Young and Revolting: The Continental Journals of Nick Twisp

by C. D. Payne

  10:31 p.m. A uniformed hotel bellhop arrived around dinner time with a small package from Ms. Krusinowski. I tipped him E.50 and eagerly opened the box. It contained a cassette tape and a note from Connie saying I should listen to it with my wife. I found that person next door chatting up a certain talented dwarf. She reluctantly excused herself and returned. I slipped the cassette into our radio-tape player, and we found ourselves in the middle of this extraordinary recorded phone conversation:

  Sheeni’s mother: “But why don’t you come to Ukiah and see us, Paul?”

  Paul: “I told you, mother, I’ll visit you when I get back. Connie and I want to go to Mexico to see if we can find Sheeni.”

  Sheeni’s mother: “I’ve given up on that godforsaken country. We’ve looked everywhere, and the authorities don’t do anything even if you bribe them. And why are you going with that awful Polish-Asian girl?”

  Paul: “Would you rather I got back together with Lacey?”

  Sheeni’s mother: “Heavens no! She’s worse!”

  Paul: “Mother, I’ve been meaning to ask you. How did you find out that Sheeni was trying to get a passport to run away?”

  Sheeni’s Mother: “I’m not as stupid as she thinks. I made friends with that boy Vijay and he told me. I was hoping he’d persuade his tramp of a sister to give up darling Trent, but he proved just as untrustworthy as the rest of his family. I say send the lot of them back to India!”

  I clicked off the player and looked at My Love. She sighed and wiped away a tear.

  “I didn’t forge the tape,” I said, “if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  My Love got up from the sofa, ripped Vijay’s bloody declaration off the wall, and tore it into bits. Very small bits. Then she fell into my arms.

  A very satisfying triumph, I must say.

  SATURDAY, June 19 — Six solid weeks of marital rapture. These gala anniversaries really pile up. I awoke as I used to do: thoroughly entwined among the limbs of my beloved. We really get ourselves tangled during the night. Thrown together by forces beyond our control, we acquiesced to the inevitable and went at it again like frenzied rabbits. My dormant prostate rose to the challenge, and Sheeni’s female equivalent also performed admirably. Hard to believe someone so (intermittently) hot in bed can be so icily distant when provoked. I am resolved to remain on her good side from now on.

  After a leisurely communal bath, we made it just in time to Connie and Paul’s swanky Art Nouveau hotel not far away (except financially) on the boulevard Raspail. One step inside the palatial lobby and I immediately felt like a trespassing peasant. I was even more unnerved when My Love disclosed that during World War II this hotel had been the Paris headquarters of Hitler’s feared Gestapo. Riding up to the top floor in the ornate elevator, I wondered how many brave resistance fighters had been given manicures with pliers in this very building

  A smiling Paul answered our knock. He shook my hand and gave his baby sister a perfunctory hug. Their lavish love nest was like a 1930s movie-set fantasy of flowing Art Deco curves and extravagantly streamlined furnishings. Gleaming cascades of silvery satin engulfed the great round bed—now in strenuous disarray. One could only speculate what affluent celebrities had gone at it on that richly sprung mattress.

  “You’re looking thin, Paul,” said Sheeni.

  “Hmm, you’re not,” he replied.

  It was true. My Love has begun to thicken perceptibly around the middle.

  “Don’t remind me!” she exclaimed.

  Connie hugged us both. She was dressed to high Parisian standards and looked like Serious Money on the Hoof. No colored contacts since Paul prefers her eyes in their natural Polish blue—always a startling contrast with her artfully sculpted Asian physiognomy. (In private Sheeni terms their torrid affair “artificial miscegenation.”)

  Polite conversation was made as Connie finished her elaborate toilette.

  “Tell me, Paul,” said My Love, “how was jail?”

  “Certainly not pleasant, but rather educational. How’s married life?”

  “Very much the same,” she replied.

  Connie glanced at me questioningly. I smiled and gave her a discreet thumbs-up sign. This was noticed by my ever-observant spouse, who scowled and stuck out her tongue at me.

  We breakfasted sumptuously downstairs in the hotel’s ritzy dining room. Such elegance! Such refinement! Such prices! Fortunately, Connie nonchalantly signed the check, which no doubt will be added to her humongous tab. Resourceful François made this mental note: If you’re down and out in a foreign city, just check into the best hotel, sample their finest in-house cuisine, sign the check, then casually saunter out.

  Since this was Paul’s first visit to Paris, his sister was full of suggestions for Must-Be-Seen Sights. Connie inventoried the activities she had planned for today. For a broad overview of the French capital, they would begin with a guided limousine tour. Next up was a cruise down the Seine on a private yacht, during which a catered lunch would be served. Then a return to their hotel for rest and refreshments. Dinner was at sunset at the Jules Verne on the Eiffel Tower, followed by an excursion to Paris’s most exclusive jazz club.

  “Sounds like fun,” I admitted.

  “And what’s on your agenda for today?” Connie inquired.

  “I’m scrubbing fresh graffiti off the front of our building,” I replied.

  “I’m shopping for groceries,” added My Love. “Then I’m doing my laundry.”

  Connie gave me a sour look. Damn, she’s right. I was supposed to be making marriage sound inviting.

  Before we departed, I managed to take Paul aside to inquire if he thought I was the target of any paid assassins. He pondered this and said “so many” people were in pursuit of me that it was “hard to sort them all out.” Hardly the comforting words of reassurance I’d been hoping for!

  5:25 p.m. Had another small tiff with My Love. She did her laundry, but wouldn’t take mine—even though I always drag hers along when I go to the launderette. She said forcing her to handle my soiled briefs and socks would be the “final nail in the coffin of romance.” I don’t think she should be so uptight. Personally, I always get a minor erotic thrill while handling her panties and bras— the funkier the better.

  8:47 p.m. Another call to Fuzzy DeFalco. God knows what these international calls must be costing. I requested an update. “Yeah, I asked my dad if he ever heard of some dude named Rick S. Hunter. Jesus, I hate talking to my dad.”

  “Every kid your age does, Fuzzy. I hardly ever talk to mine. What did he say?”

  “He told me to keep my big Dago nose out of his business. Then he asked if I knew where you were.”

  Damn! “What did you say?”

  “I said I didn’t, but I’m not sure he believed me.”

  Very scrotum-wrenching. Desperate, I implored my friend to call his Uncle Sal directly.

  “I don’t know, Rick. I never phoned him before. I always write him little notes to thank him for his presents. Mom makes me.”

  “Just give him a call, Fuzzy. Tell him Rick S. Hunter is a personal friend of yours and you’d hate it if anything happened to him.”

  “I don’t know, Rick. Say, don’t you owe me some money?”

  Americans are turning into such greedheads. I told my pal if he got his uncle off my back, I’d send him a check for a thousand.

  “I want that in dollars, Rick. Don’t be sending me no thousand pesos.”

  I agreed and he asked me if I’d heard the latest rumor. It seems Vijay’s been deported.

  “You mean from France, Fuzzy? Yeah, I heard that.”

  “Not just from France, Rick. They wouldn’t let him back into the good ol’ U.S. of A.”

  “They wouldn’t!? What happened to him?”

  “Bounced his skinny ass right back. Airline dumped him on a plane to India. Guess he’s there now. His family went totally ballistic. They even got their picture in the Santa Rosa paper. Trent too. I guess he was trying to calm down Apurva
, who was holding up this really bad photo of her bro’. Man, he didn’t look like anyone I’d want back in my country.”

  Vijay is marooned in India! Nicely far away, though I have no illusions that the viper has been de-fanged. And doubtless he is now pissed off big time.

  SUNDAY, June 19 — We kept our social calendars open for outings with well-heeled visitors, but no call came. I guess when you’re intent on a romantic pre-proposal holiday in Paris, two is company and four is a major distraction. Sheeni moped around the sixth floor and chatted up various neighbors (not Reina though). I rearranged the furniture so the bed was no longer in the immediate line of fire of any gunmen bursting through the door. At 7:00 p.m. we said “to hell with those guys” and went out for dinner. This time I had my crêpe wrapped around chunks of roasted goat cheese. Not bad, but personally I’d have preferred a real cheeseburger and fries. No, I haven’t disclosed to Sheeni what befell her deported buddy. And I’m resolved to be alert for any attempts by that vile alien at communicating with her. I still don’t know how her letter from Trent slipped past me. Censoring his wife’s mail— I can see now that this is a duty every sensible husband must embrace.

  MONDAY, June 20 — My Love has rashly invited her brother and Connie to dinner. Worse, she has extended the invitation to Señor Nunez, even though we have only four rickety chairs. He is bringing the wine, his own preferred seating, and his accordion. God knows what I’m supposed to serve. Not a cookbook in the place, plus my endless janitorial chores are backing up. And our kitchenette is a joke. The only thing I’m well equipped to do in there is slash my wrists. I hope that Mafia hit man shows up this morning. He could save me a great deal of bother.

  11:48 p.m. It’s over! The stove didn’t explode. The chef didn’t slice off anything major. No guests keeled over from salmonella poisoning. All in all, you’d have to call our first dinner party a success. I made a nice plat du jour, which certainly sounds French even if it was spaghetti and meatballs (you were expecting blanquette de veau?). We switched off all the lamps and lit a dozen candles—a lighting effect My Love termed “gilding the squalor.” Pillows were fluffed, mounds of stuff were shifted away from the closeted toilet, and the radio-tape player was tuned to the least offensive available music.

  Señor Nunez arrived first. He was dressed in a green velvet suit— a fashion statement, I thought, that veered very close to the leprechaunesque. He tasted my sauce and made a few adjustments to the seasonings to great effect. I’m beginning to think the only thing that guy can’t do is dunk a basketball.

  A moment later Connie and Paul staggered in from their long march up the stairs. They soon revived when Señor Nunez poured the wine, and Sheeni circulated with the cheesy appetizers. Paul remarked that our apartment was much nicer than his cell at the L.A. County Jail, and Connie said the view out our window was “positively alpine.” Both got on famously with Señor Nunez, who for being a lonely guy can really mix it up socially. Paul got him talking about life as a circus clown, and soon he had my guests falling out of their chairs from laughter. As usual, My Love seemed transfixed, hanging on the guy’s every word (something she never does with me).

  Later, when Sheeni was mixing the salad, I got a few minutes alone with Connie to discuss the absent Vijay.

  “I made a few calls,” she said. “They took care of the matter.”

  “Calls to whom?” I asked, impressed.

  “Associates of my father, Rick. How do you think we got so rich making truck springs?”

  “I don’t know, Connie. How?”

  “By making springs for military vehicles. That’s about 80 percent of our business. So naturally, we have quite a few contacts in the government. Just mention ‘radical Islamic activist’ and their ears perk right up.”

  “But Vijay is a Hindu.”

  “Is he? Well, if he tries hard enough, he may find some immigration official who cares about that distinction. In the meantime, he’s not getting back into France.”

  “Or America, Connie. The U.S. deported him to India.”

  “Well, he can brush up on his home culture. Want some advice, Rick?”

  “Sure.”

  “Keep that sexy dwarf away from your wife.”

  “I’m trying to!”

  After dinner Señor Nunez brought over a spare saxophone, and he and Paul played duets.

  They sounded so marvelous the Boccata brothers invited themselves over to listen, flirt with the ladies, and help finish off the wine. In between numbers, Connie put on her Chinese accent and chatted up Bernardo, who was obviously enthralled. Watching her I observed that she was sipping wine, enjoying the music, charming a genuine Italian, and appearing unavailable to the guy she desperately wants—all at the same time. What a pleasure to watch a pro at work.

  TUESDAY, June 21 — My phone chirped in the middle of the night. It was Connie calling from across the neighborhood.

  “Hi, Rick. Thanks for the nice dinner.”

  “No problem,” I yawned. “Is there more to this conversation?”

  “Rick, if you look under your sofa cushion you’ll find two E100 bills.”

  That’s a trend that should be encouraged—dinner guests hiding money on the premises.

  “Gee, thanks, Connie.”

  “I want you to take Paulo out to lunch tomorrow, I mean today.”

  “OK. A little brother-in-law bonding?”

  “Right. Order a nice meal and some expensive wine. I want you to talk him into popping the question. Now that I’ve finally slept with him, I’m even more convinced that he’s the man for me.”

  “You think I have some influence over the guy?”

  “I’m counting on it, Rick. And my unborn children are counting on it too.”

  Damn. What a genetic burden to have dumped on you at 2:00 in the morning. And all that wine wasn’t going down too well either.

  3:12 p.m. As instructed by Connie, I took my brother-in-law out to lunch at yet another famous Hemingway haunt on the place St.-Germain-des-Prés. It’s a wonder the guy found the time to write what with all his high-profile café hopping. I expect when I become a Revered Author, throngs of tourists will descend on the Golden Carp in Ukiah to soak up the budget Cantonese atmosphere that catapulted me toward Literary Greatness. I must remember to negotiate a kickback from Steve the waiter for the boost in business. Although the name of today’s eatery suggested unappetizing fly larvae, Paul explained it was inspired by two statues of Chinese salesmen mounted high on an interior wall. We sat outside even though French restaurants have the gall to charge more for al fresco grub that’s exactly the same hash they’re slinging inside. Infuriatingly unAmerican, if you ask me. Living dangerously, I closed my eyes and pointed at something on the menu, which turned out to be a tasty array of tiny chops carved off something the size of a squirrel. My guest had the non-mysterious scallops with mushrooms.

  Chewing my midget chop, I got down to brass tacks.

  “Paul, you have to get married—to Connie.”

  “Oh, really? And what if I’m not the marrying kind, Rick?”

  “Everyone gets married, Paul. And at 25 you’re way past due. It’s time to perpetuate your genes.”

  “You think so? I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Perhaps I should start with something less demanding like a cat.”

  “Connie’s rich, Paul. You’ll have a whole staff to mind the kiddies. They won’t be a burden. Just a few minutes every night in the nursery to tuck them in and remind them how lucky they are to have rich parents. Really, it’s not that much of a bother.”

  “You paint an attractive vision of fatherhood, Rick. But I think there’s more to it than that.”

  “It’s the most rewarding thing a guy can do,” I lied. “And Connie loves you very much.”

  “She’s a cute kid. But so young and rather spoiled.”

  “Maturity isn’t measured in years, Paul. Connie knows what she wants and she’s out to get it.”

  “And if I resist?”

>   “Here’s the situation as I see it, Paul. You’re a piece of steel: an unbending, rigid, strong, independent-minded hunk of jazz-playing ferrous metal. Connie is a powerful and wealthy magnet. You may not be particularly interested in that magnet, but like it or not it’s adhering to you. And you can’t repeal the laws of physics.”

  “I’m stuck, Rick?”

  “You’re stuck, Paul. It’s time to pop the question.”

  He speared a scallop and thought it over.

  “And if the marriage doesn’t work out?”

  “No big deal. Connie gets her wish. You get handsome Polish- American progeny. You may not want them, but your genes will thank you. Then the magnet comes unstuck. And you’re free to enjoy your big divorce settlement. No hard feelings.”

  “You make it sound so simple, Rick.”

  “It is simple, Paul. You’re stuck. It’s time to face the music.”

  “Handel’s Wedding March?”

  “Precisely.”

  “You can honestly recommend marriage?”

  “Not to worry, Paul. It’s always harder on the other party than it is on a Saunders. Just take it one day at a time. And don’t leave any sharp instruments lying around.”

  On our journey home on the Métro the topic of conversation proceeded naturally from marriage to prison. Paul said jail was simultaneously tedious from the enforced idleness and anxiety-producing from the all-pervasive atmosphere of violence. Since jail tended to attract the mentally unstable and the overly aggressive, you never knew when an inadvertent slight could lead to a punch in the nose or a shank in your gut. I gulped and asked Paul if he thought I was destined to serve much time.

  “Hard to say, Rick,” he replied. “I think your best bet is to become so famous no judge would dare sentence you to jail. Celebrities generally get just a slap on the wrist and maybe a fine. Otherwise, our prisons would be filled with musicians and actors—all busted for drug possession, spousal abuse, drunk driving, seducing minors—you name it.”