But as Theo worked on the biography, he was relieved to discover that Adolphus Mahan—however tainted his compliments by the desire to secure Principles of Aesthetic Distance for his wife, Amanda—had been right to see promise in this draft. There was a book here. And not a bad book, either. God knows, a third of Ford Rexford’s life was more life than most people ever had. And the beginning of the story, plenty to start with. It was not an especially happy beginning. Texas in the dust bowl depression. Ford’s mother, married too young to a man she didn’t love—timid, dreamy, unhappy, quickly broken by the loss in infancy of two children, and dead herself when the boy was ten. Ford’s father, son of a drunk, self-taught minister of a merciless God—astringent, cruel, hard as the land and raging against the imperfections of the people living on it, raging mostly against the son he’d named Joshua. Reading back over Ford’s childhood, Theo felt his anger at the adult begin to loosen and fall away.
Meanwhile, not only were his days busy, his nights soon filled up as well. The mantelpiece of Mole’s (or Jonas and Mole’s) suite at Brown’s was lined with invitations and tickets to this or that, and the two men kindly included him in a number of their evenings out. For Jonas, armed with tissues, sprays, pills, and syrups, did not allow his cold to keep him from bloody well enjoying London—not after the cultural deprivations of fundieville, as he referred to the “outrageously misnamed” town of Rome, North Carolina.
Determined, over their objections, to pay his share in these outings and finding himself near the end of his traveler’s checks, Theo telephoned his parents in Manhattan and asked them to wire him two thousand dollars, which he promised to pay back in the fall by cashing in one of his frugal C.D.s. Although they’d often offered, even tried to force him, he had declined for many years to accept any money from them, and he was touched now by the obvious pleasure it gave them to say yes. In their own way.
his father: Hey, Old Bear, sure you don’t need more? Three, four thousand? I’m loaded.
his mother: It’s news to me, unless you mean drunk. And he hasn’t told us what he needs two for! Are you in trouble, Theo?
his father: Pooh’s not in trouble, Rainie. He’s having a blast!
his mother: How would we know? Has he written, has he called?
his father: Aren’t you, Pooh? Having a ball? By George, I loved England. The good old Palladium. ‘Everybody do the duck, hey, hey.’ Jerry Lee hated the place, but he got in that sex mess with his cousin. Great town! ‘A foggy day in London town.’ Met any girls?
his mother: Benny, please shut up. Theo, you aren’t in the hospital, are you?
“Rainie, for Christ sake, why do you always have to expect the worst?”
“Why? Because I married you, that’s why. Somebody has to worry, somebody has to think!”
“Mom. Dad.”
“Rainie, sometimes I really wish you’d stop assuming I’m stupid.”
“Assuming?”
“Dad! Mom! This is a transatlantic call.”
his mother: so? I told you, call collect.
“Listen, you two. I’m not sick, I’m not in trouble, I’m not even trying to find Ford anymore—”
his mother: Good riddance.
his father: Well, now, if you think the man needs you, Old Bear. That piece in the Times Sunday must have really hurt.
“What piece?”
“You didn’t see it?” (It had never occurred to Theo’s parents that everybody in the world didn’t read the Arts Section of the New York Times every morning of their lives.) “I’ll send it to you. It said Ford Rexford was washed up, how Out of Bounds hadn’t been any good, and how he hadn’t written anything else since then, and sort of suggesting he never would. ‘Washed up!’ Boy, I know how it feels when they turn on you like that.”
Fury flared in Theo. “Miserable petty little scorpions! Well, he doesn’t give a fuck what they think. And he never reads the paper anyhow. He thought I was joking when I told him who the president was. Jesus, that makes me mad!”
his mother: Theo, don’t start brooding. You’ve gotten yourself obsessed with this man’s problems.
“Obsessed? Have you been talking to Steve Weiner?”
“You’re going to get my ulcers. Just tell yourself to have a good time, and DO it!”
“I’m having a very nice time, Mom. In fact I’m going out so much, I need to buy some decent clothes.”
“Why didn’t you say so! It’s like Sweets says, you look like an angel and dress like a bum.”
“Oh, Rainie, why do you tell him things like that?”
“Mom, Dad. How is everybody? Uncle Arthur, Cathy, Sweets?”
his father: Great!
his mother: Crazy.
“And you two are fine?”
“Sweetheart, I told you my servants-for-hire business has sort of petered out in this downswing? Well, your father and I have taken a stupid singing job—don’t ask me why—”
his father: It’ll be fun!
his mother: On a lousy cruise ship. With bunk beds! In the tropics in July!
his father: I’ve never been to Central America. The Panama Canal, hey! That’s a great American achievement in engineering. I’ll be damn proud to see it, I’ll tell you.
“Dad, I’m not sure this is a good time to go to Panama.”
his mother: What can I tell you? We love to scare ourselves. We love to be miserable. That’s why we got married.
“Rainie, I know you think you’re joking but—”
“Joking? Ha!”
“Good-bye, Mom. Good-bye, Dad.”
“So now your son’s a comedian too, Benny. Theo, are you eating plenty of fresh fruit?”
They wired the money the next day. With it, Theo was able to trade in his quickly rented “rags” for elegant rags of his own. And in them, he went with his new collaborators to theaters, to auctions, to teas, to the Garrick Club, and to a great many pubs. Here he met a great many friends of the gregarious Mole, including a few of the chaps previously encountered at the Henley Regatta. Frequently, these friends had been up at Oxford together, and despite the passage of time, their years in school loomed large in their conversation, especially after several rounds of drinks. Indeed, their years then, as their evenings now, appeared to have pretty much consisted of rounds of drinks. At least, their stories of college life often ran an alcoholic course—almost invariably coupled with infantile physical pranks.
Theo (who, with only moderate lapses, had spent his Yale years studying as hard as he could) was a little surprised to hear these well-educated men (well placed now in business, the arts, and even the government) talk as if not only their happiest, but their only memories of Oxford were of drunken binges and Three Stooges–like high jinks. He heard them fondly remember the time when one had hung by his ankles from Folly Bridge; when two others had smashed all the furniture in So-and-so’s rooms; when several had gone punt-jousting on the Isis and broken most of their ribs.
He listened to them lovingly puzzle over old mysteries: Had X really set fire to the porter’s lodge? Had Y been the one who’d cemented the statue of the Virgin Mary into the urinal and put it in the Senior Common Room where it hadn’t been noticed by the dons for a week? Had Z actually mailed a pig’s penis to So-and-so’s fiancée?
Learning of Theo’s acquaintanceship with Dame Winifred Throckmorton, they told him (at least three times and with discrepancies) “the Throckmorton copper story,” which involved her having absentmindedly biked away from the front of Blackwell’s (or the police station) on a bicycle belonging to a female (or male) police officer who gave pursuit on foot and was struck in the face by Dame’s Winifred’s book bag (or umbrella) while attempting to retrieve the bike. He also heard “the Throckmorton Parson’s Pleasure story,” which involved Dame Winifred’s apparent enthusiasm for punting, and her failure while out on the Cherwell with an American
(or Canadian) woman, to disempunt rather than pass a nude male swimming hole known as Parson’s Pleasure; instead, she had carried on straight past several elderly, naked male academics, ignoring their screeched shouts to “Keep Away!” and cheerfully greeting three (or more) by name.
Theo received the same satisfaction to his repeated, “Is that true?” as he’d always gotten asking the same question of Ford Rexford.
Because of the Cavendish connection, he was occasionally asked about Herbert Crawford’s salary (high), his lakeside chalet (large), and the woman he’d chucked his wife for (everything a man could wish). Did Herb still affect a Cockney accent, black leather, proletarian sympathies? (Yes, yes, yes.) He also heard a number of stories about Crawford’s undergraduate career at Oxford, and while the inbred lingo left him slightly at a loss as to the specifics of the man’s achievements, there was little doubt that to take a first in History, a Blue in Boats, the Newdigate Prize, and the virginity of a Master’s daughter was to distinguish oneself. To add to these, such triumphs as organizing sit-ins, hanging the North Vietnamese flag from the Magdalen bell tower, running up a £360 bill for cigarettes and scotch at the college buttery, crashing a Commem Ball disguised as the deputy ambassador of Venezuela, and, when only a child, using the 1968 Long Vac at Eton to get himself arrested in Chicago at the Democratic convention—was to conclude that Herbert Crawford had been destined from his youth for glory of one sort or another, if not inevitably the authorship-of-eight-books sort. Obviously, the celebrity historian had gone from rowing eights to writing eights without a dropped stroke, and if the brave, the brash, and the brilliant deserved the fair, then Herbie Crawford deserved Maude Fletcher. And with that consolation, Theo admitted to himself that it was time to give up the last flicker of the fantasy that she was the one he was waiting for. For the truth was, he already knew, had known without wanting to know for a long time, that it wasn’t Maude he’d been waiting for anyhow.
He heard from Rhodora on the Fourth of July. To celebrate the holiday, he had taught Mole and six of his friends the American sport of baseball in Hyde Park. (Jonas, who claimed to be ignorant of the pastime and content to remain so, sat in a lawn chair nearby, blowing his nose and reading Raleigh’s Essays and Observations.) It was satisfying to Theo, having listened to so many hours of obfuscatory chitchat from these men about cricket rules, to be able to say things like “No, you can’t run if the ball’s foul, but if it’s a pop-up, you can, as long as you tag after it’s caught, as long as you aren’t picked off.” The Britishers were very good sports about it.
After this game, Theo returned to Brown’s, sweaty and cheerful, to find a package that had been expressed to him from North Carolina by Rhodora. It contained her new record single, a Blue Ridge Mountains bumper sticker, a Cavendish T-shirt, a little U.S. flag, a plastic beer mug from Cherokee’s bar, and an eight-by-ten studio photo of Rhodora herself, inscribed, “I Love You, T. Schneider Ryan. Rhodora.” With these souvenirs was a note in her large looping handwriting.
So you don’t forget where you belong.
Thanks for calling. That was nice, hearing your old voice. Your house is fine, if you’re worrying. I hired a cleaning lady. I’m running all over creation with this damn record thing, and signed so many papers I’m getting a wart on my knuckle! Flying up to NYC (!!) tomorrow to shoot a music video! I guess I’ve got to thank that bastard Ford for something. He kept telling me I could make it. And I wouldn’t ever even have written “I Go On” if he hadn’t messed up my mind so bad. Right?
Tell him to get fucked. (I’m sure he is.)
Never mind, let him alone. I guess I’m getting him out of my system. Kind of like a real bad bug? One morning, you wake up and tell yourself, “Get on with your life, looks like you’re gonna live.”
How you doing, friend? You forget Ford too, hear? Just finish the damn book without him. The asshole can’t even remember his stupid life anyhow. Just don’t you put me in a goddamn footnote or I’ll kill you.
Happy Fourth of July. America, love it or leave it, but don’t stay gone too long. Come on home. I miss us talking.
Love, Rhodora
(Can you believe it, first, the damn record co. won’t sign up the Dead Indians and hires me this new band—okay, so maybe Ford was right. They weren’t so hot, but they’re sweet guys. Anyhow, then they tried to make me change my name to Rhodora Rayne! I told them it stays Potts.)
P.S. You got some pretty yellow roses out back.
That night, Theo arranged Rhodora’s gifts on his mantelpiece, placing her photograph between the small American flag and the record jacket. Her song hadn’t been on any of the jukeboxes in any of the pubs he’d gone to lately, but he always checked. Whenever he’d passed record stores, he’d checked them as well, and had found the single in the two that had Country Western sections. He’d also checked Billboard, excited to see “I Go On” not only No. 26 on the Country Western chart, but No. 43 on the Pop Rock. He became so fretful that night thinking about Rhodora’s career that he called his machine in Rome to tell her to be careful about signing papers, and to get a good agent if she didn’t have one. To get a good business manager. To get Bernie Bittermann. Still unsatisfied, in the morning he called his father to tell him to call Bittermann about Rhodora, to see if the two were already in touch, and to suggest some agents if she needed one.
“Which one is this Rhodora?” his mother kept asking. “This isn’t the woman priest Steve was talking about?”
“Obviously not, Mom. Obviously, she’s a singer.”
“Who can tell with hillbillies? She could be both.”
“Well, she’s not. And she’s not a hillbilly. Dad, she’s on Billboard’s Country Western chart.”
“You’re kidding! Where?”
“Twenty-six.”
“On her first record?”
“Yes, and it’s only been out a few weeks. Forty-three on Pop Rock.”
“Crossing over!” Benny Ryan whistled into the phone. “And she hasn’t got an agent? They’ll eat her alive.”
“I know. Have Bernie put you two in touch, okay? Dad, talk to her?”
“He should talk to her now at 3 a.m. in the morning?”
“Oh, Jesus, Mom, I’m sorry! I forgot what time it was there. I’m a little revved.”
“Theo, are you on drugs?”
“Oh, Rainie, Pooh’s just trying to do a good deed.”
“At noon it might be a good deed. At 3 a.m. it sounds more like drugs. That woman you lived with who taught art, I always thought she was on drugs. Thank God that’s over.”
“Mom, have you ever liked anybody I’ve lived with?”
“Of course I have. I was crazy about every one of the boys you roomed with those first years at Yale.”
“Funny, Mom. And Francie didn’t take drugs. She didn’t even drink coffee.”
“I knew there was something odd about her.”
If there was a drug involved, it kept Theo awake most of the next night too, and left him resolved—while he was in the process of giving people up—to let go of Ford Rexford’s unfinished play. He took it out of his suitcase and reread Aesthetic Distance, seeing now without anger how clearly, and with what affection, Ford had caught the young drama professor and the young southern singer. With what wonder he had seen the strength of Rhodora’s gifts. Of course, the character wasn’t Rhodora really and the young professor wasn’t really him, and it certainly wasn’t the two of them together, since they had never been together. Not the way the characters in this play, Aesthetic Distance, seemed so…inevitable.
Ford should finish it. It was a play just calling out for an ending. Who was he, Theo, to hold back Ford Rexford’s creation all these weeks? Who was he to try to punish Ford?
This change in feeling about the play grew out of the same softening taking place in him as he’d been working to edit his biography of Ford Rexford’s youth. As h
e’d been back with the child Ford in that hot sterile Texas town, back into the shabby ugliness of the spare house, in the grain of whose every surface and scrimping and fighting the intractable earth for food. He’d shoveled his dead frozen calves into a pit, watched the arrest of the farmer who’d killed a banker who’d taken away his farm. He’d been with Ford off eating supper in the homes of the Mexicans who were scapegoats for the ranchers’ and the farmers’ and the bankers’ own poverty, for their powerless war against the unrelenting, unending land.
Here in this London room, looking at the boy long ago in Texas, Theo forgave the man. Looking at the world that the boy had seen in Bowie and looking at the way the man had turned that world into The Valley of the Shadow, Preacher’s Boy, The Long Way Home, Desert Slow Dance, and all the other plays, Theo found himself feeling again his love for the person who’d had the gift and the heart to imagine them. Sixteen full-length plays. Twenty-two one-acts. Ford Rexford washed up? Never. The trickle seeping from the smallest eddy of such an ocean of talent could flood whatever dried-up critic had written that article dismissing his future.
In this mood early the next day, Theo mailed Adolphus Mahan two hundred revised pages of the biography, then walked over to the Middendorf Agency with Principles of Aesthetic Distance under his arm. He expected to meet there with an angry harangue from Miss Fitzhugh for having run off with the other script the way he had, but he hoped to set things straight by giving her Ford’s play.
In fact, the receptionist was angry, but, as it turned out, more because she hadn’t been able to find him for eight days than about property stolen from Middendorf, Inc. (She herself stole the odd stamp, cut flower, and notepad all the time.) “So there you are, and bad luck to you, Mr. Ryan!” Flush with rouge and temper, Miss Fitzhugh stood behind her lacquered desk, arms crossed over her red satin blouse. The glass vase he’d knocked over had obviously escaped breaking, since it was back in place with three orchids in it.
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