Joe's Liver

by Di Filippo, Paul

  Resolving to table such matters at least until they have reeled a few days, Ardy — his faith and optimism renewed by the pleasant sensations associated with traveling somewhere, anywhere, in relative comfort and safety — turns to the window to enjoy the scenery.

  The urban landscape they are passing through is neither glamorous nor slum-like, merely faintly repetitious: one triple-decker house after another, separated by various commercial establishments. The holiday streets are empty of people.

  The bus turns a corner onto a larger thoroughfare. Far ahead, a conglomeration of three or four skyscrapers rears up.

  “Roy, wake up, I see Providence.”

  Coming alert, Roy takes in the scene. “Yeah, that’s it. I just hope Dawn is home.”

  “Although I know certain historical facts about this city, Roy, I am unaware of its current ambiance. Is it a hospitable place?”

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s sorta funky. It’s full of people who aren’t intellectual enough for Boston, but aren’t hedonistic enough for New York. Kinda laid back, slow, you know what I mean?”

  “So the city then still functions as a kind of refuge, in line with its name and the hopes of its illustrious founder, the famous religious freethinker, Roger Williams. I find such news propitious for us.”

  “Yeah, well, just remember that the whole town is also run by the Mafia.”

  “No! Not the Black Hand!”

  “If you wanna call them that, yeah. So watch your step. With any luck, we shouldn’t have any run-ins with them. We’re gonna be hanging out around Brown University. It’s why I picked this town to hide in. There’s a lot of socially conscious people on the campus, students and professors with their heads in the right place. A lot of important stuff is going down at Brown right now. And with a little asking around, I’m sure we can get in on it.”

  Ardy wishes to differ about getting involved in any more protest activities, but holds his tongue. Surely he can convert Roy to his viewpoint later.

  “I have read that this city, like Rome, is built on seven hills.”

  “Maybe. I only know two. College Hill, where Brown is, and Federal Hill, where the mob is. One you stay on, one you stay off.”

  Ardy nods agreeably.

  Just then the bus shoots into the air and lands with a bone-jarring thud.

  “Jesus!” shouts Roy. “What the hell was that ?”

  “I see a large bump under the asphalt behind us, Roy.”

  “Where — oh, yeah. Christ, you’d think there was a body buried under the road! I hope we don’t hit any more.”

  The bus travels on down the deserted streets, past shuttered shops and mindless traffic lights, drawing ever closer to the center of Providence. The recent jolt — like the collision between particles in a linear accelerator — seems to have jogged Roy into a higher quantum level of energy. The lassitude and despair that have gripped him since the Pyrrhic victory in Cambridge now appear to have worn off, to be replaced by his old confidence in, and enthusiasm for, the upcoming revolution which will sweep away all the ludicrous — to Roy’s eyes — excrescencies of life in the First World.

  “Okay, Ardy, here’s the plan. First, we establish a base of operations in the apartment of a friend of mine. I’m sure she won’t bitch about us staying, she leads kind of a lonely life most of the time, and should welcome the company. Then we keep a low profile until people start to forget about us. Around about that time — mid-January, say — the new semester will be starting, and we can get involved with any campus protests that look promising. How’s that sound, buddy?”

  Ardy withholds his thoughts on the whole process of extra-systemic political change. Having lived through the accession to power of a perhaps insanely capricious left-wing government on the Spice Island, a frightening, yet, to be honest, ham-handed invasion by American troops (during which major United States casualties were more often inflicted by comrades and the failure of elaborate machinery than by enemies), and the subsequent installation of a set of gelatinous-spined caretakers, Ardy is rather leery of getting caught up in processes not dtrictly governed by the Constitution or relevant Federal statutes.

  “Roy, I am sure everything will work itself out. Perhaps now, though, you might tell me a little more about your friend — I believe you mentioned her name was Dawn? I would hate to make a conversational faux pas, through being unacquainted with her past.”

  Waving a hand negligently, as if to dismiss the importance of the issue, Roy says, “She’s just this chick I knew through my old man. He was her parents’ financial consultant.”

  “Aha, very good. Perhaps then I could make small talk regarding rates of exchange, import-export quotas, balance of trade, and the like.”

  “Man, I said my Dad advised her parents, not the chick herself. Dawn don’t care squat about shit like that.”

  “I see. May I enquire then as to Dawn’s own interests ? I assume, by the way, that I may call her by her given name, seeing that we are of the same peer-group.”

  “You can call her Your Honorable Goddamn Lady Shattuck, for all I care. She’s just a fucking student like me, for Christ’s sake.”

  “At the forenamed Brown University, I take it.”

  “No, RISD.”

  “Rizz-dee?”

  “Rhode Island School of Design. It’s an art school.”

  “My goodness, I can’t believe this. Roy, I must thank you for granting me this opportunity. At last I am going to experience the actual Bohemian lifestyle of the artist in America. I can’t tell you how many years I have been reading about the various exciting American movements and the men and women behind them, who have altered the course of world painting, sculpture, and literature. Beginning of course with the Beats and Abstract Expressionists, through the era of Pop Art and into our current Post-modern and Neo-realistic era …”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s great. You can discuss all that shit with Dawn — if you can get her to sit still for it.”

  “I assume Miss Shattuck lives in quaint but inspiring squalor, in some dangerous part of town. A loft or garret, perhaps part of an abandoned factory, not far from the watering-holes of stevedores and heroin addicts. Does she affect outré garb? Is she one to dress all in black, or does she prefer outlandish, colorful, hand-sewn garments? So many picturesque fancies come to my mind that I am hard-pressed to settle on one.”

  “You’ll see,” was all Roy would say.

  Down a hill, for a time alongside a sludgy canal, through chutes of Jersey barriers warding traffic away from torn-up streets, past a half-demolished bridge ending in mid-air, and into a wide plaza flanked by buildings from this century and the last. The bus stops. Roy and Ardy disembark.

  Roy turns in a circle like a restless dog prior to lying down to sleep, until he gets his bearings. Ardy admires the Xmas garlands and lights festooned from tree to tree. In a minute Roy announces, “This way.” Ardy follows him into the east.

  Leaving the taller buildings behind, Ardy and Roy soon enter a district where the structures are mostly well-preserved, yet still evidently of Colonial vintage. Brick and clapboard, granite and slate. A huge, sprawling, gold-steepled brick structure announces itself to be The Superior Courthouse. Its various levels climb a hillside, so that the street entrance on one side of the building is four stories higher than its mate on the other side of the building.

  Ardy labors behind Roy as they stretch their legs up the steep street that borders the courthouse. At a cross-street perpendicular to the slope of the hill, they turn right and continue walking.

  “This is a very elegant neighborhood, Roy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It seems hard to believe that the artists’ ghetto could border on this resplendent section of restored Colonial mansions.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Neither do I detect any heroin addicts lying in the gutter.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Ardy desists from further attempts at conversation.

  In about ten m
inutes they arrive at a Georgian mansion constructed of red sandstone. A small sign identifies it as the Tully Bowen House — 1813. An even more discreet sign whispers condominiums managed by scozzafava enterprises.

  Fighting a growing conviction, Ardy asks, “Why are we stopping here, Roy? Is this a school administration building perhaps, where you hope to find news of Miss Shattuck’s latest whereabouts, as she wanders Gypsy-like from one cold-water tenement to another?”

  “This is her house, you jerk. Her parents figured that if they bought a condominium in her freshman year it’d cost less than four years of dorm accommodations, and they could sell it for a profit when she graduated. Everyone who’s got the cash is doing it.”

  Ardy sighs. “I see.”

  “Let’s ring. I’m freezing.”

  Roy presses the buzzer labeled d.shattuck. No response. Again. Likewise.

  “Shit! What’s she doing out at this time of the morning? I know she didn’t go home for the holidays. Well, I guess we just fucking wait.”

  An hour or two creeps by while Ardy and Roy shuffle from foot to foot on the stoop, their breath fogging the air. The sky clouds up, and a few fugitive flakes begin to filter down. Ardy and Roy huddle under the small portico for warmth and protection. Once a squad car passes slowly on patrol. Roy pushes his face into the intercom grill, as if conducting a conversation with a tenant. Ardy smiles hopefully, like a man with a clean conscience. The blue-and-white rolls on.

  At last a wedge-shaped powerful sports car pulls up erratically into the parking lot alongside the building, mounting the curb rather than using the conventional cut. It stops at right angles to the other vehicles. The driver’s door of the sleek red roadster is thrust open. A woman falls out and lies still on the gravel.

  Roy rushes to her side and helps her stand up. Ardy assists by brushing down her gravel-specked clothing.

  The woman they find themselves supporting wears patent-leather flats decorated with small bows, green wool pants, and a down vest unzippered over a Fair Isle sweater with her initials embroidered thereon: DLS. Her thick blond hair falls below her shoulders.

  Lifting her apparently nine-ton head, she fuzzily examines first Ardy, then Roy.

  “You I don’t know,” she laboriously says to Ardy. Her eyes track in a wobbly fashion to Roy. “But you I do. You’re Joy Mountroy.” She begins to giggle. “Isn’t that dumb. I meant to say Troy Joymount.” The giggling segues into sobs.

  “Hey, Dawn, what is it, what’s the matter, huh? Tell me.”

  “It’s Chr-chr-christmas, and I’m drunk.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. How come?”

  “’Cause I’m all uh-uh-alone, that’s how come. Couldn’t even go home. Goddamn parents are gaw-gaw-gone. Down in Caribbean someplace, fer chrissakes. Sp-sp-spice Island, latest place, work some sorta deal, I don’t know, don’t care about me, though, do they, stick me here in this goddamn hick town where you can hardly get a drink on Christmas, and I can’t even dr-dr-draw!”

  Dawn’s wails are now bouncing off the blank-faced walls of the surrounding houses, and Ardy starts to grow nervous. If the patrol car should return, and inquire what the trouble is …

  “Roy, may I suggest that we bring Miss Shattuck into her dwelling, so that the proper etiquette of the situation may be observed, and we don’t get our asses further into the aforementioned sling?”

  “Yeah, yeah, man, good idea.”

  “First, though, perhaps we should align Miss Shattuck’s vehicle in a more traditional manner in her assigned space. As things stand now, an alert officer of the law might very well conclude from the current hurly-burly that something is amiss.”

  “You do it, I gotta hold Dawn up.”

  Ardy slips into the driver’s seat, feeling a brief nostalgia for his role as Roseanna’s chauffeur. He starts the car and maneuvers it neatly into the slot with a corresponding license-plate number painted on the tar.

  With some difficulty, after removing a ring of keys from the ignition, Ardy and Roy manage to get Dawn inside.

  Ardy is thunderstruck by her “digs.” There are lacy curtains on the windows, a full set of Scandinavian Design furniture in every room, microwave, dishwasher, frost-free refrigerator, apartment-sized washer and dryer, stereo, vcr and 19-inch color television. It looks like an advertisement out of the Digest.

  Roy is kneeling by Dawn, who lies on a couch. Her sweater has rucked up to reveal a soft white belly whose smoothness is charmingly interrupted by a pretty navel.

  “Tell me all about it, Dawn. What did those dirty shithead parents of yours do this time? Didn’t they even tell you they were going?”

  Dawns snuffling sobs and caterwauling soar to a new crescendo. Roy turns accusingly on Ardy.

  “Hey, man, you’re making her nervous. She don’t know you. Take a hike, blow, have a walk until I can calm her down. Give me a couple of hours, okay.”

  “Roy, the intensity of the snowstorm is increasing rather than abating.…”

  “Beat it!”

  “Yes, Roy. I will use the occasion to further my knowledge of the city’s topography, however much of it may be visible through the deepening icy drifts.”

  Outside Ardy turns up his collar and begins walking.

  After half an hour of making idle turns down streets lined with rich houses — through whose windows he can see lighted Christmas trees and happy faces — Ardy arrives at a commercial district. Luckily a doughnut shop is open, and Ardy gratefully enters its warmth. Seated on a stool with a steaming mug of coffee and a nutmeg-sprinkled chocolate cruller, Ardy begins to feel he will enjoy a brief stay in this quiet little town, always providing it does not hinder his journey to Pleasantville.

  A Christmas pageant appears to be taking place outside. Ardy is intrigued. Down the middle of the Street walks Santa Claus. The footing must be slippery, because his progress is rather unsteady. In point of fact, he appears rather drunk, or otherwise dazed. Then Ardy notices that Santa’s red suit is half burned off, the rest singed and blackened. The tail of his gay hat appears to be riddled with bullet holes. His stage beard is falling off.

  As Santa staggers, a grimly official car appears behind him. Inside are a white man and a black man. Santa turns and sees them. He begins to run. From a loudspeaker mounted on the car roof issues the command “HALT, YOU PERP!”

  Ardy’s heart is pounding as the significance of the scene penetrates. He looks frantically around for another exit, but there is none. He is forced to sit and watch.

  Just as it seems that Santa Spencer will be apprehended, the car of the Agents Johnson nearly upon him, another vehicle whips out of a sidestreet and into the path of the Johnsons. Both cars screech to halt, fishtailing in the snow. Santa ducks into the second car, which then roars off, followed swiftly by the Johnsons.

  Ardy lets out a gusty breath of relief. He silently mouths a brief prayer that Doctor Spencer will not linger long in this town, although he suspects that such a prayer is redundant, so fast was the getaway car heading south.

  The doughnut clerk, a pimpled male teenager, has been watching along with Ardy in a disinterested fashion. Now that the brief fracas is over, he says to Ardy, “What I wanna know is, whatever happened to old-fashioned Christmases? Things were different when I was little.”

  “And in my youth also.”

  “Yeah? Howzat?”

  “I take it you never decorated a coconut palm with conch shells and dried seaweed.”

  “Hey, if you’re gonna bust my chops, just forget it!” The clerk stalks off.

  Ardy drains his cup, anticipating the taste of the semi-liquid half-stirred sugar at the bottom, a sensation that always reminds him of breakfast at the orphanage. But the clerk’s incompetence in brewing insures that with the expected sweetness comes a healthy mouthful of chewy, indigestible grounds.

  7

  Quotable Quotes

  Miss Dawn Shattuck turns out to be an easy person to get to know, despite the poor impression she made with her i
nitial inebriated weeping.

  Ardy is very much relieved.

  For a day or two at first Ardy felt uncomfortable with her, due to her lack of certain qualities he had always associated with those who were drawn to the high purpose of Art. He could not reconcile her personality — so devoid of eccentricities or creative fervor — with her stated role of student at one of the most prestigious temples of Art in the nation. But after a time, Ardy realized that he was allowing certain preconceptions to color his attitude toward a fellow human being — a rare failing with him. Priding himself on always keeping an open mind, Ardy resolved to make an attempt to get beneath the surface of Miss Shattuck. Perhaps below her seemingly vapid exterior beat the heart of a Kahlo, a Cassatt, or a Hayward (Peter Hayward, artist of the exquisite Digest cover “Hawaii Winter,” January, 1979).

  It was just as well that Ardy found Miss Shattuck’s company appealing, and that she appeared also to relish his presence. For, after he and Roy moved into her luxury condominium on that confusing Christmas day, Roy became less and less available as a comrade. Reverting to that strange behavior which presaged his involvement in UMDPAFLL, he spent most of each day out of the house, no doubt busy contacting those whom he termed “in the know about what was going down.”

  Ardy hoped that these people would exert a calming influence on Roy. If they were all exponents of mere civil disobedience, say, then perhaps Roy would satisfy himself with carrying placards or laying his body down before bulldozers at the site of some ecological disruption. Ardy really could not worry too much about Roy’s activities anyway, having survived the fiasco in Cambridge. Whatever and whomever Roy got involved with, they had to be less extreme than the implacable and apparently indestructible Doctor Spencer.…

  Whenever Roy deigned to return to the apartment, he spent most of his time on the couch, attached to a set of headphones connected to Miss Shattuck’s elaborate hi-fi system. Ardy, recalling the mistake he once made in Roys bedroom during their very first meeting (how long ago that seemed!) refrained from interrupting these toe-tapping trances.