FINISHING ULYSSES
YOU STAND IN THE MIRROR. Cheeks smart, from the shave. Your blue eyes wander—hooded, you’d say, but that will change. These’ll wake you up. You swallow two without water, then rinse your mouth. Thinning a bit, right there. And you missed a spot—the hollow beneath your lip. Look like Diz.
Take stock: Two is a world away from one. This apropos your pack of smokes. You tap your second-to-last out of the pack into your left hand and put it to your mouth. One remains. The pack rattles assuredly. You think that—you know assuredly is not right: assuringly is, but you like the d rattling around in the pack, that sound. Words have body. Should. “Cut the thread but leave the whole heart whole.” Lorenz Hart. Whole heart whole—what is that . . . diastole. Heart and soul, right there. Funny: Hart/heart. Homophone.
Back in your shirt pocket. Five is close to four, so close, hardly a difference. Four is close to three, and three to two. But two is a world away from one. Exactly. One left, eternal supply. In reserve, never without one. Good name for a tune.
You finish your smoke, surprised in the rising steam of the hot tap you left running that you see an image of yourself as a boy, your young eager face in the lower right of the glass, looking up. It’s Marion there with your baby son—your new son.
—You been in here a while, Bob. You okay? I’m putting him to bed.
Looks more like her, you think.
—You look beautiful, you say. This is the thing, the real thing, doll. The home. You say brightly, My Penelope.
Marion withdraws from the bathroom, from you, with a shy smile. She trusts you are happy, that’s all. On the way now to the big family, not as big as yours was—she can’t do that. And she knows you don’t want that—no ten kids. Soon, you’ll be writing for the News. And this is your house. You’ll pay for it.
—When are you back, Bob? Not too late.
You square your shoulders, tug the lapels. Down the steps like lightning like Gene Kelly to the living room, you don your tweed cap at the door and touch Marion’s cheek and the boy’s.
—Not too late, you say. A couple of sets downtown, me and Jimmy Curran.
Get a wobble on the sidewalk, but you straighten it out and decide the stride is right, then left along a central axis and that’s the balance you need and have, all there. Guy Rodgers down the lane switching hands, you even bend over a bit in hoopster style; your one smoke flips on the stones, stopping you. Out comes your Ronson, that decisive metallic click and the blue flame wavers there—no it doesn’t: click, click, click, there. Odor still: Korea, ’47. That wasn’t so bad. Indelible imprint, though, but a smell. But fuck Ike running again. You exhale the blue jet. Longest day of the year. Just past, what was it: last Thursday.
Hey, funny: Rodgers, then Hart.
Need flints.
You pick up the pace and wonder at the heat. Rain due. Hustle. Take it on the arches.
Crazy, man, and you head for Pat’s up at Broad and Erie. Smokes you need and why not the bennies. Some jump. Setting sun crashing into the facade of the church over there. Not crashing. What? Spilling down. Glazing.
Glazing. Bronze and gold, enameling: Yeats. No no. Mina Kennedy and whatshername. Ormond Hotel.
Douce, Lydia. And the flints.
Not Ike. Why you thinking Ike? He can’t beat your guy. No more wars. You got boys. Boy. But you’ll have boys in due course. At least: You’d be exempt. No you wouldn’t. Ted fucking Williams. What’s he hitting?
I don’t have time for baseball.
—There’s the good Pat; how’s the cat?
—Bobby the hipster, how’s the scene? You mokes, where ya been? your brother asks you, rubbing your head.
You duck and laugh. He’s made his way, a druggist. How convenient.
—How’s the paperboy’s business?
—Hot, you tell him, because it is. You canvass for ads. You could be Bloom. But it’s still a dig; you both know it: New York.
The little envelope. Pat knows the drill. Flints, yep. Two packs of Old Gold. House account, you say, to a grunt. Little brother discount.
The evening paper.
—Give us this day our daily press, you intone to the bemused newsdealer, Charlie Black. You thumb-flash it open, sheets hissing. Right there. You needed the right-hand position. Let’s see. Did Murray get it? He did. Not bad: That’s thirty-two sixty-five, your pocket.
Good you came back. Yes.
There’s Dave.
—Hey. Fuckin’ Brogan, how are ya? Dave says he’s good and he’s got a house for you. Give him a call. Over in Oak Lane.
—Brogan, you tell him—nice car he’s got, that Pontiac—can’t move out of the Kid.
—Understand, Bob. But we’re all fleeing the parish.
—Hey hey, you yell as he waves and slaps the hot green door boom boom. How’s Ginny?
He doesn’t hear and just as well. He doesn’t know; that’s right.
That’s right: Sam’s. Jimmy Curran there. Catch him with his cherry Coke a doke you singsong. Five cents. The Jewish guys drink the three-center, seltzer only, no syrup. Smart really. Like you: You’ve got your flask. Little Fleischmann’s in.
You see Sam there. These are the good guys, solid. Great neighbors, right on the edge of the Kid. Lucky. The Irish’d never think of a soda fountain. Who’s here?
Crazy, for a Monday night. Game on CAU.
—Who’s pitching? you ask McCoy. As if you care. As if he knows.
—Robby, Solly Feister pipes up. You actually like Robin Roberts—son of a Welsh coal miner. Lives in Gwynedd Valley. Or should. Should win twenty again too.
—Solly, what’s shaking? you say.
—You, if you ask me. And you did. What’s Irish up to tonight?
—Waiting on my acolyte. You might not capisce, what am I saying?
—Little Jimmy.
—He’s in the back, plugging a nickel in the Wurlitzer.
—Good they fired fucking Herman the Red, big voice booms in. Who the— You see Big Mick squat over the red stool and spread his shit.
—Ya, excuse me, you say, not budging. He wobbles, the plastic groans, but he’s not moving.
—Gimme a cherry Coke, Sam. And a Danish. Now what’s wrong with the rebel Robert Emmet Doherty? He sniffs, like he could deduce.
—I don’t know that anything’s wrong. I’m standing here.
—Sam, says Big Mick. His jowls jiggle like there’s small rodents shifting around. Herman Beilan, he bellows. One of yours, Sam? Gotta be.
—That I don’t know. That’s fifteen cents. Want a straw?
—He was a Commie, so you know I figured: Hebrew persuasion. And a teacher! Hey Bob, you fought the slopeheads over there. We lost guys—the McGonigle brothers, you remember those guys. Good yiddance, I say.
He slurpslops his Danish.
—Here’s the lad, you say. Good Jimmy Curran. He needs some assuring, that look. Nothing’s wrong but this—you swing your head down the counter and Jimmy gets the drift: moving.
—Nothing’s wrong, you say, taking advantage of the shuffle to spill a little Fleishshmann’s in your seltzer. But this bum, a bigot.
—Like the Citizen, Bob, right. Like the Citizen at Davy Byrne’s.
—The Ormond, Jimmy. No, Barney Kiernan’s. Got to get there someday. Yeah, like the Citizen whose name you know what his name was it was Cusack, Michael Cusack. Based on. What they say, I can’t say who, just general knowledge now, Jimmy, there’s a lot for you to read, but the book’s the place to start and finish. Do you want something? Sam! Jimmy here’ll have . . .
—You know Nora Brogan over there in, you know, Dave and Ginny and Anne and Joan, all those nice honeys, you’re familiar, eh? Their mother was a Cusack. A real gem, that woman. Mayo, I think.
—Are they all still in New York, was it Anne and Virginia, and your old steady, Cassie, was it?
Our Citizen here—you realize from Jimmy’s daft look he’s not following this; you have that problem: You talk too fast—t
his fucker’s just after having himself a little speech about Commie Jews, you repeat. Fuck him. Bad as McCarthy. Sam should put some jizz in his Danish.
—I don’t know what they’re doing, you say, putting a quarter on the counter. Out of the Kid all I know.
You wander out into the night—not really night yet. You can hear the crowd at Shibe Park roar as warmth and breeze touch you. Radio roar. Ashburn, probably. Still some sunlight. A fair June day, you announce; then you shiver. What did Joyce say: reminder of the chill grave that awaits you. Some such thing. You could ask Jimmy. He wouldn’t know, too young for it all.
—It is a nice day, Bob, says Jimmy Curran trailing you as you head to the subway a little farther down Broad Street.
Nothing matters, nothing is. Here you are mid-swim—can you swim? Good thing, that pull on Coney Island. Great-uncle never made it—grandfather’s brother, drowned on the hottest day of the year. Nineteen thirty-eight. Charlie.
Walking underground, safer maybe. False lights and the smell of death. Rats, natural causes. No removal. Jimmy’s quiet. You hate to talk down here, only think. Bad luck, like chatting in a crypt. You feel a rivulet of sweat go down your spine. Smoke, why not. Old Gold. Tear the pack. Click.
You know this confusion. It’s your thrill. Those trills, running through the changes like Bird. Up and down the scales, fast fingering and blow, blow, blow and breathe. Joyce wrote before jazz, imagine that. None of that prose inflected. Shakespeare wrote before the dictionary. Joyce before Bean or Prez. No Diz. And yet, riverrun, the Wake. Talk about running through the changes. He knew. Had a beautiful voice. McCormack.
Shoulda heard more in New York, ’stead of chasing James T. Farrell around. But Philly’s got it now, man. Now can afford, too. What’d you give. Up. Not the poet, you can learn. Out and dig it. Half the world—our own Dick Clark. Abomination. He should go to the Zanzibar. See how heroin dances—still, very still.
The soft gong sound felt in philadelphia. Nice, that. Make a note of it.
Jimmy’s quiet. He knows. Schooling him. Here we are, you say, and you hike up to the street at Columbia.
—Music City, baby, you tell him. Hey, it’s Monday; there’ll be a short jam. Always is.
Jimmy’s got his battered copy. There’ll be questions. But let’s listen; that’s your idea. Up the steps, at Seventeenth and Chestnut. Second floor. Already warming up, you can hear it as you climb, a sweet trumpet. Lee Morgan?
And there you are. Tollin already at the kit. Piano you don’t recognize. Ziggy Vines with the tenor. Don’t know bass.
Brownie on horn!
—Jimmy, you say. In for a treat.
A good crowd standing around, in the aisles. You might pick something up. Max Roach and Clifford together now. Get that one. Maybe later.
You find a spot, near a bin you can lean on. You could use a drink. Pep’s later. You can sneak Jimmy in there if Satch is at the door.
You’re late. But looks like Brownie’s just stepped in. Kind soul. Clean as a whistle, they say. Loves chess, doesn’t drink. Or smoke. Amazing. Wilmington kid. Math whizz. You recognize that—Gillespie tune. “Night in Tunisia.”
In the next five minutes you leave your body. Everyone’s soul leaves and mingles in the air of the shop. Brownie—you’ve never heard anyone like him. Quick, fast, assured, buttery, bright notes finger every vertebrae in your spine up then down then right to your brain stem and a rapid tapping across your scalp and your temples tingle and that’s when you leave, every note unexpected yet perfectly placed, as if it could only be that note but you don’t know what the note should be till he hits it and then you knew it a second before and that’s why it’s perfect, like life, predictable mysteries, the continuity of life, blowing, a hundred thousand repeated breaths, each different but absolutely necessary and a must. And people are jiving, yeah, Brownie, yeah, go, Brownie, and he leaves off and Ziggy actually steps in, and listen to him, he learned a few things right there, the coloration, the tone and that little trick there, a Clifford Brown signature he just stole, that’s okay. From the best. Don’t rob a pauper, but a prince. And yes, Ziggy, nice hand, and Brownie, he’s gonna take us out, and out, not before holding a note, holds it like a wild bird in the bell of his horn and then he lets it go, a bright flight soars off and away and quiet. Then you erupt, back in your body, the sweat pouring off Brownie’s round creased face; you can see the button he’s built on his lip, a homely friendly-looking face. Speaking now, a soft chocolaty voice. Thank you, he says. Thank you for making me feel so wonderful. Thanking us! It’s so hot, he says, and laughs softly, and man he is right—hot licks, hot Philly. He’s gotta go.
You’ve got to go too, you’re hyperventilating near, and maybe it’s the pills, but you think it’s the something else that’s firing every nerve like you are a live wire, an open socket, and you and Jimmy zip down the steps and you stand there on Chestnut, breathing. Beadilybeadillybeadily deet-deet, deedily beady deet, beadily deet deet deedle eet be down, done, done down, too done, to do—bright bright bleat. Your head shaking, you’re trying something.
—Let’s down to Pep’s. South Broad. We’ll walk. Jimmy’s a little nervous. Not our neighborhood, you hear him say. And it is mostly dark cats moving about, club to club, joint to joint, some just standing around. But it’s cool enough. Phillies game in the air from somewhere, all can relate. Well, some. Talk along the way, calm him down.
—That right there, you say—that’s jazz, man. It’s a new kind of storytelling. Where does it go? It goes around and around itself and builds itself each time—eights and eights and eights and eights back to the head and out. Imagine telling a story like that! Not just one long thin note, point a to point b. Not just moving a sand pile from one place to another. Building a fucking castle, man, out of pecans, and bring everyone there, stopping by everywhere and people get on, picking people up, rounding ’em up for a tour of the castle.
Jimmy’s quiet after all that. He bums a smoke off you. Contemplative. A deep kid. A reader, and not many of them in the parish. You know, so you walk.
Ghosts all about. It was Korea, read Portrait going over. Converted some to the church, that speech Joyce cribbed from some parish bull. Put you off—out of the church. Jimmy’s headed that way, too, his mother told you. To your face. You’ve put him off the church, Robert Doherty. Some call that the devil, I want you to know.
Thanks, Mrs. Curran. And God bless.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
The kid wants more and it’s good for you, you think. Running through all the stations, of your . . . disbelief.
There’s Pep’s. Down, and, indeed, Satch at the door. Chet Baker on the bill, a good crowd. Prefer standing at the bar anyway, cheaper, buck fifty Schmidt’s. Long wait, time to talk.
In the bathroom, Gerry Mulligan, hometown boy. Baritone. Making it. Handsome fucking guy.
—Hey, Gerry, you say. Here to see Chet?
—Of course, fella, he says to you. The long urinal trough sings and smells. Just saw Brownie at Ellis Tollin’s, you tell him.
—Gonna see him in California, Gerry says. He and Roach are recording out there, you know. Nice sound. They’re shaking it up. Hard hop to it, but Max can do anything. And this kid. Wow.
—Smart cats, you say.
—Righto, says Mulligan. You see he’s high as a kite, mishandling his own zipper. One thing at a time.
—Cool, you say, and leave him be.
You rub your hands, returning to the bar, where Jimmy guards your two glasses of beer. A good view from there, if you can hold it.
Jimmy leans in and tells you softly what’s on his mind. He’s having trouble. You have to ratchet back to where you might have been, always a problem, but then you understand he’s talking about Joyce. He’s trying to understand, but he doesn’t understand.
—What happened? you ask, knowing.
—Bob, it’s the greatest book I’ve ever read, by a million miles—nothing like it, nothing near a
s good—for a while. Then I honestly don’t know what’s going on. Or what happens. Tell me: What happens?
—I told you to take it slow, you tell him.
There’s a long lull. Sound checks, the crowd stirs. You turn your attention to the little bandstand along the back wall. Chet’s got three horns standing there. But then the stage is emptied and it’s back to the merry concert of ice clinking and throaty laughter and a cash register chunking open and closed and running water. Warm sounds you think are the height of civilization now in peace-time. That’s all Ike needs, face it. Prosperity in the heartland and scenes like this in the cities. It’s good. Good enough for people to think it’s good anyway. Narcotic.
—I’ll tell you what, you say to Jimmy. I’m gonna teach a course. I talked to my guy at Temple, big Joyce fan, old Gordo, a scholar, I’ve told you. I told him I had an idea; he said work it up. I could actually teach part-time, GI extension, like it would be a seminar or something. Little extra scratch for me and Marion.
—I’d sign up, Jimmy says.
—This is it, I’ll tell you then. Course called “Finishing Ulysses.”
—That would help!
—No no no, you explain. It’s like this: course description, student reads the title, “Finishing Ulysses,” says, That’s for me, I’ll finally finish that fucking book! But that’s not what it is. Student reads on: the prerequisite is this—now dig this—you have to have read the book at least twice already, class size is whatever Temple wants. But students don’t get in if on the first day they can’t answer five questions about the book. Get four outta five, you’re out. Right there, slip of paper. Five-minute class. In or out.
Jimmy looks nervous. What to say, you know he’s wondering. What kind of questions?
—Okay: One. What day of the week is Bloomsday? Two. What’s the name of the priest who presides at Paddy Dignam’s funeral?
—I know that one; it’s a pun, Jimmy says. Conmee, he comes up with, Father Conmee?
The Business of Naming Things Page 16
