A little later skip just a minute,
this is his one good work.
A little later, he decides to be a nice guy for an episode.
Of all the people on the block, the man whom Jacob pitted most
was Aegon the fruit peddler.
Aegon reminded him in many ways of his father
as best he could remember him.
He was old before his time, sad, and profoundly embittered,
needing it seemed only sackcloth and ashes
in a ruined wall somewhere in order
to become a perfect model of atonement
for the sin of having ever drawn his first breath.
Yet tenaciously, crying, clawing with brittle and dirty
fingernails merely to survive, Aegon
had advanced inexorably forward and upward
from a small rattling pushcart to his very own fruit
stand with a faded awning over a part of the sidewalk.
Evidently, this slow change, this manifested example
of what sociologists are want to call upward mobility
was small consolation to Aegon.
Thinking of this Quirk wrote in his journal.
Here we go with Quirk again.
In our age, anything less than the shocking lightning bolt
followed by thunder rolls.
Oh, kettle drums conducted by Leonard Bernstein of success
must be regarded as failure.
Failure is our great tragedy, our sickness.
The failure our modern witches burned daily metaphorically
in joyous abandon throughout the land from coast to coast.
Failure is our leprosy, maybe failure
should be required to wear bells like lepers in the Middle Ages.
All failures will henceforth and ever after world without end,
wear bells to warn other decent citizens of their coming
and going.
What a charming idea, but let us assume
that it could be enforced what would happen then.
Next morning, following the posting of the notices,
bright and early, the streets would begin to sing maddens.
Before noon, millions and millions of little bells
would be cheerfully ringing.
Then the great and the proud, the captains,
and the kings suddenly urgently and palpably aloof and separate
from the rest of mankind would come forth too.
Also wearing bells, silver, and gold, and jeweled ones
to be sure and all protesting a multitude of secret failures
in their lives, which thus entitled
them to rejoin the human race, in short it wouldn't work.
[LAUGHTER]
But what a swell time to be in the bell business?
[CLEARS THROAT]
[LAUGHTER]
Quirk believe that Aegon the fruit--
what Aegon, the fruit better needed above all things
was a Penny's worth of love.
I better say something about this writing,
I think those of you who are writers
can see something that was happening coming out
of the Raleigh book, but the writer, as well as Quirk
of this is a rather odd character.
And you'll see some not that he does try to be a bad writer,
but there's a narrator, a reporter talking along
and I suddenly realized he sounds strange.
Quirk believe that Aegon, the fruit peddler needed
above all things was a Penny's worth of love
or if that was too much to ask a few trading
stamps redeemable for some slight occasional signs
of affection.
Yet, because of his bitterness, his sour tight
lipped disposition the very best,
the most he could hope for was to die
solving enough to afford a decent band
of professional mourners for his funeral.
And until then, he was condemned to be irascible choleric given
to violent vain, pulsing black faced, deep breathing, rages
against children who Stole apples.
Housewives, who poked and fiddled
with fruit, policemen, tax collectors,
the barber next door, a hearty man
forever shouting Beaver at the first sight of Aegon's bushy
beard.
Aegon's only solace was to call down curses
on the heads of them one and all in a language, most of them
couldn't understand anyway.
And so instead-- instead of a small measure of love,
he received hatred and ridicule, not
often directly for he was feared,
mostly they spat on his shadow after he passed and felt
better for doing it.
This is wrong, Jacob Quick thought
and he waited for a chance to do something about it.
One day, Aegon had to leave the neighborhood for a few hours
to visit some relatives and we had not seen for many years
on the other side of the city.
No doubt it was the funeral of a patriarch
of a wedding of a youngster, which drew him away
from this familiar arena of anger and shame.
No one knew or cared.
As soon as Aegon had safely descended into the subway
entrance and disappeared, Jacob Quirk
transformed himself and reappeared as Aegon.
Aegon changing his mind.
Aegon coming back again without really going.
Aegon pulling some kind of a sneaky trick.
All this to the intense consternation, dismay,
and horror of two underpaid, and harassed
little boys who have been left to watch over the fruit stand.
Every inch Aegon, Quirk entered quietly, tiptoed the back,
and found the boy stuffing themselves with bananas.
We thought you were gone Mr. Aegon, sir?
They both go simultaneously leaving to their feet.
I changed my mind, he said quietly.
Then with a pleasant smile, the boys like my bananas.
We'll pay, we'll pay, they cried.
We'll work it out in overtime, we promise.
Bananas are very good for growing boys.
They fill you up, they make you fat.
Help yourselves.
The two boys looked at each other and abrupt
startled doubting profile, like a pair of perfectly matched
Alfred E Neuman bookends.
[LAUGHTER]
But he seemed to be serious, very instructed them that today
was to be a holiday told him to go forth on the block
and make the announcement to everyone.
Free fruit for everybody.
A harvest celebration like the celebration
of the pressing of grapes into wine
in certain older countries.
An orgy of wonderful fresh fruit grapes and plums,
oranges and tangerines, bananas, melons, grapefruits,
nectarines, strawberries, apples, and oh,
everything good and fine from the rich gardens of the world.
Baffled still apprehensive and doubtful,
they knew at least to do what he told them to.
So for a few short hours, the whole block
was itself transformed.
Becoming briefly a place of joy and singing a happy island,
albeit surrounded by a sea of clenched fists
and an ocean of curses.
Lips and hands were stained and sticky with sweetness,
and the world seemed new again.
When Aegon returned from his visit,
he was greeted with love and admiration everywhere
he looked.
Women kissed him and complained that his beard tickled men
shook his hand, children made up rhymes about him
to insert in the street games.
Even the barber embraced him like a French general
hugging a hero.
Though, he never quite understood what
happened during his absence.
He managed to restrain his natural suspicion,
he took it simply as a sign perhaps
the work of some careless angels who had singled him out.
Choosing Aegon from among countless thousands
of others as lonely and sad as himself
to receive the gift of love.
And all that was required of him henceforth
was to play as best he could, the smiling and popular role
of the angel-- that the angel had created for him.
He decided that though he might die
too poor to afford professional mourners,
there was a fair chance he would not need them anyway.
Needless to say, Jacob Quirk also
soon found occasions to serve the cause of secular justice.
Once still early in the stage of advancement of his art,
he was wandering the streets of the city
away from his own neighborhood late at night.
And for his own amusement, he had turned himself
into a old fashioned cartoon caricature
of a rich man, clothed in contentment with a top hat,
and-- and cane, a big belly, and a cigar.
He was enjoying himself thoroughly more or less
minding his own business, until a surly young man
armed with a very sharp knife, stepped out of a shadowy alley,
and attempted to rob him.
This is a foolish thing, Quirk said.
Don't do it.
Why not?
I'm only pretending to be rich, the truth
is I have very little money.
Well, I don't give a blank, the young robber said.
If you've got a dime, you're blinking better off than I am.
You'll be sorry, Quirk said.
Crime does not pay well.
Shut up, you blinking fact creep, the young man replied.
Knocking Quirk flat to the pavement.
All the while he was trying to dissuade this young man
from crime.
Quirk had been carefully studying him.
So first thing the next morning, Quirk
became the spitting image of his assailant
and proceeded to rob a large, busy, and very crowded bank.
[LAUGHTER]
All of the young man's alibis and explanation,
all circumstances of mitigation and extenuating
proved useless after he was arrested by police
and confronted with the unshakeable testimony of dozens
of eyewitnesses.
He was given a fair and speedy trial
and sent off to jail to serve out
a long sentence of hard labor.
Quirk never once conceived of this little trick as motivated
by a need for revenge, to revenge the insult of the blow
to his head or indeed as retribution
for the $2.45, which he happened to have
in his pockets at the time.
As he noted in his journal, "I do not ever
intend to use my gifts for petty considerations,
for personal gain or self-satisfaction.
It is perfectly reasonable.
On the basis of all the evidence to assume that
this young man was bound to end up in jail sooner or later
anyway.
I have not changed his destiny, I've only introduced it to him
early."
Thus, allowing him a rare perhaps invaluable opportunity
to know and come to terms with his eventual manifest destiny.
Few men are ever so blessed and so early in life.
And at a time when other less fortunate
young men have done more to do than imagine, prodigious feats,
miraculous adventures, countless conquests, eternal youth, et
cetera, et cetera.
Someday, he may even thank me for this.
So I do feel it prudent to deprive him
of that opportunity.
I have never been able to accept the open gift
of simple gratitude and embarrasses me.
Now, he has three square meals a day
and plenty of wholesome exercise in labor
to keep him from indulging in self-pity.
And above all, he has the consolation
of knowing that in the case of the particular crime for which
he has been convicted and is now being punished.
He is perfectly innocent, spotless as a young lamb,
this too is a very rare thing.
How many of us can enjoy such a feeling?