by David Hajdu
Ray Octavio:
I did my business clean. Never a problem with the government, no trouble with the unions and the mafia. I was clean like my own mother.
The lady got in some trouble. [Octavio refers to Barbara Lucher.] I told her, “No—this, I cannot have.” I pay taxes. People give me tips for all the work I do here. They show me their appreciation like that. My wife enjoys the cable television. She has family out of the country, and she likes to call them long distance. She has the numbers she has to have to do that. I don’t want trouble with anybody. We’re clean. You have trouble, you take care of it. It has nothing to do with me. I don’t need the government to come into my house and see things.
I told the lady, I have no problem with you. You and your friend, live the way you want. [Octavio refers to Lucher and Geffel.] My people are Catholic—we have the nuns. But now, you cannot work for me now. I don’t want trouble. I have a clean business.
[Octavio points to the interviewer’s recorder and makes a gesture indicating that he would like it turned off. While the recorder is paused, Octavio makes a hand gesture to indicate that he would like a cash payment. The interviewer demurs, and Octavio departs.]
Jeffrey Knudsen:
I was still getting some mail at Ninth Avenue. I didn’t do a change of an official address with the Post Office, because I never had an official address in my name. Every couple of weeks, Ann would bring home any mail I got, when she saw Adry. One night I came home from work, and Ann left a little pile of mail for me, and she put a note next to it that said, “Carmine—for you! Took care of Ray.” The second part of that meant that Ann took care of tipping Ray, the super at the building. The mailman always gave FedEx packages, certified mail, registered mail—anything that required a signature—gave it to Ray, and he signed his name, and you just picked it up from him and gave him a little something for the service. There was a certified letter addressed to Carmine Trembler. I had a beer. Then I poured myself a shot of Jameson. And I had another beer. And I opened the letter.
It was a summons to appear at housing court to verify my identity as legal signatory to the lease to the Ninth Avenue apartment—not my identity, Carmine Trembler’s identity. I sat and read that, and I thought, I guess this means it’s time for another shot of Jameson.
Karen Gigliardi:
My mother always said, “the Devil and the mailman!” If she ever had her own sitcom, that would be her big catchphrase. They’d have it on coffee mugs and underpants. I never asked her what it meant, because the way she said it, you were supposed to know. But when I grew up and got this job, I understood—you can do your darnedest to keep a secret, but nothing gets past the Devil and the mailman! Don’t you forget, the mail is how I found out that Adry and Biran were together, when I saw that the two of them had the same mailing address. Who knew about that? The Devil and the mailman!
It was the day Adry called me to tell me to mail her things to a new address that I realized, Oh . . . well, so much for Adry and Biran! I kept sending the business papers to Biran at the old address on 3rd Street, because he was the one who handled all the business at their household. But I sent the fan mail and unimportant things like that to Adry at her new address, which was 114 Ninth Avenue. I remember it because I had to type it a number of times in the letters I did for Biran that he sent out at the time of the “Geffel problem,” as Mr. Mendelman called it. Biran had the lawyers look into various things involving Adry, and they found out that her apartment wasn’t really her apartment—it was in somebody else’s name. Biran got all revved up about that and wrote a number of letters to the city that I typed up and mailed for him.
Jeffrey Knudsen:
I had enough drink in me to call my uncle. He was a tough guy—scared the crap out of me, to be honest, but he got me the place on Ninth Avenue as a favor to my mom, so I had to deal with him. He was in the butcher’s union, I told you, and looked like a bull himself, actually. His face was even bright red, like a bull in a cartoon. I read the letter to him over the phone. I could hear him breathing heavy and could almost see the puffs of smoke coming out of his ears. I read the whole letter, and he didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he said, “You sound tired. Or drunk. Are you drunk?”
I said, “No, no—no, I’m just tired. I’m exhausted. Working too hard—you know what that’s like.”
He said, “Working too hard, at the MTA? Doing paperwork?”
I said, “I guess so.”
He said, “Jeff, I know you appreciate the value of having such an apartment for the kind of rent you pay, and you enjoy living there. You do enjoy living there, don’t you?”
I said, “Yesss . . . I do.” I couldn’t tell if he knew from my mom that I had moved out and was living with Ann now or he was just being a hardass or I was paranoid.
He said, “Then you know as a professional in the area of municipal paperwork that there’s one way and only one way to satisfy the requirements of the Department of Housing in this situation, and that is to deliver Carmine Trembler. That would be very difficult. I’m not saying I am privy to knowledge of the whereabouts of Carmine Trembler or even if he’s still alive or not. I’m not saying. I’m just saying your only recourse is to deliver such a person. Good luck with that—and, you understand, of course, I and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters cannot be associated with this. Goodbye, Jeff. Don’t work too hard.”
Ann was sitting by me this whole time. I told her what he said, and she said, “I like that uncle of yours. Hand me the phone.”
Ann Athema:
I called Armutt Canterell. I said, “Armutt! How is the Medici of modern music, the guru of the galleries, the Rooster of Wooster Street? Drop everything you’re doing! I’m working on a new project, and I need a very special collaborator. Only you can help me.”
I told him I had an inspiration to create the most exciting conceptual art of our time. It was so conceptual I couldn’t explain it in words. It transcended language. It defied all modes of representation. I would allow him to experience it before anyone else, as soon as it was ready. But first I needed his help. The work required the involvement of a collaborator named Carmine Trembler. Armutt said, “Tell me, who is that?”
I said, “No, Armutt—you tell me! All I need from you is to find an unknown artist in your armada of unknown talents, and change the person’s name to Carmine Trembler, like you changed my name to Ann Athema and gave new names to Irma la Douche and Van Guardrail. It needs to be done as officially as possible by next week. I’m so excited!”
He tried to slow me down. He said he didn’t get the name Carmine Trembler.
I said, “Oh, Armutt . . . please—don’t be such a philistine. No one is supposed to ‘get’ it. That’s the point. Armutt, Armutt . . .” I told him to meet me at Dimicci’s on Monday afternoon, with Carmine Trembler in hand, and I hung up.
On Monday afternoon, Geffel and Barb, Jeffy and I, went to Dimicci’s, and Armutt strolls in with a guy—middle-aged, scrawny, stringy gray hair hanging down to his shoulders, he’s wearing a long-sleeve shirt buttoned to the collar, and it’s the heat of summer—and Armutt introduces us. “Ann, Adrianne, everyone—this is Carmine. Carmine—this is Ann and Adrianne and everyone.”
Geffel gives him the onceover, and Armutt launches into the guy’s biography. He was an associate of Harry Partch’s who worked with Partch on the instruments Partch constructed out of found objects to play the rogue music he composed with microtonal scales of his own creation. He got to know Partch when they were both residents of a hostel for homeless men, and they later lived together as a couple under the interstate underpass in Sausalito. One of the instruments he and Partch concocted was a xylophone made with liquor bottles of various shapes and sizes reclaimed from the trash bins of Northern California barrooms. “To resonate properly,” the guy said, “the bottles needed to have no remaining alcohol. I assisted Harry at that and other duties.” Geffel started to hum one of her odd, atonal tunes, and Barb reached over to her and
massaged her neck.
Barb asked the guy some questions about instrument construction, and he seemed to know what he was talking about. He came from Indiana, he said—“the Indianapolis Tremblers.” Everyone nodded and sipped their espresso.
Armutt asked me to tell him about the exciting new project I needed Carmine for, and I gave him the “shsssh” sign. “Armutt, please . . . an explanation would only demean my concept. I can only say this much: You’re familiar with the Warholian notion of ‘business art,’ of course. This goes even further than Warhol. You could call it ‘law art,’ if you insisted on giving it a name. But I insist you not. My canvas is the abstract principle of justice. Let me see the papers you’ve gotten for him.”
I looked over the flimsy ID materials Armutt pulled together in a few days’ time—a Polaroid of Armutt and our man, signed “To Armutt from Carmine Trembler,” and a one-day pass to the Museum of Modern Art. I said, “Not terrible. This is more than I have in the name of Ann Athema.” Jeffy opened an envelope he brought, and laid out an old lease and utility bills in the name of Carmine Trembler. Geffel flipped through everything and said, “Koshka, I’m not sure art is the word for what you’re doing here.”
The court date came up a few weeks later. We all chipped in to buy the old guy a suit of passably semi-decent clothes. Jeffy’s uncle recommended a lawyer who knew his way around the courtroom and appeared familiar, even somewhat friendly, with the judge. We all sat in the back. That Biran was there, on the other side—we kept our distance. I looked over at him for a second, and he waved at me like we were old friends who just so happened to be at the same movie. We had to strain to hear what was going on as the two lawyers took turns addressing the judge, almost whispering. The judge asked our guy a few questions, and he came across as confused and, perhaps, more than a bit nuts. The judge gave a cursory look at the paperwork, shook his head, signed a document, and pounded his gavel. Geffel and Barb would have their apartment back.
The plan we made was for the new Carmine Trembler to stay on Ninth Avenue with Geffel and Barb for a week or so, sleeping on the couch, and then quietly return to his previous life. Unfortunately, he had nothing to return to and no reason whatsoever to vacate an attractive and clean, low-rent apartment that the New York City housing court had declared to be rightfully his. In a matter of weeks, he drove Geffel and Barb out of their own home—littering the place with scraps of half-eaten food he scrounged from the fridge, yapping incessantly at full voice to no one in particular, peeing on the floor of the bathroom . . . Geffel and Barb were broke and ill-prepared to pay the deposit on a new apartment, and moved in temporarily with Jeffy and me on Ludlow Street. We knew the old guy wouldn’t be able to keep up with the rent on Ninth Avenue unless someone came along to cover it for him, which is exactly what Biran did. Biran had instigated the trouble with the apartment, and he finished the job.
The Ludlow Street place was too small for four—four people plus the baby grand piano we couldn’t leave on Ninth Avenue. The piano became our all-purpose living surface. We laid out dinnerware on it, and it became our dining-room table. We set up a typewriter and papers on it, and it became our desk. At night, Geffel and Barb cuddled up on a cushion under it, and it became a canopy bed. Geffel even used it as an actual piano, playing music that seemed to get weirder and darker by the day. Hearing myself describe this, it sounds like kooky bohemian fun, like the setup for an NYU student art film. But it was stressful and unsustainable. We were four adults hiding inside a carboard box. I was picking fights with Jeffy. He was working late every night, to keep away. And Barb and Adry were miserable. Barb simply said so—“This sucks.” And Adry let it out in her music, which was getting unbearable.
The three of us, all but Jeffy, were there together on the night Biran called. Adry was playing piano, and Barb was lying underneath it to rest. I picked up the phone. He said, “Good evening, Biran Zervakis here.” I didn’t reply.
He said, “And this must be Barbara Lucher.”
I said, “Must it?” I covered the receiver with my hand and mouthed to Adry that it was Biran. She kept playing, but louder and harder.
He said, “Aaah . . . I can hear Adry playing her music. She sounds just like the Adry I know and love. Put her on the phone.”
I said, “No.”
He said, “Then take this message. Tell Adry I would like to help her bring in some money. I suspect she could use a little money. Tell her to put the date September 8 on her calendar. She will be giving her premiere performance at Weill Recital Hall, in Carnegie Hall.” This was in the middle of August—I remember because of the suffocating heat. That put the concert at two or three weeks away.
Biran said, “I can tell from the music she’s making right now that Adry is her old self again.”
I said, “Yes, this is Barb Lucher. So fuck you, you fucking fuck-fuck!” And I hung up.
Barb crawled out from under the piano while Adry kept playing, she looked up at me and said, “Nicely done.”
Adry continued playing, and the music got stranger and stranger.
Karen Gigliardi:
Biran called for Mr. Mendelman. I put him on hold and had a piece of Russell Stover’s—the nougat with the crumbly, crackly tiny pieces of filberts are my favorite—and patched him in. Mr. Mendelman came out from his office with his chest puffed out and his hands on his hips like Ethel Merman, and made a big announcement, “The Geffel problem, as I call it, is over. Karen—bring in our copywriter! We have an advertisement to write.”
I dialed up Mr. Mendelman’s nephew, Scott, the boy who did all the writing and promotion for us, and set up that appointment. Scott went off and made a very professional advertisement and a matching poster, and Mr. Mendelman paid for everything. It was a big to-do! I asked Mr. Mendelman, “Mr. Mendelman, will you be requiring my services at the concert?”
He was very kind. He said, “Don’t worry, Karen—you don’t have to go.”
I told him, “Oh, no, Mr. Mendelman! I’d very much like to go to this! I’ve never been to Carnegie Hall before.” Mr. Mendelman explained to me that this particular concert was in an area of Carnegie Hall they called Weill Recital Hall. I got his meaning on the night of the concert, when I had to go in a different entrance and up an elevator, but it didn’t matter to me one bit. I still got to say that I had been to Carnegie Hall! That’s more than Adrianne got to say.
Carolyn Geffel:
Yes, Greg and I knew all about the big night at Carnegie Hall. Nina Oberheimer heard an announcement for it on the classical-music station in Philadelphia. Greg and I don’t get that station, I don’t think. I’d have to find out where it is on the dial and try to tune it in. We thought about going in to New York for that. We were way overdue for a return journey to the Big Apple, and it would have been lovely to be in touch with our Adry once again. I tried to get tickets, but couldn’t reach Adry on the phone to ask her to take care of it. There was an answering machine with a man’s voice at the number we had for her. I told Greg, and he said, “Hang up—that can’t be where Adry lives.” He could be so nasty sometimes.
So, we didn’t go, and it was just as well, in terms of seeing Adry.
Jon Geldman:
I’m sure you’ve read my essay about that evening at Weill Recital Hall. I don’t have much to add to what I’ve written on the subject and already expanded upon for re-publication in my book. Obviously, the event was a great disappointment to those of us who were at Weill Hall that night. However Adry Geffel may have felt about it is another matter.
Ann Athema:
Geffel left the house early that day—I imagined, to get her hair done, test out the piano in the hall and survey the space, and primp before the show. Jeffy and I went later, just about an hour before showtime. Barb, I presumed, would be with Geffel. We got to Carnegie Hall and found our way to Weill. I left Jeffy in the lobby and talked my way backstage, to see if Geffel needed anything. I asked a stagehand to point me to the artist’s dressing room and knocked
on the door. No answer, so I opened up the door: No Adry. I went back to the same stagehand and asked if there was another dressing room where the performer might be, and was told no, Adry was supposed to be in that empty room.
I scouted out the whole area backstage, to make sure Adry hadn’t been bonked by an errant sandbag or fallen down a trapdoor. No Adry and no sandbags or trapdoors. I checked my watch, and it was 7:58, two minutes till curtain. Biran burst backstage and started darting around, hunting for Adry. He gave me a stare, and I just shook my head.
Jeffy was still waiting for me in the lobby. I ran up to him, and he said, “What’s the story?”
I said, “I haven’t a clue.”
Jeffy said, “Maybe she got delayed on the subway. You can’t rely on the MTA. Let’s take our seats.”
We sat there, squirming and periodically scanning the stage area for signs of movement. At eight-twenty, Biran came onstage and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re very sorry, but Adrianne Geffel will not be appearing tonight.” He kept talking, but I didn’t listen. I said to Jeffy, “That Geffel—she’s fucking Biran over! She’s a pisser, that Geffel! Let’s go home—she’s probably waiting for us.”
We went straight to our apartment. When I got to the door, I knocked the corny old “shave and a haircut” knock, but nobody knocked back “two bits!” Jeffy unlocked the door. I walked in slowly and noticed that the door to the clothes closet was wide open. I looked in it and saw that all the clothes Adry had hung there were gone.
I sat down on the piano bench, my head fell onto the top of the piano, and my arms crashed down on the keyboard. A sound very much like the sound of Geffel’s music rang through the air, and I never saw Adry Geffel again.