The Tall Boy: A Memoir

by Jess Gregg

  This masquerade fooled some people. It seemed to fool mother and dad and my grandparents, anyway. Whether it fooled Sharlie, I had no way of knowing. She seemed to have simply vanished from my life. We had not been forbidden to play together, but she did not seem to want to, anyway. I could not be sure she was even aware of me. When I was being funny, she would appear not to notice. Even when we sat side by side in the back seat of the car, she seemed to be going in some other direction, and at a different speed. “She’s growing up, dear,” my mother explained.

  Whatever she was doing, I wanted her to stop it. I waited for several years for her to come back, and when she didn’t, I switched my affection to Noo, a more recently born sister. Sharlie accepted this without protest. She wasn’t even Sharlie anymore: her friends at school called her Shame, eventually Sherry. What I called her was something else, “stuck-up” being a regular instance. Other words that rushed to my mouth seemed to have been waiting there forever. “She thinks she’s the Queen of Sheba,” I complained to my father. “Parades around like Cleo de whatsername.”

  “Well, that’s not so bad,” my father said. “Cleo de Merode was considered the most beautiful woman in Europe when I was a boy.”

  He kept on talking calmly, as he often did to head off these quarrels—told us about seeing this Cleo dance at a theatre, when his parents had taken him to the Paris Exposition of 1900. “I probably wouldn’t even remember,” he added, “except that my mother was so disapproving.”

  My sister pretended to be interested, as an excuse for ignoring me. “Why did she disapprove?”

  “Well, Mlle. de Merode was the King of Belgium’s—” He fumbled discreetly “—best friend. She looked like a madonna, though. Great gentle eyes. But she painted them with kohl. And while all the other women piled their hair up in great puffs, she set a style by drawing hers down over her ears and knotting it at the nape of her neck. People said she hid her ears that way because the King had bitten them off.”

  He considered the statement. “He probably hadn’t,” he added. In the same inconsequential manner, he turned back to his reading. “So see if you two can’t make up with each other now. All right?”

  But we didn’t even try. I became more expert at needling Sharlie, and several times even managed to pierce her reserve. Once when I was fourteen, she reacted with such chill indignation, I suddenly recognized its source. “Apologize to me!” I cried out gleefully, and she certified my hunch with a quick rush of blood to her face.

  It was Grandma Gregg she was taking after, beyond any doubt—the same self-containment, the same cool glance, the same austere taste. My mother had come to this conclusion too. “But underneath her reserve, Sharlie feels very deeply,” she said protectively. “Like all those women did.”

  “All what women?”

  “Your grandmother. And her grandmother. The women in your father’s family that Sharlie takes after. All of them full of love and devotion, but hiding it deep inside.”

  I had to laugh at the idea of my haughty grandmother ever loving anyone. “But she did,” Mother insisted. “Cared for your grandfather so intensely, it was almost a joke—nearly went out of her mind when they were in Paris once, and she discovered he was infatuated with some dancer the King of Belgium was keeping.”

  My father turned to her in astonishment. “Who told you a wild thing like that?”

  “Effie,” she said. “Even after they got back to St. Paul, your father was still writing letters to this woman. So d’you know how your mother won him back? She spent a fortune on satins and plumes, and dressed up for him in private.”

  She raised her voice above my father’s continuing disbelief. “Had little suppers served in their bedroom at midnight,” she said, “With her eyes and lips painted, and let him pretend she was Cleo de Merode.”

  Dress-up seems to have run in the family.

  4

  MINOTAUR

  The waiter who brought in the tea tray always gave me a smoldering sidelong look. His name was Ramon, but my formidable grandmother and the other ladies at the Hollywood Hotel called him Raymond. Most of the waiters there were cheerful little Filipinos, but Raymond was proudly, even arrogantly, Spanish.

  He stood so straight that his back arched, and when he moved, it was with the contemptuous grace of a bullfighter. He wore a starched white jacket next to his skin, the top button coinciding with a tuft of black hair, and his trousers fit so tightly that surely he used some sort of shoehorn to get them on. He seldom spoke and never smiled—only nodded slightly when my grandmother tipped him, and departed with a glance at me so secret and portentous, it was almost a warning.

  “At least Felipe always said thank you,” my grandmother observed, as the door closed.

  “Who’s Felipe?”

  “The room-service waiter, last winter,” she said. “He was such a nice boy. Went to night school, and sent his mother five dollars a week.”

  “Isn’t Raymond nice too?”

  Her shrug was barely perceptible. “Raymond isn’t interested in service, he’s out here to get in the movies. Except he’ll never make the grade.”

  “How come? He’s real good-looking.”

  “Ah, but that accent!”

  “Too Spanish?”

  “Too Brooklyn,” she said.

  I had only heard a Brooklyn accent once, and that was the previous year when I was fourteen, and had been taken with some classmates on a supervised junket to Boulder Dam. All day we took notes and memorized facts, but our real education came after dark, when we boys dodged the proctor and sneaked into roaring Boulder City. Cigars gave us a look of maturity as we strolled through the huge red light district, watching the lines of hookers trying to enflame the passing johns. The girls’ price was two dollars, but we were able to listen in on their sales pitches for nothing. The one from Brooklyn had a long ruffled dress and hair that seemed to have burst from a hay rack. “He ast me would I do it for a qwatah” she was indignantly telling a co-worker. “I says, ‘Hell, no, I don’t do it for no qwatah.’”

  Impressed, I murmured her words over and over to myself, as if they were some maxim I could live by. Even now, a year later, there was something oddly erotic to me about the speech of Brooklyn, and I kept waiting to hear it from Raymond’s lips.

  I began to drop in more often on my grandmother. For years, she and my grandfather had wintered in the old Hollywood Hotel, whose squat towers and rambling gardens occupied a full city block on the shiny art-deco boulevard.

  It was a comfortable time-warp for her now that she was widowed, and the whole family was careful to see she was never lonely. Not only did my sisters and I come over on Sundays, but, ever since my initial exposure to Raymond, I began dropping by on weekdays alone. These visits had to be carefully timed, since I was at school until three, and it took an hour more to get to Hollywood by bus. If I arrived later than four, tea was likely to be done with, and a glimpse of the smoldering Latin waiter lost. Even more frustrating was getting there on time, only to find Grandma having tea on the veranda, where it would be served by Carlos, an old Filipino who giggled. It forced me into thinking ahead for the first time in my life. I began telephoning her from school, saying I was on my way, and suggesting that we meet in her suite.

  She had become more openly affectionate these past two years, my grandfather’s death having finally widened the focus of her attention. Her voice often softened when she heard mine, and she called me “Buddy,” a nickname she had always resisted. Even so, she was not to be swayed by some idle whim. “May I inquire why you find indoors so preferable to the veranda?” she asked.

  I blamed it on poor Miss Brie, an old lady who often sat rocking with her on the porch. Actually, I had nothing against Miss Brie, although her hair reminded me of those gray pads that are taken out of carpet sweepers. However, she talked a lot, and I claimed she never let me get a word in. While my grandmother met this explanation with quiet irony, she put up no further resistance to our meeting in h
er suite. As soon as I arrived, she would phone room-service, and shortly, a tap on the door would announce Raymond, balancing the heavy tea tray high on one hand, darkly impassive except for the half-hidden glitter of his eyes. My physical response to this glance was irrepressible. The novelist I read so ravenously back then, Thomas Wolfe, called it “a stirring in the loins.” There was no way to hide this phenomenon but to jam my hands in my pockets—perhaps not the easiest way to drink tea.

  But then, nothing about those afternoons was entirely easy. I had hopes of converting Raymond’s silent communication into comfortable small talk, so that eventually he would invite me to a movie or something. To get him started, I asked him what time it was, hoping he would tell me qwatah past four; but he just showed me his wristwatch, and let me draw my own conclusion. Another time, I called him Carlos to force him to correct me. His eyes flashed, but he did not otherwise put me right. Somebody told me that a little honest flattery made a friendship flourish, so I tried that too. “I heard Miss Brie say something very nice about you,” I told him. He paused in passing the plate of cookies and waited for me to continue. “Don’t you want to know what she said?” I baited.

  He looked to my grandmother, and she spoke for him. “Of course he wants to know,” she said, “although I’ve never heard Esther Brie say anything nice about anyone.”

  I quickly made up some compliment about his good posture. I knew it pleased him by the way he stood up even straighter, looking more than ever like a bullfighter; but he did not smile or say thank you. Instead, he made a slight formal bow, and not to me either, but to Grandma Gregg. Only when he finally carried the tea tray out into the hall again, did he flash me a look from under his half-lowered lids, re-establishing contact.

  But was it contact? Suppose it was just my wishful thinking? For all I knew, these seeming signals were just an unconscious mannerism, even a tic, like that joke about the preacher who kept winking at the bride. I had to admit that, except for those searing glances, Raymond had ignored me completely. But maybe, I thought, he was just waiting for me to make the next move. However, I had already exhausted all the next-moves I could think of. Although I had worked hard at getting some genuine bed experience, I still didn’t have much to draw upon. My only conquests had been boys my own age, and even these had been engineered mainly by dares and feigned sleep. Older men—Raymond was at least twenty-five—were in another league entirely, one I knew nothing about.

  It was November before my efforts to be seduced made any headway. Tea was over; my grandmother slipped a tip into Raymond’s hand, clicked shut her purse, and carried it back to her bedroom. Raymond flicked the usual look at me, and, hoisting the tea tray high on one hand, started to leave. Disappointed that he should take so little advantage of our first moment alone, I crossed the room and held the door to the corridor open for him. What happened next, I still have trouble explaining. Maybe while he was eyeing me, he miscalculated his distance. Or as he passed, I may have edged closer so he’d have to squeeze by me. At all events, we got wedged together in the doorway, and his high-held tray started to topple. I reached my free arm up to steady it. “Don’t move!” I cried.

  For an instant, we stood locked together, arms held high, every muscle tensed against a possible cascade of hot tea. He was so close, I could smell the vanilla scent of his hair oil; could feel the imprint of his whole body, belt buckle, macho bulge, and all. Already, he was trying to lower the tray, but I was still straining to hold it up high on my side. This caused the teapot to skitter down the incline. Frantically striving to level things, he thrust his side higher, just as I let mine down, precipitating a reverse rush, and I nearly missed the first words he ever spoke to me: “Leggo da fuckin’ tray!”

  His mouth had mashed against my ear, so I had only to move my head a fraction to meet his lips. And I might have done so too, except that the creamer went hurtling off the tray, and crashed to the floor.

  “What’s that?” my grandmother called from the bedroom. I felt a shock jolt through Raymond. Suddenly wrenching the tray free, scattering spoons and napkins, he made off down the corridor. With a frantic effort to look placid, I turned around as my grandmother swept back into the front room.

  She glanced at the shattered pitcher. “How did that happen?”

  “I don’t know,” I cried.

  Her eyes searched me, and I wondered uneasily if she suspected anything. With her plumb-line posture and proud, impassive face, it was hard to tell what she was thinking. I tried reassuring myself that grandmothers probably didn’t even know about such matters. Yet all too clearly, I could recall overhearing the veranda ladies discussing the King of England’s liaison with Mrs. Simpson. “It all sounds made-up to me,” Miss Brie had argued. “Everyone knows the King is that-way with men.” The other ladies consulted each other over their spectacles. “What does ‘that-way with men’ mean?” one of them asked. My grandmother had not looked up from her embroidery. “Nothing that will change your life, or mine,” she said, crisply ending the discussion.

  So even if she chose not to discuss it with anyone, she was clearly aware of the variations existing outside her sequestered world. I kept turning this fact over in my mind as I headed home that day, and realized that if she was wondering what was going on between Raymond and me, I had better arrange for some kind of cloud-cover.

  Consequently, when I came to see her next, I brought along a girl from my drama class at school. Rosalie was rather fullblown—could have easily passed for twenty, and had carefully cultivated a look that wasn’t quite virginal. For reasons never explained, she wore a riding habit to the hotel, and used an English accent. My grandmother was gracious to her, but clearly thought she was too mature for me. Every time she called me “Buddy,” I felt it was with the intention of making Rosalie feel positively venerable by contrast. I enjoyed myself enormously, however, especially in anticipating Raymond’s arrival. I wanted him to see there was nothing to worry about; that he was in the hands of a master of tact and discretion. But when the tea was brought in that afternoon, the tray was carried by giggly old Carlos.

  And, in fact, with Rosalie or without, every time I went to see my grandmother after that, tea was always brought in by Carlos. I wondered if Grandma had seen the wisdom of separating me and Raymond. If so, it did no good, he was on my mind all the time now. Hours that should have been devoted to homework were given over to daydreams—piction, I called it, a word of my own invention, half picture, half fiction. Sometimes, this was about Raymond’s quick rise to movie stardom, but mostly it was about us being together in Spain. I saw myself helping him to wind into his pink sash before he went into the bull ring. When he acknowledged the cheers of the crowd, his eyes searched the stands to find me. I sailed my hat into the arena. It landed at his feet. Somehow he knew it was mine.

  I fed these images by re-reading Ernest Hemingway’s book about matadors, and got to be quite an authority on waving red capes to make the bull charge. These are called passes, the slow ones being veronicas, and the kind that stops a bull brusquely, recortes. I practiced both with a bath towel after my shower, and the approving smile I saw in the steamed-up mirror was Raymond’s.

  Sun struck with the thought of him, I cut school that Friday morning, and went to the hotel, determined not to give up until we stood reunited. Sneaking in the side door in case my grandmother was sitting on the veranda, I searched the entire first floor, then the second. I didn’t bother with the elevators or main staircase since the staff wasn’t allowed to use them anyway, but tiptoed up and down the uncarpeted back stairs. Time raced along on my expectancy, but it was an hour before I saw him hurrying down a dim corridor, carrying a pressed suit on a hanger. I suddenly had no breath to call out to him; only enough to follow.

  Not until after he had delivered the suit did he realize I was there. For a moment, we just stared at each other. Then, with one of those hot, penetrating looks, he continued quickly down the long passage. Once again, I followed. He did not loo
k back, but paused for an instant every time the hall turned, so I could see which direction he took. It was like the Minotaur’s maze in the Greek myth I’d been taught at school, and I was completely lost by the time he stopped. Unlocking a door, he went inside without knocking. A bedroom, I wondered? An empty bedroom? Heart pounding, I edged closer—touched the brass doorknob, and then with decision, turned it.

  The door opened on a steep flight of stairs, and the air that hit me was stifling. I took a quick breath, and started climbing. The tower room I came up into seemed to be the hotel’s attic. Raymond was examining some piles of dusty furniture, as if they were what he had come here to check on. The stairs creaking beneath my feet surely must have warned him I had followed, and yet he suddenly faced me as if in surprise. “What’cha doin’ up here?”

  My stutter did not really explain. He frowned and came closer. There was no welcome in his voice. “So how come you follow me up here?”

  I could only stare at him. This was not the reunion I had been dreaming of. “Lookin’ for something”?” he persisted.

  “No,” I said, almost inaudibly.

  “Yeh, yeh, yeh,” he jeered. “All winter long, givin’ me looks. What’cha want from me?” My mouth went completely dry. “Huh?” he demanded. “What the fuck do you want?” Suddenly, he thrust his hips forward, and squeezed the front of his trousers. “This?”

  Somehow, I managed a heroic gesture. “This!” I said, and put my hand over his heart.