There was no desperation for Buck, but still, something puzzled him.

And this despite his good will. For he understood that like was a self-made process, the world a single cosmic function, varied in detail and incomprehensible in its whole; that he himself, like all of us, was no more a self-motivated individual soul that husband and wife are, brushing against each other to and from the bathroom each morning; that the highway at rush hour is an intricate, tangled nervous system, each car a rushing electric impulse, each home a neuron passing out and receiving its occupants in turn, each man an organic synapse in the superorganic brain, never seeing the extent of this incomprehensible system for concentrating on his own function. Magnificence and irony, this is how Buck saw the world.

He loved arriving just before starting time each morning and being a part of that last minute push and shove, he loved being so obviously one among the may, loved watching the others strain and bicker to proclaim their agreement with their role in this generous superstructure: even the secretary from the other floor smiling at him now, even the sub-manager from next door someone had just congratulated on his promotion, even the scrubbing lady, sleepy and beautiful in her regret and in her tortured innocence. God, but it was great to be alive, to be aware, to see this massive shifting ands alternating around him. Parasites, yes, but successful ones. No regrets for Buck, no doubts.

After work buck met Evelyn at Alvin's Diner. Evelyn told Buck she couldn’t see him anymore. They could remain friends, though, in fact she'd like that. "Like brothers and sisters," said Evelyn.

"But why?" asked Buck, and Evelyn said, "Buck, don’t try to understand."

"But Evelyn!"

"Buck, you can’t understand it," said Evelyn, and demanded she pay the bill. No tip.

That puzzled Buck, for example. Perhaps Evelyn was one of those who needed a darker kind of relationship to survive. Perhaps Evelyn had a different inner constitution, that spiritually roamed empty streets at night, like a ghost haunting and wandering endlessly, somehow outcast from the brightness and glory of the open, loving sun. It was possible, thought Buck. Evelyn took the bus home and packed two months later dor South America. There she learned about Communism, Capitalism and suffering. Buck boarded a different bus, and at home took a shower, then went to bed to dream also about suffering, but his own. These repetitive dreams, this particular one and its many sequels, were a kind of surrealistic journey to an inner Hollywood where he was repeatedly asked for money for the homeless. But in the morning he woke up fresh and couldn’t remember a thing, so he shaved and had breakfast. But no sweet molasses, no steamy hot chocolate, no yeasty hot cross buns, no bright pastel cantaloupes.

Only one employer ever fired Buck, but it was his best. When Buck stepped out of the elevator, the boss's secretary called him into the boss's office, and the boss sat him down in a chair. "Buck," he said, "What is the one quality you need to survive in this world?"

Buck thought about it of course, and finally he said: "A positive attitude."

"No," said the boss. "That's not it."

"You have to know yourself?" Buck guessed.

"No," said the boss. "That's not it either."

"Then you have to have leadership qualities, Buck concluded, and added quickly, "And be aggressive."

"Sorry, Buck," said his boss, "That's not it either." I really feel bad about this, but there's something I have to share with you. We can't employ you any longer. If you think about it, I'm sure you'll also see that it's best for you, the best thing that could happen. I want you to take the day off and think about it and come back in tomorrow and tell me." 

He took the car and the rest of the day and went out searching for his past, but he found only an older-looking lady and an older-looking man who kind of shuffled when he asked them personal questions. They didn’t seem to know whether it was a positive mental attitude of leadership qualities either. He drove away after a bowl of soup and returned to the home where he had been raised, to talk to his foster mother. His foster mother told him that in some parts of the world there are different systems, different people win, different people lose, she told him that those Bolivian earthquake victims sure enjoyed the food we sent, and that the starving Africans would have sent a huge thank-you note for all that water if they could have.

The next day, Buck agreed with his boss. He worked the rest of the week then went home. But he never forgot that boss, the best one he ever had.

Buck was confident about getting another job. He was so positive, in fact, that he took an extended four-month vacation in the Philippines first, and there he learned to scuba dive. He loved it there, but finally had to ask himself what kind of a role those islands played in the grander scheme of the world. At the same time, he knew it was not his function to answer questions, in fact, he knew this answer was not necessarily desirable for the execution of his role. That he could ask the question itself was only a kind of leisure time diversion, like the vacation itself, but now it was time to get back to work. When he did return, he had another job with one and a half weeks, so it really is possible that he has what it takes to survive. No right answers, though, and no bonus in the last pay check. No despair, no confusion, no self-pity and no longing for pain.

Buck was married twice and divorced once, in that order. "Mrs. Right" turned out to be Nancy, known and trusted since childhood. At the ceremony he suspected he'd known this would happen all his life, even though he had never realized it practically until the last time she cut his hair: He hadn't understood at first what she was talking about when she said, "Oops."

"What's wrong?" asked Buck, and she showed him the little chunk of earlobe in her scissors. Then he felt his ear and the blood there, and thought: this is funny. It was a thing he could not understand, and also a thing he could not keep. This is how Buck saw humor. He had no choice but to marry her. But she, perhaps being more romantic than he, was smart enough not to cut his hair again, knowing if she ever cut a matching chunk out of his other ear, the divorce would be unavoidable. Buck was more the practical kind: this marriage made him feel good. Nancy made him feel good. His children made him feel good. But no wild life, no big mistakes, no fleeting ecstasy of illusory happiness.

Sometimes his son saw Buck's lips moving, sitting in front of the television waiting for dinner, and the boy would run into the kitchen and ask Mommy: "What's wrong with Dad?"

Don’t bother him, dear," Mommy would say, "He's praying for Grandma and Grandpa."

But their son was a good lip reader, so he saw that Buck was asking himself: Del Monte? Dole? Exotic? Traditional? Tax consultant? Psychiatrist? Child therapist? IBM? ATT? Support? Apathy? The movies? A play?

One day the elevator opened and in burst Truth. Daylight stabbed and slashed with the brightness of the sun punishing snow, and he knew: life is simple, it's a big game, a great roulette wheel with thousands of balls bouncing and bouncing the whole time, and he was one of those balls, that's all. There was a limit, sure, but he was in no position to reach it anyway, so why not play high stakes? And the opposite was just as true: there was a minimum, but if the lowest chips cost five dollars each, a hamburger would always cost four ninety-five, so even if he lost his last chip he wouldn’t go to bed hungry. And once the ball comes to rest, why, it will bounce again, there were so many different numbers he would never play them all before closing time, so why play them so frugally? He stood in the elevator while the others went to their desks and knew that they only response to sunlight bursting in as bright as this was a smile bright enough to match it and to show how grateful he was for the heat on his face. Sunlight and simplicity, this is how Buck saw life.

So, shortly after Nancy bore him his third child, he took as much money as he could out of the bank and without saying goodbye and without writing a note returned to the Philippines for the first time since his scuba diving vacation.

There he found his first wife (who still was his first wife, they had never divorced) living at her mother's house in one of the villages near the shore, working. She had a second child of her own by then, given to her by her second husband. She refused to speak to him, of course. She almost panicked at seeing that face out of her past.

When her second husband found out there was an American bothering her, he moved back from his girlfriend's house and glowered angrily out of his wife's mother's front door whenever Buck came around. Finally, Buck took the cash, almost all the money Nancy and he had saved together, and bought a cow, four chickens and three sacks of feed. He dragged these to his first wife's second husband and laid them at his feet to buy his (meaning "their") wife from him. Of course, paying for a wife is not customary in the Philippines, but Buck didn't know that since he had only been there once on vacation, so her second husband got two more chickens and another bag of feed out of Buck before giving in.

When Buck left with his wife, taking a bus to the airport, the other husband came after them in a friend's car and kissed Buck on both cheeks like a Russian, and that puzzled him too. Were they brothers now? Friends? Compatriots? Should Buck write? Visit some day? Would the Filipino? Was the kiss sincere? Friendly? Traditional? Ironic?

Nancy was furious when Buck left and more so when he returned. At first she wouldn’t let him in the house, then she would, and when he explained to her about his three month unresolved vacation marriage she wept for him, for herself, for all the confused world. But when he told her his first wife was waiting in the hotel for him, she was dumbfounded, then furious, then she tried to divorce him, decided not to, and in the end accepted the girl into their home on the basis of a bristling truce as a live-in housekeeper with two children.

But no matter how alternatingly wary or over-trusting they were, how questionable and tense their relationship, how futile and hot their unresolved arguments, how nervous their five children grew up (three by Nancy, plus the first wife's two. Neither woman bore children after that, which made things much simply) the point is, Buck should have been to sleep easier. But those dreams kept coming, sequel after sequel and each longer than the one before, and that strange feeling of having forgotten something kept popping up at the most frustrating times. Should he change hobbies? Repair more than replace? Start in on health food? Spend more time with the kids? Plan ahead for retirement?

The divorce took nearly three more years to arrive. Though not the best solution, it was possibly the best option. He conceded the children and the house to Nancy on the condition that she take his first wife too, for slightly more alimony, of course. Nancy agreed stoically, out of court. That puzzled Buck too.

The superstructure we call society is a thing not without its consolations, diversions, even sudden passions, for these things help us approve of what we are, and Buck was a man who took part in things there was no point trying to avoid. How many good times did he have with friends? How often were letters answered? How many old acquaintances recognized him, how many called just to say hello?

When his foster mother passed away, there were the strangest people at the funeral. Some were friends, neighbors, he recognized the supermarket clerk. Others were admirers of his foster mother's late brother, there were people who had made the connection in the paper between his foster mother and the well-known football player, he late brother, and wanted to be friends. They weren't voyeurs, they weren't spectators, they felt with their hearts that they had to b e here: maybe they had missed the funeral of her brother, read the papers too late back then, been on vacation, maybe they hadn’t been to a funeral for a while, but they all felt the same unlocatable remorse Buck felt, and knew this would be the best opportunity to express it. It was a funeral without tears, for with her death his only source of exasperation was gone.

So it was every night another dream: those smelly, homeless men asking for a dime or a quarter. And every morning just a tinge of uneasiness. The dreams were a series. When he was young there had been hardly a pattern or plot, just a single bum on the corner asking for a nickel. As he grew older, the dream developed with him. Soon he started looking for the nickel in his pants pockets, then in his shirt pockets too. Then it became two bums, then three, and by the time he found his way back form the Philippines with his first wife, they had begun threatening him, one or two at first, and soon enough, for life goes fast when you don’t remember anything, soon enough a whole neighborhood of dark unshaved tramps were threatening him, demanding that quarter. He searched through his pockets for his wallet: he found his cowhide, his pigskin, his imitation leather, his brown, his blue, even his alligator skin, but the quarter was in his snakeskin wallet. How many pockets did he have, anyway? And in winter it was worse, he wore a three-piece suit and an overcoat then, that's a lot of pockets, and once there was even a money belt. But he couldn’t find his snakeskin in any of them. By the time he hit retiring age they were chasing him, hitting, pushing, tripping, shoving, throwing rocks and bottles. He ran through those crowded homeless streets searching and stumbling, ducking, running, searching, fumbling.

Though he couldn't remember the dream when he awoke, sometimes he had to wonder whether Evelyn hadn’t been one of those: a drunk, a homeless bag lady roaming the streets with a red face, endlessly reviling subway passengers. He imagined her in rags, cursing up and down the street, taking years to rid herself of her anger. Was it anger that motivated Evelyn? This, too, was a question not for him to answer, but he was grateful enough for the leisure time to ask it.

After the divorce he found out where Evelyn was keeping herself and flew to Cuba to visit her. She appeared older and slower than she had been, or than he had imagined her on the phone when she finally returned his call. She had had a lot of adventures in her life, and was still slim. There had been Cuba, of course, and before that Brazil and Chile, and then somewhere between Rome and the Spanish Coast with an artist she could only speak French with for half a year. She told him of European ways and old cities and churches, she told him of South America and exploitation, suffering and injustice.

They enjoyed the Cuban sun, it was so full of good will, it showered his skin with the warmth that comes with no need to protect oneself, no worries, no more desires, no frustrations or hopeful solutions, no more longings, obligations, paradoxes, no more need for ways out and forgiveness. What a difference. Safe, loved, unquestioned. It felt like he'd escaped. Though he had never tried to escape, that's what it felt like. Freedom was the sun dressing him every morning and undressing him every night.

But after they shared their respective climaxes the first night together they could not avoid rebounding into the cigarette smoking stage, and so Buck saw what he was not meant to see: that people really are objects, meant to be used, that their personalities can be categorized and labeled, that their emotions are shallow and temporary. He saw that justice, like philosophy and poetry, is a thing for the leisurely, similar to fashion, only more solemn; justice, too, has its end, just as the leisurely And he saw that suffering is as relative as the quality of a car, or the prices in a restaurant, or the state one chooses to live in. This is how Buck saw himself and Evelyn. It was just one of those house limits that went with the minimum stakes. Is this what had puzzled him his whole life? Was Buck's life this sad and absurd? Was he really a man without a dog? So when he vacation was over they parted promising to write.

When he heard that the company, expanding as always, was sending him back to his hometown, he saw that, in its best moments, the world was a reciprocating entity. As soon as he was into his new apartment, he went to visit Nancy, and she recommended naturally soothing bath salts, biological granola and old Nat King Cole tunes to keep the best parts of his life for himself and at the same time usher in his fiftieth year without nervousness. But no self-deception, no nervous breakdowns, no mid-life crises or second childhoods. Late at night, he would rest his body in those soaking salts maybe an hour.

The kids were almost grown now, though they didn’t particularly like Buck: Larry, Buster and Jo. Buck's first wife was back in the Philippines living in the house of her mother, who had passed away not long after Buck and Nancy's divorce. Nancy's skin disease recurred often. It was an irritating situation, something that usually went away by itself, and if not, then she should take some medication, and at worst there would be a skin transplant in some areas.

Nancy had retired early and Buck moved back in with her when the operation came around. She was in bandages for nearly half a year, it was like a stubborn cold that didn't seem to get better. Buck took care of his former wife, and when it looked like she was getting better he started to think about his own retirement.

The idea was to buy a small cottage in Colorado. They would be close enough to the kids, but far from all the pressures. The kids would be better off completely on their own, they were certainly old enough now, and could visit as often as they liked, there would be beds enough. They went one Easter and picked out a good place not far from Denver. They even planned the renovations, and Buck started worrying about the financing.

His retirement came not long after the second skin transplant, and while she was recovering from that one, which seemed to go better than the first, he worked on Nancy's house, which would have to be sold to finance the one in Denver. It finally was, to a young couple with their first child and not enough furniture. Buck and Nancy spent their first week in the new house unpacking and getting used to the different spaces and sounds. Nancy died in the second week. She died unexpectedly, with pathos. He buried her in the neighborhood cemetery.

Not long before her death, he told he that he loved her, and he regretted bitterly afterwards that the words "I love you" reminded him so much of the words "Forgive me." When in fact he hadn't done anything wrong.  

Buck lost contact with his children, except for one visit from his daughter, who came to ask the true and entire story of Buck's first wife. That visit was another thing he could not understand, but that was not for him, it was for the children. He lost contact with whatever other relations he might have had, but this he did not regret, because he loved living in that house. So none of them came to his funeral, and his neighbors buried him in the same cemetery, not far from Nancy. He died without elegance.

He never did discover the secret of dreams he had been forgetting. But most of us don't. We all have these accumulative dreams, starting simple in childhood and developing with age and experience, but we don’t remember them when we wake. If we did, the psychologists would get conceited.

It was those accumulative bums. Only a few at first, harmless, then the problem with the wallets, all of them wrong, every kind but the snake skin wallet he was looking for, then the threats, the danger, the running. The homeless on homeless streets. When it's his turn, Buck will stand before God as we all will, blinking and a little worn out, and god will reach into Buck's head and pull out the fully developed dream like a film reel. He will unspool it then, hold it up to the light and squint at each frame, for God doesn’t need a projector. And he will say something like: "Hm, odd. Very interesting, Buck, very odd. Why snake skin?" No losses, no risks. No regretful insights, no unexpected gains, no contradictions, no unjust demands.