The Flaming Corsage

by William Kennedy

  “You don’t know the truth when you hear it, Edward. You never did. But forget that and cop a sneak at these wenches.”

  Nell entered ahead of three women, drew Cherry into the head of the line, then stood aside and let the four whores parade for Edward. Cherry opened her blouse, raised her offerings with her hands.

  “We have two more in the stable,” Maginn said, “but they’re busy at the moment,” and he walked to the second whore and caressed her belly. “This one carries her snake-head dildo at the ready and wears an Egyptian headdress, suitable for the moving pictures. I call her Putonalissa. A French artist I met in New Orleans sketched her costume for me on a bar towel.”

  “New Orleans,” Edward said. “When you went down to settle up with Cully?”

  The remark stopped Maginn’s spiel, and he gave Edward a twisted look; then continued.

  “This young lady with the mask and open robe we call Complicity,” he said, parting the whore’s robe with both hands. “Sweet young thing, but she carries a whip. You don’t know what to expect from Complicity.”

  The third whore, a blonde, wore only a gown of transparent white chiffon, and Maginn lifted the chiffon to pat her bush. “You probably guessed the name of this fair-haired beauty already,” he said. “The lovely Beatrina, our pièce de résistance, by far our prettiest, and most angelic. I’d say her dress was suitable for a trip to Paradise, or even a walk down the old church aisle.”

  Edward drank his brandy in two gulps to be rid of it. Maginn, seething with archaic rage against the divine arbiter of talent, trying to commit murder-by-whores to avenge his meager inheritance of the myth, droned on, urging the women to display themselves, even Nell, who did up her skirt, and whose freckled thighs, Edward thought with faded memory, had widened since the State Fair.

  “So there you have it, Edward. Which one would cheer you most? Or would you like two? Or all five? It’s on the house, you know.”

  The whores seated themselves on the sofa to await Edward’s decision and Cherry went back to the bar, her blouse askew. Nell poured Edward a new brandy and brought it to him. He sipped it, smiled at Maginn.

  “I can’t tell you how much it’s meant, Maginn, seeing all this,” he said. “Ever since I met you I’ve overpraised you, especially that beastly fiction no one ever published. I got you a job you weren’t equal to, and even abided your envious tirades. I concluded you were the eternally inadequate man, Homo invidiosus, but all things keep striving for that higher form that nature designs for them, and I see tonight that you’ve climbed up from pigsty to pimpdom, up from creative myth to a career in vice, up from skulking whorehound to grand cuntmaster with a troop of trollops. Do you like that phrase? It’s very Maginnish. Vaudeville tonight! The Grand Cuntmaster Maginn and His Troop of Twisted Trollops. One night only! When the matter is ready the form will come, as I’ve been saying for years, Maginn, and you’ve evolved into absolute parity with nullity. In any world worth inhabiting, you now mean nothing at all.”

  “Very good, Edward, very droll. Are you finished?”

  “Not quite. There’s Cully’s confession that you incited Giles to murder. Poor Cully. He asked you for bail money and you failed him.”

  “I didn’t have it. And there is no confession.”

  “True, his confession disappeared from the New Orleans police files, in the same way you disappeared when police came to The Argus to ask you about Cully. But my investigator turned up the detective who took Cully’s confession, and he’s got his notes and he’ll testify. So will Clubber. So will I. And I wouldn’t put it past Melissa to put in a good word for you. My man also found a fellow who says Cully’s killers were paid to hang him, paid by somebody who looked like you.”

  “You’re pathetic, Daugherty.”

  “I often tell myself that. Even so, I’ve documented this, and when I got your letter I gave my report to The Argus. They’ll print it this week, with an editorial urging the case be reopened.”

  Maginn picked up the spittoon beside his chair and heaved its cigar butts, slops, and globs of phlegm in Edward’s face. Edward snatched the spittoon from Maginn’s hand and swung it in a backhanded smash against his head. As Maginn staggered, Edward swung forward and smashed him full in the face, and Maginn’s face exploded with blood.

  “Nell!” Maginn called up out of his weakness, collapsed sideways over his armchair, spitting out pieces of broken teeth, “Nell, do him! Do him!”

  Edward turned to look for Nell and saw her right arm swinging a piece of lead pipe. It hit high on the left side of his head, and as he went down he saw Cherry moving toward him with a rag and a bottle of what he already knew was their chloroform.

  HE FELT THE tongue on his face and thought of a deer at the salt lick. He’d been walking down the sloping corridor after Katrina and saw steam shovels moving great slabs of broken marble to block the exit. The way out now was down, down the high, grassy slope past the broken statuary. It led him to the edge of a high precipice over an abyss, and he felt the onset of his vertigo. A finger touched his outer thigh and he turned to see the beautiful young whore. “Pressure makes it pop out,” she said. “You’re less of a sybarite these days, but nobody cares. The sinners are too chaotic.” He realized the paper he’d had in his hand was missing. He looked where it might have fallen, then saw it in his other hand. He touched his hip. His wallet was gone, as was the whore, and he knew that from here forward, something would vanish with every breath he took.

  He opened his eye into pain and moonlight and the breath of the animal licking his hair. Will it bite my face? He closed his eye, felt in the dirt and found a small glass bottle at his fingertips. He dug it out and knew from its shape it once held paregoric. The planet Neptune was discovered by mathematical analysis of the movement of another planet. Such has happened. The tongue is a dog, not a deer, licking my pain. He licked his own lips and realized the dog was licking his blood. He tasted a sweetness that was not blood. The chloroform. He raised his hand and swiped the dog’s jaw with the bottle. The animal yelped and Edward opened an eye to see it standing off, waiting. It barked once. Edward growled and the dog ran, a whelp.

  He could see tall weeds, but the earth was bare and moist beneath his face, and smelled of ashes. The pain was an ax blade. He did not recognize the weeds or the buildings beyond them. He knew only the moon, and the heat of the dark, early morning, and the burned earth where his cheek touched it. He raised his head into new pain that might kill him. If it did not, he would raise himself. Do not go too fast. Up, and roll. Now sit. He saw light in an upper room of a house, another light at street level. By the light of the moon he saw that the weeds around him had grown over, and through, charred remnants of trash. He closed his eyes to see how to get down the precipice to where Katrina was.

  The light at street level came from a window whose painted lettering announced “Saloon.” Edward saw two men talking with the barkeep. He pushed open the half door, went to the bar.

  “A double whiskey.”

  “Christ, what happened to you?”

  “Somebody hit me with a pipe.”

  “You know who did it?”

  “A woman I knew a long time ago.”

  “They don’t forget, do they?” the barman said.

  He wet a towel and handed it to Edward.

  “Wipe your face, pal.”

  Edward took the towel while the barman poured whiskey. The blood on the towel was abundant, streaked white with ashes. He wiped his eyes, his mouth. He drank the whiskey, returned the glass for a refill.

  “What street is this?” he asked.

  “Dallius.”

  “How far are we from Division?”

  “Three blocks.”

  “They didn’t carry me far.”

  “Who didn’t?”

  “You know a place called the Good Life?”

  “Dorgan’s. They closed early tonight.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m gettin’ their regulars.” />
  Edward drank the second whiskey. The barman gave him another wet towel. He wiped his ear, blotted his head, blood still oozing. How much had he lost?

  “You wanna go the hospital? I’ll get a cop’ll take ya,” the barman said.

  “I’ll go later. What do I owe you?” He reached into his pocket, wallet gone. “I can’t pay you. They robbed me.”

  “You had a big night.”

  “I’ll come back and pay.”

  “If you ever get home. You want another shot?”

  “The pain is terrific.”

  “Have another.”

  Edward drank his third double.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Grady.”

  “You’re a man worth knowing, Grady. If I don’t die I’ll be back. Can I keep this towel?”

  “Take a new one.”

  He wet a third towel for Edward.

  “I’ll pay your laundry bill, too,” Edward said.

  He walked up Dallius toward where Division crossed. The pain was awful but easing. Why did he want to go back to the whorehouse? Explain the riddle of the goat. He turned on Division and walked until he came to Dorgan’s. It was dark. He broke a panel of the glass door with a high kick and entered. By the light of the streetlamp he saw the back bar empty of bottles. He walked across the dance floor toward Maginn’s, opened the whorehouse door, and stepped into darkness. He found a window and raised a shade, letting in light from the street. The rugs, lamps, chairs, and drapes were all gone. One sofa and small bar, without bottles, remained. He moved the bar and found nothing on its one shelf. They took the lead pipe and the chloroform. On the floor he found a large envelope.

  He went outside and left the front door wide open. Let the rats out. On the street he lightly touched his wound. The blood seemed to be coagulating. He stood under the streetlight and opened the envelope, to find two dozen identical postcard photos of a woman in a flat, flowered hat, black stockings, shoes, and a white blouse she was holding partly open. She wore no skirt and was facing front, taking the viewer’s picture with her fluffy black camera. Nellie. He would recognize those thighs anywhere. He pocketed one postcard, tossed the rest.

  He walked toward the all-night cabstand on State Street, evaluating his latest creation: Cully’s lost confession. Not until he’d finished his monologue to Maginn had he thought of resurrecting it. He’d often imagined an investigator would discover it just that way; and it also made perfect sense for Maginn to hire Cully’s hangman.

  His mood improved as he thought of Maginn, with fewer teeth, and fettered with whores, forced into midnight exile by the power of fiction.

  EDWARD REACHED FOR his watch when the intern at St. Peter’s Hospital finished with his bandage. The watch was gone. What else could he lose tonight? The pain in his head was horrible, the whiskey wearing off, the powders they gave him not yet working. They wanted him to stay overnight in the hospital but he would not. He wanted to walk to Main Street but he lacked the stamina. They rang for a cab and the intern gave him a chair. He sat by the door and waited for the cab.

  He looked for Giles in the hospital hallway but did not find him. He’s here someplace. He saw a wall clock that said four-twenty. It’s early. Late. It was not likely that his play would be resurrected. His playwriting days were over. Everything was over. It won’t get no better, Cappy said. Nothin’ worth doin’, it’s finished. The only thing that isn’t over is the pain. He regretted not having time enough to do the play properly, and to use the real names. Who would care? The play would never be done again. But if it was done, some scenes would be different.

  (KATRINA is seated on sofa in the Daugherty drawing room, looking at photo album. EDWARD stands with his arms folded, watching her. They are dressed for the evening. She wears a corsage of violets.)

  EDWARD: You could never admit your behavior was unacceptable.

  KATRINA: Of course I could. I just said you had to accept it. I understood your behavior perfectly. You were correct in moving to New York. I was impossible.

  EDWARD: You’re very understanding of your own contradictions.

  KATRINA: I would’ve gone mad otherwise.

  EDWARD: You can seem as mad as the Queen of Bedlam. The soul obsessed by primal passions, trying to carry out the divine will. That’s Peer Gynt but it’s you.

  (KATRINA picks up photo album, raises it for EDWARD to see.)

  KATRINA: Yes, Peer Gynt. Look at this wonderful picture of Adelaide and me up at Schroon Lake. What a wonderful summer that was. It was my fault she died.

  EDWARD: More madness. You stay alive through the death of others. Pain and guilt, romantic despair, the tragic dimension. If you’d abandon this melodrama and let the dead stay dead, we’d be happier.

  KATRINA: I should have died in the Delavan.

  EDWARD: I should have died when Giles shot me.

  KATRINA: Giles wasn’t your fault. You behaved admirably during that terrible episode. Admirably.

  EDWARD: I behaved like a fool, the only way I knew how. Look at me, Katrina. Leave the dead. Let’s salvage the time left to us.

  (KATRINA walks to the drawing room mirror, looks at her reflection.)

  KATRINA: How much time do we have, Edward?

  (EDWARD comes up behind her, looks into the mirror over her shoulder.)

  EDWARD: You know more than I about such things.

  (KATRINA turns and faces EDWARD, their faces very close.)

  KATRINA: If I fainted now, would you unpin my corsage? Would you undo the buttons of my bodice to help me breathe?

  When the cab was halfway down Main Street, Edward saw he had left a light on in the parlor. His pain was leveling, but would not go away. He went to the bedroom for money he kept in a jar, paid the driver, then went to the icebox. The ice was almost gone. With the pick he chipped some ice into a glass, then half-filled the glass with whiskey. Quarter to five. The whiskey and powders would take away the pain. He stared out the kitchen window at the canal and remembered Emmett in his days as the lock tender, standing here watching the boat traffic, waiting for trouble and grievance from the canalers, his problem as well as theirs to solve. It may be that the existence of the planet Neptune does not contradict the design of the solar system. How can it if it is really there?

  Edward walked out the back door to Emmett’s toolshed and found the bullets and broken pieces of the pistol in the waste bucket. He picked them out and carried them to the kitchen.

  “Did you ever consider,” he said to Emmett, “that I never was the Irishman on horseback? It may be I was free of racial and social destinies, and that what I wanted was altogether different from what had gone before.”

  He put the bullets and pistol on the kitchen table, where Hughie Gahagan would have been sitting. The dead pistol meant something simple: sycophancy, scorn, false praise, cruelty, rage, narcissism, pain, prayer. Maginn was innocent of everything relating to success. He contrived complexity as a substitute for disuse. “If you don’t find her in one room, try the other,” he wrote on his note with the passkey.

  It may be that after the worst has happened, you see that Neptune was there from the beginning, problematically, and the old orbit of death is superseded. Then you see that faith, or its mathematical equivalent, has to do with your discovery.

  When Emmett wanted anything he invoked Connacht.

  Booming voice.

  Shorn of sustenance, shorn of the past, of love, of the theater of action, what’s left to a man? The answer, son, is the necessary sin. You won’t name it. It’s written in a forgotten code. The light’s still on in the parlor.

  (The FIREMAN, a handkerchief over his mouth and nose, carries KATRINA out of the burning house in his arms and crosses the street to where EDWARD is standing. The FIREMAN lays her down on the street, unbuttons her bodice, puts smelling salts under her nose. She does not move. The FIREMAN puts his mouth on hers, breathes into her. She opens her eyes, looks at the FIREMAN, then looks past him at edward, who moves close
r to her.)

  KATRINA: I can see you.

  EDWARD: I thought you were lost.

  (The FIREMAN lifts himself away from KATRINA and exits. He waves at her as he goes. edward kneels beside KATRINA, raises her head and kisses her.)

  KATRINA: I remember a poem, a woman dying in her lover’s arms. She has come down from the mountain of gold and as he holds her she turns to ashes.

  EDWARD: You won’t die, Katrina. It’s wrong to die now. You won’t die, Katrina. You won’t die.

  KATRINA: Life is something that should not have been.

  EDWARD: I loved life when you loved me.

  KATRINA: I loved you?

  (Pause.)

  Quite likely. I forget.

  (KATRINA dies in his arms.)

  Edward picked up his whiskey and walked to the front porch. He sat in the chair beside Emmett and decided mockery was a more exalted mode of behavior than was generally assumed. He sat on the porch drinking whiskey with Emmett until he grew ravenous. He thought of what he would cook.

  He would fry bacon.

  He would stay up and outlast Emmett. He had outlasted Martin, and the boy went back to New York. That was part of their problem. The father’s energy acknowledged the irrelevance of the future, the worship of the present tense.

  He could almost smell the bacon. A pig is turned into bacon, bacon becomes food that gives unity and purpose to the imagination. Brother William died in the fire, kneeling, turned into a bent cinder. Katrina, heroine of neighborhood children, had walked into the classroom and whipped William with the same stick he’d been using to whip a boy. Katrina understood the nature of fire.

  Edward, seeing the earliest blue line of things to come, finished his whiskey. Then he went to the icebox for the bacon, which will always be with us.