The Ballad of West Tenth Street

by Marjorie Kernan

  Sadie danced over to the CD player and turned the volume up on the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane.” She’d just gotten home, from what she called her “dead man’s souk” and was aching for a vodka. Her boots lay on the floor, where she’d tugged them off. Still dancing, she went to the vodka bottle and said, “Hello darlin’.”

  “Hello, love,” it answered. Sadie looked confused. Oh dear, was she starting to hear them talk back? Thank gawd, not just yet, it seemed—Brian had snuck down the stairs behind her.

  “Pour a man one of those too, will you? Christ, what a muddle of a day. Ta.” He raised his glass to hers. “Those oiks at the studio are giving me a pain in the balls. Here, I’ll cook tonight, love. But first let’s have a few of these. Deen and Hamish are upstairs, doing whatever ungodly things they’re up to lately. Let’s leave them to it, knock back a few together, have a bit of a natter. How’s steak and mashed sound?”

  “Like bloody awful English cooking.”

  “Right, that’s settled.” He sat, pulling out Sadie’s chair for her, and lit a cig. “That’s better. Know what drives me mad about rock these days? It’s so old! These kids now, poor bastards, all they can do is tweak it, add a layer of irony here and there. I dunno, Saids, sometimes I wish rock and roll would die. Listen to these guys—the VU pulled all the stuffing out of rock and flung it all about. When was that, back in bloody sixty-seven? Now what’s left? There’s nothing left to invent, all kids can do these days is pick over the scraps, like bloody hens.”

  “You’re gloomy tonight, Brian. I seem to remember you and Ree having this exact same conversation in the early seventies. What’s the big deal? Rock’s just the latest incarnation of folk music. Like ‘Oh Suzannah’ or the pipe songs of the Watusi, it’s just popular music. It doesn’t have to shift seismically every thirty years. What about rap? What about the bands you’re working with?”

  “Yeah, rap’s all right,” he admitted. “But I dunno, the rock bands I’m managing, the damn kids know everything about the history of rock, it’s like they’re as old as I am somehow. And as used up.”

  “The problem is, sixties rock got sanctified, made monumental. So that the succeeding generations couldn’t keep the idea that it’s simply music in focus. Couldn’t allow themselves the impure pleasure of kick-ass bass lines and get-down-to-it guitar work. You’re right, they’re more like curators these days. But rock’s not fucking art.”

  “Fair enough. No, you sit, I’ll fix us another. You know, young Hames is a natural on the guitar,” he said, his back to her as he stood to make fresh drinks.

  “I knew you’ve been sneaking him lessons, but really, Brian, do you think that’s fair? What kind of life would that be for him, always being compared to his father?”

  “That’s not our Saids talking,” Brian said, shaking his head. “When did you ever believe in stomping on creative urges? He’ll become what he’ll become. You don’t need to worry about him. Now Deen, that’s another matter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Now don’t get all shirty on me, Saids, but you haven’t noticed something that’s been happening under your own nose. Deen’s talent needs to be taken more seriously. I know you think I’m a moron when it comes to high class music and all, but that kid’s on her way to becoming a real musician. She needs a different teacher. Now, don’t look at me like that, calm down. Fact is, that skinny, mopey bird she’s studying piano with is all right, all very correct and proper, but face it, no effing genius. Deen sticks with her much longer and she’ll get frozen into her way of thinking. She needs someone with some fire in them. Someone brilliant. Maybe even a bit crazy.”

  “Oh, Christ, you’ve got someone in mind, haven’t you?” Sadie said. “Come on, spill it, what’ve you been up to? Exactly how crazy are they?”

  “Paul Dresden.”

  “Good God, I thought he was locked away.”

  “Doesn’t live but four blocks from here, in actual fact.”

  “Didn’t he go berserk during a performance? And then try to kill someone?”

  “Only his wife.”

  “Oh, well, that’s all right then.”

  “He’s got a new wife, she’s much younger and I hear she keeps him in line. He only did six months, a token sentence, and that was a long time ago. Poor sod’s been skint, practically living on the streets. But like I said, he’s got the new wife and his finances have been looking up since that movie came out, he’s finally getting some airplay, royalties and such. He’s in his late fifties and word is, he’s lost his teeth where murderous thoughts are concerned, but still has all that music inside his skull.”

  “Paul Dresden,” Sadie said. “I saw him play a couple of times. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, he seemed at war with himself, the piano, even the music. He used to have conductors walking off the stage, throwing fits. He played like he was trying to forge his body into a set of tools to hammer the music out.”

  “Yeah. He had a pretty unique approach. You know what? You and Ree could go to the Albert Hall, sit in the royal box to see him, be all swank—you made it all right, gave Ree a ticket to a class sort of world. I saw the man play every time I could, just couldn’t admit it. Used to go in mufti—an overcoat and a suit, looked like any ugly little English clerk spending his shillings on great music. Thing about Dresden was, I wanted to learn what he had. How he made music as old and dried up as hell, so raw.”

  “Yes, I see—Brian Brain, leather creaking and boot chains clanking, not exactly a great career move letting your Visigoth fans know you were a lover of classical music. You used to always be sneaking off, never telling us where you were going. We all thought you were going off to screw someone’s wife, of course. What else were you up to while we thought you were going at it like a monkey? Here, let’s open some red, you do the honors and I’ll get out the cheese and crackers.”

  “Oh, reading modern poetry and getting a degree in classics at Oxford. Got a third, didn’t I? Better than a first they say, shows you can do the work but weren’t no swot.”

  Sadie looked at him, the bottle of wine forgotten in her hand. She wasn’t at all sure that he hadn’t been reading poetry and the canons of literature. She turned to get the corkscrew and saw a face outside the window. It was sideways and smiling at her through the area railing. She’d forgotten to close the shutters and the kitchen was lit like a stage.

  “Liall!” she called, opening the door. “Come in. Is everything all right? Does your mother know you’re here?”

  “I got a call from Hamish,” Liall said. “He asked me. He said you said it was okay. I told my mama that too.”

  “Oi, kid,” Brian said, getting up to clap him on the shoulder. “I forgot to tell Saids here the plan. See, I told Hames I’d give both lads a guitar lesson tonight,” he explained to her. “Hames asked him to spend the night, as tomorrow’s Saturday and his mum’ll be here.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” Sadie said, smiling down at Liall. “Don’t mind us crazy grown-ups—we can’t get anything straight in this house. You go on up to Hamish’s room. I’ll call up the stairs when dinner’s ready. Brian’s cooking, so it’ll be sure to be awful.”

  She watched him climb the stairs, a small blue knapsack in his hands. In her mind she saw his mother placing a clean pair of underwear, a toothbrush, and a shirt starched and folded to geometric precision in it.

  And what of the Hollanders’ new neighbor? Nearly two weeks had passed since Deen and Hamish had done their recon from the back fence. Their avid curiosity about the new owner had in no way diminished, but since that night, no fresh intel had been obtainable. The curtains in back had been closed the next morning. Faint, exceedingly faint, signs showed that someone lived there—the chimney pots gave out smoke, the carnation-cheeked cook could be seen busy in the basement kitchen. The garden gate on the west side of the house, the twin to their own, had been painted olive green, as had the railings. Several times they saw the blond lady let herself in the front door. Class
ical music could be heard playing within, but only by highly tuned ears. It was as if someone had arrived by night, been installed inside the house, and now wished to live there in utter secret.

  Sadie heard the doorbell ring and went to open it. It was the lacquered blonde from next door.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m so sorry, this is embarrassing. My name’s Maureen de Angelo. My client’s just moved in next door?”

  “Oh, come in,” Sadie said, opening the door wide. She hadn’t particularly welcomed the interruption, but she loved her children and was going to pump this woman for all she was worth. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Most kind. I really shouldn’t like to intrude but…oh, this is embarrassing.”

  “Really?” Sadie said. “Why? Oh, you don’t know my name. I’m Sadie Hollander,” she said, offering her hand. “That take care of your worries? Sit here, I’ll go to the kitchen and make the tea. Back in a flash.”

  Sadie would have been quite interested to know that her guest, the moment she went out, slipped off her heels and paced the room, making notes in a green crocodile agenda, and taking measurements with a cotton tape measure. With a small camera she took several photos of the room and entryway, hiding it in her bag just before Sadie returned with the tea.

  “There we are,” Sadie said, setting a tray with the tea down and pouring two cups. She refrained from saying anything else, knowing that a good interrogator lets the subject feel they have to inject words into the silence.

  “Thank you so much,” the woman said. “What a charming room. Such an unusual color.”

  Sadie let that pass and the silence widened between them. She was warming to her task. She’d given the woman tea, now she could bloody well explain why she was there.

  “It’s rather awkward,” Maureen said at last. “My client, who lives next door, well he asked me to find you a gift, that he could send with a note, to say hello with, if you see what I mean. I’m an interior designer and pride myself on knowing people’s tastes. I wonder if I could ask you a favor?”

  “Certainly,” Sadie said, shrugging.

  “Well, could you possibly think of anything in particular you might like? You see, I so want to choose something that would please you, but I really had no idea what that might be until I’d met you and seen your house. Clearly something stylish but not stuffy would be in order.”

  “Oh, really, just some flowers might be nice. Or a bottle of wine.”

  “My client is quite firm that it should be something nicer than that.”

  “Really? And what sort of person is he?”

  “An older gentleman, who, believe me, can afford it.”

  “Well…I don’t know. What about a nicer tea tray? This one’s certainly seen better days, and we are great tea drinkers.” They both looked down at the multitude of white rings on the plain wood tray.

  “Just the thing. Thank you so much. Gosh, look at the time! I must dash, so very good of you to be so understanding and thank you most awfully for the tea…”

  In a flurry of cream cashmeres, the blonde was gone. Game, set, and match, Sadie thought, sipping her now tepid tea. Bloody woman learned far more than I got from her, I’d better not tell the children, they’d be furious with me. I wonder if it’s going to be a luxurious, expensive tray? I could really use a thousand bucks. In cash. Who’s her client? Evidently a sole and single person. The children say it lives behind closed curtains, it must like the dark. Just our sort of neighbor.

  7

  Sadie kept her car in a lot by the river, a few blocks north. It was a battered Toyota wagon, its red paint faded to rusty tomato. She walked over to get it on Sunday morning, a pleasant walk on a breezy October day. They were all going up to Connecticut to see Gretchen.

  “Hello, Mr. Palek,” she said to the attendant at the lot. He was Indian and had been working at the lot many years, over which they’d developed a cordial relationship.

  “Mrs. Hollander, by all pleasantries,” he said. “This I knew to be a good, a fine and beautiful day but now it is more so. I shall fetch your car forthwith. These days they are kind to you? Your children, they are well?”

  “Yes, very well, Mr. Palek. Except Gretchen, of course. We’re going to visit her today. And your family is well?”

  “They prosper. My daughter has been most joyfully accepted to the pharmacy school of the City College of New York.”

  “That little girl with the long braid? She’s that grown up now?”

  “I fear so. Is it not glorious? But I would go without a turban were it to bring your girl back home. It is a terrible thing, this sadness you have for her, and for her, to be so lost and lonely. Oh no, that was most infelicitous of me, I did not mean to speak of her being lonely, for surely she is in the hands of the best and kindest people. Oh, you are weeping, I could cut my tongue out, it is a viper that should die!”

  “No, no—I’m so sorry, it’s just that I do worry so that she is lost and lonely.” Sadie bent her head and let out a ragged cry. She tried to crush the tears back into her eyes but they kept falling.

  “Please, come sit in my office,” he said gently, touching her elbow. “Please. I will brew some mint tea. Oh, if only my tongue had been cut out at birth.”

  He sounded, if anything, more unhappy than she, so she allowed herself to be led into the tiny cabin. He offered her his chair and Sadie sat, embarrassed by her sudden show of tears. He busied himself at the hot plate, his back to her. Eventually her tears stopped and she looked around her with interest—she’d looked through the window many times but had never been inside. It was as spic-and-span a miniature structure as she’d ever seen. The walls were gleaming white and a piece of electrician’s tape held together a tear in the carpet. An exuberant display of scarlet plastic roses stood on the desk in a blue vase.

  “Do you wash each petal?” she asked him.

  “Yes, each midday, when there is little to occupy these evil hands. Now here is some tea.”

  She drank quietly; it really did make her feel much better. Mr. Palek drank silently too, then poured her more.

  “What is it, this ailment that your daughter has?” he asked her.

  “Well you see, she stopped talking about a year ago. Then she began cutting herself, her skin, in places where we couldn’t see that she had. It got worse until she was doing herself real harm. I think sometimes that young people cross a line and think there’s only farther to go.”

  “But she is still a good and gentle girl otherwise, as she always was?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then it is quite clearly the work of a demon. One that has seized her. Such evil creatures roam the shadows, searching for ones with no cruelty in them, ones that they may frighten into doing their will.”

  “That may be so, but what should I do?”

  “Your daughter must fight this demon. You must tell her this, that demons are simple, lonely creatures and by nature really quite weak. In fact, they are remarkably stupid. Like mice, they can be caught quite easily, in a jar filled with oil. Tell her to ask this demon a question of logic, regarding why it is there, and you shall see—it will flee, disgraced by its inability to answer.”

  Sadie laughed. “By God I will,” she said. “That’s just the ticket. Thank you, Mr. Palek. Thank you for the tea and your sound advice. I feel ever so much better.”

  Sadie never saw the innocuous sign that read ROLLINGBROOK, its black, pseudo-Colonial letters and scrolled top, without thinking, Who in God’s name thinks up these sorts of names? So soothingly pastoral, so meaningless, so atomic-era conscious a denial of the Gothic reverberations of earlier names, Bedlam, Dragonwyk, the New York Home for the Insane. The sign could just as easily have been for a model dairy farm, where Belted Galloways grazed and the local amateur photographers snapped away, making statements about art with juxtapositions of clouds, black-and-white cows, and landscape.

  The visitor’s parking lot was not very full. Brian had taken ages to pry out of b
ed, then the children had insisted on stopping at a diner they’d grown inordinately fond of. By now, the usual Sunday visitor crowd had gone, most people preferring to get their weekly visit over with before lunch, so they could then toddle off to a couple of stiff drinks and some eggs Benedict, warmed by their sense of virtue at having spent an awkward hour with the poor looner.

  Inside the entrance they were greeted by a rather sleepy girl at a desk, who gave them passes. Sadie led the way, down the long corridor of the old building then left, into the lounge. The more presentable of the guests, as they were called, were allowed to have visitors there, in its mock country house atmosphere.

  Gretchen was at the far end, in a wheelchair. Gretchen did not need a wheelchair, was, in fact, perfectly fit, but they’d wheeled her in in one when she’d arrived, and since that moment she’d refused any other form of motion. Her long, pale blond hair spilled over her shoulders and her lovely face, with its blue-green eyes, was drawn.

  Deen wanted to run up to her and kiss her, but at the same time wanted to turn and flee the building to hide in the woods and cry. Why did Gretchen have to be so crazy? Why couldn’t she get up and walk out of here, say she was sorry she’d been difficult? She was always very quiet, it was true, but so good on the drums. And now she just did this one stupid drawing of that dog, over and over, when before she’d done perfect drawings of everything, of leaves and feathers and cigarette butts; small, delicate renderings that she made in the margins of her favorite books.

  Everyone kissed her, Brian giving her a great smack. “Oi, kid, look at you—you’re right mess, aren’t you?” he said.

  Sadie laughed. “Doesn’t this place give you the creeps?” she asked him.

  “Not half. Come on, this is bloody silly, us standing around Gretchen in a fucking wheelchair. God, look at them two over there. Oi you two, go stuff it!” he yelled across the room at a pair of men in bathrobes who were staring at him. “Come on, lass,” he said, picking Gretchen up. “We’ll all sit over here where we can have a proper conversation.” He put her on a sofa and sat next to her. “God’s truth and didn’t our Edie end up in a joint like this?”