I Shudder

by Paul Rudnick

  Crossing ourselves, we climbed four flights and didn’t stop until we were back in William’s apartment, behind a locked door, panting and mortified.

  “Oh, Rudnick,” William gasped, “are we going to hell?”

  “Excuse me, do you think this is the only reason?”

  I did wonder if we’d actually blasphemed, by running around in borrowed habits. My religious convictions were shaky, but I was always superstitious.

  “But what if we get to the Pearly Gates,” William asked, “and what if Saint Peter is there, waving a Polaroid and asking, ‘Were you those horrible, ugly, constipated nuns?’ What will we say?”

  We stared at each other. William’s gold, wire-rimmed glasses and his cherubic features lent him at least a slightly pious, kindly aura. I looked in the mirror over the mantel and all I saw was nose. I also saw that Michael Neighbor had appeared at the French doors.

  “Yes, my son?” William asked him. “Shall we pray for you?”

  “Nah,” said Michael, barely noticing our outfits, “I got a headache. Do you got, like, a Motrin or something?”

  “Come here, my child,” William told Michael. “Don’t be afraid.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Michael asked, backing away.

  Standing, William laid his palm on Michael’s forehead. Shoving hard, he shouted, “Demon, be gone!”

  “Whoa,” said Michael, rubbing his head and feeling better. “Whoa.”

  4.

  I learned the history of William’s family mostly from his mother’s letters. Once a month a fat, typewritten parcel would arrive at the Chelsea. Sometimes William would get the original of these jumbo newsletters, and sometimes a Xerox copy. Getting the original was somehow more special; William’s mother was a Freudian tease.

  As an introduction to these letters, William pulled out a back issue of National Geographic from the early 1960s, with a travelogue cover story called something like “Carolina Wonderland” or “Welcome to the Sunshine.” He flipped to a full-color photo of his family, with his youthful parents serving lemonade to their towheaded kids, all gathered, sitcom style, around a redwood picnic table. “Look at us,” William said. “Don’t we look normal? I swear, you’d never know.”

  William’s parents were schoolteachers, but they devoted much of their year to The Lost Colony, an outdoor North Carolina pageant-drama. These pageant-dramas were popular throughout the region, offering either historical recreations or Bible stories; the National Geographic spread had included photos of actors in a Last Supper scene, with their faces painted with psychedelic colors and thick black lines, to mimic stained glass. The Lost Colony ran from May through October at a roughhewn amphitheater, and it told the stories of Columbus, the first Thanksgiving, the founding of the earliest Virginia Colony, and the birth of Virginia Dare, “the first white child born in the New World.” “Actually, they’ve changed that ‘white child’ business,” William assured me. “People are so sensitive.” The pageant included a massed choir, in which William’s sister sang, a comic, man-hungry Native American squaw named Agona, and tribal dances performed by local college boys, who played Native Americans by wearing loincloths and the thick, brown body makeup called Texas Dirt. The performance ended with an epilogue set in the Present Day, where a happy American family, the dad in a suit and the mom in a shirtwaist, stride into the bright Carolina future.

  William had been raised at the pageant, where his father was the long-time technical director and his mother acted; William handed me an elaborate souvenir program with a photo-portrait of his mom in her curled, plasma red wig, whiteface, stiff lace ruff, and garage-size, bejeweled gown, as Queen Elizabeth I. “That’s Mary Wood,” he said, using her maiden name.

  “So your mom walked around dressed as Queen Elizabeth?” I asked.

  “Of course, and she sent Sir Walter Raleigh to oversee the settlements.”

  “Wasn’t that weird for you, as a child?”

  “You don’t understand. My mother is Queen Elizabeth.”

  While in grade school, William had painted scenery and mended costumes, “And I loved it, it was just where I wanted to be. Until one day, I must’ve been eight years old, I found this old farthingale, it was a sort of Jacobean hoopskirt, in the costume shop. And I put it on, and I wore it everywhere. But then my mother saw me, in my farthingale, and she burned it.”

  “That’s the meaning of life,” I concluded. “You fall in love, and then they burn your farthingale.”

  As an adult, maybe because of the farthingale incident, William had been determined to leave the theater behind. “Oh, yes,” he explained, “I even got engaged.”

  “To whom? To what?”

  “To a very sweet young lady who thought that I was very nice and who just wanted to be married to someone.”

  “Did you have sex?”

  “Of course, and it was just fine, because I just fantasized about these four brothers whom I would watch playing touch football on the beach, and I’m sure that she was probably thinking about the exact same thing.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Well, I had it all planned, and I was in graduate school at Chapel Hill, studying Renaissance art history and architecture, and I was going to get married and have children and be this nice small-town college professor, and be all decent and dignified. And I was just three credits short of my doctorate, but that summer I went to Europe, and I saw all of the most beautiful paintings and tapestries and crown jewels, and I thought, I don’t want to just look at beautiful things. I want to somehow—create them. I want to help tell stories and meet amazing people and put on shows and just—see what happens. And finally I just stood on a mountaintop and I said to myself, ‘William, you are not a college professor, and if you marry that woman you are going to make both of your lives miserable.’ And so I applied to the Drama School and I broke off my engagement and I said, I am just a big ol’ silly queer fool, and so be it!”

  William was the most original, talented, and generous person I’d ever met, so I was stunned to hear that he’d ever doubted himself. “But, William,” I asked, “you have such a major personality. Didn’t you always know that? Didn’t that farthingale tell you anything?”

  “Wait,” he cautioned, picking up one of his mother’s lengthy, single-spaced letters. “Listen.”

  “Dear Ones,” the letter began. “It’s April and everything is starting to bud and flower, and our hydrangeas are especially lovely this year. Who among us doesn’t appreciate a happy hydrangea?”

  “I love ’em,” I said.

  “Hi, drangea,” William agreed, and then he continued reading aloud. “Last Thursday after work your sister and I went to visit Miss Iolanthe, Phyllis Mandermint, and poor, brain-damaged Lucretia Stillman. Ever since the accident, Lucretia doesn’t seem to recognize anyone, or to eat anything except rice. She complimented my silver necklace, and asked if I might introduce her to Fidel Castro. She looks well and her health is good, but all I could think was, you know, perhaps sometimes a coma is a blessing.”

  William skipped ahead, to a section about his dad. “Your father is doing just fine, and the doctor says that his ankle has completely healed, and I said, well, that’s good news, but he had no business trying to play basketball with a team of college boys. But to show the boys that there were no hard feelings, your father invited the whole team over for lunch again last Saturday, and he took Bobby Bantry into Raleigh to buy him some new sneakers and a warm-up jacket. Well, as to your father, I will only say this: let him dream his dreams.”

  “Oh my God, William, is your father gay?”

  “Of course.”

  “But haven’t your parents been married for, like, forty years?”

  “Yes, but many Southern men, they get married, and then they entertain other gentlemen. It’s a tradition.”

  “But that’s nuts.”

  “Only if you try and play basketball with Bobby Bantry.”

  “But what does your mother think?”
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  “You heard, she lets him dream his dreams. She’s Southern. So she ignores everything that she doesn’t care for, and then moves on. And I don’t think she likes sex all that much, and I do at least partially agree with her. I think that’s it more important to help people and to create a lovely home.”

  “Okay, which one is more insane—your mother, your father, or you?”

  “You Yankees don’t understand anything. Now, you’re Jewish, and I respect that, I wish I was Jewish, because then I’d be much smarter, but I’d never have a Queen Anne sideboard or a chifferobe.”

  “What’s a chifferobe?”

  “Oh, so you don’t know everything. Are you sure you’re Jewish?”

  William’s parents became like fictional creations, like superheroes whose adventures were delivered in monthly installments. William’s father produced and directed his local community theater production of Equus, a play in which a naked outcast blinds six horses, snorting beasts who were mimed by shirtless actors, or, as William’s dad called them, “strapping young fellows.” Mary Wood began appearing on her own local cable TV show, a weekly half-hour called Mary Long’s Yesteryears, in which she toured plantations, formal gardens, and lovingly tended cemeteries filled with the Civil War dead. William got a videotape of a season’s worth of shows, and my favorite had Mary Wood, in a peach shantung suit, holding a microphone as she stood in front of a particularly well-kept, colonnaded estate, planted with weeping willows and wisteria. “And just back here are the old slave cabins, which have been completely restored,” Mary Wood told her audience, with a warm, inviting smile. “Aren’t they lovely?”

  Finally, worlds collided when William’s parents decided to fly up to Manhattan to find out just what William was doing with his life. William was determined to show them that he was doing just fine, so he planned a tea party, and invited Mr. James, because he was older and accomplished; me, because I’d promised to behave; and Claire Mallory North. William and I had both met Claire at Yale, and she was William’s ideal. Claire was radiantly blond, her tousled pageboy always held in check by either a tortoiseshell headband or tortoiseshell combs. She had a sophisticated prettiness, with cornflower blue eyes, the poreless complexion of a Fragonard milkmaid, and a slightly husky, amused speaking voice. Claire’s father was an Ivy League attorney who’d divorced her mother and become a cocktail pianist, and Claire was never quite sure if she approved. Claire was both elegant and accepting; at school, she’d refused to wear jeans, but she was happy to hang out at the Chelsea.

  “I can’t wait to meet your parents,” Claire told William, as she perched on the eight-foot-long psychiatrist’s couch William had found at the Goodwill and placed in front of his French doors.

  “But, everyone, just remember,” William cautioned us, “they haven’t been to New York in years, and we want them to think that everything’s just fine.”

  “And where are they from?” Mr. James tried to remember. “Georgia? One of the Dakotas? Will they wear shoes?”

  “Oh my God…” said William as the doorbell rang.

  “We’re going to love them and we’re all going to make an effort and everything will be splendid,” said Claire.

  “Why are you looking at me?” I asked her. Claire and I got along just fine, if a little warily. I thought she was wry and dauntingly well-bred, and she had once told William that I might be the devil. I wasn’t sure if this was because I was gay or Jewish or from New Jersey, but I was flattered. Claire was genuinely spiritual, about both her single strand of graduated pearls and her soul. She’d once told William and me that she intended to become “the first saint on the Best Dressed list,” and she was well on her way.

  “Well, hello, everyone!” said Mary Wood, as William led her into the room. “Billy, I hope you haven’t made a fuss!”

  “I still don’t get it,” said William’s father, who was also named William but who was called Bill or Mr. Long. “This is supposed to be a hotel, but people live here, like squatters. Is it some kind of flophouse?”

  Mary Wood looked like a human-size, delicately groomed, infinitely gracious mouse. Her thin, pale brown hair was fluffed into a becoming cloud, and she squinted appreciatively through pinkish eyeglass frames. Mr. Long was tall, stooped, and ornery, a suspicious Ichabod in math-major perma-press short sleeves.

  “How was your flight?” asked Claire, after the introductory hugs and handshakes had been exchanged.

  “Oh, it was just perfect,” said Mary Wood.

  “If you like sitting jammed up against God knows what sort of people,” added Mr. Long, “and, Billy, who the hell are those characters in the lobby, with the purple hair and the black T-shirts and the combat boots? Are they moon men?”

  “They’re my neighbors,” said William, evenly. “This is Manhattan.”

  “The Chelsea is completely—simpatico,” said Mr. James, “for the artistic temperament. Although I do not care for all of this drug-taking. Except perhaps opium.”

  “Isn’t that grand?” said Mary Wood. “Now, Mr. James, Billy has told us so much about you, and he’s sent us photos and newspaper clippings. You’re the most wonderful designer.”

  “Tell that to Mr. Halston,” Mr. James harrumphed.

  “Halston, the designer?” asked Mary Wood.

  “Halston the thief,” spat Mr. James, “Halston the criminal.” Halston was at that time a hugely successful American designer, and Mr. James felt, and not without cause, that many of Halston’s designs had been based on his own, from decades earlier. “He’s making millions!” Mr. James insisted. “And he’s stolen my work!”

  “That’s just what I’m saying,” agreed Mr. Long, “I think this building is in a high-crime area. We read about it all the time, we see it on the news. People in New York getting mugged, people getting shot, probably right on this block. Is there prostitution?”

  “On this block?” I asked. “Or this floor?”

  “Where are you staying?” asked Claire, for a change of subject.

  “We’re at the Marriott,” said Mary Wood. “It’s, well…it’s a Marriott. So I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”

  “And they’re charging an arm and a leg,” said Mr. Long. “Billy, this city costs a goddamn fortune, and it’s a hellhole. How are you going to stay here? Are you making a living?”

  “William is making the most wonderful life for himself,” insisted Claire. “You must be so proud of him.”

  “And he’s getting more and more work,” I chimed in. “He just did a play with all of these nuns.”

  “Rudnick,” said William, sweetly but sharply.

  “Nuns,” said Mary Wood. “Billy, do you remember Sharon Bastkerry? Her cousin Florene became a nun. Some people said it was because of her having that one normal arm and that one tiny arm, but I’m sure she’s just a very good person.”

  “It’s all about tailoring,” said Mr. James. “Look at the Duchess of Windsor.”

  “So, Mr. James,” said Mr. Long, “tell me the truth. Your frank opinion. Is Billy throwing his life right down the goddamn toilet?”

  “Bill,” said Mary Wood, as the tendons in her neck pulled taut.

  “Someone has to ask the question,” said Mr. Long. “Billy was on track, he was aiming right for that doctorate, like gangbusters. We were just bursting. And then one day, out of the blue, bingo, he’s off to New Haven, he wants to design costumes, and he wants to move up to New York City! We thought he was out of his mind!”

  “We were thinking about his future,” soothed Mary Wood. “Do you remember Cal Craybart? Mildred’s boy? He wanted to be a racecar driver. And do you know where he is today?”

  “Is he a nun?” I asked.

  “He came to his senses,” said Mary Wood, “and he got married and he went right back to school. I believe he’s going to be a nutritionist.”

  “You see?” said Mr. Long. “Billy, I’m not saying you have to be some goddamn nutritionist…”

  “Not at all,” said Mar
y Wood, “although these cookies are delicious…”

  “Daddy,” said William, “I’m doing what I want to do. I’ve told you a million times, I have to try this, this is who I am, or who I think I am, and I’m sorry if that upsets you, or embarrasses you…”

  “Look at yourself!” said Mr. Long. “You’re not getting anywhere! You’ve been up here for two years, you’re living in this…this…whatever it is, with con men and heroin shooters and bloodthirsty murderers…”

  “Bill, there aren’t any murderers here,” said Mary Wood.

  “Only that fellow on the second floor,” said Mr. James. “He shot his wife. Because she kept staring at him.”

  “Billy!” shouted Mr. Long, now completely exasperated. “This isn’t going to work! You’re just fooling yourself! You can still go back to Chapel Hill and get your degree, you can still do what’s right! You can fix this! Are you listening to a goddamn word I’ve said?”

  The room grew very quiet, as Claire and I glanced at each other.

  “Daddy…” William began, standing up, about to leave or explode or throw something.

  “Bill…” said Mary Wood, raising her hands and looking around frantically, for a throw pillow or a floral arrangement to fuss over.

  “Yo,” said Michael Neighbor, at the French doors, between clients. He was wearing white spandex bicycle shorts, flip-flops, and a ribbed tank top printed with the phrase “I ” and the silhouette of a rooster.

  “Well, hello, young man,” said Mr. Long.

  I was never sure if Michael had overheard the Long family warfare, and had dropped by to help out, or if he was just looking for a snack. But soon Mary Wood and Claire were competing to see who could compliment the other, the day, and William’s job prospects more profusely; Mr. James was examining my haircut and predicting the return of the Nehru jacket; and Mr. Long was absorbed in a richly satisfying conversation with Michael, about subway lines, the safety of Times Square, bus exhaust, and whether or not tennis was a good workout for the biceps.