SSC (2004) The Complete Stories of Truman Capote
Page 31
Just a gigolo, everywhere I go, people stop and stare … Moon, moon over Miami … This is my first affair, so please be kind … Hey, mister, can you spare a dime?… Just a gigolo, everywhere I go, people stop and stare …
All the while she talked (and I tried not to listen, because by telling me my birth had destroyed her, she was destroying me), these tunes ran through my head, or tunes like them. They helped me not to hear her, and they reminded me of the strange haunting party my father had given in New Orleans that Christmas Eve.
The patio was filled with candles, and so were the three rooms leading off it. Most of the guests were gathered in the parlor, where a subdued fire in the fireplace made the Christmas tree glitter; but many others were dancing in the music room and the patio to music from a wind-up Victrola. After I had been introduced to the guests, and been made much of, I had been sent upstairs; but from the terrace outside my French-shuttered bedroom door, I could watch all the party, see all the couples dancing. I watched my father waltz a graceful lady around the pool that surrounded the mermaid fountain. She was graceful, and dressed in a wispy silver dress that shimmered in the candlelight; but she was old—at least ten years older than my father, who was then thirty-five.
I suddenly realized my father was by far the youngest person at his party. None of the ladies, charming as they were, were any younger than the willowy waltzer in the floating silver dress. It was the same with the men, so many of whom were smoking sweet-smelling Havana cigars; more than half of them were old enough to be my father’s father.
Then I saw something that made me blink. My father and his agile partner had danced themselves into a niche shadowed by scarlet spider orchids; and they were embracing, kissing. I was so startled, I was so irate, I ran into my bedroom, jumped into bed and pulled the covers over my head. What would my nice-looking young father want with an old woman like that! And why didn’t all those people downstairs go home so Santa Claus could come? I lay awake for hours listening to them leave, and when my father said good-bye for the last time, I heard him climb the stairs and open my door to peek at me; but I pretended to be asleep.
Several things occurred that kept me awake the whole night. First, the footfalls, the noise of my father running up and down the stairs, breathing heavily. I had to see what he was up to. So I hid on the balcony among the bougainvillea. From there, I had a complete view of the parlor and the Christmas tree and the fireplace where a fire still palely burned. Moreover, I could see my father. He was crawling around under the tree arranging a pyramid of packages. Wrapped in purple paper, and red and gold and white and blue, they rustled as he moved them about. I felt dizzy, for what I saw forced me to reconsider everything. If these were presents intended for me, then obviously they had not been ordered by the Lord and delivered by Santa Claus; no, they were gifts bought and wrapped by my father. Which meant that my rotten little cousin Billy Bob and other rotten kids like him weren’t lying when they taunted me and told me there was no Santa Claus. The worst thought was: Had Sook known the truth, and lied to me? No, Sook would never lie to me. She believed. It was just that—well, though she was sixty-something, in some ways she was at least as much of a child as I was.
I watched until my father had finished his chores and blown out the few candles that still burned. I waited until I was sure he was in bed and sound asleep. Then I crept downstairs to the parlor, which still reeked of gardenias and Havana cigars.
I sat there, thinking: Now I will have to be the one to tell Sook the truth. An anger, a weird malice was spiraling inside me: It was not directed towards my father, though he turned out to be its victim.
When the dawn came, I examined the tags attached to each of the packages. They all said: “For Buddy.” All but one, which said: “For Evangeline.” Evangeline was an elderly colored woman who drank Coca-Cola all day long and weighed three hundred pounds; she was my father’s housekeeper—she also mothered him. I decided to open the packages: It was Christmas morning, I was awake, so why not? I won’t bother to describe what was inside them: just shirts and sweaters and dull stuff like that. The only thing I appreciated was a quite snazzy cap-pistol. Somehow I got the idea it would be fun to waken my father by firing it. So I did. Bang. Bang. Bang.
He raced out of his room, wild-eyed.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Buddy—what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Stop that!”
I laughed. “Look, Daddy. Look at all the wonderful things Santa Claus brought me.”
Calm now, he walked into the parlor and hugged me. “You like what Santa Claus brought you?”
I smiled at him. He smiled at me. There was a tender lingering moment, shattered when I said: “Yes. But what are you going to give me, Daddy?” His smile evaporated. His eyes narrowed suspiciously—you could see that he thought I was pulling some kind of stunt. But then he blushed, as though he was ashamed to be thinking what he was thinking. He patted my head, and coughed and said: “Well, I thought I’d wait and let you pick out something you wanted. Is there anything particular you want?”
I reminded him of the airplane we had seen in the toy store on Canal Street. His face sagged. Oh, yes, he remembered the airplane and how expensive it was. Nevertheless, the next day I was sitting in that airplane dreaming I was zooming toward heaven while my father wrote out a check for a happy salesman. There had been some argument about shipping the plane to Alabama, but I was adamant—I insisted it should go with me on the bus that I was taking at two o’clock that afternoon. The salesman settled it by calling the bus company, who said that they could handle the matter easily.
But I wasn’t free of New Orleans yet. The problem was a large silver flask of moonshine; maybe it was because of my departure, but anyway my father had been swilling it all day, and on the way to the bus station, he scared me by grabbing my wrist and harshly whispering: “I’m not going to let you go. I can’t let you go back to that crazy family in that crazy old house. Just look at what they’ve done to you. A boy six, almost seven, talking about Santa Claus! It’s all their fault, all those sour old spinsters with their Bibles and their knitting needles, those drunken uncles. Listen to me, Buddy. There is no God! There is no Santa Claus.” He was squeezing my wrist so hard that it ached. “Sometimes, oh, God, I think your mother and I, the both of us, we ought to kill ourselves to have let this happen—” (He never killed himself, but my mother did: She walked down the Seconal road thirty years ago.) “Kiss me. Please. Please. Kiss me. Tell your daddy that you love him.” But I couldn’t speak. I was terrified I was going to miss my bus. And I was worried about my plane, which was strapped to the top of the taxi. “Say it: ‘I love you.’ Say it. Please. Buddy. Say it.”
It was lucky for me that our taxi-driver was a good-hearted man. Because if it hadn’t been for his help, and the help of some efficient porters and a friendly policeman, I don’t know what would have happened when we reached the station. My father was so wobbly he could hardly walk, but the policeman talked to him, quieted him down, helped him to stand straight, and the taxi-man promised to take him safely home. But my father would not leave until he had seen the porters put me on the bus.
Once I was on the bus, I crouched in a seat and shut my eyes. I felt the strangest pain. A crushing pain that hurt everywhere. I thought if I took off my heavy city shoes, those crucifying monsters, the agony would ease. I took them off, but the mysterious pain did not leave me. In a way it never has; never will.
Twelve hours later I was home in bed. The room was dark. Sook was sitting beside me, rocking in a rocking chair, a sound as soothing as ocean waves. I had tried to tell her everything that had happened, and only stopped when I was hoarse as a howling dog. She stroked her fingers through my hair, and said: “Of course there is a Santa Claus. It’s just that no single somebody could do all he has to do. So the Lord has spread the task among us all. That’s why everybody is Santa Claus. I am. You are. Even your cousin Billy
Bob. Now go to sleep. Count stars. Think of the quietest thing. Like snow. I’m sorry you didn’t get to see any. But now snow is falling through the stars—” Stars sparkled, snow whirled inside my head; the last thing I remembered was the peaceful voice of the Lord telling me something I must do. And the next day I did it. I went with Sook to the post office and bought a penny postcard. That same postcard exists today. It was found in my father’s safety deposit box when he died last year. Here is what I had written him: Hello pop hope you are well l am and I am lurning to pedel my plain so fast I will soon be in the sky so keep your eyes open and yes I love you Buddy.
STORY CREDITS
“The Walls Are Cold” copyright © 1943 by Truman Capote
“A Mink of One’s Own” copyright © 1944 by Truman Capote
“The Shape of Things” copyright © 1944 by Truman Capote
“Jug of Silver” copyright © 1945 and copyright renewed 1973 by Truman Capote
“Miriam” copyright © 1945 by Truman Capote
“My Side of the Matter” copyright © 1945 and copyright renewed 1973
by Truman Capote
“Preacher’s Legend” copyright © 1945 by Truman Capote
“A Tree of Night” copyright © 1945 and copyright renewed 1973
by Truman Capote
“The Headless Hawk” copyright © 1946 and copyright renewed 1973
by Truman Capote
“Shut a Final Door” copyright © 1947 and copyright renewed 1974
by Truman Capote
“Children on Their Birthdays” copyright © 1948 and copyright renewed 1976
by Truman Capote
“Master Misery” copyright © 1949 and copyright renewed 1976
by Truman Capote
“The Bargain” copyright © 2004 by the Truman Capote Literary Trust
“A Diamond Guitar” copyright © 1950 and copyright renewed 1977
by Truman Capote
“House of Flowers” copyright © 1951 and copyright renewed 1979
by Truman Capote
“A Christmas Memory” copyright © 1956 and copyright renewed 1984
by Truman Capote
“Among the Paths to Eden” copyright © 1960 by Truman Capote, copyright
renewed 1988 by Alan U. Schwartz
“The Thanksgiving Visitor” copyright © 1967 by Truman Capote, copyright
renewed 1995 by Alan U. Schwartz
“Mojave” copyright © 1975 by Truman Capote, copyright renewed 2003
by Alan U. Schwartz
“One Christmas” copyright © 1982, 1983 by Truman Capote
BOOKS BY TRUMAN CAPOTE
Other Voices, Other Rooms
A Tree of Night
Local Color
The Grass Harp
The Muses Are Heard
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Observations (with Richard Avedon)
Selected Writings
In Cold Blood
A Christmas Memory
The Thanksgiving Visitor
The Dogs Bark
Music for Chameleons
One Christmas
Three by Truman Capote
Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel
A Capote Reader
The Complete Stories of Truman Capote
Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote
ALSO BY TRUMAN CAPOTE
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S
In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name entered American idiom and whose style is part of the literary landscape. Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen at Tiffany’s; her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm. This volume also contains three of Capote’s best-known stories, “House of Flowers,” “A Diamond Guitar,” and “A Christmas Memory.”
THE COMPLETE STORIES OF TRUMAN CAPOTE
The Complete Stories brings together Capote’s life’s work in the form he called his “great love,” and confirms his status as a master of the the short story. This first-ever compendium features a never-before-published 1950 story, “The Bargain,” as well as an introduction by Reynolds Price. Ranging from the gothic South to the chic East Coast, from rural children to aging urban sophisticates, all the unforgettable places and people of Capote’s oeuvre are here, in stories as elegant as they are heartfelt, as haunting as they are compassionate.
THE GRASS HARP
Set on the outskirts of a small Southern town, this is the story of three endearing misfits—an orphaned boy and two whimsical old ladies—who take up residence in a tree house. As they pass sweet yet hazardous hours, The Grass Harp conveys all the pleasures and responsibilities of freedom, as well as the sacredness of love.
IN COLD BLOOD
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held at close range. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy.
MUSIC FOR CHAMELEONS
In these gems of reportage, Truman Capote takes true stories and real people and renders them with the stylistic brio we expect from great fiction. Here we encounter an exquisitely preserved Creole aristocrat sipping absinthe in her Martinique salon; an enigmatic killer who sends his victims announcements of their forthcoming demise; and a proper Connecticut householder with a ruinous obsession for a twelve-year-old-girl he has never met.
OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS
Capote’s first novel is a foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown-up enigmas of love and death in the ghostly landscape of the deep South. Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when he arrives, what he finds is a sullen stepmother, an uncle with the face and heart of a debauched child, and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.
TOO BRIEF A TREAT
The Letters of Truman Capote
Edited by Gerald Clarke
Spanning more than four decades, these letters are the closest thing we have to a Capote autobiography, showing us the uncannily self-possessed naïf who jumped headlong into the post–World War II New York literary scene; the more mature Capote of the 1950s; the Capote of the early 1960s, immersed in the research and writing of In Cold Blood; and Capote later in life, as things seemed to be unraveling. With cameos by a veritable who’s who of twentieth-century glitterati, Too Brief a Treat shines a spotlight on the life and times of an incomparable American writer.
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