Wrong Information Is Being Given Out at Princeton

by J. P. Donleavy

  And I felt a gloomy shudder the way she said her last good-bye. Her presence now could at least give me something to be irritated by. Watch her pull on her stockings on her long beautiful dancer’s legs. The muscles that could faintly be seen across her stomach. Her shiny clean hair like the hair of the girl in the bus station. This city without warning. Even with all its red lights, sirens, and signs. Catastrophe comes from anywhere in the flash of a second. Take a walk. Thousands pass you by. Alone with yourself. A world that wants you to show your teeth shining out of your glad face.

  Two days staying in the apartment. I lay down to sleep with a tiredness so overwhelming. Between moments of tinkling the keys of the piano, staring out into the Oriental street and reminding myself to call Max but waiting to be cheerful before I did, I washed and cleaned the knife, practised pushing the button that flashes out the five-inch-long blade. Kept it handy through the nights and then tried throwing it, sticking it into the back of the bedroom closet door. Feeling lonely for company but remembering that coming back with Sylvia on the train to the city and passing by so many places that you don’t want to be, you realize that nobody in New York has anything to say to each other after all their current jokes are told. And when I did go out on the street to buy something for breakfast, my familiar Chinaman said to me, it is a nice day overhead. And in a desperate lonely disillusion and with the swiftly dwindling money my sister gave me in my pocket, I went back to the Biltmore “Men Only” bar. Same man outside playing his music, pretending he’s blind. Missed three notes from Prokofiev’s Overture Russe, opus seventy-two. Anyway, not one of Prokofiev’s greatest works, but an insult to a composer nevertheless. Inside, a new waiter called Angelo. Had cheese and crackers and a beer. Illuminated by lamps, stared at the painting of the nude reclining girls against their green background. Then, working up the nerve at the telephone in the bar, put my nickel in to dial that Butterfield 8 number, and spoke to her. But before I could utter an endearment, a shock of a frosty voice came crashing into my ear.

  “Do you mind if we have for a moment a serious discussion.”

  “No ma’am, fire ahead.”

  “When I was a little girl someone said to me, you can afford, can’t you, to be of a high moral character. And those others whom you may find throughout your life who are not of high moral character, you may avoid and dispose of.”

  “Ma’am forgive me, but I don’t believe I know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about having my privacy invaded. It’s being deemed entertaining to others to describe me as ‘the richest woman in America.’”

  “Ma’am, I’ve never said a thing to anybody about your money or about you ever having any.”

  “Well, you have a friend who did. And said such a thing to my bankers.”

  “Ma’am, maybe it was your bankers who said such a thing. And if my friend did, he meant no harm in such a coloration.”

  “Meaning no harm does not stop the unwelcome attentions of all the lowlife in America.”

  “Well ma’am, there’s no need to worry that it will be repeated, for he’s in prison.”

  “What.”

  “Sony, I meant to say he’s gone west to Chicago.”

  The phone line went dead. Cut off at a point when you try to say a word and another word jumps in too soon. Dru will be thinking my friend Max will be consulting with his coconspirators behind bars and is already plotting to embezzle or kidnap her. All I needed now was just one more blow. And I got it. Of rejection. As I then in desperation immediately telephoned back to Sutton Place and Gilbert answered the phone.

  “May I please speak to Mrs. Triumphington.”

  “Who’s calling, please.”

  “Alfonso Stephen O’Kelly’O.”

  “I’m afraid Mrs. Triumphington is not available.”

  “I’ve just been talking to her.”

  “I’m afraid madam has just left for Montana.”

  After some prompting and knowing I already had it, Gilbert gave me the number out in Montana. Where if it were to be believed she had gone, I would ring her. But maybe she had really departed there. But with some other guy. Fucking someone else. She did say once, although I pretended not to be one of them, that she liked to have guys available on tap for fucking and just gobble them up. Listen a little to their bullshit and take them on and take them off one after the other. Now on top of it all, a dreadful premonition suddenly seizing me over Max’s arrest and incarceration in alimony jail. And I immediately rang to plan to visit him. A voice coming on the phone saying they had terrible information that he had hung himself and his remains were being shipped by train back to Chicago. My fists clenched in a sudden raging anger at the female species. And remembering what Max had said as we lay back on our couches in the hot room of his club.

  “How modern can life get, pal. Here we try to keep it a little old-fashioned. Except to come dine and have a cocktail, that’s the real wonderful thing about this club, no women. And one should have only conducted one’s associations with them on wise Muslim principles. Purdah and all that. Because boy, they have recently sure done me down.”

  As I felt this numbing news from the “alimony club,” as Max now called it, spread to all parts of my body, I had nearly dropped the phone. But the report of hanging was immediately followed by laughter and Max’s voice.

  “Old pal, I’ve executed a power of attorney, and deed of sale for a dollar, and all the other things you can do with a flourish of the pen. Go get my ole Bentley quick, soon as you can, out of the garage. I’ve given them your name and they’ve got the key. Be a sport and park at fifteen o’clock as near as you can get to Freeman Square. If I don’t show up by quarter past fifteen o’clock, you beat it with the Bentley. It’s yours, pal, ole buddy. I glow with joy when I think of what I’m going to do. Pure joy. Anyway, no matter what happens, wait for me to be in touch again. This is your lifelong friend, best man at your wedding, signing off.”

  I couldn’t figure out what Max was up to, but I wanted to do him any kindness or favor he might ask. And one thing was for sure. Ole Max aboard ship in the navy was one of the greatest fixers and connivers of all time. I found I was already fully insured and got the Bentley, but trying to figure out how to drive it out of the garage, I almost crashed a couple of times. And when I finally did figure out how to drive it, I found it a nightmare trying to park it. Waited half an hour near where the traffic passed to enter the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson and Max did not show up. Then after a search, I found a friendly garage a couple of blocks away to park the leviathan. The enthusiastic owner of the garage rubbed a spot of soot off a fender.

  “Hey, we could charge admission to come look at this car.”

  Two days later, a telegram was waiting for me back at Pell Street, stating that further news of Max could be had from a funeral home. I chuckled at Max’s magnificent ability to create such an elaborate hoax and fakery. I phoned the funeral directors and then was asked to identify myself. And a chill began to creep through me at the sound of this matter-of-fact but solemn voice announcing that Max’s body was being shipped that night and put onto the train at Penn Station at about 9:30, and the train leaving at ten minutes past ten, destination Chicago, from platform eleven. I waited as the voice finished to repeat who I was and waited again to hear some denouement of the charade. But when I phoned the alimony jail to talk to Max, I was told no information was available from the Civil Jail of the City of New York except to his next of kin upon identification. There was one thing now that was seeming more and more certain. That this was no fakery. No hoax. Max was dead.

  I changed my clothes, got out the ole Bentley, and traveled up to Riverdale. I couldn’t believe what I was doing, but it seemed the most important thing I would ever do in my life. As the throbbing leviathan pulled into the drive of this my childhood home, the curtains at the side of the house opened and there were smiles on everyone’s faces as I parked and my old dog, who sang out of tune to my piano play
ing, tail wagging, barked and friendly snapped at the tires. There was one thing for certain that I was finding out fast. It was not who you were in America, but what car you were seen driving in. Even dogs noticed. And mine was adding to his appreciation by lifting a leg and peeing on a wheel. The general admiration for the Bentley at least stifled my gloom and sadness while I feigned to be matter-of-fact and drove my favorite sister around a few local potholed streets, beeping the horn a couple of times passing in front of those houses where I knew the inhabitants flew the American flag and had hated me while growing up.

  “Gee, Stephen, what a nice car. Is it really yours.”

  Explaining my complications as best I could and after taking tea with my mother and sisters, I borrowed some more money and then went up into the attic to get my old navy sailor hat out of a musty steamer trunk. Back downtown I tipped the concierge at the Plaza the way Max did and splurged on a bottle of Krug. Recalling all the better and funnier times we had in the navy. Half-crocked, I parked the precious Bentley back in the garage and then took my time sobering up to walk to Penn Station. Nearly financially broke again after my bottle of Krug at the Plaza, which in my solemnity became easier and easier to drink as I drank it all.

  Arriving into this massive cathedral of space, where I had so often come and gone on the train, ditty bag slung over my shoulder and on my way back to Norfolk, Virginia where my ship was moored at the Naval Operating Base. And it became the first time I knew who would win the war. Walking along the docks past the brooding, massive, looming prows of these vessels. One after another. Cruisers, battleships, destroyers, aircraft carriers, as far as the eye could see. And once with Max, as we walked under all the assembled bows to our own gangway, returning from liberty, I heard him chuckle and announce, “Pal, it’s America the almighty and boy, don’t get in her way.”

  I got permission to go down on the train station platform. Steel pillars holding up the weight of other steel pillars. The clatter and din. The dimly lit cars. Early passengers arriving to take their seats for the long trip west halfway across America. A girl waiting, standing alone like a statue in the shadows. Her hair blond. And her face, as she turns now hidden by the brim of her cloche hat. Caught sight of her flickering glance. Must be waiting for someone. As I wait. Expecting Max’s arrival. Which still has me half-thinking that it will be on a horse clattering down the platform, his shotguns blazing away. Till suddenly a van comes pulling up to the platform and opens up its black doors alongside the train. Two railroad porters and two men from the van maneuvering out a box. I stood aside as they approached, then as the box passed, placed my old sailor hat on top and saw the name and address of a Chicago funeral firm. And now I had to believe he was within. Saluting as the container was gently pushed onto and parked amidst other goods and baggage on the train.

  “Go well now, old salt and good friend.”

  I still thought I would see breathing holes and hear laughter. But all was silent within that box. To be taken west. Out to where Max always maintained the real American gentlemen still existed. The word gentleman such an important word in his life. Could see him hesitating to brush back the lock of sandy hair that fell over his left eye in case it presented him as ungentlemanly. But also the slightly mischievous smile on his face he nearly always wore while rifling through his papers. Super efficient yeoman. He could put some son of a bitch’s name on a draft for permanent kitchen duty or a friend to be flown home on compassionate leave to see his recently unfaithful girlfriend. So many plans he made for his own life. Equestrian pursuits. His shoes, ties, and guns. So alive and living only a day or two ago. It is not possible to believe he is here in death. Planned in just the same way he organized and prearranged his existence. Now ten past twenty-two hundred hours. Porter announcing, “All aboard.” The sliding door of the baggage car closing. Train beginning to move. At first adagio. And gathering speed. Presto. Click clack on these steel wheels on the steel tracks. Good-bye old pal, buddy. Old salt. Bon voyage, anchors aweigh. Go home now. Back to the Loop and the Windy City. That great old town on the lake. Which you used to tell me was the most wonderful on earth. And to which one day you said you would return. Where they would build a building that would be the tallest building in the world, at least for a while.

  As it pulled away down the platform into the darkness, the sound growing fainter. The train lights disappearing. To go out under the Hudson deeps, that river that was always flowing not that far away from Riverdale in my years growing up. Where we were children running through the streets, away from other kids trying to give us a charley horse. A bang of a fist on a shoulder or thigh that could leave you laughing as well as temporarily paralyzed. And playing games of squeezing breath out of our lungs so that we would slump into unconsciousness and look dead on other people’s lawns. And now I still expected ole Max to come up behind me out of the dark and put a hand on my shoulder. Well pal, ole buddy, I’m out of the alimony jail. Now here’s my plan. There’s the Riviera, Biarritz, London and Paris to go to in the tradition of the great previous Americans who sought an ancient culture to thrive in. And when life is lived to the full over there, shooting, hunting and fishing, resplendent in the sartorial dignity of sporting Europe, just hope old bean, they won’t forget to put a sailor hat on my coffin when my time really comes. And they inter me in one of those artistically embellished sepulchres they’ve got in the old Cimetière Père Lachaise. But so long for now, good pal and friend.

  Looking down into the empty track where another train will soon come to take others away. I knew now that this night would for the rest of my life always possess a simple silence, just as it did when growing up when the midnight approached listening to the music of the great composers on the radio as I did alone in my back room in the house in Riverdale. The leaves of the big cherry tree sometimes rustling against the windowpanes as the gusts of wind of a storm approached. And I would, warm and secure between my walls, wait for the announcer to speak as a preamble a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And for him to say, “This is your station, WQXR, ending our broadcasting for the night. And the cares that infest day shall fold their tents like the Arabs and silently steal away.” Just as you go Max, old pal, buddy and friend. Flesh cold upon your bones. Who came out east from the west. Now goes west again back home. Trundling past all the one-horse towns. Crossing the plains covered by those cornfields to the horizon. Where there’s a sound I can forever hear. Of the distant whistle wail of a train across the night. Turning the woes of life into a haunting memory. By which to rest in peace.

  “Excuse me. But you’re Max’s friend, aren’t you.”

  On the back of his hand, Stephen O’Kelly’O wiping a tear from an eye and turning to this voice behind him. The blond-haired girl in the cloche hat who was standing like a statue. A sallow-faced, beauteous girl. A flash of memory of another voice. Which said, “Excuse me sir.”

  “I’m Amy from Knoxville. You don’t know me but I know all about you. You’re Stephen. You were Max’s friend in the navy. I’d been speaking to Max every day in jail. Like you, I came to see him off on the train. I just didn’t feel he should be alone. And you must have felt about him as I did to have put that sailor hat on his coffin.”

  Out of courtesy in this dismal dark darkness, I stepped down a step from the siding and she came closer into the light. And that perhaps I was not expected to speak but to wait until spoken to. I could see from her reddened eyes that she’d been weeping. We shook hands. And together climbed back up the stairs into the vast ticket hall and past the giant stone pillars holding up its ceiling which seemed like a massive brooding sky. The few travelers all looked smaller and lonelier. We walked up the wide stone steps which led out onto Seventh Avenue. Back in the busy world of the city again. Just across and up the street we went into the Hotel Pennsylvania where she was staying. The lights of the lobby too bright, we went into the darker bar. She insisted the drinks we had be put on her bill. Cocktail music from the piano. This wan blond-haired,
blue-eyed girl whose skin seemed peach-soft like a child’s and whose thin wrists might be too weak to carry her hands. She seemed as if she might freeze or the wind might blow her away. Over her months in New York, she kept in touch with Max. And when we said good-bye, shaking hands, her hand was firm on mine and for a moment I thought she might not let go unless I did.

  “Max so many times said that his life was going to be lived the way he would live it or he didn’t want to live. When he spoke of you, he always seemed so proud of knowing you and that you composed music.”

  I had only soda water with a slice of lemon in the bar of the Hotel Pennsylvania. And apologized to Amy that I could not bring her to Max’s favorite place in New York, the “Men Only” bar of the Biltmore. She smiled and said she didn’t mind but that she’d be glad to take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry with me instead. I thought of her as I walked back to Pell Street where I had changed the lock and battered a new chain across the apartment door. Next day between efforts to compose, I lay somnambulant. Scavenging for bits of food. Sitting staring at my knees, thinking of the girl from Knoxville. Her kindly strange and so pale blue eyes. I needed courage to be in touch with her. With not even a telephone now to get another voice to come near to your ear and be a sympathetic friend as you sit in your dilemma. Knowing that even the smallest, mildest words voiced of affection, even as distant away as they might have to come, could be a life-saver. To stop you throwing in the towel. As Max must have done in his final moment of waning defiance. The more you have left of life to live, the more hopeless the vastness of survival ahead becomes. Three square meals a day served on round plates. For which everyone but Dru is looking. When all she needs is exotic oil massages and to be wrapped in seaweed. And then have her privacy to look for pricks. Be in the barrel with her screwing. We could have then been dead together, plunging over Niagara Falls after our last orgasm. Go to heaven together, morals all aglow, with her money and my music.