Carriage Trade

by Stephen Birmingham

  “A phony who’d have that kind of wedding wouldn’t be my friend!”

  “I see,” he said. “Your father tells me you’re fond of classical music.”

  “So? What’s that got to do with it?”

  “I’m thinking of hypothetical situations, Blazer. Suppose there’s to be a Mozart symphony performed, by an orchestra you’ve always wanted to hear. Your seats are in the dress circle—”

  “I wouldn’t sit in the goddamned dress circle.”

  “What if the only seats available are in the dress circle, Blazer?”

  “Then I’d stand in the back of the hall!”

  Tommy Bonham sighed. “Blazer,” he said, “don’t you think it’s rude—don’t you think it’s actually insulting to the other people around you—not to dress the way other people consider appropriate for certain occasions? Don’t you think that’s actually hostile behavior?”

  “Nope. People are what they are, not what they wear.”

  “But don’t you think your attitude is maybe a little bit childish? I mean, I could understand this sort of rebelliousness from a fifteen-year-old. But you’re a grown man. You’re twenty-one, and you’ll be graduating from Yale at the end of May. You’re going to find a different world out there, a world where you’re going to be expected to conform to certain—”

  “Don’t give me a lecture about the big bad world out there!” Blazer snapped. “I’ve heard all that shit before.”

  “Well, let me put it to you one final way,” he said. “Your father and I run a business. It’s known as a service business, which means that our job is to please and be of service to our clients. We are not in the business of insulting them. And our clients are people accustomed to observing certain standards of dress. And if any of our clients had seen you walking through the store this morning, dressed the way you are right now, our clients would be so upset and insulted—insulted, Blazer, that we’d allow such a thing to happen—that they’d never set foot in our store again. So, as far as we’re concerned, our dress code is simply a matter of good business. It’s simply a matter of dollars and cents. Would you dress like that to meet the Queen of England?”

  “I wasn’t going to meet the Queen of England, for Chrissakes!”

  “No,” Tommy said with a slight smile. “But the Queen of England has shopped in our store.”

  Blazer said nothing, merely looked down at his empty coffee cup, and Tommy Bonham looked at him evenly. “You have no respect for your father, do you, Blazer. No respect at all.”

  “I’ve got no beef with the old man,” he said. “It’s just this fucking, phony shmattes game he’s in.”

  Tommy Bonham’s eyebrows went up. He took a final sip of coffee and folded his paper napkin carefully on the table in front of him. “No wonder your father hates you,” he said.

  “I hear we had a little problem with Blazer this morning at the store,” Si Tarkington said to Tommy Bonham later that afternoon.

  Tommy steepled his fingers. “Your son’s attitude seems to me—well, a little bit immature,” he said.

  “James did absolutely the right thing, and I told him so. We may decide to make exceptions to the rule now and then, but certainly not for members of my own family. If anyone in the store had recognized him, it would have looked even worse for us.”

  “That was the only argument I didn’t use with him,” Tommy said.

  “I mean Miss Garbo may look a little—peculiar when she comes into the store. But she’s Miss Garbo, and everyone knows who she is. She’s earned the right to dress as she chooses. Blazer hasn’t.”

  “Mrs. Onassis and her sister happened to be in the shoe department at the time.”

  “And he would have walked right past them on his way to the elevator!”

  “He said he had some important legal documents to show you. He didn’t say what they were.”

  Si Tarkington looked grim. “I think I know,” he said. “What would you do with him, Tommy? If he were your son, how would you handle him?”

  Tommy spread his hands. “It’s hard to say, Si. But at times like this, I’m grateful that I’ve never been a parent. It isn’t easy, I know.”

  “It’s his mother’s fault, of course. It’s his goddamned mother’s fault. She encourages this sort of behavior. She applauds it! It’s all her goddamned fault.”

  “If I might make one small suggestion, Si,” Tommy began.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Perhaps—perhaps if you tried a little harder to show him that you love him, Si. Perhaps that might help.”

  He nodded. “I’m going to have a word with him,” he said. “Meanwhile, thanks for helping out with James this morning, Tommy. You certainly have better things to do with your time than deal with my family problems.”

  “That’s what I’m here for, Si. To help you in any way I can.” He paused. Then he said, “He referred to our business as the shmattes game. He called it ‘this fucking, phony shmattes game.’”

  And Tommy Bonham watched as Silas Tarkington’s face grew white with fury.

  That evening, after the store had closed for the day, Blazer Tarkington appeared at his father’s office as he had been invited to do. He was dressed as he had been earlier in the day, but now he wore an unzipped leather airman’s jacket over the T-shirt. Unknown to him was the fact that, in the closed office next door, Tommy, at Si’s request (“So you can tell me how I do with him”), would be eavesdropping on this meeting over the intercom.

  “Sit down, son,” Si said, and Blazer slumped in the chair across from his father’s desk.

  “We are a divided family,” his father began. “That fact is painful to me, but it is a fact that cannot be avoided. You are the product of a broken home, as they say, and I’m sure you blame me for the breakup of that home. All I can say to you is that in any divorce there are two sides to the issue, and the two people who are involved will probably never agree on who is to blame for the breakup of the marriage. Each partner in a divorce action thinks his side is right and the other side is wrong. I ask you to accept the possibility that, in your mother’s and my case, there were rights and wrongs on both sides. I have never tried to paint myself as the hero or your mother as the villainess. The greatest mistake, I suppose, was that your mother and I got married in the first place. But then, Blazer—but then we would not have had you, whom we both love very much.

  “I’d also like you to believe, son, that I have done everything in my power to make this divided family as happy and as privileged as I possibly can—to do everything I can for you, Miranda, and your mother. As you know, I’ve tried to give you and Miranda the finest of possible educations. Your stepmother and I have tried to make you feel welcome in our home. We wouldn’t do any of this, son, if we didn’t love both you children equally.”

  “Bullshit,” Blazer muttered.

  His father pretended not to hear this. “And we wouldn’t have been able to do any of this,” he went on, “if it hadn’t been for my business. Now you may think that this is a phony business; I won’t argue with your right to think that. Perhaps any business designed to fulfill human needs is a phony business, but all I can say is that I would not have been successful in the business I’m in if I had not found a way of fulfilling certain needs. In my case, it is women’s needs for beautiful clothes, designed to make them look more beautiful. My success is proof of that need, son, and all I ask is that you understand why I am proud of it, very proud. This is a business I built from scratch, from nothing, with no help from anyone. And I didn’t build it just for myself, though that was certainly part of it—I won’t deny I have an ego—I also built it for my family, my wife, my children, and my children’s children, so that future generations of this family would have something to hold on to. That’s about all a man has in this life: his business, his family, and the future of his family. It’s like a religion. It’s like a love affair. For what are religion and love all about if it isn’t trying to find some security in the uncertain
future? I ask you to try to understand that. Of course I used to think and hope that you—that you and I, as father and son—but never mind that.”

  “Yeah, what about me?” Blazer said.

  His father studied him. “I’m asking you to understand me,” he said at last. “Is that too much to ask? Maybe it is.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You had your twenty-first birthday two weeks ago,” his father said, and Blazer nodded.

  “I assume you received your birthday check?”

  Blazer nodded again.

  “That’s wrong. I don’t assume. I know you received it because you endorsed it, and the check has cleared the bank. I suppose I was asking too much to expect some sort of thank-you note from you for a check for five thousand dollars.”

  Blazer sat forward in his chair. “But what about this?” he said, slapping the manila envelope on his lap. “What happened to my fucking trust fund? I took these papers to Jake Kohlberg this morning to collect the money from my so-called trust fund, and he tells me all the money’s gone! Where is it?”

  “I know about this,” his father said. “Jake Kohlberg called me this morning. This is a matter you will have to take up with your mother.”

  “But this was supposed to be your trust fund! For me!” He waved the manila envelope in his father’s face.

  “Please don’t do that, Blazer,” his father said, holding up his hand. “It’s true that I funded the trust. But the two trustees were your mother and the First National Bank of Stamford, Connecticut. Somehow the funds have been expended. Don’t ask me how. Ask your mother.”

  “But what the fuck am I supposed to do, Dad?”

  “I suppose you could sue your mother.”

  “That’s what Kohlberg said. He wants me to hire him to sue my own mother!”

  “I doubt that Kohlberg, Weiss would be willing to represent you in such an action,” his father said, “since they are my legal counsel.”

  “Sue my own mother! That’s typical of you, isn’t it? You’d sue your own mother! I know all about you! All this bullshit you’ve been slinging me about your business—how you started it from nothing, from scratch, with no help from anybody! You started it by jewing your own mother out of her inheritance! You jewed your sister, too. You jewed your mother and your sister, you jewed them both with your dirty Jew tricks. Mom told me all about it, Dad. I know all about it!”

  “Your mother is a highly emotionally unstable woman with a serious drinking problem. And, it would seem, a serious streak of larceny.”

  Blazer jumped to his feet. “Don’t say such things about my mother!”

  “Your mother is a lush. You know that as well as I do.”

  He raised his fist. “I’m warning you!”

  His father reached for a button on his desk. “Are you going to strike me?” he said. “All I have to do is push this button, and Oliver from Security, who is a Pinkerton detective, and armed, will be here in a matter of seconds.”

  “You’re not worth hitting,” Blazer said, lowering the fist. “You’re not worth it, Mr. Solomon Tarcher. Mr. Phony Silas Tarkington!”

  His father’s eyes drew into narrow slits. “Did you refer to my business as the shmattes game?”

  “Who told you that?” Blazer’s eyes were round.

  “I asked you a direct question, and I want a direct answer. Did you refer to my business as the shmattes game? Did you ever refer to it as that?”

  “Yeah, sure! Because that’s all it is! Fucking, phony shmattes game!”

  “Get out of here, you filthy little piece of slime,” his father said. “Get out of here in your filthy jeans and filthy T-shirt and filthy shoes and everything else that’s covering your filthy body. You’re shmattes, is what you are. When you were a baby, your mother almost dropped you on your head and killed you in one of her drunken rages. Sometimes I wish she had succeeded. Get out of here. I never want to lay eyes on you again.”

  Blazer hurled the manila envelope at his father, who caught it deftly in mid-air, ripped the envelope in half, and dropped the two halves into his wastepaper basket.

  And Blazer charged out the office door.

  “I guess you heard all that,” Si Tarkington said when Tommy rejoined him in his office. Si’s face was drawn and weary.

  “All of it,” Tommy said. “Si, you were magnificent. You gave him every opportunity. Some of the things you said—I made some notes. ‘What are religion and love all about, if it isn’t trying to find some security in an uncertain future?’ My God, that’s beautiful! It’s poetry. It almost brought tears to my eyes. But he didn’t hear a word of it. Give up on him, Si. The kid’s not worth it. And you’re right, it’s all his mother’s fault. She’s completely poisoned his mind against you—against you and against everything you’ve ever done or tried to do.”

  Silas Tarkington rose a little slowly from behind his desk. His face was pale and his shoulders sagged, and he suddenly seemed a man of even slighter stature than he actually was. “Worthless,” he repeated. “What should I do now?” His voice was soft, imploring, almost childlike.

  “For God’s sake, just don’t give him any more money. He made it perfectly clear that’s all he wants from you. Don’t send any more good money after bad. Look at all you’ve given him, Si. The finest education money could buy—Hotchkiss, Yale—and this is the way he rewards you.”

  “But he’s my son,” he said. “My own flesh—”

  “Take him out of your will, Si. Lord knows you’ve threatened to do that often enough. Show him it wasn’t just a threat. Show him you mean it. Put your money where your mouth is. God knows what would happen if he ever got his hands on any Tarkington’s stock. He’d have this place down the tubes in five minutes. The little bastard doesn’t deserve a plugged nickel. Cut him off without a penny.”

  “It’s hard, Tom. It’s damned hard.”

  “Of course it’s hard. But it’s time for you to play hardball now.”

  “The things he said about my mother … my sister.”

  “Your mother and your sister were well taken care of—you and I know that. You were dealing with greedy and ungrateful people, and you had to be tough. You’re dealing with a greedy and ungrateful person now, and you’ve got to be tough again. Besides, you’d be doing him a favor. Let him learn that he can’t go through life living on handouts from a rich father. Let him learn that if he’s going to make a living he’s going to have to do it by the sweat of his balls—the way you did. A kid who’d speak to his father the way he just did to you? Cut him out of your will. Show him who’s boss.”

  “You’re right … you’re right.”

  “Listening to the things he was saying to you, it was all I could do to keep from walking in here and punching him in the face. After all you’ve done for him. For God’s sake, Si, don’t let this kid shit on you any longer. Be a man! Let him go. It’s called tough love.”

  “You’re right. I’ll call Jake Kohlberg in the morning.”

  “Good man. Now you’re talking like Si Tarkington. Now you’re talking like the legendary Silas R. Tarkington, the merchant prince.”

  “And doesn’t he … doesn’t he understand I couldn’t have done any of it if I’d kept the old name?”

  “Listen, that kid has never even tried to understand you!”

  “You understand me, don’t you, Tommy?”

  “Damn right I do.”

  “But still—where did I go wrong with him, Tommy?”

  “You didn’t. You’re not to blame. You said it yourself—it’s his mother’s fault, it’s Alice’s fault. She’s taught that kid to hate you since he was old enough to talk.”

  “You’re right … you’re right.” Si Tarkington lowered his head, and his fingers riffling aimlessly through some papers on his desk, staring hard at the day-end sales figures as though they held the answer to some inscrutable riddle. He pressed his palms hard on the top of his desk and appeared to sway.

  Tommy Bonham stepped forward. “Are y
ou okay, Si?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes.… But still … but still, I had such high hopes for him,” he said. “My only son, and he called me a dirty Jew. I feel … I feel like camels just shat on my father’s grave. Blazer.… He was supposed … he was supposed to blaze across the sky like … a comet, like a shooting star. I wanted so much for him, Tommy … so much. Maybe I wanted too much. And now I have … no son.”

  “Look, Si,” Tommy began gently, “you’ll always have—”

  He had been about to say “me” when he realized that the founder and C.E.O. of Tarkington’s was weeping, that teardrops were falling across the page of sales figures, so Tommy Bonham left the rest of that sentence hanging in the air.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” he said instead.

  “You’re right … you’re right.”

  “His mother has poisoned his mind against you, Si. He’ll never change.”

  10

  It is Wednesday, and Miranda has arrived to assist Pauline O’Malley clear out her father’s desk, bookshelves, cabinets, and files. “Pauline needs help going through the things in your father’s office,” Tommy Bonham told her. “Someone in the family should be there when she does this. Can you give her a hand?” Materials pertaining to the store’s operations will, of course, stay where they are, but personal items—her mother’s photograph in its silver frame, his silver calendar and water carafe, his collection of Baccarat millefleur paperweights, and so on—will be packed and shipped out to Flying Horse Farm. The shipping department has sent up cardboard cartons for the job, along with bags of Styrofoam peanuts for packing the more fragile things.

  This is Pauline’s first day back at work since Silas Tarkington’s death. She has taken his death very badly. When Miranda first encountered her this morning, she looked terrible. Her eyes were red from weeping, her hair was a mess, her lipstick was smeared, and her desk was awash with piles of wadded-up Kleenex. Seeing Miranda, she rose from her chair and quite literally threw herself into Miranda’s arms with a fresh burst of sobbing. “Oh, Miss Miranda,” she moaned, while Miranda patted her shoulder, “we’ve lost him … lost him … we’ll never see him again, will we? Never in this world. Your poor mother. How is she taking it?”