by Warren Adler
“Okay, don’t tell.” Charlie had his own problems then.
When he met Margaret in the city room she smiled at him almost too broadly and their exchanges were bantering and, on his part, cautious.
“How’s the mooin pitchers?”
“It was a bad week. The ants in my pants are getting restless.”
He searched her eyes for the remotest sparkle of returned affection. God, he loved that woman, he was certain. Near her, his body trembled and his tongue froze in his mouth. What had he done? What was there in him that she could not find equally as fascinating as he found in her?
The pain was the more excruciating in the face of the Christmas season. New York bloomed with Christmas preparations. Park Avenue was blazing with colored lights, festooned in its annual trail of huge Christmas trees. Santa Clauses stood on street corners collecting money in their chimneys, looking jolly with rouged cheeks while they stamped their feet in the cold.
Perhaps it was simply the agony of unrequited love that embellished his introspection, but that Christmas-time, he seemed to look out upon the world with a heightened sense of observation.
“Remember two years ago, Charlie?” he asked. They were huddled up in their coats against the freezing wind as they walked back to their apartment. Charlie’s nose was running over his upper lip.
“How can I forget?”
“It was a bitch. We’re lucky we lived through it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
He looked at Charlie.
“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll have to see if it was worth the sparing.”
“Shit.”
It was a hurled curse out of context, a hint of anxiety which did not surface until a couple of days before Christmas Eve. Absorbed with his own problems of apparent rejection, Nick didn’t see what was happening to Charlie.
At that stage in their friendship Nick knew little of Charlie’s early history. Charlie had been brought up in modest suburban circumstances in the days when suburban life was a genuine symbol of WASP superiority, even without the frills of wealth. Nick had pieced together a picture of a scrubbed American family living in a modest house with porch and faintly squeaky screen door, neatly painted and shingled and looking out on a broad elm-lined street, a three-block walk from the quaint Long Island railroad station. From the details of the half-sketched picture, Nick could summon up images of the old swimming hole, smoking corn silk back in the shed, bamboo fishing poles, bubble gum cards, even an American flag fluttering on a pole in front of the house on legal holidays.
Growing up in Warren was like that, and in Nick’s frame of reference his first mental picture of Charlie’s younger days was a hangover from his own happy childhood. He could not imagine childhood without warmth and serenity, and it wasn’t until Christmas dinner in the Pell house in Hempstead that he finally saw the inside of Charlie’s anguish.
Charlie’s invitation seemed frantic.
“You’ve got to come with me,” he had commanded.
“Got to?”
“Please, Nick. I just can’t do it alone. It’s been five years since I’ve been there for Christmas. I need a little moral support.”
“You sound like it’s some kind of hell.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
In the train, Nick sat closest to the window, watching the flat landscape recede, the now barren farmland interspersed with tiny towns looking neat under the snow blanket. He felt Charlie’s restlessness as his friend crossed and uncrossed his legs and slumped in his seat. He was silent for most of the trip, until near the end when he finally spoke.
“My mother’s mad, Nick,” he said.
“Mad?” He had thought Charlie had meant angry. “At you?”
“Mad, mad. Balmy. Nutty as a fruitcake.” Nick turned from the window and looked at Charlie. There was no humor in the retort at all, despite the bantering cadence of his response. “We’ll all be playing a little game. The idea is not to notice how nuts she really is. Keep an eye on my old man. He’ll give you the cues.” Nick didn’t answer, contemplating the possibilities of an eccentric afternoon. Charlie sighed and shook his head. “It’ll be grim, kid.”
By the time they reached Hempstead, the train had emptied and they had little trouble finding a rickety thirtyish vintage cab outside the station. Nick could feel Charlie grow more tense as the ancient taxi rattled through town and past the deserted shopping area with the Christmas decorations tinkling in the wind. The cab pulled up in front of a white house, carefully maintained, as if the owner had taken special care to keep it shined like a prized jewel. To Nick it looked bright and cheerful enough, a picture postcard quality.
After the cab had crunched away through the white, clean snow, Charlie stood for a moment surveying the house, his eyes growing moist.
“A pretty little place,” Nick said. Charlie turned his face away and sniffled, brushing the back of his hand across his nose.
“Don’t let it fool you,” he barked, kicking up a mist of snow as he strode up the wooden steps to the door and banged the polished brass knocker.
A thin, cadaverous face appeared, as deeply lined as if a sculptor’s tool had sliced deep ruts from the man’s high cheekbones, down to the chin. He was dressed in a dark blue suit, shiny with use, surely his best suit, with a white shirt and tightly knotted tie; a gold collar pin passed under the knot, tightening a frayed collar. There was a vaguely familiar hint of Charlie in the way the man carried himself, although that aspect of him seemed lost to the impression of a kind of withered plant. There was no display of affection between father and son, only a lightly clasped handshake.
“This is my friend, Nick Gold,” Charlie said. Nick put out his hand and was conscious of a valiant attempt at a forced smile. But the older man retained a puzzled look, keeping his arm stiff, leaving Nick’s proffered hand stuck in the air.
“I didn’t expect . . .” Charlie’s father began.
“It’s all right,” Charlie said. Nick observed that they were talking in whispers. They followed the older man through a long uncarpeted corridor, the wood brightly polished. It squeaked lightly as they walked. Nick noticed a sparsely set dining table. Shades were drawn, casting shadows, the bright day shut away except where shafts of white light struck inside where the shades were not snugly fitted. They walked into a parlor lit by low-wattage bulbs under old-fashioned lampshades. Nick’s further observation of the room was interrupted by a sudden change in voice pitch as Charlie’s father, straightening, began walking with an exaggerated gait, like an actor coming suddenly onstage.
“Charles is here, Princess,” the man said. He had directed his falsetto, cheerful voice to a hideously white-masked woman sitting stiffly on a wing chair. Charlie flashed a troubled gaze at Nick, as if urging him to patience, obviously embarrassed by the sight of the strangely made-up woman. Charlie’s mother’s face looked like that of some strange rag doll, the lips exaggerated in a bright red cupid’s bow, eyebrows shining in a long thin line, eyes deep in mascara, the stark white forehead ringed with little red curls. But it was the white makeup, so beyond humanness, like a character in mime, that held the interest. Nick watched her with fascination as one might observe a freak in a circus sideshow. The woman was obviously demented. Mad, Charlie had warned.
“Hi, Princess,” Charlie said, smiling and bending over to kiss a pasty cheek. A tiny white hand lifted itself weakly to Charlie’s shoulder. “Here’s Nick, Princess,” Charlie said, struggling to maintain his role in the charade, winking, a signal for Nick to follow his lead.
“Wonderful to meet you, Princess,” Nick stammered, feeling difficulty in assuming the role. The tableau of the frail painted woman, dressed in an old lace gown, years out of style, and the two men, father and son, casting themselves as characters in her confused fantasy, told the story of their pain in a single glance.
“Did he put his bicycle in the garage?” she asked. Her voice seemed calm as she directed the question to her husband.
“Yes, Princess.”
“And have you washed your hands?” she said, this time to Charlie.
“Yes, Princess,” Charlie answered.
“Such a good boy,” the woman sighed. “You should have seen his report card.”
“Yes, Princess. His teacher said he’s the smartest boy in the class.”
“We’ve made a wonderful Christmas dinner,” the woman said, a flash of lucidity, it seemed, if one closed one’s eyes. “We’ve roasted a beautiful chicken and, if you’re a good, good boy, we have strawberry tarts.”
“How lovely, Princess,” Charlie said, moving his hand to signal Nick to respond. It was apparent he was quite familiar with the stage directions.
“Lovely,” Nick said. The word stuck hoarsely in his throat.
Charlie stepped back and dropped heavily into the couch.
“Are you in Charles’ class?” the woman said, turning her shadowed eyes to Nick.
“Yes,” Charlie’s father replied, frowning at Nick. It seemed essential that they find him a role.
“Do you like Mrs. Peters?” the woman asked. Nick felt sudden moisture bursting into his armpits, sliding coldly down his sides.
“She’s . . . terrific, Mrs. . . .” Charlie tugged at his sleeve. “Peters,” he said quickly. He could sense Charlie’s father’s relief.
“Do you get good marks?”
“Not as good as Charles,” Nick replied. He felt the pain of the two Pell men hanging heavy in the room.
“Mrs. Peters says that Charles is the smartest boy in the class,” Charlie’s mother repeated.
“We’re very proud of that. Aren’t we, Princess?” Charlie’s father said, his eyes fastened to her face, quick to react.
“Are you wearing clean underwear, Charles?”
“Of course, Princess.”
“It’s Christmas,” the woman said. “Little Jesus will be so happy.”
Charles, Nick noticed, held himself tightly, unsure of his performance. Nick dared not look too obviously at his friend’s embarrassed face, lest he see the full extent of his unhappiness. The conversation continued along the same track, recapturing past moments, lived through as in a cycle, as if time had become suspended somewhere, an endless wheel, in Mrs. Pell’s corroded brain.
“You should take your nap before Christmas dinner, Princess,” Charlie’s father said after the conversation had grown repetitive. She put out her frail arm and Mr. Pell took it, gently half lifting her. She rose unsteadily and he led her out of the room. They could hear them rise slowly on the staircase, the wood creaking in the silence of the darkened house.
When she had gone, Charlie looked helplessly at Nick. He reached into his pocket and slipped a cigarette from a crumpled pack. Lighting it, he inhaled deeply and blew the smoke angrily out of his nostrils.
“Weird, eh, Nick?” he said, his agitation apparent now as he came out of his role.
“How long has it been?”
“All my life, it seems. Actually I must have been about ten when the final snap came.”
They sat silently in the dark, oppressive room. A piano stood in the corner, the wood shining, a lace doily stretched across its top on which a vase stood with paper flowers. Nick was sure Mr. Pell had kept the piano finely tuned. The creaking stairs signaled the return of Mr. Pell. He came, lips in a tight smile, as if a weight had been removed. He seemed to unwind into normality.
“How are you, Son?” he said quietly. Nick felt like an intruder.
“How long can it go on like this?”
Charlie’s father’s eyes looked warily at Nick.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Charlie said, “I don’t care if Nick hears.”
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Pell said. “We never have visitors.”
“She should be put away,” Charlie said. He stood up and paced the room.
“Never,” the father said.
“It’s a lost cause. She’s getting worse. You’re pissing away your life.”
“That’s my business.”
It seemed a familiar, ritualized exchange.
“She’s worse than ever,” Charlie said. His fingers felt the lace doily on the piano. “It’s wrong.”
“You’re away,” his father said. “What does it matter to you?”
“Christ, Dad.” Nick watched as his friend’s fingers tightened on the lace. “I can’t stand to see it.”
“You don’t come that often.”
The two men glared at each other across the room.
“I don’t know how you stand it,” Charlie said gently, in what seemed a grudging acknowledgment of his father’s courage.
Later, they sat around the dining room table on which Mr. Pell had set three places. When he had gone into the kitchen, Charlie said, “He has to feed her. He won’t do that in front of strangers. He probably has her sedated.”
“I had no idea, Charlie,” Nick said.
“Who could possibly have any idea? He’s made it a way of life. It was bad enough growing up with it. I hate coming here.”
It was obvious that his father had taken great care to prepare a fine dinner. He brought the roast in and silently carved it, serving his son first. When they were all served, the vegetables and potatoes passed around, his father asked, “How’s the newspaper business, Charlie?”
It seemed to open a new phase, the simple, quite normal curiosity of an interested parent. Charlie’s response seemed overzealous, detailed, as if he were writing the older man a letter. The responses were long, embellished with tiny asides, a litany of his life. It was a display, prodded by compulsion, to tell everything, to paint a finite picture of a son’s life, as if it were happening to another person. Only a genuine feeling of love, Nick thought, or guilt, could prompt such an outpouring. He was hardly that informational with his own mother. Nick had been curious that Charlie had brought no Christmas gifts. This was the gift, the telling of his life, and the father knew it, soaking it up like a sponge.
Nick could see the joy it gave the older man, hopelessly out of touch with anything beyond the closed world of his wife’s madness and his own charade. It validated all he had felt for Charlie, the measure and texture of his admiration, perhaps his love. After dinner they drank coffee and smoked. He noted that Charlie glanced at the grandfather clock that stood in the corner of the dining room, a watching face. The father saw the surreptitious glance and his face clouded over again, the ruts in his cheeks deepening.
The light around the edges of the shade faded and soon they were standing at the door again for a farewell that on the surface seemed as tepid as the greeting they had received earlier. But having received a greater knowledge of both men during the afternoon, Nick could observe the deeper emotions behind what earlier had appeared a joyless response. The handshakes were still weak, lifeless, but in the touching of their flesh, Nick could understand what father and son really felt, a shared pain. Charlie looked upward as they moved through the short ritual of their farewells.
“Kiss the Princess for me,” he said, and soon they were crunching through the snow in the starlit night toward the ancient taxi that now waited at the curb. Before he stepped into the opened door, with Nick already inside, Charlie turned once again toward the neatly painted house, maintained with such meticulous care, as if in its preservation his father might find some meaning to his hellish existence. When he turned again, tears streamed down from his eyes and he held a hand over his mouth to mask his sobs.
9
The visit to Charlie’s parents had thrown his friend into a deep depressive silence, an impenetrable introspection about which Nick dared not speculate. It could not be easy to simply file away the memories of that house, that childhood, that imprisonment. Attempts to jolt Charlie out of his cocoon of noncommunication floundered on shoals of indifference. If he had been looking for landmarks at the time, if he had had the talent of clairvoyance or the absolute knowledge of subsequent events, he might have spotted the beginnings of Charlie’s liquor problem. Not t
hat, even then, it would have been an obvious clue. Drinking was so enmeshed into newspapering, especially at the News with its odd crowd of Irishmen, that signs of sclerosis, bulbous noses, and the red crust of skin blemishes across the center of a face were worn like badges of honor, and a man’s worth was measured by quantities of alcoholic consumption.
To be falling-down, raving, screaming drunk was an aberration to be understood and endured, provided it was done only periodically. It was understood that for any man, life could sometimes become so unendurable and preposterous that such a state was a prerequisite for coping with its horrors. A man in his cups was an object of veneration, a troubled soul for whom a whiskey was the only succor.
Special honors went to men like McCarthy who could imbibe in quantities measured in fifths until their senses finally rebelled; the length of a lucid frame of mind was important. There was also a measure of character in the time needed for the head to clear; McCarthy shined here as well, returning to the scene the next morning able to function, the tremors controlled by the day’s first hair of the dog. It was not uncommon even for Nick and Charlie to stumble homeward, like two awry bookends, after a night of drinking at Shanley’s long wooden bar. In that environment, inebriation was positively encouraged. It was, after all, the sign of the complex man, a soul of many humors, a mind in turmoil, which only the god of the grape could soothe.
It was, therefore, not unexpected for Charlie to seek the solace of booze. He was, after all, under the eye of of a watchful friend whose duty it was to carry him home, remove his shoes, and clean him up the next morning, pouring the first amber drop into the shot glass. In that world, it was seen as taking the cure. Knowing the illness, Nick was all the more solicitous. Unfortunately, there was a kind of conditioning involved for a massive bender for which Charlie’s constitution had not been prepared, and the morning-after recoveries were far too long to escape notice. By noon it was obvious that Charlie couldn’t make it through the day.
“Take him out,” the city editor had whispered two days later, watching Charlie’s head slump over the typewriter. Nick led Charlie out of the city room, down in the elevator, propping him finally against Shanley’s bar where he was allowed to nurse the devil in glorious privacy in the care of the bartender, expert in this kind of babysitting.