Carnovsky's Retreat

by Larry Duberstein

  Today on the boat I put the question of Caddy Moore to myself on this basis: if she arrived tonight on the bus, what would you wish to do? And I don’t mind not having the answer. I know that I can’t know, and how’s that for genius? A genius doesn’t waste his time where there is no answer to be found, he sits down with The Morning Telegraph and goes after one that can.

  An ocean seen up close is an overwhelming thing and yet it is peaceful. You can very easily imagine dying in that water—just lean over the rail in the dark and it will chill your soul. But close your eyes and hear it slap the side of the boat, and rock it, and nothing could bring you more peace. You relax and pass some time without—in my opinion—wasting any.

  By which I mean that not everyone has a mission in life every day. A lawyer defending the innocent, yes, or a doctor healing the young. A schoolteacher. These are some who have an important place and what they do counts for something. Many others, however, do what they do solely in order to keep eating and sleeping in comfort, and stay dry when it rains. They don’t change the world, they only keep it going, by selling you a frankfurter or fixing the heel of your shoe.

  Even just by standing upon the surface of the earth, or floating across the water, they are participating, and sometimes that is enough. There are a lot of men at the racetrack, for example, who conceive of themselves as having two jobs—making the money is one job and enjoying it (spending) is the other. They don’t feel like they failed in life because they didn’t cure polio, so long as they are taking care of their own.

  “See—I still exist!”

  That’s the whole postcard. Six words in all, counting the valediction “Love, Caddy.” But the girl makes a point precisely.

  Caddy writes again, twice inside a week, to say she won’t be coming around in the month of October after all. She has mid-term examinations to study for and so proposes we get together over the Thanksgiving holiday. May she phone me up, she inquires, and I say what the hell, let her phone. Maybe we can sit in the Horn and Hardart and hold another serious powwow. Though I am not in a very serious mood these days. (And have not gone near that place since my 102.5.)

  But I think of her much as the meeting draws toward a conclusion. Last year I went down to watch them closing up—sweeping out the stalls, hosing down the cinder paths, boarding up on shed row. A lot of horse’s asses in trailers, truckloads of tack on the move, and one swipe tossed a load of oats into an empty stall. “Why not let the rats have a jolly winter,” he says, and adds a forkful of hay for good measure. No place like home, even for a rat.

  Too bad Caddy will miss the last racing dates. (Too bad for me.) Something tells me she won’t be back. I don’t mean Thanksgiving weekend, she will be back then and she will call me too. But in the spring, in April, she won’t be at Jamaica, and she won’t be seen again thereafter. That’s my opinion anyway, and as usual I would be willing to bet on it.

  The boat again tonight, my private yacht for a spin on the sea. They were almost empty on the return trip. I got a strange feeling that the whole harbor was an island of water, surrounded by land, rather than the reverse. Then a moment later the opposite feeling—an open road of water all the way to Europe and the moon marked it out with a strong white line.

  An urge to cross. Never glimpsed it, never even took the trouble to imagine what it might be like over there—Poland, Russia, Land of the Four Bears, my father would tease me. It’s all changed, God knows that, the old country is a lot older now after the Germans did their work. But still I would like to look at it, and let the record show that before tonight I never had the urge. (And the urge may be gone by tomorrow.)

  It would take real money, though. Not for two nickels does one travel abroad to the old country. And in any case the right way to go there would be with Tanya, who has been there and has imagined it many times since. Better with her than alone, or for that matter with anyone else. Who else? I mean for an occasion of that sort, who else.

  Reminds me, when her brother Daniel arrived in New York, we took him in. And instructions were, leave him be—which I did. By and by, however, I had the idea he should work. Not that I minded in the least funding him, but that he should for his own sake, work to forget his troubles.

  And I said, I could give you work, get you work, whatever. And he looked at me. He never said a lot, Daniel, before that day or lately either, but after I mentioned work he never said boo to me for two years solid. I racked my brain and thought Jesus, how does a man get a size twelve shoe out of his mouth, and I never. I was sure he was giving me the Silent Treatment.

  It wasn’t so, as I found out later—all that time I bore a cross and it turns out he didn’t even recall the conversation, probably never heard what I said. He was giving the whole world the Silent Treatment, that’s all. The world gave him grief and he gave it back the Silent Treatment.

  But I remember later that first year Tanya said she wanted someday to go back, and to see Poland after all the horror and Daniel looked at her. Same look. And I thought Uh oh, she’s in for the Silent Treatment too now, but Tanya said to him, “Don’t give me that look, Daniel, I had enough of that face the summer you were five. You don’t give me that look.”

  And instead of the Silent Treatment he laughed and hugged his sister and cried. First time he laughed in America, I’m quite certain.

  Visited the library on my day off, and watched a movie near mid-town. At the library I researched the fate of Widmer, the wandering doctor, which I meant to do long ago. Found him on a microfilm with the help of Mrs. Kearney’s friend and there he was, including a picture. An old guy. Defrocked, a suspended sentence, and he has to make good on the money. So it shows you can mistreat your loved ones without fear of reprisal but you can’t mistreat the insurance company. I hope he finds work as a waiter.

  It seems a long time ago I went. Seems a long time ago that Caddy went too. Times mixes and mingles things up when you spend your time alone and walking. I like that, however, as it is highly conducive to my thoughts. Mickey Klutz says he can get me a good television set for forty dollars and I told him no thanks for now, because I know it keeps you indoors. In January February I can see it—a friend in the dark, a little harmless entertainment. It can also seduce you from the world, however. The boat, the park, even the busy streets—I love it all so long as I am not freezing my ears off.

  Anyway, I am in training now for the Olympics—heel-toe walking event. They showed a newsreel today of this year’s winner, moving along like a turkey with a stick up his ass. I could beat this guy right now, walking to Penn Station and back, watch my dust. I prefer to take my time, of course, and think my thoughts, but for the Olympic competition I could make an exception.

  A break in the Jimmy Myers case at last. Sergeant Fish working the day shift out of homicide! Actually the squirt came up and confessed to me—I never had a clue.

  Back in summer, right after our day together at Belmont Park, this poor kid picked up a five-dollar bill on my table. My fault for leaving it lying about—any kid would find it hard to resist. It would not constitute stealing, only weakness, from wanting it too much.

  My sister at age five had a favorite doll, Emmy. (Amazing that after all these years the doll’s name should come back to me.) Anyway one thing that Florrie would do was drop her lucky penny—always soaked in vinegar and polished till it looked like freshly minted copper—in the big front apron pocket. And this penny she would steal.

  Could not resist it. She would go to sleep with the penny safe in Emmy’s pocket and wake up with the penny inside her fist. And always confess by the dawn’s early light. In my ignorance of the fact that dolls were real and had feelings that were easily bruised, I thought she was a little crazy about this penny that was after all hers. She would cry and beg forgiveness and she would swear to Emmy it won’t happen again. But it would.

  Knowing all this and blaming myself as well, I would never hold it against my little pal Jimmy. I would have been smart and fair and liberal wi
th him, except that his guilt was so great I never got the opportunity. He hid out from me and that five-dollar bill was the only reason why. I could have killed him when I found out, though not for theft. For silliness, and waste of our time together.

  Why he came to own up was a mystery at first. Why not surrender early in the game, and skip the suffering, or else never surrender at all. And the part that he could not understand was why I didn’t want to scream at him. His mother screams so much at so little provocation that the kid feels cheated when taken into custody by liberals.

  “Aren’t you going to teach me a lesson?” he says.

  “What lesson? You learned it.”

  “About taking money.”

  “Tell me this, do you take it from home?”

  No response, not even the Fifth Amendment. It’s a separate jurisdiction maybe, and he needs to first consult his attorney.

  “Well then if you take it from home, do you give it back?”

  “No.”

  “Yet my five dollars you return. Why?”

  “I never meant to keep it, to steal it I mean. But I lost it. Spent it anyways. And I never got five dollars all at once again till now.”

  “I believe you. So you don’t need a lesson you already know. If you are here to make amends, that proves you gave yourself the lesson without help. And someone who learns by himself, a smart boy, might deserve a little reward, no?”

  No. I tried to give him a dollar bill, but I was in the wrong to do this and he would not accept the money. I didn’t insist. Maybe he thought I was testing him for greed still. Or just his sense of honor—presents himself for punishment due, not for reward and praise. And I should oblige and punish him, except I can not, I am so glad he came clean with me.

  “But tell me this, my friend. If you know to bring my money back, why don’t you bring your father’s money back too? What’s the difference?”

  “I don’t know. What?”

  “I’m asking.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “As far as I know, there isn’t any difference, so if you can manage to figure one out, let me know. Meanwhile I thank you very much for your honesty, sir, and can I offer you a cold drink?”

  I bring out the lemonade on a small cork tray (one of two I took home when Sid was getting rid of them last week), up over the shoulder in the classic form. Even with the finest service, however, he drinks guilty. He is not yet purged, merely confessed. Doesn’t ask for a single refill, so I’m stuck with the rest of this batch.

  A busy night of dreaming. Most are gone—you throw them back in and shovel sleep over them—but the last one sticks. It was Caddy showing up at my place, in the very early morning, with a wild look of danger in her eye. An expression I never saw there, to be truthful, nor in anyone else’s eye either. Out drinking all night and feeling restless, she comes to demand her hour in bed with me. Gets in the bed, too, geared for action—hip naked under her coat like Miss Rheingold in Saratoga.

  I will not try logic on this one. It’s sex and it’s a dream, two strikes against. But I kicked her out and sent her home. She looked like a kid to me—the Caddy that was in the dream looked a kid to the me that was in the dream. Left with tears on a dirty face, just as Jimmy did yesterday, and in fact the faces got switched out in the hallway so that she was Jimmy going down the stairs. Like I say, forget logic with a dream.

  I won’t say it constitutes a decision. A dream does not try to clarify, it tries to confuse. But I will record another dream I experienced twice before, in which the sex did take place. I am one of the principals involved but the other one isn’t Caddy, it’s Tanya Lehman—my wife as I knew her in school. (The black coat and lace-up boots exactly.)

  And it is very odd that a dream can steal your virginity (which she kept as long as she kept Lehman, I happen to know) and yet not tamper with your black overcoat or the front stoop of your father’s house in Brooklyn.

  Funny looks I’m getting at the ferry-slip. You would think a regular commands a little respect. Instead I am a suspect. Of insanity perhaps, like the ones who ride IRT all day with no destination in mind. Or of criminal activity. I could be dropping off a load of opium every day at Stapleton, then coming straight back to make my daily deposit at the Chase Manhattan. That’s how they eyeball me down there, as though I’m Albert Anastasia. No one understands a man of leisure, who happens to exist in harmony with the stars, so I must be up to something fishy.

  Nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m a real straight-shooter, honest John, hardly even betting my money at the racetrack these days. I have a nice time but am too lazy to handicap. I lack ambition. I am content. I’ll stick. (Wiley speaks: “Last is not least unless it’s less.”)

  I might be looking for winter work and I might not. It has to fit my schedule of free mornings and free evenings, and it requires a majority vote. I can wait till spring if necessary, though I would prefer to work a shift and keep my hand in. Last winter I stayed in the cave, this year I am feeling more sociable.

  Not in the mornings sociable, however, or the evenings. In the afternoons sociable, so invite me to high tea. I’ll bring along the watercress sandwiches.

  A very remarkable telephone call, just concluded, from Caddy long distance. Of course I was delighted by the call and protested the expense. She says she has a trick for cutting out the phone company, getting the call for free. No one minds putting one over on the Bell Boys but I doubt you really can—they know all the tricks and then some.

  But what a conversation to have and on a public wire. We must have burned a pigeon’s ear with this one, at the very least. I never said such things in my life, much less over the telephone to another state.

  “You haven’t written me once,” she says, “so I had no choice but to call you.”

  “To learn your fate?”

  “To say hello and hear about the stable. And learn my fate—I almost forgot our half-hour of sin.”

  “Caddy I don’t think you can even joke about these topics over the telephone wire.”

  “Sure you can. It’s a free country. You can definitely talk about it on the telephone, Oscar, though I’m not sure you can do it on the telephone.”

  “Definitely not legal to do it, telephone or otherwise.”

  “Says who?”

  “Just read your morning paper. Oh they agree that if you suppress it, ignore it, don’t get it, then you’re a mess. But they also agree that you should not do it when you’re young, can not do it when you’re old, and you better not do it without your wife, so who isn’t a mess? One man in twenty? What do you think, really?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not old enough to vote. And my mother says I’m too young to even know my own mind.”

  “Yes well I’m 98.6 and I don’t know either. Why not a prostitute?”

  (Cannot explain how we got going like this, but we did, and kept going, word for word.)

  “No reason, I guess. I mean, if you want one.”

  “Correct. If.”

  “So?”

  “So do I? I don’t sometimes and sometimes I do. Or I think that I should—that it’s healthy.”

  “It’s normal, anyway. It’s what men do, I think. But why not a woman, Oscar? I mean, one who isn’t a prostitute?”

  (This trick—she leaves herself out of the equation and so do I, and it’s not a problem. She is not bootlegging a message past me, just talking.)

  “Can’t meet one. And if I do then I’m stuck. I mean that she isn’t a prostitute only, she’s also a woman.”

  “You mean that she wants to eat dinner and go out to the movies.”

  “But exactly. That’s exactly what she wants to do. Not approximately, you understand—exactly.” (Linda Stanley.)

  “And you value your solitude.”

  “I seem to, yes. I’m sure I don’t know why.”

  “It really doesn’t matter why, does it? Well I vote for the prostitute as long as you tell me all the details afterwards.”

&nb
sp; “I’m frightened of them.”

  “Sure you are. They know what’s going to happen and you don’t. But if you find out, then I’ll know too.”

  In this same vein to the end—it’s serious and it’s all a joke. And excepting the very start, when she cites our half-hour of sin, there is no mention of ourselves. Nothing. We slipped right past it somehow, but unanimously. Maybe the old man hit the hobnail on the head again: take your time and everything will take care of itself naturally. Save the work and skip the agony, that’s the old man’s daily double.

  Nashua easy as pie in the Gold Cup. I like this horse, and not because he made me money. I did that myself, with help from the dumb bunnies. How anyone could find another horse to bet at the two miles is far beyond my feeble powers of comprehension, though I will say this: if there was no one stupid there would be no one smart either, because you don’t need Einstein to know it’s all relative. That’s parimutuels in a nutshell, so be glad for the dumb bunny and be kind enough to accept his dumb money. They cover a genius like myself with glory.

  You hear some talk of Swaps as Horse of the Year, but it’s bunk until he beats this guy and I don’t see his people too eager for a shot at it. Once burnt, twice shy, especially at a distance. Swaps is a speed horse, a Hollywood character. Nashua is a worker, a winner. He carried a lot more weight in this race than he carried here last year, yet lowered his time nicely. Show him Swaps again and he’ll run through a brick wall with a piano strapped to his back.

  Responded to Caddy’s complaint by dropping her a line about the Gold Cup—the inside story.

  A fire off Coentes Slip round ten o’clock last night. I heard the fire-boats coming and saw everyone run for the docks, so I took myself up the metal staircase to the roof, to gain the Pisgah view. It’s twenty degrees colder on top and a freezing wind blasts off the open water, but it was worth it standing ringside for this battle of the monsters.