Meet My Maker the Mad Molecule

by J. P. Donleavy

  But I was glad at times along here in sun on these quiet roads where some buildings were built in the sky out of trees and near the river. The green the grass the cliffs and hills and bridges bent over the trains. Cool summer halls to click heels and spin down the stairs on my educated wrist. Noisy with the news. And deep in my own unsavage heart I loved nothing better than delivery.

  And Saturdays in Autumn afternoon kicking through the leaves I came to ring the bell and knock on the door and say I beg you pay me please. And the heads with after lunch eyes came out too beaten to refuse. In my little book I marked them paid and with some quiet charm of mine I tried to make them feel it was not the end of the world. And maybe there would be a new woman’s page soon. Or a competition for a prize.

  But some heartless called me liar and lingerer. Napping under trees, banging on doors and a whistler in halls. I whispered something about freedom and they shouted don’t come back no more and slammed the door. I walked away with young tears melting with despair. They’d all be sorry when they found me Christmas Eve shoeless and starved, dead in the snow.

  And weeks went by till one Sunday dawn in black winter I brought my pencil. I wrote across the front page HOW DOES IT FEEL TO CHEAT A CHILD. And tucked the paper carefully in the door. Monday creeping through the streets I saw the raging faces watching from windows everywhere and a man on a porch shaking a fist which he said would break my head. And fearful but forceful I told him drop dead. And ran.

  I prayed for spring when I could sing once more and steal the cooling cooky from a window sill. With the sun such a fat red thing up in the sky. And count my blessings instead of money. But things were sad instead of sunny when Mr. Brown screeched up in his sporty car. I wore my slack jaw. He wagged a finger, confound you D, the News is deluged with complaints, your public relations are a scandal, the customers claim you’re a nuisance and a vandal and did you write how does it feel to cheat a child? I did. Confound you D, don’t you know the customer is always right? Come along with me and apologise. I said no. He said so, you’re fired.

  Never to bring the news again. Or trap a customer on the street or write my editorial across the front page. A failed millionaire with no moroccan bound books for looks anywhere.

  Franz F

  He lived in Elderberry Street, in the West End of Boston, and had a shop front with a coldwater flat behind. In the basement of the building a man made wine and the fermented smell came up between the floor boards. The kitchen was misshapen, small and dark and whenever Franz turned on the light a lot of roaches would scurry over the sink and disappear in the wall.

  The little living room had a built in couch on which Franz slept. Some bookcases around the wall and in a farther tiny room there was another bed. Rattan shades on all the windows to keep out eyes passing in the alley. A big woolly rug on the floor. This was a lonely outpost. Except for the loud fights that went on in the rest of the building and sometimes on both sides of the street.

  At six any morning when he could not sleep, Franz stood in the shadow of his doorway to listen to the alarm clocks going off up and down the street, the ringing of these sad timepieces escaping out the open windows. Then taking a shower, and at eight fifty every morning, Monday to Friday, he put particulars in his briefcase, cornflakes inside him, and set off.

  Elderberry a narrow street with one or two grotesque trees arching and sneaking their branches between the houses. Empty flats to rent with the price written in white grease on the windows. Some buildings had fallen down and had become vacant lots where cars were parked. Franz F walking toward the river, slinging his briefcase ahead of him, sweeping his free arm across his face at the clouds of flies blossoming off the garbage as he passed. By the river there was a breeze, a brightness of water, and an early-morning green.

  Sometimes he went down behind the hospital past a red brick wall with a pair of big dark doors. If these were open, there was an empty trolley waiting by the steps. And certain times a black van from a funeral parlor would pull out, a man preceding it to warn traffic in the narrow street. Above these large doors were windows Franz could see into from the other side of the road. Shelves around the wall of a large room, rows of bottles and bottles. This is how we went one day.

  The hospital extended to the river. And here were grass, trees, and the building’s high balconies and curtained windows. Someone sitting in a wheelchair reading. And outside this entrance were always parked several long expensive cars. It gave one heart. Inside, a bright reception desk in the gleaming hall. And elderly women with canes and furs were helped up the steps by their chauffeurs.

  On the hottest days there was always freshness here along the river. Young maple trees spreading over the paths. At night the factory buildings across the water shone bright neon lights and rippled and flickered. Saturdays and Sundays the sailboats were out. White one-winged butterflies.

  Past the hospital was the jail. Always a little difficult to decide which place would be better to be, hospital or jail. But upon serious consideration of this problem, Franz chose the jail. At least it was near the river and within a stone’s throw of Charles Street Station. Nice to know that if you did make it over the wall you were near public transport.

  Climbing the steps to the station platform, Franz was a rigid figure, a lonely one in his Victorian suiting. In the train he always offered his seat to a woman. Doing so evoked a feeling that all was well with the world. Often there were tall horse faced girls travelling, who crossed legs largely lean and read books in their laps. If Franz was early for work he went for coffee in Harvard Square. This pleasant time of day, when the college buildings were coming awake with the summery flap of blue sneakers along the pavement. A tremendous change to come out of the enclosed darkness of Elderberry Street to these open spacious buildings. To see the bright smiling teeth of students. His train pulling into this last stop, a new atmosphere in the air. White clean walls of the tunnel. The magazine kiosk. Even the weighing and gum machines had a clean magic about them. And here he weighed one hundred and seventy one pounds and bought his gum.

  Franz F worked in a building just off the Square. It had the feeling of a library. There was a reception desk where a young blond woman, her hair tightly back in a bun, nodded her head to him as he came in. He doffed his cap, gave a slight bow, just so. A little frightened that she thought him pretentious. And his clothes a little too old worldly to be honest. He hoped as he rambled by each morning that she might ask him a question because he looked so intelligent. But her face was always neither sad nor glad and her name was Lydia.

  Her legs he knew by heart. Neat muscles knotting over long ankles and toes slightly pigeon. In the outside corner of each eye she had put a dark pencil line that gave her face a touch of Chinese beauty. Her silence made him feel she was aloof and slightly censuring. But passing each morning, he felt he wasn’t doing too badly.

  Climbing up the stairs to his room where two wide windows overlooked the street and opening his briefcase on the long board table. His hands looked such trembling hooks, freckled, tired and grey. This day was like all the rest and might be like all his future. In going to the window, raising it wide, putting elbows on the sill and looking down at the street and the tailor shop across, there was an iota of hope. All through one’s life there were the myriad days at school while outside was summertime under the skies.

  As the mornings grew toward noon, messengers brought sheets of yellow paper with many statistics. He went down line after line with his pencil, checking those which were related and made a list. From this list other lists would be made. And from these, in another room at the top of the building, people who had higher positions would come to a conclusion.

  This office was a lonely life. Two or three infrequent acquaintances might stop by, peek through the door, and chat for a minute. There was a feeling, reading these faces, that they were saying, come on and fight. But getting the gimlet eye, they retreated, making a wisecrack, and were off down the hall to more influential
people. The uncomfortable feeling descending on Franz that they were going to intrigue him out of his job.

  There were bigger problems than losing one’s job. Franz had for many years been interested in having an affair with a woman. One of those things where you like me and I like you. Things would start bravely enough. His shirt, underwear, and seersucker had been oven fresh for those light-blue evenings. The girl tall, fragrant, and socially registered perhaps. And to have his invitation accepted was undermining. He thought there was a secret with women, a combination that unlocked the chastity. That when you phoned to ask them to come to the Bach quartet, you sent a flower that afternoon. And often then, calling at her house, the bloom pinned to her dress hung wilted on its stem, a faded three-dollar overture.

  On these dates he took a taxi drive with the girl along the grassy banks of the Charles. Sitting stiffly upright, designating points of interest. And amazed at the nice looking clothes the girl had on. So many attempts in his life to arrange a scene of seduction. Cutting family ties, finding the privacy of one’s own quarters, roach ridden as they were. No friends who might pay a call casually and thus wreck a wrestle. But his suggestion for coffee after the concert met with a request to be taken home. The dutiful delivery, walking to their front doors, doffing hat, bowing, saying good night. The door closing, walking away, almost feeling her sigh of relief on the back of his neck.

  On these nights, the shop in Elderberry Street became a pit of despair. Nothing to lighten the burden of darkness. Maybe run the shower, chase the roaches. Go out past a bar, think of having a drink, see the smoke and the sour menacing men inside and instead buy a quart of beer from the corner store. The man shortchanging him two cents without fail. And they would go through the usual routine of, oh sorry, and a reluctant two pennies would be dropped one at a time into his upward palm.

  Saturday mornings after these terrible Fridays, Franz with shirt and tie would saunter toward the river, walking along past the jail to buy a New York Times at the drugstore. Along Charles Street, past the soothing brick, where inside there must be bliss to make the outside look so mellow. Behind the screened windows tall horse faced women whispering out of the shadows to husbands, darling, come and kiss me. Were it he, he would likely slip and break his neck rushing across the polished floor to her mouth.

  And this Saturday morning, a balmy breeze dipping in his hair, Franz made for the Public Garden, paper folded under his arm. An oasis of gigantic trees. Spindle shanked women anciently wrapped in Manx rugs reading with magnifying glasses on the benches. The swan boats quietly churning from pond to pond under the bridges.

  Today all the benches were taken and Franz made for the circular one around the tree. Two people go by, each with a bulldog. A nannie pushing twins in a baby carriage. Sitting down, crossing his legs, tugging up socks, Franz opened to the obituaries. He read the prominent deads. Not like the hot days in Elderberry Street, where you could see the bald pate of the undertaker gleaming from the upper half of his window as he worked. These deads in the paper did not die in vain.

  Franz heard the words, which came from the other side of the tree. He looked up and then back at his paper. He heard the words again and turned around. A girl’s foot and ankle jigging up and down, and he went back to his paper. Once more he heard the words and there was a sizzling in his stomach. They were simple ancient words almost without meaning, do you have a match.

  Leaning around the tree, Franz said to what he could see of this person, are you talking to me. And she said, yes, well, I think so. Do you have a match. Franz thought that if he did not have a match he would get up and run as fast as he could to the drugstore on the corner of Charles and Beacon Streets, and there get a match and run back with it already lit, holding his hand before the flame. The utter panic of this thought hit Franz and he laughed outright. The girl leaned forward and said, what’s the matter. Franz said it was something in his paper. And she said, well, do you have a match.

  Grimness spread on Franz’s lips. Hands came up to his eyes like cups to catch the tears. He had no match. His voice disappeared as well. The thought of actually making a run for the drugstore was too much. Like all women he had terrorized previously, this one too, would be gone by the time he got back. The hurried trip for the matches he might pass off as a gesture, a new knighthood. Alas, she would think it lunacy. Here he was, rooted to the spot, dying on each heartbeat.

  Sitting, his newspaper clutched in one hand, knees wide apart and feet so flat upon the path. Saturday, the hour before lunch. My God, what to say to the other side of the tree. There had been school days like this when teachers sent questions thudding on some dream. And you sat mum-chance.

  And her voice once more, I’m sorry if I bothered you. He heard her getting up. A foot crushing a cinder. And Franz said, don’t go away.

  In that public garden Franz sat talking out toward Arlington Street as she talked in the direction of Boylston. An open air confessional. His resonance increasing as the conversation went on. She said she came from the other end of earth. This statement a little scalding for Franz. But the place was New Zealand and he had heard of it before. Another item was, she was married to a Bostonian. He had heard of this too.

  She said she did not like America and was sorry she ever came. Her husband was a bore. So Franz told her of the delights of Boston. Beacon Hill, the red brick pavements, T Wharf, and the quiet seclusion of life. And she said that North Station waiting for trains had been enough of Boston for her.

  She got up and came to look at him around the other side of the tree. She was smiling at the foolish situation. She lived in Beaver Place. She said she had to meet someone but that he was interesting. Franz thought, O my God, when will the lies begin. And he walked her to the edge of the park, waving to her when she stopped and looked back from the corner of Beacon and Arlington. He had her telephone number. She told him to ring, perhaps next week.

  On Sunday, Franz came again to the Public Garden. Sat where he’d been sitting and relived the encounter. Remembering all the pebbles and each leaf of every weed. In joyous confusion he even bowed to one of the old ladies in her Manx rug and she raised an eye brow, what was left of it.

  He had scrubbed out his entire flat. And then tramped across Boston City. Through Scollay Square, down State Street, into the thick life of the markets. Waiting to phone her. To invite her up his decrepit street, by his begrimed store window, in the dust of which kids had written, if you’re so smart why aren’t you rich. Young kids have such clear minds.

  And if she came and when she came would she get cold feet as she neared, looking for his address. Get her to go by the library and along the worn dignity of Blossom Street. He could say something at the door, a verbal gallantry. The telephone was polished and placed just outside the kitchen on his octagonal table and perhaps would give dash to these digs.

  All this figured out on Sunday. A day when Franz finally sat for hours on the end of T Wharf staring out across Boston harbor. The sights and sounds of when all this was low scrubland, people by strange singular Indians. And a truck driver had come up to him and said, this ain’t nothing compared to that harbor they got in Frisco. I just finished driving from there.

  And Monday through the routine, except for an extra bun and coffee in the morning. The purchase of a new shirt from the tailor across the street at lunchtime, holding it like a book as he passed the receptionist. And that evening back in Elderberry Street, after a shower and half an hour’s deliberation, the final desperate writing out the words on a sheet of paper and pinning it to the wall above the phone. Franz dialled her number.

  Another girl had to fetch her. A lot of voices in the background. All the people he knew were so brave on the telephone. She said hello and he asked her through his fumbling voice would she come and have a coffee at his apartment. Silence. He said hello. She said hello. He said, what about it. She said no, she didn’t think she could. He said, as the emptiness got bigger, oh, you’re still listening. You haven’t
hung up yet. And she said, no, I haven’t hung up. Is that all you’ve got to say. Franz said, no, I’ve got more. And she said, well, I can’t wait all night. And then he said, would you like to see a play. She said, what. Franz said, I don’t know, just a play. And she said, what a funny thing to ask me to. I’m sorry but I’ve got to go now, good-bye.

  Franz gently hung up the phone. Standing in his dark shop where once they sold vegetables. He put his hand up to his brow and wiped away the dripping sweat. He closed his arms around his chest and held himself as he wept.

  For a whole week Franz spoke to no one. Taking his lunchtime sandwiches to the steps of Widener Library, he publicly tore at the crusts. He kept the door of his office closed and his head bent over the yellow sheets. In the evenings, unable to face the cloistered loneliness of Elderberry Street, he walked the streets of Cambridge. And one night, passing a straightbacked little crowd, he stopped and followed them and bought a ticket to a play.

  Teeth tightly clenched in his mouth as he came to work next morning, eyes ahead, and the receptionist stopped him dead in his tracks. She said, hey. And he turned and she came out from behind her counter and told him she had sat behind him last night at the Poet’s Theatre. Wearing a hard distant look and nodding his head, he went his way up the stairs and left her standing there.

  In the late night in Elderberry Street, Franz lay head on pillow staring at the sounds of feet as they walked on the ceiling above. He avoided the back end of the hospital these days and once he went swimming in the pool at the end of the street. But all were jaws of more loneliness. He had become a conversation piece on the steps of Widener Library.

  And then one afternoon, cap square on head, eyes bearing zero, he passed across the reception hall to go home. The receptionist stepped out in front of him and said, God damn it, you’re rude. Franz blinked, stepped back, and tried to make it around her. She said, yes, you’re God damned rude, and who the hell wants to speak to you anyhow. Franz said, you do, but nobody else does.