“Ah,” said the doctor, and the others nodded in assent.
“And while I am apologizing,” the old man said, “I should add a word of apology for my bowels. I seem to have an endless supply of wind, which in turn grows increasingly malodorous. Still, I’m not incontinent. One grows thankful in the course of time for so many things one took for granted, if indeed one ever considered them at all.”
“One keeps thanking God,” the priest said, “for increasingly smaller favors.”
“Greed,” said the old man. “What a greedy young man I was! And what a greedy man I stayed, throughout all the years of my life!”
“No more than anyone, I’m sure,” the policeman said.
“I always wanted more,” the old man remembered. “My parents were comfortably situated, and furnished me with a decent upbringing and a good education. They hoped I would go into a profession where I might be expected to do some good in the world. Medicine, for example.”
“‘First, do no harm,’” the doctor murmured.
“But I went into business,” said the old man, “because I wanted more money than I could expect to earn from medicine or law or any of the professions. And I stopped at nothing legal to succeed in all my enterprises. I was merciless to competitors, I drove my employees, I squeezed my suppliers, and every decision I made was calculated to maximize my profits.”
“That,” said the soldier, “seems to be how business is done. Struggling for the highest possible profits, men of business act ultimately for the greatest good of the population at large.”
“You probably believe in the tooth fairy, too,” the old man said, and cackled. “If I did any good for the rest of the world, it was inadvertent and immaterial. I was trying only to do good for myself, and to amass great wealth. And in that I succeeded. You might not guess it to look at me now, but I became very wealthy.”
“And what happened to your riches?”
“What happened to them? Why, nothing happened to them. I won them and I kept them.” The old man’s bowels rumbled, but he didn’t appear to notice. “I lived well,” he said, “and I invested wisely and with good fortune. And I bought things.”
“What did you buy?” the policeman wondered.
“Things,” said the old man. “I bought paintings, and I don’t think I was ever taken in by any false Vermeers, like the young man in your story. I bought fine furniture, and a palatial home to keep it in. I bought antique oriental carpets, I bought Roman glass, I bought pre-Columbian sculpture. I bought rare coins, ancient and modern, and I collected postage stamps.”
“And cigars?”
“I never cared for them,” the old man said, “but if I had I would have bought the best, and I can well appreciate that builder’s dilemma. Because I would have wanted to smoke them, but my desire to go on owning them would have been at least as strong.”
They waited for him to go on; when he remained silent, the priest spoke up. “I suppose,” he said, “that, as with so many desires, the passage of time lessened your desire for more.”
“You think so?”
“Well, it would stand to reason that—”
“The vultures thought so,” the old man said. “My nephews and nieces, thoughtfully telling me the advantages of making gifts during my lifetime rather than waiting for my estate to be subject to inheritance taxes. Museum curators, hoping I’d give them paintings now, or so arrange things that they’d be given over to them immediately upon my death. Auctioneers, assuring me of the considerable advantages of disposing of my stamps and coins and ancient artifacts while I still had breath in my body. That way, they said, I could have the satisfaction of seeing my collections properly sold, and the pleasure of getting the best possible terms for them.
“I told them I’d rather have the pleasure and satisfaction of continuing ownership. And do you know what they said? Why, they told me the same thing that everybody told me, everybody who was trying to get me to give up something that I treasured. You can guess what they said, can’t you?”
It was the doctor who guessed. “You can’t take it with you,” he said.
“Exactly! Each of the fools said it as if he were repeating the wisdom of the ages. ‘You can’t take it with you.’ And the worst of the lot, the mean little devils from organized charities, armored by the pretense that they were seeking not for themselves but for others, they would sometimes add yet another pearl of wisdom. There are no pockets in a shroud, they would assure me.”
“I think that’s a line in a song,” the soldier said.
“Well, please don’t sing it,” said the old man. “Can’t take it with you! No pockets in a shroud! And the worst of it is that they’re quite right, aren’t they? Wherever that last long journey leads, a man has to take it alone. He can’t bring his French impressionists, his proof Liberty Seated quarters, his Belgian semi-postals. He can’t even take along a checkbook. No matter what I have, no matter how greatly I cherish it, I can’t take it with me.”
“And you realized the truth in that,” the priest said.
“Of course I did. I may be a doddering old man, but I’m not a fool.”
“And the knowledge changed your life,” the priest suggested.
“It did,” the old man agreed. “Why do you think I’m here, baking by the fire, souring the air with the gas from within me? Why do you think I cling so resolutely, neither asleep nor awake, to this hollow husk of life?”
“Why?” the doctor asked, after waiting without success for the old man to answer his own question.
“Because,” the old man said, “if I can’t take it with me, the hell with it. I don’t intend to go.”
His eyes flashed in triumph, then closed abruptly as he slumped in his chair. The others glanced at one another, alarm showing in their eyes. “A wonderful exit line,” the doctor said, “and a leading candidate for the next edition of Famous Last Words, but do you suppose the old boy took the opportunity to catch the bus to Elysium?”
“We should call someone,” the soldier said. “But whom? A doctor? A policeman? A priest?”
There was a snore, shortly followed by a zestful fart. “Thank heavens,” said the doctor, and the others sighed and nodded, and the priest picked up the deck and began to deal out the cards for the next hand.
Speaking of Lust
“I dealt, didn’t I?” the soldier said. He looked at his cards, shook his head. “What do you figure I had in mind? I pass.”
The policeman, sitting to the dealer’s left — East to his South — nodded, closed his eyes, opened them, and announced: “One club.”
“Pass,” said the doctor.
The priest said, “You bid a club, partner?” And, without waiting for a response, “One heart.”
The soldier passed. You could tell he was a soldier, as he wore the dress uniform of a brigadier general in the United States Army.
“A spade,” the policeman said. He too was in uniform, down to the revolver on his hip and the handcuffs hanging from his belt.
The doctor, wearing green scrubs, looked as though he might have just emerged from the operating room. He was silent, looking off into the middle distance, until the priest stared at him. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “I pass.”
“Two spades,” said the priest, with a tug at his Roman collar.
“Pass,” said the soldier.
“Four spades,” the policeman said, and glanced around the table as if to confirm that the bidding was over. The doctor and priest and soldier dutifully passed in turn. The doctor studied his cards, frowned, and led the nine of hearts. The priest laid down his cards — four to the king in the trump suit, five hearts to the ace-jack — and sat back in his chair. The policeman won the trick with the ace of hearts from dummy and set about drawing trump.