Wake Up, Sir!

by Jonathan Ames

  I substituted an overdose of Wodehouse as a remedy—I'm more of a bibliophile than a cinephile—and it worked pretty well. By early February I had inched from black-lungish melancholy to drooping spirits. Then something really morale-boosting occurred: a check for $250,000 arrived with my name on it. Now, you don't see checks like that every day. For that matter, you don't see them every lifetime.

  How this check had come into my possession was that two years before I had slipped on some ice in front of a Park Avenue building and broken both of my elbows—a disaster for a writer who needs his arms to type, but very good for a lawyer, a lawyer who likes to sue, and I found such a lawyer—Stuart Fishman. So two years later, rather quick for such things, I had been awarded $250,000—after Fishman took his well-earned $75,000—by the owner of the building because the doorman should have salted the area where I fell.

  Well, there I was coming out of a depression thanks to that check and my reading cure, and I have to say I was sort of delirious from absorbing so many Wodehouse novels. He wrote ninety-six and I digested forty-three of them, including all fifteen of the books that feature Wooster and Jeeves. And this delirium produced an unexpected thought: Why don't I hire a valet? For years, I had lived frugally off the inheritance from my parents' early deaths, and that money had just about run out, but now I was a rich, young quarter-millionaire! Why not have a valet?

  I mentioned the idea to Uncle Irwin since, after all, I was living in his house, and he remarked rather forcefully, “You're insane!”

  So I dropped the matter, but then a few days later, in a rare act of willfulness, I called a domestic-help service, while Uncle Irwin was out selling gun-cleaning equipment and Aunt Florence was at the high school. The service promptly sent me Jeeves and I was immediately impressed by the man, but when he told me his name, I was taken aback and said to him distrustfully, “Did you change your name to Jeeves to bring in the business?”

  “No, sir,” he said. “Jeeves has long been my family name, since before my grandparents emigrated to this country from England.”

  “You're American?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But you sound English to me.”

  “I have, sir, what you would call a Mid-Atlantic accent, which is sometimes mistaken for an English accent.”

  “Yes, you're right. I hear it now. But, anyway, it's awfully odd that you're named Jeeves, if you know what I mean. It's throwing me for a bit of a loop.”

  “I can appreciate, sir, your reaction. I imagine that you are making reference to the character Jeeves in the novels and stories of P. G. Wodehouse.”

  “Yes, that is what I'm making reference to!”

  “Well, all I can tell you, sir, is that it has long been the theory in my family that the young P. G. Wodehouse must have encountered a Jeeves or a Jeaves with an a, in which case he changed the spelling for legal reasons, but, regardless, he thought it a good name for a valet and went on to use it with phenomenal success, but to the detriment of real Jeeveses everywhere.”

  “I see.” I didn't say it, since I didn't think it was my place, but wondered if Jeeves had gone into valeting out of desperation. A sort of “if you can't beat them, join them” approach, like being named Roosevelt and feeling compelled to run for president. “Have you considered changing your name to ease the burden?” I asked.

  “No, sir. Regardless of the circumstances, one takes a certain pride in one's family name.”

  “Yes, of course,” I said, and as Jeeves explained all this, it made me wonder if Frankenstein had once been a common German name, and then I recalled a fellow at Princeton, my alma mater, named Portnoy, who got a lot of razzing. So Jeeves wasn't alone with this kind of name problem, and his explanation about the whole thing was certainly sympathetic and calmed any thoughts I had that he might have been some kind of conman/valet. Thus, I was ready to hire him on the spot—he was everything I was looking for, there was about the man an aura of serenity and competence—but I thought I had better not appear too eager, so I pressed on with my interrogation.

  “Well, thank you for clearing up this name issue…. So, do you have any allergies I should be made aware of?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you belong to any political groups or apolitical groups?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Clubs?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you have any hobbies?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No hobbies? Fishing? Leaf-pressing? Bodybuilding? Crossword puzzles?”

  “No, sir. I like to read.”

  “Me, too! That's my only hobby, and a weakness for the sports pages.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Well, that was it. I was sold. The man was perfect. So, feeling rather omnipotent with my quarter million dollars in the bank, I offered Jeeves the job and he accepted, and thus it came to be that the good old fellow entered my employ.

  The aunt and uncle, fortunately, didn't say a word about it, cowed I guess by my having a servant, and, too, Jeeves was quite expert at staying out of their way. Also, because of my settlement, I started paying my aunt and uncle a generous rent, and this may have helped them to not be bothered by Jeeves's occupying the other spare bedroom.

  So Jeeves was unquestionably a great addition to my life, and the fact that he could help me with my writing was a spectacular bonus. After producing that page about the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and receiving Jeeves's kindly stamp of approval, I said, “Well, I think I've written enough today, Jeeves, and I'm famished. Can you put something together in the way of nutrition? All I've had in my mouth today are my teeth.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  In no time at all, he fixed me up some sardines, tomatoes, and toast. It was a splendid feast, and afterward I was ready for my nap. Usually after lunch I need to sleep—my constitution and digestion are, in this way, rather Mediterranean in spirit.

  I laid my head on the pillow, and though I was quite tired, I found myself worrying about the situation with the aunt and uncle. I really had overstayed my welcome. It was time for me to move on, and in that moment I made an imperial decision.

  “Jeeves,” I called out.

  He poured into the room. “Yes, sir.”

  “Jeeves, how do you like the mountains?”

  “I am not opposed to mountains, sir.”

  “Well, I was thinking that tomorrow, you and I should disappear for the rest of the summer. We'll take the car”—I owned a 1989, olive green Chevrolet Caprice Classic—“and motor up to the Poconos. We can rent a cabin and commune with the Hasidic wives of Manhattan diamond merchants, and I'll work on my novel in that mountain air, which I imagine will be invigorating.”

  “A very good plan, sir.”

  “After my siesta, start gathering the Blair necessaries. We'll attempt to break free of Montclair tomorrow. I think you'll enjoy the Poconos, Jeeves.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I was sure my uncle Irwin would be glad to see me go, especially after I had burned him that A.M., but my aunt Florence, I thought, might be against my leaving—she was very fond of me. She'd never had any children of her own, and I think I had become something of a son figure and so I was concerned she might take it hard that I wanted to leave for the summer, if not for forever. But I saw the coffee debacle as a sign for me to move on, because a guest—even one thought of as a son—must know when to leave, even if the guest has nowhere to go.

  CHAPTER 3

  Dinner at the Kosher NoshWhy a Jewish predilection for constipation can be lifesavingA Chinese family momentarily distractsAn unexpected contretempsA sad good-bye

  A few hours after my nap, it was time again for calories and I was at the Kosher Nosh restaurant with the old flesh and blood—Aunt Florence and Uncle Irwin. Jeeves was home, doing who knows what—probably writing letters to fellow valets in servitude in far-off lands. Meanwhile, I was meditatively chewing on a large, wartish, dark green pickle. I had already broached the coffee matter during t
he car ride to the restaurant, and my uncle, as Jeeves had predicted, was perfectly reasonable and forgiving; so now, with each bite of my pickle, I was gathering up the courage to tackle the next difficult issue—to let the old f. and b. know that their beloved nephew was going to take wing the next morning.

  It was part of our normal routine to go to the Kosher Nosh on Monday nights. It was a delicatessen restaurant with about fifty simple tables, all very close to one another, and the whole place was bathed in bright fluorescent lights. On one side of the establishment was the dining area, and on the other was a thirty-foot glass counter filled with all sorts of meats and salads and knishes of various origins, and behind the counter were usually about half a dozen yarmulked, white-smocked countermen, who engaged in playful Yiddish banter and efficient meat-slicing and shouted with authority, “Next!”

  The clientele of the Kosher Nosh were ancient Jews who had no business eating pastrami sandwiches. They hardly looked like they could walk, let alone digestively break down noxious smoked meats. But there they were, happily absorbing substantial portions of kosher brisket, corned beef, pastrami, roast beef, chicken, hot dogs, tongue, liver, and steak.

  I was as Jewish as any of the alter kockers—that's “old codgers” in gentile—present at the Kosher Nosh, but my surname Blair (originally Blaum but changed at Ellis Island), and my somewhat Waspish appearance often have me mistaken for a gentile. But my palate—I love pastrami and Cell-Ray soda—in contrast to my looks is a dead giveaway and decidedly Semitic, as is my digestion, which, like with most Jews, is constricted at best. If anyone should be vegetarian, it's the Jews. But we may have developed constipation in a Darwinian way. We've spent centuries hiding in cellars during pogroms, inquisitions, and holocausts, and so if you don't have to go outside to the bathroom, where you might get killed by a passing Cossack, inquisitioner, or storm trooper, then you live longer and pass on your genes, including the lifesaving constricted-bowel gene.

  So every Monday at the Kosher Nosh, I got my weekly pastrami fix, and it was the one communal meal where my uncle's mastication didn't completely unman me. The other chewing noises coming from the tables around us were all so ghastly that his noises seemed to be lost in this gruesome chorus; in fact, in the world of the Kosher Nosh, the gurgles and spittles and frothings of his chomping were normal, and so their power over me was somehow nullified.

  We placed our order with an exhausted, ready-for-the-grave waitress—for some reason, the Kosher Nosh only hired newly minted female senior citizens; it was a restaurant of the aged serving the even more aged. And it was while I was nervously starting in on a second pickle to pass the time and muster courage that an Asian family of four poked their heads into the dining area. This seemed very unusual. They just stood there, father, mother, a son, and a daughter—all of them clearly uncertain about storming this gathering of Israelites in Montclair. We weren't a fierce bunch of Jews, but if all the elders wielded their aluminum walking sticks at the same time, we could make a dangerous mob.

  “Look,” I said to my aunt and uncle, because of the novelty of the occurrence. “A Chinese family. Or maybe Korean. I don't think they're Japanese.”

  “They should come in,” said my aunt Florence. “The food here is the best.”

  “I wonder what they're thinking, looking at all these Jews eating corned beef and ready for heart operations,” I said.

  “They're thinking,” said my uncle, “‘must be a good place—there's Jewish people here—that's always a good sign.’”

  My uncle, despite a number of faults, often displayed a quick and amusing wit, which I admired. I smiled appreciatively at the cleverness of his remark and even let out a little laugh.

  But my aunt, who at sixty-three looked no more than fifty with her honey-colored hair twirled in a challahlike, teenagelike braid, did not understand why I had giggled at my uncle's rejoinder. Her sense of humor, like her braid, was a bit naive, though in all other areas she was bright and sensitive. “What's so funny?” she asked.

  My uncle was momentarily incapable of speech; he had grabbed and was destroying a pickle, nearly swallowing the thing whole—all tables came with an aluminum canister filled with the phallic green wands soaking in brine—and so it was left to me to explain to my aunt. “You know how when we go to a Chinese restaurant,” I said, “or when any Jewish person goes to a Chinese restaurant, and if they haven't been there before and they see Chinese people eating there, they'll say, ‘Look! There's Chinese people—that's a good sign.’ Well, these Chinese people—if they're Chinese—have come to a Jewish restaurant and it's a good sign to them, according to Uncle Irwin, that there are Jews here.”

  “Oh yes,” said my aunt, smiling sweetly, “I get it now.”

  “I think,” I said, “it would be interesting someday if Chinese people ate Jewish food as much as Jewish people ate Chinese food. There should be Jewish fast-food places, like the Chinese have. Instead of wonton soup, chicken soup; instead of egg rolls, egg matzo; and a Jewish fortune cookie could be a piece of rugelach with a stock tip or something from a Jewish investment bank. You know, so people could make fortunes.”

  My uncle Irwin shot me one of those oysterish glances he specialized in. You know, where the eye is all cold and dead and runny. It wasn't as fearsome as the lobster look he had given me that morning, but it wasn't what you would call a tender glance. He didn't like it when I posited unusual hypothetical situations, like Jewish fast food and fortune cookies. To be honest, he thought I was a bit loony and something of a layabout. One time, he burst into my lair while I was working on my opus, though, actually at that moment, I was playing solitaire at the computer as a way to stimulate the Muse—she often likes it when I play solitaire for an hour or more. But when my uncle saw the cards on the computer screen, he shouted, “So this is what you do in here all the time! Talk to yourself and play solitaire!”

  So before things went too far downhill at the Kosher Nosh and became overly frosty because of my Jewish fortune cookie idea, I thought I had better break the news about my leaving.

  “I have something to announce,” I said, flourishing my pickle like a green and swollen extra finger. “I'm going to take off for the Poconos for the rest of the summer. I've burdened you enough these last few months. But I'll be in frequent contact and will flood you with postcards of rural landscapes.”

  Uncle Irwin, to my surprise, continued to beam oysters at me. I wanted to tell him that oysters were trayf and had no place here at the Kosher Nosh. I had thought he would be glad to hear I was leaving.

  In spiritual contrast, my aunt Florence's eyes were not at all oysterish—they looked sad and concerned. “Alan, I've been worried,” she said. “I was going to suggest tonight, after we had our food, something very different from you going off to the Poconos.” She paused, steeled herself, then continued, “I think maybe you should consider going back to rehab.”

  “We know you've been drinking again,” growled my uncle. “We took you in when you had nowhere to go and the way you thank us is by hitting the bottle.”

  This was a contretemps I had not foreseen. I lowered my pickle to my plate, like dropping my sword. Then the Asian family took the empty table next to us. I smiled at them, wanting to welcome them to the promised land of brisket, but this smile was a cover-up while I tried to put together a defense. One came to me: I would drop my shield to go along with my pickle sword. No defense.

  “Yes, I've been drinking,” I said, taking the honest path, but then, swerving, I continued, “though not to excess. One medicinal glass of red wine each night as a sleeping potion. They say it's good for your blood. If the French didn't eat a lot of fat and smoke cigarettes in the delivery rooms of hospitals, they would live exceedingly long lives due to all the red wine they go through.” I hadn't meant to produce such a disquisition of facts about the state of French health, but when nervous, I'm prone to obfuscation, not to mention lying.

  “Alan,” said my aunt, and she looked at me with love
, “the Flatleys”—she was referring to the next-door neighbors—“asked us if we were putting wine bottles in their recycling bin. I said no, of course. And then they joked that somebody was going through two or three bottles a night and trying to pin it on them.”

  “That's why you closet yourself in your room all morning, isn't it?” said my uncle. “You're hungover! You're supposed to be writing your book.”

  “I do write my book. And I don't drink at night. It must be Jeeves!”

  “Jeeves! You're insane!” exclaimed my uncle with anger. But he was quite right to be furious with me—I shouldn't have tried to smudge Jeeves's character as a way of oiling out of a tough spot.

  My aunt ignored this Jeeves exchange. “I spoke to Dr. Montesonti,” she said, and my mind reeled. The dreaded Montesonti—the nerve specialist at Cedars Grove rehab in Long Island where I'd had an unfortunate residence! He had told me that I was a maniac, in the classic sense of the word, which appealed to my ego a little, but he had wanted to destroy my relationship with my Muse by prescribing lithium. “I will not go on lithium!” I had protested. “It's only a salt,” he'd argued. “I don't like salt,” I had riposted, and luckily for me he couldn't force me to take that horrible seasoning. And then I miraculously escaped his clutches when my insurance ran out.

  “Montesonti is a terrible doctor,” I said to my aunt and uncle. “What kind of psychiatrist is grossly overweight and chews Nicorette gum?”

  Aunt Florence didn't respond to my statement; she clearly had her speech prepared and pressed on with it:

  “He recommended that either you come back to Cedars or we find you a place out here. But he also said that if you refused to go back to rehab, that we were to ask you to leave. That by letting you stay, we were enabling you. That we had to give you tough love. Your mother would want me to love you any way I can, and if the doctor feels that tough love is the best kind, then that's what we have to do…. Will you go back to rehab? You hardly went to AA, and you haven't stopped drinking on your own, as you promised. And that was our contract—a quiet place to do your writing if you don't drink. So either it's rehab or we can no longer have you in the house.”