“I don't know.”
“Have you got a date?”
“Not yet.”
“Leave it to Uncle Mel.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“You want two pillows on your bed. I'll arrange it.”
“Seriously.”
“For that I have to put on my glasses.”
“What do you do about your wife?”
“I'm glad you asked me that question,” he replied, removing his glasses.
“I'm just curious.”
“For you, Jane, the truth. August was our eighth anniversary—that's eight the hard way—I gave her a six-carat diamond ring. That wasn't enough, she wanted another child, I gave her two false alarms; then I went to F.A.O. Schwartz and bought her Aggravation. She wanted a home in King's Point, so I spoke to my father-in-law and we got a split-level. Five nights a week I'm a perfect husband. My children call me Daddy. We've got a great marriage, as long as she doesn't interfere with my private life.”
“Conlon?”
“Conlon I'm in love with, and she's got her own ideas. She doesn't want me to divorce Iris, and she doesn't want to be my children's stepmother or have them visit us.”
“That's what I don't understand.”
“It's very simple. She likes the idea of having an affair with a married man. Life's too short to be nervous. Most people I know have even stopped going to the shrink, which was a popular activity a few years ago during the Bull market.”
“You're not for real, Mel.”
She had to admire his cynicism, it was so determined, so complete. Disposing of one's humanity was no easy task, even for a hustler. And Conlon under the guise of worldliness had become the perfect tool. No one wanted to be accused of naïveté; there simply wasn't that kind of courage around, so they all pretended to be unshockable and the son of a bitch had taken on the role of culture hero. He admitted to being a pig, so all had to be forgiven. In an odd way Jane respected her father more, for he had the consideration to deceive, make excuses, protest his innocence. She supposed he was capable of common decency. Wasn't his hypocrisy proof?
“The truth is I'm in love with her and she's in love with me,” Mel babbled on. “But we're not biting our nails about it. We both might be dead tomorrow—this is New York.”
Al reappeared at Jane's side, his eyes rolling from happiness and scotch.
“Do you believe in love at first sight, Jane?” he asked.
Disagreement meant an argument, so she said:
“Why not?”
“Well, I'd like to fly down to Mexico, unload Sylvia, and marry you. If Mel can get us a cottage at Las Brisas we're in business. One other thing, do you need parental consent? Because if you do, my brother-in-law was formerly a kite specialist and knows how to forge signatures.”
“I'm engaged,” Jane said.
“Then what's the guy waiting for? I'm offering you security and a quick deal. We'll even do a premarital agreement, so you don't think I'm after your money.”
Al was interrupted by a black crocodile purse which thumped against his ear, Sylvia's calling card. This was followed by a J&B right in the face, blinding him momentarily. The purse hit him in the face in a perfectly executed backhand passing shot.
“Everywhere we go he humiliates me. And as for you, Mel, introducing him to B-Girls. You know that I'm the brains of the business. Glamor boy doesn't know a sauna from a steam cabinet. Back to Roslyn, Mister,” she informed the chairman of HCA, “and no more monkey business. I'm putting you in escrow. Hy, get the car.”
She glowered at Jane and approached menacingly, the purse in position.
“Never rile a Weinberg,” she noted ominously.
“He attacked me,” Jane said angrily.
“Liar. Don't you think I know a Buffalo hooker when I see one? You're an ice skater with the Ice Capades, I suppose. You lousy kids don't know anything except smoking pot, rioting, and screwing. What about personal hygiene, have you got any?”
As a parting gesture to enforce her point she was about to strike Jane, but a pair of muscular arms lifted her from behind and carried her through the room, depositing her at the door. Sonny Jackson with something larger than a football in his hands was unlikely to drop it.
The party had thinned out, and some bus boys were picking up dirty glasses and putting out small cigarette fires on the carpet and sofa. Jane found Sonny in the bedroom, changing into street clothes. His uniform was neatly hung on a wire hanger.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didt know anyone was usin’ this.”
“I wanted to say thank you.”
He gave her a blank stare and nodded his head.
“I thought she was going to belt you.”
“She was.” He buttoned his shirt and put on a black knit tie. “Where are you going from here?”
He looked at his watch, then wiped his shoes with a towel.
“It's seven, and I have my dinner at the place about now.”
“Where's that?”
“Where I work.” He seemed surprised by her question. “At Joiners on First Avenue. Single city. The rush don't begin till eight thirty.”
“You've got a job there—I hate to sound stupid.”
“That's right. I been there since it opened”—he thought for a minute—“about eighteen months now.”
“So this isn't full-time work.”
“Right. I do it a couple of times a week, you know. What do they call it—two jobs?”
“Moonlighting.”
“I moonlight to pick up a few.”
He lifted the hanger and inspected the black trousers for stains. A blotch of mustard was on one of the pockets.
“You can get it off with hot water.” She went into the bathroom, ran the water, and came out with a wet towel and rubbed the pocket, then picked off the dry bits with her nails.
“That's terrific, thanks, you've saved me one seventy-five for cleaning.” He stopped and looked at her quizzically. “Did you ask me something?”
“If you liked your work.”
“I guess I do. I'm always meetin’ new people and I like the kids that come in. I let people in, you know, enforce the safety regulations. Every place in New York has a limit, you see. Unlawful for more than a certain number. We can hold three hundred and fifty, but it's real tight. Sometimes somebody has more than he can handle and I see that nobody starts pushin’ anyone around, or if a guy gets fresh with a girl, well, she's got no protection, so I straighten things out. I'm the equalizer. Then if they're short at the bar, I double as a bartender, but I don't like it much. You know, mixin’ drinks, then runnin’ to the rigister every second to make change. It gets very confusin'.”
He smiled with embarrassment and shuffled his feet, waiting for her to move away from the door so that he could leave.
“I'm runnin’ a little late, so if you don't mind....”
“I'm sorry, it's just that I was interested.”
“Well, maybe, to be continued if you're around.”
He extended his hand and shook hers firmly. They were large hands with uneven nails, thick fingers with a college ring.
“Where'd you go to school?”
“Florida Tech. Little before your time. What about you?”
“I'm a junior at Saranac.”
“That's one helluva good school.” He opened the door. “See you, kid.”
She stood in the middle of the room with a growing sense of perplexity. Before making any kind of decision she had to see her father, for whom she maintained a limitless tolerance despite his total inability to involve himself in her life. He was a sweet, harmless child who had played amateur golf for twenty years, collected dividends on his stock, and for all she knew never experienced a woman's love. Neither war, the Dow Jones average, elections, nor riots and strikes could elicit more than a feigned interest from him. He lived for one thing: Surviving the cut in a tournament qualifying round. God, where was Napa, California? Somewhere near San Francisco, her
mother had said. Why the hell hadn't her parents divorced years before? She couldn't accept her father's explanation: “We don't get divorces or legal separations; we just avoid each other.”
Mel was on the phone making a reservation at El Morocco. The new all-in package had caught his eye in the paper. But he'd have to keep the girls away from the à-la-carte menu. Twenty-one was sudden death; he still had that big bill to settle there. Let them send all the lawyer's letters they liked. He had lawyers too—on retainer.
“I'm sorry, Jane, that it turned out like this. But this is what I have to contend with. Where have all the Harrimans, Lehmans, Loebs, and Drexels gone? Gentlemen, a handshake, respectable, a pleasure to do business with. I wind up with the Salkinds of the world or with fund managers who'd steal the pastrami sandwich out of your attaché case. All is not lost: Elmo, followed by a choice of Nepantha, Numero Uno, Le Club, or Salvation.”
“I'd like to stay in,” Jane said.
“'Mel can get you a date if you don't want to call someone you know,” Conlon suggested.
“I can handle both of you if you like. I'll dance you silly.”
“Come on, Jane, please.”
“Christ, you don't have to treat me like a child. If I wanted to go, I'd say I did.”
Jane removed her shoes and sat on her ankles, exposing a lot of leg, which wasn't wasted on Mel, whose eye for special situations and thighs were renowned. He wondered if he could make them both together. Dangerous thought, which he rejected, because he had once before tried a similar experiment with a pair of sure things and wound up alone.
“I've got the solution. After dinner, Conlon'll call you and tell you where we'll be. You might change your mind.”
“Will they let me in with trousers?” Conlon asked.
“Just bring money,” Mel said, closing the discussion.
She sat on the edge of the bed pondering her next move, then called United Airlines to make a reservation for the afternoon flight to San Francisco. This task accomplished, she put on her coat and left the suite.
She hailed a cab. The driver demanded to know her destination, gave her a sobriety test, and at last agreed to take her. She gave him an address on Fifth Avenue. Her first lover—the cherry thief, as he was known in Fairfield County—had written to her the previous week and advised her of his divorce, also extending an invitation for a drink. He was a young man of much means and dubious accomplishment who, despite his lankiness, was still known by his nickname, Tub. Tub Feeney was the first of his age group to give up nail biting and to put down conventional sports. His manner was languid and he introduced marijuana cigarettes to the cheerleaders.
New York was as depressing as the cab driver's photograph. At a light, George Lapidus decided to explain his position vis-à-vis passengers and impart the wisdom of thirty years of driving down side streets.
“This morning my first fare was a couple. Man about thirty-five, girl maybe seventeen, nineteen on the outside. I pick ‘em up outside the Brasserie, the guy gives me a Village address. On Twenty-third Street, there's a malfunctioning of the light. A Firebird in front of me crosses the intersection and out of the other side comes this white El Dorado with four colored people. Blacks, whatever you want to call ‘em. Zap. A collision. Wonder that the schvartzers had gas in the car. I thought all they did was wash and simonize their Caddies. I get out and say to the couple, ‘We're witnesses.’ Would you believe it, they was havin’ an orkee in the back. The guy's got his pants down to his ankles and the girl's brassiere is in his handkerchief pocket. Hangin’ out. I said: ‘Get outa my cab. I'm a grandfather, shame yourself, havin’ an orkee in my back seat. Grandchildren ride in there on Sunday.’ Guy pulls up his pants and steps out and this little seventeen-year-old machonist says: ‘When you're in love, you go all the way.’ Would you believe it? What's your opinion, Miss? That's why I was suspicious when you hailed me.”
“Would you please stop talking and take me to 1045 Fifth Avenue.”
It was a new building, smaller than most, squeezed in between granite giants, as inconspicuous as ham in an Automat roll. She tipped Lapidus thirty-five cents and received a scowl. The doorman inspected her on closed-circuit television for a minute and came to the conclusion that she was not a delivery boy trying to crash or a drug addict fingering apartments. She remained in the vestibule where he could keep an eye on her while he buzzed Mr. Feeney. She gave her name. Feeney barked that it was okay, and she was pointed to the twin Otis Elevators, a safe conduct pass to the co-ops under his jurisdiction.
Tub lived on the fifth floor and answered the first ring. He was wearing an old pair of shiny corduroys and a denim shirt, which made her think of gardening and Sunday newspapers. His complexion had cleared, and he had his hair shorter and with a part on the side. Gone was that wild look that had attracted her.
“Jane?” He blinked, awkwardly barring her way. He'd lost a tremendous amount of weight and looked rather frail.
“Can I come in?”
“Can you come in.... Why of course you can.”
“I got your letter....” He wasn't making it easy for her.
“Oh, that. I've got this habit of writing letters and never mailing them. Well, a former friend decided to send them. I wrote it almost a year ago. Half the people I know have stopped speaking to me.”
Some of the sweet childishness had vanished, and his face had a tight severity about it. He didn't take his eyes off her.
“Why'd you write to me?” she asked.
“Why'd you come to see me? I suppose you ran out of people. That's what brings my old friends around ... or to have the rumors they've heard about me confirmed.” He lit a cigarette. “Well, Jane, I confirm them very quickly.”
“I haven't heard any rumors,” she admitted. “What's there to hear?”
“Nothing significant. It's not as though Genet would dedicate a book to me or something. I've simply been reclassified. They tried to induct me into the army and I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I'll always be grateful to General Hershey.”
“What did Coppie have to say about it?”
“I'm glad you asked. Because this was a real test of the girl's moral fiber. I had only one way to beat the draft.” He moved up and curled on the arm of her chair. “I simply had to tell the truth. Now is that so awful? Most men lie like mad to their wives, and I thought that Coppie would be a lot happier after two years of blaming herself for our own little failure.
“When my 4-F classification came through she wanted to know why and I took her to Blum's. Bad news is never quite so bad when you've got hot fudge on your mouth and I told her that I was a homosexual. A bonafide, classified one. She called me a liar, can you imagine, and me with a degree from the army telling anyone who wants to know—even American Express, if they care to check—that I'm a menace to innocent boys from Georgia and Utah.”
“You know,” Jane said, unable to contain her confusion, “I sometimes wondered about it when we were together.”
“You look disappointed,” he said.
“I'm not, or am I? I don't really think it matters, except to you. We didn't get married.”
“Seeing you after years is a shock to me. I guess I would've been happier if you didn't know. But that's hypocritical. Oh, well, who says I have to be a model of consistency. You can stay here if you need a place.”
“I'm staying with my roommate, but thanks.”
“Jane, why'd you come, really?”
“I think maybe because I wanted to see somebody from the old days.”
“They stunk.”
“Yes,” she said.
He hadn't made their past small affair distasteful or ugly but irrelevant. Her judgment had betrayed her again. Being the first man in her life didn't impose any special responsibility on him, although she thought it might and that he'd be the good sympathetic listener she needed. He gave her a green crème de menthe on the rocks with a straw and she blew bubbles in the glass.
“I'm going to a
party,” she said.
I don't believe this is happening to me. It isn't my life—it's some kind of insane misrepresentation, she thought. What she remembered about Tub didn't coincide with what she saw now. Someone had crept into Tub's body and begun impersonating him. Even the apartment didn't look real, but rather a series of model rooms stolen from Bloomingdale's and Sloane's, impermanent, a fraud. People didn't live like this—with books slanting at an angle on the secretary shelves, green suede sofas, skinny steel lamps with cobra hoods that stepped out of Miró prints.
“Do you know, Jane, you're the only girl I've ever enjoyed sex with?” he said, with the suggestion that it had really been theoretical.
“Maybe because you were the first. But now I'm a scalp on many belts.
“I'm sorry.”
“It's not something that you have regrets about after the first time.”
He didn't swish around the room, he wasn't that kind. He seemed more regretful than liberated to her. The apartment was ready for House and Garden but not Tub. His eyelids drooped and he looked with dismay at the enormous black coffee table with its repro African sculpture, five-pound astrology book (the stars told everything!), George Jensen marble game (the object is to finish with one marble), and Queen Anne silver tea service. Had anyone ever used it? Perhaps long ago around a coal fire in Exeter. Its only function now was to be polished.
“It's a big write-off,” he said. “I like kids, really love the little bastards. But when I touch one of my friends’ boys—well, maybe I'm imagining it—I get this fishy look like I'm going to molest them.”
He squatted at her feet, preventing her from leaving. She had nowhere to go, but she was in a hurry.
“I got drunk one night with Coppie—our pre-pot period—and I said a few things before the breakup. She wanted to make love, and believe me I tried. She was so willing, so compliant, it was pathetic. I could only make it with her in the ass and that used to make her cry. God, the tears that were shed while I was coming. I was drunk and she said, ‘Tub, you wish I was a boy.’ And I said, ‘You are a boy.’
“She called my mother the next day, and I went home for the weekend....”
Making Love Page 6