Fool (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries)

by Frederick Dillen

  “Tough double fault,” was what Kopus said. “It’s the knee,” was what Kopus said. “You hadn’t fallen on that knee,” he said, “we’d be playing even.”

  Rather than at the scrape on Barnaby’s knee, though, Kopus looked with big, seedy eyes up into Barnaby’s eyes, and could not keep from grinning. Kopus was Barnaby’s age and was not without abilities; he had built a one-man storefront insurance agency into a North Shore octopus of money, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Truth be told, Barnaby would not have wanted to meet Kopus in one of Kopus’s alleys at night. But subtlety? No.

  “Well, Richard,” Barnaby said, looking away in abasement so utter that the ghost of his father got up from the grass behind them and left altogether, “let’s get this last game over with.”

  Kopus stood and comfortingly, patronizingly, patted Barnaby’s shoulder, and then strode onto the court to gather balls for his serve.

  Barnaby sat a moment more, looking, letting the moment sink in. The net was new, but otherwise it wasn’t a great court. There were cracks beginning at the lines, and in the doubles alleys there were a couple of long fissures where black paving actually lifted up through the faded green surface. The whole thing tilted down in a northwesterly way at the biggest of the two enormous maroon-leafed trees on the side away from the house, and beyond the tree at the lane and the vined, ferny pitch into the swamp. Were they some kind of elm? Those red leaves? A depression in the court that collected the last of the leaves during the winter was blotched and stained forever, or until ancient Richardson died and somebody bought the place and resurfaced. But the depression was outside of play after all. And the fencing around the court was an old rope mesh, one of the great anachronistic delights in Barnaby’s world. The rope had been a delight, really, since the summers it provided distraction for a much littler Barnaby during his early wooden-racket lessons.

  Nobody would ever cut a thing like those maroon trees; the trees would stay, but one day someone would put in a real fence of chain link.

  It was rope for now, though, and beyond the rope was the crowned and pebbled lane shaded by pea vine reaching up from a swamp that probably hadn’t changed since the ice age pocked the murk in there with loaves of granite. Sixty years ago, when there was the swank, gay colony on the Point, Big Bill Tilden had stopped in to play and dabble and whatever, maybe on a day just like this. It would have been a clay court then. Red clay. Chinese elms? Chinese maples?

  God, but Barnaby loved this court. He was going to miss it more than he could ever have said. He could have knelt and put his forehead to its warmth. He was going to miss his life, and he wished to Christ he could put his forehead to that. As if it had not been four years coming, he could still imagine he was only daydreaming and would now wake up with everything as it was supposed to be, with everything his again. Oh, to close his eyes and kneel and press his forehead down anywhere.

  No. Don’t get into that frame of mind. For Christ sake. Not with the match on the line. Up. Do not kneel down.

  Barnaby made himself stand and limp out onto his new side of the court. Yes. All right. Keep the God damned focus. Think champion. Do you want your good life back or not? He knew the answer to that, all right.

  He also knew that he had gotten under Kopus’s skin. So now all he had to do was hit the ball. Barnaby Griswold smiled with cheery desolation at the crowd which had stopped gathering its blankets to watch him, decorum be damned, as one watches fresh blood in the moments around a highway slaughter. He smiled invitingly, hopelessly, across the net at Kopus who was already doing him the favor of not quick-serving.

  Barnaby bent his knees and made what few people would have recognized was more than a halfhearted bounce of anticipation.

  In his old life, in his real life, in the life he lived joyously until not so very long ago, Barnaby ate. Of course he ate. But he always drank more, and his theory was that the booze kept the weight down. Horseshit of course, but good for a laugh. Weight-alcohol inversion, basis of the Griswold diet.

  Basis anyway of occasional saloon friendships and, more than five years ago in New York, back when Barnaby Griswold was Barnaby Griswold, basis of forced entry into the Old Ladies Bank deal, which was not Barnaby’s last deal but might as well have been; it was the deal that finally did everything for him and to him.

  Five years ago the oil boom had been on so long everybody thought it was the truth, and Barnaby had had a lunch at La Cote so futile that he hadn’t even gone to the sidewalk with whomever they were. Or else the lunch had been so successful. Or else he’d walked them out and come back to the table. Anyway, he was at the table by himself finishing the third bottle of probably a Montrachet and watching the long, narrow, cosmopolitan darkness of the place empty out when he became more aware of the Oklahoma boys.

  Differently aware. Everyone had heard them enough to be more than just aware.

  Why hadn’t Barnaby gone on to see what was happening at the River Club, or dropped into the office to get some quotes and a clean shirt and make dinner reservations? Well, there was the wine naturally. And it may have been a slow afternoon. It may have been a slow week, judging by the time he burned subsequently. But no, it was more than that too; it was profound machinery at work, and he knew it. He was surprised he hadn’t realized what was up during lunch, though he may have realized even then subliminally. There was a surge running in the sea that floated Barnaby Griswold; there was a wave building, the kind of wave that built beneath a deal, and it was not building as if the deal were a small one. These two Oklahoma boys didn’t just have their ominous little hands in money; they had their hands in money that involved Barnaby Griswold.

  There was no hesitating if you hoped to survive purely by your instincts and keep your girls in private school, and so Barnaby took his bottle of wine in one hand and his glass in the other and heaved to his feet. Yes, there was absolutely a wave; it was already carrying him, and even as he steadied himself on it, he could see that the boys’ table down the aisle supported two orders of dessert crepes and two orders of dessert soufflé, seventy-five dollars in desserts alone, and through their third tablecloth seeped evidence of a lot of cuisine and lubricants gone under the bridge before dessert. “God bless it all,” Barnaby said with quiet solicitation to the expensive air around him in the emptying restaurant.

  The boys’ waiter had retreated, Philippe it would have been in that part of the room, and from the farthest end, from the direction of the kitchen, Michel was advancing. Somewhere Philippe was praying to one cordon or another that Michel wouldn’t lower the boom before the boys tipped.

  An elegant barracuda with an unremarkable, off-brand name but full funding came at Barnaby, leading one of the new Brazilian kids it looked like. Barnaby had tried to pitch her once, and she had pretended to think he was picking her up and had gotten her hand down inside his pants while the two of them waited outside for cars. Her boy, Thai rather than Brazilian in those days, had looked toward Central Park and talked in unintelligible rapture about urban landscape. It hadn’t frightened Barnaby. Even if you’ve lived your life as the large, ridiculous fellow to whom girls and love are allergic, you don’t drink several bottles of wine at lunch to get scared. But the barracuda was not just good-looking; she was also smarter and braver and more ruthless than Barnaby ever was even in his dreams, and he had had the sense never to pitch her again. What was her name? His father might have forgiven her anything because she was so ravenously other than what Griswolds were. Barnaby would have liked to hear in so many words why he himself could not be forgiven, though of course he knew; he was supposed to be a Griswold. More to the point, he would have liked, out of respectful curiosity, to get a look at the barracuda’s portfolio.

  Now he stood back and spread his arms, bottle in one hand, glass in the other, as if she needed that gesture and the space it provided to get past him and away to the street. He balanced back with his thighs against an empty table behind him, and the table moved and he slopped wine out of h
is glass. He hoped that Philippe’s busboy had not set up the table for dinner yet. He hoped it really was an empty table. He listened for evidence about that. He stood up straight and nodded, bowed, at the barracuda as she passed. She did not notice him. The Brazilian kid nodded and then took the nod back.

  It must have gotten late, because in the elaborate dimness back along the other side of the room it looked like a very chic couple was talking to a tiger from the wallpaper, and the tigers rarely appeared until lunchtime had come and gone. Great-looking tiger this afternoon. Well, how could a tiger ever not be great? (Such splendid creatures; awfully good friends, really.) Which made it three-thirty.

  Barnaby leaned into motion and paced the few long steps to reach the boys’ table before Michel could get there and can them, and fortunately Michel had to stop and speak with the tiger’s chic couple. But the boys had definitely passed a threshold. They were shouting something down the windowless tunnel of the room toward the kitchen.

  “You men are from Oklahoma,” Barnaby said. “And if you can forgive my intrusion, I would like to tell you the happy secret to eating all those desserts comfortably.”

  They both looked up at him, both lifting their chests and pressing their fattened necks against the backs of their shirt collars with military importance. Their suit coats were well open to show off the investment-banker suspenders they’d picked up at Paul Stuart. The older one’s stomach rose over his chest to his chin. The younger one said, with what did not sound like a welcoming attitude, “Who the hell are you?”

  The older one pointed a finger at the desserts and said with deep seriousness, “FedEx it to Oklahoma City. Got to fly back this afternoon and we may not have room on our plane. Never eat it now. Couldn’t possibly eat another bite of all this shit now.”

  “Alcohol,” Barnaby said. He stood above them and smiled at them like an oversized weatherman with a good report for the weekend. “If you drink sufficiently you can eat more than you want and still run like an absolute fucking gazelle all your life. Forgive my language.”

  “What the hell makes you think we’re from Oklahoma?” the younger one said.

  That younger one would be a challenge, and Barnaby loved a challenge.

  To the older one Barnaby said, “Your waiter’s Philippe, isn’t it?

  But let me offer this bottle of burgundy into the situation at hand. May I?”

  “Philippe. Good man. We can use him. Already told him to come on down and take over our dining room at the Petroleum Club.” But then that older one noticed his young colleague’s attitude and began to bridle as well. “You the owner here? There a problem?”

  Barnaby laughed. “I’ve tried to buy it, but they tell me they can’t afford to lose me as a customer.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” the young one said with such endearing venom that Barnaby beamed.

  Barnaby gave all of his pleasure to the young one and said, “I have a wife.”

  “There’s a relief.”

  Out the corner of his eye, Barnaby sensed Michel’s approach.

  “My wife’s from Oklahoma City,” Barnaby explained, and they both raised their eyebrows like Englishmen judging a stranger’s familiar sunburn in the Sudan. Barnaby liked almost everybody, but he found himself liking these guys in particular. “Winifred Briley. Her father, now deceased, was a distinguished physician, chief of staff at St. Somebody or other.” They didn’t register the name, so that put them promisingly (most things were promising for Barnaby) off the map. If it could have made any sense, he would have said car dealerships.

  “Mister Griswold. These gentlemen are your friends. Charming.”

  “Yes they are, Michel, and we’re just now working everything out. Can you give us a minute?”

  “Give us a minute, Michel,” the older one said in exactly the weighty tone of voice he would use when he instructed the angel of commerce to allow Barnaby a very substantial amount of money. It wasn’t a tone of voice that you wanted to ignore, even from a fellow like this who looked precariously older than his probable fifty years. Barnaby thought to suggest his own very good cardiologist.

  The younger one could have been almost Barnaby’s age, but his weight swelled under the skin of his face like baby fat; he managed to look like a fraternity boy who’d eaten too much because life away from home made him irritable.

  Michel backed off a yard or so, and the fraternity boy said in his high, brittle, crotchety plains whine, “Old buddy, who the fuck are you?”

  Somewhere, indeed probably everywhere, were people who would not like these boys, but Barnaby could never count himself among such people. He had to acknowledge that the young one gave off sulfurous vapors of wreckage and recrimination, but that was only cause to remember happily that most friendships for Barnaby were brief. Barnaby set his glass down on the Oklahoma table and held out his hand. “Barnaby Griswold. How do you do.”

  The young one looked at Barnaby’s hand without moving to shake it, and then said, “Does a name like that make you an eastern snob?”

  “Barnababy?” the older one said, as much in honest confusion as in adolescent meanness.

  And that, Barnababy, was an echo Barnaby hadn’t heard since the teasings of boarding school. Barn-a-baby, Barn-a-baby. How splendid for a nickname to surface after thirty years and grease the wheels of this moment.

  Barnaby smiled and nodded at the older one.

  And, “Barnababy, Barnababy,” the young one said with such a full, instant freight of meanness that, grease or no grease, Barnaby felt as if he were back in the dealership where Win had bought her German car. When Barnaby had occasionally had to bring that car in for service, he’d found that ordinary politeness inspired furies of disdain in the Teutonic service manager. To get the car serviced at all, Barnaby had had to learn to beat his fist on the counter and shout for attention in a voice of murderous command.

  “Barnababy Griswold,” the young guy declared, “is a clown’s name.”

  So Barnaby spread his feet and unbuttoned his suit jacket. He stared at the young guy who looked ready to get up and fight. He stared at the old guy who stared back in confusion gone to outrage. Then Barnaby set his bottle of wine firmly on the table beside his glass and balled his fists and put his fists onto his hips. He was a big man. Bigger than either of these men. He swayed over their table.

  He said, “You think Barnaby Griswold sounds like a clown?” And then, though he hated to do it in La Cote, especially with Michel vibrating only yards away, he shouted.

  “Well wise up about clowns.”

  And once he’d shouted, he leaned abruptly down to within a threatening few inches of this vicious Oklahoma boy and let his voice go to a growl that would have satisfied any of the several tigers watching silently from the wallpaper with bloodthirsty interest. “Around here,” Barnaby said, “the clowns are in charge.”

  Kopus was so sure Barnaby had folded that instead of a first serve, he offered a straight-ahead second serve, a forehand no less, and Barnaby stepped in, bent his knees, locked his focus on the ball, and stroked through. Barnaby hit a winner.

  Kopus was so surprised he didn’t even reach for it. Then he gave Barnaby a “Don’t start fucking with me” glare. Barnaby may have suckered him for one point, but there sure as hell were going to be no more marshmallow serves. Barnaby hurried into position for the next point, and Kopus picked up the loose ball and quick-served without any rhythm or windup and followed the serve to the net. Not Kopus’s usual style, coming to net behind a serve, but Barnaby had gotten under his skin, and Kopus wanted to finish it off.

  There wasn’t time to think, always an advantage for Barnaby and his knees were bent from some earlier life. Also the background on Kopus’s toss was better from this angle. Barnaby could see. And, Kopus was not exactly a fat boy, but he had a lot more stomach than speed, regardless of running backward along the Point Road between the harbor and Barnaby’s house at times Barnaby was likely to see him. It took Kopus a good t
wo shots to work his way to the net.

  Barnaby picked up the flight of the ball and took it on the rise and stroked a rocket back up the middle. And, oh Christ, there was Kopus trapped, naked and flat-footed, fluttering his racket in no-man’s land. It did not look good, and mixed with applause for Barnaby’s shot was laughter at Kopus. Kopus, who was never ashamed to look bad to win, was nevertheless someone who did not like to be laughed at when he lost. Well, who did? But this was Kopus, the Point’s second-generation immigrant. Kopus, the distasteful, new-dough invader, a laughing stock in front of Jerry Childs, the new climber, and everyone else on the Point, all of whom including Childs thought they were better than Kopus, all of whom made up, Barnaby assumed, the largest gears turning the machinery of Kopus’s hatred as well as his oily cloak of charm. Kopus turned toward the pasteled proprieties of that little hillside in the sun and looked ready to throw his racket into the midst of them.

  Barnaby wasted no time getting into position again, because Kopus had picked up the loose third ball after the first point and had it in his pocket. Kopus could spin into another quick serve and would keep the point even if Barnaby were yards away from being ready. This was not the time to look at the hillside and see who was happy for him, see the bare legs that told about summertime and rustic, tasteful privilege and all the things that warmed his heart when his heart needed warming.

  And Kopus did it, stepped behind the baseline and spun without windup, without even a look across the net, into his jerking, broken-winged swat.

  Barnaby could not see the toss in the empty background, saw the contact, lost the ball in flight, and then saw it land three inches long.

  “Gee. No, Richard. I’m sorry. That one’s out.” He had known it would be out. Kopus had wrenched at it. Kopus was too angry and was losing composure. He had served as hard as he could and pulled himself out of his best motion. Not that Kopus was graceful in the best of times.