The Traymore Rooms: A Novel in Five Parts

by Norm Sibum

  ‘Phillip isn’t here,’ I said.

  ‘I know he isn’t. He’s in the country, doing handiwork.’

  ‘I guess he owes Eleanor some money she lent him.’

  ‘No, he owes me. I paid up his debt.’

  It seemed a perfectly useless conversation.

  ‘So, if you know Phillip’s not here, are you looking for Ralph? In which case, he’s not here, either.’

  ‘Ralph’s in the country, too.’

  ‘Handiwork?’

  ‘Working on our house.’

  ‘So when are you moving in?’

  ‘When it’s ready. Am I to be admitted or are you leaving me out here to dry?’

  ‘I’m leaving you out there to dry.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  And she made to move past me, and I might have blocked her entry; but then I thought that to do so would have been childish, and we must put away childish things.

  ‘Well then, what’s on your mind?’ I stupidly asked.

  She took my couch as if it were an objective in battle. She would not be moved off it, it was obvious to see, unless I was to resort to violence, in which case I would lose this little skirmish, if not the war. She studied her nails, her night shirt exposing more of her body than seemed warranted.

  ‘I guess it’s kind of a Mexican stand-off between us,’ she said, that voice of hers a dull boom.

  One had to admire her effrontery, even so. I could not recall the particulars of the Samson and Delilah story, but I knew it had not come to a good end.

  ‘I’ll have a cigarette,’ she insisted.

  I complied, rolling her one.

  ‘I know,’ she began to reason, ‘that not at all men have sex on their brains all the time. But most men want to have sex with me. I don’t see why I should think you’re any different. But you see, it’s not sex I want from you. I just want you to approve of me.’

  ‘Yes, well, there it is. There’s the thing. I don’t like you. We’ve had this conversation before, more than once, I think, and we always wind up at the same place. I don’t like you. But we live cheek by jowl, so I just want to get along.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘More than fair, I should think.’

  ‘But you’ve done Eleanor. You’ve done Moonface.’

  ‘What’s this doing you keep talking about? I don’t do anybody. I find “do” is repulsive when employed like that. I’m no paragon of virtue. I’m not the most considerate of men, but I don’t do people—’

  ‘People do people all the time.’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘I mean, if you want sex, I can give you sex.’

  ‘No prelims? No strings? No sweat?’

  ‘You’re going moralistic on me.’

  ‘If I have to.’

  ‘So you’re not going to like me. Isn’t that doing me? Like you made up your mind and you don’t even know me?’

  ‘Like I made up my mind and I don’t even know you.’

  ‘Well, I guess that’s it,’ she said.

  I refrained from making a show of agreement. America would live through to the bitter end America’s circus of dark arts. Prentiss sprang to her feet, and she stood before me, looking into my eyes. I attempted to look into hers, though I was reluctant to know her reasons and what it would cost me to know them. All I could see, in any case, were those watery orbs. And then a great deal of fury possessed her face. Her cheeks set hard, she struck me one, and it was hard enough—that blow she struck—that I lifted my hand to rub away the pain. She caught my wrist and held it a moment. She was nothing if not deadly serious: ‘That,’ she said, ‘was for any dirty thoughts you might have been thinking.’

  Hair Shirt

  Failure by one’s own lights was bad enough; to fail while in thralldom to someone else’s set of lights was worse. Sure, I would iron a shirt. I would attend, as invited, a gala of academe. Arsdell’s, one of academe’s finest, had alerted me by way of a note in the mail. It read: Perhaps you might be interested. Art, Literature and the Condition of Women. Yes, go and mutter imprecations as you go. But who would want to stand around and take questions as to the fate of projects such as one had yet to complete and would never complete? Ah, Calhoun. Haven’t seen you since the days of the woolly mammoth. Since Caesar lost his legions, at any rate. Me, I’m just keeping up appearances. How the hell are you? First, I would get myself some genuine sustenance. Eggy was nonplussed.

  ‘She hit me,’ I said to the homunculus.

  ‘Who hit you?’ asked Eggy, there in the Blue Danube. And here was the foul-speaking hag, so I observed, returned to us after a lengthy absence, and yet she was far gone. She stood at the window, shaking her fist at an uncomprehending world. Ratty sneaks. Gaudy leggings. Thick coat with immense buttons. And I wondered if she was thinking just then how, in the blink of an eye, she had gone from girlhood to decrepitude and rage? Eggy reached for his glass of wine with a tiny claw, this sparrow of a man.

  ‘Prentiss,’ I answered.

  ‘Oh, her. Why, she always seemed promising. But I guess she figures I’m not her type. Hoo hoo. I asked her to lunch, you know.’

  ‘Yes. Well.’

  ‘Why, you must’ve done something.’

  ‘What something? I only answered the door.’

  ‘There you go. You answered the door. The rain in Spain. Always.’

  What worried Eggy was that he might have to quit drinking.

  ‘Well, if you didn’t do something, it must’ve been something you said,’ he thundered.

  ‘Apparently, it’s what I’m not doing and not saying.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just that.’

  ‘My wife used to hit me,’ said Eggy, somewhat wistfully, ‘well, she was bigger than me. You know what they say: a stitch in time saves nine. They should hang the bastards.’

  Eggy was drunk.

  ‘What if I get to the gates and I don’t recognize Peter? At least I didn’t get Alzheimer’s. Touch wood. Hoodeehoo.’

  It was glacially slow, the rate at which his eyelids fell. Eggy’s chin raised his chest. I signalled Antonio to bring me a glass, and I would help myself to Eggy’s supply. The hag went silent and still. It occurred to me she might not have any idea where she was. I rather liked her for her conviction, the way she would exhort passersby to go to church or she would ram something up their arses, but she was, even so, hard to take. It seemed Antonio was up on his tippy-toes, bringing me the glass, lest he call the woman’s attention to himself.

  Terror grabbed me in some part of my being that did not seem connected to my person. It was not terror at the prospect of an afternoon among parodies, so many minds committed to caring, sipping wine and munching cheese. For that sort of crowd, I could manage a kind of sickly contempt. Perhaps the terror was not mine but Eggy’s; that he had, somehow, transposed his onto me, saying, ‘I’m tired, you carry the load a while.’ He might not wake up. The hag departed, leaving in her wake an unquiet, almost palpable substitute for her presence. I doubted that Antonio was a religious man, but he had made the sign of the cross on account of her vehemence. He shook his head, and he did not care who saw him do so. For all that the Albanian in him was uncouth, he was the gentlest of men. I worried for his contradictions. Rippling banks of grey cloud to the south, a cold sun in the west. Pool tournament on TV. Looking vaguely professional, a woman seeking the prize analyzed the table while chalking her stick. Her game was methodical, lacking flair. Eleanor had recently asked of me the meaning of life; I let the question die, assuming she was not serious. Marjerie Prentiss wished for me to like her, no, not like her, but worship her as a force. Art, Literature, and the Condition of Women, if it was at all in its right mind, could not possibly desire my presence. I would do better to sit here in my hair shirt, stupidly atoning for I knew not what, monitoring Eggy, staring out the window—

  And somehow I got Eggy home safe, although I do not know who leaned most on whom.

  ‘You kn
ow,’ said Eggy, ‘you seem to be glowing with wisdom.’

  ‘Don’t look now,’ I answered, ‘but I’m three sheets to the wind.’

  ‘Why does everyone refute me?’

  ‘If I say you’re glowing,’ he thundered, ‘then you glow.’

  And now that we had negotiated the Traymore stairs, had not climbed Everest so much as raised the moon where sat our domiciles, the homunculus fumbled about for his keys. Eleanor stuck her head out her door; Eleanor saw our condition, each gilded curl of hers a grin.

  ‘Les boys,’ she purred.

  ‘Le wench,’ Eggy shot back.

  I was not up for such neck-snapping levity. The great thing about Eleanor, I figured, was that though her soul was imperilled, she did not confuse language with knowledge or the presumption of understanding. But then I was drunk, and drunk, I was skeptical of my powers of logic.

  ‘Not now,’ I said to the good woman, she getting that look she always gets when feeling mischievous.

  One heard Eggy curse some idiots on his TV. Effing hell.

  ‘You look like a whipped dog,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘Eggy said I looked wise,’ I countered.

  ‘He’s in error.’

  ‘What, Eggy mistaken?’

  For the briefest of instants, her grey-green eyes sorted through mine for the remote possibility they might encounter wisdom.

  ‘Come on, I’ll make you some coffee,’ she said, like an old sport.

  I followed her into her kitchen, admiring her charms as I did so, as she meant me to. Clearly, there was something on her mind, but that, now, it was apparent to her she had in me no interlocutor. Even so, she persisted: ‘A good time was had by all.’

  ‘The concert, you ninny,’ she explained, seeing my incomprehension. ‘Dylan. I rather liked him though he’s not been my cup of tea. And then we went to some rich man’s Old Town loft, someone Ralph knows, and some babes hanging around had to have been hookers. I didn’t like the looks of it, so I took a taxi home. Like a rolling stone.’

  I nodded my approval of her decision.

  ‘So now, I’m here,’ she sighed, ‘and where’s Monsieur? Did you see him, tonight?’

  ‘No, it was just me and Eggy holding down the fort.’

  ‘Wonder where he got to?’ said Eleanor, with good nature, but perhaps, fearing the worst.

  The coffee machine began to gurgle, my mind a very dim bulb indeed.

  ‘Just how drunk are you, Mr Calhoun? And the meaning of life?’

  My, how grim Eleanor now sounded.

  ‘The meaning? It’s called being star-crossed.’

  ‘You think so, Calhoun?’ said Eleanor, her tone suggesting she had familiarity with the notion.

  Then Dubois was upon us, he wearing his martini face. He had been downtown, helping an old colleague from the business world celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary. Dubois blew on his hands, the hairline cracks of his red cheeks all smiles.

  ‘Cold out,’ he said, ‘and I’m not getting any younger.’

  ‘Who is?’ said the apple of his eye, Eleanor.

  But she was, even so, pleased to see the man.

  In Like Flynn

  Late afternoon, and I sat with Dubois in the Blue Danube aka Le Grec. Moonface pranced about, earrings dangling from her earlobes. The thin circular bands seemed to have elevated her spirits; she blushed from her throat up to her cheeks as we complimented a dear girl.

  ‘They suit my long face,’ she explained, pretending modesty.

  Dubois was recounting a portion of his business life, especially that period when he first became leery of certain developments in the world of finance. Stock traders would get at the portfolios of money managers, this under cover of the banks. But legal, legit and destructive.

  ‘The traders,’ said Dubois, ‘they weren’t all that smart, though people thought they were. “Hang on a minute, got to take this call from my broker.” Remember those days? The buyers just had to know when to buy and the sellers when to sell, the smart guys in the room the money managers. But anyway—’

  His words were going through me like so many indigestible bits of gristle.

  ‘Still, the traders were smart enough, I guess.’

  Now Moonface chatted up two young men who, to judge by their pinched expressions and workaday suits, might have been officers from the bank at the corner.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m learning Spanish words. Going to South America. Yes, really. Words for please and thank you and where’s the toilet. Those kind of words. Enough to get by.’

  Her words tailed off in a pall of failure. She giggled. The men were polite. The commute underway, snow in the forecast, the sun exploded in the sky, and then, it was dark. Cold passersby walked briskly. The ebb and flow of humanity, its collective tread almost noiseless.

  ‘The system needs a real good purge,’ Dubois observed, he who once had faith in it, ‘and this is it. Think of all those martini bars that sprang up like mushrooms, catering solely to stressed-out traders. I wonder what’ll become of them?’

  His mouth was full of rice and salmon. He topped up my wine. I thought it best to keep my altercation with Prentiss to myself; even so, I had let Eggy in on it. If I were counting on his discretion, I was only showing myself up as a fool.

  ‘Spirituality,’ I said, ‘is not reality; it’s the objection to reality. This explains you and explains me.’

  Dubois guffawed. He was not sure, but I might have been jesting.

  ‘You can’t maximize profit forever,’ he said, ‘and we can’t afford to have everyone motivated to the point of super-performance, though it’s still what they teach in business school.’

  I answered: ‘People, when confronted with what ought to prove fascinating, especially in the realm of metaphysics, are usually unimpressed.’

  Now Dubois knew I was jesting, and the hairline cracks of his cheeks, in their assemblage, laughed. A taxi pulled up, inside it Eggy, this swashbuckler in the back seat.

  ‘Here’s trouble,’ I said.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Dubois, ‘he must’ve been to the Claremont.’

  ‘He was,’ affirmed Moonface, ‘he called here from there. I’ll bring another glass.’

  ‘You’d better,’ Dubois replied, ‘or there’ll be hell to pay.’

  With Herculean effort, Eggy hoisted himself to a standing position outside the car, then took his bearings. His pins began lifting like pistons. When his feet got their traction, he moved ahead onto the terrasse and through the door.

  ‘Officer on deck,’ I cracked.

  ‘Oh eff off.’

  But Eggy was in the greatest of moods; he had wined and dined Haitian Nurse, so he said.

  ‘Such large earrings you’re wearing,’ he leered, Moonface decanting wine into his glass. He continued: ‘You know what they say—’ Indefatigable, he said: ‘Oh oh, I might say something untoward.’

  Moonface blushed the colour of peach, her rich golden brown eyes savvy. And when she left us, Eggy could not help himself: ‘You know what nursie once told me. Said women who wear large earrings have—’

  This time, Dubois cut him off, saying: ‘Don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘Why the effing hell not? I mean nursie ought to know what she’s talking about. Well, don’t you think?’

  ‘Couldn’t say,’ answered Dubois.

  Even so, it would seem that certain vulgarities, after all was said and done, were quite satisfactory for Traymorean males of a certain era, males who had seen it come and go and might not see it come back again, let alone truth, beauty, justice. And Eggy, in the interests of Moonface’s future, would have her scale the heights of Machu Picchu and pray at Delphi and write up a monograph on Winston Churchill, to boot, Eggy buried in his winter coat, his scarf long, white and plush. Why, he looked like Errol Flynn, if homuncular.

  Jubilee

  And the next evening, the Blue Danube packed, Moonface circulating like a host-queen, what with her earrings, Eggy was over-excited: ‘Bring
the good ‘ol Bugle boys. We’ll sing another song, sing it with a spirit that will start the world along … Hurrah! Hurrah—!’

  His raised finger, marking the beat, was a dangerous weapon. Two nights in a row, and Dubois was dining on rice and salmon. Miss Meow miaowed; the Whistler whistled. Students, paired off, played with their electronic gadgets while waiting on pizzas, smug with their lot. A lonely old woman perhaps inwardly thrilled to the almost festive atmosphere, picked at her dinner one deliberate mouthful at a time. A table of Albanians caroused, and, as their decibels rose, so did Eggy’s: ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’

  Cassandra, too, bustled about, and was still nursing a secret source of bemusement, working chewing gum, her cheeks dimpling. A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things. Ecclesiastes 10: 19 And when Eggy began to speak of the auto industry, Dubois held up his hand.

  ‘Whoa there, hold it. How did we get on to this all of a sudden?’

  ‘What do you mean, get on to this? It’s what I’ve been saying. And what is Ontario going to do if the Americans don’t bail out Detroit?’

  ‘The Canadians have just got to wait and see.’

  ‘Yes but—’

  ‘You still haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘What question?’

  ‘How we got from marching to the sea to the making of cars.’

  ‘Well, if you won’t pay attention.’

  And if, as Eggy had said, Haitian Nurse was writing a paper on the homeless, I thought it timely.

  ‘Effing hell,’ he had said, ‘I corrected her mistakes and she got snotty.’

  ‘Points of grammar or her social theory?’ Dubois wished to know.

  ‘Oh, eff you.’

  And now here was Hiram Wiedemayer, he an acquaintance of mine, and shortly thereafter, here was Evie Longoria. Even Too Tall Poet showed, apologizing for the fact he had been making himself scarce, of late. Evie regarded him with some astonishment. What manner of God had fashioned this manner of creature? Hiram volunteered to cross the street to get wine, he delighted with the fact he chose a good night to stray into our neighbourhood. Dubois said he would go with him, Eggy saying: ‘Of course. What are we? Duffers? Hurrah.