know it, I am calling up Jack and agreeing to do what he had asked. The other end of the line is so noisy with Great s and Wonderful s and Thank you thank you, Mr. Murphy s, had I not been staring at Sarah’s picture, I might have changed my mind again, bowed out even then. Tomorrow? says Jack. I’ll bring my car. Can we go out tomorrow, Murph? I cannot tell you how grateful I am. Oh sure you can, I say.
    By the way, have you noticed that whenever someone says “by the way,” as if what he’s about to tell you is an incidental afterthought, it’s really the thing he’s wanted to tell you all along? By the way, that explanation of my willingness to be involved in the Jack and Sarah story because I was intrigued and also because I had so little else to do? That was only half true. The other half has to do with the way I see the world, as equally beautiful and ridiculous. I mean, take this Jack and Sarah business. A dying man can’t muster the nerve to tell his wife that he’s dying, so he engages a stranger, a poet, to do itfor him. Absurd. No? But lovely too, and touching. And that, boyo, is life for you, is it not? A serious joke? Dr. Spector had me pegged. I am unable to participate in a sensible world wholeheartedly, which is why I dream things up. I said yes to Jack because I can’t resist a serious joke.
    H OW W ELL A RE Y OU T HINKING ?
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