Wrong Information Is Being Given Out at Princeton

by J. P. Donleavy

  “Well Max, looking around here you sure pass inspection. And I am both relieved and impressed that your return to bachelorhood could possibly have demonstrated such endearingly soothing aspects.”

  “Yeah, old pal. Old bachelorhood ain’t half-bad. No nagging. No goddamn bossing around. No whining, no bitching, no sulking. No immense surprise sprung on you every time you turn around. Just deliciously soothing tea like now and wonderful conversation. But hey, Steve old boy, my good pal, I’m sorry to hear about you and Sylvia, I really am.”

  “What have you heard.”

  “That she took off. But at least you know in the crunch, you don’t have any worries.”

  “What crunch.”

  “You know, like a divorce.”

  “Why don’t I have any worries.”

  “Well, I mean like alimony. A vise clamping closed on your short hairs, you complain, you squeal, you shout, but which holds you in pain for the rest of your natural life. But you know that can’t happen to you. Just look at who your in-laws are. Imagine, if it ever comes to that, information like that getting out in a divorce court and blaring all over in newspaper headlines.”

  “What information.”

  “Don’t be naïve, Steve. The amount of old moola of course. That kind of publicity gets a real play and goes everywhere. In fact, who do you know thinks of anything else except how much money somebody else has got.”

  “Well, I’d like to know what kind of publicity you’re talking about and where everywhere is, because I don’t know who has ever heard of the Witherspoon Triumphington’s for anyone to care. And if they did, what difference is that going to make that my adoptive father-in-law is a tightwad. He cut off Sylvia’s allowance as soon as we got married.”

  “Steve, I don’t mean him, I mean her. I mean, look when that comes out, at who she is.”

  “Well, I already know who she is. She’s a very fine and a very beautiful lady.”

  “Hey come on Steve, you don’t have to hide anything from me.”

  “I’m not hiding anything.”

  “Well, for God’s sake, you must know from Sylvia.”

  “What should I know from Sylvia.”

  “That her adoptive mother is known, at least among New York’s best society, as being one of the richest women in America. And probably in the world. Compared to her, the tightwad husband, who maybe has some sort of past celebrated lineage plus a few horses and polo ponies, and plays court tennis at the Racquet and Tennis Club, and goes salmon fishing on the Spey and fly-fishing in Finland and quail shooting in Georgia, he hasn’t got a penny. Never had. In fact, it’s probably all her fishing tackle and they’re probably her horses and polo ponies.”

  “How do you know all this.”

  “From Ertha, for a start. I know. Practically everything about the family. I mean she practically lived with Sylvia for a while in their place upstate. I’m amazed you don’t know. Sylvia had a little doll’s house in the woods where they would stay together. Sure, the two of them were sleeping together. I mean, they’re only part-time lesbians. If it’s really true you don’t know who’s got the money.”

  “Hey, what are you trying to say, that Sylvia is a lesbian.”

  “Hey, Steve, old pal. I’m just relating facts. No need to get hot under the collar, ole pal.”

  “Well, if I don’t happen to know any of these so-called facts, and even if I did, I don’t see why it should be anybody else’s business.”

  “Hey, come on Steve, who wouldn’t know these things in a world where that’s what people live and breathe on such information. I mean, shit, boy, Sylvia was raised as if, and thinking she was their natural daughter. You can bet you were checked out sixteen different ways from Sunday. I mean, I don’t know exactly what Sylvia inherits, but it’s enough anyway that they thought they had a slick fortune hunter on their hands when they found there were traces of bootlegging in your family background.”

  “I categorically deny and resent deeply that aspersion.”

  “It’s only what I was told, Steve, for God’s sake. But I mean, if you make enough at bootlegging it nearly becomes respectable. But then when you tried shaking down old Triumphington in one of his clubs for a handout, the alarm bells started to ring.”

  “Hey, what the hell are you trying to say.”

  “Hey Steve, old pal, don’t go white as a sheet. Sorry, that’s the news I got. Not that you were blackmailing or anything. What the hell, bootlegging could have meant that your family were goddamn rich. I mean, look at the big recent rubouts in this city by the guys who were once bootleggers. There must have been enormous profits somewhere once for the guys to be behaving so seriously. Here, have more tea. Gee pal, last thing I want to do is hurt your feelings. That’s what I’m saying. There’s so much money involved. Just from the inner workings of Wall Street and from my own brokerage house you’d know how much. All very confidential, but a senior partner buys and sells on Sylvia’s mother’s behalf. And boy, if that ole gal doesn’t know how to trade. Some of this stuff involves trust funds so massive, you wouldn’t believe. Then there’s a banking guy who manages a petty-cash account for her in one of their banks. Where the petty cash is in seven figures. A little munificence in a creative cause would be nothing. You see what I mean. Take it from a former second class yeoman.”

  “Well, I know for a fact she’s terrified of even spending a dollar, but I think it’s all an outrageous invasion of someone’s privacy, including my own.”

  “You know, old buddy boy, how some people, especially an Episcopalian like myself, feel about the general Irish. Goddamn famine and all that. Eating the green grass by the side of the road when they were tossed out of their hovels. Dying like flies. And ever since, that terrible stuff has been engraved, so to speak, on their behavior. And going after the main financial chance is the Irish ethic. They’d do anything to get their hands on money.”

  “I resent that aspersion also. My parents honestly sweated and slaved so that they could give their children a decent, honest upbringing.”

  “Okay. Okay. Steve, I don’t mean you. You’re the lace-curtain variety. I’m just giving a whole bunch of hypotheticals. But I always assumed you were on easy street.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “Hey, we’re still good old friends, ole pal, aren’t we. And are going to stay that way and not let somebody else’s unbelievable riches come between us. Gosh almighty, meeting someone like you in the navy, out of about three thousand men aboard ship with whom I had no mutual cultural interests or who even knew who Shakespeare was, nearly saved my life. I would have gone nuts, which, I don’t mind admitting I nearly did pretend I was for a while, hoping for a medical discharge. And remember, you did save my life. I could have been beaten to death after that big crap game when that son of a big bitch lost that fortune, thinking I was using loaded dice, when all it was was that I was just lucky, like I usually am. Here, old pal, let’s top up the old tea and have another scone.”

  “I’ll have another scone. I may need money, and have a desire to have funds, but I’m not a fortune hunter nor am I ever going to sue anyone for their money.”

  “Of course you’re not, friend. Who knows better about something like that than me. Who said anything like that, anyway. It’s not your fault that with your mother-in-law there’s big money, with millions and millions around. And I apologize if I sometimes sound cynical. But you just name where it’s warm and culturally pleasant and boy, you find out they got a place there.”

  “Well from my it seems limited informed knowledge, I only know of two.”

  “Pal, well then you don’t know. There’s an estate in Palm Beach. Apartments in Paris and Rome. I know for sure there’s a house on the Riviera. Ranches out west, Utah, Oklahoma. Even a big section of Montana. They got something going even in Alaska.”

  Unless old Maximilian Avery Gifford is acting in a deranged manner, with dreams of another’s untold grandeur, a brand-new bombshell exploding. The suffoeatin
g smell of cordite. Holy cow. Old Dru from being rich to now being unbelievably rich. How rich is unbelievable. Bigger than the largest mountain. The gold hidden deep in a secret cavern underneath. Fall helpless into the soft-cushioned abyss of another’s affluence. As lethal as it could be luxuriously sweet. In which one could suffocate in the sickly fumes of the most fragrant perfume. To get my moral, if not physical ass broken and my dignity mangled. But I suppose could also make fainter the echoing sound of Sylvia’s jeers. I should have realized the vast dimensions of her contempt when she would say things like “Hey, you’re going to be wiped out with an obscurity so great and complete, you simply didn’t exist.” Well, that may be so, except now I’m at least in good company, along with maybe the richest woman in America.

  “Hey, old pal, I can see I’m subjecting you to discomfort. What do you say we change the subject.”

  “I already thought I had indicated to change the subject.”

  “Sure. So let me ask. You’re still at the old composing, Steve.”

  “Yes. It so happens.”

  “What are you working on now, maestro.”

  “Do I assume you’re really interested to know.”

  “Of course I am, old buddy boy, Steve.”

  “Well, I am composing a minuet.”

  “Hey that’s great. Really great. I don’t know what the hell a minuet is. But I mean, it must be tough on the old mental process.”

  “Well, I suppose it contains passages which in experimenting with a jazz cadence and blues motif, might be thought daringly modernistic. I’m also considering working on an operetta. Putting together music with overtones of the Civil War, songs like ‘Loreno’ and tunes reminiscent of that awful conflict.”

  “What about ‘Marching Through Georgia,’ pal.”

  “Although I am against the concept of slavery, I’ve got to say I am on the cultural side of the gentlemen of the Confederacy and all their descendants and that particular piece of music.”

  “Well, pal, that march was sure admired by the North.”

  “As were many people who were scoundrels and despots during the Civil War.”

  “You said it, pal. But in your chosen profession, don’t musical matters take precedence over things like geographic patriotic partiality.”

  “Yes they should, but not cause anyone pain or aggrievement. Such as the spiritual wonderment which can be obtained from hearing a thousand voices thundering out, singing from the very bottom of their gladdening hearts.”

  “Jesus, pal. You really do don’t you, feel strongly and take your work seriously.”

  “Yes, I apologize for my showing sentiment like this.”

  “Pal, only a true man has courage to show his tears. Here, a handkerchief clean-laundered. That’s what I always admire about you guys who create. And gee pal, let me say it sincerely. No one can say you ain’t got virtuosity. And I know one day when your name is up there with the greats, I’ll be bragging saying I knew you. But hey. Just coming down to earth for a second, I mean, are you going to make any goddamn money out of tinkling the old ivories. I mean real money.”

  “There is an answer to that. Short and not so sweet. The answer is no.”

  “Well, that’s honest. But hey, gee pal, that could be tough. I guess you could if there’s no crunch and there comes a sort of reconciliation, lean a little bit financially on Sylvia.”

  “I’m not going to lean financially upon anybody.”

  “Well from my recent point of view, old pal, that’s goddamn sensible. And you know old friend, in the matter of being honest, as much as I love this great country of ours, I’ll be damned if I approve of the kind of women it’s producing these days. Maybe it’s just as well two good-looking, personable guys like us didn’t get mixed up in marriage forever with two old lesbian witches skulking around us for the rest of our lives. God forbid we should have also ended up having children. What’s the matter, pal. Did I say something wrong.”

  “No. But I have feelings. My marriage was important. Sylvia’s life is her own to do with what she will, and I’m not going to judge her. Even though she thumbed her nose at me and my music.”

  “Well sure, okay friend, having got that off your chest. And I guess we’ve had a real heart-to-heart talk here, which in a small way indicates what we do in mapping out a little bit of the future of our lives. I mean, we can’t go repeat what stupid stuff we did in the past. I got a couple of good little old clubs up there on Central Park. In one of them you can play squash and chess and swim in the same building and while you sleep, get your suit pressed, shirt laundered, missing buttons sewn on, then drink and eat, play billiards and then go bowling. Wait, that’s not all. You repair to the sportsman’s bar. You order a beer, sign a chit. About just before six o’clock, two chefs appear in the bar and on a couple of big tables they’ve got a baron of beef and a massive ham and bowls of gravy and slices of various breads. At your request, they carve off slabs to your delectation. Gratis and entirely on the house. And you come back for more if you want. I mean goddamn well free of charge. So if you’re short of a couple of bucks, you don’t have to go out to a Horn and Hardart, and you’re fed for nothing. What about the sound of two big slabs of the best roast beef gracing a plate. Rare and swimming in great gravy and on rye bread. How about that I propose you for membership, old buddy.”

  “It doesn’t sound like I could afford it.”

  “Hey, you can afford to keep in good physical shape while everybody else is falling apart in this town. Hey friend, I can advance you the initiation fee. Then when you’re squared away why not the two of us look up some of these charity benefit affairs where they have cotillion dances. I mean, hell boy, get out there. Meet some new women. Anticipation is the spice of life, old fella. I joined one of those smaller clubs they got over there on the Fifth Avenue side of the park. We got to live for ourselves for a change and get something more than we’ve been getting out of life. Let’s not kid ourselves. We’ve been ditched. At least I have, by the richer, the higher and mightier. Even so, and even if we go half nuts in this town, what’s stopping us still wearing the mast of sanity. I mean, God, did you see the whole front page of the goddamn paper, some guy waving a knife, looking to kill someone he said was inside a house on Fifth Avenue, right by the club I joined.”

  “Yes, I saw that. It’s an outrageous disgrace.”

  “Well old buddy boy, we’ve been really having a philosophical talk. Just like we used to do those off-duty times half-going Asiatic out there in the Pacific. And you know pal, just between you and me, I sometimes think what a damn fool I’ve been. I had a good ole heiress girlfriend from childhood in Chicago I could have tied the knot with. They had an estate right on the lake shore, her family had a big engineering business. Straight away I could have slotted in somewhere near the top. Isn’t that the problem being a damn fool. And the solution. It’s simple. Stop being a damn fool. Right.”

  “Max, I think you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right. I still got some good connections from out Chicago way and my club out there. But leave your options open and be ready is my motto. Here. I’m going to go right now and break out a bottle of the pretty decent champagne I got waiting right in there in the refrigerator. A little bit of the old Charlie Heidsieck. You’ll take a glass of the good old bubbly.”

  “Yes, I should enjoy and very much like to.”

  “Attaboy. Only thing wrong in this apartment is, with no room in the kitchen, the decent-size refrigerator I need, I’ve got to keep out here in the living room. Tomorrow’s Saturday. No goddamn office in the morning. Hell, why don’t we just go out and celebrate in this city where they keep bragging that they got the world’s tallest building. That Chicago is one day, I promise you, going to end up building. Let’s go uptown over there to the old Waldorf or even better the old Biltmore, where they keep the women out of the gentlemen-only bar, and knock back a few. All on me, pal. Find a couple of bimbos for ourselves. I feel better already. Boy, it’
s sure nice to see you again, pal. Untwist the old wire on the champers. Pop the old cork. Take these two tulip glasses I got polished ready and waiting and fill them up. Put the bottle in an ice bucket. Here we go. Your good health.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much. And to your good health, friend.”

  “Steve, get yourself a couple of good shotguns made, old buddy boy. Some tweeds. Plus twos. Plus threes. I’ll tell you the name of a good tailor over there in London on Savile Row. British quality is what you want these days old bean. Like my Bentley four-and-a-half-liter Tourer, vintage 1930, I got sitting over there on Eleventh Street in a garage. Drove it, the top down, the breeze blowing through my hair, all the way from River Oaks Houston to New York. Nicest two weeks ever had in my life. Have me a big steak and few beers every night. Talk with the townsfolk. Always be the volunteer fire department guys sitting around bullshitting outside their fire station. Went via New Orleans—what a town, boy, for some pretty pleasant evil, if that’s what you’re looking for. Then north through Vicksburg, Memphis, Nashville, then detoured a little south again to Chattanooga. Now there’s a decent little old town. Had a couple of names and addresses with me. And, without repercussions, holed up with a nice little ole gal from Knoxville. What a gal. From a damn good family. She wanted to tag along. But I was traveling light. Now that I think of it I should have let her. But sent her back home on a train before heading across those Appalachian Mountains to Lynchburg, then on to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York. Now how do you like that, isn’t that champagne really something.”

  “Hey Max, the champagne is really wonderful.”

  “Well old bean, I also got me laid down some good old port with a London wine merchant over there.”

  “Max, as much as I should like to adapt to this quality-first manner of living, I think I got to wait a brief while with these kind of plans. I can’t even afford to buy new underwear or socks.”