The Bonfire of the Vanities

by Tom Wolfe

  “Come on, Sherm!” Sherm. “Let’s get the fuck outta here!”

  I drove my forearm into his belly—and he went Ooooooo and hit the floor. One last look at the dangling earring—

  Now Quigley is pushing him backward and Killian is pulling him.

  “Come on!” yells Killian. “You outta your fucking mind?”

  There was only a little semicircle of court officers, plus Quigley, between the mob and Sherman and Killian and the judge, his secretary, and the clerk, who squeezed back through the door into the judge’s chamber, shoulder to shoulder, jostling about. The demonstrators—plenty for them to be furious about now! One of them is trying to push through the door…Brucie can’t hold him back…Quigley…He’s pulled his revolver out. He holds it up in the air. He thrusts his face toward the demonstrator in the doorway.

  “Okay, faggot! You want a new hole in your fucking nose?”

  The man freezes—freezes like a statue. It’s not the revolver. It’s the look on Quigley’s face that gets him.

  One beat…two beats…That’s all they need. The court officer with the big tire of flab has the door to the judge’s elevator open. They’re herding everybody on—Kovitsky, his secretary, the big clerk, Killian. Sherman backs in with Quigley, Brucie and Quigley right on top of him. Three court officers remain in the chamber, ready to draw their guns. But the mob has lost steam, lost heart. Quigley. The look on his face. Okay, faggot. You want a new hole in your fucking nose?

  The elevator starts down. It’s overpoweringly hot inside. All jammed together. Aaah, aaaahh, aaaaaah, aaaaahhh. Sherman realizes it’s himself, gulping for air, himself and Quigley, too, and Brucie and the other court officer, the fat one. Aaaaaah, aaaahhhhh, aaaaahhhhh, aaaahhhh, aaaaahhhhhhh.

  “Sherm!” It’s Quigley, talking between gasps, “You cold-cocked…that cocksucker…Sherm! You…cold-cocked him!”

  Sank to the floor. Doubled up. The earring dangled. Now!—and I triumphed. He’s consumed with cold fear—they’ll get me!—and soaring anticipation. Again! I want to do it again!

  “Don’t congratulate yourselves.” It was Kovitsky, in a low stern voice. “The whole thing was a fucking fiasco. You don’t even know how bad it was. I shouldn’t have adjourned the court so fast. I should’ve talked to them. They…don’t know. They don’t even know what they’ve done.”

  “Judge,” said Brucie, “it ain’t over yet. We got demonstrators in the halls and outside the building.”

  “Where outside?”

  “It’s mainly on the front steps, on 161st Street, but some a them are around on Walton Avenue, too. Where’s your car, Judge?”

  “The usual place. The pit.”

  “Maybe one a us oughta drive it around to the Concourse entrance.”

  Kovitsky thought for a moment. “Fuck it. I won’t give ’em the satisfaction.”

  “They won’t even know about it, Judge. I don’t mean to alarm you, but they’re already out there…talking about you…They got a sound system and everything.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Kovitsky. “They ever heard of obstructing governmental administration?”

  “I don’t think they ever hearda nothing except raising hell, but they know how to do that.”

  “Well, thanks, Brucie.” Kovitsky began to smile. He turned to Killian. “Remember the time I ordered you off the judge’s elevator? I can’t even remember how you got on.”

  Killian smiled and nodded.

  “And you wouldn’t get off, and I said I was holding you in contempt? And you said, ‘Contempt of what? Contempt of elevator?’ You remember that?”

  “Oh, you better believe I remember that, Judge, but I always hoped you wouldn’t.”

  “You know what burned me up? You were right. That was what burned me up.”

  Even before the elevator reached the first floor, they could hear the tremendous BRAAANNNNNGG! of the alarm.

  “Christ. What jerk set that off?” said Brucie. “Who the hell they think’s gonna respond? Every officer in the building’s already at a station.”

  Kovitsky was somber again. He was shaking his head. He looked so small, a bony little bald-headed man in voluminous black robes squeezed into this sweltering elevator. “They don’t know how bad this is. They just don’t fucking know…I’m their only friend, their only friend…”

  When the elevator door opened, the noise of the alarm—BRAAANNNNNGGGGG!—was overpowering. They emerged into a little vestibule. One door led to the street. Another led to the ground-floor hallway of the island fortress. Brucie shouted to Sherman, “How you figuring on getting outta here?”

  Quigley answered, “We got a car, but Christ knows where it is. The fucking driver was terrified just fucking driving up to the building.”

  Brucie said, “Where’s he supposed to be?”

  Quigley said, “The Walton Avenue door, but if I know that faggot, he’s halfway to fucking Candy.”

  “Candy?”

  “It’s the fucking town he comes from, in Ceylon, Candy. The closer we get to this fucking building, the more he starts talking about this fucking town he comes from, Candy. The fucking town is called Candy.”

  Brucie’s eyes opened wide, and he yelled, “Hey, Judge!”

  Kovitsky was heading through the door that led into the interior hallway of the building.

  “Judge! Don’t go in there! They’re all over the halls!”

  Now! Again! Sherman bolted for the door and ran after the little figure in black.

  Killian’s voice: “Sherman! What the hell you doing!”

  Quigley’s voice: “Sherm! Jesus Christ!”

  Sherman found himself in a vast marble hall filled with the stupendous sound of the alarm. Kovitsky was up ahead of him, walking so fast that his robes were billowing out. He looked like a crow trying to gain altitude. Sherman broke into a trot to try to catch up. A figure came running past him. Brucie.

  “Judge! Judge!”

  Brucie caught up with Kovitsky and tried to grab his left arm. Sherman was now right behind them. With a furious gesture Kovitsky forced the court officer’s hand away.

  “Judge, where you going! What you doing!”

  “Gotta tell ’em!” said Kovitsky.

  “Judge—they’ll kill you!”

  “Gotta tell ’em!”

  Sherman was now aware that the others were pulling up on either side, running…the fat court officer…Killian…Quigley…All the faces in the hallway stopped and stared, trying to figure out what in the name of God they were looking at…this furious little judge in his black robes with his outriders running along beside him yelling: “Judge! Don’t do it!”

  Shouts in the corridor…That’s him!…Yo! That’s that fucker!…BRAAANNNNGGGG!…The alarm battered one and all with its shock waves.

  Brucie tried again to restrain Kovitsky. “Leggo my FUCKING ARM!” screamed Kovitsky. “That’s a FUCKING ORDER, BRUCIE!”

  Sherman broke into a trot to keep up. He was only a half step behind the judge. He searched out the faces in the hallway. Now!—again! They went around a bend in the hallway. They were in the great Moderne lobby that led out onto the terrace overlooking 161st Street. Fifty or sixty onlookers, fifty or sixty rapt faces, were inside the lobby, looking out at the terrace. Through the glass doors Sherman could see the silhouette of a mass of figures.

  Kovitsky reached the front doors and pushed one open and paused. BRRAAAANNNGGGG! Brucie yelled: “Don’t go out there, Judge! I’m begging you!”

  At the center of the terrace was a microphone on a stanchion, such as you might see on a bandstand. At the microphone was a tall black man in a black suit and a white shirt. Black people and white people were crowded in on either side of him. A white woman with wiry gray-blond hair was next to him. A whole mob, black and white, was up on the terrace and on the stairs that led up to the terrace from either side. Judging by the noise, hundreds more, possibly thousands, were on the grand staircase and the sidewalk down below on 161st Street. Then Sherman realiz
ed who the tall man at the microphone was. Reverend Bacon.

  He spoke to the crowd in a steady, controlled baritone, as if each word were one more resolute footstep of fate.

  “We have put our trust in this society…and in this power structure…and what’ve we got?” Much yammering and many angry shouts from the crowd. “We have believed their promises…and what’ve we got?” Groans, moans, yelps. “We believed in their justice. They told us Justice was blind. They told us Justice was a blind woman…an impartial woman…see?…And this woman did not know the color of your skin…And who does that blind woman turn out to be? What’s her name? When she plays her lying racist games, what’s the face she wears?” Shouts, boos, howls, cries for blood. “We know that face, we know that name…MY-RON KO-VIT-SKY!” Boos, yowls, cackles, shouts, a colossal baying noise rose up from the mob. “MY-RON KO-VIT-SKY!” The noise welled up into a roar. “But we can wait, brothers and sisters…we can wait…We waited this long, and we got no place more to go. WE CAN WAIT!…We can wait for the power structure’s henchmen to show their faces. He’s in there. He’s in there!” Bacon kept his face turned toward the microphone and the crowd, but he flung his arm and his pointed finger behind him in the direction of the building. “And he knows the people are here, for…he…is…not…blind…He lives in fear on this island, in the mighty sea of people, for he knows that the people—and justice!—wait for him. And there is no escape!” The crowd roared, and Bacon leaned to one side for a moment while the woman with wiry gray-blond hair whispered something in his ear.

  At that moment Kovitsky threw open both the glass doors in front of him. His robes billowed out like enormous black wings.

  “Judge! For God’s sake!”

  Kovitsky stopped in the doorway, arms outstretched. The moment lengthened…lengthened…The arms dropped. The billowing wings collapsed against his frail body. He turned around and walked back inside the lobby. His eyes were down, and he was muttering.

  “Their only friend, their only fucking friend.” He looked at the court officer. “Okay, Brucie, let’s go.”

  No! Now! Sherman yelled out: “No, Judge! Do it! I’ll go with you!”

  Kovitsky spun about and looked at Sherman. Obviously he hadn’t even known he was there. A furious scowl. “What the hell—”

  “Do it!” said Sherman. “Do it, Judge!”

  Kovitsky just looked at him. At Brucie’s urging they were now all heading back down the hallway at a good clip. The corridors were much more crowded…an ugly mob…

  That’s Kovitsky! That’s the one! Shouts…a tremendous rumble…BRRAAAANNNGGG!—the alarm battered and battered and ricocheted off the marble, doubling, trebling…An older man, not a demonstrator, came up from the side, as if to confront Kovitsky, pointing and shouting, “You…” Sherman lunged at him and screamed: “Get your fucking face outta the way!” The man jumped back, his mouth hanging open. His expression—frightened! Now!—again!—drive a fist into his belly, mash his nose into a pulp, ram a heel into his eye!—Sherman turned to look at Kovitsky.

  Kovitsky was staring at him the way you’d stare at a lunatic. So was Killian. So were the two court officers.

  “You outta your mind?” yelled Kovitsky. “You wanna get killed?”

  “Judge,” said Sherman, “it don’t matter! It don’t matter!”

  He smiled. He could feel his upper lip stretching across his teeth. He let out a short harsh red laugh. Leaderless, the mob in the corridor held back, not sure what they were dealing with. Sherman sought out their faces, as if to obliterate them with his very eyes. He was terrified—and quite ready!—again!

  The little band beat a retreat down the marble halls.

  Epilogue

  A year later, to the day, the following article appeared on page B1 of the Metropolitan News section of The New York Times:

  FINANCIER IS ARRAIGNED

  IN HONOR STUDENT’S DEATH

  By Overton Holmes, Jr.

  Former Wall Street financier Sherman McCoy was brought in handcuffs to the Bronx yesterday and arraigned on a charge of manslaughter in the death of Henry Lamb, a 19-year-old black honor student who had been the pride of a South Bronx housing project.

  Mr. Lamb died Monday night at Lincoln Hospital as a result of cerebral injuries suffered when he was struck by Mr. McCoy’s Mercedes-Benz sports car on Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx thirteen months ago. He had never regained consciousness.

  Demonstrators from the All People’s Solidarity and other organizations chanted “Wall Street murderer,” “Capitalist killer,” and “Justice at last,” as detectives led Mr. McCoy toward the Bronx Criminal Courts Building on East 161st St. Mr. McCoy’s alleged role in Mr. Lamb’s injuries became the center of a political storm last year.

  A Patrician Figure

  Asked by reporters to comment on the contrast between his Wall Street and Park Avenue background and his current situation, Mr. McCoy yelled out, “I have nothing to do with Wall Street and Park Avenue. I’m a professional defendant. I’ve undergone a year of legal harassment, and I’ll undergo another—or perhaps another 8&f13; to 25.”

  This was an apparent reference to the prison sentence he will face if convicted of the new charge. Bronx District Attorney Richard A. Weiss is said to have prepared a 50-page indictment to present to a grand jury. Mr. Weiss’s tenacious prosecution of the case was widely regarded as the key to his successful bid for reelection in November.

  A tall, patrician figure, son of the eminent Wall Street lawyer John Campbell McCoy and a product of St. Paul’s School and Yale, Mr. McCoy, 39, was dressed in an open-necked sport shirt, khaki pants, and hiking shoes. This was in sharp contrast to the $2,000 custom-tailored English suits he was famous for as the legendary $1,000,000-a-year “king of the bond market” for Pierce & Pierce.

  As he was ushered through a basement door of the courthouse into the Bronx Central Booking facility, Mr. McCoy said in response to a reporter’s query, “I told you, I’m a career defendant. I now dress for jail, even though I haven’t been convicted of any crime.”

  Diminished LifeStyle

  At his arraignment six hours later, Mr. McCoy appeared before Judge Samuel Auerbach with a slightly swollen left jaw and abrasions on the knuckles of both hands. Questioned about it by Judge Auerbach, he said, clenching his fists, “Don’t worry, Judge. It’s something I’ll take care of myself.”

  Police officials said Mr. McCoy had become involved in a “dispute” with two other prisoners in a communal detention cell, resulting in a scuffle, but had declined offers of medical treatment.

  When the judge asked him how he pleaded, Mr. McCoy said in a loud voice, “Absolutely innocent.” Against the judge’s advice, he insisted on representing himself at the arraignment and indicated he will do likewise during his forthcoming trial.

  Sources close to Mr. McCoy, whose worth was once estimated as more than $8,000,000, said that a year of extraordinary legal expenses and entanglements has left him “barely able to pay the rent.” Formerly the owner of a $3,200,000 cooperative apartment at 816 Park Avenue, he now rents two modest rooms in a postwar high-rise building on East 34th Street near First Avenue.

  The original charge against Mr. McCoy, reckless endangerment, was thrown out last June during a turbulent hearing in the courtroom of former Supreme Court Justice Myron Kovitsky. Amid the ensuing storm of protest in the black community, Mr. Weiss brought the charge before a second grand jury and obtained a new indictment.

  The Bronx Democratic organization, responding to community demands, refused to renominate Judge Kovitsky, and he was soundly defeated in his November reelection attempt. He was replaced by veteran Justice Jerome Meldnick. Mr. McCoy’s trial, in February, ended in a hung jury, with all three white jurors and one Hispanic juror holding out for acquittal.

  Two months ago a Bronx jury awarded Mr. Lamb $12,000,000 in a civil action against Mr. McCoy, who has appealed. Recently, Attorney Albert Vogel, acting for Mr. Lamb, charged that Mr. McCoy was hiding as
sets in order to evade the judgment. The assets in dispute are the proceeds of the sale of his Park Avenue apartment and his house in Southampton, L.I., which he attempted to give outright to his estranged wife, Judy, and their seven-year-old daughter, Campbell. The court has frozen these funds, along with the remainder of Mr. McCoy’s securities and salable personal belongings, pending the outcome of his appeal of his civil damages.

  Mrs. McCoy and her daughter reportedly have moved to the Midwest, but Mrs. McCoy was in the spectator section of the courtroom yesterday, apparently unrecognized by the noisy group of demonstrators, black and white, who occupied most of the seats. At one point, Mr. McCoy looked toward his wife, smiled slightly, and raised his left hand in a clenched-fist salute. The meaning of this gesture was unclear. Mrs. McCoy refused to speak to reporters.

  “Rent-Controlled Love Nest”

  Mr. McCoy’s marriage was rocked by the revelation that Maria Ruskin Chirazzi, heiress of the Ruskin air-charter fortune, was in the automobile with Mr. McCoy at the time Mr. Lamb was struck. The couple, it developed, had been conducting an affair in a secret apartment later dubbed the “rent-controlled love nest.” Mrs. Chirazzi’s then-husband, Arthur Ruskin, died of a heart attack shortly before her involvement in the case was made known.

  District Attorney Weiss had been prepared to begin a new trial on the reckless endangerment charge when Mr. Lamb died, exposing Mr. McCoy to the more serious charge of manslaughter. Mr. Weiss had already announced that Assistant District Attorney Raymond I. Andriutti would head the prosecution. In an unusual development, Mr. Weiss was forced to remove the prosecutor of the first trial, Lawrence N. Kramer, from the case when it was disclosed that Mr. Kramer had interceded with a landlord to secure the so-called rent-controlled love nest apartment for a friend, Shelly Thomas, an advertising copywriter. Mr. Kramer, who is married, met Ms. Thomas when she served as a juror in an unrelated case which he prosecuted. The defendant in that case, Herbert (Herbert 92X) Cantrell, has obtained a reversal of his first-degree manslaughter conviction on the grounds of “prosecutorial misconduct.”