Anyway, braced by my one sun salutation and my ten seconds or so of meditation, I went into the kitchen and Jeeves was there, beaming in at the precise moment that I made my entrance, which he's very good at. He's always appearing and disintegrating and reappearing just when the stage directions call for him.
“What's the status of the opposition, Jeeves?” I asked.
“Your uncle is dressing, sir. His attitude is that of one who has an appointment of some sort for which he is expected shortly.”
“You mean to say that he's rushing off somewhere?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No doubt some emergency meeting of the National Rifle Association or the Jewish Defense League.”
“Perhaps, sir.”
“I think I'll have to dine in my room, Jeeves. It's not pleasant, I know. But it's our only chance.”
“I am in agreement, sir.”
All I liked to have in the mornings in New Jersey was a cup of coffee, toast with butter, a glass of water, and the sports section of The New York Times—not to eat, naturally, but to read. I enjoy nothing more than to sit peacefully at a kitchen table, memorize the baseball statistics, and nibble my humble piece of toast. But this morning that would have to be sacrificed.
My aunt Florence, as she often did, had left a pot of coffee for me, and so I quickly filled my favorite blue Fiestaware mug and then tucked the sports section under my elbow—my uncle didn't read the sports and so he wouldn't notice its absence. Jeeves gathered a plate with some cold bread and butter. From the kitchen we charged up the three small stairs, myself in the lead, Jeeves picking up the rear of the formation. I was nearing the summit, on the second step, quite close to safety—my room just one more step and a yard away—but my uncle, unseen by me, was also thrusting toward the head of the stairs from stage right. And so it was only a mere half second later—into the hangman's noose after all!—that the unfortunate congress took place.
The physics was this: my head, in the lead of my body, was rising up the stairs, breaking the plane of the landing, just as my uncle was hanging a hard and hurried left down the stairs, with his belly, in the lead of his body, breaking the same plane. Two broken planes. A midair collision.
The nose of my plane went into his fuselage with not a little force. The wind was knocked from him, he breathed in caustically, and while his stomach collapsed a little, my neck, weak stem that it is, was forcefully and painfully shoved down into the shoulders. I also took right into my nostrils a dusting of baby powder which was emitted from his person, like a toad of the Amazon squirting poison when stepped on. The relative, you see, liked to generously coat himself with Johnson's powder after being in the tub, and I had grown to be mildly nauseated by its aroma. So taking that powder directly into the nostrils, right to the center of my olfactory glands, was quite the blow. Somehow, though, I righted myself on the second step, shakily holding the small banister, and miraculously, my coffee had not been spilled. Jeeves transported himself back into the kitchen.
“You idiot!” my uncle aspirated out of his Padre Pio beard. “You klutz!”
Then I, as often happens to me in moments of extreme stress, had a delayed spasm and ejaculation of fear. Whenever I'm scared, I register the scary thing for an instant rather calmly or sleepily: Oh, look, a rat has raced up my leg, I'll remark to myself—which actually happened to me one time in New York City, a trauma I've never quite recovered from—and after the rat reverses direction, having discerned that I am a person and not a drainage pipe, and runs away, I suddenly realize what has transpired and scream at the top of my lungs.
So about two seconds after my uncle bellowed “You klutz!” when essentially the coast was clear, it was then that I responded:
“Noooo!” I yowled inanely, and threw my arms up to protect myself, much too late, and discharged from my person—behaving like my uncle's baby powder—was my cup of hot coffee, undoing the miracle of just moments before. The coffee spread itself like a searing, brown blanket on his yellow sport shirt, which, because of its thin material, did not prevent him from being scalded.
“Goddammit!” he cried in pain, pawing at his belly.
“I'm so sorry!” I said, mounting the last step, while my uncle recoiled.
“Am I burned?” he half demanded, half whimpered, as he pulled off his shirt. No one deserves to be showered with coffee. Not even frightening uncles.
I bent toward his belly to observe, and there was a thick, protective covering of hair on the stomach, much of it gray and a good deal of it white from the powder, and the skin beneath the hair and the powder seemed to be fine. A little pink, perhaps, but not the violent red of a serious burn.
“I think you're all right,” I said, wanting to beg for forgiveness, but he retreated to the bathroom, his shirt in his fist like a rag, and I trailed behind like a fool. He regarded himself in the mirror and took a wet washcloth and held it to his stomach. He was rallying rather quickly. Hardy old thing. We regarded each other in the mirror. My thinning blond-red hair looked very frail, matching my mental state, and his mustache, like a mood ring from my 1970s youth, seemed to blacken further. And his eyes were as small as a lobster's, which is very small. Out of them shot death rays. Usually, as I indicated earlier, his preference was to have eyes that resembled chilled oysters, which was bad enough. So for him to switch over to lobster eyes was not a good sign—his repertoire of withering glances, taken from the worlds of mollusks and crustaceans, was expanding to keep up with his antipathy for me.
“I'm sorry I'm such an idiot,” I whispered, and then I oozed down the hall to hide in my room.
CHAPTER 2
I attempt a little scribblingThe subject and hero of my novel are touched uponDating practices of wealthy senior citizens are explained in a sociological wayJeeves, being quite literary, reassures me about the day's output of proseI think back on how Jeeves came into my employJeeves makes lunchI make a decision
Careworn, you might have described me. Distressed and paralyzed would have also worked. I was lying on my bed. Too depressed to eat, I had gone without breakfast. Jeeves flickered like a beam of light to my left.
“Do you think a written apology, Jeeves, might do the trick?”
“I don't know if that is necessary, sir. It was an accident. Your uncle is not an unreasonable man. And from what you tell me of your inspection of his abdomen, no serious injury occurred.”
“Perhaps you're right, Jeeves. But it is soupy. You know what they say about guests who overstay their welcome. Perhaps my tenure here has strained the blood ties. But I've been selfish, Jeeves. It's been good for the writing, this New Jersey air. Brings me back to my roots.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Maybe if I run the fingers along the keyboard now, my spirits will improve.”
“You often feel better, sir, when you do a little work.”
“Some iced coffee then, Jeeves. You know I can't write without it. Aggravating the nerves with caffeine always helps with the Muse.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jeeves trickled out to get the coffee. We knew the coast was clear. My uncle, after the debacle on the stairs, had gone about his usual routine of assaulting a bowl of oatmeal, reading the newspaper, and listening to the radio. When the radio was shut off and we heard the front door slam, we knew that we serfs could run free and frolic and drink vodka and grab female serfs and sleep on the haystacks.
I sat at my desk and presently Jeeves arrived with my drink. I sipped the iced coffee and stared at the computer. I had only recently made the harrowing switch from the typewriter to the laptop, but there were decided benefits—one could play solitaire on the computer during momentary lapses in the creative process.
My first novel I hadn't even typed—I wrote it by hand and then gave it to a typist. But this was several years before. I had published rather young, only twenty-three, just a year out of college, but now at age thirty, while still a young man, I was practically washed-up. Hence my obsession with avoidi
ng the uncle in the morning and being in the right frame of mind for writing. If I didn't produce a second novel, I would be a one-hit wonder. As it was hardly anyone read the book, I Pity I, but it was published by a major New York house, and so in my own little world I had something to live up to.
This new novel, which I had been working on for two years, was, as I mentioned, a roman à clef, except all the clefs weren't famous or celebrated in any way, except in my opinion. And I guess this is a bit strange since romans à clef are usually about well-known people, but it was a style that appealed to me—the protective covering of fiction over the caprice of real life. I hadn't yet changed people's names, except for my own, calling myself Louis instead of Alan. I've always been irrationally fond of the name Louis.
So the narrator of my novel was Louis (me), but the real hero of the story was my former Manhattan roommate, Charles, whom I planned to rename at some point Edward or Henry, thinking it was smart to stick with the names of British kings, especially since Charles was a real Anglophile and follower of the royal family. He was also an acerbic, failed playwright, but I thought he was brilliant. Unfortunately, no one else shared my opinion, only an obscure critic or two back in the fifties, and so he was a nearly penniless senior citizen, which is why he needed a roommate.
Charles did have some income from teaching composition at Queens College and from his monthly Social Security check, but it was barely enough to live on. I had the lofty ambition that though Charles's plays had failed to make him a great American writer, I would make him a great American character. So while living with him, I was writing about him, though he didn't know this—I worked on the book at the Ninety-sixth Street library or in the apartment when he wasn't home, and I kept my notebooks and the manuscript well hidden. I was always secretly jotting down things he said—his dialogue was wonderfully rich—but the ethics of the whole enterprise disturbed me: the act of stealing someone's life. And yet I didn't stop. I was driven by an imperious need—I had to produce a second novel!
After nearly two years of being roommates, we had a bad falling-out, and this led to my moving to New Jersey and taking up residence with the aunt and uncle. But I continued to view the book, which Charles was still unaware of, as an extended platonic love letter. You see, I greatly admired the man, despite the ending of our friendship, and my admiration was akin to love.
My title for the roman à clef was The Walker, since Charles was a walker for several wealthy Upper East Side ladies. This was a way for him to get some good free meals of the highest quality, which he very much enjoyed and couldn't have afforded otherwise.
As a walker, Charles didn't have to pay, because in the upper classes, as men and women get older, the roles, quite often, reverse: where once the man always paid, the woman now pays. These upper-class women in their seventies, eighties, or nineties have usually outlasted more than one husband, either through divorce or attrition (women live longer than men), and so they inherit and accumulate great wealth. The problem is they can't really attract new husbands or lovers or even more likely they don't want new lovers and husbands, but it is nice to have a man around, looks good socially—he opens doors, pulls out your chair, carries the luggage on trips—and so these wealthy women, these survivors, need male companionship. Thus, hovering around them, like blue-blazered seagulls, is always a roster of men who have no money, but do have a certain sophistication, which means they're quite often homosexual. “Walkers” is what they're called, seemingly because they walk alongside the woman, providing support. Sometimes they're referred to as an “extra man,” as in you might need an extra man to complete the seating arrangements—boy, girl, boy, girl—at a dinner party.
It all works out rather well, because these men, these poor gay senior citizens, like their lady friends, can no longer attract lovers, but they're not alone—they find themselves, in their latter years, with women. The whole thing comes full circle: these men, these walkers, are engaging in sexless heterosexual dating, just as they must have fifty, sixty years ago when they were in the closet, which is where most homosexual men of that generation could be found.
So Charles was a walker and had the necessary costumes—one set of evening clothes and a variety of blazers, none of which were in good condition, but his ladies didn't notice as their cataracts were usually quite advanced.
I should mention that Charles wasn't clearly homosexual, despite my general depiction of a walker's attributes. Charles was very discreet on the subject of his sexuality, didn't think it was my or anyone else's business, and so none of my vampiric prying could get a disclosure, even after living together for two years. I was shamefully curious—as most people are—about what I shouldn't have been. But I guess we all like to know other people's secrets so that we can live with our own. Charles, in retrospect, was perhaps something quite rare, a heterosexual extra man, though in truth he seemed to be against all sex, which is a position not without merit.
Well, that gives you a general idea of the book I was working on—a portrait of a walker as an old man, and his worshipful sidekick, Louis (me). So there I was in New Jersey, sipping the iced coffee Jeeves had provided, and I picked up the novel where I had left off the day before. I slowly typed the following scene:
I was lying on the orange carpet and watching television. I was happily absorbing a Western. There was a big shoot-out going on and lots of horses were rearing up on their hind legs and kicking up dust, which made it hard for the gunslingers to see one another. The battle was rather long and protracted, and Charles came home in the midst of it, saw what I was watching, and didn't approve.
“Guns!” he said. “Americans are always shooting guns. They can't outwit anyone, so they shoot them…. Put the news on. I can't stand Westerns. I want to see what's happening with the Saint Patrick's Day Parade. I wonder if this year it will finally be canceled.”
I switched the channel with the remote control. Charles took off his winter coat and poured himself a glass of his cheap white wine. “Do you want some?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you,” I said greedily, sitting up. He handed me a glass of the yellow-colored wine and sat on his couch. The sports segment of the news was being shown; it was eleven twenty-five.
“I don't think there will be anything about the parade,” I said. “All the real news has already been broadcast. Now it's just sports and weather.”
The sports report came to its end and then we gloomily watched the weather forecast—an ice storm was expected. Spring was a week away, but it was slow in coming. I turned off the TV.
“The homosexuals are trying to wreck the parade again,” said Charles, sipping his wine. “Every year they protest and they take all the joy out of it for the Irish-Catholics. Gays have no tolerance for others' points of view. Why can't they accept that Catholics think homosexuality is a sin? They say, ‘You can march in our gay pride parade.’ But they wouldn't allow someone carrying a sign that says, ‘Sodomy Is Wrong.’ So why should an Irish-Catholic let someone carry a banner that says, ‘We're Irish and Gay and Proud of It’? And there's nothing to be proud of. It's to be endured privately.”
“Are you going to watch the parade if it happens?” I asked.
“No, I can't stand parades. Too many ugly people.”
“What do you think of this, Jeeves?” I asked, and he evaporated and then reconstituted himself alongside me. Looking over my shoulder, he quickly read what I had produced.
“Do you think I have too much sitting down, passing of drinks, and taking off of coats?” I asked before he could comment. “Am I clogging things up? Seems like my characters are always walking across rooms and opening doors. Why can't they just appear places? And if I'm going to have all this movement, I should at least have a fist fight, don't you think, like in Dashiell Hammett?”
“Writing, I imagine, sir, is like seeing,” said Jeeves. “You see the characters sitting and drinking and taking off their coats and so you have to describe it. And, furthermore, I don't think you
have slowed down the narrative thrust with these necessary descriptions.”
“But talking about the Saint Patrick's Day Parade is not very lively.”
“I find it, sir, to be an amusing anecdote, and revealing of character.”
“Thank you, Jeeves,” I said gratefully. I felt rather fortunate. Not too many writers have valets who are of the literary sort. In fact, Jeeves and I were reading together, as a sort of two-person book club, Anthony Powell's epic, twelve-volume A Dance to the Music of Time. It's absolutely a stupendous work—almost nothing of moment occurs for hundreds of pages, thousands even, and yet one reads on completely mesmerized. It's like an imprint of life: nothing happens and yet everything happens.
Anyway, when I'd hired Jeeves just five months before, in February, I had no idea he was bookish. There was his very literary name, of course, but this didn't make me think he was an avid reader, it merely threw me for one hell of a loop. I mean, who ever heard of a valet actually named Jeeves? That's outrageous! That's like looking for a private detective in the Yellow Pages and stumbling across Philip Marlowe! What was the likelihood?
We all have cultural blank spots—I, for example, despite having grown up in the seventies, cannot distinguish the music of the Rolling Stones from that of the Who, though I am, through osmosis, aware of these rock bands—so some people might not know that P. G. Wodehouse, the premier British comedic writer of the twentieth century, wrote a celebrated series of novels about a young, wealthy idiot named Bertie Wooster and his wildly competent and brainy valet named Jeeves! I repeat: a valet named Jeeves!
So my hiring someone called Jeeves to be a valet is a stunning, improbable coincidence. And, you see, what makes this even more remarkable is that during the dark month of January, my first month with the aunt and uncle, I had fallen into a morbific depression and so had prescribed to myself the cure of reading lots of Wodehouse. I was using Norman Cousins as my role model because I had once heard on the radio that Cousins had healed himself of cancer by overdosing on comedic films—probably Chaplin, Keaton, the Marx Brothers, and Laurel and Hardy—and laughing himself into wellness.
Wake Up, Sir! Page 2
