by Ric Klass
“Daniel, I’m too busy for nonsense. Our time left is all we really own, my boy.”
Mulling it over and halfway out the door, “So, why isn’t intellect enough?”
“Because caring has the greatest healing power, Daniel.”
“See, I knew it! You are a Carl Rogers disciple.”
“He was my mentor. Authored some peer-review articles together. We were close friends and colleagues.”
“You were a close friend and colleague of Carl Rogers?” then darts out of the office, suffering from the embarrassment of openly showing how impressed he is. Bernstein’s question, “What happened?” burns in his mind.
Brucie’s Call
awakens Dan from a troubled nap. He needed to lie down after the session. A mixed metaphor – eating crow isn’t my cup of tea – snuck into his mind and made him laugh just as he nodded off.
“Ahoy there, matey. Pretty rough sea you found yourself in. You OK?” inquires Langford the second.
“Arr, couldn’t be better me hearty,” evoking a respectable Wallace Beery Treasure Island imitation. “’Twas the grog that did me in, you scurvy dog.”
“I think it was the wench that keelhauled you, Dandy Man.” Dropping the pirate lingo, “Say, we missed you at my quotidian bash last night, old man. A certain temptress wants another shot at you, though she didn’t get the shot from you she expected.”
“Trying to sandbag me, aren’t you, Brucie?”
“Cross my heart and hope everyone else dies but me, Dandy.” Realizing the faux pas, “Uh . . . no offense.” Even among his wisecracking friends, Dan’s suicide attempts aren’t considered fair game for humor.
“No offense taken. Do you think Charlie will talk to me again?”
“I don’t think that talk is what’s on her mind. Fornication fits the bill somewhat better.”
Interested, “Yeah? Will she be there Saturday night?”
“With bells on her cloven toes.”
Reconsidering, “I don’t know. I probably should pass this one and finally dry out, Brucie. Having your stomach pumped isn’t the fun it’s made out to be.”
“Not a problem, Dandy. You should stay away. I’ll just tell her you consider her an unworthy slut and she ought to take up with me again.”
“Is she the Charlotte that nearly drove you to sobriety?”
“That very seductress. Thanks for dropping her in my lap again. There’s no rutty tomato like the one rebounding from throw-up on her dress.”
Knowing full well his folly, “OK, Svengali. You’ve sweet-talked me once more into attending one more of your lowbrow soirées. By the way, you don’t know a girl by the name of Laura Bernstein, do you?”
“Do you mean the one who lives in Stony Brook? How would you come to know the name of an honest woman?”
“That’s the one.”
“When it comes to female company, I thought you avoided the element, old chap – your element that is.”
“I’m waiting, Brucie. You won’t like me when I’m angry. I turn Godzilla green.”
“I don’t like you much now. Anyhoo, she’s a Ph.D. candidate in English at Princeton. She and Charlie met while they were both at Stanford. We all had lunch together last summer. Quite the budding literary lion, I hear. Already had some fiction published in the Sewanee Review. Besides her darling face, she’s sweet, wholesome, intelligent, and it seems to me a consummately decent woman. In summary, not at all your type, Dandy Man – in any respect.”
“What’s her number?”
“Don’t know but I can ask Charlotte for you. Shall I?” Then innocently, “Or do you want me to invite her so that Charlie can introduce you personally?”
“Don’t be an ass. You underestimate my powers, Brucie. I can see you smirking on the other side of this phone conversation. No, don’t invite Laura. Make up one of your ready fibs about why you want the number. And don’t tell Charlie it’s for me.”
“Your wish is my command, Sahib. What else do you seek from your lowly conjuror? ”
Now in earnest, “Brucie, would it be a terrible imposition if you didn’t serve liquor Saturday?”
“Not even this magic genie can prevent it, old bean. Not to hint for a token appreciation from a thankless chum, but most of it appears as offerings from invitees.”
“Not a problem,” Dan lies without being believed. “Catch you later.”
Bruce hangs up, delighted to be in the middle of such a yummy melodrama. “Bertrand,” he calls to his father’s servant, “Call Hampton Catering and double the amount of Perrier Jouët for Saturday.” A second thought, “And buzz Pirot. I have a special assignment for him: extra snow for Dan Topler.”
Just now, Bruce Langford II feels damned good about himself. His boss at Morgan Stanley didn’t mind his leaving a tad early in the afternoon – after all, the summer season has almost begun on the Eastern Shore. The helicopter ride to his own landing pad from the MS worldwide headquarters on Broadway in Manhattan, made possible through a grandfather clause in the local zoning laws, means that he can stay at his desk until four. Brucie resents the recent critical grimaces he gets from some of his neighbors over the noise. Now that the nouveau riche routinely take five-hundred-and-twenty-five dollar one-way choppers to the East Hampton Airport, unfairly he’s become the poster boy for the insufferable Apocalypse Now racket the denizens must now endure here in paradise.
Though he lacks the prerequisite MBA, his undergraduate degree from the Wharton School at UPenn, and more importantly his pedigree from the blue blood of his parents, qualifies him for perks not ordinarily given to new hires. His family has been listed in The Blue Book of the Hamptons for decades. A few phone calls to dad’s friends from the even-the-local-movie-moguls-can’t-get-in Maidstone and Shinnecock Hills Golf clubs had already put Brucie and his firm in the middle of the two biggest corporate mergers this year – the ichor of Morgan Stanley’s corporate finance unit. Investment bankers in the airless stratosphere of the top-tier firms clasp to their breasts a secret invisible to the great unwashed: rolodexes run the world.
“Speaking of the
Devil’s Handmaiden,
just how are you, scrumptious?” Bruce flatters Charlotte when she calls. He had just finished his conversation with Dan. “Any fresh kills today?”
When Charlie originally enrolled at Stanford, her plan was to mine West Coast contacts for an eventual legal career in Hollywood. She was a junior and Laura Bernstein a freshman when they met at a Stanford Film Society screening. An instant friendship began then for the two New Yorkers. Later at Columbia Law School, a feminist professor drew Charlie into a wholly different career. Defending woman’s rights presented itself as a higher calling, and now she’s well on her way to becoming partner in one of the most feared family (read divorce) law firms in Manhattan.
Contrary to the managing partner’s experienced business advice, Charlotte represents women only. “Not good for your career or the firm’s revenues,” he warned. In fact, a sizable chunk of the money in the divorce legal racket nowadays comes from fees paid by wealthy errant husbands to their female counsels. A jury’s natural sympathy for an injured damsel can often be mollified or even evaporated by the appearance of a persuasive counsel that happens to be wearing a well-tailored skirt. Charlotte’s fame has risen so rapidly that the mere mention of her name frequently brings the opposition immediately to the bargaining table in a quick, favorable settlement for her client.
A plaque on her office desk declares Bobby Fischer’s famous dictum:
I like to see ’em squirm.
That goes for her dating habits as well.
“Bagged a ten-million-dollar cash settlement from a wife-beating pig who controls the largest global reinsurer registered in Bermuda. Also landed his five-acre villa near the Southampton Princess Hotel.”
“What a shark.”
“He got off easy. He cowered like a frightened schoolboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. We could have reeled in his yacht as well.”
/> “Why didn’t you pluck that, too?’
“Yachts are just another name for money pits. Maybe it’ll capsize with him on it. Say listen, Brucie love, do you remember Laura, my friend from Stanford that you met last summer?”
The serendipity never stops a-comin’ for this bonus baby. He silently licks his chops. “Yes, of course. The homely one with bad breath and buck teeth. How is the dear thing? Ever land a date?”
“If you had asked her out one more time last year, Brucie, she would have started charging you dial-a-porn rates.”
“Oh, that Laura!” He knows his chances are slim, but she can’t slap him over the phone. “Speaking of dates, any chance you, oh sprite of the underworld,” now singing the 70s song intentionally off-key, “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?”
“If you were only as big a dick below the waist as you are above it, we’d still be lovers, darling.”
“Ouch! I’ve always revered your dead aim at one’s privates, dear.” Thus exhibiting yet once more the source of the awful rhyme often repeated by Brucie’s cronies:
Bruce’s breeding made him uninsultable,
a trait his friends find fun ’n lovable.
Charlie wants to get to the point. She’s still bustling at work, pounding men into the ground like they were railroad spikes under a titanium cudgel. “Anyway, for some ungodly reason she found you droll, in an uncouth way of course, and thought we might all lunch again sometime.”
“I have a much better idea,” springs the trap. “Why don’t the two of you come to the pond house Saturday night? You can show her how the base upper class demean themselves.”
“Perfect. She can use you degenerates for one of her short stories. I’ll twist her arm. We’ll be there,” and hangs up without a goodbye.
It all goes to show you how wonderful life can be if you live right, Bruce congratulates himself.
New Beginnings
may sound like a men’s club, but it’s not far from group therapy, considers Dan. He’s on the expressway halfway to the Wednesday night meeting. But, why not? They’re among friends, no pressure to bare their chests, and they can just talk sports and the market if they want to. Kind of like getting together with Bruce, Chipster, and Ronnie without the booze. Or maybe it’s more like talking to Ally, except the two of us gossip about movie stars and how weird some of the other “guests” behave instead of the Yankees and the Dow Jones Average.
When he’s not reading in his room or giving one of his three-times-daily mandatory urine samples, Dan spends most of the last two days with the teen, though it’s been tricky to keep it platonic. Just this morning she pretended that “Hey, why don’t we just go to my place and fool around” just casually occurred to her then instead of the well-rehearsed line she’d been practicing for days.
Dan sensed that a suggestion like that might come from her and that she’d try hard to fake nonchalance. He put her off by treating it as farce. That’s all I need, races into his mind. Trade Long Island for Riker’s Island. If she persists along that line, I’ll have to stop hanging out with her. Hate to do that. She’s a nice kid. Funny, too. And all the other prisoners here are either bats or comatose.
Sam Blotkin, the club member who was a no-show for the last meeting has already taken a seat by himself as Dan strolls into the temple library. Why does Sam sit by his lonesome? Dan asks himself. Though he didn’t say much at the last get-together, Danny feels more comfortable this time sitting next to one of the other men. In truth, Dan also feels a bit like a little boy in the presence of these seasoned survivors. He finds that their company has an unexpected calming effect on him.
“Hi, Dan, good to see you again. I’d really like to hear more about how you like it at Stony Brook,” Harry warmly says to him. “I have a niece that’s applying to med school. Maybe you can give her some pointers.”
“Sure, love to.” My bit roles in college plays come in handy now and then, he laughs to himself.
Jack begins, “We’re all here. All of you remember Daniel, I hope.” Polite nods to Dan from all points on the circular seating compass. “I’d like Harry to start off the meeting tonight. He’s prepared an introduction for a possible starting topic tonight.”
But Harry doesn’t seem all that prepared. “Well, you know. One of the issues we’ve deliberated before is kind of getting ready . . . um . . . prepared for not being well or facing poor health. Or going through an operation that could be scary. Stuff like that.” Harry’s having a hard time expressing himself. “Anyhow, as you all know, Jack has to have surgery for the tumor they found a month ago, and why don’t you take it from there, Jack?”
“Two tumors,” Jack begins calmly. “The X-rays show one wrapped around the left kidney and one between the renal artery and kidney on the right. They must complete more tests. I’ll be operated on soon thereafter.”
Dan takes in the deadly silence. For a man his age, this could be a death sentence. Dan’s mind floods with the news. Bernstein never once mentioned he was ill to me, but I’m not a friend. Am I now? He hasn’t looked well; I should have guessed he’s sick. He wouldn’t simply start talking about himself even among close friends. He had Harry make an introduction to maintain the appearance of impartiality at the meeting. Proper. Dignified. What the hell am I doing here?
“My physician has recommended a surgeon at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. What really scares me is that I don’t know any of the doctors there. I’ve known all the Stony Brook medical staff for years. And now I’m just a stranger, another patient at a hospital I haven’t yet visited.” Jack just barely maintains composure. “I thought I’d share my experience with the group since we all might have to face problems like this.”
“Are you seeking counseling to help you, Jack?” softly asks Morty, whose typical bite is wholly missing in the question.
“Yes. Mary, a psychiatrist at Stony Brook, has recommended me to her friend, a counselor at Columbia-Presbyterian. That doctor will introduce me to my surgeon and the rest of the operating team. I don’t want anyone to operate on me who doesn’t know me.”
“You have your daughter to help you, too,” David suggests.
“We’re very lucky,” interjects Harry. “We all have children that we can rely on.” Trying to humorously cover up the possible slight, “Except Barry, of course, who’s a lucky bachelor.”
“Children? I don’t have any children I can rely on,” muscles in an agitated Morty.
Glen tries to reassure him, “I probably shouldn’t talk since I have a young child, two adult daughters and a third wife I almost never see, but you have your two grown kids, Morty. If you have trouble, you can call them.”
“You, Glen. It’s you I’ll call if I’m sick. Not my children. I hardly talk to them now. Do you all remember when I got bar mitzvahed again? You all were there. My kids couldn’t believe a hundred people showed up. They thought nobody would be there except them. That nobody likes me just because they don’t.”
“There’s your sister you could call if you were ill,” suggests Barry.
“We haven’t spoken in over a year,” Morty bitterly replies and turns off his receptors for the rest of the meeting in isolated contemplation.
The group conversation retreats into happier, more comfortable gab – the book club they also attend on other nights, summer travel.
Later, Dan again leaves the building first, but for a different reason. Even the weight of Bernstein’s earlier disclosure hasn’t made him forget his new goal.
“I almost never lose phone numbers, yet what can I say?” Dan teases Laura outside. “The pressure of daily life – corporate board meetings, press interviews, et cetera et cetera. They suck the life out of you.” Dan tears out a page from the note pad she was writing in and a pen from his pocket while transmitting his most winning smile. He’s not trusting to luck that Brucie will come through for him. “Please give it to me again. Not too fast, cause I’m a little slow.”
“You’re as fast as they co
me,” says Laura laughing. “But since we’re brother and sister you can ask our father if you’ve forgotten the number.”
Oh, yes, the little detail of my miniscule fib, remembers Danny. He hesitates. I don’t know what Bernstein has said about me. “What did daddy-o say?”
“Daddy-o didn’t say anything at all about you, Daniel.”
Bernstein had departed the temple and blindsides Dan-Dan from behind. “What shall we say?”
Dan realizes that his psychiatrist has skillfully turned the tables on him. “I’m a patient of Dr. Bernstein’s and enrolled at the Live Free or Die rehab clinic in East Hampton. He kindly has permitted me to sit in on the New Beginnings meetings so that I can witness the real difficulties and pleasures of life and aging. I can’t take drugs or alcohol. The combination with the medicine I’m taking could kill me.” There’s no defense like a good offense.
“A concise confession and self-analysis. Excellent, Daniel.” To Laura, “Well let’s go, honey. I need to get up early.”
“Your number, Laura?” Dan persists.
Bernstein pulls Dan aside. “Let me talk to you for a moment, Daniel.” Out of ear range, “You’re my patient and still in danger, it seems to me. Furthermore, now is not the right time to pursue romantic interests. You must focus on recovery.”
“You don’t think I’m fit to see your daughter, Doc, is that it?”
Firmly, “That’s exactly it. Don’t call her.”
“Are you speaking as my doctor or as her father?”
“Frankly, both, Daniel.” Then getting in the car, “Let’s go, honey.”
A sad you-know-how-parents-are mug to Dan from Laura and they’re gone, leaving Dan alone in the parking lot.
Maybe because he’s already asked Bruce to get Laura’s number, but other thoughts occupy his mind. Community means so such to Jacob. Meeting the surgeon has more importance than the threat of the surgery itself. I never did find out why Sam sat by himself and said nothing all night. In analyzing the night’s conversation, Danny’s yearning gonads have temporarily been forgotten on the drive back to his posh prison.