Wake Up, Sir!: A Novel

by Jonathan Ames

  I put my face in my wet hands. My fingers were shriveled, like a child's. I was a child! A pitiful little thing. I was infantilized by my own stupidity. I had no idea how not to drink. I wished someone would help me. I felt wildly distraught.

  But then this feeling of distress lifted because suddenly solutions began to present themselves: All I had to do was skip the first drink and get right to the second drink. Or just call the first drink “the second drink.” Simply rename it. I was a writer: I was allowed to play with language. After all, they said in AA, “Don't pick up the first drink.” They didn't say anything about the second drink. Or I could just pick up two at once and guzzle them at the same time. This way I wouldn't be going contrary to their advice.

  Then I was distraught again. See what I was up against? Sick thinking! I had started out trying to firm up my resolve to not get drunk and then came up with a plan to get drunk. Madness! But there was a root cause for this crazy thinking: How could I face these people at the Rose without taking a drink? I'd be a complete failure:

  (1) I would be boring.

  (2) I wouldn't be able to talk.

  (3) I wouldn't fit in.

  (4) They'd see that I was dumb and ugly.

  But if I had a drink, I'd be charming, not at all boring, and I'd be attractive, or so my warped brain told me. But my warped brain did have ammunition: I was ugly. I had a swollen nose and two black eyes. And there were going to be women! Maybe my dream girl.

  Well, I was up against it, that's for sure. Things were looking very dark. My mind was cleaved: I wanted to drink, but I knew I shouldn't. It was agonizing to be so conflicted.

  I emerged from the tub and trudged to my room with my towel wrapped around me. Jeeves had laid out my clothes on the bed: check sport coat, light green Brooks Brothers shirt, blue tie with hummingbirds, khaki pants.

  “Excellent ensemble, Jeeves,” I said, trying to show a brave front.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I glued on my costume. It somewhat buoyed my spirits. The hummingbird neckwear may have been laced with an antidepressant. Also, a good tie, by cutting off the flow of blood to the brain, can often enhance one's mood.

  I perfected my noose, got the knot just right, and was ready to sally forth courageously. But then I couldn't. Not enough blood had been cut off by the tie. The mind still operated. I sat on the bed.

  “Don't want to go, Jeeves,” I said.

  “Why, sir?”

  “Not feeling very good about myself.”

  “This is unfortunate, sir.”

  “Makes me want to drink. I don't think I can face these people without alcohol.”

  “I think it is very important, sir, that you not drink. We concluded as much after the incident in Sharon Springs.”

  “I know, but it's not easy, Jeeves. I feel savagely insecure.”

  “I'm sorry to hear this, sir.”

  “You see, Jeeves, I don't know how to behave in a group setting. One-on-one, I can do quite nicely, but add a few people and have it resemble anything like a party and I fall apart. I don't know what role to play, though I'd like it to be one of those roles with an arrowhead over the ô. A rôle. That appeals to me. Feels leading man in an erotic, European way…. But I don't know how to get assigned such a part. … So I'm afraid I'll drink. But at least when I drink, I can speak to people…. Oh, Jeeves, we're in the soup again. I know it!”

  “You don't have to drink, sir. It is absolutely unnecessary.”

  “But they won't like me!”

  “If I may suggest, sir, why not try cultivating a more imperious attitude. Try thinking of yourself as vastly superior to all those whom you will meet tonight.”

  “Do you think this is wise, Jeeves? Superior types are not very pleasant.”

  “I'm hoping, if you may allow me, sir, to bring you to something of a middle ground. By thinking yourself superior you will compensate for the low feelings you have and will perhaps find yourself properly relating to others as an equal, of no more or less worth.”

  “A kind of pulley system, Jeeves? Yank up the self-loathing with self-importance to a fighting weight of general humility?”

  “Precisely, sir.”

  “You're something of a wonder. You know that, don't you, Jeeves?”

  “I am merely trying to assist you, sir.”

  “Well, if no one's told you lately: you're a wonder. I would like to give you an out-of-body experience for your birthday, whenever that is. But I know you don't want one. So I'll have to come up with something else…. An electric shoe buffer? … Anyway, you've helped me immensely. This pulley idea is brilliant! I'm going to march down there and face these people. I'll think I'm greater, secretly know I'm lesser, and come across as a nice chap. And the result will be: no drinking, a decent meal, conversation with artists, and then as soon as dinner is over, I'll come up here, read Anthony Powell or maybe Hammett or Raymond Chandler, I have one of his books with me, and go to bed early. Then back to the novel tomorrow. That's what's really important: the novel! I have to live for the novel. All else is immaterial.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Well, I'm off then.” I got up from the bed. “Oh, thank you, Jeeves,” I said, as he handed me my sunglasses and floppy Woolworth's hat. “These are necessary. That Murrin fellow said it would make me mysterious. Maybe that's good.”

  “One more thing, sir.”

  “Yes, Jeeves?”

  “Your mustache, sir, is improving each day.”

  “Thank you, Jeeves! Very kind of you to say so. That information is certainly helpful for my new imperious attitude. I guess my mustache is like the Eiffel Tower: at first met with resistance and then appreciated.”

  “I would agree, sir.”

  “Well, thanks as always, Jeeves, for boosting my morale.”

  “You're welcome, sir.”

  “I'm going to sally forth now…. Do you think Sally Forth would be a good stage name for an actress?”

  “Quite winning, sir.”

  “I agree. If I ever meet an actress with a terrible name, I'll suggest Sally Forth. Or any woman with a terrible name. Doesn't have to be an actress.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Murrin collects me and makes a favorable commentWe go to the main hall and I am impressed by its museum-quality eleganceI meet a poetic pair and witness a muscular kissI am introduced to everyone, including three senior citizens and a writer whose work I admire and who happens to look like a pirate on the high seasA young girl beckons and I follow

  I sallied forth all the way to the bottom of the staircase, had a case of jitters, and was going to sally right back to Jeeves's bosom and suggest we skip out and get dinner in town, but at the bottom of the stairs I was met by the diminutive Murrin.

  “Was just coming to fetch you, in case you were feeling shy,” he said, and his light blue eyes were rather electric until one got used to the glare. “The first night here is always the hardest, like most things in life.”

  I wasn't sure if he was speaking epigrammatically or flirtatiously. Regardless, I tacked forward—with my own adverb—diplomatically. “Very kind of you to be concerned,” I said, though inwardly I was cursing him for having sought me out. I couldn't go through with this first night of drinks and dinner. Jeeves's pulley system was already too hard to operate: I've never been mechanically inclined.

  “I just want to assure you that you don't have to feel nervous,” said Murrin. “Everyone is always so scared their first night. But no one's going to bite. And you're looking fine with that hat and sunglasses, and I didn't say it before, but I like your mustache. I haven't seen a thin one like that for some time.”

  This compliment, so soon after Jeeves's compliment, worked on me like a shot of B12—my spine, which had been ready to dissolve, seemed to firm up. I stopped my inward cursing of Murrin. He was a generous person. A kind remark from a fellow human being is one of the greatest gifts you can receive. I need to hand out more of t
hem myself. The price is certainly reasonable.

  “Yes,” I said. “My mustache seems to be getting positive reviews from most critics. Have you seen Gunga Din? I modeled this lip hair after Fairbanks Jr.”

  “Really? I'm sure I saw Gunga Din as a boy, but I can't picture Douglas Fairbanks Jr., or Senior for that matter…. Well, let's go meet everyone.”

  Murrin then led me down a paneled service hallway, which twisted and turned a few times, the kind of thing that is expected of service hallways in mansions, until we emerged into a grand chamber, the main hall, which was the size of two basketball courts end to end, to put things in a layman's sporting terms.

  There were beautiful old carpets; a very high ceiling with lacquered timber beams; a broad, red-carpeted staircase that made most other staircases I had met look woefully malnourished by comparison; gigantic pastoral oil paintings; lush antique couches and chairs; a tinkling marble fountain, which was next to the original oaken front door; antique vases with fresh-cut roses and irises; and all of it, except the flowers of course, preserved from the end of the nineteenth century for late-twentieth-century artists to mingle in. It was like a museum diorama, but for once in life you got to step over a red rope and live in the past.

  Off this main hall, Murrin pointed out, was a chapel with old wooden pews, now used for concerts, and there was also a drinks room, where people could gather for cards or Scrabble if they didn't want to meet in the mudroom. The dining hall was across from the chapel, but I couldn't see it just yet as its enormous sliding wooden door wouldn't open until six-thirty, at which time a dinner gong would be sounded. Up the main staircase, Murrin told me, was a library, a number of lounges, and a dozen or so bedrooms, with another dozen bedrooms on the third and fourth floors.

  Quite striking, at the far end of the main hall, was a splendiferous wooden chair, built like a throne. It even had a little roof with elaborate carvings—very unusual to see a chair with its own roof. Beside the chair was an enormous picture window—about the size of half a tennis court—that looked on to the back terrace.

  But what was most notable about this throne was that perched on its red-velvet cushions were two dark-haired men of equal size, one on the lap of the other, and their mouths were conjoined in a rather passionate kiss.

  Despite my frequent querying of the Homosexual Question, I had never before that moment actually seen two men kissing quite like that. I may have observed a quick peck between males on a West Village street corner, but French-kissing by two lovers of the Greek arts was something completely new. The twin aspect of this embrace was what struck me. It was not like seeing a man kiss a woman: the large encompassing the small, the coarse fusing with the delicate. Rather, this was like arm wrestling between two equally matched opponents. Furthering this metaphor, they looked, to me, like human biceps sucking on each other, and perhaps this was my feeling because they were wearing tight T-shirts and their muscular arms were squeezing the life out of one another.

  “That's Luc and Chris,” said Murrin with some disdain. “They've just met. Going a bit wild. Some people are upset about it.”

  Then the two people I had seen earlier in the day came down the red staircase holding hands. It was the man with the cockeyed glasses and slack shoulders, and the woman with the copper hair and tormented face.

  Murrin made the introductions: “This is Alan Blair, a young novelist, and this is June and Israel Greenberg, both poets.” My initial assessment earlier in the day was correct: they were poets! A married poetic couple!

  Up close they seemed much less deranged than when I had passed them in the Caprice, though the physical and psychic hardship of the artistic life was in marked evidence. But they had each other, which, I imagine, was a great comfort. Even if life had gotten the best of them, they weren't alone, and they were certainly very sweet to me in their remarks of welcome and the friendly smiles they directed at my person. So I shouldn't have judged them on the wreckage of their bodies—their souls, one immediately perceived, were gentle and kind, probably because they had been so beaten. A prolonged crushing in life often results in a humble nature, though it can just as often cause bitterness and defeated rage.

  The four of us headed outside, passing the throne where Chris and Luc continued to hold each other, though none of us looked directly at them, granting them privacy, even if they didn't want it.

  Outside, there was quite a festive gathering, and the air was warm, but sweet, and the end-of-the-day light infused things with a murmur of color, a summer rouge. Almost all the colonists, nearly forty people, were present. The back terrace was long and wide, like an Olympic swimming pool—it's difficult, I find, to give a sense of size without referring to the measured world of athletics—and was made of gray flagstone. There were green plastic chairs and several green plastic tables populated with bottles of wine and stacks of clear plastic cups. There were also flagstone benches around the edges of the terrace, and people languished in various sitting positions or stood and chatted. Everyone had a clear plastic cup in hand, filled with yellow liquid—jaundiced white wine!

  Murrin took me around, introducing me to people, and I was nervously proceeding as best I could and was too busy surviving to feel superior. Murrin wanted me to meet everyone, so we didn't linger for small talk, just a smile, an exchange of names and mediums—novelist, sculptor, composer, poet, painter, nonfiction writer—and that was it, though after we would part from each visual artist, Murrin would give me a quick sketch of their work. It appeared that the painters and sculptors all had a signature style, a gimmick, as it were—the sculptor who built children's models without directions, the painter who made portraits of portraits, the sculptor who made sculptures out of paint, the painter who created paint-by-number canvases and allowed his patrons to daub on the color, and so on.

  I noted that not a single other male was in jacket or tie, or even just a jacket for that matter, but I wasn't terribly surprised, since most men don't have sport coats of the right weight for a warm summer evening. But despite everyone being casually dressed, the setting and atmosphere were undeniably glamorous: the diminishing sunlight, the Mansion looming behind us. Most everyone was recently showered—hair wet, eyes shining, skin blushing. And the light was flattering for all of us, even the sweet Greenbergs glowed. Everyone was excited and aroused. They were all happy to be out of their lives for a little while, to playact, to live the way the wealthy had lived one hundred years before—drinks before dinner on the terrace of a mansion.

  And even though I wasn't using Jeeves's pulley system, I was doing all right. On the handshake front, I was actually excelling—not once were my fingers squeezed in a way that I found embarrassing, which is usually a worry of mine when I shake hands.

  Furthermore, no one seemed to be bothered by my costume of hat and sunglasses. In fact, there was one tall, melancholy fellow, a middle-aged writer, who was wearing an eye patch. His getup was certainly stranger than my own, which made things, I felt, easier for me. He was dressed in a rather unassuming manner—jeans, a white oxford shirt—but one rarely comes across eye patches these days, so I must have looked, in my hat and glasses, relatively sane and normal by comparison. And it was after Murrin had led me away from this pirate-writer that I realized why his name—Reginald Mangrove—was familiar. I had read and enjoyed one of his books, Hell Is Other People, and I almost never read contemporary literature, lagging behind, as I am, with all the old masters. So I looked forward to speaking further with R. Mangrove.

  As I met everyone, I was surprised to observe that I was one of the younger people present. Most of the artists and writers ranged from their forties to their sixties—Murrin, for example, was in his sixties—and there were two intriguing senior-senior citizens who appeared to be in their late seventies or early eighties. One was an ancient woman who had high cheekbones and a beautiful head of white hair. She wore a long, flowing blue dress and had enough makeup on to paint a small yacht, but I could see that she had been a great be
auty once. Her lipstick was bloodred and she leaned on a cane. She was a painter, though according to Murrin she was legally blind, which is a term I've never fully understood. Are such people arrested if they leave the house without their glasses? The other elder was a silver-haired, graceful fellow with an exceptionally long and gorgeous nose—he was a Pulitzer prizewinning poet.

  There was a smallish contingent—about ten—of younger people, in my age range of late twenties to early thirties, and we were equally divided between the two existing genders, but there was only one young poetess, when I had been expecting a whole squadron. The other young women, it turned out, were all visual artists.

  The lone poetess, though, was rather comely—a waifish ballerina type with strawberry blonde hair, and she was talking with a pretty, young photographess when Murrin made our introductions.

  Side by side, these two young women—neither of them, I should add, was my dream girl—looked like workers at a health-food store, dressed as they were in some latter-day hippie apparel. The poetess was in a thin peasant's frock and the lenswoman wore a tie-dyed shirt, and one of them was definitely giving off the distinctive aroma of patchouli.

  Murrin introduced me to a few more people, and after I had met almost all my fellow colonists—all that remained were a handful who had not come for drinks—Murrin said, “You're not drinking, right?”

  “Yes, not drinking,” I said with strength and resolve.

  “I'm afraid there's no club soda tonight,” he said, “but I'll see if I can pick some up for tomorrow night. And maybe cranberry juice. Would that be good?”