I'll never know how I got from the East Sixties to Eldridge Street, quite a distance Manhattan-wise, or what I did for nearly six hours. That part of my life is forever lost, as are many other nights. And I never saw that kind bartender or his wonderful girlfriend again.
“What time did I get in, Jeeves?” I asked with trepidation.
“A little before ten, sir. Rather early.”
This was very encouraging. From what I could recall, I had gone to Tinkle's room around eight forty-five. I was with him for at least half an hour, maybe forty minutes. That didn't leave a huge blank spot of time in which I might have perpetrated something embarrassing. I would have to ask Tinkle what had happened. I didn't relish the idea of seeing him again so soon after what he had done to me, though I didn't think he was a bad fellow, just hopelessly unfavored by nature and life.
“A little before ten; that's very good news,” I said to Jeeves. “I think I lost consciousness around nine-thirty. So there's hope that I didn't do anything too crazy…. Do you see any fresh wounds or bruises?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh, Jeeves, I'm sorry you have to know me. I'm a hopeless dipsomaniac. Did I say anything embarrassing to you?”
“No, sir. You simply wanted to go to bed. You did manage to tell me that a Mr. Tinkle had been most unkind to you, but you didn't specify in what way he was unkind.”
“It's not so much that he was unkind, Jeeves. But the poor fellow is in worse shape than me, if you can believe it. I may have a broken nose and a drinking problem, but this Tinkle is really up against it. I don't think your pulley system would work for him. Maybe lifts in his shoes might be effective, but from what I've read, those things don't really work…. This Tinkle confided in me, Jeeves. Told me all his problems. It was like radiation. He melted my interior defenses. Psychically I needed one of those flak jackets they give you at the dentist.”
“I see, sir.”
“Some more water, Jeeves?”
“Yes, sir.”
I downed another fortifying glass of H2O, then got out of bed. I was fairly steady. I looked out the window; it promised to be a beautiful day. Maybe everything would be all right … well, as soon as I learned from Tinkle about my missing half hour. I sat back down on the bed and consulted my nose with my fingers. Still pulpy and throbbing, but the swelling seemed better. I meditated on what had gone wrong with Tinkle and tried to explain it to Jeeves:
“You see, Jeeves, with Tinkle, I probably should have detached with love, if I had known the concept. But instead of detaching, I attached and was sucked down.”
“Most unfortunate, sir.”
“I should have known better. During my training as a lifeguard, when I was a teenager, they warned you about this. The lifeguard's motto is ‘Reach. Throw. Row. Go.’ The first thing you do is try to reach the victim with a pole or one of those hooks. If that doesn't work, you throw them one of those circular things. One's impulse is to get it around their head, like a horseshoe, but you're not supposed to do that. It's to land in front of them. But if the circle thing doesn't work, then you take a boat and clobber them with an oar and then drag them on board. And if you don't have a boat, then you go. The absolute last thing you want to do with someone drowning is actually get in the water with them. The death instinct has taken over and they will try to kill you, bring you down in their panic. Most of my lifeguard training was like martial arts, how to subdue someone so you can save them. So remember, Jeeves: ‘Reach. Throw. Row. Go.’ I think this theorem can be applied to human relationships outside the swimming pool.”
“Very interesting, sir.”
“It's exactly like this detaching with love business. I wonder if Al-Anon got its principles from the lifeguard guild. But with Tinkle I didn't remember my training. I jumped right in and the fellow shoved me down. Oh, Jeeves, I can't even begin to tell you his struggles. And earlier in the evening I had been accosted by an attractive madwoman, a Sigrid Beaubien…. And there's an exceedingly beautiful woman named Ava, with the most unusual nose…. Overall, it was a strange first night. Do you think this is really an asylum and we're under the delusion that it's an artist colony? I keep thinking this might be the case, and I've been meaning to ask you your opinion on this.”
“I am quite sure, sir, that we are at a center for the arts.”
“What makes you so sure, Jeeves?”
“I just am, sir.”
“All right, Jeeves, I believe you. The lack of medical personnel, or at least visible personnel, certainly would support your argument.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wouldn't mind some medical assistance with this hangover, though it's not too bad at all. The initial reports were gloomy, but I'm rallying.”
“I suggest, sir, a bath, and then if you can stomach some food, you should go to breakfast and have some eggs. The proteins and minerals in eggs, as you know, are very good after a night of drinking.”
“Yes, some eggs would be very good.”
Jeeves conjured up my bath towel. “Thank you, Jeeves.”
“You're welcome, sir.”
“And, Jeeves, I'm going back on the wagon, I promise,” I said, but as I spoke I could hear the flimsiness of my own words, of my resolve, and Jeeves could, I was sure, hear it as well.
“Very good, sir.”
“You're detached, aren't you, Jeeves?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don't blame you. That's the best position to take. I wish I could detach from myself. But it doesn't seem that one can apply the lifeguard principles or the Al-Anon principles to one's self. The only recourse then if I'm drowning is that I must swim.”
“A logical conclusion, sir.”
“Well, I'll go practice in the tub.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I'll do the dead man's float.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That was an attempt at black humor, Jeeves.”
“I understand, sir.”
CHAPTER 21
Yet another division of the Western world is arrived atA misstep with Tinkle, but then a good discussion followsI join a table and hear two bits of gossipI am falsely accused, or am I?
About half the colonists were present for breakfast, while the rest must have been breakfast abstainers, which I noted with some interest. In one's quest to continually divide the world, I think one can safely say that the world is divided between those who pursue breakfast and those who don't.
As soon as I entered the half-full dining room, I spotted Tinkle advancing in the direction of the coffeepot. Everyone else was arranged at the constellation of tables, having already plundered the steaming trays of eggs, potatoes, bacon, and oatmeal. Large serving bowls of fresh fruit, granola, and yogurt were also vying for attention.
I headed right for Tinkle. Had to clear up this business of my missing half hour. Walking across the room, I was self-conscious, aware of my fellow colonists casually glancing at me—I was still the new recruit, an object of curiosity—but I was far less nervous than the night before when I had had to meet them all for drinks. I was sans hat and sunglasses, thinking at this point it would be stranger to continue my masquerade, since most everyone had seen my face or at least caught a glimpse of it at dinner.
“Morning, Tinkle,” I said a little bashfully, catching up to him at the coffee station.
“I prefer Alan,” he said, flinching a little around the eyes. It was hard for him to assert himself, I could see, but on the issue of being called Tinkle, it must have been something he was prepared to do, regardless of how difficult it might be. I felt stupid for being insensitive. “I hope that's all right with you,” he continued, “unless it's too weird to use your own name.”
“No, not at all … I apologize.”
“No problem,” he said, and smiled and poured himself a cup of coffee. He had forgiven me, which was good: I had to pump him for information.
“So how are you feeling?” I asked, starting slowly, while attending to the admi
nistration of my own cup of coffee.
“A little hungover,” he said, “but not bad.”
Lenora came over to the coffeepot and we all said, “Good morning,” and then she added, “I used to only drink ginseng tea.”
We absorbed this news flash, and then Tinkle put milk and four spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee, which was a little unnerving. I take my coffee black with no sugar. Tinkle then headed for a small bread table and I adroitly followed him and watched him put two slices of whole wheat into a toaster which was manifesting a very loud ticking sound, a cross between a metronome and a nuclear device. We waited for his toast.
“Thank you very much for the cigar and your whiskey last night,” I interjected while we contemplated the toaster. “Though something is troubling me a little. I seem to have blacked out at some point … Did anything untoward happen?”
“You really blacked out?”
“Yes. I do that sometimes. Weak liver. So did I do anything I should regret?”
“I don't think so. I was talking your ear off, and then you did look like you were kind of out of it, and you said you had better get to bed, but you wanted one more drink. So we had one more. Maybe that's when you blacked out.”
“That may have been the decisive moment.”
“Your eyes were pretty strange. You said you were reading Anthony Powell for your book club, and then you kind of lectured me on Powell as the British Proust but better than Proust. Do you remember any of that?”
“No. I don't remember discussing Powell. I apologize if that was terribly boring.”
“No, it was interesting, you're passionate about him. But I'm sorry if I made you drink too much and I'm sorry I rambled on and dumped all my problems on you … I was also really drunk.”
Tinkle looked at me. He was a little ashamed, but also brave and forthright, prepared to accept the fact that he had let me know his most troubling secrets.
“Please, don't worry about last night,” I said, and then I did morbidly wonder if he had dreamed of lobster claws grasping him, but I thought it better not to ask. “I enjoyed talking to you. I hope I helped a little….”
“Yes, you were very nice,” said Tinkle. He was quite a different person this morning than the night before: more normal and reserved. But this was entirely understandable. We all have multiple selves, especially those of us who drink heavily. I find that I'm a different person with every human being I meet. I try to match my personality to theirs like a pair of socks to a pair of pants.
“So I must have gone right from your room to my room?” I asked, and that toaster was ticking loudly—counting off the seconds of our ever-diminishing lives and the warming of Tinkle's bread.
“Yes, I walked you to your room. You weren't sure if you could find it. The Mansion is like a maze.”
“Oh, thank you for helping me.”
I felt confident now that nothing embarrassing had occurred while I was blacked out, and then Tinkle's toast announced itself, leaping rather high and startling me. But Tinkle, unfazed, gathered the two squares of bread and put them on a plate with some butter.
“All right if I sit with you?” I asked. I suddenly really needed Tinkle: to go sit at one of the tables with the others, all by myself, was beyond me, though none of the young females, including Ava, was present, which would have made things even more daunting.
“Of course,” he said, smiling, indicating that even if the night before had been embarrassing for both of us, we had drunk together and this meant something, possibly friendship.
So I followed him to one of the smaller tables where Charles Murrin was holding court with five of the colony's more senior members, including the poetic Greenbergs, who were happily gorging themselves on granola and yogurt. I imagined they were very concerned with their bowels—who isn't?—and from that thought I pictured them individually on the commode, and I shuddered as certain images flashed across my mental screen. My mind often goes in such directions, a disgusting tendency, and I think it does this to torture me.
I don't know if it's common, but I am self-diagnosing myself as having a Mind/Mind Problem. Most people, including some very famous philosophers, have a Mind/Body Problem, and I have that as well, but I have this additional Mind/Mind Problem, where the mind tortures the mind. It's very annoying. The gods, clearly, are testing me. Well, I'm trying not to fail.
Despite the scatological nightmare I was temporarily screening inside my head, I took my seat and said hello to Murrin and the other tribal elders. Everyone acknowledged me and smiled, and they also warmly greeted Tinkle—we were junior officers but welcomed into the fold. I took a few sips of my coffee, then got back up to get a plate of eggs and toast.
Everything tasted especially delicious, which is often the case after a night on the tiles, and as I rapidly metabolized my carbohydrates and proteins, I listened to the table's conversation and soaked up my eggs with a lot of gossip. It appeared that the night had produced two scandals. The first scandal involved Sigrid Beaubien, who, as related by Murrin, had come into breakfast earlier and had been rather hysterical, claiming that a crime had been committed. The whole thing was rather mysterious, but I will try to summarize the basic facts of the case, as I heard them:
For some reason Beaubien left her slippers every night outside her door—she may have had the Japanese and Scandinavian fetish which smartly prohibits footwear in one's living chambers, though why she prohibited slippers is a bit severe and rather inexplicable—and when she went to retrieve them this morning, some odd thief had removed the slippers and left behind two pieces of paper upon which the slippers had been traced; the tracings had been cut from larger sheets of paper with a scissors to better capture the exact shape of the stolen slippers, like the etchings of dead bodies at a crime scene.
This was all fairly interesting and amusing, though I felt a shiver of intuitive concern, having nearly seduced or, rather, been seduced by Beaubien on the night the crime had been perpetrated.
“She's very upset,” said Murrin to the table at large. “I think she's going to tell Dr. Hibben. I really wish she wouldn't. It's just a silly prank.”
“Must be a visual artist,” said the elderly Pulitzer prizewinning poet with the dashing nose, whose name was Kenneth—the poet that is, not his nose. As far as I know, his nose had no name, but it was certainly elegant, a kind of Dorian Gray nose, much younger than the rest of his face, and almost a twin in shape and expression to Peter O'Toole's nose in Lawrence of Arabia, which may be the greatest male nose in the history of cinema.
“Leaving behind replicas of the slippers is not the kind of thing a writer would think to do,” Kenneth continued. “A note perhaps, but not a paper cutout.”
“I think a writer could handle a pair of scissors,” said June Greenberg, her copper hair glinting with morning sunlight.
“It could be a composer. They're very prank-oriented,” said a rugged, acne-scarred midfifties sculptor named Don, who worked only with steel and was noticeably missing half a thumb.
The next bit of gossip concerned the two lovers Chris and Luc, the pair I had seen last evening kissing on that thronelike chair. Here again, I summarize:
In their all-consuming passion for each other, Chris and Luc had more or less started living together, putting two single mattresses on the floor of Chris's room. This had been quite upsetting for the cleaning staff, who were mostly older Saratoga matrons not used to men shacking up together—supposedly condoms had to be removed from the garbage can. And then this morning the cleaning staff had really been pushed over the edge when a sheet was discovered in the Dumpster behind the office. That would have been bad enough—throwing away a sheet, thus wasting the money and resources of a nonprofit organization—but this one had an enormous burn hole. Well, all sheets are marked with the room they come from, and this piece of incriminating evidence was from Chris's room. So two of the cleaning ladies had come to Murrin's chamber early this morning to let him know that they would be reporting the bu
rnt sheet.
Murrin had gotten this scoop, I assessed, because if the colony was anything like a prison, then Murrin, as a “greeter,” was the most respected prisoner, and the staff—the equivalent of prison guards—wanted to give him a heads-up on possible trouble. Fire was the main concern of the administration of the Rose Colony—the place was an antique tinderbox—and so there were certain to be repercussions in our quiet artistic lives. As I sat there, I was able to make this prison analogy from my extensive reading of prison novels, a genre that is one of my favorites because of its metaphorical portrayal of our universal existential crisis—we all feel trapped and we'd all like to escape.
“After the cleaning ladies told me about the sheet, I went to Chris's room,” said Murrin, concluding his tale, “and I woke those two very bad boys up. I asked them about the sheet. They had thrown it over a lamp for mood lighting while they were screwing last night! They were so caught up in the act, they didn't realize it was on fire. They could have burnt down the whole Mansion!”
“That's romantic of them, but dangerous,” said Sophie, a sixty-something painter, whose canvases were only painted one color—black. She was famous for having produced hundreds of all-black paintings, forcing a reappraisal of the color, though perhaps the same conclusion was arrived at: very dark. She was silver-haired and had the attractive figure of a much younger woman. Her shirt was open, revealing an appealing cleavage that spoke to me oedipally. “Why didn't a smoke alarm go off?” she asked. “We all could have been killed.”
“I wonder if the hole in the sheet was actually for some kind of erotic ritual?” asked Kenneth with some irony. He smiled mischievously. It pleased him to think of Chris and Luc fornicating. He was an old homosexual with a beautiful nose.
“I've heard a rumor,” I said, wanting to join the discussion, “which I've never been able to substantiate, that the Hasidim, for religious reasons, employ holes in sheets.”
Wake Up, Sir!: A Novel Page 18