The Bonfire of the Vanities

by Tom Wolfe

  Amid much giggling and wriggling, he carried her across the marble floor, to the library. Judy looked up sharply.

  “Campbell, don’t make Daddy carry you. You’re too big for that.”

  With just a touch of defiance: “I didn’t make him.”

  “We were just playing,” said Sherman. “Did you see Campbell’s rabbit? Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “Yes. It’s lovely.” She turned her head back toward the television set.

  “I’m really impressed. I think we’ve got an extremely talented little girl on our hands.”

  No reply.

  Sherman lowered Campbell from his shoulder down into his arms, as if she were a baby, and then sat in the armchair and settled her on his lap. Campbell moved around to get more comfortable and snuggled up against him, and he put his arms around her. They looked at the television screen.

  The news was on. An announcer’s voice. A blur of black faces. A picket sign: ACTION—NOW!

  “What are they doing, Daddy?”

  “It looks like a demonstration, sweetheart.”

  Another sign: WEISS JUSTICE IS WHITE JUSTICE.

  Weiss?

  “What’s a demonstration?” Campbell sat up in his lap and looked at him when she asked the question, obscuring his view of the screen. He tried to look around her.

  “What’s a demonstration?”

  Distractedly, trying to keep one eye on the screen: “Uh…it’s a—sometimes when people get angry about something, they make some signs and they march around with them.”

  HIT’N’RUN’N’LIE TO THE PEOPLE!

  Hit and run!

  “What do they get angry about?”

  “Just a minute, sweetheart.”

  “What do they get angry about, Daddy?”

  “Almost anything.” Sherman was now leaning far to the left, in order to see the screen. He had to hold tight to Campbell’s waist to keep from spilling her off his lap.

  “But what?”

  “Well, let’s see.”

  Campbell turned her head toward the screen but immediately turned back. There was only some man talking, some black man, very tall, dressed in a black jacket and a white shirt and a striped tie, standing next to a thin black woman in a dark dress. There was a huge cluster of black faces crowded in behind them. Boys with smirks on their faces kept popping out from behind them and staring into the camera.

  “When a young man like Henry Lamb,” the man was saying, “an honor student, an outstanding young man, when a young man like Henry Lamb comes into the hospital with acute cerebral concussion and they treat him for a broken wrist…see…when his mother gives the Police Department and the district attorney a description of the car that struck him down, a description of that car…see…and they do nothing, they drag their feet—”

  “Daddy, let’s go back to the kitchen. Bonita’s gonna bake my rabbit.”

  “In a second—”

  “—to our people is, ‘We don’t care. Your young people, your honor students, your hopes don’t count, don’t matter at all’ …see…That’s the message. But we care, and we’re not gonna stand still, and we’re not gonna be silent. If the power structure don’t want to do nothing—”

  Campbell slid off Sherman’s lap and grabbed his right wrist with both hands and began pulling. “Come on, Daddy.”

  The face of the thin black woman rilled the screen. Tears rolled down her cheeks. A fluffy-haired young white man was on the screen with a microphone at his lips. There was a whole universe of black faces behind him and more boys mugging for the camera.

  “—that as yet unidentified Mercedes-Benz sedan with a license plate beginning with RE, RF, RB, or RP. And just as Reverend Bacon maintains that a message is coming through to this community from the authorities, these protesters have a message for them: ‘If you don’t launch a full-scale investigation, we’ll do it ourselves.’ This is Robert Corso, THE LIVE 1, in the Bronx.”

  “Daddy!” She was pulling on him so hard the chair began to tip.

  “RF?” Judy had turned to look at Sherman. “Ours begins with RF, doesn’t it?”

  Now! Tell her!

  “Daddy! Come on! I wanna bake the rabbit!”

  There was no concern in Judy’s face. She was merely surprised by the coincidence; so surprised, she had initiated a conversation.

  Now!

  “Daddy, come on!”

  See about baking the rabbit.

  14. I Don’t Know How to Lie

  Sherman woke up from a dream he couldn’t remember, with his heart flailing away at his chest wall. It was the drinker’s hour, that hour in the dead of the night when drinkers and insomniacs suddenly wake up and know it’s all over, this sleep dodge. He resisted the urge to look at the illuminated clock on the radio on the table beside the bed. He didn’t want to know how many hours he would have to lie here fighting with this stranger, his heart, which was desperate to escape to some far far far far far far far far far far Canada.

  The windows were open on Park and on the side street. Between the sills and the bottom of the shades was a band of purplish gloom. He heard an automobile, a lone automobile, starting off from a stoplight. Then he heard an airplane. It was not a jet but an airplane with a propeller. The motor stopped. It was going to crash! Then he heard it again, droning and groaning over New York City. How very odd…

  …in the dead of the night. His wife slept, fifteen inches away, on the other side of the Berlin Wall, breathing regularly…oblivious…She was turned away from him, on her side, her knees bent. How nice it would be to roll toward her and tuck his knees in behind hers and press his chest upon her back. Once they were able…once, when they were so close…they could do that without waking each other up…in the dead of the night.

  This couldn’t be true! There was no way they could break through these walls to invade his life! The tall skinny boy, the newspapers, police…at the drinker’s hour.

  His dear sweet daughter slept down the hall. Dear Campbell. A happy little girl—oblivious! A mist came to his wide-open eyes.

  He stared at the ceiling and tried to trick himself into falling back asleep. He thought of…other things…That girl he met in the dining room of the hotel in Cleveland that time…the businesslike way she undressed in front of him…as contrasted with Maria…who did this and that, gorged red with…Lust!…Lust had led him into it…the bowels of the Bronx, the tall skinny boy…Down he goes—

  There were no other things. Everything was tied to these things, and he lay there with them flaring up in his mind in ghastly pictures…The ghastly faces on the television screen, Arnold Parch’s dreary face, with its ghastly attempt at sternness…the evasive voice of Bernard Levy…the look on Muriel’s face, as if she knew he now bore some terrible taint and was no longer an Olympian at Pierce & Pierce…Hemorrhaging money…Surely these were dreams! His eyes were wide open, staring at the purplish gloom where the Roman shades fell just short of the win-dowsill…in the dead of the night, dreading the light of the dawn.

  He got up early, walked Campbell to the bus stop, bought the newspapers on Lexington Avenue, and took a taxi down to Pierce & Pierce. In the Times…nothing. In the Post…nothing. In the Daily News, only a picture and a caption. The picture showed pickets and a crowd. A sign in the foreground said WEISS JUSTICE IS WHITE JUSTICE. In another two hours…The City Light would be on the stands.

  It was a quiet day at Pierce & Pierce, at least for him. He made his routine calls, to Prudential, Morgan Guaranty, Allen & Company…The City Light…Felix was over on the other side of the room. Even to attempt to use him again would be too demeaning…Not a word from Arnold Parch or anyone else. Freezing me out?…The City Light…He would call Freddy and have him get the newspaper. Freddy could read it to him. So he called Freddy, but he had left the office for an appointment. He called Maria; nowhere to be found…The City Light…He couldn’t stand it any longer. He would go downstairs and buy the newspaper and read it in the lobby and return. Yesterday he was AWOL
when a bond issue came in. He blew millions—millions!—in the gold-backed bonds. How much worse could one more transgression make it? As coolly as he could, he began walking across the bond trading room toward the elevators. No one seemed to notice. (No one any longer cares!)

  Downstairs, at the newsstand in the lobby, he looked left and right and then bought The City Light. He walked over behind a big pink marble column. His heart was pounding away. How grim! how odd!—to live in personal fear, every day, of the newspapers in New York! Nothing on the front page…or page 2 or page 3…It was on page 5, a picture and a story by this person, Peter Fallow. The picture showed the thin black woman crying, while the tall black man in the suit comforted her. Bacon. There were picket signs in the background. The story was not long. He raced through it…“fury of the community”…“luxury car”…“white driver”…No clear indication what the police were doing. At the end of the article was a box that said “Editorial, page 36.” His heart started racing again. His fingers shook as he rustled forward toward page 36…There, at the top of the editorial column, the heading HIT-OR-MISS JUSTICE.

  On Monday The City Light’s Peter Fallow broke the tragic story of Henry Lamb, the Bronx honor student who was critically injured in a hit-and-run accident—and abandoned like just another piece of debris in a littered city.

  True, from a legal standpoint Henry Lamb’s is not a tidy case. But neither has he enjoyed a tidy life. He managed to survive the worst that growing up in a city housing project could throw his way—including the murder of his father by a mugger—and achieved an outstanding record at Ruppert High School. He was struck down on the threshold of a brilliant future.

  Our pity is not enough for Henry Lamb and the many other good people who are determined to beat the odds in the less affluent sections of our city. They need to know that their hopes and dreams are important to the future of all New York. We call for an aggressive investigation of every angle of the Lamb case.

  He was rocked. The thing was becoming a crusade. He stared at the newspaper. Should he save it? No; better not to be seen with it. He looked for a trash receptacle or a bench. Nothing. He closed the newspaper up and folded it in two and let it fall on the floor behind the column and hurried back to the elevators.

  He had lunch at his desk, a sandwich and orange juice, in the interest of appearing diligent. He was jittery and dreadfully tired. He couldn’t finish the sandwich. By early in the afternoon he had an overwhelming desire to close his eyes. His head felt so heavy…The beginning of a headache had a tight grip on his forehead. He wondered if he was getting the flu. He ought to call Freddy Button. But he was so tired. Just then a call came in. It was Freddy calling him.

  “It’s funny, I was just thinking of calling you. There was this goddamned editorial today, Freddy.”

  “I know. I read it.”

  “You read it?”

  “I read all four papers. Listen, Sherman, I’ve taken the liberty of calling Tommy Killian. Why don’t you go see him? He’s on Reade Street. It’s not far from where you are, near City Hall. Give him a ring.” In his occluded smoker’s voice he recited a telephone number.

  “I guess it doesn’t look so great,” said Sherman.

  “It’s not that. There’s nothing in what I read that’s of any material significance. It’s just that it’s taking on more of a political complexion, and Tommy will have a good fix on that.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Freddy. I’ll call him.”

  Some Irishman on Reade Street named Tommy Killian.

  He didn’t call him. He had such a headache, he closed his eyes and massaged his temples with the tips of his fingers. At five o’clock sharp, the official end of the day, he left. This was not good form. The end of the trading day was the beginning of the second part of the day for a Master of the Universe.

  The end of the trading day was like the end of a battle. After five o’clock the Masters of the Universe took care of all the things people in other businesses spent the entire day doing. They figured out the “net net,” which is to say, the actual profit and loss for the day’s work. They reviewed the markets, reviewed strategies, discussed personnel problems, researched new issues, and did all the reading of the financial press that was forbidden during the daily battle. They told war stories and beat their breasts and yodeled, if they deserved it. The one thing you never did was simply go home to the wife’n’kiddies.

  Sherman had Muriel order a car for him from the car service. He studied her face for signs of his fall from grace. A blank.

  Out in front of the building the street was four and five deep with car-service cars and white men in business suits threading their way among them, heads lowered, squinting, looking for their numbers. The name of the car service and the number of the car were always posted in a side window. Pierce & Pierce used a company called Tango. All Oldsmobile and Buick sedans. Pierce & Pierce ordered three to four hundred rides a day at an average of $15 per. Some clever devil at Tango, whoever owned it, was probably clearing a million dollars a year on Pierce & Pierce alone. Sherman was looking for Tango 278. He wandered amid the sea of sedans, occasionally caroming off men who looked much like himself, heads lowered, squinting…dark gray suits… “ ’Scuse me”… “ ’Scuse me”…The new rush hour! In the old movies, the Wall Street rush hour was all subways…Subways?…down there with…them?…Insulate!…Today…roaming, roaming…amid the sedans…squinting, squinting…’Scuse me, ’scuse me…Finally he found Tango 278.

  Bonita and Lucille were surprised to see him come walking in the apartment at 5:30. He didn’t feel well enough to sound pleasant. Judy and Campbell weren’t home. Judy had taken her over to a birthday party on the West Side.

  Sherman trudged up the great curved staircase. He went into the bedroom and took off his jacket and his tie. Without taking off his shoes, he stretched out on the bed. He closed his eyes. He felt consciousness falling away, falling away. It was unbearably heavy, consciousness.

  Mister McCoy, Mister McCoy.

  Bonita was standing over him. He couldn’t figure out why.

  “I no want disturb,” she said. “The doorman, he say two men from the police downstairs.”

  “What?”

  “The doorman, he say—”

  “Downstairs?”

  “Yes. He say from the police.”

  Sherman propped himself up on one elbow. There were his legs, stretched out on the bed. He couldn’t figure out why. It must be morning, but he had his shoes on. Bonita was standing over him. He rubbed his face.

  “Well…tell them I’m not here.”

  “The doorman, he already say you here.”

  “What do they want?”

  “Don’t know, Mr. McCoy.”

  A soft dim gloaming. Was it dawn? He was in a hypnagogic state. He felt as if his neural pathways were blocked. No pattern at all. Bonita; the police. The panic set in even before he could focus on the reasons.

  “What time is it?”

  “Six o’clock.”

  He looked at his legs again, at his shoes. Must be six o’clock at night. Came home at 5:30. Fell asleep. Still stretched out…in front of Bonita. A sense of propriety, as much as anything else, made him swing his legs off the bed and sit on the edge.

  “What I tell him, Mr. McCoy?”

  She must mean the doorman. He couldn’t get it straight. They were downstairs. Two policemen. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, trying to come to. There were two policemen downstairs with the doorman. What should he say?

  “Tell him…they’ll have to wait a minute, Bonita.”

  He stood up and started walking toward the bathroom. So groggy, so stiff; his head hurt; there was a rushing sound in his ears. The face in the bathroom mirror had the noble chin but was creased and bleary and decrepit. His shirt was wrinkled and pulled out of his pants. He splashed water on his face. A drop of it hung from the tip of his nose. He dried his face with a hand towel. If only he could think. But it was all blocked. It was all fog. If he refu
sed to see them, and they knew he was up here, and they did, then they’d be suspicious, wouldn’t they? But if he talked to them, and they asked him—what? He tried to imagine…He couldn’t focus on it. Whatever they ask…he doesn’t know…No! He can’t take a chance! Mustn’t see them! But what had he told Bonita? “They’ll have to wait”—as if to say, I will see them, but they’ll have to wait a minute.

  “Bonita!” He went back into the bedroom, but she wasn’t there. He went out into the hallway. “Bonita!”

  “Down here, Mr. McCoy.”

  From the hallway balcony he could see her standing at the foot of the staircase. “You haven’t called down to the doorman yet, have you?”

  “Yes, I call. I tell him they have to wait.”

  Shit. Implied he would see them. Too late to back out. Freddy! He’d call Freddy! He went back to the bedroom, to the telephone by the bed. He called Freddy’s office. No answer. He called the main number of Dunning Sponget and asked for him; after what seemed like an interminable wait, was told he had gone. Call him at home. What was the number? In the address book downstairs in the library.

  He went running down the staircase—realized Bonita was still in the entry gallery. Mustn’t look rattled in front of her. Two policemen downstairs with the doorman. Walked across the marble floor with what perhaps passed for a calm gait.

  He kept the address book on a shelf behind the desk. His fingers were shaking as he went through the pages. B. The telephone—it wasn’t on the desk. Someone had left it on the side table next to the wing chair. An outrage. He hurried around the desk to the chair. Time rolling by. He dialed Freddy’s number. A maid answered. Buttons out to dinner. Shit. What now? Time rolling, rolling, rolling. What would the Lion do? The sort of family in which cooperation with the authorities was automatic. There could be only one reason not to cooperate: You did have something to hide. Naturally they would detect that immediately, because you do not cooperate. If only—

  He left the library and went back out into the entry gallery. Bonita was still standing there. She looked at him very intently—and that was what did it. Didn’t want to look frightened or indecisive in front of the servants. Didn’t want to look like someone in trouble.