The Age of Cities

by Brett Josef Grubisic

  Alberta patted down stray hairs lifted by the breeze. “I suppose. The big question, if you go, is who will you be? You could show up as that turbaned fellow in Kim, maybe, that’d be a cinch to put together. Just sheeting, no stitching to speak of.”

  “I think turbans are more your style, Mother. Maybe you should come with me—as the agent in Kim. Now that I’d like to see.”

  “Not this time around, my dear. My bones are too weary. Besides, someone has to make sure those hooligans from up the street don’t throw eggs—or worse—because nobody’s answering the Manor’s door. That’s one mess I refuse to clean up.” Alberta had reached an age when she felt quite comfortable regarding all youngsters as being disrespectful in a way that men in her generation would never have dreamed. She acted scandalized, but Winston had no clue whether she was serious.

  She handed Dickie’s card back to Winston. “Remember what happened to those Jehovah’s Witnesses on 3rd. Bet they really thought the end was coming after that night. Ha! And that was because they had not been at home to deposit candy into grubby little paws.” The egging of that house three years back had been front-page news in the Record, citizens—including the mayor himself, who called for a six p.m. curfew—writing searing letters of condemnation, only to be met by others offering rationales or justifications. Boys will be boys had been the final albeit unsatisfactory consensus.

  “I’ll have to think about it. I’m certain that I don’t want to wear anything Civil or World War. Nothing seafaring, either.” The pulsing excitement he felt across his chest told him the decision had been made. The distant mysteries of Dickie’s abode—its cedar red Pomeranians, valuable porcelains, and unknown odours, textures, and decor—stood nowhere close to the hoard Egyptologists had encountered in desert pyramids, but they’d held Winston’s interest for months. Now, a room packed with strangers, he thought, that was less relishable. “I wonder if Errol Flynn ever played a farmer?” he wondered. “Now, that would be an ideal costume.”

  The streets were silent as clouds as Winston passed by houses clutching a brown paper grocery bag tightly under his arm. It contained the costume he and Alberta had cobbled together; he’d wrapped the leggings around his party offering—the transparent bottle of Russian vodka he’d purchased earlier in the week—and wanted to guarantee its safe passage.

  Winston saw no raucous children. He spotted a pair of cowboys seated next to their father in a stalled car, but not one half-sized witch, skeleton, scarecrow, or fairy crossed his path. And, he guessed, all the adults were already well on their way to the kind of tomfoolery and future regrets that their drinking and once-a-year guises would encourage. An anxious sensation seeped into his consciousness and settled in his belly like a stone. He hoped spontaneity would not exact some awful price from him. Oughtn’t he, an old dog, be rewarded for trying a new trick? Isn’t that how it worked?

  Hiking along the sidewalk, Winston breathed in the crisp October air, and gratefully drew pleasure from the banks of fog and the occasional bracing assault of rank brine drifting in from the sea. Hearing a sedan bursting with rowdy celebrants, he wondered how hard Dickie, playing impresario, would try for tipsy Flynn verisimilitude, and whether there would be something other than hard liquor for guests to swill. “If it was my party…,” he muttered, and then chortled, knowing full well that a party was the very last thing he would ever plan, never mind go so far as hold. Being in the thick of a congregation of fair-weather friends, polite-conversation work colleagues, and townie acquaintances in one cramped room was something Alberta might actually choose; for him, it was too taxing—and for the life of him he could think of no benefits.

  If his host strived for realism, it would be too much, Winston sensed, at least if Dickie relied on the sorts of sources his mother had at hand. Alberta, sometime devotee of Confidential and its gutter-minded rivals, had been thrilled to present her son with racy bulletins about the rumour, innuendo, and matters of public record that had been dogging Errol Flynn since well before he arrived in Tinseltown. She reported that his early years had been taken up with countless scrapes involving errant wives and their protective, quick-to-see-red husbands, or else precocious young ladies and their outraged parents. When not being caught in the wrong bedroom—or on the criminal side of the age of consent—the man seemed to have been mesmerized by improbable and obviously shady get-rich-quick gold rush schemes in the South Seas; and they had tipped now and again into fraud or theft, involving police and pressmen with cameras in droves.

  So the tabloids claimed. Discretion was apparently not part of this adventurer’s valour. Later, it was constellations of starlets, entire cases of hard liquor, and frequent men-only fishing trips aboard his yacht, Alberta had relayed, her interest in him dissolving rapidly. She expected her stars to keep their scandals fresh and evolving. Otherwise, their condition was ordinary and sad, too similar to everyday life—like rabbity Mr. Carlton and his chronic problem with drinking before, during, and after work at the post office: pathetic, not exotic, and certainly not titillating.

  Winston thought he’d be happy to nurse a bottle of beer and stand a safe distance from the party’s teeming middle. That way he could savour the details of his surroundings. Now, no more than a few blocks from the address, he wondered if he should have brought a bottle or two for himself. Not that there’d be any place open this late.

  The moment he spotted Banff House he knew it was too late for all these speculations. “You’ve made your bed,” he told himself. A handful of individual apartments in the building’s four storeys were festooned with strands of coloured bulbs and jack-o’-lanterns that stared out from windows with candle-lit faces—leers, smiles, grimaces, orange spike teeth bared. Winston did not need to guess which one of them he was going end up in; he had to raise his eyes just a few degrees. On the top storey, the flat and regular tan brick face of Banff House was fitted with a pair of elaborate Greek balconies, each complete with a combination of dwarf balustrade, pilaster, and pediment. Winston fancied that they could be entrances to a cramped and fussy Doric temple, one which supplicants must reach by air. A movie poster—from the distance he recognized a scene from The Roots of Heaven—had been attached to the southernmost balcony. Evidently, Errol Flynn’s ponderous African adventure was his destination. A regiment of pith helmets was sure to greet him.

  Two women stood at the balustrade, looking toward the city’s core, pointing out sights and laughing. Maid Marian and Elizabeth I, Winston presumed, surprised to see them at all. He had not dwelled for long pondering the party’s guest list, but he’d imagined that the rooms would be populated by a wall-to-wall corps of Errol Flynns—all friends of the gang. His calculations had a visible flaw.

  When Winston pressed 401 R.W. no voice answered, but the whole entrance buzzed like a stove timer. He opened the door and stepped across the threshold. Beside having a floor of tiny white tiles bordered with a black interlocking key pattern and a cedar-framed mural celebrating the epic grandeur of a Rocky Mountain vista—outlandishly, impossibly epic, Winston noticed, because the scale was skewed—the lobby offered him a simple choice: a boxy bronze elevator or a sinuous wooden banister. He supposed the exertion from climbing stairs would help relieve tension, and started toward the narrow staircase.

  Winston pulled open the door and stepped into the top storey’s hallway, papered with an ivy and trellis pattern; the scant light seeping from the wall sconces completed the greenhouse atmosphere. His stomach had knotted in discomfort and he felt overheated, as though afflicted with a fast coursing fever. Halting his pace, he realized that turning around and leaving was an option. Nobody could tell the difference; Dickie had probably sent the invitation out as an afterthought and would have no way to ascertain whether his casual gesture had actually found its way to River Bend City. And since Alberta was surprised that her son had even chosen to accept Dickie’s offer, she would understand his last minute change of heart. He needn’t tell her anything, in fact. But he trudged on, id
eas like get some spine and old dogs can be taught new tricks running through his head. Besides, he told himself with an affected nonchalance, what’s the worst that can happen?

  He stood at the black door. Below the numerals 401 screwed to its surface, someone had tacked on a copy of the newspaper clipping Dickie had sent with the invitation. Drawing a deep steady breath, Winston knocked.

  Almost immediately, a blonde woman in pigtails swung open the door and stepped inside the frame. Rose petal perfume wafted from her skin. She smiled with lips coloured an intense plum; her loose-fitting man’s shirt was knotted high at the waist, brazenly opened at the neck. She was wearing scarlet Capri pants and white ballet slippers. Her left eye was blackened, as though she were a brawler or hitched to a husband who had turned out to be an unfortunate choice. Leaning against the door’s frame, she cocked her hip into a mannequin pose and slid her hand up to the topmost corner.

  “Hi y’all,” she said with a whispery drawl. “I’m Peggy La Rue Satterlee. Truly pleased to meet your acquaintance.” She held out her left hand. “And just who are you, sir, and what’s there in the bag?” Tendons suddenly relaxed, she dropped her wrist and pointed toward him with a painted index fingernail. Winston was not sure if he should shake her hand, kiss it, or gently clasp it like a minister would with a wife in mourning. He felt his face throb with racing blood even as he remained still.

  He said, “Hello. I’m Winston Wilson.” The woman’s face remained blank, uncomprehending. “I’m trusting that I have not shown up at the wrong address for a costume party.” He lifted the brown paper bag to show her that his costume supported his claim. The newspaper clipping is right there on the door, as plain as day, he thought. Sweat was seeping across his forehead; he could sense its unwelcome warmth.

  “Tarnation. You don’t look like anyone I know.” She leaned forward, as though to make a closer inspection. Winston could now see that she was less young than he had imagined. Impressively made up with foundation and rouged contours, from five feet away and under low wattage she could pass for some American gamin, a charming country girl, sweet if a touch ragged at the edges. At this intimate distance the mirage faded.

  She pulled back and swept her eyes along Winston’s length from freshly polished shoes to neatly parted hair.

  He felt his eyes burrowing insistently. Past the crisp white cotton of her Daisy Mae hillbilly’s half-unbuttoned shirt, they found the murky black filigree straps and scalloped lace cups of her brassiere.

  “They’re real you know, honey,” Peggy La Rue Satterlee said.

  He looked into her eyes. Sweat trickled along his temples.

  She grasped and then fondled the pearls strung around her neck. “Yes, sir, 100% cultured. You can touch them if you want. That’s the only way to know for sure, ya touch them. If they’re costume: smooth as silk because they’re plastic, Oriental imitations. But if they come from a shell, they’re ever so slightly grainy.”

  “Thanks, I’ll take your word for it.” Winston was mortified that she’d noticed him staring.

  “I declare, I remember it like it was yesterday.” She clenched them in her hand and closed her eyes, apparently deep in fond memory. “Errol fawned all over me, you see, and gave them to me on his yacht when we were taking a weekend jaunt to Mexico. ‘A memento,’ he told me.” Her eyes opened and adjusted themselves into a peeved squint. “Then, no more than ten minutes later, he bashed me one, the pie-eyed jackass. I tell ya, he coulda saved himself a whole boatload of grief if he’d been nicer to me. He gets me real steamed. To this day. I tell ya! I got him, though, didn’t I? I slapped his face so hard his ears rang like church bells. And that’s not all.” She had softly rested a hand on her bruise as she described her run-in.

  Winston stood in the hall and felt his embarrassment spreading as her volume steadily rose. Peering down the hall, he fully expecting to see angry heads poking out from neighbouring doors. No one was bothered by this apparition’s voice, apparently. He tried to peek inside the room, but the lighting was low compared to the hallway.

  “And then like some kinda souteneur, he tries to pass me off to a couple of his buddies, really browned me off. I may be friendly, but I’m not that sorta gal. All my sweet Southern hospitality gets misunderstood by black-hearted Yankee bastards.” She pressed a finger into Winston’s coat. “You ain’t a Yankee, I suppose?” she asked.

  Winston’s ears were blazing and his smile felt like a suit that he’d outgrown. He looked past her shoulder again, now imagining that he was being rude.

  “Oh my, now where are my manners? That man just gets me in such a state. A real bane. Gets stuck in my craw like a cat’s hair. C’mon in, honey, I’ll show ya around.” Hips still cocked she beckoned him into the party. As Winston passed she rested her hand briefly on his lower back and patted it.

  Once Winston was inside, the hostess closed the door and heaved herself against the coats hanging from hooks on the back. She assumed another suggestive pose. Winston stifled a smile, imagining that she aspired to be Marilyn Monroe and had rehearsed all those trademark wiggles and routines for untold hours in front of a closet door mirror. Glancing around, he noticed that cigarette smoke floated in cirrus cloud layers throughout the living room. Miss Satterlee grasped his lapels.

  “They’re rice, you see.” The voice had changed. In that fraction of a minute Winston saw that he was face to face with Dickie. It was so obvious, he realized. So why hadn’t he noticed it before? It must be some trick of nerves or light. He grinned. “I’ll be damned. That’s some costume!” Unlike Delilah, who had dressed as Florence Nightingale for the high school’s afternoon Halloween social, Dickie’s transformation had forged a newly born personality. He could pass convincingly as another person, and as the opposite sex. Winston was startled but entranced by the effect.

  Dickie had untied the shirt to reveal that no breasts were covered by those silky lace cups. “One scoop per, then tucked into my brassiere,” he said. Up close, Winston could see faint grains pressing against the surface of the taped waxed paper breast. They sat atop Dickie’s smooth skin, from which not a single hair sprouted, Winston was surprised to discover.

  “That’s fascinating. You had me utterly convinced. For a moment. I’d like to look again in better light,” he said. His intense feverishness subsided. From behind Dickie, he could hear boisterous voices and orchestral surges alongside Dinah Washington’s crying the blues.

  “‘Better light’? Oh no, my dear. For my purposes, this sort of twilight is best,” Dickie explained. “Too much destroys the illusion, as any woman knows.”

  “And the bruise is illusion too?”

  “Midnight Rendezvous and Parisian Prune, that’s all.” Dickie’s modesty was unexpected.

  “Calligraphy and secret disguises, Dickie. Is there no limit to your talents?” Winston opened the bag and handed his host the bottle of Russian liquor. “Here, this is to get me through the door.”

  “Goodness, from all the way behind the Iron Curtain. Is it safe to drink?”

  “I’m sure it is. I hope it will serve your needs.” He ran his eyes around the room. “Incidentally, are your twin dogs nearby?”

  “I can introduce you to them later if you’d like. Right now they’re secure with Mrs. Gillis downstairs. Just for the record, farmer, I’m Peggy La Rue Satterlee—cheap actress, statutory rape victim extraordinaire, courtroom star witness—for the night. I made Flynn’s life a misery in the ’30s. And, buster, why the hell are you still Winston?” Dickie was adjusting the straps of his brassiere as he spoke.

  “I couldn’t very well come over dressed like a fool.” He felt silly and unadventurous as he spoke such words in reply to a fellow dressed as a buxom if bruised Southern starlet.

  “It’s Halloween, honey. Nobody would notice a thing.”

  “If you give me five minutes to change, I’ll be a new man.”

  “Very well, just this one time I’ll give you a break.” Dickie bent over in an acrobatic flourish,
one hand running down the back of Winston’s legs, and untied his shoes. He said, “Here, this’ll give you a head start,” then righted himself and smiled.

  A changed voice drawled, “I declare, my dear, we ought to get y’all to the powder room.” He sashayed away, all hips and winks. “Walk this way,” Peggy La Rue Satterlee said with a smirk, swaying enormously en route to the bathroom. Like a desert mirage, Winston thought. He could see both illusion and truth simultaneously, the Miss Satter-lee persona—sashaying, purring, winking—outermost, and Dickie’s silhouette and wicked sense of humour barely beneath. These few minutes had him already feeling distressed. Winston kept his eyes trained on his sanctuary destination, blind for the moment to all other movement in the room. Miss Satterlee warbled worship the trousers that cling to him alongside Dinah Washington.

  “Here you go,” said Dickie, opening the door. “And while I’m here, let me take care of your coat.”

  Winston closed the door with relief. He heard muffled pulses of party noise, but still felt damp and uncomfortable. His brain had turned haywire. At the mirror over the sink he was relieved to find his everyday face and no tell-tale outward sign—febrile flush, scarlet ears, Mr. Hyde eyes. He bent to the sink—both mirror and basin were too low, as though the bathroom had been built for children or with grief-shrunken East European widows in mind—and splashed his face with cold water.

  Face dripping, he reached for a hand towel on the door. The bathroom was clean and uncluttered, he noticed. Borderless white tile floor, dull rose bathtub and toilet, lace curtains over a frosted glass window, a small black radiator with its filigree design highlighted in gold. He kicked off his shoes. He took a step to closely examine the two gaudy portraits of seated poodles in profile, both grey and white: paint-by-number. Their frames were painted gold. A few bottles of aftershave rested on a doily atop the toilet tank along with dried creatures of the deep—two sand dollars, a starfish, a sea urchin. He would gladly wager that the intense lung pink on the walls had been Dickie’s selection.