Roscoe

by William Kennedy

  “We were young in this house, but never in this room.”

  Young lovers of a sort, lovers as children, strangers in middle age grown back into children. But she did not want those children’s games, the touch in the half-dark, just so far, no farther. And Roscoe’s poet: What did we do, I wonder, before we loved, unweaned we sucked on country pleasures, childishly. She took off her jacket and unbuttoned her sweater for him, sleight of hand behind her back and, woman as magician, breasts appear in the light, the full, bright light, aging, falling but not quite fallen, Roscoe never weaned from these, and he: I suck thee, thou, you, these, each, both, and she let her jacket fall and took off her sweater and let the bra fall into her hand, and to the floor. Roscoe crouched before her and raised her skirt, found nylons, the belt holding them tight on her thighs, silk knickers, he slid them down her hips, her bush appearing in the full, bright light, the color of fall’s last foliage, and I kiss thee, thou, you, this, it, we’ve done this before in our moderate way. And she: Yes, you have, somewhat, but we no longer need to be moderate. And she unbuttoned her skirt and let it fall, stepped out of it, picked up her jacket and put it on, naked as possible under the circumstances, but I’m freezing. Roscoe took off his jacket and shirt, put his jacket back on in solidarity with her, rid himself of clothes, shoes, socks, you can’t make love with your socks on, as Veronica sat on the bed and waited for him to be ready, was he ever, put her mouth around him, full mouth in the full, bright light, and felt him with both her hands, nothing childish about these moves, and said, That’s only hello, and stood then and put her mouth on his mouth and said, There is more. She smiled with a certainty of purpose Roscoe had never seen in these circumstances, and she sat again on the bed, still holding him, then let him go and lay back and spread her legs, thinking, This is why they punish you, this is why my mother was punished when she did this, and of course she did do it, more difficult for her, wasn’t it, in her repressive day, Catholic Jew, subordinate woman who could not be willful by law or moral ordination, we will punish any aggression, madame; yet she was wanton for my father and said as much to us, and for whom else was she so? None else, not she, and what of you, my dear? The good husband Elisha, now the good soldier Roscoe, and who else? Roscoe moved toward her and saw her face changing yet again, head flat and mouth now curved with the pressure of oncoming love, is this love, Veronica? She watches him to see what he looks like when he sees her this way and to imagine what she becomes in his eyes, and he in hers, and what those images do to them—singular instant—and the poet again: My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, as with both hands she opens herself, rare gesture, never so open, so aggressive with this man, and modesty can go to hell, this I give Roscoe, who gave me back my life. For you, she said. He has readied himself for this for thirty-one years, make no mistakes now, Roscoe, easy is the avenue to the divine places. Roscoe is a man of too much girth, too much need, too old for so much life, isn’t he? No, and don’t go around telling lies about Roscoe in the midst of his young man’s realized dream, even his own uninhibited imagination trumped by what he is feeling now, nothing abstract, no words, and of course he thinks this time it must truly be love, always was with her even when this was off limits and you could only imagine, deceive yourself that it would ever be otherwise, but here it is, isn’t it? Open love? And as he moves into the breach he says, I do think this is love, and she says, I believe it is, and Roscoe is ready to say that this is a consecration of two shopworn lives, yet he wonders, as usual, what is really going on here, love equaling love, another lying equation, is it? Which leaves out the hidden element beneath the familiar, the invisible bustle and hubbub under the carpet of foliage, what a frenzy there must be down under. Veronica sees herself emerging from the cocoon as a blue butterfly, new to her, though she has always known love with Roscoe, he always wanting her, she always pulled toward him, demonic, really, in its endurance, but she had to resist it, you can’t live on deceit and humiliation, one long-ago lapse at the hotel is all, and none with others, oh, brushings, maybe, a kiss of sorts, who were they, she doesn’t remember, yes, she does, one or two, but they don’t matter, Roscoe always saw that sort of thing, Elisha never. Roscoe feels achieved in her arms, illustrious man of privilege who believes no other except Elisha has been here, which is probably your self-deceit again, Ros, aggrandizing you-you-you and canonizing her, this adventurous woman, woman on a horse, she always did have the bold public image. You think you’re the only one who’s been here, then? Lived only on her fantasies, did she? Really? Yes, that’s all there was, don’t run her down. And they move, but inseparably, her golden hair fallen loose from its pins, visions of her now like the positionings of other women in Roscoe’s erotic museum, but she is not like others, these visions are new, because Veronica needs no coaxing, turning, or urging to be new to all that they’ve ever been, nothing like her in the museum, for this is love, my love, love, my love, it is all all all all love, my love, and we should accept that term as true for now, seek the reality that tried to kill you, and Roscoe certainly has learned to do that, but avoid truth, Roscoe, it’s the enemy. Isn’t it true that she accepts Roscoe? It is. She does. She knows how she has intimidated him, not through years of denial, he can handle that, but through rejection, which he didn’t handle well at all. But, oh, these pressures of love, and Roscoe owns them tonight, yes, he does, sweetest of pressures, less sweet than manic, swelling her senses as they come, and she holds back nothing now, once, then she is twice, and again, and oh my God again. Don’t tell Roscoe this is fraudulence, he knows fraudulence, this is love, my love, this is love, let it come. This is where we begin.

  Does Roscoe Really Believe in Ghosts?

  He has lived with the ghosts of Hamlet and Banquo, with post-Easter Jesus on the road, with Lourdes, Fatima, Padre Pio’s stigmata, with Marley, Dracula, the Topper gang, the depressed dead of Grover’s Corners, the Holy Ghost guised as a bird. He has listened to reasonable people, including Veronica, who believe they’ve seen ghosts. He has seen fabricated ghosts deceiving the gullible, including Veronica, seen his own dead father calling his name, and dead Elisha shaving with an electric razor. He knows ghosts are hallucinations, optical fantasies, formulations by visionaries, hypnotic suggestions, imaginative impositions, wishful resurrections with no more substance than a political promise. But promises sometimes materialize and so do ghosts, who can change life for the quick, as Elisha changed us all with his postmortal fiddlings. And so Roscoe allows for all realities, including those that do not exist.

  The dominant reality for Roscoe tonight is passionate love, which has risen, fallen, risen, and then some, and is now in seemly quiescence. They have been back in the Trophy House for an hour, Gilby still in profound slumber, Veronica napping on the sofa, ready to rise up for ectoplasmic visitors, and Roscoe rocking in a rocking chair by the reinvigorated fire, watching Veronica breathe. He is what is sometimes called lovesick. He cannot stop thinking about making love with her: how they stood, sat, moved, lay, how they spoke to each other in the language of love, how they stood, sat, moved, etc., repeat all, then rerepeat, then do it again, and then one more time, etc. This condition will prevail for days with diminishing intensity. Beyond the love words that he did speak, Roscoe now thinks he should have spoken to her about the future, his intention to leave politics and start a new life with her—How are you with that, my oh-so-sensual love? They could find a new great house, money not a problem for either of them. Alas, he cannot move too fast on such things, usurping. But when she awakens, he will point out that today is the second time he, she, and Gilby have been alone together away from home, the first in Puerto Rico in 1933, when they flew down for his birth, baptized him there, godfather Roscoe, surrogate adopting father. As the boy grew, Roscoe became father on call, father by desire, and after Elisha’s death, caretaker father, juridical father, preludes, were they, to becoming step father of the holy Roscoe family? But he cannot move too fast, usurping.

  He set out the
Salignac and the brandy snifters he had brought down from the lodge. He placed one snifter by sleeping Veronica, the others on the table for himself, Elisha, and the two traditional ectos. He left the old wicker chairs ready for the two, and he brought a third chair for Elisha. He poured the Salignac, varying the pours, one of them drinks more than the other, gave a bit to Veronica, left Elisha’s snifter empty, then poured his own, sat, and tasted it, magnifique, and considered how to summon ghosts. Sit here till Christmas, Ros, no rustically well-dressed gentlemen will turn up speaking wind sounds and ectosipping your splendid brandy. Blood tests, elections, judges, juries are easy, but a habeas corpus for the dead? You don’t know their names or faces; they don’t speak any known language. Perhaps they’re generic ghosts, perpetuating a bygone Tristano life-style: brandy, tweeds, soft handmade Italian leather boots, you made up the boots, Ros, and they’re not generic ghosts, they were friends of Ariel, came here often, before your time, had money, one a Scotch-Irish insurance man name of Amos Ford who liked duck hunting, the other a fly fisherman, Seth Cooper, department-store owner from Albany. They found common ground at Tristano, discovered they could talk fish and birds forever, at which point their lives achieved lucid but brief symmetries, for a great wind blew up, capsizing Seth’s boat, and blowing a tree down onto Amos’s duck blind.

  “The same wind did you both,” Roscoe said. “Imagine that.”

  In the afterlife they were apotheosized as ideals of their pursuits, and were allowed to meet each other at Tristano on select days to remember the stillness of the water just before the great wind blew them into death, to remember the precise size, weight, color, and markings of every bird, every fish that ever died by their hand, to consider whether fish or birds were more intelligent, or equally gifted with reason, for each does know the enemy and does know to flee destruction at his hand; and, considering that nature is based in injustice and suffering, Seth and Amos were also mandated to dwell on how the subtraction of all those creatures’ lives changed the natural world.

  “You now know each duck and fish you killed?” Roscoe asked. “Have you named them? . . . A few . . . But you really do recognize every one? . . . Amazing memory . . . Ah, everybody has that over there.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Veronica asked, one eye open.

  “Amos and Seth,” Roscoe said. “They used to come here.”

  “Who? Where are they?”

  “Here in their chairs, can’t you see them? Say hello.”

  “Hello, Amos; hello, Seth.”

  “This is Veronica,” Roscoe said. “Yes, she’s a beauty . . . sleeping beauty . . . No, we’re not married, but that’s not a bad idea.”

  “Are they worried that we’re not married?”

  “No,” said Roscoe, “but I am. They were friends of Ariel, and they died in a big wind in 1906. Seth is the older one with the white mustache and the tan leather vest. You shopped in his store, Cooper’s, on North Pearl Street, when you were a child. Seth remembers you and your mother . . . Uh-huh . . . Seth says he also saw you at Saratoga.”

  “Roscoe,” Veronica said.

  “Just let them talk,” Roscoe said.

  “Are you talking to the ghosts?” Gilby asked. He stood in the doorway of his room, in pajamas, robe, and sweat socks, his cowlick standing tall from sleeping on it.

  “Come and sit down,” Roscoe said. “Meet Seth and Amos. They both knew your father when he was a boy. This is Gilbert Fitzgibbon, gentlemen, my godson.” Gilby walked slowly across the room and sat on the sofa beside his mother, never taking his eyes off the empty chairs. Roscoe refilled Seth’s and Amos’s brandies.

  “There’s nobody sitting there. Nobody’ll drink that,” Gilby said.

  “No? You should’ve seen what was in those glasses five minutes ago. We were talking hunting and fishing, and which one is smarter, a duck or a trout . . . Oh? . . . They say your father’s coming.”

  “I don’t see him,” Gilby said. “I don’t see anybody.”

  “Just watch that chair,” Roscoe said pointing to Elisha’s place at the table. “I mean seriously watch it. Pay attention. Listen. Quiet. The loudest noise you hear is the fire, listen, then you hear your own breathing, listen, then you hear mine, listen and you’ll see everything that’s there, and then you’ll start to see everything that isn’t, keep listening and you’ll find sympathy with all things, you’ll hear the moon shine and the grass grow. Do you remember what your father looked like the last time you saw him? He looks like that now, except he got rid of most of the gray in his hair, and he looks younger. Close your eyes and look at him. Hair combed same as always, they didn’t make him change it . . . Oh yes? . . . Seth says you get to pick your favorite age when you come back. Your father picked forty-six, eight years ago, 1937, the year the Yankees took the Series from the Giants in five games and Pleasure Power won the Travers at Saratoga. A good year for us. The lines in your father’s cheeks aren’t quite as deep as they became, and his energy level is up. You were four years old that year, and your parents bought you a blue tricycle for Christmas. John Thacher was re-elected our Mayor, FDR was a year into his second term, and the second war hadn’t started yet. The Nazis hadn’t taken over Vienna, so your mother’s Jewish uncles and aunts were still alive. See what your father’s wearing? His gray houndstooth jacket with the suede elbow patches, much like our visitors’ jackets . . . What’s that, Elisha?.. . He says he likes what we’ve been doing for him, especially the way the trial came out . . . He predicts Alex will be re-elected . . . I know that, Elisha, and I’m not even dead . . . Ah . . . He says, yes, he’s trying to say . . . ‘I died too quickly, too soon, and I left a vacuum. I’m sorry about that,”’ and Roscoe’s voice deepened, picked up the Elisha timbre and cadence he’d been mimicking for forty years. He poured the Salignac into Elisha’s snifter. “‘I wish I’d had a chance to talk to somebody, tell you all what was on my mind, but I didn’t have time.’”

  “You killed yourself,” Gilby said.

  “Gilby, what are you saying?” Veronica said.

  “Everybody knows it,” said Gilby. “I’m always the one who never gets told. You took poison,” he said to the empty chair, with a glance at Roscoe. And Roscoe saw in Veronica’s face the terror that truth brings; and he feared it more than she.

  “‘You know what they did in the Middle Ages?’” Elisha asked. “‘They drove a stake through the heart of any man who killed himself. They still do that with Dracula, but not with suicides anymore. Because now everybody knows there’s no such thing as suicide. There’s only death. Some people die years before they bury them. People get sick. People go crazy I met a fella over here, his wife insured him against going crazy and then he went crazy. They put him in the asylum and she went every week and brought him bananas, he hated bananas. Then he died. You think she killed him, or was it the bananas? You don’t know what makes people crazy. Just a little too much of the old EP and then—bingity bing!—there goes the whole kitty bosso. My trouble was I couldn’t say what was on my mind, it was so complicated. I tried, but it wouldn’t come out. A secret, even from me. Some kind of code, I suppose it was, but I never could solve it. Breedy ale wouldn’t kitty, wouldn’t cut pips. I was sick and got sicker and then I died. You say I killed myself, but I was dead before the poison. That poison was there for years, just waiting. So many times we don’t know we’re drinking poison. Could be just like sipping this great brandy,’” and Roscoe lifted Elisha’s snifter and sipped from it, put it back where it was. “‘We try to do something, but before we can finish it, everything changes and there’s no point doing it anymore. That’s a disease, when you don’t do the only thing you ever wanted to do. Probably you made the wrong choice, lived in the wrong town, did the wrong work for the wrong reasons, married the wrong woman, I didn’t do that. Poison in your system but it doesn’t seem like poison. You’re dead but you keep living. You’re a corpse but you can’t get to the cemetery. You talk, eat, smile but you don’t know you’re doing any
of it, how could you? You’re dead. But, Gilly my boy, you’re not dead, and neither are your mother and Roscoe. You all had quite a day today, seeing those eagles. Seth can probably call them by name, right, Seth? No. Seth says he only knows ducks. But a good day like today, that’s worth a lot. It’s gone, and you’ll go home tomorrow, no more Tristano, no more eagles. But just because a good day slips into history doesn’t mean it’s gone. You had it once and you’ll have it forever in memory. You came up here looking for me because I’m in your memory, and here I am talking about death. I don’t mean to be gloomy when you all have so much life. You’ll be all right, all of you. Just keep asking that question, the one you don’t know how to answer and hardly know how to ask. I miss you all terribly, and I hope I’ll see you later.’”

  In the silence that followed, Roscoe took a long swallow of his own brandy and started rocking again. Gilby stared at the chair, then at Roscoe, anticipating more. “Is he gone?”

  “He is.”

  “Are Seth and Amos gone?”

  “They are.”

  “They weren’t really here.”

  “No?”

  “Were they?”

  “I think they were,” Veronica said. “I heard them.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Back in the vase, maybe, like that genie,” she said.

  “They were all Roscoe,” Gilby said.

  “One of them was your father,” she said. “I’d know his voice anywhere.”

  “You were my father, weren’t you, Roscoe?”

  “No, but I’d like to be, in case anybody asks.”

  “He did sound like my father,” Gilby said to his mother.

  “I hope you remember his words,” she said. “It was so sad to hear him. But wasn’t it a lovely visit?”