by Tom Wolfe
“Now, I know we’ve heard certain things about the personal history of Herbert 92X,” said Kramer, facing the jury, “and here Herbert 92X sits today, in this courtroom.” Unlike Teskowitz, Kramer threw the name Herbert 92X into almost every sentence, until he began to sound like a sci-fi movie robot. Then he pivoted and lowered his head and stared Herbert in the face and said, “Yes, here is Herbert 92X…in perfect health!…full of energy!…ready to return to the streets and resume his life, in the Herbert 92X style which involves carrying a concealed unlicensed illegal .38-caliber revolver!”
Kramer looked Herbert 92X in the eye. He was now barely ten feet away from him, and he hurled health, energy, and resume in his teeth, as if he personally was ready to remove the man’s health, energy, and potential for the resumption of a workaday life or life of any sort, for that matter, with his bare hands. Herbert was not one to shrink from a challenge. He contemplated Kramer with a cool smile on his face that as much as said, “Just keep on talking, sucker, because I’m going to count to ten and then…squash you.” To the jurors—to her—Herbert must have looked as if he was close enough to reach out and throttle him and, on top of that, eager to throttle him. That didn’t worry Kramer. He was backed up by three court officers who were already in high spirits from the thought of the overtime pay they would be getting for the evening’s work. So let Herbert sit there in his Arab outfit and look as tough as he wants! The tougher Herbert looked in the eyes of the jury, the better it was for Kramer’s case. And the more dangerous he looked in the eyes of Miss Shelly Thomas—the more heroic the aura of the fearless young prosecutor!
The truly incredulous person was Teskowitz. His head was going back and forth slowly, like a lawn sprinkler. He couldn’t believe the performance he was witnessing. If Kramer was going after Herbert this way in this piece a shit, what the hell would he do if he had a real killer on his hands?
“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” said Kramer, turning back toward the jury but remaining just as close to Herbert, “it is my duty to speak for someone who is not sitting before us in this courtroom, because he was struck down and killed by a bullet from a revolver in the possession of a man he had never seen before in his life, Herbert 92X. I would remind you that the issue in this trial is not the life of Herbert 92X but the death of Nestor Cabrillo, a good man, a good citizen of the Bronx, a good husband, a good father…of five children…cut down in the prime of his life because of Herbert 92X’s arrogant belief…that he is entitled to conduct his business with a concealed, unlicensed, illegal .38-caliber revolver in his possession…”
Kramer let his eyes grace each juror, one by one. But at the end of each orotund period they came to rest upon her. She was sitting next to the end on the left side in the second row, and so it was a little awkward, perhaps even a little obvious. But life is short! And, my God!—such a flawless white face!—such a luxurious corona of hair!—such perfect lips with brown lipstick! And such an admiring gleam did he now detect in those big brown eyes! Miss Shelly Thomas was roaring drunk, high on crime in the Bronx.
Out on the sidewalk, Peter Fallow could see the cars and taxis speeding uptown on West Street. Christ God, how he longed to be able to crawl into a taxi and go to sleep until he reached Leicester’s. No! What was he thinking? No Leicester’s tonight; not a drop of alcohol in any form. Tonight he was going straight home. It was getting dark. He’d give anything for a taxi…to curl up in a taxi and go to sleep and head straight home…But the ride would be nine or ten dollars, and he had less than seventy-five dollars to last him until payday, which was next week, and in New York seventy-five dollars was nothing, a mere sigh, a deep breath, a passing thought, a whim, a snap of the fingers. He kept looking at the front entrance to the City Light building, which was a dingy Moderne tower from the 1920s, hoping to spot some American from the newspaper with whom he could share a taxi. The trick was to find out where the American was heading and then to pick out some destination four or five blocks short of there and announce that as one’s own destination. No American had the nerve to ask one to share the cost of the ride under those circumstances.
After a bit there emerged an American named Ken Goodrich, the City Light’s director of marketing, whatever in God’s name marketing was. Did he dare once more? He had already hitched rides with Goodrich twice in the past two months, and the second time Goodrich’s delight over the opportunity to converse with an Englishman on the ride uptown had been considerably less intense; considerably. No, he did not dare. So he girded his loins for the eight-block walk to City Hall, where he could catch the Lexington Avenue subway.
This old part of lower Manhattan emptied out quickly in the evenings, and as Fallow trudged along in the gloaming he felt increasingly sorry for himself. He searched his jacket pocket to see if he had a subway token. He did, and this provoked a depressing recollection. Two nights ago at Leicester’s he had reached into his pocket to give Tony Moss a quarter for a telephone call—he wanted to be big about the quarter, because he was beginning to get a reputation as a cadger even among his fellow countrymen—and he produced a handful of change, and right there, among the dimes, quarters, nickels, and pence, were two subway tokens. He felt as if the entire table was staring at them. Certainly Tony Moss saw them.
Fallow had no physical fear of riding the New York subways. He fancied himself a rugged fellow, and in any case, nothing untoward had ever befallen him in the Underground. No, what he feared—and it amounted to a true fear—was the squalor. Heading down the stairs of the City Hall subway station with all these dark shabby people was like descending, voluntarily, into a dungeon, a very dirty and noisy dungeon. Grimy concrete and black bars were everywhere, cage after cage, level upon level, a delirium seen through black bars in every direction. Every time a train entered or left the station there was an agonized squeal of metal, as if some huge steel skeleton were being pried apart by a lever of incomprehensible power. Why was it that in this gross fat country, with its obscene heaps of wealth and its even more obscene obsession with creature comforts, they were unable to create an Underground as quiet, orderly, presentable, and—well—decent as London’s? Because they were childish. So long as it was underground, out of sight, it didn’t matter what it was like.
Fallow was able to get a seat at this hour, if a space on a narrow plastic bench could be called a seat. Before him were spread the usual grim riot of graffiti, the usual dark shabby people with their gray and brown clothes and their sneakers—except for a pair just across from him, a man and a boy. The man, who was probably in his forties, was short and plump. He was wearing a tasteful and expensive-looking gray chalk-stripe suit, a crisp white shirt, and, for an American, a discreet necktie. He also wore a pair of trim, well-made, well-shined black shoes. American men usually destroyed otherwise presentable ensembles by wearing bulky, big-soled, badly kept shoes. (They seldom saw their own feet, and so, being childish, scarcely bothered about what was on them.) Between his feet was an obviously expensive dark leather attaché case. He was leaning over to talk into the ear of the boy, who appeared to be eight or nine years old. The boy wore a navy school blazer, a white button-down shirt, and a striped necktie. Still talking to the boy, the man cast his eyes here and there and gestured with his right hand. Fallow figured that here was a man who worked on Wall Street who had had his son down to his office for a visit and was now giving him a ride on the subway and was pointing out the arcana of this rolling dungeon.
Absentmindedly he watched the two of them, as the train picked up speed and settled into the rocking lurching roaring momentum of the trip uptown. Fallow could see his own father. A poor little weed, a sad little fellow, was all he had turned out to be, a poor little weed who had had a son named Peter, a poor little failure who sat there amid his bohemian props in a tumble-down house in Canterbury…And what am I, thought Fallow, sitting in this rolling dungeon in this insane city in this lunatic country? Longing for a drink, longing for a drink…Another swell of despair rolled over him…H
e looked down at his lapels. He could see them shining even in this miserable light. He had slid…below bohemian…The dread word popped into his head: seedy.
The subway stop at Lexington Avenue and Seventy-seventh Street was dangerously close to Leicester’s. But that was no problem. Peter Fallow was no longer going to play that game. As he reached the top of the stairs and stepped onto the sidewalk in the twilight, he summoned the scene up into his mind, merely for the purpose of proving to himself his resolve and rejecting it. The old wood, the frosted-glass lamps, the lights from the well behind the bar and the way it lit up the rows of bottles, the pubby crush of people, the roaring hearth of their voices—their voices—English voices…Perhaps if he just had an orange juice and ginger ale and fifteen minutes of English voices…No! He would be firm.
Now he was in front of Leicester’s, which to the innocent passerby no doubt looked like just another cozy East Side bistro or trattoria. Between the old-fashioned mullions of the panes he could see all the cozy faces clustered at the tables by the windows, cozy happy white faces lit up by rosy amber lamps. That did it. He needed solace and an orange juice and ginger ale and English voices.
As one enters Leicester’s, from Lexington Avenue, one finds himself in a room full of tables with red-checked cloths, in the bistro fashion. Along one wall runs a big saloon bar with a brass foot rail. Off to one side is a smaller dining room. In this room, under the window that looks out on Lexington Avenue, is a table around which eight or ten people can be crammed, assuming they are convivial. By unspoken custom this has become the English table, a kind of club table where, in the afternoon and early evening, the Brits—members of the London bon ton now living in New York—come and go, to have a few…and hear English voices.
The voices! The hearth was already roaring as Fallow walked in.
“Hello, Peter!”
It was Grillo, the American, standing among the crowd at the bar. He was an amusing fellow, and friendly, but Fallow had had enough of America for one day. He smiled and sang out “Hello, Benny!” and headed straight for the side room.
Tony Moss was at the Table; and Caroline Heftshank; and Alex Britt-Withers, who owned Leicester’s; and St. John Thomas, the museum director and (on the QT) art dealer; and St. John’s boyfriend, Billy Cortez, a Venezuelan who had gone to Oxford and might as well have been English; and Rachel Lampwick, one of Lord Lampwick’s two remittance daughters in New York; and Nick Stopping, the Marxist journalist—Stalinist was more like it—who lived chiefly on articles flattering the rich in House & Garden, Art & Antiques, and Connoisseur. Judging by the glasses and bottles, the Table had been in session for some time, and pretty soon they would be looking for a fish, unless Alex Britt-Withers, the owner—but no, Alex never forgave the tab.
Fallow sat down and announced that he was turning over a new leaf and wanted only an orange juice with ginger ale. Tony Moss wanted to know if this meant he had stopped drinking or stopped paying. Fallow didn’t mind that, since it came from Tony, whom he liked, and so he laughed and said that in fact nobody’s money was any good this evening since their generous host, Alex, was at the Table. And Alex said, “Least of all yours, I suspect.” Caroline Heftshank said Alex had hurt Fallow’s feelings, and Fallow said that was true and that under the circumstances he was forced to change his mind. He told the waiter to bring him a “vodka Southside.” Everybody laughed, because this was an allusion to Asher Herzfeld, an American, heir to the Herzfeld glass fortune, who had gotten into a furious row with Alex last night because he couldn’t get a table. Herzfeld had always driven the waiters and the bartenders crazy by ordering the noxious American drink, the vodka Southside, which was made with mint, and then complaining that the mint wasn’t fresh. That got the Table to telling Herzfeld stories. St. John Thomas, in his flutiest voice, told how he had been to dinner at Herzfeld’s apartment on Fifth Avenue, and Herzfeld had insisted on introducing the guests to his staff of four, which embarrassed the servants and annoyed the guests. He was sure he had heard the young South American houseboy say, “Well, then, why don’t we all go have dinner at my place,” which probably would have made for a more amusing evening, in St. John’s opinion. “Well, would it or wouldn’t it?” asked Billy Cortez, with a hint of genuine reproach. “I’m sure you’ve taken him up on it since then. A pimply little Puerto Rican, by the way.” “Not Puerto Rican,” said St. John, “Peruvian. And not pimply.” Now the Table settled in for the staple topic, which was the domestic manners of the Americans. The Americans, with their perverted sense of guilt, were forever introducing guests to servants, especially “people like Herzfeld,” said Rachel Lampwick. Then they talked about the wives, the American wives, who exercised tyrannical control over their husbands. Nick Stopping said he had discovered why American businessmen in New York took such long lunch hours. It was the only time they could get away from their wives to have sex. He was going to do a piece called “Sex at Noon” for Vanity Fair. Sure enough, the waiter brought Fallow a vodka Southside, and, amid much gaiety and toasting and complaining to Alex about the condition of the mint, he drank it and ordered another. It was actually very tasty. Alex left the Table to see how things were going in the big room, and Johnny Robertson, the art critic, arrived and told a funny story about an American who insisted on calling the Italian foreign minister and his wife by their first names at the opening of the Tiepolo show last night, and Rachel Lampwick told about the American who was introduced to her father—“This is Lord Lampwick”—and said, “Hiya, Lloyd.” But American university professors are all terribly hurt if one doesn’t remember to call them Doctor, said St. John, and Caroline Heftshank wanted to know why Americans insist on putting return addresses on the face of the envelope, and Fallow ordered another vodka Southside, and Tony and Caroline said why didn’t they order another bottle of wine. Fallow said he didn’t mind the Yanks calling him by his first name, if only they wouldn’t insist on condensing it to Pete. All the Yanks at The City Light called him Pete, and they called Nigel Stringfellow Nige, and they also wore bogus regimental neckties that leaped out in front of their shirts, so that every time he saw one of these screaming neckties it set up a stimulus-response bond and he cringed and braced himself for Pete. Nick Stopping said he had dinner the other night at the home of Stropp, the investment banker, on Park Avenue, and Stropp’s four-year-old daughter, by his second wife, came into the dining room pulling a toy wagon, upon which was a fresh human turd—yes, a turd!—her own, one hoped, and she circled the table three times, and neither Stropp nor his wife did a thing but shake their heads and smile. This required no extended comment, since the Yanks’ treacly indulgence of their children was well known, and Fallow ordered another vodka Southside and toasted the absent Asher Herzfeld, and they ordered drinks all around.
Now it began to dawn on Fallow that he had ordered twenty dollars’ worth of drinks, which he was not about to pay for. As if bound together by Jung’s collective unconscious, Fallow and St. John and Nick and Tony were aware that the hour of the fish had arrived. But which fish?
It was Tony, finally, who sang out: “Hello, Ed!” With the heartiest possible grin on his face, he began beckoning a tall figure toward the Table. He was an American, well dressed, quite handsome really, with aristocratic features and a face as fair, pink, lineless, and downy as a peach.
“Ed, I want you to meet Caroline Heftshank. Caroline, this is my good friend Ed Fiske.”
Howjados all around, as Tony introduced the young American to the Table. Then Tony announced: “Ed is the Prince of Harlem.”
“Oh, come on,” said Mr. Ed Fiske.
“It’s true!” said Tony. “Ed is the only person I know who can walk the length, the breadth, the width, the highways, the byways, the high life, the low dives, of Harlem whenever he wants, wherever he wants, any time, day or night, and be absolutely welcome.”
“Tony, that’s a terrible exaggeration,” said Mr. Ed Fiske, blushing but also smiling in a way that indicated it wasn’t an out
rageous exaggeration. He sat down and was encouraged to order a drink, which he did.
“What is going on in Harlem, Ed?”
Blushing some more, Mr. Ed Fiske confessed to having been in Harlem that very afternoon. Mentioning no names, he told of an encounter with an individual from whom it was his delicate mission to insist upon the return of quite a lot of money, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He told the story haltingly and a bit incoherently, since he was careful not to stress the factor of color or to explain why so much money was involved—but the Brits hung on every word with rapt and beaming faces, as if he were the most brilliant raconteur they had come across in the New World. They chuckled, they laughed, they repeated the tag ends of his sentences, like a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus. Mr. Ed Fiske kept talking, gaining steadily in confidence and fluency. The drink had hit the spot. He unfurled his fanciest and choicest Harlem lore. What admiring British faces all around him! How they beamed! They did indeed appreciate the art of conversation! With casual largesse he ordered a round of drinks for the Table, and Fallow had another vodka Southside, and Mr. Ed Fiske told about a tall menacing man nicknamed Buck who wore a large gold earring, like a pirate.
The Brits had their drinks, and then one by one they slipped away, first Tony, then Caroline, then Rachel, then Johnny Robertson, then Nick Stopping. When Fallow said, softly, “Excuse me a moment,” and got up, only St. John Thomas and Billy Cortez were left, and Billy was tugging on St. John’s sleeve, because he now detected more than a little sincerity in the rapt look St. John was beaming toward this beautiful and apparently rich boy with the peach complexion.
Outside, on Lexington Avenue, Fallow wondered about the size of the bill that would be handed shortly to young Mr. Fiske. He grinned in the darkness, being blissfully high. It was bound to be close to two hundred dollars. He would no doubt pay it without a murmur, the poor fish.