Season of the Witch

by James Leo Herlihy

  And now here you are 17 years later, sitting three yards from the man who made the lump. Why does he have to be so ordinary and mean and sad? Is he? Maybe he’s none of those things. You’re quite capable of making emotional judgments that turn out to be madly unsound. Pretend he’s not your father and look at him again. Carefully. Look at him with your witch eyes. See who he is.

  So that’s what I did. And everything turned upside down. He wasn’t ordinary any more. And I wasn’t at all certain he was mean either. Sad? Yes, maybe. But then, most people in their forties, underneath all their attitudes and faces, seem awfully sad to me.

  Maybe I’d been wrong about everything. For instance, why would any man bother to hate a strange chick—just for walking into his classroom a few minutes late. On the first day of school, practically everybody’s late. Try to listen to him, I instructed myself. Try hard.

  “So if you people come here for fairytales, stay home. Skip class. Play hookey. Don’t come at all. I’ll give you C for honesty.” He hit his tees too hard and said his final gees too carefully. He sounded like an overeducated dumbhead. His grammar was technically correct, but just barely, as if keeping it correct was a constant strain. He paced back and forth a lot, and his hairy hands were a burden to him. They kept going in and out of his pockets and making abortive little gestures. He fooled with the knot in his necktie, and I got the impression he was none too sure it was tied correctly and wondered how many of us were sitting there writing him off as square.

  Finally I got around to seeing him through my mother’s eyes. Supposing, I asked myself, I had to pick out the one quality in him that had seduced her. And the minute I asked, I knew: it was his fire. Mother’s old Hank Glyczwycz might be a lot of things, tiresome, irritable, who knows what else, but he was alive. Packed with life. And lean, too. You couldn’t really tell, in all these baggy brown tweeds, whether his leanness was jungle leanness or ulcer leanness. Maybe a little of both, because he was quick as a cat and uptight as a gangster. But either way, I could imagine my mother absolutely craving that energy, wanting to soothe it and control it and hold it close and contain it.

  Then a weird mood struck me. Suddenly I’d begun to sympathize with my mother. I felt myself to be her as she was 18 years ago, a pretty, uptight, carefully groomed virgin (?) of 23, terrified of becoming an old maid, office-working at Random Hogan Random and Hodge in the daytime, and trying to stir up a little safe trouble for herself after hours by taking evening courses at Detroit U. And Bam! Alacazam! she meets this glamorous young refugee from Hitler’s Europe, an angry, husky, sexy dynamo from Hamtramck, and gets hooked! I wondered if he was wearing the same necktie then. Probably not. But I bet he tied it with the same knot! And I bet the backs of his hands were every bit as hairy as they are now.

  Mother. My mother.

  Dear mother, my babbling mind wrote her a letter, I am in the presence of your old lover and I know how it must have felt to be with him. Forgive me for not knowing before. This afternoon I think I love you a tiny bit more than usual. Do you suppose we’ll ever get to know one another? Peace. Gloria.

  After class a few people went up to talk with him. His answers were curt and tough and official. There was no real hearing in them, no softness, no warmth, just rat-a-tat-tats with built-in fuck-yous. I stayed in my seat. Sally Sunflower looked over and tried to come up with a smile for me, but all she could manage was one small anemic grin.

  “Would you like to go up and talk with him?” she whispered.

  I shook my head no. When everybody but Sally and I had cleared out of the room, Professor Gliss, my father, stopped at the door and looked back at us. He looked at Sally actually, but I had a feeling what he was really doing was not looking at me.

  He said, “You girls want something?”

  And I said, shocking myself terribly and knowing at once how wicked and hard it sounded, “Like what?”

  He looked at me for a few seconds with a faint unpleasant smile on his mouth and said, “Careful, you might get it!” Then he kept on looking at me, nodding his head several times, and left the room.

  I felt like I’d been slapped. Not by him, but by myself. Why would I act that way—instinctively? Was I really such a hateful little slut?

  Sally said, “Are you all right, darling Witch?”

  I started babbling about how marvelous I felt, how I’d wanted to see him and now I had and that was that, and what did she think we ought to do with the rest of the afternoon. She said it was such a pretty day why didn’t we walk in the park. So we went down to the street and looked at the day.

  It wasn’t pretty. It was spectacular. I loathed it. It hurt. It was one of those perfect young back-to-school days, windy and sunny and yet cool enough to carry a sweater just in case, and I felt such a nostalgia for other days that had been like it, days when I’d been really young, with nothing grim working in my stomach. Had there been such days? Of course, thousands of them! So I began to impersonate one of them. I said, “Sally, I feel like a beautiful young girl!” She said, “You are a beautiful young girl!” And I said, “Yes, but what I mean is I feel marvelous!” And she said, “You are marvelous!” And I said, “I know! But Sally, please, listen. Do you suppose we can forget him entirely? Forget we ever saw my father? Just put him out of our minds and never think of him again?”

  At that moment a boy and a girl came up to us with a petition. He was a shorthair cleancut number, and she was braided-and-sensible. The boy did the talking.

  “We saw you girls coming out of Gliss’s class, and we thought you might like to sign this. It’s a petition. Are you new here?”

  I said, “What’s the petition?”

  “We’re trying to get him out.”

  “Trying to get who out?”

  “Gliss. Last semester we got a hundred and forty signatures, including a majority of all History Majors. But they still haven’t fired him. This is a protest petition.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Everything. Also we think he’s a Communist. That’s his business. But the point is he hates this country, all his courses are nothing but hate-America courses. We know our country’s not perfect but we refuse to pay out good money to be taught contempt for the flag.”

  Dear Mother, I saw Daddy today and he’s still up to the same old tricks. Peace. Gloria.

  Braided-sensible said to Sally, “Will you sign?”

  “I can’t,” Sally said. “I’m not really interested in flags and nations.”

  “Not interested,” said B-and-S, “in what happens to your own country?”

  Sally smiled one of her brightest sunflower smiles and said, “No, not really. I care what happens to our world!”

  Shorthair cleancut gave B-and-S a knowing look and they walked away. I wonder what people with knowing looks know?

  I said, “Well, if Professor Gliss has enemies like that, he can’t be all bad.”

  “Do you still want to forget you ever met him?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. Forever. We have a pact. Will you forget him, too?”

  Sally agreed. So we went across Central Park West, climbed over the wall, and ran into the park. If anything, the day had improved. Blue was blue and green was green and air was air and people were people and I was me and Sally was Sally—and happiness was misery. Someone should invent spirit glasses that would do for your soul what sunglasses do for your eyes. Couldn’t the glare of just being, on a day like this, blind something in you even more precious than eyes?

  I knew I was in a dangerous mood. And I knew if I had half a chance I’d do something really foolish.

  Which is exactly what I did.

  After the park, we kept walking, and pretty soon we were at Bloomingdale’s. While we were passing through Men’s Wear on the way to the basement, somebody said hi to Sally. It turned out to be this friend of hers who was selling pajamas. I’ve forgotten his name already. But while we were standing there talking, the three of us, along came this dude named Edward—a f
riend of the one whose name I’ve forgotten.

  Edward is an extremely sexy and magnificent-looking Leo, with a virile-plus body, and an Adam’s apple. He’s wearing an emerald-green shirt with a bright blue flowered scarf tied at the neck and tight-tight black bell-bottoms. The shirt’s open to the waist, so all the while we’re talking, I have to cope with this hairy hairy hairy chest. Obviously Edward sees his chest as quite an asset. He wears this shiny brass medallion hanging from a chain that hits him midway between navel and nipple. And just in case your attention happens to wander, there’s this medallion flashing away like crazy to bring your eye back home.

  From the start, Edward presents this big riddle. He comes on super gay, with a rich and witty tongue that goes like forever. But all the while he’s talking, I feel he’s looking at me the way a man looks at a woman. I’m confused, but not the least bit turned on by him, because whether he’s gay or not, he’s a peacock, and he talks too much. Edward’s a make-up artist. “Probably the world’s finest. I create faces,” he says. “I make everyone a star. It’s the answer, don’t you see, to all the world’s problems. If everyone is a star, and knows that everyone else is a star, then the entire world becomes this perfectly glorious TV studio, with everyone treating everyone else with the most supreme deference. The theory’s as old as Aristotle. Beauty is harmony. And if everyone is beautiful, there’s harmony everywhere. Would America be committing genocide in Vietnam if it realized how fabulously gorgeous the Vietnamese are? Would we allow stars to starve to death in Biafra? As for police brutality, it would disappear overnight. When was the last time a star got beat up in a parking lot by the fuzz; or hassled for walking down a street? Remember what I’m telling you and think it over carefully! I have stumbled upon the greatest secret for turning people on since LSD. How do I know it? I’ve proven it! Everyone who comes to me for a face, I treat just like a star, and when they leave, I swear to you I have them so convinced, you can actually see stardom shooting out of them like rays. Instant Charisma. Naturally I charge for it. Money bores me, but I have to eat. Besides, I’m a star too, aren’t I? So of course I have to live like one! Now tell me the truth, did you know I was wearing false eyelashes? Of course you didn’t. Not until I said so. Men aren’t ready to come out in the open yet, so for them you have to do imperceptible things. But they’re doing it, my dear, men have really begun! Would you believe me if I told you there is a policeman in this city, walking the Broadway beat at this exact second, wearing false eyelashes? I never lie. I swear this to you on my mother’s eyes. I sold them to him myself and taught him how to use them. Within five years false eyelashes for men will be sold openly in every gas station from here to California—right in slot machines next to the rubbers. People don’t seem to realize it, but we’re having a goddam revolution, and it’s really talking place!”

  He pointed at me. “You, by the way, have a face already. I couldn’t do a thing for you. You’re already a star. And you” —he pointed at Sally—“are also a star. But your face could use some help. Too much sunniness, too much light. It wants a hint of darkness somewhere. Yes, yes, yes indeed! I know precisely what I’d do with you—a few shadows, mostly at the eyes. And then that fabulous frizzy hair would really pay off big. It’d go absolutely zingo! You’d step out into the street, traffic would come to a standstill, the National Guard would be called in, Congress would meet in emergency session, you’d be declared a public hazard and forced to wear veils for all public appearances! Incidentally, I’m in love with you both. I never sleep with women, because I’m much too much in awe of them. But I do worship them. I’m putty in their hands. Therefore I’m inviting both of you to my studio. It’s exactly a block and a half from here on Madison, and I want you to come with me this minute. I have no more appointments for the day, we can just smoke a little grass, and, if you like, I’ll let you play in my lovely puddles of paint. Now tell me, what do you think of this idea? Does it touch your little buttons? Does it arouse anything? Will you come?”

  I don’t think I’d said a single word the whole time. When somebody’s as sparkling and overpowering in their rap as Edward is, I have a hard time getting my mouth together for a response.

  Sally said she thought it would be fun, but it was her day to cook, so she took a raincheck. I might have gone home with her, but Edward was really insistent. Besides I wanted to go with him. When somebody seems to like me, I find him irresistible. Also, it occurred to me that through Edward I might meet some groovy homosexuals and one of them could become a lover for Roy. So I told Sally I might not be home for dinner. Edward and I walked her to the subway and then the two of us went flying along 59th Street.

  He said, “Witch, you’re fantastic company, you know that don’t you?”

  I still hadn’t done any talking or contributed anything, but I took the compliment as well as I could.

  He said, “Let’s skip! Shall we?”

  Edward took my hand—and we skipped! All the way to Park Avenue. Suddenly I realized I was a young girl in New York, spending an afternoon with a glamorous, bizarre, slightly obnoxious but very sweet nut, and I really threw myself into it. I felt like I was acting in an old-timey Hollywood musical with Gene Kelly.

  On Park Avenue they have this skinny little island running down the middle with grass and flowers. Edward said, “Watch!” Then he jumped the fence and did about a dozen cartwheels. Other pedestrians and even people in cars waiting for the light to change watched with their eyes popping. When he was finished, Edward took a number of bows and blew kisses at the traffic. A black boy about 12 wearing a baseball hat and an enormous grin was standing next to me when Edward jumped back over the railing. The boy said, “Hey, are you on TV?” Edward said, “Yes I am, I’m a great star, and so are you.” Then he made a camera with his hands and pointed it at the kid’s face and said, “Are you ready?” The kid said, “Ready for what?” Edward dropped the camera and took the boy’s hand in both of his and pumped it full of congratulations. “That was perfect! Absolutely perfect! You did that scene in one take!” He took a roll of bills from his pocket and gave the boy a five, saying, “Do you realize your network is paying you at the rate of one dollar a second? That makes you the highest paid star in America.”

  Then the light changed. Edward took my hand and we ran across Park Avenue. Halfway across, I looked back at the kid. He was holding the five-dollar bill, and hollering “Do I get to keep it?” I nodded and said I guess so.

  Edward said, “Witch, my one ambition is to elevate the entire world to stardom! Do you think I’ll succeed?”

  His studio, which he calls an atelier, is above an antique shop. Right at the top of the stairs there’s a door with a sign painted on it in gold:

  MAQUILLAGE—EDWARD

  You enter the place through a small room with nothing in it but three bright-colored poufs like fluffy little mushrooms arranged on a white carpet, and three or four fashion magazines lying on the floor.

  “Does a waiting room have to be a waiting room?” he said.

  I just smiled. I realized by now Edward prefers to answer his own questions.

  “Of course not,” he said. “Besides, stars never wait. They may, however, choose to have their famous little butts pampered for a few minutes while I’m preparing to go to work on their faces. But that’s not waiting, is it? Now look in here.”

  We passed through a white door, and inside everything was black. Edward flipped a switch and suddenly there were all these streams of light coming from everywhere. You couldn’t see any walls or ceilings, just these columns of light. Edward drew me along behind him and everywhere I stepped I saw myself in some mirror, each one with lighting that was entirely different from the one before.

  Edward said, “I’m vastly gifted in interior design, but I never design rooms. I dislike rooms, they’re too limiting. I do interrupted infinities. Infinities interrupted by light. Besides, stars are accustomed to performing under great banks of light, n’est-ce pas? And this”—suddenly w
e were behind a screen—“is the corner where the magic takes place.” There was an elegant little upholstered bench, which he said a friend had stolen for him from the Cleopatra set. Edward was holding up a big beige smock. “Step into this,” he said, “and lie down.”

  When he was absolutely certain I was comfortably arranged on this couch thing, he turned to a little white table that was crowded with pots of paint, brushes, sponges, pencils. He looked back and forth from the table to me, rubbing his hands with delight. “Witch, this is terribly exciting. I feel I’m about to surpass myself, and it’s more than I can bear. Here, we’ll start with hashish.” He got out a Turkish water pipe and prepared it: a little chunk of hash on a bed of grass. We had two good tokes each, and then Edward went to work on my face. It seems to me he used every color and every piece of equipment on the table, and of course he chattered on as he worked. I wasn’t allowed to see what was happening, but three minutes later he told me to get up, I was completed. Off went the smock, on went a silver lamé cape with fur hanging all over it. He said Angela Lansbury had worn it in Mame and I’m sure she had. Then he led me past the screen again, where all the infinities were interrupted by light.