The Moviegoer

in the very century of merde, the great shithouse of scientific humanism where needs are satisfied, everyone becomes an anyone, a warm and creative person, and prospers like a dung beetle, and one hundred percent of people are humanists and ninety-eight percent believe in God, and men are dead, dead, dead; and the malaise has settled like a fall-out and what people really fear is not that the bomb will fall but that the bomb will not fall—on this my thirtieth birthday, I know nothing and there is nothing to do but fall prey to desire.
    Nothing remains but desire, and desire comes howling down Elysian Fields like a mistral. My search has been abandoned; it is no match for my aunt, her rightness and her despair, her despairing of me and her despairing of herself. Whenever I take leave of my aunt after one of her serious talks, I have to find a girl.
    Fifty minutes of waiting for Kate on the ocean wave and I am beside myself. What has happened to her? She has spoken to my aunt and kicked me out. There is nothing to do but call Sharon at the office. The little pagoda of aluminum and glass, standing in the neutral ground of Elysian Fields at the very heart of the uproar of a public zone, is trim and pretty on the outside but evil-smelling within. Turning slowly around, I take note of the rhymes in pencil and the sad cartoons of solitary lovers; the wire thrills and stops and thrills and in the interval there comes into my ear my own breath as if my very self stood beside me and would not speak. The phone does not answer. Has she quit?
    Some children have come into the playground across the street; two big boys give them a ride on the ocean wave. Ordinarily the little children ride only the merry-go-round which is set close to the ground and revolves in a fixed orbit.
    I’ve got to find her, Rory. It is certain now that my aunt is right and that Kate knows it and that nothing is left but Sharon. The east wind whistles through the eaves of my pagoda and presses the glass against its fittings. I try the apartment. She is out. But Joyce is there, Joyce-in-the-window, Joyce of the naughty-you mouth and the buckskin jacket.
    â€œThis is Jack Bolling, Joyce,” says a voice from old Virginia.
    â€œWell well.”
    â€œIs Sharon there?”
    â€œShe is out with her mother and Stan.” Joyce’s voice has a Middle West snap. Moth-errr, she says and: we-ull we-ull. “I don’t know when shill be back.” She sounds like Pepper Young’s sister.
    â€œWho is Stan?”
    â€œStan Shamoun, her fiancé.”
    â€œOh yes, that’s right.” What’s right? She’s not only quit. She’s marrying the macaroni. “What about you? Are you getting married?”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œI’ve been wanting to meet you for some time.”
    â€œI just thot of something.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe Lord of Misrule reigned yesterday—”
    â€œWho?” Is she starting out on some sort of complicated Midwestern joke? Grinning like a lunatic, I hold on for dear life.
    Joyce goes on talking in a roguish voice about the Lord of Misrule and a fellow down from Purdue, a dickens if she ever saw one.
    The two big boys on the playground have got the ocean wave going fast enough so they can jump on and keep up speed by kicking the ground away on the low passes. Iii-oorrr iii-oorrr goes the dry socket on its pole in a faraway childish music and the children embrace the iron struts and lay back their heads to watch the whirling world.
    â€œJoyce, I wonder if I may be frank with you”—the voice comes into my ear and I myself am silent.
    â€œPlease do. I like frank people.”
    â€œI thought you were that kind of person—” Old confederate Marlon Brando—a reedy insinuating voice, full of winks and leers and above all pleased with itself. What a shock. On and on it goes. “—I know some folks might think it was a little unconventional but I’m gon tell you anyway. I know you don’t remember it but I saw you last Saturday—” It is too much trouble to listen.
    â€œI remember!”
    Round and round goes the ocean wave screeching out its Petrouchka music iii-oorrr iii-oorrr and now belling out so far that the inner bumper catches the pole and slings around in a spurt so outrageously past all outrage that the children embrace the iron struts for dear life.
    â€œI’m only home for lunch,” says