by Doug Worgul
“I guess we’re like turtles,” said LaVerne. “Sometimes we get diverted and end up in a place we never expected to be.”
Ferguson finished his whiskey. “Truth is, turtles probably don’t even have homes.”
20
Broken
The next to the last day of his honeymoon was the last good day of Ferguson Glen’s marriage. It was May 19, 1975, forty-three days after his editor Walker Briggs called to tell him his manuscript would likely be rejected, a month to-the-day after he and Bijou Serrée were wed, and 192 days before their union was mercifully dissolved.
Ferguson’s father, The Right Reverend Angus Mackintosh Glen, performed the wedding ceremony at New York’s Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. Among the more than five-hundred wedding guests were a dozen or so ambassadors, a handful of Kennedys, several members of Congress, the governor of Michigan, the chief executives of two of the Big Three American automobile manufacturers, a sitting Supreme Court justice, the Vice-President of the United States, Carly Simon, and about fifty of the most beautiful women in the world, who, at the reception that followed, received much attention from the Kennedys.
Bijou’s father, Elliot Peabody, was a career diplomat and Cold Warrior of the Acheson School. Two months earlier, Gerald Ford had appointed him ambassador to Poland. Bijou’s mother Estelle Serrée was a fashion designer and magnate, the formidable and flamboyant head of the House of Serrée, founded by Bijou’s grandfather Louis Serrée in France, before the war.
Bijou began using her mother’s maiden name when she was a freshman at Yale. She and her father had never enjoyed a particularly harmonious relationship and when she entered college their differences sharpened. They disagreed bitterly and loudly on almost every subject—music, vegetarianism, the war in Vietnam, and her spoiled younger brother Phillip. Bijou also had serious misgivings about the decadent, sexist materialism of her mother’s fashion empire. But she concluded that distancing herself from her father better served her own long-term political ambitions so she dropped the name Richardson. Plus, she liked the sound of Bijou Serrée better than Bijou Peabody.
After graduating Yale, Bijou earned her law degree at Harvard and subsequently clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall. At the time of the wedding, she was an aggressively activist civil rights attorney with a national profile and an ulcer. Elegantly severe in appearance and persona, Bijou was tall, bony, and pale, with fierce red hair. Her range of facial expressions was limited to righteous outrage, intense concentration, contempt, and patronizing bemusement.
The turnover rate among staff in Bijou’s law office was nearly 100 percent. The same was true among her friends. Of both she expected unwavering loyalty, 24-hour availability, and transcendent competence. Few measured up.
But Ferguson Glen disarmed her. He bought her a bicycle. He counted the freckles on her back. He sang Wilson Pickett and Al Green songs to her in the car. He gave her a subscription to MAD magazine. He memorized the names of her childhood pets. And he insisted that she do her own grocery shopping, a task kitchen staff or housekeepers had always done for her and her family. Once, he made her laugh so hard she peed her pants. Against her better judgment, he also compelled her to see the humanity and vulnerability of the defendants against whom she pressed her civil rights suits. He demanded she look past their calculated self-interest, their indifference, and even their hatred, to see their fearfulness, ignorance, and brokenness.
For her part, Bijou made Ferguson feel needed, which he had never before felt. Not as a child, though he had felt well fed, clothed, and cared for. Not in seminary, though he had felt respected by his fellow students and by his professors. Not when giving readings or signing copies of his novel, though then he felt idolized. And not marching in Selma, though he had felt welcomed and appreciated and part of something historic and monumental.
Even when celebrating the Eucharist he did not feel needed, though that came closest. When he raised the host and the chalice and spoke the ancient words he felt, if not exactly needed, that he was well and rightly used.
When celebrating the Eucharist Ferguson felt closest to God, but it was also then that he felt His silence most keenly. Ferguson had, all of his life, yearned for, and prayed for an encounter with God. He had all his life been told that one could have a “personal relationship” with God, that one could “walk with” God, that one should “listen for” God, and “watch for” God. But for all his watching and listening and walking there was nothing remotely personal about his relationship with God. He believed God was real, but not because any experience he had ever had caused him to believe it.
He had studied the Desert Fathers and the mystics looking for clues, searching for a secret path to an encounter with God. He had, for a time, attended a Baptist church because Baptists seemed so matter-of-fact about their relationships with God—He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own. He saw the emotion in their worship and their certainty that what they were feeling was the presence of God Himself. He wanted to feel that.
Yet, he, who had been raised by God’s own servants, and who had chosen to devote his own life to seeking and proclaiming God, felt nothing. He could speak with conviction and clarity about God, but what he longed for was to speak with God. He longed for God to speak to him. This, perhaps more than anything else, was why, following seminary, Ferguson neither sought nor accepted a position as rector of a congregation. He was sure that he could not effectively guide parishioners in seeking what he himself had not found.
Still, he believed in that which he had not found. He had, at least, found Bijou. And he felt her love for him. And her loving him was maybe the next best thing to an encounter with God.
*
Bijou and Ferguson first met at a mid-town Manhattan art gallery where they had attended an exhibit of works by the artists’ co-op “Creativity Resistance and Peace.” They were introduced by their mutual friend Carly Simon, whom Ferguson knew through publishing connections, and whom Bijou knew because their families’ summer homes on Martha’s Vineyard were just three houses apart.
Standing elbow-to-elbow contemplating a painting which depicted Queen Victoria in a red, white, and blue bikini, surrounded by Vietnamese children incinerated by napalm, Ferguson wondered aloud if the artists who staged the exhibit were aware that the acronym for their organization’s name was CRAP. Bijou wondered aloud if they were aware that their art was crap. They finished their canapés and Chardonnay and went down the street for coffee.
*
She demanded the best from him. She insisted that he read to her from whatever he was writing and she told him the truth about it. If it was good, she told him it was good. And if it was shit, she told him it was shit. At public readings, he tended to read too softly with his head down. She coached him on projecting his voice, making eye contact with his audience, and delivering his words with authority. He admitted he should have learned all that in his seminary course on preaching, but confessed he hadn’t really liked the professor much, and learning to preach wasn’t why he went to seminary in any case.
When he drifted away from what he was writing, toward indifference and boredom, or his stacks of unread books, or the whiskey in the cabinet, she took hold of the tiller and turned him back on course. Bijou knew where he was weak and where he was strong.
She also knew where all the best restaurants were. She knew Brown v. Board of Education word-for-word. She knew Rudolf Nureyev’s Paris street address, and she knew how to speak French. She looked good in a beret and she looked great naked.
Bijou Serrée’s engagement to Ferguson Glen was relatively short—a few days shy of a year—only about as long as needed to plan and execute a wedding on the magnitude expected for two scions of American aristocracy. Their pending nuptials were the subject of spirited speculation in tearooms and saunas and on tennis courts and putting greens around town: Could the soulful writer-pr
iest breathe some life into the stone-cold courtroom diva of the New Left? And could the warrior princess save the melancholy minister from pissing away his talent?
The popularity of and critical acclaim for Traverse, Ferguson’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated first novel, and his high profile involvement in the Civil Rights Movement had elevated Ferguson to the status of literary celebrity. But there were murmurs in the corner offices of New York’s publishing establishment that Ferguson’s second manuscript was in trouble. Word was that Walker Briggs’ bosses had told him he would have to push his young writer harder. There had been a sizable advance and sizable expectations along with it.
Walker had tried to make clear to Ferguson that there was a fine line between a heralded Pulitzer nominee with a bright future and a forgotten Pulitzer also-ran with a bright past. The main difference being good writing and met deadlines, neither of which did Ferguson seem capable of.
There were signs Walker wished he’d seen earlier. Missed appointments. Promises to work harder, promptly broken. Defensiveness, distractedness, and depression. Late one afternoon he arrived at Ferguson’s apartment to take him to dinner and found the door unlocked. Cautiously, he entered, fearing he’d interrupted a burglary or worse.
Ferguson was passed out on the couch in the living room. On a coffee table by the couch was an opened half-empty bottle of Jim Beam and a drinking glass half-full. Walker would rather have interrupted a burglary. He had wondered and worried about this and now his suspicions were confirmed. In disgust, he kicked the couch hard. When Ferguson came to, Walker delivered an ultimatum: If your drinking means more to you than your writing, fine. Our lawyers will contact you about reimbursement of your advance. When he got back to his office Walker called Bijou, told her what had happened, and asked for her help.
Bijou could not claim to be surprised by Walker’s story. She had her own suspicions. That night she confronted Ferguson and demanded that he quit drinking. If you don’t, she said, the engagement is off. It’s as simple as that.
So he quit. Until the next to the last day of their honeymoon.
*
Ferguson and Bijou honeymooned in Europe. They spent the first two-and-a-half weeks in France, at Bijou’s grandfather’s summer home in Fontvieille, after which they traveled to Scotland for another two weeks.
In France, they slept late into the morning on the balcony overlooking the courtyard; made love in the choir loft of the church in the village while the priest was hearing confessions; rode bikes past fields of lavender and sunflowers; read books and newspapers on the terrace until the sun went down; and made love in a rowboat adrift in a tidal pool.
In Scotland, they stayed at a cottage in Haddington, where Ferguson’s grandfather had pastored a congregation and where Ferguson’s father was born. They rented a car, drove north to the coast and stood on a rocky bluff overlooking the sea until Bijou got cold and went back to the car. They hiked the hills and pastures around Haddington and one morning startled a flock of sheep, causing the farmer to curse colorfully as he rounded them up. They packed a picnic of cheese and apples, and after eating, fell asleep on their blanket under a gnarled gean tree.
As the end of their time in Scotland approached, Ferguson became increasingly apprehensive about returning to New York, knowing he must try to rescue his book. Hoping for inspiration and perhaps divine intervention, Ferguson arranged to visit the island of Iona, off the coast of Scotland. For devout Anglicans this religious community was revered as a “thin place”—a place where the membrane between God and His creation is felt to be more permeable. Ferguson planned to spend time in prayer there while Bijou met with members of the Community to discuss their work for peace and justice. But after two hours alone in the chapel, Ferguson emerged anxious and angry. He found Bijou in the library where she was struggling mightily to stay awake as three elderly members of the Community droned on about their plans to meet with the Dalai Lama for the purpose of establishing interfaith dialogue. From the doorway Ferguson gave Bijou a “Let’s get out of here” look and she politely excused herself.
On the ferry back to the mainland, Ferguson went up to the deck and stood looking out at the sea.
Bijou followed him. “What happened in there?”
“Nothing,” he said, wondering how cold the steel gray water might be. “Absolutely nothing.”
He rallied somewhat that evening. They ate dinner at a pub in the village and made crude jokes about haggis and bangers, laughing so loud they drew the smiling and knowing attention of other patrons.
Ferguson could smell the whiskey in their glasses.
The next morning after breakfast Bijou got a call from a lawyer with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference about a discrimination class-action suit in Florida. The lawyer was hoping to enlist Bijou’s help with the case and, apologizing repeatedly, asked if he might fly to Edinburgh to meet with her later the next day. Bijou agreed and took the car into Edinburgh and stayed in a hotel there that night.
In Bijou’s absence, Ferguson’s trepidation deepened. He called Bijou’s hotel room, thinking that her voice might help him feel better but she wasn’t there. He thought about calling Walker but remembered that it was the middle of the night in New York.
He went outside and stood. This would be a good time to show yourself, he thought. Any little sign that things will be alright will do just fine. He stood there in silence for a long time, then walked into the village to the pub.
He ordered a bottle of Laphroaig and over the next three hours drank half of the scotch at a table in the corner of the tavern. Occasionally the barkeep asked him if he wanted anything to eat but Ferguson waved him off. Finally he shoved the bottle into his jacket and walked back to the cottage where he finished the whiskey and passed out in a chair in the front room.
When Bijou returned late the next day, Ferguson was still in the chair, semi-conscious, his trousers stained and stinking of urine. Bijou gasped and stood paralyzed in the doorway. Ferguson heard her and tried to sit up. Bijou strode across the room and slapped his face with all the force she had in her. Ferguson made no effort to stop her or to defend himself. He didn’t raise his hand to touch the place where she struck him. Bijou spoke quietly.
This won’t work, she said. This is a betrayal. I can’t believe you did this on our honeymoon. You promised me and you broke your promise. I love you, Ferguson. But you don’t love me—you don’t love us enough to keep your promise. I can’t trust you.
This will not work in my life, Ferguson. Not in the life I want. I’m going back to Edinburgh to stay and then I’m flying to Florida. I’ll meet you in New York next week and we’ll see about getting an annulment.
This breaks my heart, she said. And she left.
21
Shim-sham Shimmy
If A.B. hadn’t made such a big deal about Mother Mary Weaver’s 75th birthday, most people wouldn’t have had any idea how old she actually was. For about a week prior to her birthday, A.B. announced to nearly every customer who walked through the door, “Hey, Mother’s going to be 75! Can you believe it? 75 and goin’ strong. A genuine Kansas City blues legend! 75 years of blues greatness!”
Anybody else would have been flattered at first, then increasingly embarrassed, by such lavish attention. But Mary can never get enough attention, her ego being even bigger than her body. If she happened to be at her corner table eating her burnt ends when A.B. started in with his proclamations, she’d grin a big toothy grin and nod in agreement. She left the being embarrassed part to Pug.
Kansas City police detective, Pug Hale—Mary’s regular lunch companion, de facto manager, guardian, and lead guitarist—is a shy and unassuming man, in spite of the fact he’s been cited by the department numerous times for bravery. So as Mary basked in the glow of A.B.’s adulation, Pug sat there as still as he could be, focusing on his ribs, hoping it would all be over soon.
In publ
ic, Mother Mary’s prodigious head is always helmeted in a goldish House of Hair wig. That, together with her soft, smooth, medium-brown complexion might lead one to assume she’s younger than she is. But her arthritic knees and severely bloated ankles have so limited her mobility that, seeing her struggle to walk, even with Pug’s help, many people might conclude that she’s older than she is.
It was Pug that told A.B. that Mary was about to turn 75, after a benefit performance for a community center out in Johnson County. Mary’s set was short, but she was in good voice and A.B., who went along to help the band with its equipment, said so to Pug when they were packing up.
“Dang, Pug. I listen to her albums from back in the day, and she sounds as good now as she ever did.”
Pug nodded. “Mother’s talent doesn’t seem to have noticed that Mother’s body is getting old. She’ll be 75 years old soon. I keep thinking maybe she’ll quit. But she shows no interest in it.”
That was all it took for A.B. to spring into action. The next day after closing, as he and LaVerne were loading the Hobart with glasses and trays, A.B. laid out his proposal.
“Okay, boss. I got an idea. Pug tells me that Mother is going to be 75. So, how about we throw her a big party? Maybe a surprise party.”
“How big is ‘big,’ A.B.?” asked LaVerne.
“Well, I been thinking about it, and I figure that if we invited the owners of the clubs where she sings, some of her friends from her church, some of the local blues musicians, and the regulars here at the restaurant, there might be about 100 people.”
“You planning on renting a hall or something?” LaVerne asked. “Even if we took all the tables out, we couldn’t squeeze more than about 60 people in here. And then it’d be pretty tight.”
“I thought about that, too,” said A.B. pleased that so far he’d anticipated all his boss’s questions. “What if we asked Babaloo’s if we could use their parking lot?”
