Why do you bring that up again?"
"There's one last thing I want to know-"
"But, dear Sal, you're listening, you're sitting there, we'll ask Sal. What would he say?"
And I said, "That last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once for all."
"No, no, no, you're talking absolute bullshit and Wolfean romantic posh!" said Carlo.
And Dean said, "I didn't mean that at all, but we'll let Sal have his own mind, and in fact, don't you think, Carlo, there's a kind of a dignity in the way he's sitting there and digging us, crazy cat came all the way across the country-old Sal won't tell, old Sal won't tell."
"It isn't that I won't tell," I protested. "I just don't know what you're both driving at or trying to get at. I know it's too much for anybody."
"Everything you say is negative."
"Then what is it you're trying to do?"
"Tell him."
"No, you tell him."
"There's nothing to tell," I said and laughed. I had on Carlo's hat. I pulled it down over my eyes. "I want to sleep," I said.
"Poor Sal always wants to sleep." I kept quiet. They started in again. "When you borrowed that nickel to make up the check for the chicken-fried steaks-"
"No, man, the chili! Remember, the Texas Star?"
"I was mixing it with Tuesday. When you borrowed that nickel you said, now listen, you said, 'Carlo, this is the last time I'll impose on you,' as if, and really, you meant that I had agreed with you about no more imposing."
"No, no, no, I didn't mean that-you harken back now if you will, my dear fellow, to the night Marylou was crying in the room, and when, turning to you and indicating by my extra added sincerity of tone which we both knew was contrived but had its intention, that is, by my play-acting I showed that- But wait, that isn't it."
"Of course that isn't it! Because you forget that- But I'll stop accusing you. Yes is what I said . . ." And on, on into the night they talked like this. At dawn I looked up. They were tying up the last of the morning's matters. "When I said to you that I had to sleep because of Marylou, that is, seeing her this morning at ten, I didn't bring my peremptory tone to bear in regard to what you'd just said about the unnecessariness of sleep but only, only, mind you, because of the fact that I absolutely, simply, purely and without any whatevers have to sleep now, I mean, man, my eyes are closing, they're redhot, sore, tired, beat . . ."
"Ah, child," said Carlo.
"We'll just have to sleep now. Let's stop the machine."
"You can't stop the machine!" yelled Carlo at the top of his voice. The first birds sang.