***
Ardita was a wreck at Swing’s wake. What a sad affair. It hit me hard too because he was like an uncle to me. The Danilo Manor served as the funeral home, viewing in the dining room. I’d often exaggerated it into a castle chamber because of the stone-like stenciling. The leap pleased Madeline. A Stan Getz look-alike who often entertained at dinner played “Autumn Serenade.” The baked stuffed shrimp crammed with rum-marinated crabmeat that Chef Luke Neal frequently supplied me for hiding his booze and sneaking it to him in a 7-Up bottle was the main course. Madeline employed a musician to play at dinner every evening. If it wasn’t saxophone, an Ellington or Basie ringer manned the piano. A mystery man who went by Clips wandered in once a week, hammered out tunes from the twenties.
Madeline claimed the chandelier was the same as the one in F. Scott’s story, “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” but first to grab the eye was the fireplace. Too large for the space, I imagined it was a mine entrance where all the people of Danilo Manor descended to extract magical minerals that elevated their tales to redwood height. An artist resident that Madeline called Numbers hated the stuffed midget peacock on the mantle. He whipped up a petition to remove it that no one signed. Madeline said it was from a flock she’d observed a July evening at a hunt club in Charleston directly after making a love with a man who was a descendent of Emanuel Kant.
Madeline put on no airs at the wake. We all cried like orphaned tots. A defrocked priest who’d had a dirty limerick act at the Silk Note recited poetry rumored to be Madeline’s. Place blew “Taps” on Swing’s trumpet. “The little son of a bitch finally got it right,” whispered Madeline thorough her sobs. She’d planned to sing something from the album but couldn’t calm down long enough. Ardita set the horn in the casket and cut a lock Swing’s hair. “He got a better sendoff than Gatsby,” said Madeline in the toast. Swing was cremated.
When Madeline visited at Princeton in November of 1969, she didn’t say much about the Manor. Returning in February, she wouldn’t keep quiet. Danilo Manor suffered a Silk Note fate except Christian Scientists bought it instead of automotive types. “That beautiful library is going to be a bloody Christian Science Reading Room,” she lamented.
It was ordinary as I recalled, doubled as a linen closet. I remembered better a nurse’s aide from Wales who’d seduced me there. She’d whispered Dylan Thomas lines in her native lingo, claimed her mother had shagged him. The Welsh for “Fern Hill” stuck like the moment Madeline walked in on us: Redynen Allt. She made no fuss just suggested Dilwen should exchange her green card for a crimson one. There was a fat Norton’s Poetry Anthology in the so-called library. The death poem pages were marked with supermarket coupons.
“All the carved English walnut made it as wonderful as Gatsby’s Library,” I said to please her.
***
The snow fell like salt as we headed out of Princeton bound for Rockville, MD after a night on the town. I drove the yellow limo because Cubes was impaired. The bar at the Montenegro Hotel, the last stop after a jazz club and a strip joint had claimed his wits. Madeline urged me to bury the speedometer needle and talked of the wonderful Vermont nursing home where Place was living. He roomed with another ex-jockey named Cody. There was a view of the Green Mountain Race Track.
“If I were a Christian Scientist, would I have to keep my rosary in a test tube?” she suddenly asked before she directed me to cemetery where F. Scott rested. Upon arrival, I removed a canvas bag from the back seat. It contained a wedge, small sledge, a Hopalong Cassidy flashlight, a five-pound bag of gardening soil and a marmalade jar full of Swing’s ashes. Madeline put on a tape of her album with Swing and upped the volume. “Funny Valentine” followed us to the marker. The years hadn’t diminished the antique flashlight’s beam. The end of it was a siren whistle. I tried to imagine Hoppy astride Topper blowing on it. I could not. The wind beat out broken branch sounds reminiscent of Place’s whip. Would that noise ever leave my head? Johnny Cubes walked, staggered and crawled behind. He knelt, ate a handful of flakes, mumbled about a new drink. Ardita was in Dubai but she’d sent Madeline incense to burn. It smelled like money. I recalled a Manor crackpot named Wilson who’d burned two fifties. The stick smelled like them, only richer. Two Juicy Fruit wrappers blew onto the grave. “As good a flower arrangement as any,” speculated Madeline. Swing’s horn got louder, reminded us our business. I drove the wedge between the frozen ground, and Scott’s gravestone. The wedge descended with minimum force. It was as if I’d prepped the earth with a blowtorch. I filled my tiny valley with Swing, covered him with gardening soil. We taught Johnny Cubes the Sign of the Cross, recited an “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” and “Glory Be.” I wrote “Gasby” in the powdery snow. Madeline said it had the swirl of the Silk Note neon before a gust of wind filled in my penmanship. “Poof,” she said, raising her arms, flipping her fingers from her fists as if a gesture used belting out an aria long ago.
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