Read Online Walt Whitman's Secret by George Fetherling - Free Book Online Page B

supplied by Uncle Walt, is Mannahatta). Jeff wants Jesse committed but Mother does not, just as she also holds out against confining Eddie (who thus runs free until her death). Jeff writes Walt asking for his support in the Jesse matter. In the circumstances, the boys’ sister Hannah, living in Vermont with her husband, a painter, refuses even to come near Brooklyn. For her part, Mary, the other sibling, seems strangely sane though she resides at Greenport, not far away from the scene of the chaos.
    When Walt tells Pete he must go to Brooklyn, not sure for how long, the news is not well received.
    â€œGod d— n you,” Pete says. “What would you have me do? i’ve got family too and a work that goes a long way toward keeping em fed and shod. i can’t go running off. But then i suppose you understand as much, don’t you? Will you forsake my affections for them you get from other people?”
    There’s no talking sense with him. Walt slowly repeats his reasoning about the doctors, Mother, brothers and sisters, the soldiers in the hospitals. The discussion, if it be called that, continues late and keeps returning to its place of origin, like some elliptical river unknown to the science of geography. Walt can barely concentrate, given developments. It is as though the pair of them are part of some company of touring actors in which assigned parts are performed by different members of the troupe in different cities on certain days of the week. Despite the roughness of his manner and speech, Pete is not usually the demonstrative one but most often the jaunty one who goes along. But now he’s moved from being a playful and only sometimes slightly troublesome dog to being a snarling, unpredictable one, gums drawn back to reveal sharp teeth. “I’ve given youeverythin i got to give,” he says, “and you treat me like i’m an irish serf boy who don’t have to be spoken to about important matters.” And a little later: “You just want to climb up on the tops of omnibuses! I know you. Who knows better than Me? That’s what i say, old fool.”
    All this while Pete tramps the room, scraping chair legs against the floor, and at one point, but only one, banging his left fist on the wallpaper. He is like a little boiler letting off steam so it won’t build up pressure to the point where it ruptures. “Eternal damnation!”
    Walt thinks to say that, although the Doyles live so close by, he doesn’t really know them any more than Pete knows his own relations up in Brooklyn. But he stops himself. That could lead to accusations that each is so ashamed of his love for the other that he thinks it best if family members are never introduced into the life the two of them have together. Besides, Walt is always so weary now and sometimes too deficient in spirit to climb out of his gloom. Pete’s anger will pass, he knows, but his own mood appears to show no sign of elevation. Sometimes he feels a bit angry even with himself. But then he is low-down all over. So much so that he entertains unfriendly thoughts that he does not even bother trying to express yet is somehow pleased to have at hand. They at least prove that he’s still capable of normal animation.
    At length Pete stalks off home. The two don’t meet again before Walt boards the train for New York in a few days’ time. Walt writes a note of reconciliation, reiterating his deep affection for the greatest and closest of all his comarados down through the years. But he doesn’t post it, concluding that the better course is to let time work its wonders. He hopes that a temper that comes up without warning will withdraw with equal quickness.
    In Walt’s absence, Pete’s anger finds expression in behavior rather than words. He goes for angry strolls in President’s Park close by theExecutive Mansion, where indeed the president does take some air from time to time in the