Author: Henry Miller

About: Second volume in the Rosy Crucifixion series. More about Henry and June, also chronicling the author's travels to the deep South, and his work as an encyclopedia salesmen (after he'd left personnel).

Excerpt:

In a Buddhist magazine not long ago I read something like this: “If we could only get what we want when we think we need it life would present no problem, no mystery, and no meaning.” I was a trifle indisposed the morning I read this. I had decided to spend the day in bed. Reading these words, however, I began to howl with laughter. In less than no time I was up and out of bed, chirping away as merrily as usual.

If I had come across this piece of wisdom in the period I am writing of I doubt if it would have had any effect upon me. It was just impossible for me to take a detached view of things. The day was full of problems, full of complications. There was mystery in everything, irritating mystery. The mystery surrounding the universe —that was sheer intellectual luxury. The whole meaning of life was wrapped up in the solution of how to keep afloat. It sounds simple, but we knew how to complicate even such a simple problem.

Disgusted with our haphazard way of life, I made up my mind to take a job. No more gold-digging, No more chasing rainbows. I was determined to earn sufficient for the daily necessities, come what may. I knew it would be a blow to Mona. The very thought of taking a job was anathema to her. Worse than that, it was sheer black treachery.

Her response, when I broached my resolution, was characteristic. “You're undermining everything I've done!”

“I don't care,” I answered, “I've got to do it.”

“Then I'll take a job too,” said she. And that very day she hired herself out as a waitress at The Iron Cauldron.

“You're going to regret this,” she informed me. By this she meant that it was fatal ever to leave one another's side.

I had to promise her that while looking for work I would have my meals at The Iron Cauldron twice a day. I went once, for lunch, but the sight of her waiting on tables discouraged me so that I couldn't go back again.

To get regular employment in an office was out of the question. In the first place there was nothing I could really do well, and in the second place I knew I would never be able to stand the routine. I had to find something which would give me the semblance of freedom and independence. There was only one job I could think of which filled the bill—and that was the book racket. Though it wouldn't offer me a regular salary my time would be my own, and that meant a great deal to me. To get up every morning on the dot and punch a clock was out of the question.

I couldn't go back to work for the Encyclopaedia Britannica again—my record was too shady. I'd have to find another encyclopaedia to handle. It didn't take long to discover the loose leaf encyclopaedia. The sales manager, to whom I had applied for a job, didn't have much difficulty convincing me that it was the best encyclopaedia on the market. He seemed to think I had excellent possibilities. As a favor he gave me some of his own personal leads to start with. They were “pushovers", he assured me. I left the office with a brief case filled with specimen pages, various types of binding, and the usual paraphernalia which the book salesman always carries about with him. I was to go home and study all this crap and then start out. I was never to take “No” for an answer. Soit.