The Bonfire of the Vanities

by Tom Wolfe

  “Don’t worry, Daddy. I love you.”

  “Campbell—”

  He took her in his arms and buried his head on her shoulder to hide his tears.

  There was once a koala and a pretty little room where soft sweet creatures lived and slept the trusting sleep of the innocent, and now there was none.

  22. Styrofoam Peanuts

  Sherman turned over onto his left side, but soon his left knee developed an ache, as if the weight of his right leg were cutting off the circulation. His heart was beating a little fast. He turned over onto his right side. Somehow the heel of his right hand ended up under his right cheek. It felt as if he needed it to support his head, because the pillow wasn’t enough, but that made no sense, and anyhow, how could he possibly get to sleep with his hand under his head? A little fast, that was all…It wasn’t running away…He turned back onto his left side and then rolled over flat on his stomach, but that put a strain on the small of his back, and so he rolled back over on his right side. He usually slept on his right side. His heart was going faster now. But it was an even beat. He still had it under control.

  He resisted the temptation to open his eyes and check out the intensity of the light under the Roman shades. The line gradually brightened toward dawn, so that you could always tell when it was getting on toward 5:30 or 6:00 at this time of year. Suppose it was brightening already! But that couldn’t be. It couldn’t be more than three o’clock, 3:30 at the worst. But maybe he had slept for an hour or so without knowing it!—and suppose the lines of light—

  He could resist no longer. He opened his eyes. Thank God; still dim; so he was still safe.

  With that—his heart bolted away from him. It began pounding at a terrific rate and with terrific force, trying to escape from his rib cage. It made his whole body shake. What did it matter whether he had a few more hours to lie here writhing on his bed or whether the heat of the dawn had already cooked up under the shades and the time had come—

  I’m going to jail.

  With his heart pounding and his eyes open, he was now terribly conscious of being alone in this vast bed. Billows of silk hung down from the ceiling at the four corners of the bed. More than $125 a yard the silk had cost. It was Judy’s Decorator approximation of a royal bedchamber from the eighteenth century. Royal! What a mockery it was of himself, a throbbing lump of flesh and fear cowering in bed in the dead of the night!

  I’m going to jail.

  If Judy had been here next to him, if she hadn’t gone to bed in the guest bedroom, he would have put his arms around her and held on for dear life. He wanted to embrace her, longed for it—

  And with the next breath: What good would that do? None whatsoever. It would make him feel even weaker and more helpless. Was she asleep? What if he walked into the guest room? She often slept flat on her back, like a recumbent statue, like the statue of…He couldn’t remember whose statue it was. He could see the slightly yellowish marble and the folds in the sheet that covered the body—someone famous, beloved and dead. Well, down the hall Campbell was asleep, for sure. He knew that much. He had looked in her room and watched her for a minute, as if this were the last time he would ever see her. She slept with her lips slightly parted and her body and soul utterly abandoned to the security and peace of her home and family. She had gone to sleep almost at once. Nothing that he had said to her was real…arrest…newspapers… “You’ll be in history?”…If only he knew what she was thinking! Supposedly children picked up things in more ways than you knew, from the tone of your voice, the look on your face…But Campbell seemed to know only that something sad and exciting was about to happen, and her father was unhappy. Utterly insulated from the world…in the bosom of her family…her lips slightly parted…just down the hall…For her sake he had to pull himself together. And for the moment, anyway, he did. His heart slowed down. He began to take command of his body again. He would be strong for her, if for no one else on earth. I am a man. When he had to fight, he had fought. He had fought in the jungle, and he had won. The furious moment when he thrust the tire at the…brute…The brute was sprawled on the pavement…Henry!…If he had to, he would fight again. How bad could it be?

  Last night, as long as he was talking to Killian, he had it worked out in his mind. It wasn’t going to be so bad. Killian explained every step. It was a formality, not a pleasant formality, but not like really going to jail, either. It would not be like an ordinary arrest. Killian would see to that, Killian and his friend Fitzgibbon. A contract. Not like an ordinary arrest, not like an ordinary arrest; he clung to this phrase, “not like an ordinary arrest.” Like what, then? He tried to picture how it was going to be, and before he knew it, his heart was racing, fleeing, panicked, amok with fear.

  Killian had arranged it so that the two detectives, Martin and Goldberg, would drive by and pick him up about 7:30 on their way to work on the 8:00 a.m. shift in the Bronx. They both lived on Long Island, and they drove to the Bronx every day, and so they would make a detour and drive by and pick him up on Park Avenue. Killian would be here when they arrived, and he would ride up to the Bronx with him and be there when they arrested him—and this was special treatment.

  Lying there in bed, with cascades of $125-a-yard silk at every corner, he closed his eyes and tried to think it through. He would get in the car with the two detectives, the small one and the fat one. Killian would be with him. They would go up the FDR Drive to the Bronx. The detectives would get him to Central Booking first thing, as the new shift began, and he would go through the process first, before the day’s buildup of cases. Central Booking—but what was it? Last night it had been a name Killian had used so matter-of-factly. But now, lying here, he realized he had no idea what it would look like. The process—what process? Being arrested! Despite everything Killian had tried to explain, it was unimaginable. He would be fingerprinted. How? And his fingerprints would be transmitted to Albany by a computer. Why? To make sure there were no warrants for his arrest already outstanding. But surely they knew better! Until the report from Albany came back, via the computer, he would have to wait in the detention pens. Pens! That was the word Killian kept using. Pens!—for what sort of animals! As if reading his mind, Killian had told him not to worry about the things you read about concerning jails. The unmentioned term was homosexual rape. The pens were temporary cells for people who had been arrested and were awaiting arraignment. Since arrests in the early daylight hours were rare, he might very well have the place to himself. After the report came back, he would go upstairs to appear before a judge. Upstairs! But what did that mean? Upstairs from what? He would plead not guilty and be released on $10,000 bail—tomorrow—in a few hours—when the dawn cooks up the light beneath the shade—

  I’m going to jail—as the man who ran down a black honor student and left him to die!

  His heart was beating violently now. His pajamas were wet with perspiration. He had to stop thinking. He had to close his eyes. He had to sleep. He tried to focus on an imaginary point between his eyes. Behind his eyelids…little movies…curling forms…a pair of puffy sleeves…They turned into a shirt, his own white shirt. Nothing too good, Killian said, because the holding pens might be filthy. But a suit and tie, of course, nonetheless, since this was not an ordinary arrest, not an ordinary arrest…The old blue-gray tweed suit, the one made in England…a white shirt, a solid navy tie or maybe the medium-blue tie with the pin dots…No, the navy tie, which would be dignified but not at all showy—for going to jail in!

  He opened his eyes. The silk billowed down from the ceiling. “Get a grip on yourself!” He said it out loud. Surely this was not actually about to happen. I’m going to jail.

  About 5:30, with the light turning yellow under the shade, Sherman gave up on the idea of sleep, or even rest, and got up. To his surprise, it made him feel a little better. His heartbeat was rapid, but he had the panic under control. It helped to be doing something, if only taking a shower and putting on the blue-gray tweed suit and the navy neck
tie…my jail outfit. The face he saw in the mirror didn’t look as tired as he felt. The Yale chin; he looked strong.

  He wanted to eat breakfast and be out of the apartment before Campbell got up. He wasn’t sure he could be brave enough in front of her. He also didn’t want to have to talk to Bonita. It would be too awkward. As for Judy, he didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t want to see the look in her eye, which was the numb look of someone betrayed but also shocked and frightened. Yet he wanted his wife with him. In fact, he had scarcely had a glass of orange juice before Judy arrived in the kitchen, dressed and ready for the day. She hadn’t had much more sleep than he had. A moment later Bonita came in from the servants’ wing and quietly began fixing them breakfast. Soon enough Sherman was glad Bonita was there. He didn’t know what to say to Judy. With Bonita present he obviously wouldn’t be able to say much. He could barely eat. He had three cups of coffee in hopes of clearing his head.

  At 7:15 the doorman called up to say that Mr. Killian was downstairs. Judy walked with Sherman out into the entry gallery. He stopped and looked at her. She attempted a smile of encouragement, but it gave her face a look of terrible weariness. In a low but firm voice, she said: “Sherman, be brave. Remember who you are.” She opened her mouth, as if she was about to say something more; but she didn’t.

  And that was it! That was the best she could do! I try to see more in you, Sherman, but all that’s left is the shell, your dignity!

  He nodded. He couldn’t get a word out. He turned and went to the elevator.

  Killian was standing under the marquee just outside the front door. He was wearing a chalk-striped gray suit, brown suede shoes, a brown fedora. (How dare he be so debonair on the day of my doom?) Park Avenue was an ashy gray. The sky was dark. It looked as if it was about to rain…Sherman shook hands with Killian, then moved down the sidewalk about twenty feet, to be out of earshot of the doorman.

  “How do you feel?” asked Killian. He asked it the way you ask a sick person.

  “Top-notch,” said Sherman, with a morose smile.

  “It’s not gonna be so bad. I talked to Bernie Fitzgibbon again last night, after I talked to you. He’s gonna get you through there as fast as possible. Fucking Abe Weiss, he’s a wet finger in the wind. All this publicity has him terrified. Otherwise not even an idiot like him would do this.”

  Sherman just shook his head. He was far beyond speculation on the mentality of Abe Weiss. I’m going to jail!

  Out of the corner of his eye, Sherman saw a car pull up alongside them, and then he saw the detective, Martin, at the wheel. The car was a two-door Oldsmobile Cutlass, reasonably new, and Martin had on a jacket and tie, and so perhaps the doorman would not figure it out. Oh, they would know soon enough, all the doormen and matrons and money managers and general partners and bond traders and CEOs and all their private-school children and nannies and governesses and housekeepers, all the inhabitants of this social fortress. But that anyone might see he was being led away by the police was more than he could bear.

  The car had stopped just far enough away from the door of the building that the doorman didn’t come out. Martin got out and opened the door and pulled the seat back forward, so that Sherman and Killian could get into the rear. Martin smiled at Sherman. The smile of the tormentor!

  “Hey, Counselor!” Martin said to Killian. Very cheery about it, too. “Bill Martin,” he said, and he held out his hand, and he and Killian shook hands. “Bernie Fitzgibbon tells me you guys worked together.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Killian.

  “Bernie’s a pistol.”

  “Worse than that. I could tell ya some stories.”

  Martin chuckled, and Sherman experienced a small spurt of hope. Killian knew this man Fitzgibbon, who was the chief of the Homicide Bureau of the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, and Fitzgibbon knew Martin, and now Martin knew Killian…and Killian—Killian was his protector!…Just before Sherman bent down to get into the back seat, Martin said, “Watch your clothes back there. There’re these fucking—’scuse my French—Styrofoam peanuts back there. My kid opened up a box, and all these white peanuts they pack things in got all over the place, and they stick to your clothes and every other goddamned thing.”

  Once he bent down, Sherman saw the fat one with the mustache, Goldberg, sitting in the front passenger seat. He had a bigger smile on.

  “Sherman.” He said it the way you’d say hello or good morning. Most amiably. And the whole world froze, congealed. My first name! A servant…a slave…a prisoner…Sherman said nothing. Martin introduced Killian to Goldberg. More cheery lodge talk.

  Sherman was sitting behind Goldberg. There were, indeed, white Styrofoam packing peanuts all over the place. Two had attached themselves to Sherman’s pants leg. One was practically on top of his knee. He picked it off and then had trouble getting it off his finger. He could feel another one under his bottom and began fishing around for that.

  They had barely started off, heading up Park Avenue toward Ninety-sixth Street and the entrance to the FDR Drive, when Goldberg turned around in his seat and said, “You know, I got a daughter in high school, and she loves to read, and she was reading this book, and this outfit you work for—Pierce & Pierce, right?—they were in it.”

  “Is that so?” Sherman managed to say. “What was the book?”

  “I think it was Murder Mania. Something like that.”

  Murder Mania? The book was called Merger Mania. Was he trying to torment him with some hideous joke?

  “Murder Mania!” said Martin. “F’r Chrissake, Goldberg, it’s Mer-ger Mania.” Then over his shoulder to Killian and Sherman: “It’s great to have a partner who’s a intellectual.” To his partner: “What shape’s a book, Goldberg? A circle or a triangle?”

  “I’ll show you what shape,” said Goldberg, extending the middle finger of his right hand. Then he twisted around toward Sherman again: “Anyway, she really liked that book, and she’s only in high school. She says she wants to work on Wall Street when she finishes college. Or that’s this week’s plan, anyway.”

  This one, Goldberg, also! The same appalling malapert slavemaster friendliness! Now he was supposed to like the two of them! Now that the game was over, and he had lost, and he belonged to them, he should hold nothing against them. He should admire them. They had their hooks in a Wall Street investment banker, and what was he now? Their catch! Their quarry! Their prize pet! In an Oldsmobile Cutlass! The brutes from the outer boroughs—the sort of people you saw heading on Fifty-eighth Street or Fifty-ninth Street toward the Queensboro Bridge—fat young men with drooping mustaches, like Goldberg…and now he belonged to them.

  At Ninety-third Street, a doorman was helping an old woman out the door and onto the sidewalk. She wore a caracal overcoat. It was the sort of very formal black fur coat you never saw anymore. A long happy insulated life on Park Avenue! Heartlessly, Park Avenue, le tout New York, would go on living its everyday life.

  “All right,” Killian said to Martin, “let’s get it straight exactly what we’re gonna do here. We’re going in the 161st Street entrance, right? And then we go downstairs from there, and the Angel takes Sherman—Mr. McCoy—straight into fingerprinting. The Angel’s still there?”

  “Yeah,” said Martin, “he’s still there, but we gotta go in around the side, through the outside door to Central Booking.”

  “What for?”

  “That’s my orders. The zone captain’s gonna be there, and the press is gonna be there.”

  “The press!”

  “That’s right. And we gotta have cuffs on him by the time we get there.”

  “Are you shitting me? I talked to Bernie last night. He gave me his word. There’s gonna be no bullshit.”

  “I don’t know about Bernie. This is Abe Weiss. This is the way Weiss wants it, and I got my orders straight from the zone captain. This arrest is supposed to be by the book. You’re getting a break as it is. You know what they were talking about, don’t you? They wanted to
bring the fucking press to his apartment and cuff him there.”

  Killian glowered at Martin. “Who toldja to do this?”

  “Captain Crowther.”

  “When?”

  “Last night. He called me at home. Listen, you know Weiss. What can I tell ya?”

  “This…is…not…right,” said Killian. “I had Bernie’s word. This…is…very…wrong. You don’t pull this kinda thing. This…is…not…right.”

  Both Martin and Goldberg turned around and looked at him.

  “I’m not gonna forget this,” said Killian, “and I’m not happy.”

  “Ayyyyy…whaddaya whaddaya,” said Martin. “Don’t blame it on us, because it’s all the same to us one way or the other. Your beef is with Weiss.”

  They were now out on the FDR Drive, heading north toward the Bronx. It had begun to rain. The morning traffic was already backing up on the other side of the railing that divided the expressway, but there was nothing holding them back on this side of the road. They approached a footbridge that arched over the river from the Manhattan side to an island out in the middle. The trestle had been painted a hot heliotrope purple in a burst of euphoria in the 1970s. The false hopefulness of it depressed Sherman profoundly.

  I’m going to jail!

  Goldberg craned around again. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry, but I gotta put on the cuffs. I can’t be fucking around with ’em when we get there.”

  “This is pure bullshit,” said Killian. “I hope you know that.”

  “It’s the lawwwr!” said Goldberg plaintively. He put an r on the end of law. “If you bring somebody in on a felony, you’re supposed to put on the cuffs. I’ll grant you there’s times I ain’t done that, but the fucking zone captain is gonna be there.”

  Goldberg held up his right hand. He held a pair of handcuffs. “Give me your wrists,” he said to Sherman. “We can get this over with.”

  Sherman looked at Killian. The muscles in Killian’s jaws were bunched up. “Yeah, go ahead!” he said to Sherman with the sort of high-pitched emphasis that insinuates, “Someone is gonna pay for this!”