Friends and Traitors

by Jarett Kobek

  Aubrey called us in for dinner. As these things go, which is the distance from plate to mouth, the food was delicious. “Your grandmother’s recipe really knocks me out,” said Baby. She served wine with the meal, a Sauvignon Blanc.

  Baby and Thomas Cromwell talked more shop. Booooooooooooring. They descended into that most dismal of all masculine quagmires, trying to discern the future of their industry. How would writing change with the rise of things like the Internet and AOL? What did it mean for the role of the author?

  “In twenty years, no one will read on paper,” said Baby. “It’ll be digital, on our computer screens. You can’t fight the future, so why not embrace it?”

  This was not the first time that I’d heard Baby lay this jive turkey rap. I’d asked that he refrain from discussing it, but he had no self-control. He’d gone native in Nash Mac territory, subscribing to Wired magazine and trading his typewriter for a computer. He spent time on chat boards dedicated to his own work. He received email from his fans, discussing the finer points of his narrative strategy. It all made me gag on my own vomit.

  “I hope not,” said Thomas Cromwell. “It’s like what you were saying earlier, about the book being a physical ideological point. What’s the point of owning a book if you can’t show it off?”

  “You can’t fight change,” repeated Baby. “You can’t repeat the past.”

  “Can’t repeat the past?” I asked. “What do you mean you can’t repeat the past? Of course you can. I’m always telling Baby that if I have to read on a screen, then I’ll simply stop. Electric books can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. They can take a flying fuck at the moooooooooooon. Paper is radical. Paper will always be radical. Computers are conservative. Computers are a tool by which the rich pen in the poor. Obviously there’ll be an attempt to put books on computers. Why wouldn’t there? Corporations love computers. Yet print culture shall never die, if for no other reason than no one will ever screw out another person’s brains for a computer. Well, perhaps some people will, but imagine those ghastly beasts. Imagine how ugly they’ll be. Imagine how poor their taste. There will always remain acres of beautiful lithe bodies willing to drop trousers at the sight of a smarmy boy with his copy of Franny and Zooey. The problem is that the dopes like you, you great stupid woolly mammoths of publishing, you market yourselves as if reading were an ennobling act of high culture or a passing amusement. When it is neither. You have debased the rush and throb and gob of it. Personally, I’d strike posters of sexy young things sitting in darkly lit Parisian cafes, dressed to the nines, face in a classic, and the text would read: ‘BOOKS. THEY GET YOU LAID.’ ”

  Aubrey was too interested in Emil to engage our malarkey. She helped him with his food. She talked to him. She rubbed his head. “He’s so cute,” she said. “Tom, you never said he was this cute.”

  “All babies are cute,” said Baby. “But Emil really is the cutest.”

  “Having spent more than my fair share amongst a gaggle of recent mothers,” I said, “I’ll have it known that some babies are quite ugly.”

  We moved back to the living room. The distance was only about ten feet. Thomas Cromwell talked about gentrification and the East Village. He spoke of things that existed before my arrival in the city, like Colab, the Mudd Club, Tier 3, and Club 57.

  “There was an art installation in the back of the Mudd Club,” he said, “which was called The Talking Head of Oliver Cromwell. The name caught my eye. As it would. There was an artist’s statement, hand-carved into a wooden plaque. After Charles II regained power following the brief reign of Tumble Down Dick, the newly enthroned King had all of the regicides dug up and beheaded. He had their heads put on stakes at Westminster. Cromwell’s sat for thirty years before a storm knocked it down. The head circulated in the hands of private collectors for centuries. For a while it was in a traveling circus. They only reburied it in the ’60s. The artist claimed that the buried head was a fake, and that he’d stolen the real head from the Knights Templar and put it on display in the East Village. The Templars had cast a spell upon it, giving it immortal life and the ability to engage in discourse. People would go to the Mudd Club and ask questions of the head. It gave practical advice. There was something very fascinating watching New Wave kids asking a mechanical talking head about their sex lives.”

  We drank more wine, a drug lacking in social stigma, and chatted about absolutely nothing. I promise you, dearies, that I didn’t make too much a fool of myself, paying Aubrey equal time.

  Emil fell asleep in my arms. I suggested that it might be time to depart, as the poor boy needed his rest. Aubrey and Thomas Cromwell protested, but what could one do? The child took precedence.

  Aubrey had stored our coats in their bedroom. She suggested that she and I retrieve them. I thought the request mildly odd. Surely she devoted enough time to the gym that two adult garments couldn’t weigh her down. Yet I said nothing. In the right frame of mind, I’ll agree to any old thing.

  The bedroom was dominated by the bed and very little else. A paperback book rested atop the polished wood of a very marginal bureau. I couldn’t help myself. Blame Baby! He planted the idea. I examined the book. Behind me, Aubrey fiddled with our jackets.

  Entitled WANT-AD WANTONS, the book was a piece of old-time erotica, one of those bizarre works that flourished for several decades before the publishing industry discovered how to mask its pornography within the confines of literary fiction, before the advent of the XXX feature, before home video.

  The author’s name is Drew Palmer. The cover depicts a suited man with his hands around a blonde moll’s waist. They’re inside an apartment, both looking towards a fiery redhead who stands in a doorway. Her thin white slip hugs a voluptuous figure. Over the suited man’s shoulders is yet another doorway from whence peers a beady-eyed couple. The advertising copy reads: “Wanting to avoid eventual boredom with each other, Terry and Lou teamed up with other broad-minded couples.” Published by National Library Books, the cover price is but 95¢.

  “What a charming piece of kitsch,” I said. “It’s my understanding that none of the authors used their real names.”

  Aubrey had a curious expression, giving one the impression that her eyes had been staring through the back of one’s head.

  “You know that Tom and I have been together for a while,” she said. “It hasn’t always been easy.”

  “No relationship is,” said I. “They’re all a kind of lingering misery. It takes true grit.”

  “He’s hard to deal with,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m still doing it.”

  The woman was asking for advice about the man that she loved. Yet he was the very object of my fantasy, a fantasy based on his unavailability, on the fact that Aubrey bulwarked against hanky-panky. I could deliver the worst possible advice, telling her to abandon the man. I could reap what I’d sow. I wanted none of it.

  “Is it wrong to do what you want?” she asked.

  “Getting older seems to be the process of weighing what you want against the interests of the people that you love,” I said. “It’s almost never worth hurting anyone.”

  “You’re probably right,” she said. “But what if he wasn’t hurt? What if he never knew?”

  “That way madness lies,” said I. “They always find out.”

  She picked up my drab green coat. Motherhood had murdered my interest in fashion. To think that once my clothes fascinated an entire neighborhood.

  Aubrey put her hand on my wrist. O Lord, thought I, this woman is unstable. We barely know each other, why ever would she need this kind of support?

  She leaned towards me. Must I hug her? thought I. This is punishment for involving yourself in the affairs of others.

  She leaned further in, pushing her mouth against my own. My lower jaw fell slightly open. Her tongue was in my mouth. It felt like a soft robot.

  I stepped away.

  “There’s been a misunderstanding,” I said. “It isn’t that I object in principle
.”

  “Oh my god,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Aubrey picked up Baby’s coat and left me alone with WANT-AD WAN-TONS. I gathered the remnants of my composure, put on my jacket, hid the book in one of the pockets, and followed her into mixed company.

  Baby was buttoning his coat. Thomas Cromwell held Emil. You might wonder if your old pal Adeline was discombobulated by boudoir events. Most certainly, but please remember that I was raised by parents with very active social lives. My first lessons were in the maintenance of social graces. Always repress, always fake it.

  We said our goodbyes, Aubrey not meeting my eyes. As we rode the elevator to the ground floor, Baby said, “That was some kind of evening. Those are some kind of people.”

  “I hope you enjoyed it,” I said. “I very much doubt that we’ll see them again.”

  NOVEMBER 1995

  Suzanne Comes to New York City

  November landed upon us, bringing the confusion of daylight savings revoked.

  Even in New York, where mankind’s arrogance illuminates the sky, the canopy was darkness. No stars, no moon, no clouds, nothing but pitch.

  One thought of antiquity and eras before the advent of modern conveniences. Human history reducible to an elementary fear of darkness, a quirk of evolution providing us with ocular apparatuses incapable of vision beyond a verrrrry limited spectrum.

  Some nights, I’d sit with Emil while he attempted speech, hoping that he’d be safe in the world. My only desire was to keep the child from harm, to keep him from corruption, to shield him from unnamed horrors. That was the measure of parenthood, the sensation of your own helplessness. One took hope in the fact that he would not live in total darkness.

  Somewheres in this maudlin period, I received a ring a ding-ding from dear old Dahlia. Generally, one preferred for her to babble into the answering machine, but this time, I lifted the receiver.

  “Mom’s coming to New York,” she said. “She’s flying in tomorrow.”

  “Is that so?” I asked.

  “You should see her.”

  “For which sideshow rube have you mistaken me?” I asked. “My feelings about Mother are explicit.”

  “She paid for you, paid for Emil. She’s not getting any younger. Do you really want him growing up without knowing his grandmother?”

  I telephoned Baby and asked his advice.

  “You might as well,” he said. “She’s not all bad.”

  I telephoned Jeremy Winterbloss, with whom there was a long-overdue conversation about the latest developments in Trill. The script for issue sixteen featured an overblown story in which Felix Trill undergoes a Yojimbo moment and involves himself with two warring cat tribes. Winterbloss had asked for an ungodly number of double-page splashes involving the machinery of war. One side employed giant battering rams that resembled dogs. Jeremy had written endless pages of description. I’d winced in advance for the strain on my drawing hand.

  I’d registered my displeasure on his answering machine, protesting the insanity of his design. He’d telephoned back, leaving a message on mine, suggesting that we speak soon and discuss strategies for simplification.

  My latest call, then, was not unexpected, but I had no particular interest in the script, preferring to speak of Mother. He asked me why I wouldn’t meet with her, why I would keep her from Emil. As I spoke, I discovered that I had no obvious objection beyond our tortured family history. You know me, darlings. I’m as stubborn as a mule on Easter.

  “There’s no good reason to avoid her,” said Jeremy. “What if she died tomorrow? How would you feel then? Would you be happy?”

  “Nooooo,” I said.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Put Минерва on the phone.”

  I repeated myself for the third time in less than an hour. Say what you will about Минерва, but the girl displayed more patience than either Baby or Winterbloss. She listened without complaint or interjection.

  “Family is not happiness,” she said. “Family is misery only. Why expect coldness from fire? Don’t fight river. Meet with woman. If she disappoints, keep from son.”

  I telephoned Dahlia.

  “Tell that ad hominem harridan that I’ll meet her,” I said. “I presume she’s staying at the Plaza?”

  “Mom wouldn’t stay anywhere else,” said my sister. “I don’t think she even knows the name of any other hotel in New York.”

  “Inform her that I’ll be at the Oak Room. In two days at noon. Ask her if she’ll do me the kindness of not getting too drunk prior to my arrival.”

  “I’ll let her know,” said Dahlia. “Adeline?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m happy.”

  I telephoned Baby for the second time and told him that I’d agreed. I asked if he couldn’t watch Emil whilst I visited with the Old Shrew.

  “Don’t raise your hopes up high, buster,” I said, “but if things go well enough, I may bring her back to meet my son. You can hang around if you want. She’ll be delighted.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you rather have Frances?”

  “Tell me one thing,” I said. “Have you talked to Mother since that fateful day?”

  “Not a word,” he said. “I learned my lesson. You have no idea how terrified I’ve been that she’d find my number and call me.”

  “Am I so terrible?” I asked.

  “You’re the scariest person I’ve ever met.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to be proud or mortally offended.

  He hung up. Emil had fallen asleep in my bed, atop the covers. I crawled beside him, my arms around him. I would not allow the child to be sucked into the bad craziness of my family.

  You know the routine, don’t you, my pets? A cab to Central Park and William Tecumseh Sherman. My cabdriver was a man named Balwinder Singh. I spent the ride in a reverie about his amaaaaaaaazing name. Bal-winder Singh was possibly the best name that I’d ever heard.

  I walked into the hotel with a stab of stomach anxiety, wanting to turn and go back home, but I’d come this far and couldn’t fathom a surrender to cowardice.

  Mother waited at the bar, her back turned to me. She’d changed the color of her hair, giving it an age-appropriate hue.

  “Mother?”

  “Adeliiiiiiiiiiiine,” she said, resisting the urge to throw her arms around her daughter. She gripped the bar with both hands, holding herself steady. “Adeliiiiiiiine, how nice to see you.”

  I sat beside her and ordered a Cape Cod.

  “Whatever are you drinking?” I asked, eyeing the clear liquid in her glass.

  “Soda water,” she said. “Dahlia said if you saw me drinking that you’d run away.”

  “That wasn’t quite what I said, but our messages are sometimes relayed by faulty wires.”

  Mother looked older. The torture of plastic surgery still contained her face, but there’s only so much restoration that can be done before it’s ruined forever. Even a woman as depraved as Mother would hesitate before surrendering herself to a fish-eyed blankness.

  I’d gone through the Cape Cod with an astounding speed. We hadn’t spoken a word. I ordered another drink.

  “Alcohol has always been our family’s curse,” she said. “Your grandmother had great thirsts.”

  I never met Mother’s mother. She expired long before my birth. I’d never been told the reason. Unexplained ill health. Mother’s father had lasted until my tenth birthday, but I couldn’t recall anything about him other than his craggy visage, a California face escaped from the Dust Bowl.

  “How have you been, Adeliiiiiine?”

  “Fine, I suppose,” I said. “I’ve no complaints.”

  “Dahlia’s shown me copies of your little book. The one with the cats?”

  “I didn’t realize that Dahlia was a collector.”

  “It was all she could talk about when she came back,” said Mother. “She drove Charles crazy. She gave me an issue. Ever since, I’ve been forced to ma
ke monthly visits to a store on Melrose that only sells comic books. I’m on a first-name basis with the strange young men who work there.”

  Mother was reading Trill. The horrors!

  “But one thing, Adeline,” she said. “Whenever I tell them that M. Abrahamovic Petrovitch is my daughter, they tend to laugh. Why would you hide yourself behind such a silly name?”

  “By cock,” I said, “I’m tired of explaining the purpose of a pseudonym.”

  “You shouldn’t hide,” she said. “The art is too good, Adeliiiiiiine.”

  I ordered another Cape Cod. Despite my intake, I couldn’t feel the slightest bit of intoxication. This had happened once before, when I was fifteen years old and we’d attended a wedding for the daughter of Mother’s friend Mildred. I’d spent the evening with an endless supply of White Russians, yet never once experienced a moment of drunkenness.

  The woman hadn’t asked word one about my child.

  “Mother,” I said, “are you at all interested in meeting Emil?”

  “Yes, Adeliiiiiine,” she said, very carefully, masking her emotion. “I’d love to see him.”

  “He’s back at my apartment with Baby,” I said. “You remember Baby, don’t you? The young man to whom you played benefactress?”

  “Adeline,” she said. “Do you really want to revisit that unpleasantness?”

  I pondered the question.

  “No,” I said.

  “Can’t you forgive me?” she asked.

  “I must have,” I said. “Why else would I be here? Besides, I was much angrier with Baby. And we’re back to being the best of friends.”

  “Do you know that I saw his boyfriend?” she asked. “A year or two ago, on Colorado Street. What was his name? Hymie? He didn’t recognize me, or if he did, he didn’t acknowledge me. He looked rather sad. He hasn’t aged well.”

  “I wouldn’t mention Jaime,” I said. “Baby’s grown tetchy. He’s a novelist now. They’re all barking mad.”

  “Has he published?” she asked.

  “More books for your collection.”

  I stepped away from the bar. It often takes a rush of blood before the intoxication washes over. Yet there was no such effect. My nerves had rendered me invulnerable. Adeline, said me to myself, if you’re ever going to attempt freebasing cocaine, now is surely the moment.