Portrait of a Bum (William Saroyan)
Portrait of a Bum
Overland Magazine, December 1928
This fellow was histrionic, but through preference he acted himself. He had no desire to be some one else. He was no megalomaniac. His name was Harry Brown, which doesn't mean a thing. It could have been anything else. Nick Scholotski, for instance. The point is this: he was nothing but a bum. Although he seemed to be a fatalist, he believed he might have been something else had he tried hard enough, but he did not see the sence in trying. He was American. He did not work for a living, and as already stated, he was a bum. Of course there are all kinds of Americans who do not work for a living who are not necessarily bums. But as a rule they have money.
He was not a young fellow, although he seemed to be joyously conscious of the worth while things in life. Literature and music; art and nature; that is what I mean. Although somewhat over 50, could not be called an old man. Rather he was an old boy. Not that his mind was undeveloped. There should be no question about that. He wasn't foolish. He was as civilized as any one might hope to be. In fact, he was possibly a bit too civilized, and that, I believe, was the reason he was a bum instead of a business man, for instance.
His was a nature which preferred ease to anxiety, and idleness to labor. Idleness. Complete physical idleness. That was his joy. To sit and read a good book with nothing to worry about; with his mind dead to the world and its petty difficulties. To walk in the sun of a music shop and listen to a bit of jazz or opera. To lean against a corner lamp post and watch the troubled people hurrying about as if they were occupied with something actually important. To roll and smoke a cigarette to the tune of a dream. To listen to religious fanatics and socialists and to smile at their idiocies. To visit parks with their aquariums and museum. To sit on a bench and watch young people moving in rhythms of grace as they played tennis. To walk through a cool fog to the beach. To climb a hill and look down on dreary Alcatraz Island covered with its Government Penitentiary and to realize what a wonderful thing it was not to be locked up in such a dismal place, with the ocean waves forever whispering of freedom and restless movement. To watch glorious freighters drag themselves towards the sea. To notice the elegant swervings of the gulls and to listen closely for the queer noises they made. To smell the ocean's mist as it mixed with the earth and grass and leaves. To notice the way the sun's bright rays made playful shadows of trees. To be idle, to do anything he liked. To be free to go anywhere he liked, any time he liked. To be nothing but a bum. That was Harry Brown.
But as I have said he was histrionic. Not only when he acted himself but when he acted others. When he said something he made his point very clear with broad, sweeping gestures, amusing grins and grimaces, and perfect winks. There is such a thing as a perfect wink, just as there is such a thing as a perfect circle. I have seen many an imperfect wink and it is a silly thing. A perfect wink is a very difficult thing to achieve and it is a thing which seems as yet to have no satisfactory explanation. Most people live and die never learning to wink half-decently, but this fellow, this leisurely person, knew what he was about. For when he winked one wondered if he had really not accomplished enough to justify his remaining idle as long as he preferred. There seemed to be something about his wink to make one realize that even trivialities may be elevated to a height of considerable importance to one unaccustomed to going beneath the surface of things. To the unenquiring mind, a wink is nothing: a mere nervous twitching of the muscles of the eye, causing it to simultaneously shut and open. But there must be more. It must have a deeper significance. It seems to be an action which is as much mental as it is physical, if not more so. It has a meaning which has not, I believe, been properly interpreted. It is kin to the smile and yet it is even remote from that. It is vastly more civilized. It stands alone, an intellectual manifestation of comprehension. It is the laughter of the mind, a laughter which does in sound. It is the laughter of motion. And some how or other when Harry Brown winked one caught the laughter of his intellect and one immediately decided it was loud and healthy and possibly derisive and the equivalent of at least a guffaw.
If Brown happened to be talking about a person who hobbled, he too hobbled and the effect was pleasant. But if another person had done the same thing I doubt if one would have been the least entertained. One enjoyed the actor, not the acting. It was a thing that had to be done by a certain type of person to be fully appreciated. It was Harry Brown who was humorous. He was the one who made an ordinary thing seem very funny. He possessed that particular brand of humor which is appearing in the better vaudeville of late. He was adroit, witty and even debonair, but never senseless enough to forget that he was only a bum and that a bum, if ever a man could be, was the emblem of personal honesty and truth. A person who allows himself to disregard, but which his fellows dare not, must really be very honest with himself. Because he does not want to bother with such things as ambition, success, and advancement, he does not bother with them. That is why he is himself, and that is why almost all other people are megalomaniacs. A bank messenger hoping to be a J.P. Morgan. A young attorney dreaming of becoming a Darrow. A song and dance man worshipping Al Jolson. A department store clerk studying business administration by correspondence. A frog trying to be a bull.
AMBITION and success and advancement in the eyes of the world were vastly important things, but to the bum those were just the things didn't count. He knew ambition to be a lie and that only a mediocre personality could acknowledge success of any degree. When a person found himself at last a huge success in the eyes of the world, why did it almost always strike him as not having been worth while? And the bum knew that when one advanced to please the world one invariably became degraded in his own honest estimation.
That was probably why Brown could not be bothered with such things. He said ambition could be possessed only by very uncultured people and that even if he was a bum he was not, by any means, uncultured. He said the mere fact that a man permitted himself to become a bum would prove beyond a doubt that he was not mediocre or uncivilized. It is a fact, he said, that only very small people are frightened of names which seem undesirable. If a man didn't work he was immediately called a bum (which didn't make a bit of difference one way or another), and the fact that he could think was completely overlooked by everybody. That was because idleness was considered as much a crime as robbery. And it probably was in a way.
But if Harry Brown was a bum he was as much an individual. He had the intellect of a man who was being himself and not a combination of 10 or 12 other people. He was neither a socialist or a capitalist. Although he worshipped no God nor any man, he thought it poor taste for intelligent people to go poking their fingers into the eyes of the Deities. He did not believe in organizations or groups of any kind and was especially annoyed with organizations which were purely social and which did not employ themselves in wholesome study. He did not believe there could ever be a state of perfect friendship. He admitted that he knew very little about women and that what little he did know was quite enough for him.
He was not a success obviously, nor, on the other hand, was he a failure, unless of course one looked at it from a narrower point of view. He was as comical as he was witty and ironical. His speech was typically American and like an American he was not afraid to swear, and I believe he chose to sound vulgar. In fact, he swore so often I am inclined to the opinion that should he speak with a lady he might forget himself and include certain words in his speech which would cause him considerable embarrassment, depending of course upon the lady. I noticed very soon after meeting him that a number of the more vulgar words he used had more than one meaning and that he used them whenever he pleased.
WHEN I met him for the first time, he happened to be not only a little over 50 but a trifle short of money. That was why we met. His being short of money. He was very diplomatic about it. He did not tell the usual sad story but came right out and said he was out of work because he preferred not to work and that he was out of money for that reason and that for the same reason he was hungry as well. And would I give him a dime for a cup of coffee and a snail?
I gave him a dime. That was all I could spare. That left me a dime, so together we walked into Kentucky Bar on Third Street, a sturdy survival of wet days, and he coffee and snails. We were very happy with our coffee and snails. I might say we were as happy as any man could have been with coffee and snails. We talked for a long time. The place did not do a rushing business and it was alright for us to sit at our table as long as we liked. We talked about Havelock ELlis at first. We rolled Bull Durham cigarettes and talked about Havelock Ellis and D.H. Lawrence and a great many other people and things. We talked about bunk, for instance, and Brown said there seemed to be a shade of bunk in all things, including art and science and literature and life and death and immortality.
Then we happened to drift into the unemployment situation throughout the nation. Mr. Brown (I believe he is entitled to the designation) was of the opinion that the great army of unemployed had been out of work since 1912 and that they wanted to be out of work or they would go to work and they were a lot of spoiled men because of the freedom they enjoyed. He added (he could not help being completely honest with himself) that he was quite sure he, himself was spoiled. He pointed out the advantages of being a bum and he mentioned all the things I have already written.
When we had talked of many things and had digested our breakfast, such as it had been (a bum is very particular about such a thing as digestion) and had smoked almost a dozen cigarettes apiece, we strolled out of the place and stepped into a morning sun that was really worth stepping into.
Mr. Brown observed the sun. It was splendid. "Do you blame some people for having worshipped the thing?" he asked?
We walked together up Third street until Market, where we parted. Brown was going down the street and I, up. But before we left, as a last word, he said, "Say kid, read Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage. You'll like it. Read anything of Crane's!" And he was gone.
I turned around to watch him walk away and I thought he must have been smiling to himself or possibly at himself and so I, too, smiled to myself or at myself, I can't say which.
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