Murdering Mr. Monti

by Judith Viorst

  In this column I also said that the old lady could think, in spring, about the past, as long as she thought of the joys—not the regrets. And for my younger readers I urged that, before they become old ladies in the springtime, they should live a life that (without doing anything cruel, illegal, or too too irresponsible) “followed their bliss” and minimized their regrets.

  I didn’t really mean “follow their bliss” in the Joseph Campbellian sense, but it didn’t seem terribly urgent to explain that. In its no-regrets message, I felt that the column spoke to every age and kind of bliss—though I don’t agree with Carolyn, who insists that my much admired OLD LADIES IN SPRINGTIME was basically a sneaky, oblique, and deeply guilt-ridden effort to justify my own impending adulteries.

  • • •

  I have been writing my column three times a week for almost seven years and I’m proud to say that I’ve never yet missed a deadline, despite major family emergencies, heartaches of every kind, and some ongoing physical problems including—and here I’ll quote my urologist—“the worst cystitis this office has ever seen.” I’m even prouder to say that I have managed to meet every deadline without shortchanging my family or my friends. And this is not, believe me, because I’m Superwoman. It’s because I plan ahead and include a lot of room in my plans for the unexpected and never take on more than I can feasibly, realistically hope to accomplish.

  However, when I came home from that confessional lunch with Jeff on August 20 and sat down at my Zenith to finish my column (my subject that day was LEARN WHILE YOU SLEEP), I was finding it somewhat difficult to concentrate. As I brooded about Jeff’s impending financial disaster and my promise to him that I would straighten things out, I found myself briefly wondering whether I had taken on a bit more than I could accomplish.

  But then I reminded myself of what La Rochefoucauld once said (“Few things are of themselves impossible”) and what Carlyle once said (“The fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself”) and what Publilius Syrus once said (“No one knows what he can do till he tries”) and what The Little Engine That Could once said (“I think I can—I think I can—I think I can—I think I can”), and I put in a phone call to Louis, with whom (except for some moments of rapture back in March) I’ve enjoyed a warm but strictly platonic relationship.

  Carolyn had met Louis three years ago when they worked together at a homeless shelter. She introduced us in the hope that I would be willing to write a column about Louis’s concept of a national network of group homes for the homeless. Louis, a mere twenty-six at the time, was already so persuasive and so dedicated that I not only wrote, the column (MAHNO A HOME IN YOUR HEART AND IN YOUR COMMUNITY) but also agreed to serve on the board of Harmony House, the group house he was setting up in the District. Louis was probably the most secure black man (or maybe man, period) I had ever encountered, the product of Washington’s black upper-middle class, Yale University, and Harvard Business School. He wasn’t especially handsome (unless you happen to think the Gregory Hines type is handsome) but whenever he entered a room there wasn’t anybody else you wanted to look at. He had gone to business school sharing the basic make-it-big assumptions of his parents—that upon graduation he’d sign on with some major corporation and swiftly move onward and upward, straight to the top. But a funny tiling happened to Louis in between the MBA and the CEO—he fell in love with Adrienne, and she radicalized him.

  I met Adrienne once, shortly before she left Louis for a member of the Irish Republican Army, and found her awesomely intolerable. The trouble is that it’s hard to tell you why I found her so awesomely intolerable without sounding (as she would immediately label me) racist, sexist, classist, gynophobic, and homophobic, plus phallo-, ethno-, Euro-, and logocentric. Adrienne was so politically correct that she once organized a feminist boycott of man-made fibers and demanded the firing of a professor who, she said, had displayed a demeaning attitude toward Asians by publicly using the phrase “a chink in his armor.” Her definition of date rape included any consensual sexual act that ended without the woman’s having an orgasm. And her response to a compliment (from me) on how wonderful she looked in her leather jump suit was a lecture on how the application of stereotyping standards of attractiveness invariably led to the un-PC sin of “lookism.”

  I learned long ago to stop asking why terrific people like Louis fall in love with major pains in the butt like Adrienne. I mean, maybe the only true answer is: “That old black magic has me in its spell.” Or “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Or “Ah, sweet mystery of life.” But maybe Louis loved Adrienne because, in her own profoundly obnoxious way, she forced him to question his habits of easy privilege, because—through the fog of her relentless rhetoric—he glimpsed some vision of nobility. (Or maybe the reason he loved her was because she did some amazing tricks in bed.) In any case, Louis loved Adrienne and that love completely transformed him politically, teaching him that his blackness counted more than his Yaleness or Harvardness, and eventually leading him out of the Fortune 500 and into the ghettos of Washington, D.C.

  I was hoping that his insights into some of Washington’s more beleaguered neighborhoods could throw some light on how I might help Jeff.

  “What do you know,” I asked Louis, “about this block in Anacostia?” I named the block.

  “Stay away from it.”

  I nervously cleared my throat. “Well, um, my older son, Jeff, has recently purchased some properties there.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  I explained about the urban revitalization project—about its glowing prospects and its collapse.

  “Real tragic for the speculators,” said Louis.

  I decided to ignore that rather unsympathetic remark. “So how bad is the neighborhood?” I asked him.

  “It used to be okay,” he said, “and maybe it will be again. But right now it is strictly a shooting gallery.”

  “You mean shooting up drugs, or shooting one another?”

  “I mean both,” Louis said.

  “I guess that’s why all of Jeff’s tenants are moving out.”

  “You got it, Brenda. And it’s no place for that yuppie son of yours, no matter what kind of mogul he thinks he is.”

  “He doesn’t exactly think he’s a mogul these days. He thinks he’s—may I quote the words of an eloquent former President?—in deep doo-doo.”

  I started out fairly calm but grew increasingly upset as I explained how Mr. Monti (with his trust-me sweet talk and his screw-you contract) was demanding full payment of money that Jeff didn’t have. And explained how Jeff was about to lose his condo, his Rockville properties, his Jaguar, his inheritance, and his shirt. And explained how Jeff couldn’t even pay the mortgages on his buildings in Anacostia, because if he didn’t have tenants he didn’t have rent, without which he didn’t have the mortgage money. And explained how Jeff desperately desperately desperately needed to raise some money on those buildings. And explained . . .

  “Whoa, wait a minute, Brenda,” Louis interrupted me. “I just need a little clarification here. Like, is Jeff going to go to jail for this?”

  “No. He’s not going to Jail. But he’ll . . .”

  “Anyone threatening to put a bullet in his back?”

  “This isn’t drugs. This is real estate.”

  “Are his wife and babies about to be deprived of food or shelter or medical necessities?”

  “Cut it out, Louis. What are you saying? You know he doesn’t have any wife or babies. But he’s got a very big problem.”

  “And what’s the worst thing that this very big problem could lead to?”

  “He could lose everything he owns. Which admittedly is not starvation, or death or disease, or a prison term in Attica, or—I can’t believe that you are acting so supercilious.”

  There was a long pause at the other end before Louis spoke again, this time in a much nicer tone of voice.

  “I’m sorry, Brenda, I’m sorry. You’re right. Hey, if I’m not careful I’ll wind up
sounding like Adrienne.” He sighed. “I know that for Jeff this is big trouble. I guess I’m just trying to put it into perspective.”

  Don’t think I’m opposed to putting things into perspective. Indeed, I have urged my readers in many a column to make an effort to take the larger view. And certainly I would never deny that if you compare Job on his ash heap, Jesus on his cross, Joan at the stake, and Jeffrey Joshua Kovner in bankruptcy court, Jeff is definitely the J with the least aggravation. Nevertheless, the fact remained that my son was in trouble and I in tended to help him. So, as I said to Louis, “If you’re able to help me help him, just do it.”

  Louis calmed me down, said he had some ideas, would make some phone calls, would get back to me. He apologized again for being supercilious and (I hope he was smiling) Afrocentric, and assured me that he was on the case.

  • • •

  Although Louis is only four years older than Jeff, he is much more mature. And although he is twenty-one years younger than Jake, he, is much more, street smart. In addition, Louis is much more direct and no-nonsense than either Philip or Mr. Monti, or for that matter any man I knew. Which was why I’d been able to say to him, after a meeting at Harmony House early in March, that I needed to go to bed—just one time—with a young black activist and hoped that he would be willing to accommodate.

  Louis scratched his head as I spoke, then gave me a warm, slow grin. “I’ve got no problem with that,” he replied. “Say when.”

  I recalled that Jake had mentioned that he had a conference in New York on the evening of the next Harmony House board meeting. Louis and I agreed to Do It then. It was only after we’d parted, and I had opened my little date book to enter the date, that I was reminded that I had already made some plans for earlier that day. There, on the March 18 page, was the information, neatly printed in capital letters: P.E.H.A.B.C.

  4

  •

  THIGHS AND WHISPERS

  If anyone had asked me whether, and when, I planned to tell Jake that his older son was facing financial disaster, I would have replied that Jake already knew. (Wasn’t he sitting right there on the porch the night Mr. Monti warned us that our “real estate genius” would soon be begging on street corners?) I would also have replied that in view of the fact that Jake had seen fit to ignore this warning, too bad for him. I would also have replied that nonetheless I intended to tell him about it . . . eventually.

  The reason I wasn’t in any hurry to talk to Jake about Jeff was that talking to Jake was difficult these days. He used to be a good friend of mine—CAN HUSBANDS AND WIVES BE BEST FRIENDS? was a column devoted to an affirmative answer—but in recent years our friendship has started to pale. And although I don’t believe that the survival of our marriage is in question (as it was when Jake took up with Sunny Voight), it is suffering from something worse than the marital common cold. Like maybe the flu. Like maybe even pneumonia.

  In any case I’m convinced that our rising tensions (I think I’ll ditch the illness imagery) are tied to the success of my newspaper column. Which has led, in the past few years, to lucrative speaking engagements, TV talk show appearances, and a certain (not unwelcome) amount of celebrity. But which also has led to the toppling of Jake from his long-entrenched position in the family as chief financial provider and leading authority. To call a spade a spade (which is not, despite what Adrienne says, a racist remark), I-believe that Jake is resentful of my success. “No,” he once said, his eyes frosting over, When I directly confronted him with this theory, “I only resent what success has done to your character.”

  I believe I’ve already mentioned that Jake regards me as controlling and simplistic. He also seems to think I think that I’m much smarter than he thinks I am. (“A little learning,” he has taken to muttering ominously, “is a dangerous thing.”) He also describes as “prurient” and “nosy” and “intrusive” my passionate interest in the human condition. And he has more than once accused me of using die power of my column “to recklessly mislead” my reading public.

  That last accusation arises (you will not be surprised to learn) whenever I write columns on medical matters, which—since I don’t have a Washington outlet—are probably being sent to him by some secret agent in the AMA. He absolutely hated STAND UP TO YOUR DOCTOR. He was enraged over NOBODY KNOWS YOUR BODY LIKE YOU. And last winter we fought an entire day about WHY ARE DOCTORS STILL SCARED OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE?

  In my column I pointed to the closed-mindedness that afflicts too many members of the medical profession, making them ignorant of, and dismissive of, nontraditional forms of healing. While granting that the claims of holistic healers and other out-of-the-mainstream practitioners must be examined with a healthy skepticism, I offered some stirring vignettes of startling cures achieved by assorted unorthodox means. Many of my readers wrote to say that they’d found my column thoughtful and eloquent. Not Jake, however, who acted as if I had written a paean of praise to Joseph Mengele, the Nazi doctor.

  “You’re encouraging quackery,” he snarled. “You’re sending innocent, trusting people to charlatans.”

  “All I’m doing is asking them to consider a broader definition of health care. Which is something”—I smiled a mean smile—“you doctors seem temperamentally unable to do.’ ” (The “you doctors” was a mistake, but never mind.) “Furthermore,” I continued . . .

  I will spare you the rest of our argument, which began at the Phillips gallery, our number one favorite art museum in Washington, where we go from time to time to pay homage to the blissful Bonnards and Renoir’s sensual Luncheon of the Boating Party. The Phillips, once a private home, is to grand museums like the Louvre what the Bishop’s Garden is to the Tuileries gardens—not anywhere near as spectacular, but exquisite, human-dimensioned, user-friendly. Visiting the Phillips can sometimes be, for me, a spiritual experience, but not when I feel like bopping Jake with the Boating Party, whose fleshy, contented ladies and gents, lounging over lunch, stood in sharp contrast to us carping Kovners. Indeed, as I consider the deep dislike (okay, hate) we felt for each other that day, I believe it is all for the best that Jake does not get to see my newspaper column more regularly, He would not have appreciated, for instance. IT’S REALLY OKAY TO FAKE IT NOW AND THEN, which—though I continue to stand by every word I wrote—certainly provoked a lot of controversy.

  Among the things I advocated faking now and then were geographical knowledge (nod thoughtfully and don’t ask where Ouagadougou is), pesto sauce (Contadina puts out a pesto which, if you wanted to claim that you made it yourself, no one—and I mean no one—could tell that you hadn’t), and orgasms (moan a few times and contract your vaginal muscles). I also relayed some crafty advice passed on to me years ago by an enterprising and quite large-bottomed lady who, whenever, a lover was in residence, would strategically drape a couple of pairs of tiny bikini pants around her bedroom, She was absolutely convinced that these tiny bikini underpants—three sizes smaller than those she actually wore—would succeed in persuading her lovers, thanks to the power of suggestion, that her bottom was small enough to fit into those pants.

  Now I happen to think that this is a funny story. Not massively hilarious, but cute. Yet although it drew a laugh from friends like Carolyn and from some of my readers (who wrote and told me so), there isn’t a man among the four I went to bed with this year to whom I could tell it in hopes of sharing a giggle. At one time Jake might have laughed at this story, but now that he’s into finding flaws in my character he would doubtless see this as proof of another flaw. Louis might want to laugh, but I suspect that Adrienne’s spirit still whispers in his ear, “Beware of lookism,” Philip wouldn’t laugh, though he might murmur “Most amusing,” and then he would turn it into a two-hour special some meditation on women and beauty and the nature of truth called “Thighs and Whispers.” As for Joseph Monti, I actually tired to tell him this story the day we set the date for our sex rendezvous. But although, he was eagerly making plans to betray his wife and church, and care
ssing my left nipple while he was planning, he frowned at the mention of “underpants” and said that pretty women shouldn’t soil their lips with smutty stories.

  • • •

  The planning meeting with Joseph Augustus Monti took place March 10, in the back of a white stretch limo that first drove me to National Airport, then him to McLean. I had offered—between my quarterly torture session with Sherman Schwartz, my periodontist, and the 5:30 plane I was catching to go to New York—to stop by his office to drop off what I hoped he might find a helpful column on children called LET THEM GO AND THEY’LL COME BACK AGAIN.

  “You don’t have to come to the office. Just call me up when you’re done with your gums and I’ll pick you up in the car,” Mr. Monti countered. “We can talk about the children while I’m taking you to the airport on my way home.” He assured me that the detour would be “no trouble, no trouble at all. In fact,” he added caressingly, “a pleasure.” I could tell right away that my unspoken goal—to set up an appointment to go to bed with him—was going to be achieved without much difficulty.

  The chauffeur-driven limo, its smoked-glass partition providing privacy and its miniature bar providing a nice Burgundy, seemed made for an easy segue from “let’s talk about Wally and Josephine,” to a fraught-with innuendo “let’s talk about us.” It didn’t take long before I was soulfully saying to Mr. Monti, “I married very young and I sometimes feel I missed out on . . . certain kinds of experience. On the other hand,” I hastened to add, to let him know I wasn’t unhappy, just horny, “I’m fortunate in having a wonderful marriage.”

  Mr. Monti confided that he too—“knock wood,” which he knocked—was exceptionally fortunate in his marriage. “Three beautiful daughters. Two grandchildren on the way. A wonderful wife.”