Wrong Information Is Being Given Out at Princeton

by J. P. Donleavy

  “Well my mother, as a matter of fact, didn’t come from the wrong side. She came from a green field in Ireland and didn’t refer to herself as one. But even when she had her own maid and cook in America, she nearly spent all her time in her kitchen anyway, brushing her hands on her apron.”

  “Hey, that was a pretty kind of menial existence she chose, wasn’t it.”

  “She was domestically dedicated, I suppose. Setting an example for my sisters, who were sometimes helping.”

  “That must have been nice for your father.”

  “Well my father stayed downtown a lot minding his bars but I saw him more than once in the dining room, his head in his hands, wracked with worry with his large family to feed, clothe, and educate.”

  “Hey, tough. Gee, really tough. But I mean, things like bootlegging must have been profitable in the past for him to have built up a nice little equity. But I guess you had to fight against the moral indignity of it.”

  There were times when I thought I should give ole Max a severe kick in the ass. There were plenty of families with far more exalted names and reputations than mine who were bootleggers. But there was no question that without ever wanting them to appear any grander than their circumstances, one always attempted to uphold the reputation of one’s family. And do as Max suggested refer to oneself as one. But now I also hoped the conversation would slow Max’s speed as we roared up Broadway toward Fifty-ninth Street. Max waving back to approving pedestrians who were shouting encouragement at the passing leviathan which was only just miraculously avoiding accidents with screeches of brakes, swerves, and quick acceleration which deaccelerated pronto as a policeman’s whistle blew and pulled us over. And Max, with his usual charm, apologized to Patrolman Richard J. Gallagher, ex-Marine Corps, who after a lecture on the exercise of good manners and civil behavior in a big city let us ex-navy types go.

  “Gee pal, old bean, how do you like that. Now there’s a man who’ll advance in the force, unlike some persnickety bastards. Nice to meet a gentleman member of New York’s finest. But he couldn’t be doing serious police work if he found time to bother to blow his whistle at us.”

  “Well Max, you were doing fifty miles an hour. He should have arrested you. And I’ve still got a little something to live for.”

  “This old baby can do a hundred and fourteen miles an hour, pal. Here we go. Watch.”

  “Max, please, Don’t. I’ve got to maybe see Sylvia’s mother tomorrow and be in one piece.”

  “Hey old buddy boy, why didn’t you say so. You’re going to maybe have a séance with the richest woman in the world. Jesus Christ, that can’t be bad. I’ll slow down for that, pal. We’ll slow down to a crawl. Hey old buddy boy, don’t be coy. You haven’t have you, maybe slipped the old veal to ole Dru. I know mum’s the word. But boy, if that news don’t beat all.”

  “Max, I didn’t say I had.”

  “You don’t have to say anything, pal.”

  In the park, Max mounted on his nag riding away under the trees. In his breeches and leathers, a pink carnation in the buttonhole of his cavalry twill hacking jacket and a white silk cravat secured with a gold pin at his throat. One had somehow to laugh that despite his old warrior-style mahogany topping to his gleaming riding boots he had got made for himself in Paris, one felt he wouldn’t be getting the kind of warm-up equestrian exercise needed for foxhunting while tiptoeing on an ancient swaybacked hack trotting around Central Park. But in the company of a couple of aristocratic Europeans disposed to horse riding, it was obvious he loved the dressing up in the kit. As I agreed to come back and meet him later, he saluted from the peak of his hunting cap, waved and grinned as he rode off and I waved back and headed towards downtown in the park to spend a peaceful time wandering the zoo.

  As the light of the afternoon was fading, I was waiting back at the stables for Max’s return on his nag. He seemed in a distracted mood and one sensed his effort to project his usual bubbling geniality. After driving along Central Park South to his club, a dutiful doorman parked his Bentley leviathan and as we passed through the club doors there was a question raised as to his being properly dressed for admittance. Max showing a surprising degree of irritation at a club contingent of officialdom arriving to pronounce upon his attire as possibly contravening the house dress code.

  “Look here my good fellows, this is in fact my stock I wear at my neck when pursuing the fox. It was recently being worn as a cravat while cantering in the park. But I earnestly assure you, will in fact, as you now see me retie it, become a tie to be worn when this very evening I change into the suit in my locker to dine with my good friend here. Count Alfonso Stephen O’Kelly’O.”

  As other club members were now pausing in the lobby to listen to the sartorial difficulty, the spokesman for the contingent ruling on house dress rules finally agreed that Max was dignified enough to be allowed to enter in order to cross the lobby to the elevator in order to rise to change into other clothes kept in his locker. And so booted and accoutred, Max marched clicking his heels, to the elevator where the grinning white-gloved operator welcomed him aboard to ascend. Everywhere we went up and down and through the vast halls of this palace dedicated to great achievement in sport, there came a litany of greeting for Max. “Hi ya there fella, old sport. How ya doin’, pal. Play any badminton lately…. Yeah pal, had a great game.” In the baths, a marble empire of tile and dressing booths housing the swimming pool, it was an oasis from the city where we steamed, showered, and swam. Sun-lamps, hot rooms, spout rooms, and massage chamber. Stacks of sheets to wrap in, and towels to dry on.

  “You see pal, ole buddy boy, this is where you can daily escape from your troubles. Find yourself an ole deck chair here. Wrap up in a few sheets and towels. Go out like a light, asleep for a while. I’ll get us a couple of cooling drinks to slake the ole thirst while we lie back and luxuriate.”

  While Max went for a rubdown, I nodded off into sleep in a steamer chair to the sound of splashing water and a couple of nearby club philosophers discussing Nietzsche. When I woke, Max was standing there wrapped in a towel, staring down at me. Then his name paged, Max disappeared for a long time to the telephone as the water-polo team plunged through the waves and then did a strange waving arm dance back and forth in the pool. When Max returned, he seemed wreathed in worry and continued distracted as we descended by marble stairs to an oak-paneled room for beers and had slabs of roast beef as our evening appetizers. A mural of a fox hunt behind the bar to which Max brought notice.

  “Well pal, there may not be much of that ole foxhunting anymore for yours truly. This tonight could be the last supper. Judas Iscariot is doing his worst. But come on. Let’s go get dinner. Later, I’ll take you on a tour.”

  We took the elevator up to the splendor of the chandeliered dining room with its great windows looking out over the park’s trees all the way to Harlem fifty-one city blocks away. Over big rare porterhouse steaks, we quaffed Burgundy along with baked potatoes and the club’s homemade bread, apple pie and ice cream. Then Max brought me visiting the endless sporting facilities, from the basement bowling alleys to the rooftop solarium, twenty-four stories up in the sky. Together we stared out into the downtown distance at this city’s bright lights illuminating its dark shadows. Come to New York where no one knows you. The mystery within the thousands of anonymous windows. Then descending on the elevator to the hall of athletic fame. Each time the white-gloved elevator operator saluting Max.

  “There you go Admiral, second floor.”

  Max in his gray pinstripe Savile Row suit, silk shirt and dark blue striped tie, saluting back as we step out into this grand hall of athletic honor. Photographs of the legendary in track and field. Oarsmen, boxers, fencers, wrestlers and even badminton players. After viewing the glass cases of medals and trophies, we ascended again to have our brandy and cigars in the billiard room. And it was only when we were parting that I got the first hint of why Max was so deeply preoccupied.

  “Well pal, drop you off down
town. You know, sometimes these lawyers get you down. Pal, what does an honorable man do when he is surrounded by those dishonorable. Sons of bitches close in on you with a bunch of goddamn fabrications and falsehoods, trying to traduce one’s character and slice up what’s left of one’s assets. What do you say I leave it that I give you an ole tinkle real soon.”

  The tinkle from Max never came, as I could not afford to get the phone reconnected. But I learned, calling his Wall Street office that a few days later Max was arrested, arraigned and incarcerated in alimony jail. After a few hours of trying from the nearest local bar, I was finally able to talk to him on the telephone and I felt it were as if I were listening to voices singing the line “O hear us when we cry to thee for those in peril on the sea” from the navy hymn.

  “Gee Max, they got you.”

  “Yeah pal, but I wouldn’t quite put it like that, as if I were a fugitive or something. I come from a tough city of graft, corruption and with a fine history of bootlegging and I think I can hold my own in here with television, Ping-Pong and door instead of bars on the rooms where you sleep. Better than being in the navy, pal. Can even play handball on the roof. In fact, I’ve never met a nicer bunch of human beings in my life. And great to listen to all these guys swearing that not even over their dead bodies would they pay their wives a cent. But as reasonable as this place is where they’ve got me and these warders treat you pretty good, I do get my down moments. But I tell you this, I am goddamned if I’m going to be sentenced to a lifetime of paying alimony to two goddamn cheating women and be accused of being a fortune-hunting crook by one of them.”

  “Gee Max, is there anything I can do to help. Maybe see if everything is all right in the apartment.”

  “Thanks pal, but that Chinese family that does my laundry just down the street—I did them a few favors and they have the key and are taking care of it.”

  There was something deep and awfully unconditional in Max’s words which were like those said to the surrendering nations in the war. Meanwhile I suggested I went to make sure the key was in good hands and that Max’s plants were watered and his collection of seashells dusted. But later that day, talking again to Max, he said Ertha’s lawyers had got repossession of the apartment. I made arrangements to visit Max in the alimony jail which he said was a four-story redbrick building at 434 West Thirty-seventh Street and stuck between a loft and garage. I also phoned Dru from a Bowery bar and in some concern that I would have the husband, instead of Gilbert, the butler answering. She seemed more than matter-of-fact and cool. Said she was concerned as to where Sylvia was and if I had seen her and I could hardly make sense of what she next said.

  “Having learned some manners and honorable behavior while briefly at Miss Hewitt’s on Seventy-fifth Street as well as that Manhattan Island is built on jagged gneiss, I fear one finds one must work far too hard to avoid giving the impression of a frivolous, carefree existence. Or, in this case, of an illicit one. Sylvia knows about you and me, and I do hope you haven’t, as someone has, been indiscreet.”

  “No, ma’am, to no one. Can I see you.”

  “I’m afraid that I’m not so sure you can.”

  Dru having mentioned honorable behavior and manners, I thought of Syracuse and my long-lost friend of childhood who said it was bad manners to go to someone’s house and stay as a guest and blow your nose in their sheets. It was also dishonorable to take away small mementos which could rank as theft. Or to put a final shine on your shoe tips with one of their towels. But Dru’s frosty voice held some other message she had decided not yet to tell me. The phone clicked off as all kinds of agonizing jealousies awakened. The memory of that room and her wonderful body. Her ass could smile at you. Her delicate touches of kisses. Her proffered warmth and affection. Even the goddamn snakes and the veiled suggestion I fuck her in a coffin. Which I earnestly assume was not meant to be closed. How many other men have been there with her brought in that black door and across that tiled floor and up that curving staircase. Taking off their clothes, pulling off their belts swatting her on the ass as she enticed with compliments their pricks into her. Rolling over on the buzzer that rattles the rattle of the rattlesnake and sends a shiver of fear through you and maybe even rattles your bones. And thousands of miles away on the coast of Africa there must have been black gentlemen fucking her on the beach. Or who knows, deep in the jungle, writhing around in the undergrowth with black mambas and crocodiles. I looked up gneiss in the dictionary and found it was metamorphic rock of coarse grain. And at least it was nice to know what held up all the skyscrapers of New York so that they wouldn’t suddenly all keel over on each other or start to lean like the leaning tower of Pisa. Hanging up the phone in this bar with sawdust on the floor and two other customers, I bought a beer. And nearly had a fight with a barfly accusing me of being unfriendly when I didn’t speak when spoken to. And in exasperation, I said, “Fella, if I were unfriendly, I would have already knocked you off that fucking stool into next week.” The bartender then got unfriendly and ran out from behind the bar. And reaching out to grab me, I grabbed him. And with my thumbs sinking into his biceps, paralyzed his arms. When he agreed that I was strong and could kill him, I let him go and walked out. Max’s company gone. Dru frosty and remote. Sylvia vanished. Step over these alcohol-sodden bodies stretched out across the sidewalk. Wondering who might have been a college president or a stockbroker. Return to Pell Street. Through these ancient pathways of this city. Past the oldest pharmacy in America, where, when I can afford to, I buy their toothpaste. Could, when my own days are numbered, be one of those downtrodden. Without a dream nor hope left. Instead of white-haired, standing on a podium into a venerable old age. Adored by the audience. Who, hushed, await my baton raised to signal the orchestra to begin. Let the music of great composers banish away the treacherous gloom. Elevate, cheer and glorify the wonder of sounds that exalt the soul.

  Into this familiar doorway of Pell Street. This musty stale smell. Collect the unwelcome mail. Not a single hint of a friend on a single envelope. Push open the door into the staircase hall. A crouched form looming up. The glint of a knife blade. A black visage in the darker dark. The navy taught you to look in the nighttime a few degrees above what you were trying to see.

  “You white motherfucking cocksucker, fuck my woman. I’m going to kill you.”

  A shadow coming into the light. Sidestep a flick knife jabbed out at my solar plexus. Draw in the stomach. Blazing hatred in the eyes of this black face. Aspasia’s boyfriend. Last heard of as a prisoner on Rikers Island. Former dumping ground of refuse and dirt from subway excavations. Subterranean fires smoldering in the rubbish, overrun by rats. Has the city’s largest venereal disease clinic. This son of a bitch now released or escaped. Could have, before any shark got him, swum across the bay, knife between his teeth. And on the map when I was looking to see how safe I was from the marauder, if he swam north, he would have landed on a piece of shore, a peninsula of land called Casanova. Get a hold of his goddamn wrist. Twist the knife out of his hand. The fucker’s strong. But my piano-playing exercised fingers are stronger. Just like the Gothic arches of masonry of the Brooklyn Bridge which hold its great cables. As I make you, you son of a bitch, drop this goddamn knife. Kick it along the hall as I get hit on the jaw. Heave a left into this bastard’s ribs. With all the fluent force practiced in all the amateur nights in which I boxed. Send a straight right into his face for good measure. The soft warm taste of blood. My teeth cut into my jaw. Hit him again. Tough son of a bitch won’t go down. Wham, bam. Hit him again. And again. He’s down. Got me by the legs. I’m down. Son of a bitch like a snake. Around my back, trying to get an arm across my throat and hold me in a scissors with his legs. Reach my leg over his crossed ankles. Arch my back in the wrestler’s grapevine. Make his ankle ligaments stretch and snap as he screams in agony. Tear away the arm around my throat. Get loose. Elbow him in the guts for good measure. Grab the knife off the floor. He’s up. Limping and making for the door.


  “You white mother fucking cocksucker. I’m going to come back and fix you.”

  “I’ll kill you if you do.”

  The front door slams. Time to get the hell out of here. And miles away. Before I get a bullet or blade into my guts. Mayham on every side. Escape away into all the anonymity I can muster. Feel for stab wounds and loose teeth. Choking dust in my lungs. Should go after him with the knife. Kill him now, before he comes back, along with a gang. And guns. Plead self-defense so that I don’t go to Sing Sing to the electric chair. The electrodes strapped on as you sit staring in the direction of an audience that maybe you can’t see but who goddamn well want to see you contort and fry. Smoke come up out of your head. And the smell not be as appetizing as toasted bacon. No one rich has ever gone to the electric chair. Means I’ll always be first in line to get my spinal cord melted. And hear them say, Well, bud, you’re paying the price of being poor, so we’re pulling the switch. Marvelous as Aspasia was as a fuck and singer, I can’t feel, without further sampling and verification, that she’s worth dying for, except that there’s no question this guy thinks she is. The sooner I get to somewhere like Montana with only grizzly bears, wildcats, rattlesnakes and mountain lions to worry about, the better.

  Stephen O’Kelly’O slowly climbing back to the apartment. Up the stairs creaking one by one. Pain in odd places. The door splintered and jammed. The bastard must have tried to break in. Push it open with a shoulder. Close, lock, and latch it. After the battle. Sit down and rest. All the symphonies that I might now never write. Instead of soaring passages of musical triumph, nothing now but risks of death and awful despair. Just as I was once, unwanted, turned away from joining the school choir. Because of a lack of serious intent. Which wasn’t true. Sat on the steps outside the door where they practiced and rehearsed. Tears falling on the back of my hands as I listened to their voices. The same hands now with a knife cut on the side of my thumb. Blood spattered. As this city now begins to haunt. With Max arrested. Sylvia gone. And she said once when leaving, “One of these times we say good-bye will be the last time we say good-bye. Good-bye.”