by Edmund White
Complete silence on Alice’s side. Rebekkah had probably hurt her. Alice had a way of squinting as if not the light but the life around her was too strong and needed to be filtered. Yes, she had her way of squinting and frowning, slow to perceive the point of someone’s conversation. Then she’d say, not loudly but emphatically, “Huh!” and pour herself another drink. She looked like a young, not particularly female version of one of the founding fathers—Jefferson or Washington, say. Rebekkah claimed she’d once had a long conversation on the phone with Alice before realizing that Alice was talking to her while being fucked by a famous older author.
Both girls pursued and collected celebrity writers. Back in Ann Arbor they’d attended readings as far away as Toledo. They counted their outing successful if one of them “bagged” a published writer. Alice, despite her horsey manner, had the most luck. She bagged the young author of a cult novel about a tiny horse with wings, which Jack thought was pretty fey, though most readers loved it, apparently. Everyone in Ann Arbor, including Jack, was impressed that a real writer with a movie option had moved in with Alice. One night the young author read a new story out loud to them. They all said it was excellent.
In New York, Alice also had a fling with a Nobel Prize–winning intellectual. She reported that he had a problem with premature ejaculation. Once Jack told her that he’d met someone who was writing a long biographical piece about the man; this person would love to talk to Alice. She cocked her head to one side and said with a frosty smile, “Over my dead body.”
Their biggest catch was Charles Mingus. He was the one they both most respected, considering him a genius in every domain—as a jazz composer and a bassist and a bandleader. They had met him back in Detroit one night after a concert. He liked the girls, he had said, because they were English-major cats and would know how to edit the shit out of his big sprawling memoir.
In New York they saw him frequently and sometimes worked with him deep into the night in his studio above the Bleecker Street Cinema. Jack had little to do with him and was surprised one night when Charlie recognized him on the street in front of the Bleecker Street Tavern and said, “Man, I wanna fuck you.”
“What?” Jack asked.
“Man, I’m sick of chicks. Man, this chick just—” and he was off on a tirade about all the wrongs that had been done him by women.
Jack wasn’t famous and didn’t want to be. What would fame mean—that more people would single him out for unwanted attention? No, what Jack wanted, he decided, was a buddy. He’d never really had friends of either sex, though he imagined the two girls were as close as he’d come so far. Of course, they typecast him as super-WASP, even though Alice was much closer to the real thing than he’d ever be. Either you were off everyone’s radar and flying solo, undetectable, or you registered with them and suffered the consequences—you became a character, a type, which was fine except it felt limiting. What he wanted and needed was a buddy, a guy his own age, a masculine guy who didn’t look at you penetratingly and size you up. A buddy who would share with you his interest in books or old movies or fine sports writing. Yeah, you’d catch sight of your buddy out of the corner of your eye as the two of you headed out into the night, collars turned up against the cold and shoulders bumping. Someone who didn’t stare at you and who could watch TV with you and make just the occasional wry comment while nursing a beer. Someone who made you feel like a minor adjective, not a major noun.
Jack went to Europe for ten days to work on a story on Dubrovnik. He was scouting for Gephardt despite Harriet’s protests (“Okay, name me one great Yugoslav photographer, one, please, one who’s living now”). Just before he left, he recommended to Gephardt that he hire this great guy, Will Wright, whom in fact he, Jack, didn’t know. Will was Alice’s next-door neighbor in Virginia and wanted a job in publishing. Alice said, “Oh, Will is great—tall, sort of handsome, ambitious. You’ll like him. At least you won’t be embarrassed you recommended him. He majored in English and wants to be a novelist.”
When Jack came back from Dubrovnik, Will was already working at the Northern Review. He was in the next cubicle. The first things Jack noticed about him were his bad skin, his great height, his red nose and blue eyes, his light, joking manner, and his expensive shoes, which were beautifully polished like a fine old piece of furniture.
“Hey, Jack? Great to see you again,” Will said, winking, shaking his hand but with a funny smile on his lips.
“Yeah, terrific to see you again, Will.”
They decided to have lunch in the new little vest-pocket park east of Fifth. You could order a Coke and a hot dog there and sit on a stone bench and look at the other office workers.
After they got their hot dogs, Will said, “I can’t thank you enough for getting me this job. They must like you a lot, since they took me on right away.”
“Well, Princeton,” Jack said. “You did go to—”
“You’d be surprised how little that counts.”
“Seems to me everyone I meet in publishing went to Yale or Princeton.”
“I guess there are some old-boy connections. Those schools should be good for something.”
“I got accepted to Harvard twice and Princeton once and Haverford, but my dad was strapped for cash.” Jack decided that sounded more plausible than the bitter truth.
“Michigan is supposed to be great,” Will said agreeably.
“So tell me some things about you real quick so I can sound convincing when Gephardt questions me. By the way, what about those ladies in Personnel?” Suddenly Jack worried he was starting to sound gossipy and “fun” like Herschel.
“Original,” Will said. “Highly original.”
They shared a smile and a lifted eyebrow.
“Okay,” Will said, suddenly planting his long, fine-boned hands on his knees. “My father is a lawyer. There are five kids in my family—I’m the second. We live in a big house, but we don’t have any money. We’re Catholics. I went to Portsmouth Abbey in Rhode Island. Benedictines. Lots of Latin and theology. I played lacrosse, rather clumsily. Then Princeton. I was in Ivy, my dad’s eating club. I’ve never been engaged to be married.”
Although Will seemed jokey-humble, almost apologetic, Jack thought it was a sign of how blue his blood was that he sort of assumed that Jack would catch his references. “My parents couldn’t possibly afford all that,” Will went on, “what with our big family, but two of my uncles helped out with tuition.”
Suddenly it struck Jack that Will was confiding a lot of information. Of course, most of it was to substantiate their alibi, but some, surely, was reckless considering they’d just met. Maybe Will needed a buddy too—not just in New York, where he was a newcomer, but in life. Will and Jack shared one eccentricity: they both liked to read new fiction. Even though their incomes were small, they would actually buy a new hardcover novel once a month. They would also go check out recent novels from the public library across from the Museum of Modern Art. Jack had simply gotten it into his head that he should be “civilized” and keep up with trends in most of the arts, whereas Will had a professional reason to read new novels. Jack remembered that Fitzgerald had gone to Princeton.
That night, as he was tossing on his bed, Jack wondered if old Gephardt had hired Will so quickly because he preferred him to Jack. Of course, Will had that foxhunting Princeton luster, and he was a bit taller (six feet two to Jack’s six), and his shoes were expensive. Not that either Will or Jack was exactly an extrovert.
The next day at the office, when the coffee wagon came around in the afternoon, three or four of the nicer editors stood around in Will’s cubicle. They were all talking, for some reason, about the plan to move the Whitney Museum uptown and whether it would draw as many people at that location, separated from the Museum of Modern Art. Will was sprawled on his chair, one leg thrown over its arm, his dress shirt looking so pale blue that it seemed transparent, the initials picked out in dark blue thread above his heart. He was positively glowing with interes
t and amusement, and he kept showing his perfect white teeth in deferential smiles. Jack wondered if he’d mistaken Will’s affability for friendliness.
Jack decided that as a person Will was a host, if that meant he liked to receive people, listen to them, encourage them, though he maintained his cool distance. Of course, maybe Jack was wrong, but to him Will appeared to be more comfortable in a group than one-on-one.
That night Jack fell asleep on his new tan couch as soon as he got home. When he woke up at eleven he decided to go to a joint over on West Fourth where he could eat a burger and have a couple of beers. He’d slept through the dinner hour with his girls, and he decided he’d call them and explain tomorrow. Sitting at the crowded bar, he couldn’t help listening to two puffy execs still in their suits; they’d clearly been drinking steadily since six. Most people seemed so inane, Jack thought, loudmouths with absolutely no idea that conversation should be interesting.
Will was obviously refined, careful, completely democratic, though not really, Jack wagered, not in his heart of hearts. He’d been raised to think he was superior but not show it. Jack thought of most Catholics as Irish or Italian immigrants, but of course there were those Catholic English aristocrats who had followed Lord Baltimore to America, though Will’s family were Virginians. Was Will descended from English Catholics? He had the tall, narrow head and the eyes meant for a visor and the profile intended to be looked at against a gold banner. Jack suddenly wondered if Will was wearing some of his father’s dress shirts. They looked old, with their long, pointy collars; Jack would have to examine the initials more carefully.
The next day Jack and Will were drinking scotch together out of Will’s flask. It was after hours and they were alone. It was a cold wintry night and below them the city was all lit up. Neither of their cubicles had a window, but just across the hall was a big office with two windows, and Jack was drawn to the glittering glamour of the towers and streets outside. Black, Starr and Frost was the name of a jeweler on Fifth Avenue, and it rhymed in Jack’s mind with this hard urban beauty, this motionless nocturnal amusement park, its rides all frozen and deserted but still lit up. Just for the conspicuous consumption of electricity, Manhattan couldn’t be beat.
“Hey, boys,” Herschel said in his syrupy Southern accent. “Don’t you two look cozy? You’re inseparable, aren’t you? Not that I’m insinuating anything.”
“Will Wright here. I don’t think we’ve met.” Will spoke in his heartiest manner and didn’t stand up but stretched out a hand to Herschel, who produced a little boneless pullet of a hand and introduced himself nearly inaudibly. “Find a chair. Have a drink.”
“Oh, now I remember,” Herschel said, stirring his scotch and single cube with an index finger he kept licking. “Jack, you’re the one who brought Will here, right? You’re old friends, I gather.”
“Well, old acquaintances,” Jack said.
“Now you’ve hurt my feelings,” Will said, clowning. “I thought we were best friends.”
Even though it was a joke, the simple statement made Jack feel some sort of sunburst of joy inside, and he looked away lest his eyes betray the excess of feeling.
“I’ll leave you girls to it,” Herschel said, getting up. “This gal has to shake a leg. I’ve got a ticket to She Loves Me.” He looked at Will. “I just love musicals. I identify with the waitress in The Most Happy Fella. Good night, Jacky babe.” He hobbled out, singing, “Oh my feet, my poor, poor feet.”
As soon as Herschel had vanished, Will said, “Wow! He’s a live wire.”
“Yes,” Jack said, “he’s in the Art Department,” as if that explained everything.
“He’s very funny,” Will pronounced. “A live wire in a place of burned-out circuitry.”
“Gee,” Jack said, teasing him, “how eloquent! You must be a writer.”
“Like you, like everyone here,” Will said wearily.
“We’re journalists. You’re a writer. A novelist.”
“I’m an unpublished writer. We’re a dime a dozen in this city.”
“Yeah,” Jack protested, “but every published author was once an unpublished tyro.” He could sense that his pulse was accelerating, which it sometimes did when he was trying out a bit of assuaging flattery. It never worked on his father, who remained superbly indifferent to the opinion of other people. Jack couldn’t tell if it was working on Will.
A silence set in, and Will toasted Jack with a paper cup of scotch and an ironic smile. Jack worried that Will might assume he and that creepy Herschel were close, which was obviously what Herschel, the little troublemaker, had been trying to suggest. Jack said—not trusting his words since he felt the burning whiskey playing rope tricks behind his solar plexus—“I never spent five minutes with Herschel. He gives me the willies.”
“Oh no,” Will said, hearty again, “he’s great fun. A real character.”
Jack had heard other blue bloods seem to endorse but actually damn people they labeled as “characters.” He knew how to read Will’s comments. Of course, other rich people could be characters too, but that was different. They had their eccentricities, their rages and passions, the way the Greek gods did—human feelings writ large—but a character like Herschel was more of a zoological specimen: amusing, but not a candidate for friendship.
“I guess he wants us to think he’s queer,” Jack ventured.
“Oh no,” Will said emphatically. “It’s just an act, and a damn funny one too.”
“You don’t think he’s sort of … perverted?” Jack asked. It was for some reason important to him that Will admit that Herschel was not like them, was in a class apart.
“You know him better than I do,” Will said maddeningly.
One Friday in late November, Jack was heading out for an early lunch when suddenly people all around him began to cry and cling to each other. Nothing organized, and not involving everyone. But here and there people were looking up as if expecting an invasion. Or as if God had suddenly appeared in the sky in a gray swirl of robes and with a lifted hand like Michelangelo’s deity. The isolation of all these thousands of strangers marching down the sidewalks had suddenly come to an end. Mourners grabbed each other and sobbed. “The president is dead,” someone said in a quiet voice beside him. “See?” And the person pointed to a headline traveling in lights around the Time-Life Building. Yes, there it was. The president had been shot in Dallas. Damn fool Texans, Jack thought, and now what? Were they sure? Was it a Communist? Cuban? Or some damn Klansman? What will become of us all? he thought.
And people everywhere looked around as if they knew they’d all remember this exact moment forever. Jack had been only five when the war had come to an end. Now was the first adult moment in his life that felt historical. Yes, history was being made. He wanted to be with Will. He couldn’t think of anyone closer to him, pathetic as that sounded. When Jack got back to the office, he was sure Will would be on the phone with his sister, with whom he lived, or with his parents, his father in his office or his mother at home. Family members were no doubt reaching out to each other “all across the land,” as pundits were probably writing right now, but maybe Will hadn’t heard yet, unlikely as that might seem in the media capital of the country, in a building full of journalists; Will could be oblivious to his surroundings.
Jack had no desire to call his parents. They’d be puzzled that he had made the effort and wonder what he wanted. He’d go over all this with his girls tonight at dinner, but he didn’t need them to share this moment with him. They weren’t witnesses to his life. He wouldn’t be able to acknowledge the gravity of the occasion with them.
He wondered how he had let Will attain this hold over him so quickly, especially since Will had given no signs he wanted to be intimate.
He found Will at his desk, his head on his arms and his back shaking under his paper-thin pale blue shirt. Jack touched his shoulder and said, “Wanna go out for a drink?”
“I sure as hell do,” Will said.
They ne
ver came back to the office that day. They got filthy drunk at the Irish pub downstairs, where some of the local cops were working up their conspiracy theories. Will and Jack kept saying, “Can you believe it?” Every once in a while the bartender would turn up the sound on the nonstop news.
Will said, “I know it’s stupid to say, but as a Catholic … I mean, the guy was our first Catholic president.” He got them two more boilermakers—beers with shots of whiskey on the side. “I just feel so shitty. Don’t wanna sound melodramatic, but he was our first cool president, right? Maybe Lincoln was smart, but he was a nerd, right? Jack Kennedy was cool.”
Jack felt mostly indifferent after the initial shock, but he decided to play along with Will’s mood. Jack knew he was acting like a chick letting her man take the emotional lead, but it would be too brutal to declare how little he cared. What surprised him was how close Will obviously felt to the throne. Will acted as if he were that Texas governor who’d also been wounded. Or as if Kennedy were his cousin.
Late at night, when they weren’t talking much and they both looked sleepy, Will suddenly said, “Wanna hear something weird?”
“Yeah.”
“My dad was one of the guys in the hunt club to vote against the Kennedys joining us. Dad thinks they’re kind of pushy. And the old man was a bootlegger. How snooty is that?”
“Yeah,” Jack said leadenly, though somewhere in his innermost mind this information blazed like a vein of silver he could mine later.
“And here we are crying into our beers about a guy we wouldn’t even let hunt with us.”
“How fucked up is that?” Jack asked.
Will nodded in sodden agreement. “Pretty damn pathetic.”
At home later that night (he’d barely managed to get in the door, he was so drunk, and he lost one of his contacts while trying to remove it), he was pissing when he thought, Damn! At first I felt Will was strange because he imagined he was as good as Jack Kennedy, but now I guess the Wrights think they’re even better.
In bed, the room kept rising and falling like the horizon line seen from a ship in a storm. Up … it would go up! And then suddenly plunge down. Jack said to himself, I’m glad Kennedy died because it meant Will and I got to spend our first evening together.