Lambert motioned Tepper to one of the chairs that was gathered around a sort of coffee table at one end of the office, and settled into another of the chairs himself.
“You’re going to be famous, Murray,” he said. “Which means you’re going to be rich. In this country, thanks to people like me, ‘rich’ and ‘famous’ are almost the same word.”
Tepper smiled and shrugged. “Well, I’m not sure famous,” he said.
“Oh, no—famous!” Lambert said. “Now you’re known. Soon you’ll be famous. You know why? Because the mayor’s going to make you famous. Do you know the mayor?”
“Not personally,” Tepper said.
“I know the mayor,” Lambert said. “Naturally. I know him well. I met him years ago through Luciano Pavarotti. Well, not exactly through Luciano, but because Luciano was in town and I said to the person with him—big Italian magnate, very big—that maybe we should get together sometime for a Knicks game, because I’ve had season tickets for years and my seats happen to be four rows behind Spike Lee’s seats. But that’s another story—the whole Knicks business. The point is that the mayor won’t be able to stop himself from trying to crush you, because you offend his sense of order. He can’t help himself. I saw him after he decided this crazy business with taxis—that people have to hail taxis from the sidewalk. I said, ‘Frankie . . .’—I’ve always called him Frankie. I said, ‘Frankie, I just told the governor this morning at breakfast’—I was having breakfast with the governor at the Regency—‘that you’re making a big mistake.’ He said, ‘Sy, a rule is a rule.’ So you’re going to be famous, Murray. That means you’re going to have a big book. You’re going to be a big author. No, not big—huge. There’s a movie, of course. That’s one of the reasons we want to do the book—so the movie has to be based on the rights to that, instead of some pissant little newspaper story or something. I’ve already got some calls in about the movie. But we start with your book.”
“I’ve never really written anything,” Tepper said.
“Who said anything about writing?” Lambert said. “Writers aren’t big authors. They don’t do the really huge books. Oh, maybe one or two of them—Stephen King, the Harry Potter gal. These are exceptions. Remember the days when writers would live in garrets and dream of writing a great book and becoming famous? They had it backwards, Murray. Most of them were just wasting their time. The point is to become famous and then write the book. Really big books are by-products of fame, Murray. Remember that: Really big books are by-products of fame. Publishers try to make books big by figuring out how to get noticed off the book page, but the biggest books are by people who are off the book page to start with. The big authors are big because they’re famous—they’re famous politicians or famous CEOs or famous adulterers. The point is, they’re famous. That’s what you’re going to be.”
Lambert sat back in his chair, smiling. Then, suddenly, he said, “Jasper Johns!”
Tepper nodded. He knew about Jasper Johns through the art-through-the-mail scheme. “Jasper Johns is famous,” he said. “I didn’t know he was an author.”
“No! No! The painting behind you is by Jasper Johns,” Lambert said. “Guess how much I paid for it.”
Tepper shrugged. He was hoping Lambert’s attention would be deflected before an answer was required, as it had been when he’d asked Tepper to guess how much the Hockney had cost and then had started talking about something else. But Lambert fell silent. Finally, Tepper said, “I wouldn’t really . . .”
“No, go ahead—guess,” Lambert said.
“I don’t know much about . . .”
“Guess!” Lambert said, in a loud voice.
“Well, I’m not actually someone who . . .”
“Guess, goddamn it!” Lambert said. He was actually shouting now, and his face looked dangerously red. “Just guess! Just guess how much I paid for the goddamned picture!”
Fortunately for Tepper, a secretary entered the room. “Mr. Lambert,” she said, “you wanted to be informed if the ambassador phoned. He’s on line three.”
Lambert nodded, and got up to go to his desk. After a few steps, he turned back toward Tepper—it was almost as if he’d suddenly remembered Tepper’s presence—and said, in a perfectly calm voice, “I’ve got to take this one. The ambassador’s an old, old friend. We’ll get together soon, Murray. Don’t forget: you’re going to be famous. And rich. But, of course, we know those are the same thing.”
22. Sabbath Gasbags
THE PANELISTS WERE GATHERED IN comfortable-looking swivel chairs around a small table. A large photograph of the Capitol was behind them as a backdrop. They were just putting the finishing touches on a discussion of whether a senator from the Midwest—a strong environmentalist—had ended his political career by acknowledging that the rumors about his romantic fling with a natural-gas lobbyist were true. There were, in addition to the moderator, four panelists—four out of the battalion of Washington journalists and quasi journalists who appeared on television every Sunday morning to pontificate on the events of the previous week. Tepper had once heard such people described as the Sabbath Gasbags, and, as he and Ruth watched the program in the room that the Teppers sometimes called the den and sometimes the TV room, he thought of the figures on the screen as, almost literally, gasbags. He could imagine them floating just above their chairs, occasionally emitting little squeaks as a bit of gas escaped.
Murray and Ruth Tepper were at opposite ends of a couch, with the Sunday New York Times in between them. Tepper had already read the Sunday edition of the News, in which Ray Fannon had written, apropos of Tepper’s taxi-hailing summons, “Although City Hall insists that Mr. Tepper was not singled out by a police department that now seems to be in charge of protecting the citizenry from finding taxicabs, suspicions to the contrary were reinforced when the mayor, retreating to the sarcasm he often uses like a blunderbuss, pointed to the summons as an indication that ‘Mr. Tepper might not be the model citizen the press would have us all believe.’ City Hall’s reassurances were also not helped, of course, by the fact that Mayor Ducavelli has become to vindictiveness what the early New York Mets were to infield errors.”
Occasionally, one of the Teppers reached over and picked up a section of the paper, the way people having drinks will sometimes reach over into the mixed nuts. Murray Tepper had the Week in Review on his lap, but, unlike his wife, he was concentrating on the screen rather than on the newspaper. The gasbag who was speaking said, “He’s got three and a half years before he has to face the voters, who have twice in the past given him solid victories, even, in his last campaign, after some other old rumors became an issue. There’s every reason to believe that by the time the next election comes around the voters in his state will have put all of this into perspective.”
“Ralph?” the moderator said, turning to a neatly dressed man with the appearance of a regional auditor who hadn’t been outside for a long time.
“Well, I certainly hope they will not ‘put it in perspective,’” Ralph said. “Entirely too much has been ‘put in perspective’ in this country. The American people are sick to death of being asked to put things into perspective. They want public servants who are not morally suspect. They expect public figures to maintain high moral standards, and not to wallow in the filth of extramarital affairs. They do not think it’s too much to ask of a senator that he keep the oath he made to be faithful to his wife. For what this man has done, there is no ‘perspective.’”
Tepper sighed. He wondered how people like Ralph Simmental always knew exactly what the American people thought. Also, he remembered reading that Simmental himself had once strayed so seriously from his wedding vows that his wife, waiting until he had left for the office one morning, piled all of his expensive television roundtable suits in the front yard and set them on fire—an event that made the newspapers because a neighbor, fearing the blaze was about to get out of hand, called the fire department.
Ruth, apparently having heard the sigh, said
, “Shall we turn that off? I’m not so sure it’s good for you to watch these people on Sunday. Either you sigh or you mutter or you groan. I think it’s bad for your digestion, Murray.”
Tepper, without saying anything, flicked his hand in a gesture Ruth always took to mean “leave it” or “never mind” or “later” and people looking for a parking space always took to mean that Tepper was not going out. Ruth shrugged, and went back to the Times.
The moderator, turning to look directly into the camera, ended the discussion by summarizing the sense of the panel on whether the senator’s career was over or not: “It’s too soon to tell.” Then he shifted in his seat a bit, and gazed purposefully into another camera. “And, finally, this morning,” he said, “we have a story from New York that I suppose you might say could only happen in New York. It concerns a certain Murray Tepper, who may or may not be Everyman, or at least the New York version of Everyman.”
Ruth put down the Travel section of the Times, where she had been reading about the cheapest airfares to England. “Oh my goodness!” she said, very slowly. Murray Tepper didn’t change his expression.
“This is a man who has lived in New York all of his life,” the moderator went on. “He has always been a law-abiding citizen, a responsible citizen who has his own business in the direct-mail industry. He has been parking in New York in legal parking spots, and then staying in his car, sometimes to chat with people who seem to value his counsel and advice, sometimes simply to read the newspaper. The mayor—Frank Ducavelli, who, as you know, is such a stickler for order that the local papers refer to him as Il Duce—says Mr. Tepper is causing trouble. Mr. Tepper says there is no trouble as long as he has time on the meter. What are we to make of all this? Ralph?”
“This should serve as a lesson for all our liberal friends who think that the way to fix anything is to pass another law,” Ralph Simmental said. “Mr. Tepper is actually obeying the law, and yet it is he who needs fixing.”
“What lesson?” said another panelist, a rumpled man who was settled deeply into his swivel chair and had seemed in danger of falling asleep. “What harm is he doing? The man is just sitting there reading the paper. For all we know, he may be reading Ralph’s column. I don’t understand where the lesson comes in. The lesson is: Leave him alone.”
“If he was reading my column, then he’d know that I have advised him to get another hobby,” Simmental replied. “There have already been two public disturbances caused by this supposedly law-abiding citizen. You would be within the law to drive at thirty-five miles an hour on the freeway, but if a lot of people did that, the traffic around our cities would be disastrous. The American people are sick to death of people taking advantage of laws and then playing victim. This man is not a victim. He’s a provocateur. Simple as that.”
“Actually,” the only woman on the panel said, “the polls in New York show that the American people are not sick to death of Murray Tepper. They admire him, even though he is often taking up one of their parking spaces.”
“Those are not the American people,” Simmental said, almost shuddering. “Those are the New York people.”
“You know, I always wondered why there were people in their cars who weren’t going out,” said the only panelist who hadn’t yet spoken, a bearded man who worked for a midwestern newspaper. “When I lived in New York I used to get irritated when you thought somebody was about to leave and he just shook his head. It seemed willful. Selfish. But now that I’ve met Murray Tepper—at least through the press coverage—I feel a lot better about those people. It sort of personalized the whole thing for me. Now I think, okay, you want to sit in your car for a while, sit in your car for a while. Of course this is easier to say for me now, because I no longer live in New York. If he were in Washington, I might want him locked up.”
“The fact that it’s personalized for you doesn’t make it right,” Simmental said. “Perhaps you would have felt better about revolutionaries if you got to know Che Guevara and found out how charming he could be. It’s simply irrelevant.”
“Che Guevara!” Ruth said, slapping the Travel section on the coffee table for emphasis. “He’s got his nerve!”
Tepper patted Ruth on the arm, and said, “He doesn’t mean anything by it. That’s just the way he talks.”
“Well, you can compare him to Che Guevara if you want to,” the panelist who had once lived in New York said, “but I think to a lot of people—not just New Yorkers but people across the country—Murray Tepper has become a hero.”
The moderator said something about continuing to follow the story as it developed. Tepper turned off the television, and got up from the couch.
“So I’ll be back in an hour or two,” he said. “The kids are coming for lunch, right?”
Ruth nodded. “Are you going out to park?”
“Right,” Murray said.
“Murray, is it okay—I mean with the police and all?”
“Oh yes, I think it’s okay.”
“Are you going down there to Houston Street in front of Russ & Daughters?”
“Right,” Tepper said. “Although I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a spot right in front. It’s a little late.”
“Listen,” Ruth said. “While you’re down there, why don’t you pick up a pound of herring salad and a whitefish?”
“A nice whitefish?”
“Yes, that would be good—a nice whitefish.”
23. No Spots
TEPPER TOOK SEVENTH AVENUE INTO BROADWAY, TURNED east on Twenty-third Street and then south again on Second Avenue—a route that would offer him an opportunity to tip his hat as he passed the Second Avenue Deli, a place he treasured because its mushroom and barley soup tasted like the mushroom and barley soups of his childhood. At Houston, he turned left, past Yonah Schimmel’s legendary knishery, which had been there as long as he could remember. As he approached the Russ & Daughters block, he could see that the sidewalk, which got crowded on any Sunday morning, was jammed with people. A covey of television news trucks had preceded him. They were lined up in front of Russ & Daughters, presumably awaiting Murray Tepper, but there were so many of them and they were of such size that there was noplace left for him to park.
As Tepper’s Chevy rolled slowly past the TV trucks, a couple of men waved him down. “We’re from Channel Five, Mr. Tepper,” one of them said. “We were hoping you could park here, right in front of the store.” He pointed to a spot a few feet away that was occupied by a Ford Taurus.
“But there’s someone in that spot,” Tepper said.
“She was about to leave,” the other man from Channel Five said.
“I was not,” came a shout from the car. “I was not about to leave. Don’t say that I was about to leave, because it simply isn’t true.” It sounded like the voice of an elderly woman, and to Tepper there was something familiar about it.
“What kind of business is this?” the Taurus driver went on. “Every hooligan with a sound truck thinks he’s the king of the streets. They’re making a movie, you’re supposed to disappear from your own block. You’re a problem for them, being alive in front of your own house. They’re shooting some silly news story, some cat up in a tree except there’s a lot of gunfire, you’re supposed to not exist. Tell Mr. Hooligan I’ve got forty minutes on the meter, and when that runs out, I’m putting in another four quarters.” The speaker stuck her head out of the window of her car, and opened her palm to show the quarters.
For the first time, Tepper got a look at the driver of the Taurus. “Miss Goldhurst?” he said.
“Hello, Murray,” Miss Goldhurst said. “I can’t say you haven’t changed a bit since fifth grade, but you don’t look so bad for an old fellow.”
“Miss Goldhurst, I’m surprised to see you,” Tepper said.
“You mean you’re surprised to see me alive. You probably thought all of your teachers were ancient when you were at P.S. 128, and you can’t believe that one of them is still breathing. Actually, at least two of the
m are still breathing. Remember Mr. Hogan, the gym coach? He’s older than I am and he’s still breathing. He needs a bit of oxygen now and then, but he’s still breathing. We live near each other in darkest Queens.”
“You come in here from Queens to get lox?”
“I came in to see you, Murray. How many of my old fifth-graders make the newspapers? You’re about it. Well, Larry Talbot made the papers, of course. Think of it: one of our own P.S. 128 boys indicted for the single largest tax evasion charge in the history of the United States of America! That was something. But to talk to Larry I would have had to go to Belize or Bahrain or wherever he snuck off to. Good at math, Larry Talbot. Not a lovely boy in many ways, but you have to say that about him—very good at math.”
Some of the pedestrians who had been drawn by the television news vans drifted over to stand between Tepper’s Chevrolet and the Taurus. One of the producers motioned his soundman to direct the microphone toward the conversation about P.S. 128.
“Miss Goldhurst,” Tepper said. “I’m double-parked here. I’m about to circle the block to look for a spot.”
“I’d give you mine, Murray, but I still have forty minutes on the meter. On a schoolteacher’s pension, you know, we have to watch every penny.”
“Don’t even think of it,” Tepper said. “You’re in a legal spot there. But I was just thinking maybe you’d like to join me while I look. We can catch up, after all these years.”
Tepper Isn't Going Out: A Novel Page 13