Scumbler

by William Wharton

  It’s his wife there on the floor. He stands, bent over, looking at me: tears in his eyes, white-faced, big hands open. He tells me his wife came through the door, put down a shopping bag and fell over.

  I stare down at her. She’s jammed against a Louis XIV bureau and she looks empty. I pick her up, carry her into the room; she’s not heavy, more like the way a bird is, mostly feathers.

  The Costanzos don’t live in the atelier—strictly a workshop. There’s no couch or bed or even a chair with a seat on it. I stretch her out in the sawdust and wood shavings on the floor. A cabinetmaker’s atelier has a patina of light wood dust that blends everything into a wooden haze.

  There’s no breath and she’s a banana-yellow color. I can’t find a pulse; nothing. When I picked her up, she let out a long sigh, but nothing now. I tell Monsieur Costanzo to phone for a doctor and an ambulance. I assume he’ll just go into my place, the door’s open. I don’t know where he goes.

  I’m alone with Madame Costanzo. The dead are so vulnerable. I’m convinced she’s dead now, but I know I ought to do something. I start external heart massage, thumping poor Madame Costanzo’s shriveled little titties with my painter’s palms.

  I’m trying to hit hard enough but not break anything. Up till now, we’ve only discussed the weather and her grandchildren; no more grandchildren stories, no more weather. Madame Costanzo’s daughter makes the grandchildren sit at the table until they eat everything, sometimes for hours. Madame Costanzo cried when she told me this.

  Her eyes are stuck half open, not looking at me. I close them. It’s something I can’t take, like looking into a dry well.

  I start mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Here I am French-kissing a seventy-five-year-old corpse on an early spring morning; and she’s not even French.

  There’s no response except her false teeth get dislodged. I take them out. What the hell would her husband think; maybe I’m some kind of vampire or necrophile. I stop the mouth-to-mouth; nothing there. I try fitting the teeth back in; can’t get them quite right; the jaw won’t close and stay closed. I tie it shut with a piece of cord. What the hell can be keeping Monsieur Costanzo?

  Just then, Monsieur and Madame Bellini from upstairs come in. They’re Italian too; longtime friends of the Costanzos, both over eighty. They used to do some baby-sitting for us. When they see Madame Costanzo, they turn green and waver on their feet; we’re going to have a mass grave.

  Pushing behind them comes Monsieur Costanzo at last. He drops to his knees, heavily, beside his wife. Somebody has to say it and I want to say it right. I’d been thinking out the phrase while I was mouth-to-mouth breathing, pondering the grammar for something to keep my mind away.

  “Monsieur Costanzo, je crois que votre femme est mort,” I say.

  I forget to put the verb in agreement with the subject, so I say it wrong, and it’s probably subjunctive anyway.

  Monsieur Costanzo says he’s called the pompiers, the French fire department rescue squad.

  The young couple beneath, the LeClercs, upholsterers, come up. Madame LeClerc is very effective. She gets the name of Monsieur Costanzo’s daughter and goes to phone at my place. Monsieur Costanzo lies down on his floor, in the sawdust and shavings, beside his wife. He puts his arm across her. It’s a very smart thing to do. He’ll never get to sleep with her again; officialdom’ll soon arrive. After that, Madame Costanzo is an administrative problem; Monsieur Costanzo loses all rights. He can never kiss her, make love to her, bop her again. It’s all over.

  I dress, go downstairs; tell our concierge so she can direct the pompiers. She, too, is a longtime, maybe forty-year, friend of Madame Costanzo. I try to remember how they do it in movies, but it doesn’t come off right. She sits flat down and turns green like the Bellinis; she asks me to get her heart medicine from her little bathroom. Accidentally, in there, I look up into the mirror. Some guy with a white beard and a green face looks back at me.

  The concierge chews on her medicine; keeps repeating how it can’t be true. Madame Costanzo’d just picked up mail for the Bellinis and taken it to them. There were eighty centimes postage due; she promised to bring the money back down.

  Then the concierge remembers she has money for me: allocation familiale has arrived; this is four hundred francs the French government gives us back every month because we have three kids still at home.

  She carefully counts out the money and I give her a tip. It’s so goddamned mundane after all the reality upstairs. Already we’re trying to pretend it didn’t happen; that death isn’t there waiting for us all the time.

  HOW DOES GOD LAUGH?

  WITH A BANG OR A WHIMPER?

  That day and the next, I have a hard time getting myself convinced it’s worthwhile doing anything. It’s especially hard working up an excitement over something as far removed from life and death as painting. But then finally, when I get back working, the momentum of living catches me and I get on with it. You’ve got to do something; you can’t stand around waiting with your hands empty and your mouth open.

  DREAM IN CIRCLES, DANCE TO THE SILENT,

  INTERNAL BEAT OF LIFE, DROWN IN UNSLAKED

  THIRST. BUT KEEP MOVING! DON’T STOP

  OR YOU CAN’T HEAR THE MUSIC.

  IX

  ACCIDENT-PRONE

  It’d be great to paint everybody in the motorcycle club; sort of Americans in Paris. The trouble is it’d be just more time, paint, canvas down the drain, no cash return.

  Yesterday we took a picture for the motor magazine in America. Our club hung around the police station at Saint Sulpice where they park their big Triumph 500s. A friend of Duncan’s has a good camera with a telephoto lens. We casually strolled over and stood by the bikes. The cops lounging in the doorway can’t figure what’s going on. Duncan’s friend is behind a tree shooting away.

  We pose beside the bikes. It’s planned to the last nickel. We’re in and out from behind those bikes in less than thirty seconds. No running; camera clicking away.

  Finally, those two cops start over. We take off at a quick walk across the Place and into the church. We gather in the Delacroix Chapel for a short chorus of the “California Drinking Song.” Saint-Sulpice has great acoustics, I’m sure old Eugène enjoyed it; I hope God got a laugh, too. That church is a great place for singing.

  MAYBE GOD DOESN’T LAUGH;

  MIGHT NOT EVEN KNOW HOW.

  Sweik and I write a story about a motor-club outing to go with the picture. We tell about a race from Paris to Chartres. The race ends with two turns around the outer aisle of the cathedral. We put in a big award ceremony, with us all standing in front of the altar, stained-glass-window light flowing in. Very poetic. I wonder if they’ll believe it. They’ll want to, that’s for sure.

  ANY TALE UNTELLABLE IS BELIEVED AS

  UNBELIEVABLE AND BECOMES LEGEND.

  LEG-END IS WHERE TOES AND TAILS BEGIN.

  Today I’m painting on the Rue Guisarde; painting Madame Boyer’s place; that’s across from Sweik’s hotel. Looking out his window gave me the idea. I keep thinking I’m finished with that Canettes series but something new is always coming up.

  Madame Boyer has a nice little café. It’s a café-charbon-auvergne place. Local old alkie women hang out there. Some of them buy burning alcohol and strain it through charcoal, then drink it. But most of them are social drinkers, heavy social drinkers. They lurk around the café to watch the men who carry the coal and wood. These are big brutes, covered with black coal dust all day. They wear filthy undershirts and caps, have burlap bags over their shoulders to keep skin from rubbing raw. Very dirty, smelly, crude, nice guys. It’s fine for the old women who only have cats and not enough money to keep a big dog. There’re all kinds of jokes and full half-assed passes.

  Madame Boyer’s a fine woman, about forty. Her old man is the dirtiest, biggest, crudest of them all. He weighs three hundred at least. Poor Madame Boyer must about suffocate when they go the course.

  TWO DOVES FLUTTER IN HEAVY AIR,
>
  STRUGGLE FOR RELEASE, THEN SETTLE

  AT LAST TO GROUNDING PULSATION.

  I’m standing across the street painting in a doorway to keep from getting run over by cars. Guisarde’s a very narrow street. A gorgeous slick-type woman squeezes in behind me; sort of like the one in the Marais, only this woman has gigantic boobs pushing into my back. I’m thinking maybe I should stand in doorways more often; maybe there’s something magic, symbolic about doorways. I can feel the points of her tits through a layer of flannel, a layer of wool and a layer of cotton. That’s not counting what she’s wearing, which isn’t much. Probably that’s why they’re so hard; she’s freezing to death. She sure as hell can’t be turned on pushing her tits into a turpentine-and-sweat-soaked smelly old man like me.

  She steps back a touch and offers me a cigarette. It’s enough to make me wish I smoked more often. I shake my head, keep painting. My concentration’s shot; I’m only going through the motions. I peek. She’s wearing a little checkered cap on the back of her head and a short-sleeved tight red sweater. This can make some women look little-girl but not this one with these boobs; she looks almost round-shouldered. She’s wearing one of those blanket kind of skirts with fringe, held together by a giant gold pin. I haven’t seen anything like that in years. Her shoes are patent leather, high heels, thin soles, definitely not good for walking through all the dog shit on Rue Guisarde. She talks in French. I won’t write it out that way, probably can’t.

  “I like your painting, Mr. Painter.”

  She looks into me, not the painting.

  “I like it too.”

  Brilliant remark. I sneak another stare. Deep blue eyes you could backflip into. She pulls off two muted slow-rolling grinds. I’m hoping some of the old women across the street are catching this; give me some status around Madame Boyer’s.

  I try to concentrate again on the painting; being very professional. Yes sir, we professionals out there doing our thing. We’re at “check” like that for maybe two minutes. I’m only dinking around with the brush.

  “I can give you a jolie heure for that painting, Mister Painter.”

  Right on. One pro to another; it’s out now. I’ve got about four hours so far in the painting and eighty francs in materials; not exactly a good deal for only one pretty hour I’m not really interested anyhow, just the idea excites me. I wonder what café she’s working from; where’s the maquereau; how’s he going to come out in a deal like that? Do they cut the painting in half? I stop and smile at her.

  “Thank you, Mademoiselle, but the painting is not finished. Also, I need the money; a painter is never rich.” “Yes.”

  She says it with an intake of breath, a statement, a question, a condemnation, a promise—all in one word. She takes another long, quiet look at the painting, then ducks into the door. Here I am standing in her doorway. Probably she wasn’t rubbing her tits into me at all; only trying to get enough room to open the door.

  Somehow, too, she didn’t quite come off as a pro. She had on the right costume but it didn’t come off. That’s an accidental joke; I’m accident-prone.

  She seemed too young; having too much fun with me; too much humor there. I’ve never yet met a whore with much sense of humor; all very serious types; serious work, no nonsense. Only humorous whores I’ve ever met were in Henry Miller’s books. Maybe there are different whores now, different everything else.

  Later in the afternoon, two French businessmen types push past me. These lads are completely unrelated to the scene. One has dusted white hair and a deep tan. The other is more the accountant-data-processor breed. They almost knock me down in their hurry through that door. I figure my little friend might have something to do with the rush. Behind me is a plumbing-supply shop; I don’t believe they have the kind of plumbing these fellows are looking for, and in the apartments above there are mostly old women. I don’t think any of them would claim motherhood to either of these two.

  One of these wonderful old gals upstairs has more than twenty little Pekingese dogs. When there’s a downdraft, it smells like a kennel in this doorway.

  These two jockos never come down while I’m painting and I quit at about four-thirty. I’m sure they don’t live there. Maybe there’s some other exit, some secret way out devised by a medieval queen to get errant knights into her bedroom without anybody knowing. Maybe there’s even a private entrance into my tunnels.

  STANDING IN A DOORWAY FACING IN OR

  FACING OUT—ENTERING OR LEAVING?

  WALKING BACKWARD OUT?

  The next day she comes back. I’ve been half waiting for her all morning. We chitchat about five minutes, the length of a cigarette; then she invites me upstairs for lunch. You see, fantasies do come true.

  My painting’s almost finished. I’m only edging it along, looking for those little loopholes where I can make what I’m trying to say more visible. I’m always afraid of tickling a painting to death; I’ve done it too often. It’s easy to do if you’re not careful. You’re going along, adding here, subtracting there, building this up, cutting that down, sacrificing this for that and then, suddenly, right under your eyes, the painting starts to fade. And once it gets going there’s nothing you can do. It’s almost as if the life of the painting is siphoned up your brush, up your arm and back into you again; nothing left but pigment and cloth; ex post facto birth control, like abortion, or putting babies out on rocks or ice floes to die. There’s nothing for it but cover the canvas with a sheet and chant a few soulful Te Deums.

  She asks me to bring the painting with me. She’s got her hooks into it all right, or maybe the painting’s got its hooks into her. It doesn’t matter. We’re being very wary today. I’m thinking I might even get a look at the merchandise; maybe we can make some kind of deal for posing.

  There I go, dreaming again. Dreaming can’t hurt—much. I tell myself I can always paint the painting again; but that’s not true. It’s never the same. I could paint the same thing a hundred times; be different every time. Everything’s always changing all the time, especially me.

  DRIFTWOOD WOULD DRIFT.

  Third floor. She opens the door and tells me to take off my shoes. I put down the box in a little curtained-off alcove. She comes back with an honest-to-God golden robe. It’s the kind of thing Japanese princes or wrestlers wear; gold brocade with a golden silk lining.

  Naturally, I’m dirty; painting’s a dirty business. But, aside from that, I’m something of a slob anyway, careless about things. I peel off my painting jacket: a red sweat shirt with a hood. It’s streaked with paint; smelly and dirty, body or neck dirt, all around the top. I slip the golden robe over my shoulders like Jersey Joe Walcott waiting for the decision after a close fight. She drops to her knees on the soft, thick rug and starts taking off my shoes, dirty, paint-splattered canvas boots with many-knotted, broken shoelaces, carelessly strung. There are holes in my socks, toe and heel, both feet; socks not matching.

  She slides the whole mess off and fits little slippers on my tootsies, golden like the coat.

  Then she touches me on the thigh. Stiff. The thigh of the pants, that is. I wipe my brush off there on the front of my pants all the time. It’s a bad habit but handy. The pants get stiff with varnish, will practically stand by themselves. She reaches for my belt buckle.

  This is getting very embarrassing. Most of the time I don’t notice how really sloppy-looking I am; it doesn’t matter. I put my hands over hers and slide down my pants: old jeans with jagged patched holes in the knees.

  I’m wearing trap-doored, olive-drab, army-surplus long johns. What the hell, it’s cold out in the streets this time of year. Just then, another woman comes into the room. She’s wearing the same kind of golden costume. Maybe I’m involved with a pair of Hari Krishnas, luxury edition. I wrap the golden bathrobe around myself. Both the girls start giggling. I don’t know what to do; never expected two of them. I decide I’ll act as if standing there in long johns and a gold brocade bathrobe is the most natural thing in the world
; grin back at them, look around.

  The room is beautiful. There’s a deep soft brown woolen rug on the floor, wall to wall, like one giant bed. There’s fine Louis XV furniture, brocade-and-velvet walls, deep, golden-yellow drapes on the window. She leads me by the hand across the room to a bathroom. A bathroom is the last thing l’d’ve expected in one of these old places.

  I lock myself in and wash my hands. There’s a nailbrush; I try to scrub off some of the varnish. There’s nothing to do with my nails: the cuticles are deep split and the dirt’s driven down in. At home I use 23 Skidoo hand cleaner. It’s the only thing I import from America; it’s the only thing I know that works on my hands.

  I reach inside the long johns and freshen up. There’s some fancy spray deodorant on a shelf; I decide to sacrifice a tiny chunk of the ozone layer and give myself a few squirts. I take a piss; not much. It’s a typical woman house: cover on the toilet lid so it won’t stay up unless you hold it.

  SMALL MOVEMENTS OF THE MIND,

  UNKIND THOUGHTS BUILT-IN, LIKE

  CABINETS IN A RENTED HOUSE

  SAY WHO BUILT THIS PLACE?

  When I come out, they’re both dressed like rich Buddhist monks in gold silk kimonos. I can’t tell how much they’re wearing under, but they look very sexy. First girl does the introductions. They call themselves Colette and Colline. I call myself Bob. The French are nuts for the American name Bob; say it like “snob,” short and in the nose.

  There’s a table set by the window with real china dishes and silverware, even crystal goblets. We sit down and they take turns serving the meal and entertaining me. What a meal they bring out! It begins with moules farcies, then truite meunière, followed by paupiettes and pommes dauphines. It’s all perfectly cooked and served. For a serious eater like me it’s a dream.

  It turns out these women have a great little business going. They serve a luncheon for one or two men every noon, with a nice easy screw or whatever after. It’s all very high class, nothing vulgar. The tab is a thousand francs for two, lunch and the works—a good deal for everybody. They have their regulars and work five afternoons a week. They take two months off in the summer; go stay on a small Greek island where they own a house. They’re saving their money and hope to retire in five years. They love each other.