Wake Up, Sir!

by Jonathan Ames

  Well, life is never easy, that's for sure. But my life was now a little easier. I was at an artist colony and not an asylum. This was a positive.

  “So Dr. Hibben was at Brown,” I said. “I've always wondered why it was called that. Never looked it up. I'm lazy that way. Must be for someone named Brown, can't be for the color, right? Be interesting, though, if schools were named after colors, like Red University, but of course white and black would have to be avoided. Red might not work either. Too closely associated with Marx. I went to Princeton. Our colors were orange and black.”

  Doris gave me a look and I thought I had better shut up. What was I doing running my mouth with my personality all rearranged nasally and a brain reeling from no alcohol?

  So I shut my trap and began to fill out the medical form, and as I endeavored to indicate that I had no allergies and was taking no medications, Doris said, “Are you all right? Have you been in an accident?” I could feel her looking at me more closely, noticing that something was amiss with a person who wore his sunglasses and hat while inside. Also, the edges of my bruises were somewhat apparent. My Invisible Man costume was only good for a quick pass, not a penetrating gaze.

  “Yes, I have been in an accident,” I said. “Nothing serious.”

  “What happened to you?”

  I wasn't really prepared for such a vigorous cross-examination. I didn't like having to lie; I'm much better with omission. But I rallied.

  “A fender bender,” I said. “I was struck from behind”—in my mind's eye I saw the Hill's fist coming at me—“and my face went into the steering wheel, breaking my nose, if you can believe it.”

  “This is terrible! When was this?” asked Doris. Old Barbara and young Sue were silent, listening attentively to our conversation.

  “Two days ago, after we spoke,” I said.

  “Are you in a lot of pain?”

  “Just a little throbbing. It's really okay.”

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “I didn't go to a doctor, but I'm fine. The nose is swollen and pushed a little to the right, but it's nothing drastic. I could stand to be more on the right. I tend to be too liberal in my policies, though I'm not against prayer in schools, which I think would help with test scores.”

  “Let me see what you look like,” Doris said, with a touch of drill sergeant and a touch of one's mother, but with more drill sergeant than mother. I could see that she thought I was a nutty artist who didn't know how to take care of himself, and that she felt her job was to look after such artists.

  “It's not too bad,” I said. “But I feel embarrassed. That's why I'm wearing this hat and glasses.”

  “You don't have to be embarrassed in front of me, I used to be a nurse. So take those glasses off and the hat. We may have to send you to the hospital.”

  I didn't like the sound of this at all. It's been my experience that if you go to a hospital, they like to hold on to you. That's how I ended up in rehab in Long Island. You go for a simple emergency-room visit to Beth Israel for alcohol poisoning, and next thing you know you're on a detox unit for ten days, and then Long Island for a whole month, where you meet nightmarish physicians like Dr. Montesonti.

  Thus, in that moment, I felt I should never have come to the Rose Colony. I should have stayed in Sharon Springs…. No, I should have stayed in Montclair…. No, I should have stayed in New York…. What was I thinking? I had nowhere else to go. This was terrible, I had burnt all my bridges.

  I said nothing and made no motion to remove my disguise. I was paralyzed. I had just been breathing easy that this wasn't an asylum, but there was already talk of carting me off to a hospital.

  “Let me see what you look like, dear,” Doris said. “Don't worry, I can handle it.” This time there was a little bit more mother and less drill sergeant to her tone of voice, which appealed to me. I respond well to mothers. Some people don't like mother figures, but I'm all for them. I took off my hat and glasses. The use of dear had done the trick.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “Are you going to sue the people who hit you?”

  The scab on the bridge of the nose, which the sunglasses had obscured, was gruesome but healing. I had two black eyes, though why they're called black is silly—the blood that had drained and formed pools beneath my eyes was a rather gorgeous mixture of blue, green, and even yellow; and I still had a snout, but it had gone from being the snout of a horse to the snout of a dog.

  I said, “I know it doesn't look good, but I'm actually mending rather quickly. I probably won't sue…. There was no damage to the car. I was simply thrown forward. It was sort of my fault—I wasn't wearing my seat belt.”

  That was an incredible bit of quick thinking. If I hadn't said anything, she might at some point have noticed that my car was unscathed and she'd realize something was fishy. But I didn't feel good. I was in the prevaricator's spiral: lies give birth to more lies. That's why I prefer omission. Keeps things simple. Of course, there was the truth, but I didn't think it would make a good impression to say that I had been in a drunken brawl.

  “How's your breathing?” asked Doris.

  “Perfectly fine.”

  “Your septum is probably all right. I can't force you to go to the hospital, but I do think you should get looked at. We can take you to the emergency room.”

  “I honestly don't think that will be necessary. But if I don't continue to improve over the next few days, I'll take you up on that.”

  Doris seemed resigned. She wasn't going to fight me on this. I could read her thoughts: Have to let these foolish artists do what they're going to do. I began to relax a little. I had lied, but survived.

  “You're being very brave,” said Doris.

  “You poor thing,” said the grandmotherly Barbara, and young Sue, the attractive coed, made some sort of cooing, nonverbal noise.

  I said to all of them, “Well, a man's nose is meant to be broken at least once in his life.”

  This was a rather good pronouncement, which I hadn't considered before, and I liked its vague sexual implication, especially as young Sue appeared to lower her gaze in a sweet and feminine way.

  I then finished the medical form and was handed a sheet labeled “Emergency Contact Information.” For this I put down Uncle Irwin, though in an emergency he was quite likely to recommend that my life support be shut off, so it gave me a certain morbid pleasure to scrawl his name.

  Doris filed my papers, and then using a walkie-talkie, she contacted one of my fellow artists, whose role on the campus was to act as a greeter that first day. I put on my hat and sunglasses, and within two minutes of Doris's transmission, this very tiny fellow with a shock of silver hair and unusually light blue eyes came to the office to gather me and lead me to my rooms. He was in his sixties, a novelist I hadn't heard of by the name of Charles Murrin, and was rather gnomish in an appealing way. We shook hands and then I said to Doris, “Thank you so much for having me, I'm thrilled to be here,” and then I said to Barbara and Sue, “Nice to meet both of you,” and with these pleasantries taken care of, Murrin and I quit the office.

  Jeeves stayed in the car, and I let him know with my eyes to wait there. I thought it would make an odd first impression for Murrin to meet my valet, might provoke jealousy. Most writers can't afford valets. Murrin and I headed for the Mansion.

  “Where are your bags?” Murrin asked. “Were they dropped off at the Mansion? You took a taxi from the station?”

  “They're in my car. I drove. I'll collect them later.”

  “I can help you, if you like,” he offered, which was very kind of him, though my garment bag of sport coats would have outweighed him.

  “Oh, that's all right, I'll get them later,” I said. “I'm eager to see my rooms.”

  As we walked, Murrin briefed me on our feeding schedule:

  Breakfast was from eight to nine in the dining room; lunch was a solitary affair—a lunch pail and a thermos of coffee would be left for me in the mudroom each day (this was do
ne for all the artists); and dinner was served from six-thirty to eight.

  “What will you be working on?” Murrin then asked as we strolled beneath a ceiling of tree branches. My feet stepped in and out of striations of sunlight and shade. Then I looked up and the Mansion loomed in front of us like a gigantic, otherworldly spaceship made out of granite.

  “A novel,” I said, answering Murrin's question. “And what are you working on?”

  “Also a novel.”

  “I offer my condolences.”

  Murrin smiled. “Nice to meet a fellow sufferer,” he said.

  “I'd rather be a fellow traveler. But is a fellow traveler a communist or a Mason? I always get confused. Be nice, though, if being a novelist was like being a Mason. Be fun to have a special ring.”

  “Oh yes,” said Murrin, and he gazed at me sweetly. Bringing up a fondness for rings had perhaps sent the wrong message. This Murrin, perfectly charming, was evidently homosexual. The Homosexual Question had arisen yet again!

  I quickly surmised that Murrin's tiny stature—he was only about five feet two—had early on shaped his sexuality, had made the competition for women too difficult, and so he had entered an arena where he could be loved, which was more than understandable. We all must find the right arena. Of course, there could be other reasons for why he preferred men, but I had often noted that tiny men were homosexual, though I had also noted that dwarfs were usually quite swaggeringly heterosexual. Well, it's very hard to figure these things out, to make definitive statements about human sexuality.

  We entered the Mansion through a side entrance, into the mud-room, which, despite its name, was a handsome, country-house living room with floral-patterned couches and large, old chairs and several tables loaded with literary journals and art magazines.

  “After dinner,” Murrin said, “people sit here and read the paper, play Scrabble or chess or hearts. We don't have TV at the Rose, but sometimes people go to the mall for a movie.”

  “I see.” I had the immediate impression of having stepped into a simpler time and place where adults gathered on a summer night to play cards.

  In the adjoining room there were two long tables, one for the colonists' mail and one loaded with old-fashioned metal lunch pails and thermoses. Murrin located my lunch pail and a thermos, both of which already had my name on little tags, and this pleased me immensely. The thoughtfulness! I happily took my two items, and then Murrin led me to a winding back staircase. We went up one flight to the hall where I'd be staying, which was a narrow, dark passage. There was a palpable hush to the Mansion—a quality of quiet akin to sound.

  “This is the old servants' wing,” said Murrin, “but you'll be the only one on here, which is nice and private.” We walked down the hall; there were closed doors to the right and left. “These other rooms are used for storage, and this is your own bathroom.” He pointed out the appropriate facility, which had an ancient tub with clawed feet. “You're lucky; you're one of the few people with a bathroom all to yourself.”

  I did indeed feel lucky. Sharing a commode with strangers is always a nerve-racking disaster. Such a thing is better left to college students and soldiers and convicts, people who are young and strong and can withstand the rigors of communal living.

  At the far end of the hall were the two rooms, side by side, that were mine: a bedroom and a writing studio.

  “These aren't the most elegant accommodations,” said Murrin as we stood in what would be my writing studio. “Young male writers are often put here on their first visit. In the main part of the Mansion some of the rooms are enormous, but I've always liked these two little rooms. Very Spartan. Good for young men.”

  “Where do you stay?” I asked.

  “I'm on the fourth floor, just a tiny bedroom. But my writing studio is a cabin in the woods. A few of us have cabins.”

  In my writing room there was a large oak desk, an empty bookshelf, and a cot where Jeeves could bunk. The floors were old dark wood; there were timber beams in the ceiling. My desk faced a window with a view of the sloping lawn that led to the fountain of nymphs, and in the far distance I could make out mountains. I put my lunch pail and thermos on the desk. I was going to work well in such a room.

  We went into my bedroom. It had an old antique single bed, a little letter-writing desk, and an antique armoire for my clothes. It all felt like such an honor—all this so that I could write. I was very grateful.

  Murrin pointed out a map of the colony on the letter-writing desk and we studied it together. It clearly illustrated what I could find on the six-hundred-acre grounds—barns converted to artist and composer studios, three other houses where artists also had rooms, a pool, a tennis court, a famous rose garden (hence the name of the colony), and a forest with trails and several ponds.

  “This is like heaven,” I said.

  “Yes, it's wonderful,” said Murrin. “I've been coming here for thirty years … have made many friends…. If you like, most of us get together for drinks on the back terrace before dinner. Around six. Be a good chance for you to meet people.”

  “Thank you for the invitation,” I said, and I felt a shiver of concern at the mention of drinks. Drinks before dinner. I had to be strong. “I hope it's all right that I only take temperance beverages.” This was an unnecessary admission, but I wanted to be vigilant about not drinking.

  Murrin laughed at my use of the word temperance, but then he peered at me, trying to see if I was serious or not since I didn't smile or join him in laughter, but my sunglasses hid my eyes, so he wasn't sure. “Of course you don't have to drink, if you don't like,” he said, playing it safe. “But do come so you can meet everyone. We're filled to capacity, about forty of us. A fun group.”

  Then Murrin looked at me more intensely; like Doris, he had seen through my Invisible Man facade. He said, “Has something happened to you? You seem to have two black eyes.”

  “I've had an accident,” I said. “A car accident. That's why I'm wearing this disguise of hat and glasses. My face is a bit gruesome. I was rear-ended and broke my nose on the steering wheel, which caused the black eyes.”

  This repetition of my earlier lie was quite easy. I've observed that a lie repeated begins to feel like the truth. When it spawns new lies, that's a problem, but just repeated by itself, the lie comes rather naturally.

  “Are you in pain?” asked Murrin.

  “Only mentally.”

  “Me, too,” said Murrin, smiling. He was a good-natured fellow and I felt he was someone you could trust—he was old and gentle and funny.

  “Can I ask your opinion about something?” I said.

  “Yes, of course,” said Murrin generously.

  “Well, do you think it would be all right if I wore my hat and sunglasses to dinner? Or would it seem strange? The alternative is my bruised face.”

  “Why don't you come in your disguise,” he said. “It will give you an air of mystery.”

  “That's what I'll do then,” I said, and was relieved that Murrin had seemingly no desire to inspect my injuries.

  “Well, I'll let you settle in,” said Murrin. “But I always like to suggest to people to just relax their first day. Get a feel for the place, and then start working tomorrow. Go for a nice walk and a swim in the pool.”

  “I'm a bit anxious to get working.”

  “Well, whatever you want to do. That's the main thing at the Rose Colony. You do what you want…. So maybe I'll see you for temperance beverages at six,” Murrin said, teasing me a little.

  “Sometimes, I'm intemperate,” I responded, my alcoholism suddenly asserting itself, wanting to leave open a door for a drink to splash in. Murrin grinned knowingly—or was it unknowingly? People rarely take another person's drinking problem seriously, and why should they?

  “Whatever you want to do,” said Murrin, “that's the only rule.” Then he left me in my room. My own beautiful room in the Mansion of the Rose Colony.

  CHAPTER 14

  I arrange my desk, in p
reparation for literary flightI cull my notes for material, coming across odd things about the brevity of life and the cause of hair lossOne note leads to a discussion of out-of-body experiences with Jeeves, whom I mark as a likely candidate for having had such an experienceI type up a scene about New York's clubs, which leads Jeeves and I to discuss, in order, the Racial Question, the Jewish Question, Fitzgerald, the Great American Novel, and my own plans for myself as a novelist

  I didn't take Murrin's advice. As soon as Jeeves unpacked my things, I sat down at that desk to get to work.

  I had my computer open, and my pens, pads, and thermos of coffee were at the ready. My Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1960 edition, replete with my preferred British spellings, was there for moral and spiritual support, though I'm too much of a coward to use the spellings in my own work.

  Anyway, there I was, like a pilot in his cockpit. My desk was my instrument panel, and being on the second story of the Mansion added to this flying motif.

  I took in the lovely view out my window—green lawn, marble nymphs, old trees, blue sky, and far-off mountains. A bird, unseen in the tree closest to my window, made a cry, once, and then a second time to make sure it had got it right the first time. Another bird responded in a slightly different key. A mother calling to a child to come home for lunch? The child answering? All was well with the world. The birds were singing! The sky was a kindly blue! I was at a writing desk!