The Book of Lies

by Felice Picano

  Conchita returned with more coffee but had to relocate me in the dining room where I’d moved to complete the cataloguing. I was now up to the very last, or rather the most recent, manuscripts of Damon Von Slyke’s works – the ‘millennial novel’ Canticle to the Sun was put out in 2001 to respectful reviews and his most recently published book; the far more interesting and better-selling novella, Epistle to Albinoni, a return to his earlier, intricate style and subject matter. In addition there were a half-dozen essays created for various magazines. His own brief, modest prefatory contribution to the printed program of the Von Slyke Festschrift; a special issue of Figaro Littéraire, in which he’d penned a post-post-Stonewall summing up of the Gay Movement as an ongoing political entity; a devastating attack titled ‘Follies of the MLA’, in reviewing for the London Times the latest volume of fatuities published by a famously self-promoting heterosexual American woman scholar who called herself ‘The Doyenne of Queer Studies’; and lastly, from just this year, Von Slyke’s brief ‘appreciation’ of the life and works of Mark Dodge, written for a famous rock music magazine. It had rediscovered the Purple Circle author, dead now twenty years, and had decided to revive him as a ‘famous progenitor of our time who will live on forever’, i.e. a sort of latter-day literary James Dean. It had accomplished this by going all out with nearly nude poster-sized inside and cover photos of Dodge, an astonishing four-page layout including substantial use of his professional modeling shoots, not to mention many photos of Dodge with friends and co-authors and, last and almost least, ‘boxed’ paragraphs from his books.

  Now, with all of Von Slykeana catalogued on the laptop and backed up two or three times, including once in a cyber space ‘locked office storeroom’, I had to decide what next. Obviously the papers had to be photocopied. His old copier in the library wasn’t equal to the job; I’d have to take the papers out to do it. It would all have to be wrapped and labeled by year, put in boxes to be labeled and taped up, before the Timrod Collection was contacted and told me how it was to be shipped cross-country. I estimated roughly a dozen boxes would be going.

  While I was refolding the rock magazine I stopped and went back to the layout on Mark Dodge. For a second, I thought I’d seen a photo of him with a baseball player. No: other Purples, other folks. I rummaged through the magazine and found the picture of the ball player. An advertisement.

  But it was enough. Because now I realized two things: 1) there might be a picture of Dodge and Len Spurgeon somewhere, and 2) I knew nothing about Spurgeon except what I’d found out in the past few weeks. I didn’t know his date or place of birth, when or even whether he had died. I knew nothing, and the few times I’d thought that before, I’d always gone on to think, ‘and I never will know!’ This time I went in another direction. Spurgeon had been a professional baseball player in the major leagues. There must be data on him. Not comprehensive, but more than I possessed.

  I closed the Von Slyke files on the laptop and opened one containing what I already had on Len. Nothing but his connection to the Purples, plus some childhood possibilities. And three fragments I’d scanned in. Not a thing more. I opened another window and tapped into the Internet. Began scanning for general information, found SPORTS, moved to ‘Baseball’, shot past ‘history of, World Series Games, statistics’ and arrived at ‘Players’. I limited that to ‘fourth quarter of 20th century’. It seemed a book-long list, so I limited it to S, and when that was too long did a search. There!

  SPURGEON Leonard, Pitcher, Relief pitcher, Prof, career 1968-76. Minor league teams: ’68-9, Davenport Beavers, ’69-72, Detroit Redwings. Major league teams: ’72-3, Oakland Athletics, ’74-6, San Francisco Giants. Maj league stats: H. 2.42, RBA 3.22, ERA 0.52, Strikeout Games 4, Saves 12, Opp. Avge 5.

  That looked right. Even so, I needed personal info. So, while saving and underlining the entry, I used a sidebar menu to ask for more. I got these categories: ‘Stats’, ‘Specific Games Played’, ‘League and Series Games’, ‘Awards’, ‘Biography’, ‘Contemporary Evaluation Comments’, and ‘Professional Critique’. I settled for the bio. It turned out I needed a password for what was called ‘In-depth on-line’, for which they would bill me. That took a few minutes to locate. I keyboarded what was needed, stroked the mouse, and waited.

  This is what came up:

  Leonard Paul Spurgeon, born October 20, 1943, Davenport, Iowa. Parents: Herbert Alan Spurgeon, Martha Barnes. Attd Davenport Elementary and High School, Bettendorf Junior College, University Iowa. Grad. 1965, BA. No info re marriage or children. Died Sept 17, 1991, North Truro, Mass.

  So he was dead! I was sufficiently excited to find anything at all that I didn’t immediately realize all the information actually in front of me. I saved what I’d found to the appropriate document file, leapt up and ran to the library. Because while I hadn’t immediately seen all the implications of what I’d found, I did see two things quite clearly. Len’s middle name, Paul, the name used for the narrator in two of the three MS fragments I had in hand. And the place of Spurgeon’s birth, Davenport, Iowa, which I was certain was one of the cities that figured in the title of Frankie McKewen’s posthumous autobiographical novel, A Boy from Quad Cities. The year of birth also seemed close to McKewen’s. I thought McKewen was born in ’42. What if they’d known each other earlier? First? Before Mark Dodge and Len met?

  I raced into the library, took down the big Dictionary of Lesbian and Gay Authors, and located McKewen. Sure enough, he’d been born July 15th, 1943, in Davenport, Iowa, and attended Davenport Elementary and High before shifting to Bettendorf. Furthermore, he’d graduated in 1965 from the University of Iowa, although unlike Spurgeon, who had gone to the minor leagues to play ball, McKewen had taken a two-year course at the Iowa Writers’ School, where he’d met Mitch Leo, they’d become lovers, and as a result the nucleus of the Purple Circle had been formed.

  Now I had something. But did it signify merely contiguity while growing up and then meeting later on and becoming friends (or whatever) because they’d lived so close as children, or more? A lot more? It depended upon Frankie McKewen now. More specifically upon his journals of those early years, housed now in the Timrod Collection. When had McKewen begun his journals? I went to the collection’s catalogue and was disappointed to see they were later, briefer, less inclusive than the De Petrie journals, which had been continuous since 1972. McKewen’s only ranged from 1984 to 1988, i.e. just before he’d died: eight volumes of octavo notebook of 150 pages each. I’d have to read them for any references to Len. As well as his letters to the other Purples in the mid-1980s, when Spurgeon was attending the Leo-McKewen ‘Teas’. Still, it was a strong connection between Len and the group. I had to wonder about Len and Mitch Leo, to wonder if the animosity that erupted between them at the Metropolitan Opera House might have had earlier origins – say, in the relationship between Spurgeon and Mitch Leo’s lover, Frankie McKewen.

  Who could tell me? Axenfeld maybe. He often gave information he didn’t know he was giving. Or …

  The house phone rang and Conchita came to tell me it was Von Slyke.

  ‘I was about to call you,’ I told him. ‘I just finished the cataloguing. I want to photocopy everything.’

  He was delighted and we spent some minutes discussing details of where and how. As for the shipping, he thought the Timrod Collection would take care of it all. But when I began asking specific questions, he sighed and said, ‘Would you be a dear and go over it all, after them? You’re so reliable and I don’t really know anyone there but Maureen.’

  ‘Who’s not there this month,’ I answered.

  After that was settled, Von Slyke said, in a lower tone of voice, ‘Ross, one reason I called is to tell you I’ve written to you about Len, you know, Len and myself, way back when. Remember what I told you? But I don’t want Puddles to know about this. He gets sensitive about the oddest things lately. I’m going to mail the pages to you. Okay? I’m doing it by overnight mail from the concierge’s desk at the hotel. Oh, an
d Ross, dear? We’re off to Majorca tomorrow. I’ve put the address and phone number of the house where we’re staying on the bottom sheet. Now remember what I said, these pages are “For Your Eyes Only”, you understand!’ With that Mata Hari sign-off, Von Slyke hung up.

  Axenfeld wasn’t in or wasn’t answering the phone. I called and left another message at the Harmonious Fist (once again pondering how I knew that name) and that discouraged me so much I have to admit I sat a minute at Von Slyke’s big library desk and despaired. I suddenly pictured my mentor, Irian St George, and how he had sighed yesterday when he’d spoken of Dominic De Petrie’s treachery. Before I could change my mind or really think what I was doing, I hit the speed dial for De Petrie’s number. And was blessed with the same rude message I’d heard before about not leaving my name and number unless I had a large amount of money to deposit. Something about that message on top of De Petrie’s perfidy got me and when it ended and message recording began, I identified myself and added, ‘I suggest you make a new phone message. This one’s a lie.’

  The phone was picked up. ‘What do you mean it’s a lie?’

  I was startled by De Petrie’s voice in person, but not startled enough to back down. ‘Dr St George has a check which you refuse to accept.’

  ‘I assume you’re referring to the MLA pelf? What exactly is your interest in that hypocritical treasure?’

  ‘None! That is, none beyond its effect upon a man whom I esteem and admire.’ Before he could answer. ‘Who worked quite long and hard and no doubt against opposition to obtain that treasure on your behalf. Who doesn’t deserve such a poor payback.’

  ‘Loyalty and ethics at the same time! Imagine? Whatever is academia coming to these days?’

  ‘Go ahead and laugh.’

  ‘I’m not laughing. I really was not aware that St George went so much out of his way in the matter. You’re right to chastise me on his behalf. As you are to point out that he doubtless faced enormous opposition in the matter. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘He did go out of his way,’ I insisted. ‘Although I don’t know if the opposition was all that –’

  ‘You needn’t downplay it,’ De Petrie interrupted. ‘I’ve no doubt the opposition he faced was vicious and prolonged. I may not be in academia, but I do have a few spies in those currently leafless groves.’

  ‘What should you do? Well … you know, take the award. The honor. The money. Dr St George said he’d write and deliver the acceptance speech himself. All you’d have to do is sit there.’

  ‘He confides in you that much?’ De Petrie asked ‘I’m both surprised and glad to hear of it. But if I am going to appear in the bailiwick of the enemy, I think I ought to dress myself in the finest chain-mail verbiage I can muster. Complete with the usual anachronistic, scholarly adverbisms like “the commodification of such and such” and “the reification of such and other”. Not to mention a liberal sprinkling of their typical velleities such as “heuristic” and “textist”. Wait a minute! I’ve got it! Ross, what if I titled my acceptance speech “The De-reification of Heuristic Non-gendered Inter-verbal Texts Qua Commodities in a Pre-discoursist Climatology”? How does that grab you?’

  ‘I think it would be hysterical,’ I said

  ‘I can already see the opening line,’ he mused. ‘First, naturally, I’ll take an epigraph from something popular yet also somewhat arcane. Say a line spoken inside a balloon by Sluggo from the late ’50s comic strip Little Lulu? I open punchily, saying something like, ‘We know now, of course, the reason Little Lulu’s beautiful Aunt Fritzi spent all her days at home primping and bathing and dressing, and all her nights going out with different men, is because she was an independent and highly paid sex-worker. But more than merely an independent and highly paid sex-worker, Aunt Fritzi emblemized a topological phenomenon in early post-World War II capitalist society’s underlying anxiety, in which American gender values were undergoing their most salient, albeit non-persevering, transmogrifications. It is impossible not to see in this hermeneutical superfetation, an attempt to reduce the dialectic of diurnal cultural artifacts to a level where even neo-Freudian influences are forced to confront symbolical allusions in the most primitively anti-aesthetic Antikweltanschauung! Moreoever …’

  But by now both De Petrie and I were in stitches, he laughing too hard to go on. When I finally caught my breath, I said, ‘You wouldn’t?’

  ‘Don’t dare me,’ he warned.

  ‘I won’t. But Mr De Petrie, if you do go, please don’t say anything to Dr St George about this phone call.’

  ‘He hides his light under a bushel too! You’re beginning to seem as extraordinary as poor Axey thinks you are. What?’ he asked in mock disbelief, ‘Have I let the panther out of the purse? Surely you know he dotes on you. He’s awaiting your arrival at the Refugio de Isla Sanibel with the most acute anticipation. Indeed, he has even threatened to … are you ready? … neaten and clean up the house if you arrive.’

  ‘Not the Fibber McGee room?’ My horror apparent.

  ‘You know about that, do you? Why, you are the slyest of pusses, if even Axey confides in you. I mean, St George is a bit circumspect but, as we all know, easily influenced by even the possibility of obtaining the favors of a handsome young man, which you evidently are. Whereas Dame is a total whore who’ll put out for anyone. But Axey, our beloved Axey, well, he’s quite another genera in the piscine world altogether. Far harder to get to nibble anywhere near the dangling worm, never mind actually land.’

  ‘Mr Axenfeld has been very kind.’

  ‘Then I suggest you repay his kindness by visiting him.’

  ‘But he never …’

  ‘No, and he never will,’ De Petrie said. ‘You must insist. He’ll spend days looking for and finding dozens of reasons why you can’t go there. But eventually he’ll relent. Anyway, it’s not such a bad place as all that, unless of course you’re allergic to breezes from the Gulf and occasional Spanish moss and azaleas the size and, who knows, perhaps the colors of an ancient iguanodon.’

  ‘I’ll get to see what’s in the Fibber McGee room.’

  ‘Perhaps you will.’

  ‘Have you ever been in there?’

  ‘At the threshold. But then I never had an impelling reason to want to.’

  ‘Would I presume by asking if you have a similar place?’

  He was silent for too long a time. But before I could rephrase my question or take it back, De Petrie said, ‘No, Ross, my life is … how do they put it? … an open book?’

  De Petrie was too clever by half for me to get anywhere with. So I asked him once again not to tell St George that we’d spoken of the award, and this time he promised. As we were saying our goodbyes, I slipped in, ‘And maybe sometime I can visit you, where you live?’

  I was surprised to receive this answer: ‘Maybe sometime you can. And then you may discover that I do, after all, have a special room. Although perhaps not special in any way you’re currently aware of.’

  I let that mystery hang for the time being, but as we signed off I immediately looked for, located and dialed the Timrod Collection. Was put through to Christopher Kovack, the same lockjaw-accented minion I’d reached before, and began speaking in my official capacity as Von Slyke’s bibliographer about how to get the papers East. He was surprisingly pleasant this time, helpful, and even suggested that if I was all that concerned about the papers arriving intact, I arrange to be at the Sikorsky Memorial Airport to meet the cartons when they emerged out of the cargo plane. He would arrange for a van and driver to pick them up anyway, and I could accompany them to the collection, go over and confirm them as they arrived and were unpacked. I told him I’d have to speak with Von Slyke about these plans (because I suddenly realized it would cost money flying East) as they sounded a bit much. But I was pleased when he told me he could also arrange to have a check cut for the total amount and handed to me upon receipt of the papers. Von Slyke might pay my airfare if he knew I’d get money fast.

&nbs
p; Kovack offered further news. He’d found a few minutes (i.e. one of his assistants had been talked into it) and he’d managed to locate the MSS I’d requested a few weeks ago in the Purple Circle collection. These were the pieces I thought might be the same as the earliest fragment of what I’d now come to believe was Len Spurgeon’s scattered, possibly unfinished, novel. I’d more or less written off actually seeing them as a wash. He was willing to fax the pages, right after we hung up the phone.

  I said, fine, great, let’s go. A few minutes later, I was looking at the new fragments. The first was titled ‘To the Solano County Fair’ and was typed so obviously on what I by now recognized as Mark Dodge’s electric Olivetti that I knew what it was before I saw the Timrod Collection’s label, ‘from unfin. MSS #6, Man in a ]ar’. It wasn’t at all the same as the car ride in which Paul shoves his brother out, but about three brothers whom I now recognized as the Dodge kids, traveling with their grandparents.

  The next piece was labeled as Jeff Weber’s ‘What Occurred on Route 90’ and was another car ride, although this one turned out to be six pages of action and dialogue between a boy named Tray and an older man, Carl, on what seems to be a biweekly evening drive to Cheyenne, where the two are actors in the local theater company’s newest production. Carl stops to pick up a down-on-his-luck cowpoke named Hy, who’s just been sacked from an ‘outfit’ of cattle herders, and who’s planning to drink and whore his sorrows away with his final paycheck. The dialogue consists of Hy’s sad tale, followed by Carl’s attempts to get Hy to allow them to stop, so the hitchhiker can be orally serviced by the unwilling, silent boy in the back seat. The piece ends with Hy: ‘I ain’t never said no to a pretty boy, but I think if you’re fixin’ to look at us all the while, then you’ll probably have ta …’