When he was able he got to his feet. “Excuse me,” he managed, and walked step by step into the bathroom. There he shut the door and rinsed his face with cold water. He rubbed his face with the towel, combed his hair, glanced at himself in the mirror, and then he returned to the room.
In the bed, Milt lay as before.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce said shakily, sitting down again in the chair.
Milt said, “I must be dreaming or something. I ask you a perfectly simple question and you laugh your head off.”
“Not again,” he said weakly, lifting his hand.
“Not again what?”
“I can’t stand it.”
Milt stared at him and then he said with ferocity, “Are you out of your mind? Stand back and take a good look at yourself. What kind of a person are you to laugh at a question like that?” He sat up in bed and smashed the pillow into place behind him. His face had flushed and become wrinkled, as if the bones and teem had been removed, had slipped back down inside and been dissolved.
“I told you I’m sorry,” Bruce said. “What else can I say?” He got up and came over, holding his hand out.
Milt shook hands with him, and at the same time said, “I’m deeply worried about you. I wouldn’t try to talk to you seriously if I wasn’t worried about you.” He let go of his hand. “You’re smart and personable; there’s no reason why you won’t go far. I can’t stand seeing you settle for a compromise.”
“What compromise?” he said.
“Giving up what you really want. You’ve set your sights on a material life of getting a buy and making a profit. You were cut out for—” He searched for the word. “You ought to be after something spiritual.”
Bruce said, with difficulty, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to start laughing again.” His jaw began to tremble of its own accord; he had to sit with his chin in his hands to keep it still.
“Why does that strike you as funny?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“There’s only one reason why a person goes into business,” Milt said. “To make money.”
“No,” he said.
“What else, then?”
“There’s a satisfaction in it,” he said.
“Balls,” Milt said.
He said, “You mean I should be a fireman or a cowboy?”
“You should have some values in your life, something permanent.”
“Like you have?” he said, laughing, unable to stop laughing.
“I don’t want you to be like me,” Milt said.
“You shouldn’t have become a salesman, if you feel like that,” he said. “Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“That’s what I mean.”
Bruce said, “Wanting to make a store run is a permanent value, for me. I’ve always wanted to do it. Since I was a kid.”
“Maybe you think that now,” Milt said. “That’s self-deception.”
“Wouldn’t I know? Better than you?”
“An outside person can tell better,” Milt said. “Nobody has any insight into themselves.”
“Can you tell me what I want better than I can?” he said. “You can’t read my mind. You don’t know what’s going on in my mind.”
“I can tell you what’s best for you. What you ought to be doing, instead of wasting your life.”
“I’m not wasting my life,” he said.
“Sure you are,” Milt said. “What are you, if not a punk kid trying to hustle some cheap Japanese typewriters. What’s there to be proud of in that?”
“The hell with you,” he said.
“Yes,” Milt said. “The hell with everyone. Me, Susan, everybody else. But face the truth about yourself. I know what’s the matter with you. You don’t have the maturity to care about anything but teen-age values. You’re selfish and immature. You’re a good kid and everybody likes you, but you’re just not an adult, as much as you’d like to be. You’re still a long way off, and if you expect to get there you better learn what’s worthwhile and spiritual in life.”
“Take your own advice,” he said.
“I know why you’re the way you are,” Milt said, nodding.
To Milt he said, “I guess I’ll go roam around and get something to read.” He opened the motel door; sunlight blinded both of them.
In his bed, Milt said nothing.
“See you later, then,” Bruce said, still lingering. But Milt said nothing more.
Stepping outside, he shut the door after him.
An hour or so later, when he re-entered the cabin with his magazine, he found Milt sitting up in bed writing a check.
“Here,” Milt said, handing the check to him. “This is what I promised you. Your wedding present.”
The check was made out for five hundred dollars.
“I can’t take this,” he said.
“You won’t get the machines without it,” Milt said. “Anyhow I’m not giving it to you; I’m giving it to Susan. This is my last chance to let her know how I feel.” He smiled slightly. “After this it becomes a crime. Anyhow, I’ve got plenty of money and no one to spend it on.”
Putting the check in his wallet, Bruce said, “Thanks.”
Neither of them said anything about their argument.
“Did I tell you I called Cathy?” Bruce said.
“No,” Milt said.
“She found the car key. So she can drive out here. I gave her the address of the place.”
Milt nodded.
“And the motel people are conscious that you’re sick. They have the names of local doctors; I was asking them about it.”
“Fine,” Milt said. “They probably can bring me what I need.” He seemed impassive.
“How would you feel, then,” he said, “if I did drive on?”
Milt said, “I told you to.”
“If you feel you’d be okay, I think I will.”
“Are you driving back this way after you finish up in Seattle?”
“No,” he said. “I thought I’d drive down the Coast and back up by US 26, through Oregon.”
Milt said, “I’m sorry you called Cathy. There’s no reason why she should have to drive out here. I’ll be up and around in a day or so and there’s no reason why I can’t go back there on the Greyhound.” He lay back and stared up at the ceiling. Presently he said, “I hope you swing the deal for the typewriters.”
“I hate to leave,” he said, “with you still sore at me.”
“I’m just upset,” Milt said.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said.
“Okay,” Milt said.
“Even if I don’t believe in God,” he said, “I can still have a full life.”
Milt said, “There’s just something dead in you.”
“No,” he said.
“You’re like these scientists making H-bombs,” Milt said. “Cold as hell, rational as hell.”
“But no soul,” Bruce said.
Milt nodded.
“Maybe we’ll all be blown up,” Bruce said. “And then it won’t matter.”
“I’d be willing to bet that even that wouldn’t faze you.”
“It would,” he said.
“You wouldn’t even notice,” Milt said.
He began gethering up his things from the bathroom, packing them into the opened suitcase.
“Maybe it would be a good thing after all,” Milt said. “The bomb, I mean. Maybe it would wake people up.”
“I doubt it,” he said. “I doubt if it would be a good thing.”
“People have to face reality sometime.” He said it with bitterness and conviction.
After he had packed up his things, Bruce went down to the motel office and told the owners the situation. He gave them Cathy’s phone number, and, as an afterthought, Susan’s and his own in Boise. To wind it up he wrote out the name and address of Milt’s company. And he made it clear to them that Milt had enough money to maintain himself; he wanted to be sure that Milt would be well-treated after he left.