Shockproof Sydney Skate

by Marijane Meaker

  Shockproof decided to be realistic: that was where his summer was at. Estelle Kelly.

  “Ellie, Ellie dear,” said M. E. Shepley Skate, when she arrived with some chilled Lancers under one arm, clapping the other around Ellie’s shoulders.

  Tears formed in Ellie’s eyes.

  Ellie was a flamboyant 36D professional fund-raiser, with that certain aggressive New York female personality, which often started Shockproof off on some chaotic masturbation fantasy in which a woman wearing leather gloves and boots was on top.

  Ellie was in a splotchy pink and white Pucci. Her eyes were swollen from crying, and now M. E. Shepley Skate’s presence had reopened the floodgates. M.E. steered her toward the den.

  Then she said to him, “Sydney, were you actually cruising that Guggenheim-on-her-mother’s side, paternal-grand-mother-Schiff descendant?”

  “She wants to keep the snake,” he said.

  “Ellie? Can you eat an onion pizza from Rocky Lee’s?” M.E. called into the den.

  “Anything!” Ellie called back. “May I use your phone?”

  “Do you have to ask?” M.E. shouted. Then, “Never mind the snake. You were cruising her, Sydney, don’t try to put one over on your old Ma. And her great-aunt married a Kuhn, of the Kuhns.”

  “Who’d you get to research her so fast?”

  “Who’s Who… When did Estelle Kelly lose her magic?”

  “I’m going up there tonight… Did Alison agree to do the gum ad?”

  “We didn’t discuss it.”

  “Yet,” he said.

  “Yet,” she said. “I think she will.”

  “Why would someone like that want to sell chewing gum on television?”

  “Someone like that was complaining about her allowance.”

  “Isn’t she a little young to have financial problems?”

  “She’s nineteen, Sydney.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Cheer up, Sydney,” she said, “Sybil Burton ran off with a much younger man.”

  “Oh, very funny,” he said. “Har de har har har.”

  “We’re going to order a few pizzas from Rocky Lee,” she said. “Do you want in?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Liz Lear is coming down, and Judy Ewen.”

  The majordomos called in for the MacReynolds-Davies crisis, thought Sydney.

  Liz Lear was an authority on modern music; she had an afternoon radio show called “Liz Lear and All That Jazz.” Judy Ewen was a textbook editor.

  “I don’t know for sure,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”

  He went back to his room angry at M.E. If she hadn’t even discussed the Gun Gum commercial, what was the big hurry to get rid of him? He had the right amount of hostile vibrations to turn the Rocky Lee onion pizza summit conference into an ignominious failure. Just by joining it for a while in the first place, he knew, it would falter some, for they would all be dying to get their teeth into this new breakup instantly, with the Davies half there to give her side firsthand.

  With him present, they would have to use restraint and the code in describing the recent goings-on in their lives.

  Liz Lear never hid the fact she lived with Gloria Roy. Liz had been with Gloria for ten years, a colossal domestic record, and code was never used in reference to Liz’s home life. But Liz was prone to pretend for his benefit that there could be something significant in the fact she was often over at Roger Wolfe’s until all hours in the morning. Roger Wolfe was a set designer. The truth about Roger Wolfe was at one glance as hard to divine as the fact that turtles have shells. Liz’s making something out of having midnight suppers at Roger Wolfe’s was code, and so was Judy Ewen’s penchant for introducing all her female friends to Shockproof as “Mrs.” when he knew most of them had never married.

  Ellie Davies had followed M.E. back to her bedroom, and he could hear them now, arguing over the fact Liz Lear had been invited.

  “She’s always been more sympathetic to Ann, Shep.”

  “I can’t call her back and tell her not to come.”

  “I can see those icy blue eyes watching me now. It’s going to inhibit me.”

  “Ellie, Liz isn’t hard. She saved my life when Cappy left me.”

  He put on the Promenade album and listened to: You were there when I was not. I was there when you were not. Don’t love me, sweetheart, or I might stop loving you.

  He needed to develop a cool facade. It was the only way he would impress an Alison Arnstein Gray. He needed to take a lesson from Promenade and memorize lines like: It is true I told you I would love you, And I never did. But remember I’m forgetful, Little Fool.

  He put Alison Gray out of his thoughts, and remembered how neatly he had fitted with Estelle Kelly in the scissors position Memorial Day weekend. She had fixed them stingers and put on “Pal Joey,” which had orchestrated his thrusts inside her.… Where had that come from: “orchestrated his thrusts inside her”? He rarely ever forgot such things. He was best with sex scenes from novels, and could rattle off hundreds, identifying the book and the author.

  Convincing himself of his past with women did not help him forget Alison Gray, and now he faced the inevitable speculation. What of M.E. and Alison? It was probably already under way. Nothing overt, nothing even slightly suggestive, but something so subtle it was like electricity you never felt go through the switch, and suddenly there the lights were.

  Was he Cappy, having hallucinations about every woman who came within five feet of M.E.? Or worse, the wife of Harold Skate, whose fancy it was that M.E. would fall hungrily upon any female form she’d first drugged for purposes of seduction, including Rosemary Skate herself?

  The plain fact was—to put it as he had long ago overheard Harold Skate explain it—their kind is not necessarily predatory, and very often, Rosemary, not even interested in a woman just because she’s female.

  —I don’t know what that means, Harold.

  —Rosemary, that means their kind can pass up a female, too.

  —I’ve got a big picture of that happening.

  —Do you think that’s all they think about?

  —I’m not interested in what abnormals think about, Harold.

  Shockproof decided against attending the do in the den, got up, and turned off Promenade.

  It would be boring to put himself through all that, simply as retaliation for M. E. Shepley Skate’s behavior.

  What was he doing to himself now?

  It hadn’t been that bad.

  He had merely been cruising Alison Arnstein Gray like any normal, and his mother had come along in the interest of the Gun Gum account.

  He decided not to change his shirt to go to Estelle Kelly’s, since he would not have it on long anyway, and she never shaved.

  Another reason he was not crashing the den affair, he realized as he headed in to give them the good news, was that it had been Ellie Davies who had taught him to drive. He had been about thirteen when he was invited one summer weekend to Ellie’s and Ann’s in Westport, while his mother settled another emotional crisis with Corita Carr. Ellie had taken him out to some back road in the woods, in her little Hillman Minx, and soon he was behind the wheel, goosing the car along with Ellie shouting, “Shift, Sydney! Shift, Sydney! Shit, Sifney!”

  That Monday when his mother picked him up, he could do everything but park on a steep hill, and “Shit, Sifney” had become jargon.

  He went into the den and kissed M.E. good-bye, frustrated because he could not indicate to Ellie he was sorry about her scene. Airily he blew a kiss to her, saw her look of surprise, and stumbled over a cabriole chair leg exiting.

  Then he changed his shirt after all.

  He slipped across to his mother’s bedroom and reached in the enormous crystal brandy snifter filled with matchbooks for a few to take to Estelle Kelly. He found a Café Chauveron, a Clos Normand, and a Pearl’s. Estelle Kelly smoked slender brown cigarettes she ordered by the carton from Nat Sherman’s, and liked to flaunt match
books from expensive restaurants.

  He fished out one more as a bonus. The Grenadier.

  He went out the back entrance of the town house, down the steps and through the garden.

  At Arnold’s Delicatessen around the corner on Third Avenue, he dined on the hot dog–sauerkraut–mashed potato combination platter. He thought about the fact that not only had he never told anyone that Shockproof was his name for himself, he had also never confided in anyone about his mother. The two went together.

  The summer of Loretta Willensky, she was frequently hinting at her own problems as the daughter of Mr. Boris, who usually traveled the beach with a cortege of males not much older than Loretta. Shockproof played dumb when Loretta brought up the subject; ultimately she dropped it.

  He sometimes felt guilty over the idea that Loretta Willensky might have badly needed to discuss it with someone, but he could not imagine himself talking about it. Knowing without anyone knowing he knew, was his lifestyle.

  In the taxi on his way up the East River Drive to Estelle’s, he enjoyed a false euphoria which was like the beauty of the river itself. God knows what kind of things were swimming around that you couldn’t see. But he was in a buoyant spirit and kept hearing a soft little “Hey” in his ear, while rushing to Gramercy Park South through another rainstorm with a Rocky Lee onion pizza. (“Fantastic”)

  Estelle Kelly lived with her father on the twenty-second floor of a riverfront apartment building on East End Avenue.

  Estelle Kelly’s father’s name was Kevin Kelly. Captain Kevin Kelly, since he was an airline pilot, had flown in the Second World War, and liked to be called Captain.

  He was seldom home.

  Estelle’s mother had died when Estelle was eleven, and subsequently Estelle had been enrolled in a boarding school in Virginia. Shockproof had met her at a dance during a Paul Jones. She was sixteen then, and in love with a cadet from Staunton Military Academy. Estelle’s father’s influence had made her a uniform lover. Shockproof had not even the typical navy-blue school blazer to dazzle her with, since VPS was toned down almost to the point of being dormant. Shockproof got nowhere in the face of the SMA lieutenant colonel, caped, epauletted, sabered, and erectile.

  Shockproof had not broken through the barrier until last Christmas. The SMA lieutenant colonel was from Florida. Shockproof and Estelle Kelly took the train which went in the opposite direction. En route from Washington to New York, crazed by Southern Comfort, Estelle Kelly had waited until the school chaperone had retired, then crawled into Shockproof’s lower berth, where they did it in four meaningless minutes.

  The first minute had been taken up with an attempt by Shockproof to reassure Estelle Kelly. “Don’t be afraid.”

  “Of you?” she had hooted.

  In the morning, happening upon her in the dining room, their first encounter since their horizontal one, he had achieved a casual “Hello there, Estelle.” She had left her Cream of Wheat unfinished and retreated to a Ladies, where she remained until Grand Central.

  Phone calls, letters, on and on. Easter vacation; Memorial Day weekend.

  Now he suffered the cynical eye of the fat night doorman, combed his hair in the elevator, and rang her bell.

  Estelle opened the door, gasped, and then pulled her tired old stunt of slamming it in his face.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh!” she croaked, opening the door the second time. “It’s my trick.”

  She liked costumes, and she had gotten herself up in some Slavic-looking thing with a tunic and matching silk knickers. The tunic was grass green with white satin buttons, and she had on white stockings and white satin slippers.

  “I leaned out over my balcony today and fed your telegram to the seagulls,” she said in a Katharine Hepburn imitation, as he sat down.

  Captain Kevin Kelly had hired a decorator who believed the environment should reflect the personality. There was a huge wooden airplane propeller across one wall, and the furnishings were reminiscent of the old “Star Trek” set.

  “Is your father home?” he said. “Is he in town?”

  “Nay, sire, I am a virgin and alone.”

  Estelle Kelly pretended to sleepwalk her way toward the bar. “The war hero’s in Kansas City,” she said.

  There was a picture of the Captain on the bar. It was one of those purposeless poses where the subject decides to squat down with one hand touching the ground, as though any moment a gun would go off and begin the track meet. The photograph was inscribed: “Fly to your mark, Estelle. Love, Dad.”

  Estelle Kelly pounded the bar with her fist and said out of the side of her mouth, “What’ll it be, Mac?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said.

  Estelle’s father, when he was home, was always whipping up deviate drinks like shandygaffs, sundowners, and Byrrh Cassises. Estelle imitated the Captain. She entertained Shockproof the way the Captain would entertain one of his girlfriends. There was a tier of lighted candles at one end of the room, and the smell of Orange Blossom incense. Over the hi-fi, Frank Sinatra was singing “My Shining Hour.” The Captain owned every album Sinatra had ever made, and all the musical comedy albums from the forties and fifties.

  “How about some Bullshits?” Estelle said. “I’ll make a batch.”

  “No, not a Bullshot.”

  “Why not? I bought the bouillon already.”

  “I don’t want all that bouillon on top of what I just ate.”

  “I hope you want me on top of what you just ate, because if you don’t, Buster, over and out.”

  “Just plain Scotch on the rocks,” he said.

  “Just plain Bill,” she began, in one of her compulsive, staccato rhyming sessions, “he’s a thrill, he can smell my daffodil. I’ll hold still, yes, I will—”

  “Wait,” he said. “Do you have some wine?”

  “Wine?”

  He took out the package of Mary Jane Marlboros.

  “Come to Marlboro Country, where the big C is king,” she said. “When did you start to smoke?”

  “These have pot in them. Liquor and pot don’t mix.”

  “Dubonnet,” she said. “How’s Dubonnet?”

  “We’ll see … You want to turn on?”

  “I’m a sex fiend, not a dope fiend.”

  “Just to try one time?”

  Estelle Kelly shook her head emphatically. “Daddy would die,” she said.

  “Daddy isn’t here.”

  “Yes he is,” she said, and sang, “his ma-gic spell is ev-ry where.”

  It was true. There was another photograph of the Captain on the square black translucent table beside Shockproof. It was a head and shoulder shot, the Captain wearing his war hero’s uniform complete with medals and ribbons. His cap was cocked at a jaunty angle. The inscription read, “Estelle, in the wild blue yonder my thoughts are with you always. Your loving Pop.”

  Shockproof held the smoke in his lungs and sniffed it up into his head, getting into it very fast, remembering to do everything he had not done the one time he had tried to turn on at VPS. He became more mellow with each drag. He was soon undoing the white buttons of the green Slavic tunic, and very solemnly touching her tiny breasts. Eye contact, big inner steamy buildup at the sight of Estelle’s eyes softening with fear, like an animal’s instinctive dread at the sound of gunshot. Choked up, Shockproof stroked her hair and murmured, “Stel. Dear Stel.”

  “Do something obscene to me fast,” she said.

  “Don’t spoil it,” he whispered. “Dearest. For once. Don’t.” It was the way his mother wrote letters, “Dearest. Are you leaving me? Don’t.”

  “Take me in that bedroom and fuck me until I’m in little pieces,” said Estelle Kelly nervously.

  “Why rush, Stel?”

  “Es-stelle, Es-stelle, Es-stelle. Don’t try to get intimate, Sydney Skate.”

  She wrenched herself away from him and tore off her tunic. Then down came the silk knickers, white stockings, and satin slippers. Estelle Kelly was buck naked by the Milo Baughman armcha
ir. There was something unsubstantial and pathetic about Estelle Kelly in the nude, the same as there was about a plucked chicken dangling on a hook in a butcher shop. She picked up her Bullshot.

  “I’m heading in for the hangar. How about you?”

  Shockproof sighed. “Listen, Estelle …”

  “Listen to what? Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap! How long can two people rap together, Sydney?”

  “Were we rapping over here? We weren’t rapping.”

  “You were talking.”

  “What talking?” Shockproof had roomed for three years at VPS with Joel Schwartz. When he was unfairly caught he often became Joel Schwartz. “That was talking?” said Joel Schwartz. “I said your name.”

  “Okay. I’m fixing myself another Bullshit.”

  “I just said your name.”

  “That’s what marijuana does, you know. It turns you into a marathon mouth.”

  “I just said your name.”

  “You were embroidering, Sydney. You said ‘Dear Stel. Dear Stel.’”

  “Oh the hell I did,” he said, sniffing more pot up into his head. “I said ‘Stel. Dear Stel.’”

  “There’s no difference.” She banged the ice cubes into her drink.

  “There’s a difference in style.”

  “Oh fart.”

  “You just can’t make a graceful evening out of it, can you?”

  “Noisy fart.”

  “G-r-a-c-e-f-u-l, Estelle.”

  “U-p y-o-u-r-s, Sydney.”

  “You might as well put out the candles and the incense, and good luck with your mouth.”

  “Did you hear about the commercial for Ex-Lax that Bette Davis made?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “What a dump!” she said in a perfect imitation, complete with wrist twist.

  Then when he was way, way into it, she didn’t bother him when she opened her mouth. There was no big romantic production. They performed. Twice in the kitchen: once against the refrigerator, the second time with Estelle across the kitchen table, Shockproof standing. He had the fantasy they had their own little ring in some circus and followed the dancing bears.

  “Next, the bedroom,” he said. She lurched into the Waring Blender. “Drunk?” he said. His voice sounded as though it came from the living room.