by Paul Beatty
After Talley left Brown and completed his stint as a volunteer with Diana Vreeland at the Met, he became known in New York fashion circles for these things: insisting, at his local post office, on the most beautiful current stamps and holding up the line until they materialized; serving as a personal shopper for Miles Davis at the request of Davis's companion, Cicely Tyson; answering the telephone at Andy Warhol's Interview, in his capacity as a receptionist, with a jaunty "Bonjour!" and taking down messages in purple ink (for bad news) and gold (good news); wearing a pith helmet and kneesocks in the summer; being referred to by the envious as Queen Kong; becoming friends with the heiress Doris Duke and attending, at her invitation, many of her appearances as a singer with a black gospel choir; overspending on clothes and furnishings and running up personal debts in his habitual effort to live up to the grand amalgamation of his three names.
The late seventies, when André Leon Talley came into his own, is the period when designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Halston produced the clothes that Talley covered at the beginning of his career as a fashion editor at WWD, clothes often described as glamorous. It is the period referred to in the clothes being produced now by designers like Marc Jacobs and Anna Sui. "It was a time when I could take Mrs. Vreeland and Lee Radziwill to a LaBelle concert at the Beacon and it wouldn't look like I was about to mug them," Talley says.
Daniela Morera, a correspondent for Italian Vogue, has a different recollection. "Andre was privileged because he was a close friend of Mrs. Vreeland's," she says. "Black people were as segregated in the industry then as they are now. They've always been the don't-get-too-close-darling exotic. Andre enjoyed a lot of attention from whites because he was ambitious and amusing. He says it wasn't bad, because he didn't know how bad it was for other blacks in the business. He was successful because he wasn't a threat. He'll never be an editor-in-chief. How could America have that dictating what the women of America will wear? Or representing them? N o matter that André's been the greatest crossover act in the industry for quite some time. Like forever."
TALLEY'S fascination stems, in part, from his being the only one. In the media or the arts, the only one is usually male, always somewhat "colored," and almost always gay. His career is based, in varying degrees, on talent, race, nonsexual charisma, and an association with people in power. To all appearances, the only one is a person with power, but is not the power. He is not just defined but controlled by a professional title, because he believes in the importance of his title and of the power with which it associates him. If he is black, he is a symbol of white anxiety about his presence in the larger world and the guilt such anxiety provokes. Other anxieties preoccupy him: anxieties about salary and prestige and someone else's opinion ultimately being more highly valued than his. He elicits many emotions from his colleagues, friendship and loyalty rarely being among them, since he does not believe in friendship that is innocent of an interest in what his title can do.
Talley is positioned, uniquely, at the intersection of fashion, magazine publishing, television, and high society. He regards his position as a privilege, and he flaunts it. "A large part of his life is Vogue," Candy Pratts Price, the magazine's fashion director, says about him. "Which explains the vulnerable, intense moods he goes through when he thinks someone here is against him. We've all been there with those moods of his, and there is pretty intense."
Talley's emotional involvement with women rises in part from nostalgia. He seems to project his grandmother's intentions and concerns for him, and Cynthia P. Smith's and Diana Vreeland's as well, onto his female colleagues at Vogue, and he seems to feel spurned when they exercise the independence inherent in a modern-day professional relationship. Often, the results are disastrous. When Talley is in favor, his colleagues adopt him as a totem of editorial success; when he is not, they regard him as a glittering but superfluous accessory.
His interest in romance is nostalgic, too. For him, romance is not about ending his loneliness; rather, it flows from the idea, expounded by Baudelaire, that love is never truly attained, only yearned for. (Talley's contemporary version of this: "No man, child," he might say, telephoning from his apartment in Paris. "No man. Just another video evening alone for the child of culture.") Talley's romantic yearnings are melancholic: he is susceptible to the prolonged, unrequited "crush" but is immune to involvement. He avoids engaging men he is attracted to. Generally, he is attracted to men who avoid him. He avoids the potential rejection and hurt that are invariable aspects of romantic love. Going to a gay bar with Talley, then, is an odd experience. In gay bars, as a rule, all bets are off: everyone is the same as everyone else because everyone is after the same thing. In a sense, the common pursuit divests everyone present of his title. Talley rarely speaks to anyone in this sort of environment. Mostly, he glowers at men he finds appealing and lays the blame for their lack of immediate interest in him on racism, or on the sexually paranoid environment that AIDS has fostered everywhere. Perhaps he just prefers the imagery of love made familiar by fashion magazines: images of the subject exhausted by "feeling," undone by a crush, recuperating in an atmosphere of glamour and allure.
Once, in New York, I had dinner with Talley and his friend the comedian Sandra Bernhard. She asked me how long I had known André. I said, "I fell in love with him in Paris." There was a silence—a silence that Andre did not fill with being pleased at or made shy by my comment. He grew large in his seat. He grew very dark and angry. And then he exclaimed, with great force, "You did not fall in love with me! You were in love with Paris! It was all the fabulous things I showed you in Paris! Lagerfeld's house! Dior! It wasn't me! It wasn't! It was Paris!"
When I first met Talley, I did not tell him that my interest in him was based in part on what other blacks in the fashion industry had said about him, on the way they had pointed him out as the only one. Blacks in the fashion industry have spoken of Talley with varying degrees of reverence, envy, and mistrust (which is how non-blacks in the fashion industry have spoken of him as well). One black American designer has called Andre Leon Talley "a fool. He'll only help those kids—designers like Galliano—if they've got social juice, if they're liked by socialites, the women who tell André what to d o . " Talley complains about people who underestimate the difficulty of his position. "It's exhausting to be the only one with the access, the influence, to prevent the children from looking like jigaboos in the magazine—when they do appear in the magazine. It's lonely."
TALLEY gave a luncheon in Paris a few years ago to celebrate the couture season's start. The people he welcomed to the luncheon—held in the Café Flore's private dining room, on the second floor—included Kenneth Jay Lane, a jewelry designer; Inés de la Fressange, a former Chanel model and spokesperson; Joe Eula, a fashion illustrator; Roxanne Lowitt, a photographer; and Maxime de La Falaise, a fashion doyenne, and her daughter, LouLou, the Yves Saint Laurent muse.
Following shirred eggs and many bottles of wine, Roxanne Lowitt, her black hair and black Chinese jacket a blur of organization, invited the guests to assemble in order to be photographed. LouLou de La Falaise removed an ancient huge round compact from her purse and began to powder her nose as her mother sat in readiness. Joe Eula ignored Lowitt and continued drinking. Talley got up from his seat to sit near Maxime de La Falaise, who had admired a large turquoise ring he wore.
"Look, LouLou!" Talley shouted. "The color of this ring is divine, no? Just like the stone you gave me!"
"What?" LouLou de La Falaise asked, barely disguising her boredom.
"This ring, child. Just like the stone you gave me, no?"
LouLou de La Falaise did not respond. She nodded toward Roxanne Lowitt, and Lowitt instructed her to stand behind Maxime de La Falaise and Talley. LouLou de La Falaise said, "I will stand there only if André tries not to look like such a nigger dandy."
Several people laughed, loudly. None laughed louder than Andre Leon Talley. But it seemed to me that a couple of things happened before he started laughing: he shutte
red his eyes, his grin grew larger, and his back went rigid, as he saw his belief in the durability of glamour and allure shatter before him in a million glistening bits. Talley attempted to pick those pieces up. He sighed, then stood and said, "Come on, children. Let's see something. Let's visit the House of Galliano."
JOHN FARRIS
in the park after school
with the girl & the boy
1994
Characters
GIRL
BOY
GOOD HUMOR MAN
STRANGER
JOGGERS
POLICEMEN
FRIENDS
VARIOUS OTHER ENTITIES
A PARK
THUMB PIANO ALTERNATES WITH M-80'S THROUGHOUT
GIRL: No. No.
BOY: Why?
GIRL: [GIGGLING1 I don't know.
BOY: What's wrong, then?
GIRL: Stop.
BOY: Stop what?
GIRL: Look at her. If I dressed the way that girl does over there, I'd be a bourgeois too. See? Everybody's flirting. Even the birds. Funny how those pines make a Japanese landscape out of this place. I went to Japan once . . .
BOY: With who?
GIRL: With my parents! Who'd you think I went with?
BOY: Your boyfriend. That guy I saw you with the other day.
GIRL: What guy?
BOY: C'mon . . . You know what guy.
GIRL: C'mon . . . What do you mean, "C'mon!" What am I, a mind reader? And I don't remember seeing you the other day . . .
BOY: You didn't. But I saw you . . . Who was he?
GIRL: I'm with a lot of guys. I'm with you, right? It could have been anybody.
BOY: I'm anybody?
GIRL: You know what I mean.
BOY: No. Tell me . . .
GIRL: I mean I like being with guys more than with girls. You know what I mean.
BOY: No.
GIRL: Then—well—you're stupid.
BOY: Don't try to change the subject. Tell me! Why not?
GIRL: Why should I? You'll only use it against me.
BOY: I won't.
GIRL: You're already doing it!
BOY: You're crazy! How can I be using, "it" against you, when I don't even know what "it" is?
GIRL: You won't respect me . . . You'll tell everybody . . .
BOY: I will not!
GIRL: I'll bet it's a Smith and Wesson . . .
BOY: No, it's a Glock! Plastic!
GIRL: Ooh . . . Show it to me! I love plastic! Let me feel it! Show it to me!
STRANGER RUNS BY. BOY SHOOTS STRANGER. STRANGER FALLS.
STRANGER: [SCREAMING] HELP! Help!
BOY: See?
GIRL: Oh. Oh. Oh. It's so beautiful! Can I touch it!
STRANGER: HELP! Help!
BOY: Are you sure?
GIRL: Oh, please—I told you—I just love it.
BOY: Well, okay. Just me, right?
GIRL: I swear. I swear to god. Only with you.
BOY SHOWS PISTOL TO GIRL
STPuNGER: Help!
GIRL: [FONDLING PISTOL] Ooh. I love it. What's your name?
BOY: Soldier.
GIRL: That's a nice name—Soldier. Say, where'd you get a name like that?
BOY: In the war. It just came to me.
GIRL: Gee, it does have sort of—you know—a nice ring to it. You know what? I think I want a name like that. I think I would die for a name like that. That's a name to die for. Soldier. Oh, soldier.
STRANGER: Help, please!
GIRL: Soldier. Soldier. Will you give me a name like that—will you?
BOY: I don't know—I'm young, yet. But—but what's your name now?
GIRL: Is that important? Why?
BOY: Tell me.
GIRL: Oh, alright. It's Piece. No Piece. My Father wanted to name me Any, but my mother said, No. Mother got her way. She usually does.
BOY: Mine, too . . . My father used to beat her but now that she has one of these . . . [HOLDING UP PISTOL]
GIRL: It's sooo beautiful . . . Do you have a silencer? Let me see it again.
BOY: Of course I do . . . I was born in N.Y.
GIRL: We were born in Kansas. My brother doesn't have one.
BOY SHOWS HER SILENCER, FITS IT TO PISTOL.
STRANGER: Help! Somebody please help me! Police!
BOY AIMS PISTOL AT STRANGER.
GIRL: Oh, please, why don't you let me do it?
BOY: Are you sure you're ready? Do you want to?
GIRL: Oh, yes, Soldier—more than anything else in the world!
STRANGER: HELP! Help!
BOY: Don't you think you should wait?
GIRL: Why?
BOY: Why—I don't know—well, because you're a woman.
Shouldn't you—
GIRL: Hey—talk about your double standards! I should wait just because I'm a woman? No, I am a woman—that's why I want it now.
BOY: [TEASING] Really—do you want it, really? [WAVING PISTOL. IT IS JUST OUT OF REACH.]
GIRL: Oh, you—why are you so macho? I thought you might be different. Just a bit. [MEASURING WITH THUMB AND FOPJEFINGER] But you're just like everybody else.
BOY: That's me.
STRANGER: Help me! Help me!
GIRL: You sure are. Give it to me!
SHE LUNGES FOR PISTOL. THEY STRUGGLE. PISTOL GOES OFF. BOY GOES LIMP.
GIRL: [AFTER A MOMENT] Soldier! Soldier? [SHAKING HIM] Oh! He's dead . . . It's got to be up to me now.
GIRL WALKS OVER TO STRANGER
STRANGER: No! No!
GIRL SHOOTS STRANGER
GIRL: Somebody's got to do it . . .
GOOD HUMOR MAN ENTERS RINGING BELL AND PUSHING CART
GIRL: Good Humor Man! Say—Good Humor Man! Give me an ice cream bar!
GHM: Don't have any ice cream.
GIRL: No ice cream! What is this? What do you have in there?
GHM: Fish. I have fish.
GIRL: Fish?
GHM: Fish.
GIRL: Fish? You know, it occurs to me I haven't seen one of those in a long time!
GHM: That's because I have them all in here. [PATTING CART]
GIRL: Chocolate?
GHM: Everything. I have everything. One chocolate coming up.
[OFFERS GIRL CHOCOLATE FISH] That will be three clams.
GIRL: Clams? I don't have any clams. How about three dollars?
GHM: Dollars? Dollars are not good. They look sick. Weak.
Their eyes are not good. If you look carefully, their eyes are all weak.
GIRL: Weak, weak, weak. I suppose that might be true. I just don't have any clams on me right now.
GHM: That's too bad. The fish is good. Clams are good.
GIRL: I'm sorry. I don't have any clams.
GHM: That's because I have them all. Right here. [PATS FREEZER]
GIRL: Well, what do you need with mine?
GHM: You don't have any.
GIRL: [WAVING PISTOL AT GHM] What do you need with them?
GHM: Time. I'm trying to buy time! Obviously.
GIRL: What's it worth to you?
GHM: One clam.
GIRL: One? It might as well be ten thousand.
GHM: One. I already have a Jaguar. It's a wreck.
GIRL: [LEVELING THE PISTOL] Give me the clam.
GHM: Wait. Do you—GIRL: [IMPATIENTLY] Give me the clam!
GHM: You can wait—it's I that haven't the time. Do you swear to take this clam—GIRL: Give it to me! [HOLDING OUT A HAND]
GHM: One clam coming up! [SLAPS CLAM INTO HER HAND]
GIRL: Okay, now give me another!
GHM: What?
GIRL: I said, give me another . . . NOW!
GHM: Do you mean another? I can't. That one was the very last clam in the clam bed. You have all the clams now.
GIRL: Every one?
GHM: Every one. You know, suddenly, clams don't matter so much anymore . . .
GIRL: And I've got it. I've got it! Wait. Clams are bivalves. Where there is one, there will soo
n be two!
GHM: Screw it!
GIRL: Why are you in such a bad humor? You're the Good Humor Man! You should make me laugh.
GHM: I got to make a living!
GIRL: I want ice cream!
GHM: Go fish! Chocolate! Look, it's melted. Too late! I'm all in.
GIRL: Strawberry?
GHM: I'm all out.
GIRL GOES OVER TO BOY. KICKS BOY.
GIRL: [TO BOY] Can't you get up? [TO GHM] He's dead. It was an accident.
SHOTS RING OUT OFFSTAGE. COUPLE STAGGERS ONSTAGE, DIE.
GIRL: [TO GHM] How about vanilla?
GHM: That will cost you one bean.
THREE SISTERS ENTER, DRESSED IN PINAFORES, GIGGLING.
GIRL: [TO SISTERS] You're so silly—will you ever stop being so silly?
SISTERS: [TOGETHER] We're girls. We have to be silly. [THEY GIGGLE]
GIRL SHOOTS THREE SISTERS. THEY FALL, SHRIEKING.
GIRL: [TO NO ONE IN PARTICULAR] They were just silly! It was an accident . . .
GHM PATS FREEZER. GIRL HOPS ON. THEY GO AROUND AND AROUND IN A CIRCLE.
GIRL: [AFTER A COUPLE OF TIMES AROUND] There are so many fences . . .
GHM: There have always been fences—real or imagined . . .
GIRL: [DECLAIMING] Give me liberty or give us death! I'm hungry . . . Give me a fish.
GHM: Nothing is free. Not even where the buffalo roam. There is at least the cost of labor, and I am always a specialist.
GIRL: Now!
GHM: [GOES INTO THE FREEZER. FEELS AROUND.
LOOKS] Oops! Would you believe—no vanilla? Well . . . I could have sworn—[ACCUSATORY] What do you know about this?
SIREN SOUNDS, AMBULANCE, FIRE ENGINE, MORE GUNSHOTS. RAP SONGS FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES PLAYED AT DIFFERENT INTERVALS. A JAGGED RONDO.
GIRL: What are you going to do?
GHM: I have an idea . . . [REMOVES FISHING TACKLE FROM A JACKET POCKET] You'll have to move over.
GIRL SHIFTS. GOOD HUMOR MAN SITS BESIDE HER, FEELING IN HIS POCKETS.
GHM: No. There are no worms . . . [SHRUGS] Eh? [DROPS A LINE INTO FREEZER] Maybe. [EXAMINES LINE] Nope!
GIRL: I love that song, don't you?
GHM: I can't hear you. Wait. [GRABS AT AIR] There. Fhes are good. [ATTACHES FLY TO HOOK. LOWERS LINE INTO FREEZER]