The Magic Kingdom

by Stanley Elkin

  (Later Benny wouldn’t even remember the order in which her clothes had come off. Only that blur of no-nonsense, businesslike efficiency. One moment she had dropped her purse on a chair, the next her clothes were hanging neatly in the closet—and when had she removed her panties or, folding them, laid them carefully on the chair beside her purse? and when had she kicked off her shoes? rolled down her hose and set them across the back of the chair?—and she was completely stripped, uncovered, bare, naked, nude, starkers. She stood before them without a stitch, in the buff, the raw—it was, Benny thought, an apt word; she looked in her nakedness nude as meat in a butcher shop—and he was struck by the rare, pink baldness of her body, by its unsuspected curves and fullnesses—and, oddly, oddly because he would never actually remember seeing her like this, she would become a paradigm for all women, up to her thighs in silk stocking, sitting on underwear, a buried treasure of lace and garter belt, all the lovely, invisible bondages of flesh, her pubic hair bulging her panties like a dark triangle of reinforced silk, her sex like a box of unoffered candy, hoarded fruit—and they see her breasts, they see her cunt. She lies down nude on top of the still made bed. She raises her long legs, spreads them.

  (Then she rolls over on her side, turning away from them. They can’t see what she’s doing but they see her ass. Her left arm goes down, over and across her body, and it looks from their angle as if she’s clutching a second pillow to her, getting ready for a nap. They watch her behind as it pumps back and forth on top of the bedspread. She’s nestling in all comfy for her bye-byes, thinks Benny Maxine. She’s ’aving a bit of a lie- down. The two boys stare at her ass, study its dark vertical, the two discrete, hollow, brown shadows within her cheeks like halved darning eggs, like healed burns, like hairy stains.

  (She is quickly done, shivers all along her body, and bounds from the bed. In the bathroom—she leaves the door open; they can see part of her reflection in the full-length mirror—she sits to pee, pulls a few sheets of toilet paper from the roll, and wipes herself. She washes her hands, slaps water on her face, and, when she returns to the room, she seems completely restored. Even her eyes seem restored too, returned to some neutral condition of peace.

  (“I’ve heard of this,” Benny Maxine mouths to Charles Mudd-Gaddis, explaining. “World-class, champion speed sleep.”

  (The old gnome frowns at him. The entire time they watch her dress she is still businesslike, still efficient, but now, putting on her clothes, it is almost as if she is posing. As she is, though Benny doesn’t realize this. She is posing for the clothes themselves, moving her body into perfect alignment with her apparel, adjusting straps and cups, seams and undergarments to all those unsuspected boluses of flesh. They get an eyeful. They see her from the side, from the rear, from the front. As she rests a leg on the bed and leans forward to leverage a stocking up along her thigh, they get a brief, unobstructed view of her sex, of her bunched and weighted breasts. But she moves too rapidly.

  (Benny doesn’t know where to look first and, worried about any telltale arthritic creaks, glances at Mudd-Gaddis, meaning to steady him, to forestall the chirping of his old companion’s joints, the snap and crackle of his burned bones. But even Mudd- Gaddis’s eyes barely move, his fierce old countenance as absolved of desire and edge as Mary Cottle’s own.

  (Which was when he first thought slyboots, crafty bastard! And when he first formulated the questions he did not even know yet he would ever get to ask. Not only the one about how long it lasted, when he might reasonably expect surcease, relief, to be disburdened of what he already knew and recognized was to be just one more additional symptom of his life, but the one about preference too, especially the one about preference, offering pelt as he might ante a chip in a game of chance and despising Mudd-Gaddis, the old roué lech and sated boulevardier, who did not even have to trouble to crane his neck or even to move his eyes about, who’d already seen and presumably done it all in his time, who’d had only to wait there in ambush for something wondrous and delicious to come into view, the old bastard sedate and smug as an assassin behind his cross-hairs, settled in his sexual nostalgia—not having to choose, maybe not even having a preference, because the old fart knew that choice was a mug’s game—as that woman in her own arms on the bed, and only poor fifteen-year-old virgin Benny burdened forever by his fifteen-year-old turned-stone maidenhead, not knowing the odds but having to place his bet down anyway, the red or the black, declaring for quim, declaring for tush, declaring for boobs or pelt, and hoping, though he knew better, that tush or boobs would come up winners because, let’s face it, if he was ever going to get in the game it could only be by copping a feel. When he knew all along. When he by God knew all along where he had to be, where—for him—the real action was, but until this morning hadn’t even known the geography existed: the darning eggs, those elliptical hollows, those two discrete dark shadows, the twin burns, those stinking stains inside the fold of each buttock!

  (She is dressed and out, not looking toward the drapes once, not looking anywhere, not even checking—as everyone does, as even Benny does, as even Mudd-Gaddis must do, tapping their pockets or looking into their purses, for gum, for keys or comb or handkerchief or change—the hotel room she is about to leave. Is gone. Totally collected and moving through the room and out of it, as through with and out of any indifferent space, as assured and confident and possessed as she might be passing from one room to another in her flat.

  (And though in many ways it has been a great morning for him, a real eye-opener, the things he’s seen trapped in his head as on a photographic plate, Benny is nervous, jealous and convinced as he is—he’d looked at Mudd-Gaddis from time to time, even during her performance, glancing at him as much for confirmation that this was all happening as for the respect he felt was owed him for actually finding the place—that this, so new and exciting to him, was just old familiar stuff to his wise and jaded comrade.

  (Who could at least—thank God for small favors—share the discovery Benny was busting with, temper that burden, at least, his spilled, cup-run-over excitement, but who wouldn’t remember, who couldn’t remember lunch and thus wouldn’t be able, the forgetful good front and past-it boulevardier, kid-ancient old boy, to ruin a good thing for him, something he would almost certainly want to look in on again and again, or to give him away.)

  “Yes,” Charles Mudd-Gaddis said to Tony Word and Lydia Conscience on one occasion, and to Janet Order, Rena Morgan, and Noah Cloth on three others, “Mary Cottle. She’s taken a room in the hotel just for herself. Room eight twenty-two. Somewhat smaller than any of ours but quite well furnished. A deep, oblong affair with a dark olive-colored dresser, Danish modern, I think, with three long, faintly louvered drawers. A circular table of similar shade about one and a third meters in diameter stands in the southeast corner with two matching generic Scandinavian armchairs. There’s a somewhat larger chair off to the side of her Trimline Sylvania TV. The drapes are a patternless brown about the color of damp bark, and the rug is a soft acrylic and wool shag, treated with a somewhat glossy fire retardant. There are four ashtrays rather than the customary three: one on each bedstand and the others on the dresser and table. I suppose she may have taken the one on the dresser from the W.C., though my guess—you know how she smokes—is she probably asked Housekeeping for the extra. There were seven fag-ends in only two of the trays, two in the one on the dresser, and five in the one on the bedstand by the beige telephone to the right of the queen-sized bed. I liked her bedspread, incidentally, a sort of burnt sienna. Instead of the usual stylized map of Disney World that hangs in these rooms, there’s a quite nice portrait of the old Mickey Mouse. Black and white and from the early days when he was still Steamboat Willy.

  “On my way out I happened to notice that the Orlando telephone directory on the dresser was turned to page forty-three.”

  “Did you mention any of this to Benny?” Rena Morgan asked.

  “Benny?” the little gerontological case said uncertain
ly.

  Because everything has a reasonable explanation.

  It was Janet Order who reported to Nedra Carp that Mary Cottle had taken room 822. She was still sore because Mary had been thoughtless enough to light that cigarette and caused her to cough and choke and wake from her dream the evening of their airplane ride to Florida. She still remembered the circumstances, the difficulty she’d had falling asleep in the first place—the little blue girl who welcomed sleep if only for the dreams, the disguises she found there, and who, forget special circumstances, forget need, had to wait right along with everyone else for the hour or so to pass before REM sleep came with its marvelously cunning camouflage solutions—and the even greater difficulty she had falling back asleep after she was awake, though she remembered dozing, fitful naps, and recalled, too, her lively suspicions, thinking, She’s seen my file, she knows my case, how it is with me. She did that on purpose. And thinking too, Now even if I do get to sleep again I’ll probably have to go to the bathroom. In any case I’ll have to be out just getting my rest a whole other hour or so, or hour and a half or so, before I ever get to dream again. And even if she didn’t do it on purpose, even if she just needed a cigarette, I know how smokers are. They’re addicted as alcoholics. She’ll wait an hour—isn’t that just what she did in the first place?—or an hour and a half or so, and then, when she thinks I’m sleeping deeply, just go ahead and light up again!

  So that’s why Janet told on her.

  And why she’d asked to be put in with Mr. Moorhead and the boys, even though she’d have preferred to stay with Rena and even with Lydia, so standoffish in the dream, and whose presence there, despite her neatness, picking and cleaning up after herself as she had, wiping away all she could find of her dead-giveaway spoor and all the traces of her prior tenancy, Janet had somehow suspected anyway. (All the dead-giveaway spoor she could find!) And why, of all the adults along on the holiday, it was to Nedra Carp she chose to spill the beans. Because the child, with her heightened awareness of other people’s aversion to her, could sense all aversion a mile off, had this gift the way certain animals were said to have an olfactory knowledge of fear. And why shouldn’t she? Wasn’t she blue? Wasn’t she the blue girl? (No wonder I knew she’d been there, she thought—in the dream. It was my doggy instincts.) And chose Nedra out of some still higher sense of the squeamish, not just the ordinary vibes of simple blue racism this time but even her peculiar sense of caste. Not only had she sensed that Nedra had no use for her, she sensed the reason too. It was simply because she inhabited a different room. It was simply because she was not officially her charge. Not because she was blue and disgusting but because she was not one of Nedra’s girls. As soon as she realized this she felt her heart buckle, the strange new symptom of love. So she chose Nedra, almost shy, almost nervous, bringing her the news—first checking the information by attempting to put a call through to 822 (if Miss Cottle answered she’d have hung up), only to be told by the hotel operator that the guest in 822 had instructed the hotel that she would accept no calls (“She,” Janet said, “she?” “The guest,” the operator replied coolly)—like a suitor. Sucking up, Janet thought, I’m sucking up. And didn’t mind at all, who wouldn’t have minded even if she hadn’t picked up all those other vibes as well, the sixth, seventh, and maybe even eighth senses that told her of Nedra’s antipathy to the other woman before she so much as mentioned her name. Or the other thing. That the woman she’d chosen to love did not love her back. And not only didn’t love her back but probably had an aversion to her greater even than the one she had for Mary Cottle, but whose aversion, whose squeamishness even, was not based on Janet Order’s blueness but only on that simple stupid business—her beloved nanny was stupid—that she lived across the hall with Mr. Moorhead and Noah Cloth and Tony Word and so was an affront to her.

  “Oh, what a lovely room,” she began. “I do so wish I lived here with you and the other girls, Nanny,” Janet Order said.

  Nedra Carp, knowing it would get back to her employer without her being the one to trouble the dear and troubled man, told Colin Bible.

  Who was encouraged, almost buoyed, by the promising ease with which the fellow—Matthew Gale; his name was Matthew Gale—had been able to obtain the key. Turf, Colin Bible thought. The perks of turf. On mine, had I wished to, I could have witnessed the historic operations, met the famous sick, seen their charts and x-rays, the sheiks’ and prime ministers’ and movie stars’ who were always popping into the clinic with their secret under-the-table diseases. I could have had second helpings in the restaurant, access to the drug larders even.

  Encouraged, but only almost buoyed. Too nervous still. And guilty, who still felt the humiliation of being so easily spotted and who recalled Gale’s knowing wink as forcefully as if it had been a slap. Who’d never flaunted it (and daunted by this vulgar man who did), who didn’t in even these compromised circumstances flaunt it now, and who might, so neutrally had they—the two Colins—behaved with each other in public, in the pubs they frequented, the theaters and concert halls they attended, have been taken for second cousins or businessmen or two distant acquaintances thrown together for the evening by the simple innocent agency of one or the other of them’s being in possession of an extra ticket. And even more humiliated by the memory of his own outrageous behavior at the health club, by his decoy ambush at the urinals, his skulking camouflage by the toilet stalls, by all his bad play-actor’s raving, put-on nonchalance: his prowled, clandestine presence near the equipment, covered in layers of stealth and insinuation as in a raincoat. So amusing to Matthew. Who’d called him “toots” and asked if he’d been waiting long.

  He’d had second thoughts, but they’d been as much for poor old obsolescent Colin as for himself, and even after their encounter at the Spa he’d stalled Gale for two days now.

  “You know what I think?” Matthew had said. “I think you’re a cock-tease.”

  “No, I’m not,” Colin said. “That’s an awful thing to say.”

  “What is it then, dearie, your time of month?”

  “Please,” Colin said, “don’t be common.”

  “Am I wasting my time with you, sailor? What sort of crap is this?”

  “Can’t we get to know each other?” Colin said. “Can’t we just get to be friends first?”

  “I know enough people. I’ve friends up the wazoo.”

  “I told you,” Colin said, “I’m no light o’ love.”

  “You sure ain’t. You’re the Blue Balls Kid.”

  “I told you,” Colin mumbled, “I’ve this very special friend back in England.”

  “Yeah, you told me. I just want you to know something, sister. I’m getting a little bit tired of these damned Coke dates of ours. I’m a certified faggot, I don’t believe in long courtships.” Matthew was off duty. They were sitting together at a table outside a café waiting for the fireworks to begin.

  “You have to give me more time.” He sounded like a foolish girl. Even to himself.

  “You know something? You’re one naive bimbo. What, you think you’re the only married man ever to have gone out of town? The only bespoke hubby at the convention? One-night stands are great. Foxy old grampas do it leaning against the rusted porcelain in tearooms.”

  “I’m not a foxy old grandpa.”

  “You’re telling me.” Matthew smiled, appraising him. “ You’re one bitch chick.”

  “Please,” Colin said. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “How do you expect me to talk, Miss Priss? I’m coming on. I’m paying you compliments. I’m no Lord What’shisname. I see a skirt I go for, I have to interrupt the programs. It’s just my way.” An umbrella of fireworks opened up over the Magic Kingdom, the red, blue, and green reflections running down their faces like greasepaint. “Ooh, ahh, eh, Doris?” Matthew Gale said.

  Colin wouldn’t look at him.

  “All right,” Gale had said, “all right, I’ll respect you in the morning. Anything. All I want is to get you in be
d. You’re driving me nuts, you know that?”

  “Poofs,” Colin said.

  “I’m not so bad,” Matthew Gale said.

  “Oh, no,” Colin Bible said, “you’re terrible.”

  “I’m not terrible,” Matthew Gale said. “You want vulnerability? I’m vulnerable. Gentle sensitivity? I’m sensitive as dick. I’m telling you the truth, old girl. What do you think, I draw graffiti on the walls? I don’t even have a pencil.”

  “Some recommendation that is,” Colin said.

  “Oh, boy,” he said, “she talks dirty.”

  “How old are you?” Colin asked.

  “Twenty-six. Why?”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “A fag’s fate,” Matthew said, “his baby-face genes. Why?”

  “You look like a teenager.”

  “Oh,” Matthew said, “I get it. You’re afraid you might be contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Forget it. Be easy on that score. Thousands have given at the office.”

  “You’re really twenty-six?”

  “I’m fucking thirty, man,” Matthew said.