Maniac Drifter

by Laura Marello

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, maybe he’ll need help. Maybe he can’t do it all by himself. Did you ever think of that?”

  “No.”

  “Kate, Kate, you’re not thinking. You never think.”

  It was true. “Will he really get released?” I said.

  We returned to the mattress and finished eating.

  “Harper? Are you kidding? They have to release him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because everyone loves him. Haven’t you been watching the news?”

  “I am watching the news.”

  “Well look,” Joe said, pointing to the television. Dan Rather was reporting that sentiment against United States intervention in Central America was growing. He showed film clips of protestors demonstrating in Providence and New Haven with signs that said: FREE HARPER MARTIN, U.S. OUT OF CENTRAL AMERICA and WE DON’T WANT ANOTHER VIETNAM. “The man’s a genius. He has Rock Star status now, like the President or the Pope.”

  “Rock Star status?”

  “Sure,” he said. He poured the rest of the wine into my milk carton cup, tore off a piece of French bread and offered it to me. “The Pope used to just be a Pope. You know, a religious figure. The head of the Catholic Church. But now you see him on TV in front of all those hordes of people. It’s like he’s giving a rock concert or something. He’s a star now. He’s a media figure, like a rock star. He’s got Rock Star status, same as the President.”

  The news was over. Joe threw the remains of the French bread into the coat closet, the wine bottle and crab shells into the trash. Someone knocked on the door. Joe opened it and the Flower Man walked in. “Kate?” he said. “Delivery for you.” He handed me a yellow rose.

  “What does yellow mean?” Joe said. “Jealousy?”

  I took the rose and read the note, which said, You’re not trying. I asked Joe if it were from him.

  “Me? Would I send roses to my own apartment?”

  “One rose,” I said. “To your studio.” I looked at the note again. You’re not trying. Obviously it made some reference to something I was supposed to be trying to do. But was it something I could remember, or something that had happened at night? Was it a reference to what Harper and I had discussed the night before he turned himself in?

  While I brooded over the note, Joe asked the Flower Man if he could ship roses long distance, or if they would wilt before they arrived.

  “Go to the florist here,” I said. “They’ll call a florist in the town you want them delivered, and that other florist will send them fresh.” I was beginning to have a hunch who the note was from.

  “What if there’s no florist where these roses are going?”

  “Who ever heard of a place with no florist?”

  “What about a jungle? A desert? A swamp? A rain forest? What about a jail?”

  “You’ve made your point,” I said. I looked at the note again. Gabe had asked me if I would see only him. I said I would try.

  “Thank you,” Joe said. The Flower Man told him that he could sleep a rose for three days if he put the stem on ice, and for three weeks if he put the entire rose on ice. To wake the rose up again he had to put the stem in hot water. “And then how long will it last?” Joe said. The Flower Man told him the life span of a rose was about two weeks: three days to open, nine days to expand and two days to die.

  “The life span of a rose,” I said, snapping at the note with my fingers. How did Gabe know where I was at this very moment?

  “Three weeks on ice, that’s not very long,” Joe said. He seemed to be considering it.

  “Six months is the longest I’ve ever slept a rose,” the Flower Man said. “But that’s very complicated.”

  “Well thanks,” Joe said to the Flower Man. “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Sure thing,” the Flower Man said.

  After the Flower Man left, Joe turned off the TV and sat down on the mattress next to me. He took the note out of my hand and read it. “You don’t know who sent this?” he said.

  “I know,” I said. I put the note in my pocket.

  “Are you okay? You’re always so distracted and fidgety.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Just then Grace walked in the door. She trembled so much her white hair vibrated like a nimbus around her face. “I just want you to know that I hate you,” she said to me. “I despise you, I wish you were never born, I wish you had never come to this town.”

  “Oh Christ,” Joe said.

  “You think you can just waltz into this town without the faintest idea of what’s going on, do whatever you goddamn please, have whomever you goddamn want, and then walk away from it without a complaint out of anyone. But it doesn’t work that way around here. If you screw someone over you pay. And you screw everyone over. You make everyone miserable. What do you think this is, a side show? A spectator sport? These are our lives, and you’re just watching, and cashing in, you’re just toying with people. You don’t have any real feelings. I wish you would leave and never come back. Why don’t you just leave, leave us all in peace.”

  “Alright, Grace,” Joe said.

  “I hope you get what you deserve,” Grace added, and walked out the door.

  Joe put his gloved hand on my arm. “You shouldn’t let her upset you. She’s just acting out. They taught her that in AA.”

  “Can I have a cigarette?” I said, motioning to the pack of Gauloises on the bed.

  “You don’t smoke.”

  “I do now,” I said, reaching across him toward the pack.

  He pulled away. “You told me you made a vow when your mother died, that you would never smoke.”

  “I did?”

  “Kate, you told me your mother had died of lung cancer, that she was like a female Humphrey Bogart, a real stormy, brooding person, like a volcano about to erupt, and that she continued to chain smoke, even when she knew she was dying.”

  “I don’t remember ever telling you that,” I said, reaching again for the cigarettes.

  Joe kept me at bay. “You talk about your mother all the time! That’s practically all you ever talk about. Don’t tell me you can’t remember?”

  I looked at him. I never talked about my mother to anyone. “Please, can I have a cigarette?” I said. Joe shook his head. “It’s not a cardinal sin, it’s just a cigarette.”

  Joe sighed and reached for his pack of Gauloises. “I can’t believe you’re doing this after everything you’ve told me.” He handed me a cigarette. “Look, let me tell you something else, if you feel that bad. Maybe this will make you feel better. Grace is Elaine Barry’s ex-girlfriend. That’s why she’s so mad at you. I mean, you introduced Whitney to Elaine, so now her ex has gone off with someone else because of you. That’s all. Don’t take it so hard. She doesn’t really think you treated Mary bad. She’s just jealous.”

  I reached into my pocket again, and fingered Gabe’s note. You’re not trying, it said. It was true; I wasn’t trying. I wasn’t even thinking. I got up. “I have to go,” I said.

  “You shouldn’t let Grace wig you out. The Fashion Show’s just starting, and you’re going to miss the whole thing.” I shrugged. “Well then, will you come back to my place afterward?” I said I didn’t know. “Will you be alright alone? Should I come with you?” I said I would be alright, and wandered off to look for Gabe.

  ***

  I had to walk through the center of town to reach Cosmo’s restaurant. On the way I passed Nello’s restaurant, where Cosmo was blamed for stealing Nello’s wife and wrecking his marriage; I passed The Bad Attitude Café, where Antaeus was blamed for Mrs. Souza’s death; I passed Lili Marleen’s, where Getz was blamed for embezzling the old Zanzibar’s money and ruining its business; I passed The White Sands, where Raphael Souza was blamed for his wife’s suicide and his daughter’s murder. By the time I had arrived at Cosmo’s, my sense of remorse had weakened in this context, and I did not feel half as guilty as I had when I had left Joe’s apartment. But I would confess anyw
ay, just in case Grace was right — the way a dying non-believer prays for forgiveness, just in case there is a God.

  When I arrived at Cosmo’s restaurant, the patio was filled with tourists who had come to Provincetown to see the Benefit Week activities and were waiting to eat. When the Temple of the Jaguars story broke, the merchants and restaurant owners expected the tourist business would increase; but no one anticipated that this many people would come, except for maybe Harper Martin himself. Some locals were beginning to believe he had planned the whole thing.

  I pushed my way through the crowd and into the restaurant. In the front dining room Lance was entertaining some customers by describing the Costume Ball. When I came in he was mimicking the hex that the Voodoo Woman had performed on the reporters.

  In the kitchen the order wheel was full of tags, the waiters ran in and out carrying trays of steaming plates full of mussels and calamari, and Gabe was pouring different sauces into a half dozen plates of pasta at one time. Dominic stood at the hostess station, ringing up bills for the waiters, answering the telephone, seating customers, and even found time to explain to one group of tourists what the upcoming Whale Watch would be like.

  “What a mess,” I said to Dominic when he was through explaining breeches and dorsal fins to the tourists. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “It’s alright,” he said. “Gabe told me you weren’t coming at all tonight.”

  “Gabe said I wasn’t coming?”

  “Yeah, wasn’t that the message you gave him?”

  The phone rang again. Dominic answered it while he gathered up some menus to seat the next party of four. He led them into the dining room, carrying the phone with him. I wandered into the kitchen, where the waiters were making their own salads and desserts, throwing parsley and lemon wedges onto the plates of shrimp adriatico and stuffed flounder before carrying them out to the customers.

  “I hear you’ve been lying to Dominic about me,” I said when Gabe looked up to empty a boiling pot of water into the sink.

  “I’ve been covering your ass so you don’t get fired,” he said.

  I shook my head. He was much too nice to me; I couldn’t help but feel guilty. “I got your note,” I said. “You should be a private detective.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “You’re not hard to find. You’re too predictable.”

  Lance came into the kitchen. “Is this jealousy I see, rearing its ugly, tumescent head?”

  “Get lost,” Gabe said.

  “Don’t you love the pithy little vignettes that flare up during the summer?” Lance said. He slapped a wedge of ricotta pie onto a plate and left.

  “Can we talk after work?” I said. “I think I can tell you the secret now. You know, about the husband stashed in Monte Carlo.”

  Gabe looked up from the kettle and wiped his face with his apron. “Oh, so you finally admit there’s a secret. Well, it’s about time. This better be good.”

  “It is.”

  I started preparing the salads and filling cannoli shells. Nothing more was said about the matter, but after work, I followed Gabe upstairs to his apartment.

  Gabriel Paradise grew up in Chelsea. He studied graphic design at Pratt Institute and planned to go into advertising. But when he realized that the fine arts were hype, that his good looks were hype, that his career in advertising would really be hype, he gave it all up and moved to Provincetown. He waited tables at Cosmo’s the first 15 summers and made enough money to go to Greece, Italy and Spain in the winters. Eventually he decided that waiting tables was hype too — women giving him big tips because he was handsome and charming, so he moved into the kitchen, where all he had to complain about was Dominic bossing him around and waitresses kissing him on the neck when he was trying to stir and sieve. He wanted peace, something as simple as that, but there was always bustle and jostling and hype. When it became too much, he went to visit his mother, who lived out on Long Island. When he stayed long enough to realize there was no peace there either, he would pack her discarded televisions, tape players and VCRs into his car and return to Provincetown. Recently he had bought some land on the National Seashore overlooking Hatches Harbor, so his view of open land was assured. He wanted to build a house there. He was certain he could find peace in it.

  Gabe’s apartment was one of those studios out on the very tip of Cosmo’s wharf, above the water-most end of the restaurant. It had a good view of the bay — the coast guard wharf to the east, Long Point to the west. He had made the loft into a bedroom. The best views of the water were from that vantage point. From there he could watch the ferry travel past Hatches Harbor on its way to Boston. Maps of Greece, Italy and Spain hung in the loft; downstairs, posters from Gabe’s Pratt Institute days, advertising student exhibitions, were displayed. The refrigerator was stocked with wines from the restaurant, various sauces for pasta and bottles of Tsing Dao beer. Gabe had collected a stereo, cassette player, and television. On his most recent trip to his mother’s house, he brought back a VCR.

  But the main room had changed since I was last there. A large drafting table had been set up in the middle with a high intensity lamp screwed onto the edge with a vice grip. The table was slanted at a 45-degree angle, and equipped with a T-square that could be fastened and rolled around on its surface. The floor around the table was littered with stencils, ink pens, pencils, erasers, magazine cut outs, and the magazines themselves. Drawings and collages were impaled haphazardly on the wall behind the table. The whole area had a sense of sudden fury about it, as if a crazed genius had been stricken with a truth, and had worked in a frenzy all night to bring it to fruition.

  “Wow,” I said, “what’s all this?”

  Gabe opened the refrigerator and took out a Tsing Tao. He fixed a club soda with lime for me, running the lime wedge around the rim of the glass before he dropped it in.

  “I’ve been working,” he said.

  “But just last night you were glad no one even remembered you were a graphic designer.”

  I recognized the face on the cover of one of the magazines, and picked it up. It was the current issue of Newsweek, which had come out that morning, and the face was Harper Martin’s. The caption said, Auto-SuperStar, or How to Create Your Own Media Event.

  “Is this fake? Did you make this?” I waved the Newsweek at him.

  Gabe laughed. “No. That’s for real. The ones on the wall are mine.”

  I ran my hands along the wall, inspecting the sketches and cut outs, lifting the leaves of paper to look at the ones underneath. “But just last night you said — ”

  “I had a change of heart,” he said. He handed me the club soda.

  I sat down on the floor and began looking at the other magazines. There were copies of Time, Life, The New Republic, Rolling Stone, Interview, Gentlemen’s Quarterly, Vanity Fair, Art In America and L.A. Style, and they all had photographs or drawings of Harper Martin on the cover.

  “What is this? What’s happening?” I said. “Where did you get these? What’s going on?”

  “It’s Wednesday. The shipment of new magazines gets trucked into Provincetown on Wednesday. I just happened to discover them all this morning, when I was renting movies at Ethan’s Pharmacy.” He lifted a video cassette off the TV table and showed it to me. “Sir Laurence Olivier in Othello. 1965. A controversial performance.”

  “You sound like the New York Times,” I said. So he had been to Ethan’s Pharmacy and seen Mary. She had been back for a few days now, and according to Raphael and Elaine, she wanted to see me, but I had not been to see her. Gabe, however, had seen her.

  “I’m quoting them verbatim.”

  I looked at all the magazines again. “Jesus Christ,” I said.

  “You’re right, he is beginning to achieve a kind of saintly status. What are the categories of martyrdom — venerable, beatified, and then saint? I think he’s at least made it to venerable, don’t you?”

  “Harper Martin has rock star status, like the Pope,” I said,
and then realized I was quoting Joe Houston.

  Gabe rummaged through the video cassettes he had rented.

  “But how can one person be on the cover of so many magazines at one time?” I said.

  “It’s easy. Newsweek and Time always have the same cover. Rolling Stone and Interview always have the same cover. Vanity Fair usually has the same cover as Rolling Stone, or Time. G.Q. usually has the same cover as Vanity Fair or Interview. L.A. Style and Art in America just jumped into the fray, that’s all.” Gabe sat down in the easy chair opposite the television. He had selected Children of Paradise and the beginning of it was playing with the sound off. Gabe sipped his Tsing Tao and watched the screen.

  “Don’t you want to hear what I have to say?” I asked.

  He looked up at me. “Of course,” he said. “But I thought it would add atmosphere to hear your confession with Children of Paradise playing in the background. Don’t you think it’s a nice touch?”

  “You always had a bad sense of humor.” I wanted to scold him for calling it a confession, but I had used the term myself, so it seemed unfair.

  I went to the window and looked out at the water. Lights were flashing everywhere: on the lighthouses at Long Point and Wood End, in the rigging of the fishing trawlers and the decks of the sailboats, on the railing of the coastguard wharf, in the hands of the beachcombers along the shallows. They all seemed to be searching for something.

  “Is it hard to say?” Gabe asked. I nodded. “Well, just blurt it out then, no one’s watching.” He turned his head away from me, toward the television screen.

  “I have amnesia about all my sexual experiences,” I said. I turned around to look at him. “The doctors call it eroto-amnesia.”

  It had been going on for about ten years. I would wake up in the morning and I couldn’t remember coming home with the guy I was in bed with, couldn’t remember anything that had happened the night before, from the time we got into bed until I woke up in the morning. Sometimes when I woke up, I didn’t even know where I was.