The Shark-Infested Custard

by Charles Willeford

  When I came to Chicago, Tom Brady gave me the use of one of the hotel rooms “until I got settled.” The room was convenient, only a block from our building, and with the hotel desk acting as a message center and answering service, I was in touch with the office all of the time. The room was bug-free, swept regularly; and it was always spotlessly clean when I returned to it, with fresh sheets; and my laundry was picked up and returned on the same day. As a consequence, I spent additional hours at the office because I had very few personal matters to take care of, and those few I did have to worry about were taken care of by my secretary. And so, because I was there, in the office, I was doing a great many things myself, making a good many decisions, and taking on too many additional responsibilities that could have and should have been delegated. My full-time presence at the agency made Tom Brady’s job easier, so he never reminded me that I was living in a rent-free hotel room because it was to his advantage that I live at the Stevens and be on tap all of the time.

  I decided to pull back and establish some kind of normal life.

  Merita Orfutt, I also concluded, would be part of my new resolve to live more normally, and she would be helpful to have around during the transitional stage. Merita Orfutt was a seventeen-year-old black girl from Dothan, Alabama. She had been picked up for shoplifting, and had been given probation. She had been living with a female cousin who had also moved to Chicago from Dothan, and her cousin was on welfare. The cousin had two illegitimate children already, and was pregnant with a third.

  The probation officer started screwing Merita, and moved her into a housekeeping room, which he paid for, on Cermak Street. It was a mixed block, and he could come and go without too much curiosity from the people in the neighborhood, but he got scared—or so he said. He was afraid that his wife might find out about Merita, and besides, he really didn’t make enough money as a probation officer to support the girl, even minimally. And Merita was unable to find enough work to support herself. She found some occasional day-work but she didn’t earn enough to live on.

  So I took Merita over, the payments of the room on Cermak, and gave the girl an allowance of thirty dollars a week. Merita was a very black black girl, the color other blacks call a “blue.” She was sexually inexperienced and a very poor lay. But she was quiet and amenable, only spoke when she was spoken to, and she ironed beautifully.

  Actually, Merita and I had so little in common that there wasn’t much of anything to talk about. She truly ironed beautifully, and liked taking care of the apartment. She was awkwardly efficient, and funny to watch at the same time. If I gave her two things to do at once, like ironing a fresh white shirt and taking the garbage downstairs, she jumped around for a few moments like a woman suddenly tossed a couple of bouncing tennis balls. For a slim girl, Merita had fairly large breasts, and the typical high rounded ass of a black girl, but she didn’t really turn me on sexually—or at least, not very often. If she had, I would have taken the time to teach her a few things, but I never bothered, and only took her into my bed once or twice a week. When I had kept her in the room on Cermak Street I visited her about twice a week, and thought, at the time, that the reason I didn’t see her more often was because I was too busy. But after I had her living with me in the apartment, where she was available every night, I still only tapped her once or twice a week because that was enough.

  She didn’t sleep in my bed, of course. She slept on the Castro convertible in the living room. When she woke me in the morning, bringing me a cup of coffee and telling me that my breakfast was “on the fire,” her bed was already made up in the living room and the white leather cushions were back on the couch.

  At any rate, our arrangement, if anything, was temporary. Knowing that the end was vaguely inevitable, I took her into downtown Schiller Park and signed her up at the Schiller Park Beauty College. In six months, or nine, or however long it took her to master the hairy lessons they taught her there, she would become a beauty operator. When she got her diploma, I planned to put her on a Trailways bus back to Dothan, Alabama. With a trade, I figured, she would be able to earn a decent living down there. Our arrangement, in my opinion, was fair enough, and if Merita had any objections she never voiced them. She only spent three hours a day at the beauty college, with a twenty-minute bus ride each way, so she still had plenty of time to do the shopping, keep the apartment spotless, watch dayside television, and play the One and Only B.B. King on the stereo.

  Except for weekend-stands, I had never lived with a woman before, and it wasn’t nearly as depressing as I had thought it would be. But now, looking back, I think that it was a mistake not to indoctrinate Merita with some advanced sex education.

  One afternoon, about a week before the party, and after I had provided Don with the documents for his new identification, I called Hank and told him to get Eddie and to meet me at The Shill at six-thirty p.m.—without Don. I wanted to show Eddie and Hank the letter I had written to Clara Luchessi.

  Hank was only visiting his salesmen in the field every other week now instead of once a week, and faking his reports during the week he stayed at home. It consumed a lot of desk time for him to make up his phony reports, but now that he had his men in the field straightened out he could slack off without any decrease in sales, and he was tired of living in hotel rooms four days a week, every single week. Eddie was home three days a week one week, and four days the next, and during his layovers in Seattle he was staying at a waterfront hotel and trying to learn as much as he could about salmon fishing. When the summer fishing season came around, the four of us had made some tentative plans to spend a week together fishing for salmon on the Columbia, and camping out. The way my hand was hurting all the time, I didn’t think it would ever stop so I could enjoy a camping-fishing trip, but I kept my reservations to myself.

  When we met that evening in The Shill and ordered drafts, I brought out the letter on N.S. stationery I had written to Clara Luchessi. I also had a Xeroxed copy of the letter to send to Nita Peralta.

  “The reason I wrote this letter—a report really—” I told Eddie and Hank “—is to forestall Clara’s hiring an investigator to come up here and look for Don. The only lead she has to Don is through Hank and us, so by sending her this official report, telling her that I had the airport, bus, and train terminals covered and that I was continuing to have an operator checking on the hotels, she’ll think we’re all as concerned with Don’s disappearance as she is. So I can continue to send her, from time to time, some additional faked negative progress reports. The cover I got for Don is primarily for his psychological benefit. It wouldn’t hold up for ten minutes if a plainclothes investigator started looking for him, but it’ll give Don the kind of security he’ll need to pull himself together. Don, as you guys know, is square as hell and very straight. This runaway business is out of keeping with his way of looking at the world, and it’s much better for us to keep him here with us, instead of having him all alone and disturbed mentally down in Miami.”

  Hank read the letter, grinned approvingly, and passed it to Eddie. “What makes you think Clara’ll believe a negative report like this? As far as she knows, you’re as much Don’s friend as I am.”

  “The language for one thing,” I said. “It’s in officialese. Couched in officialese. And for another, if she tries to hire an investigative agency to look for Don, and finds out that it’ll cost her from one-fifty to two hundred bucks a day, she’ll settle for my free report.”

  “I like it, Fuzz-O,” Eddie said. “But what about Don’s company? They’re going to be out a few thousand bucks, so—”

  “I called Nita Peralta on the phone the other day, and I’ve got a Xerox copy of the letter to Clara to send her.” I showed them the copy.

  “I didn’t know you knew Nita Peralta,” Eddie said.

  “I know her pretty well,” I said. “In fact, I took her out a couple of times in Miami and banged her, so I know her damned well.”

  “I thought she was a virgin.” Eddie gave
me a puzzled look.

  “Not when I took her out, she wasn’t. I never said anything about it because she didn’t want Don to know. She has a crush on him, you know—one of those things—so she was awfully afraid Don would find out about us. So after a couple of dates, we just dropped the whole business. Anyway, because I never said anything about it to Don, she trusts me. So when I called her, I told her I’d send her a copy of the report I was sending to Clara, and if the company ever looked for Don in the Chicago area they should have the investigators contact me first. Because, as I told her, we’re all as concerned about Don’s whereabouts as she is. I think that’ll do it all right, and we can keep Don with us in the quardriplex as long as he wants to stay there. This is all pretty devious shit, but I can take care of the paper chase without any trouble as long as an investigator comes to see me down at N.S. first.”

  “Send the letters,” Hank said. “You’re brilliant, Larry.”

  “I intend to,” I said, “but I wanted you guys to know what I was doing. We all agreed never to mention that night, but I want you to know that I feel a lot better about having Don up here with us instead of having him running around loose in Miami.”

  “Don would never say anything about that night,” Eddie said.

  “Not unless he were subjected to pressure, he wouldn’t,” I said. “But he was under a lot of pressure with Clara, and if a man’s under too much pressure the top of his head can blow off.”

  “He’s not under any pressure with us,” Hank said.

  “That’s right,” Eddie said. “This afternoon he was talking about looking for a job.”

  We had a few more beers, and then we went out to a steakhouse for dinner. We switched to martinis, then to scotch, and when we got in a fairly jovial mood, someone—I think it was Eddie—brought up the idea for a First Birthday party for Don, and we made the plans.

  33

  Don Lane, his ordinarily olive face a dusky rose, was smiling as he speared an onion in his Gibson with his right forefingernail. Today, March 15, he was one day old. This was the first day of the rest of his life, and “officially” he was only twenty-six years of age.

  To top it off, he had sold three encyclopedias in less than an hour: one to Mr. Sinkiewicz, one to Hank, and one to me. I had gone for the whole package, the encyclopedia, the two-volume dictionary, and the maple bookcase to hold the set. By my taking the entire package, Don was able to throw in a free 24-volume set of The Book of Knowledge, reduced to twelve double-volumes. When the crates of books arrived, I planned to give The Book of Knowledge to Merita.

  We were in Hank’s apartment, all of us dressed and having preprandial Gibsons before going out on the city. Reservations had been made, and after we had done everything we planned to do, we were going to come back to the quadriplex, and my apartment, for birthday cake and for the opening of Don’s presents.

  I had given Merita her instructions. She was baking an apple snack cake and making trays of canapes up in my apartment. She had plenty to do to keep her occupied until we returned.

  “Shall I make another batch?” Hank said.

  Hank had gained twenty pounds since he left Miami. His round red face was puffy, and I knew he had been drinking all afternoon. He knew his capacity, however, and he spaced his drinks. The torrid Tanqueray Gibsons were just beginning to hit him, and he had loosened the knot, as big as a boxing glove, of his white silk tie, and unfastened the top button of his yellow Viyella shirt. He wore a new brown tweed suit, rough and twiggy in texture, which added another ten pounds to his bulky appearance.

  “I don’t think there’s time,” I said. “We’ve got reservations. But why not fix us one more apiece to drink in the car?”

  “Not for me,” Eddie said. “If we’re going to have another at dinner, and then wine—I’d rather wait.” In his new gray suit, Eddie had never looked any sharper. He wore a blue-and-gray striped U.S.A.F. tie with his blue uniform shirt. His black flight boots were, as usual, highly polished. Eddie was usually a beer man, with an infinite capacity for tall drafts, but he was celebrating tonight, and he didn’t have to fly again for three days. When he was flying on the next day, Eddie wouldn’t even drink a draft beer. Wanting to last out the evening, Eddie was drinking his lethal Gibson in a tall six-ounce glass full of shaved ice.

  “I think I’ll wait, too,” Don said. He got up and struggled into his new pile-lined trenchcoat. It was a complicated coat, with a dozen suede straps and waist belt, and shiny in various places with useless brass buckles and D-rings.

  Hank and I carried fresh Gibsons in plastic glasses when we left. We sat in the back of Hank’s new Galaxie. Eddie drove, with Don up front beside him.

  In traffic, and there is always traffic, it usually takes me about forty-five minutes to drive to the Loop on the Kennedy Expressway, but Eddie, whipping expertly in and out of the stream, made it in thirty-five minutes to the Congress exit. We didn’t say much in the car because we were listening to Hank’s tape of The Allman’s, “Brothers and Sisters.” With the music blasting out of four speakers, it was too difficult to talk anyway. After turning North on Michigan, Eddie drove into the parking garage behind the John Hancock Building and found a slot on the twelfth floor. We rode the elevator down and, because there was still plenty of time and Don hadn’t been in there before, we went into the Playboy Towers—not the club, although we all had our cards from the Miami Playboy Club—and had a drink at the bar. This bar and lounge is as big as three gymnasiums, and a good pick-up place. But it was crowded, noisier than hell, and distorted band music filtered in from the other rooms.

  We left and walked the one block south on North Michigan to the Hancock Building, entered via the subground floor, and took the nonstop, twenty-nine second ride on the express elevator to The Ninety-Fifth Floor Restaurant. I told the maitre’d who I was, and he took us to our table immediately. We got the table I had requested, but the night was too stormy for the usually impressive view of the Loop I had wanted Eddie and Don to see. The pitchy blackness of Lake Michigan was somewhere to our left, but we could at least see the lights of the First National Bank Building.

  The service impressed Don and Eddie, who hadn’t eaten there before. Hank and I enjoyed watching the Korean waiter work. He had a half-dozen assistants, and while we drank champagne cocktails, he prepared most of the food at the table, snapping his fingers, and the steaming plates appeared like magic. We had a smooth vichyssoise, lobster Newburg, Brussel sprouts, baked potatoes, and a great salad, plus two bottles of champagne. By the time we finished the French pastries, and lit the cigars I had brought along, we had eaten ourselves almost sober.

  Hank ordered B&Bs and coffee all-around. I unfastened my belt two notches, and looked out the thermal window at the starred lights and swirling fog. Eddie and Hank had partially glazed eyes from eating too much, but Don, who had hardly touched his food, looked almost pensive.

  “Two or three years back,” I said, “some woman threw herself out of the window on the ninety-second floor, and bounced all the way down.”

  “There’s a technical term for that,” Hank said. “Auto-defenestration.”

  “What’s it mean?” Eddie said.

  “Throwing yourself out the window.” Hank laughed.

  Don got up, walked two paces to the window, and tapped the thermal glass. He sat down again, shaking his head. “No way—that glass is doubled and almost an inch thick. It would be impossible to throw yourself through the window.”

  “Not if you had some help,” I said. “Besides, Don, this is Chicago, and the police said it was suicide so that’s what it was.”

  “I’m miserable,” Eddie said. “I ate too damned much. Let’s get the hell out.”

  I paid the $156 tab with my credit card, plus writing in a 25% tip for the Korean waiter, who was well worth it, and we left the Ninety-Fifth Floor.

  The icy air and the brisk walk revived us a little, and the drive back on the Kennedy Expressway to the River Road exit and the Regency Hy
att House sobered me completely. This hotel is in Rosemont, Illinois, but the corner of the building is only ten feet away from Schiller Park. In the Blue Max, we had two double-scotches apiece, in an effort to get the glow back, before the floor show began.

  The M.C., finally, introduced a “Famous Star of Radio, Stage, Screen and Television.” Hank had seen him on the old Ed Sullivan show, but I had never heard of him before. He was just another fat, dead-pan comic to me. He had a screen and a slide projector on the stage with him. The house lights dimmed.

  “I just got back from my vacation in the Florida Everglades,” he said sadly. “I had a good time.” Click!

  There was a color picture of a wide-mouthed alligator on the screen.

  “That’s an alligator,” the comic said. Click!

  A black-faced Seminole Indian in a colorful striped jacket appeared on the screen, staring.

  “That was our guide,” the comic said, “a Seminole Indian.” Click!

  The expressionless Indian appeared again; this time he was up to his waist in sand.

  “There’s our guide in quicksand,” the comic said.

  Click!

  “There’s his hair-”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Hank said. Everybody in the lounge was laughing except us, but then, what the hell did they know about Florida? Florida was Paradise, for Christ’s sake.

  When we got back into the car, Don started to cry. “I miss it, I miss it!” he said. “I can’t help it.” He dug his pudgy fists into his eyes.

  “Cut it out, Don,” Hank said. “This is your birthday, man, and you’ve got presents to open later.”