The Cat's Pajamas & Witch's Milk: Two Novels

by De Vries, Peter

  These two intervals of relative elevation in his lot arrested only briefly its downward course, now precipitately resumed. He took what he could get. He hired out as a day laborer for a landscape gardener named Horvath. He knew from his own days as a home owner the difficulty of getting landscape men to come, and that it was readily translatable into their own trouble finding decent help. So it was no surprise to Tattersall that Horvath took him on without any experience. “Anybody can pull op weeds and cot graz,” Horvath said when Tattersall, accosting two men coming out of a diner and heading for a parked truck, asked whether one of them were the boss. “Jomp on tailgate.”

  A smile twisted Tattersall’s features as he did so, signalizing a subtle change in his reaction to his fortunes, to his accelerating rhythm as an outcast. Each time he was out on his ear, now, or mucked something up, a kind of secret elation seized him. He was glad. It was a sensation he was powerless to resist. He was glad as he rode on the tailgate, onto which he had hoisted himself by the heels of his hands in a deft backward motion. To be a misfit in a tale told by an idiot is after all hardly the worst of fates. He swung his legs under him as they bounced along toward their next job, which was at a large Greek revival house set back among obviously long-neglected flower beds. He and the other helper, a silent Hungarian refugee named Barzack, were dropped off there together with a power mower and a wheelbarrow. Barzack was to cut the grass while Tattersall weeded in beds Horvath indicated, before rattling away again in the truck with the shouted warning that he would be back in a couple of hours.

  Tattersall got on his knees and set to work.

  The ground was soft from recent rains, and the plants easy to uproot. He worked with gusto, pulling weeds up and dropping them into the wheelbarrow by the handful. He tried to remember their names from a brief and all too sketchy background as a Sunday putterer. Plantain, dock, purslane … And dandelion of course. The place was thick with dandelion.

  He moved slowly through the bed on all fours. The sun was pleasant on his back, not too hot. A late morning sun. Creeping along one edge of the bed, he saw that the crevices in a flagstone walk leading from a nearby back door had become overgrown with grass and other greenery, and he conscientiously pulled that up also.

  In the midst of this attentive little digression, the screen door twanged open and the mistress of the house came running up the walk, waving her arms and shouting like a crazy woman.

  “My herbs! Those are herbs you’re pulling up for God’s sake stop!”

  On his knees, he grinned vacantly up. “Please?”

  “Those aren’t weeds—they’re herbs. Precious herbs I’ve been cultivating carefully for five years, man!”

  “Nix verstehen,” Tattersall said, still smiling deferentially as he climbed to his feet. He spanked the dirt from his knees. “Nix sprechen der English …” He shrugged philosophically, taking the adversity in stride.

  “Oh, my God,” the woman moaned to herself, rolling her eyes. “Another foreigner. The help you have to …”

  “Ja,” Tattersall agreed.

  She became patient, explaining in the broken English which for some reason we adopt in the attempt to communicate with aliens. “Herbs. Herben. You’ve upgepulled some—Here.”

  She stooped and crumbled a fragment of the uprooted treasures in her fingers, sniffed it, and held it out for Tattersall to do the same, which he obediently did. He inhaled the fragrance, nodding appreciatively.

  “Ja, ja, stinken sie schön.”

  “So, herbs. Rosemary, basil—”

  “Ah, Kinder? You kleine Kinder?”

  “No, not children. Plants,” she said, pointing doggedly to the shambles at her feet. She began again. “Basil, tarragon, sage, thyme …”

  “Please?”

  “Thyme, thyme!”

  “Ah!” he nodded, understanding now, and pulled from his pocket a large watch which he held out by its cord for her to consult.

  “No, no. Ich mean—” Her attempts to explain the ravages to the flagstone walk were interrupted by her discovery of similar havoc wreaked in the flower bed. “My Michaelmas daisies! My nicotiana! And oh my God, the evening primrose!’” she shrieked. She fished several broad-leafed stalks from the heap in the wheelbarrow. “Can’t you tell flowers from weeds when they’re not in bloom? This is nicotiana. This—oh, what’s the use. You obviously haven’t had any experience. Never mind that now.” She thrust some plants into his hands and pointed to the flower bed. “We’ve got to put them back, quick, there’s not a moment to lose. Before it’s too late. In. Sticken sie back in der—in der Erde.”

  “Oh, ja, ja,” he said, nodding emphatically again to show he comprehended now. “Der Erde.”

  She had illustrated her order with a brisk pantomime about which there could be no mistake, and with which he as briskly complied. Getting back on his knees on der Erde, he replanted all the flowers she was able to sort out from among the weeds that still had roots on them. He watered them with a sprinkling can she fetched and filled herself, running as fast as she could in her ruffed mules.

  That done as best it could be, she hauled a chair over from the terrace and set it grimly down beside the bed on which he was at work, and in which she supervised him with the aid of a walking stick she went inside to get. She silently pointed it at each weed to be uprooted, waiting till Tattersall had disposed of it in the wheelbarrow before indicating the next. She was an elderly woman with a crown of white hair and a straight mouth. Tattersall’s mute compliances were supplemented by an obliging, at times hangdog, smile, from which she would try to keep her gaze averted. Once in a while he would point inquiringly to a plant to show he wanted to learn, like a pupil eager to show his teacher he was doing his best, and she would nod agreement. Yes, he had identified a weed, correctly distinguished it from a flower. Sometimes she would shake her head. “No, that happens to be a trillium, just not in bloom now. A very, very schön, uh, Blumchen, very hard to grow, so lieber Gott touchen Sie him nicht.” There were, conversely, plants with flowers which he was ordered to uproot, much to the bafflement of the simple kraut. “Maar sie got Blumen,” he would say. “Nevertheless they’re weeds,” she would answer. “In.” And she would point to the wheelbarrow. One of these semantic victims was a tiny blue flower over which he pouted sympathetically before plucking it up and handing it as an offering to the grand lady, with the same humble smile. “Oh, my God,” she said, looking away. “Talk about a will to fail.”

  Unable to carry on in this vein any longer after the bed had been weeded and another selected for attack, or at least uninclined to, the woman rose and walked around to the front where Barzack was cutting grass. He was not so beyond communication as not to grasp her wish, conveyed through more pantomime, that he change jobs with Tattersall till Horvath could be reached for consultation. So the Hungarian weeded while Tattersall spend the remainder of the morning wandering pleasantly behind the power mower.

  Horvath put in an appearance shortly after noon, and following a brief conference with the woman carted Tattersall away to another job a couple of miles away. “Jomp on tailgate,” he ordered with a weary sigh. They stopped at a small grocery store to let Tattersall pick up a bag of fruit and some cheese and sausage for his lunch.

  The new mistress was an attractive young widow who was clearly of the class of Bored Women driven by the emptiness and ennui of existence to seek thrills in the form of affairs with their chauffeurs. The lean, tense stride and the restlessly darted glances bespoke suppressed sexual energy if anything did. The brief appraising look she shot at Tattersall as she crossed the patio told him everything he needed to know. Here the displaced and bumbling kraut could be dropped for a handsome buck nigger, exulting in the noonday of his manhood as he felled trees and pulled up boulders with his bare hands. He took off his shirt and tossed it onto a picket fence. His white teeth flashed as he worked. His naked biceps were like coiled serpents, and he walked with the fluid grace of the panther.

  He
flung himself under an elm to eat his lunch. Lying on his back, his legs spread in their tight jeans, he sank his teeth into an apple. From where he lounged, he could see an upstairs bedroom window, from which of course he was visible himself. A palm thrust negligently under his belt, he gazed up into the sunlit boughs as he chewed the juicy pulp of the fruit, spitting the pips with a lazy, animal ease—a sight to stir the most jaded female blood.

  His belly full, he closed his eyes, the better to drink in the voluptuous warmth of the day. An arm flung across his brow, he dreamed on the darkening bronze of his skin, rejoicing in it. It would deepen through the long summer months, till the muscles rippling under it were indeed like a nest of coppery reptiles in whose toils any woman worth the name would love to find herself helpless caught. The very thought made her faint with bliss. A breeze from time to time fluttered the checkered shade in which he lay, and sent secret, liquid highlights slipping across his naked flesh. His mother bore him in the southern wild. He was sprung from hot jungle loins, and his blood had drunk the ichor of the sun.

  A soft rustle different from that of the wind in the boughs was heard overhead. Like that of a shade being raised, or a curtain furtively parted. He was being watched, covertly savored above.

  Carelessly, and with the same unconscious animal ease, he sat up. He stretched till his muscles nearly burst their glistening skin, his white teeth gleaming as he yawned. He could not resist a look, but he made his upward glance an accidental one. Sure enough, there was a silken form between the pale curtains, withdrawn as he looked. He rose and resumed his labors, now alert to any sound from the house. A quivering excitement had taken hold of him, but he did not look when he heard the back door open and the woman come out. Such adventuresses must be left to give their own signs.

  Several minutes passed, during which he continued working without so much as a glance toward the house. At last footsteps were heard approaching across the grass behind him. He could no longer control himself. He turned around.

  Horvath came forward, clacking a pair of enormous clippers with which he had been trimming a hedge.

  “She wants you to put your shirt on.”

  “Why?”

  “She got guests coming pretty soon. Some other women. So get it on.”

  “Did you suggest she keep her own on? You done ask de lady dat?” Tattersall said, smiling with lazy tropical derision. His teeth gleamed.

  “Well, get your shirt on, like I say she said. Otherwise she says you might offend the people she’s got coming pretty soon.”

  “Lady Loverly’s Chatter.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  He put his shirt on, but Horvath finally had to let him go anyway. It wasn’t working out. The same crooked little smile wreathed his lips as he took his pay and drifted off up the street again, a free man. He carried his coat flung over his shoulder, hooked on two fingers. The poor jigaboo gave up the flat in which he had been living and moved into a rooming house. As a result, Sherry had some trouble locating his whereabouts when she thought the time had come for another serious talk about where they stood—or rather where they were going—and what should be done. But she finally found him in a hall bedroom near the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks.

  He took her out to dinner in a nearby chophouse. He refused the ten dollar bill with which she insisted on paying for the meal, assuring her that, though he was unemployed at the moment, he had something lined up and would start work the following day. He was going to make a determined effort to better himself. He was going to sell a line of toilet articles door-to-door, and had to wait till he got his shirts back from the laundry before beginning. He could clearly pay for the dinner, and when he laid down the tip he said, “You’ve heard the expression, ‘old money’? Well, just look at that dollar bill.” It was so worn and tattered it was held together with a Band-Aid.

  Back in his room, they drank beer. He seemed in good spirits. He gave her the single herniated armchair while he himself sprawled sociably out on the bed, stretching his lazy nigger length and gossiping with his engaging drawl. “C’meah,” he said, patting the bed.

  “No,” Sherry said. She set her glass down. “Look, I can’t go along with any more of this. I can’t take any more. Or rather I don’t want to.”

  She was as neat and crisp as ever, in a tailored blue suit down the front of which she periodically swept a hand, though there was nothing to brush away or tidy up, not a hair or speck of lint.

  “I don’t understand you any more, if I ever did,” she continued. “What these kicks are that you go on, or what I’m supposed to do next. Now this Southern gentleman you’ve become, or whatever. I can’t figure it out, unless you’re looking for a character to fit your personality.”

  “We is all protean figures. Many-faceted, composed of varied and even contradictory elements, any of which can assume command at a given moment. We is like kaleidoscopes shaken into new forms by fresh nudges from a reality dat ain’t pow’ful consistent either. Ah is not de effete and decadent intellectual dat y’all once knew. No suh. Ah is a new man, wit de primitive vitality and simple integrity dat we all craves. So mah me.”

  “No. I’m not going to marry you any more, Hank. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll give you a divorce. We’ll compromise. It’s the next best thing. Then you can start fresh with somebody else, free and clear with somebody who may understand you better than I do. Or what you’re trying to do, or want out of life.”

  He shook his head. “No. Y’all stick around, heah? If you won’t grow old along wit me, den we grow young again, start fresh like kids. Cause a lifetime ain’t enough to ’commodate de identities of which we is capable,” he said, grinning his persuasive grin at her from the pillow. But his efforts were of no avail. On whatever note he strove to disarm or beguile her, whether he stretched out his lazy nigger length or poured out his simple wop heart, it did no good. She was adamant about bringing their relationship to an end.

  At midnight she rose, assuring him that it would all be perfectly amicable, and that she would of course expect nothing from him, but that he would definitely hear from her lawyer. Then she left.

  He heard her go down the stairs, get into her car and drive off. He lay silent a moment, and then, as though she were still there and could hear him, he shook his head sadly, and said, “I simply don’t know what you want.”

  Ten

  Tattersall tilted his chair back against the white clapboard front of the rooming house, his heels hooked on the lower spindle. He clasped his hands behind his head, on which a plaid cap was shoved slightly forward, and gazed out at the world from under its visor. He chewed a match with an air of lazy colloquialism. He was known as Handyman Hank in the neighborhood to which he had now come. That he took only enough odd jobs to keep body and soul together represented, as much as it did shiftlessness, a certain renunciation of all vainglory, all acquisitive fume and fret. He was sitting on the front porch.

  It was an evening in early autumn. Indian summer lingered, and the hum of reprieved insects filled the air together with the late cries of children at their play. Lace curtains blew softly at the open window beside which he lounged. A few neighbors still watered their patches of front lawn, and the gentle sibilance of their hoses was a steady, pleasant thread in the random weft of night sounds. East Maple was a crowded street of cottages and two-flat houses, on whose porches, in the warm weather, families still gathered, and passersby still paused to chat.

  A car somewhat more impressive than most parked along the curb or traversing the street drew to a stop in front of the cottage, and a man and a woman alighted from it who were somewhat better dressed than most to be seen here. Tattersall instantly recognized them, but for the moment he gave no sign. He remained alert but absolutely motionless under the bent peak of the cap, like a lizard. For some reason, what crossed his mind as he saw his wife and Harry Wurlitzer spring from Wurlitzer’s Cadillac was a postcard he had once got from a friend vacationing in
San Antonio, reading: “The Alamo is now air-conditioned.” It was one of those associations that bear no surface relation to the context in which they are evoked, only some kind of subterranean logic.

  They were going to try again with him. It was the second time Sherry had brought Wurlitzer along to remonstrate with him, once in the old rooming house by the Pennsylvania tracks, and now here to where she had also managed to trace him. He was accompanying her for one last attempt to bring him to his senses. In doing so he was letting bygones be bygones. He was demonstrating his readiness to be big about the Christmas bonus incident—now in perspective seen as probably the first fissure in what had been taken to be a sound mind. “Is there nothing that means anything to you?” he had asked the first time, as the trains rumbled by. “Tell me, Hank. I’m always curious about this basic thing in a guy. Don’t you believe in God?”

  “No, and he doesn’t believe in me.”

  Tattersall eyed them from under the cap until they were well up the steps to the porch. Then he rose and shuffled over, the match wagging as he greeted them with a welcome word. “Well, well, I was just beginning to wonder who I could sit and chew the rag with tonight,” he said in his amiable drawl. “And here you are. Mighty nice of you to call.”