“Oh, yeah?” said Harriet. “Wasn’t he funny?”
“Funny?” said Carrie.
“Yeah,” said Harriet. “I mean, all that corn liquor and everything.”
“Oh,” said Carrie. “Perhaps I’m mistaken. I thought I knew most of the families who send their children to Gregory. My dear little daughter went there before she … passed away.”
“She died?” asked Seymour eagerly.
“What of?” asked Harriet.
“Oh, dear,” said Carrie, and looked away.
“Let’s see,” said Charlotte, trying to change the subject. She turned to Seymour. “What did you say your last name was … ah … Serge?”
“Seymour,” corrected Seymour. “My last name is O’Neil.”
“Curious,” said Charlotte and then, “Thank you” to the butler, who had brought the martini and large glasses of cranberry juice for the children. “I don’t know any O’Neils at all.”
Carrie had stopped snuffling into her handkerchief about her daughter and was staring hard at Harriet. Harriet went on writing.
“Do you have so much homework, child?” Carrie finally said to Harriet just as Charlotte, having had two large swallows of the martini, turned to Harry and said brightly, “And of course your father must be with the United Nations.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Harry.
“I say, your father must be one of the ambassadors, Indian perhaps, at the U.N.?” Charlotte seemed considerably more chipper. Carrie looked relieved at the idea.
“Do you mean, am I an Indian?” asked Harry in a clipped voice.
“Yes,” said Charlotte. Carrie nodded her head.
“No, ma’am, I’m just plain American nigger,” said Harry. Charlotte slopped her martini, she put it down so fast.
Carrie fainted dead away.
Seymour, Sport, and Harriet laughed.
Charlotte regained her voice. She stood up. “Simon, get these people out of here. I will not be talked to this way. And look what you’ve done to Carrie. Get something, do something.”
Harriet threw a glass of cranberry juice in Carrie’s face.
Charlotte screamed. “Out! Get out! All of you!”
Carrie looked like she’d been murdered now with all the juice running off her head.
Harry stood up. He bowed politely from the waist and said, “Thank you ever so much for a lovely lunch.”
Seymour followed suit. “Gee, I had a swell time,” he said, grinning over at Carrie.
Harriet put her notebook back in her hat and smashed the hat down on her head. She jumped up and said, “See ya, Sport.” The three of them went out.
Charlotte rang the bell frantically. The butler appeared. “Watch those three on the way out,” shouted Charlotte. “They’ll steal the silver. Do something, call the doctor, Miss Carrie has fainted. Take this boy up to his room.” The butler didn’t know what to do first. He ran in three directions for a few seconds, then left the room.
Charlotte ran to the phone. Carrie began to rouse herself as Charlotte screamed into the phone. “Wilton, this was your idea! His little friends, as you call them, turn out to be one fat, hairy thing who looks forty, one black as pitch, and one schizophrenic who writes in a book the whole time! I told you before, Wilton, and now I know I’m right, this boy has to be removed from the influence of his father immediately.”
“I’m bleeding to death,” screamed Carrie.
“No, it’s cranberry juice,” said Sport.
“… I want his custody immediately,” said Charlotte. She wasn’t shouting now. She spoke with a concentrated coldness of tone that made Sport shiver.
“… I don’t care what you have to do and I don’t care how long it takes … I want his custody and I’m going to get it.”
“You should be severely punished,” said Carrie, leering at Sport through one cranberry-red eye. She got up and squished out of the room with as much dignity as she could muster.
Charlotte slammed the phone down. She stood still when she saw that Sport was still there. She pointed her finger at him.
“You’re getting away from those people before you’re completely ruined. Get upstairs to your room. This week you’re going to learn what the word discipline means.”
Sport stood up.
“Move,” she shouted.
Sport went up to his room. He climbed up on the big bed and laughed. He laughed and laughed, remembering Charlotte’s face as she listened to Harry. He kept on laughing even when he heard the key turn in the lock and knew he was locked in for good.
CHAPTER
Eighteen
During the next week things were so bad, Sport I wondered if the laugh had been worth it. Instead of wanting to get rid of him, Charlotte seemed to want to keep him forever.
Egbert drove him to school every morning in the long black car. He tried to get Egbert to stop a block away from the school and let him out so the kids wouldn’t see him, but Egbert just shook his head. When school let out, Egbert was right back again. Sport was taken back home, escorted to his room, and locked in. He got to be the smartest boy in class that week because there was nothing to do in that room but his homework. He began to be a little groggy about what day it was because they were all so much alike. He was unlocked, dressed for dinner by the Filipino, and led to the table. Once there, he had no appetite. Each meal was a long lesson in table manners. Food seemed totally unimportant next to remembering where to put the fingerbowl. He was led back upstairs again, undressed, and put into bed. The little man smiled the whole time as though it were all delightful.
The first day back at school he and Harry and Seymour had laughed a lot.
“Anytime you want the room cleared, just call,” said Harry.
“Yeah,” said Seymour. “For LEWD’s first case I think we brought it off pretty good.”
“Elementary, my dear Serge,” said Harry.
After the first day, however, they just looked at him when he got into the black car. He watched them through the back window with envy as they walked off together to play ball.
Toward the end of the week Sport began to feel better. After all, he reasoned, my father will be home Saturday afternoon. They said they wanted to spend Sunday with me before they both had to go back to work. He sat dreaming through most of Friday. Friday night he was so excited, he couldn’t go to sleep.
He wondered why no one had mentioned his father’s return or his going home. They must remember my father is coming home Saturday, he thought nervously. He finally got to sleep. He thought he was dreaming when he saw Charlotte, fully dressed, leaning over his bed.
“Get up now,” she said, not unkindly.
“What?” said Sport. “I don’t have school today,” he said groggily.
“Get up and put on your gray suit,” she said shortly and left the room.
Maybe my father is here early, Sport thought happily and jumped out of bed. He hurried into his clothes, threw everything into the suitcase, and ran downstairs without brushing his teeth. Charlotte was waiting for him in the front hall. Without a word, she pushed him out the front door and into the waiting ear.
Whew, said Sport to himself, it’s over.
The car started off. Instead of turning uptown it turned downtown. Sport felt his heart start to jump. “Where’s he going?” he asked loudly.
Charlotte said nothing.
“Where’s he going?” Sport repeated frantically.
Charlotte still said nothing. Sport looked at her face. Her jaw was tense, her eyes cold and hard as she stared straight ahead at the back of Egbert’s neck.
“Where’re you taking me?” yelled Sport and grabbed at her fur coat.
“Take your hands off me,” she said quietly. “And shut up.” Her voice was a stiletto. Sport stared at her a minute, then looked out the window to see where they were going. They were on Fifth Avenue headed downtown. Egbert made a turn into Fifty-ninth Street and pulled up at the front door of the Plaza Hotel.
Th
e doorman opened the door, and Charlotte got out. She motioned impatiently for Sport. He crawled out and followed her up the steps. She went around the Palm Court to the desk, said a few words to the man there, and handed the bellboy a key. She turned toward the elevator. Sport had just decided to run out the side door when she spotted him and pulled him to the elevator. She told the man the floor. The bellboy came with them and carried Sport’s bag. He opened the door to a room, and they stepped inside. Charlotte tipped him and he left. Sport stood in the middle of the room, looking at his mother in wonder.
She turned around to him. “You will stay here,” she said simply.
“What? Where’s my father?” said Sport.
“You are to stay here,” she repeated. “The hotel is instructed to accept no outgoing calls, so you needn’t try calling.” She gathered her fur around her and went toward the door. She was leaving! She was leaving him in that room! Sport ran toward her.
“What are you doing?” he yelled.
She turned around quickly as though she thought he might hit her. Her eyes flashed. “It will all be settled in about a week. Until then, you’re to stay here. You’ll miss school, but you won’t mind that.” She smiled a nasty little smile. “You can have anything you want on room service”—she paused—”but don’t try to get away. It’s all been taken care of. You can’t.”
She opened the door, locked it behind her, and was gone.
Sport stood looking at the closed door. He felt numb. He felt that the whole thing wasn’t happening to him. He sat down on the bed and looked around the room. It was all gold. The rug, draperies, and bedspread were a dull gold, the headboards some kind of rubbed wood. There was a great oval antique mirror across from him in which he suddenly saw himself, his eyes wide, his face pale and smaller than he had ever seen it.
His father had once said to him, and he remembered it now, “If you are ever in real trouble, don’t panic. Sit down and think about it. Remember two things, always. There must be some way out of it and there must be humor in it somewhere.”
Ech, thought Sport. There wasn’t anything funny about this and there wasn’t any way out of it.
After all, though, he told himself calmly, it wasn’t really a prison. It was a hotel in the biggest city in the world.
He ran to the window. It took a lot of strength to raise it, but he did at last. He tried to lean out. There was a piece of slanting glass stopping him. He leaned further.
“Help!” he screamed. “Help! Help!” He felt foolish at first but when he got going, he didn’t anymore, and screamed for all he was worth. “Help! Help! Help!”
Through his screams he saw the little ant people, the toy cars, the tiny awnings, the baby trees that looked as though they belonged along a toy railroad. It took a few minutes to penetrate, but the scream died in his throat as he realized that he was too high up for anyone ever to hear him. For one mad moment he considered climbing out onto the ledge, but even the thought made him dizzy. If they didn’t hear him, then chances were they wouldn’t see him either, and he’d just have to crawl back in. He turned away from the window.
He went to the telephone.
“May I help you?” said a woman’s voice.
“I want to call RE seven, four-eight-three-three,” he said, giving his father’s number and trying to sound old.
There was a pause. Sport held his breath. Maybe she lied, he thought quickly.
Then: “I can connect you with room service, young fellow, but that’s all.” The voice sounded rather sympathetic.
“Thank you,” said Sport, and hung up.
He looked around the room. He tried the door even though he knew it was useless.
He sat down again. Suddenly he jumped up. He ran into the bathroom and looked around. He ran to his suitcase and opened it up. He rummaged through it, finally took out one of his sneakers. There was a pad and pencil next to the telephone. He wrote on the pad hurriedly, “I AM TRAPPED IN …” He didn’t know the room number. He ran to the back of the door and looked at the framed card. He ran back and wrote:
I AM TRAPPED IN ROOM 1607.
PLEASE CALL MY FATHER AT RE 7-4833
AND TELL HIM TO COME GET ME.
He put the note in the sneaker with just enough sticking out so someone would see it.
He ran to the window, leaned over the glass thing as far as he could, and aimed right at the doorman’s head. The sneaker flew through the air in a dizzying spiral, getting smaller and smaller until it landed with a small indentation on the top of the awning and sat forlornly holding it’s message.
Sport felt horribly empty as he leaned back into the room.
“All I did was throw my sneaker out the window,” he said aloud, and suddenly it seemed funny. What do you do with one sneaker? he asked himself, and laughed at that. “I’m only a bird in a gilded cage,” he sang loudly, and laughed again. Maybe, he thought slowly, maybe if I make a lot of noise inside the room, someone will notice.
Having decided upon this, he started to scream as loud as he could. He picked up his suitcase and threw it against the outside door. He pushed a chair over. He stomped on the floor, jumping up and down and using his whole weight on both feet.
He stopped, exhausted, having nothing else to throw. Silence greeted him. It was the same silence that had been there before he started to yell.
He sat down. Maybe he was the only one on this floor. Maybe nobody ever came up here. Waiters had to deliver things, though. He jumped up, ran over, picked up the phone, and shouted, “Room service.”
A voice said, “Room service. May I help you?”
“Yes,” said Sport, beginning to smile. “I’d like the biggest steak you’ve got.”
“Certainly. What would you like with that?”
“Potatoes and a malted,” said Sport.
“I beg your pardon?”
“A malted, a black and white malted,” said Sport.
“Yes, sir, and what dressing on your salad?”
“What?”
“French, Roquefort, or house?”
“House?” He saw a house sitting on a salad.
“Yes, sir, and how would you like your steak?”
“Right now.”
“Rare, medium, or well done?”
“Oh, medium.”
“Your room number, please?”
“Sixteen-oh-seven. And some rolls, too.”
“Rolls come with it, sir. Would you like some special kind of rolls? We have hard rolls or …”
“Any kind,” said Sport, “and can you hurry?”
“We will fill your order as soon as possible, sir. We’re doing the breakfast orders now. Nine o’clock in the morning, I don’t mind telling you, we don’t get many calls for steak. It will be along as soon as possible.”
“Thank you,” said Sport.
He hung up the phone. He was suddenly starving.
As he waited for the food, he made his plans. Forty-five minutes later when it came, he was ready.
The buzzer sounded. Sport stood up and ran over to the closet door, which was between the bathroom and the outside door. He stepped inside, leaving the door open a crack. He heard a key unlock the front door. He saw a waiter pushing in a long table covered with a white cloth. On top were silver dishes with lids on them.
Just as the waiter got through the door, Sport pushed open the closet door and dove through the open front door.
He was in the hall. A hand grabbed the back of his collar. “And where are we going?” growled a voice above the hand.
Sport twisted like a fish. The hand let go, then two hands grasped his shoulders and turned him around.
He looked up into the face of a man who wore a hat down over one eye and had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
“Think you’ll just split, huh?” said the man.
“Who are you?” said Sport.
“I’m here to see you don’t leave,” said the man.
Sport then noticed a chair that was placed rig
ht outside the door.
The man pushed Sport ahead of him back into the room. He held on to Sport. The waiter was still there.
“Sign the tab,” said the man.
The waiter held out a piece of paper to Sport.
“What?” said Sport.
“Just sign your name,” said the man with the hat. “They’ll tip you later,” he said to the waiter. The waiter nodded.
Sport took the pencil and wrote “Simon Rocque” on the card.
He noticed that the bill was fifteen dollars, two dollars for the malted. “Geez,” he said loudly.
The waiter bowed out of the room. The man in the hat let Sport go. “Don’t try it again, sonny,” he said as he went toward the door. “I’m right out there, day and night. No use making all that noise either. Nobody going to do anything no matter how much you make.” He went out the door, leaving behind the smell of smoke. The lock turned once again.
Sport went over to the table and sat down. He ate everything. The steak was great and so was the malted. After he ate he went over and lay down on the bed. He fell asleep almost immediately.
CHAPTER
Nineteen
At the end of three days Sport was so sick of steak that he never wanted to see one again. He had had steak three times a day for three days. He decided, on the morning of the fourth day, that he would systematically have everything printed on the menu. That day at lunch he ordered demitasse for dessert and discovered it was coffee. After that he stuck to the things that sounded familiar.
The detective outside the door had brought him some magazines to read. There was a television in the room and he watched that, all day and late into the night, falling asleep in the middle of The Late Show. He decided that the detective must come in and turn it off because it was always off in the morning.
On the afternoon of the fourth day a package arrived from Brooks Brothers with new shirts and new underwear. Sport just looked at it. He kept on the same clothes he had arrived in. He had the feeling that if he stayed dressed, he might leave any minute.
That evening, after he had had dinner, he sat watching television. He heard the door unlock. Figuring that it was the busboy to take away the dinner table, he didn’t stop looking at the television until he heard voices outside the door.
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