“I might want to start my own business. I think that’s not so bad: it’s worse working for somebody else. It’s funny but I’d just as soon never work. I’d just as soon drift the rest of my life.”
And Robert Holton had agreed. He agreed in those days.
“Of course you have to have money to loaf. Maybe if we hadn’t been raised in such a sound middle-class way we could be bums but we’re too used to being comfortable. No, we’re too used to being comfortable. We’ve got to get the money first.”
Robert Holton had agreed to that, too. He had agreed to everything. He wanted to be as free as possible. At least he thought he had then. Because his friend wanted it he felt he did too. He assumed a similar identity.
Trebling had more to say and his deep laughing voice continued: “No, we’re going to have to work a little. Not much, just a little to get enough ahead. We’re going to be careful though not to get bogged down, not to get too interested in working. It’s dangerous to get to like it.”
Holton agreed.
“Well, Bob, get your mind on the ball. How’re we going to spend that army money? I think pottery out in California sounds easy.”
Yes, pottery was easy. Then they separated and they changed. Or perhaps only he, Holton, had changed. He’d done the easiest thing, he thought. But it was true that he was entangled now for the rest of his life with Heywood and Golden; with them or another like them.
Trebling was entangled, too. Holton was pleased by that as he lay in the dark. Trebling hadn’t done better. He belonged to the army now and his chances of beginning a business were slight. He might try it though; he might be able to live the way he wanted to. Holton shuddered. It would be awful to miss freedom so narrowly.
There was a problem, still unsolved: what did he want?