Twice Melvin

by James Pumpelly

  “Look right here,” she directs, pointing to a small, flask-shaped birthmark on the baby’s right hip, “it’s Artie all right, signed, sealed and delivered.“

  “Coincidence,” I mutter, taking a closer look, “…or a matter of interpretation,“ I add thoughtfully. “The little mark could well be the signature of this child’s calling in life…perhaps psychiatry. This mark could be the projective test of an inkblot, a Rorschach; one which you just imagined to resemble a flask.”

  “Pshaw!” A.M. tugging me into the hall like a punished child. “I wasn’t going to let you in on how I knew, but your flippant stubbornness compels me. I read Artie’s life pattern while he and Melody were sharing a booth in that New Hampshire diner she took us to.”

  “Life pattern?” I repeat in disbelief. “Are you telling me you interpret palms when minds won’t yield?”

  “You’re off the mark a bit,” she chortles, smug in her superior skills, “a life pattern emanates from the heart. And with Artie so scrupulously honest, it was a snap to decipher his code…almost too easy.”

  “Well, you know what they say about something that’s too easy: there’s a trick in it somewhere.”

  “You were the trick, and Charlene turned it,” A.M. shoots back, “but Artie is blameless throughout. He’s destined to have a better life this time.”

  “And here I thought his last life was about as idyllic as a man can hope for…which proves how little I know.”

  “Idyllic?” her tone suggesting she’s sincere. I’m not.

  “Yes, with a business that nourished him peacefully…and with the un-harried, unmarried life of a bachelor, what more could a man want?”

  “Well!” she huffs officiously, “from that little snapshot of happiness we can deduce the cause of your melancholy!”

  “Explain,” I challenge.

  “Man must know woman, in the biblical way, for the human race to continue. But according to you, it’s just such a prerequisite that precludes our happiness; a kind of mandatory – pardon the pun – prep for the race that despoils our run out of Eden.”

  “What’s this ‘our’ business,” I gibe. “Far be it from me to speak on behalf of your gender,” the appearance of a much distraught George O’Malley interrupting our imminent spat before it can fester; his gray, tragic eyes misting as he steps to the viewing window for a glimpse of his squalling junior.

  “Not much happiness being evidenced there,” I comment wryly. “Looks more like a man being led to the gallows.”

  “The hang-ups George suffers aren’t lethal,” she obliges grudgingly.

  “Not immediately,” I allow. “But maybe he’s teary from dread; dread of all the work Artie’s left him to do.”

  “But I’m telling you, he’s not going to follow through,” A.M. insists, “he’s not going to marry your other woman. In fact, when he’s satisfied the baby is normal, that’s when he’ll tell her; hoping the good report on the baby will cancel out his cancellation.”

  “What do you mean, ‘when he’s satisfied the baby is normal’?” I hasten to ask. “If it’s true I was responsible for providing the body, A.M., then-“

  “Just kidding,” she interrupts, “just tricking you into an admission…King Solomon’s ruling, you know…hand you the sword and you-“

  “Right,” I wince, “and I’m handing it right back, Aunt Martha. As of this instant, you can stop calling Charlene my other woman. Her baby has a body and a soul, but at least one of the two isn’t mine.”

  “Not yours?” she rejoins emphatically, prepared to enlarge on her rejoinder.

  “Not my soul,” I specify, “not my soul. And rearing the child is not what I’m referencing. It’s Artie’s last will and testament.” A.M. blinks inquisitively, prompting me to continue. “George has his hands full, believe me - and not from the complexity of Artie’s estate, either. Au contraire, it’s the large thing Artie wanted to do with the little he had.”

  “Sound’s familiar,” A.M. shooting me a knowing look.

  “The property, as you probably know, was leased; his books the only assets Artie owned,” I explain. “And therein lies the work: his books are to be auctioned off, the proceeds used to build covered bus stops for the county’s school children.”

  “What can be so difficult about that?” A.M. unsurprised by Artie’s thoughtfulness.

  “Well, first there’s Artie’s provision that Simon Farley play auctioneer.”

  “Comical to imagine,” A.M. agrees, “but not onerous,” both of us noting George’s anxious peer resolving into one of relief.

  “But there’s more,” I go on, “more than just the entertainment of a rhyming auctioneer. The convoluted terms of sale will be what drive George mad.”

  “What can be so difficult? You make a bid, and if successful, you settle up - pay cash, if required.”

  “That’s what I told him; but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Didn’t want cash? Artie?…didn’t want cold, hard-“

  “Doesn’t sound all that appealing from our side of the bridge, does it?” I interject. “But in answer to your question, yes and no. He wanted cash on the barrelhead; but he wanted my firm to top the high bid on his law books, The Church of the Good Shepherd the high bid on his religion section, the two tavern owners the high bids on his history collection, the general store-“

  “Wait! Stop right there!” Aunt Martha demands. “I see the benefit of legal books for a law firm, of religious writings for a church…and even Artie’s cleverness in soliciting charity from the grave; but where’s the connection of history to taverns?”

  “Just part of his misconception, his rabble-rousing fantasies about Vermont’s history; larger-than-life figures like Ethan Allen playing the agent provocateur in his theatrical mind, Artie dreaming himself back to those splendid times when a man could be a hero and a drunk with equal success.”

  “And who taught him these things?” she asks; a question acknowledging Artie’s aversion to reading.

  “The tavern regulars?” I venture, “who else could it be? I suppose the local imbibers would sooner imagine themselves the brave defenders of the Hampshire Grants than the impoverished tenants of New York land barons, and the alcoholic Ethan Allen would personify that fantasy,”

  “What’s the difference,” A.M. keeping an eye on George, “in either event, they would still have to earn their keep by the sweat of their brows.”

  “The freedom to speak one’s mind, and then drink that mind into oblivion; a freedom Artie would defend from time to time. But his list of misinformed association goes on and on; another improbable being Thelma. He wanted Thelma to organize a march to raise funds for his women’s rights collection. Can you imagine?”

  “Actually, I can,” she responds. “Provide Thelma with a cause, and she’ll deliver the effects. But what possessed you to agree to such an involved procedure?” Aunt Martha knows the answer before I respond.

  “How does one say no to a yes man? How does one stay dry in the rain? With Artie, there was no stopping the flow of kindness without splashing a little on yourself.”

  “Oh, I know,” she reminisces.

  “Of course you do,” I follow, “for in your heart of hearts you know darn well you didn’t win all those card games…it was just his way of rewarding you for the company you were willing to provide.”

  “What do you mean I didn’t win?” A.M. defensive; though she would be surprised by an answer. I don’t give one.

  Our attention shifting to George, who is suddenly effusive, unnaturally affable with the coterie of grandparents, fathers and siblings peering through the nursery window - all with untenable observations regarding the perfection of their newborn kin. George’s geniality is stunning.

  “What’s come over him?” I ask, assuming Aunt Martha can explain. “One minute he’s dour ‘n gray, and the next he’s Dorian Gray, the life of the party.”

  “That’s how he spells relief,�
� A.M. cracks, “one child down and another to go.”

  “Another?” I repeat.

  But my aunt has given me the slip. She’s back over the baby, cooing with little George as though his birthmark has a cork. “George senior,” I break in, joining her in the nursery, “…were you inferring George was going to father a second child?”

  “Now how can a man father a second child when he hasn’t fathered the first one?” she asks with a wicked grin, “and now that I think about it…didn’t you have a birthmark on your-“

  “But you just said-“

  “I know what I said…the problem is how you heard it.”

  “I’m a Harvard grad, Auntie,” I contend, avoiding the birthmark reference by adroit circumlocution, “so I should have the rapidity of mind to untangle a phrase when I hear one.”

  “Harvard?” she cries, bouncing us through the roof before I know what’s happening. “We have to go, Melvin. I almost forgot -

  Melody needs our help!”

  To recall the joy doubles the pain. (Dante)

  XVI

  What sun there had been, during Artie’s burial, sinks like a schooner over the western horizon. In its wake, a few silvery clouds nestle a crescent moon; while, quick as a Green Mountain frost, George chills to Charlene and her baby, abandoning them to the care of the less involved. Dogged by a blur of the preceding months, he drives aimlessly along the river, the force of habit sending him back to Plainfield, to the familiarity of Poor Art’s Book Mart, its lighted sign like a flashback, memories of past and present conflating in a living scene.

  “I had no choice, Artie,” George addressing the decrepit wooden sign, as he exits his car for a stroll. “I had to slip out of your service. Charlene’s labor pains. No respect, these babies. No respect for the dead…or the living, for that matter.”

  A penitent in quest of sanctuary, George saunters toward cemetery hill: head bowed, hands clasped, mind on matters above. Memories break free as he nears the gate, taking wing under a myriad of stars twinkling the argentine mist. Nearing Artie’s grave, old tombstones glisten under the shadowing moon like a path to the saints’ abode, the footprints of angels in sylvan solitude, a peaceful garden where buried souls may rise with the breaking dawn in shouts of grateful joy.

  George’s imagination discloses incrementally: bordering hollyhocks, caroling robins, nodding conifers, a mountain breeze from scented slopes troubling the ancestral pool, an angel returning some fortunate soul to the cradle from whence it came. Happiness suddenly abounding, the death of a client and the birth of a child somehow conjuring a miracle, the glimpse of a passage, a gap through the range of despair.

  Melody, George muses. Melody will understand; only Melody has the depth of soul to plum the darker mines, the brighter climes, the flights of fancy so suddenly all consuming. Melody: her name written across the fleeting, silken cloudscape, an approbatory moon but a sisterly smile as he stumbles upon a mounded grave, a bicycle.

  A chanting Simon.

  Half pagan, half priest under the spell of verse, Simon calls out, “Who goes there?” unbending from the granite slab lying neighbor to Artie’s tomb, “be it friend or-“

  “There can be only friend in the argot of the dead” George announces, the timid, tenor voice of Simon Farley unmistakable, despite the shadowy haunts. “What cause might one have for alarm? The ultimate price has been paid. There’s nothing left. Nothing to be assailed, to be harmed, to be taken.”

  Paused at the foot of Artie’s sepulcher, George’s eerie shadow falls long under the waning moon. His thoughts run even longer as Simon, recognizing his caller, refolds his skeletal frame atop a cold, granite slab.

  “Charlene has delivered a child,” George glancing about as though every headstone is a shining brass ring, “and I’m debating whether to be, or not to be, the father.”

  “I-I admit my inexperience in-in such matters,” Simon replies hesitantly, “but I believe you have the cart before the horse. This child of which you speak - if so be it’s in the cart - should either be removed from the cart, or the cart should be repositioned behind the horse; for as you describe your quandary, your line of reasoning will get you only as far as the horse you rode in on - which is definitely before the cart.”

  “It’s removed,” George states matter-of-factly, “and the little cart is resting well…perhaps ready for another pull before long…who knows?” he offers, trailing off.

  “And the horse?” Simon believing, as others do, that George is the only horse ever harnessed to the cart in question.

  “Caveat emptor,” he mutters, giving Simon his first direct look, “buyer beware…for what has been purchased by the price of wrong is not of my stock.”

  “Stock?…as in horseflesh?” a puzzled Simon queries.

  “As in the way of all flesh,” George waxing philosophical. “As in the way of all mortals…for this night am I enlightened.”

  “And what a night it is!” the poet agrees, Simon finding comfort in rhyme more than reason. “But why, pray tell, are you here? Perhaps a summons by our dearly departed?”

  “More than a summons, my good man,” George peremptory, glancing about for the nearest marmoreal seat, “I’m here by the will of Arthur Steinberg. I’m here to buy and sell, to pay and be paid…to buy your kind office and to pay my respects.”

  “Free verse?” Simon mumbles blankly, watching the tall Irishman alight on the nearest slab, then draw his knees to his chest like a praying mantis, “I…I didn’t know you-“

  “Even less than you,” George intending no malice for the harmless Simon. “My inspiration springs from the words of others; and the script in question is Artie’s will.”

  “But he had no siblings,” Simon objects, “and his parents were deceased before he left Brooklyn.”

  “Must one have a family to be generous?” George posits - questioning himself, as well.

  “Then….“

  “Am I referring to Artie’s will?” George interposes. “Yes, I am; for he was more than generous. Indeed, he was generous to a fault: the fault being that he wanted to give what was not his.”

  Simon draws his own knees up, the posture of prayer somehow befitting Artie’s questionable benevolence.

  “But I have an idea, an inspiration that may accomplish Artie’s wishes,” George goes on - in the silvery light, his chiseled face like a Renaissance David, “and I’m going to Boston to allow inspiration its chance.”

  “Melody Morrison?” a sensitive Simon suggests.

  “You are the romantic, aren’t you,” George observes, taking no offense at Simon’s guess, “…probably fell in love by candlelight.”

  “That, I did…long, long ago,” Simon allows, “but that’s not what brought Melody Morrison to mind. It was Vincent Tenklei - or rather, what Vincent told me today before he left the funeral.”

  “And?” George prompts.

  “Melody Morrison invited him down to tour Harvard. He’s going this weekend.”

  “Yes. I know.” George pondering the implications. “But be that as it may, you’re right; Melody Morrison is at the heart of my inspiration. And what I will ask of her could well involve your aspirations, Mr. Farley; the perfect forum for a demiurgic mind. However, whether my grand design comes to be or no, you may rest assured Artie’s magnanimity included you.”

  “And not only me,” a modest Simon replies, “but countless others, as well; for the seeds Artie planted so long ago have since grown into a tree, a tree of knowledge from which many have plucked its fruit.”

  “I heartily agree. Your vision fits nicely with mine. We must nourish that tree, lengthen its limbs, increase its leaves.”

  “Leaves of Grass would make for a good beginning,” Simon puts forth solicitously, “or leaves of absence for the spiritually minded, a veritable storehouse of practical meditations for harried souls. In fact, I was going to suggest the same to Artie; suggest he compile a metaphysical collection,
our good state’s history of prophets, seers, psychics and healers, a natural to fund his shelves.”

  “And a good suggestion it would have been,” George muses, giving the starry sky a glance for good measure, “with famous Vermont visionaries like Brigham Young and Joseph Smith-“

  “Yes…but the scope of our new collection should not be limited to prophecy,” Simon interjects. “No, we should include all the occult arts, both past and present: mesmerism, phrenology, physiognomy, spiritualism, regression, automatic writing, animal magnetism, acupuncture-“

  “A man after my own heart,” George breaks in, slapping his knees, “animal magnetism…I like that.”

  “But Vermont has fathered more than just the occult,” Simon contends earnestly, “Hiram Powers, for example; and Dr. Marsh…Dr. James Marsh-“

  “Animal magnets were they?” George teases.

  “No, sir,” Simon answers respectfully, “no…but they were Vermonters, natives who attracted what was best in the minds of others: Powers sculpting the famous Greek Slave, and Professor Marsh taking pains to publish the prose of Coleridge before the English author was widely read. And we mustn’t forget Justin Morrill, either, Vermont’s Senator of the hour, securing our nation’s land grant colleges; or John Dewey, the great reformer and educator; or Warren Austin, America’s first representative to the U.N.; or Admiral Dewey, to mention men of military fame-”

  “May as well include Presidents Arthur and Coolidge, if your collection’s only criterion is to be a Vermonter garnering fame in his field,” George advises.

  “I beg your pardon, counselor,” Simon admitting error. “Fame is hardly the measure of greatness.”

  “But what is?” George warming to the little man’s idealism. “By what should we measure a man’s achievements?”

  “Perhaps that’s a question best answered by another question,” Simon clasping his hands behind his graying head and lying back for a view of Ursa Major. “For example,” he continues wistfully, “have you ever enjoyed the little gasps of delight when a lady of your heart admits to a favorite song?…or a certain sonnet?…or maybe a particular flower? discovering each to be a choice of your own?…Or felt that sweet infinity in the touch of her hand? that delicious unity in her smile?”