Damnation of Adam Blessing

by Packer, Vin

  21

  The Fellow’s Foundation

  240 Park Avenue

  New York, New York

  Dear Sirs:

  At the request of an anonymous donor, we have been directed to present the New York Chapter of the Fellow’s Foundation with the following check for $10,000. The donor specified that the announcement of this gift be made known at the open meeting of the Fellow’s Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting on January 30th at 8:00 P.M. A certified check for that amount is attached to this letter.

  Sincerely yours,

  A. K. Beardsley, Vice-President,

  South Orange Savings and Trust Company

  South Orange, New Jersey.

  “He wasn’t that fat when I knew him,” said Dorothy Schackleford Neer.

  “So that’s the great Adam,” her husband said. He giggled, and a woman in the row in front of him turned around in her seat and damned him with her eyes. A hiss of “Shhh!” spread through the audience.

  “Well, he wasn’t!” said Dorothy Schackleford in a peeved whisper.

  She had always made more of her friendship with Adam. She was always telling Wilson how she had nursed Adam through his breakdown, helped him become interested in the Fellow’s Foundation, watched him progress from a wild ne’er-do-well to a dedicated worker, and ultimately parted from him, with a little Schackleford embroidery on the latter. Well, he might have asked her to marry him — it wasn’t exactly a proven lie…. Wilson was a few inches shorter than Dorothy, and without his glasses he could not see his own nose, but Dorothy thought of him as “a dear thing,” and she was proud of the fact that he was one of the top engineers in Duco Oil Corporation. In April, they were going to Sumatra to live.

  The speaker who had announced the $10,000 donation was pounding on the podium for order. There would be a hush momentarily, then a resurgence of the applause and chatter. The audience was as excited by the donation as they might have been if it were to be distributed among them in hundred-dollar bills. Behind the speaker, Adam stood, waiting to address the audience. He was enormous, Dorothy could not deny that. She wondered rather unkindly where on earth he bought his clothes, or did he have to have them made. His beard was even longer than it had been when she last saw him in Rome, and he looked much older than twenty-six.

  Wilson leaned over and said: “He should have come a week earlier. He would have been the Santa Claus at the Christmas Party.”

  “Wil-son!” … but she was not truly angry at the remark. She just hoped Wilson would be nice after the meeting when he met Adam. Wilson was not what Dorothy would describe as a sensitive person. She always thought engineers were not the type to be sensitive anyway. They were all slide rules and fix-things-down-in-the-basement. Once she had told Wilson how Adam had attempted to kill himself, after that Vittorio Gelsi’s execution. She had tried to explain to Wilson that Adam felt responsible, even though he was not in the least responsible. For a while Adam had even believed he had murdered

  Gelsi’s wife, and he had gone about saying he must repent. Bats in the belfry, Wilson had said, marbles in the attic, but that was Wilson for you.

  The audience was quiet now, and Adam was stepping up to the podium.

  “I thought you said he was such a sporty dresser,” Wilson whispered.

  “Well, he was!”

  The knees of Adam’s pants were baggy, and there was no press in his suit. Worse, he wore a yellow shirt with a crooked green tie. Dorothy wished she had left Wilson home.

  Adam had a hand on either side of the podium. He was leaning forward, staring out at the audience, waiting for silence. Finally, after several slow seconds in this pose, he straightened. His face was very grave, and when he spoke, his voice boomed out in the small church basement.

  “My name is Adam Blessing. I am an alcoholic.”

  He paused and again looked at the audience. Dorothy attempted a faint smile when he looked in her direction, but if he recognized her, he showed no sign.

  He said, “I used to hide behind a bottle for courage. I am not going to stand here and lie to you, and say I did not find the courage I needed, because I DID find it. I had a GREAT DEAL of courage when I drank. Drink gave me courage to pursue a very beautiful girl … My best friend’s girl.” There was a sprinkle of laughter from the audience. Adam Blessing waited for it to subside.

  He began again, “Drink gave me courage to propose marriage to this girl…. Today, I am still a single man.”

  More laughter.

  “I am also minus one best friend.” Laughter again.

  “He was proposing all over the place,” said Wilson.

  “He exaggerates,” Dorothy whispered back.

  “Oh sure,” Wilson said, “you were the only girl he ever proposed to, I suppose.”

  “Drink,” Adam boomed out, “gave me the courage to behave as a rich man, when I was a poor man, gave me debts when I was debt-free, gave me the courage to be a thief when I was honest. There is an awful lot of courage in a fifth of whisky!” Applause.

  Adam Blessing’s eyes were narrowed, now as he resumed: “Courage is defined as that quality of the mind which enables one to meet danger and difficulties with firmness. Dangers and difficulties, friends and Fellow’s, not delusions of dangers and difficulties, not imaginary dangers and difficulties, but real ones. Liquid courage, the kind you find in a fifth of whisky, is one of the best manufacturers of synthetic difficulties and dangers in the world today! Is there courage in a fifth, oh yes, and plenty of it, but it’s liquid!”

  More applause. “Words, words, words,” said Wilson. “I like it better when girls speak and tell how they almost undressed in public when they were drinking.”

  Adam Blessing said, “Some of us are people with little courage. If we are alcoholics, we need to supplement our threads of courage with faith. How do you have faith? Faith is contagious. You believe in me, and I’ll believe in you. We members of Alcoholics Anonymous have demonstrated that credo to the fullest degree. I once looked up ‘Faith’ in the dictionary. I found it defined as ‘fidelity to one’s promises.’ Of course! Fidelity to one’s promises! You trust me and I shall trust you. I will not ever forget you. If it seems as though I am letting you down, it is not so. You are on my mind constantly. It is just a matter of time before I will be with you again. Faith!”

  “What the devil is he talking about?” Wilson asked his wife. Some of the audience were looking at one another with puzzled expressions. Dorothy Schackleford Neer smiled, half with embarrassment, half with amusement. Adam used to be called “The Preacher” in Rome when he first began with Fellow’s.

  “I will leave you, but I will be back.”

  “A tiny nosegay to General MacArthur,” Wilson snickered.

  “You are always on my mind!”

  “He would have been a great song-writer in the thirties,” said Wilson.

  “Tonight,” Adam Blessing roared, “we heard of a donation of $10,000 to the New York Fellow’s Chapter. What pure joy for the donor! Give, and you will be blessed!”

  A few members of the audience were stifling smiles. There was a buzz of exchanged comments, shoulders shrugging with bemusement. Wilson gave his wife a questioning glance. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s just not organized,” said Dorothy Schackleford, but she hoped he would not go on much longer. She glanced at her watch. The audience was very noisy now.

  “Money cannot bring you peace, that is my message. Give it away! Peace is infidelity to one’s promises, in the returning of another’s faith in you, in the thought — no, the CONVICTION that faith can make you do ANYTHING! Love, MURDER, cry, laugh — ”

  “He looks like he’s really crying himself,” Wilson said.

  “Oh God, I’m afraid he is.” “He is?”

  “He needs a rest.” Dorothy Schackleford covered her eyes with her hands, so she would not have to look at Adam.

  • • •

  Afterwards, he seemed all right. The chairman had interrupted him five or six min
utes after Dorothy had stopped watching the podium. The chairman had said something about the meeting running overtime, and Adam, with the tears wet on his cheeks, had stepped aside without a protest. Dorothy and Wilson went up to him, and Adam hugged her with enthusiasm and shook Wilson’s hand solemnly. They adjourned to a Schrafft’s on Madison Avenue. Adam consumed two chocolate sundaes, and a piece of coconut layer cake. He asked Wilson about his work, and reminisced with Dorothy about members of the Fellow’s in Rome. They were very nearly ready to leave when he brought up the names of Billy and Chary.

  “Of course, I didn’t expect a card at Christmas,” he said, “but then again it might have arrived after I left. I might not have it yet.”

  “They’re in Caracas,” said Dorothy. “Billy’s head of the Caracas office. We got a brief note from Chary on the back of their Christmas card. She’s going to have another child.”

  “Caracas,” Adam repeated.

  “City of American-sponsored laundromats,” said Wilson facetiously.

  Adam seemed not to hear him.

  He was playing with the cake crumbs on his plate, pushing them about with his fork. “I never knew what they named their boy.”

  “Ted.”

  “Oh … Theodore.” “Teddy, Chary calls him.” “I guess they didn’t name him after anyone.” Dorothy could see the tears forming in Adam’s eyes again.

  She said, “What will you do now, Adam?”

  “I’ve saved some money. I imagine I’ll rest awhile.”

  “Good!”

  “Rest, and eventually settle down somewhere,” Adam said after the pause. “I have something to finish up here, and then — I’ll settle down somewhere.”

  Dorothy picked up her gloves from the table. “It was good to see you again.” Then she braved, “We liked your talk.”

  “I get worked up sometimes,” Adam said softly. “It’s as though everything builds up in me with such an urgency, I nearly explode.”

  “We better get on, Dorothy.” Wilson was pushing back his chair.

  “In Rome,” said Adam, “I realized there was an obligation I must fulfill immediately. It upset me, the realization, but it brought me peace too. Perhaps it is the only true thing I’ll ever do.”

  “Oh, you’ve done a lot of good in Rome, Adam. I heard all about it!”

  “I’m very tired. Very tired … I’d like to settle down.”

  “We’re walking as far as the subway, Adam.”

  “Go along. I’ll have a glass of milk I think. Good night, Wilson.”

  “I love your beard, Adam.” Dorothy was standing facing him, not quite sure the evening should end so flatly. But Wilson had made it very clear: for the love of Pete, don’t ask him back to the place!

  Adam said, “I’m going to shave it off tonight.” He smiled. “It gets caught in the steering wheel.”

  “You have a car, Adam?” She could hear Wilson sighing behind her.

  “I learned to drive in Rome, a month ago. I thought I might rent a car and practice.”

  She took his hand. “Good-bye, Adam. Let us hear from you.”

  “Good-bye and Happy New Year,” he said. He dropped her hand and smiled. “It’s nice, isn’t it,” he said, “to begin all over again?”

  22

  NOTICE

  At three p. m. Mr. Blessing will visit The William Penn Lounge for another session in graphology. First Class Passengers only. On Tuesday and Thursday, he will be available at the same time in Lounge 2, for Tourist Passengers.

  S.S. Quaker City

  Philadelphia Line

  Mr. Arlington Partidge of Rochester, New York, asked Mrs. Arlington Partidge if she was falling for that fat, phony slob or what?

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” she answered, handing him her shuffleboard mallet. I just want to ask him one thing, Arl!”

  She left her husband behind and hurried across to the deck rail where Mr. Blessing was standing, his arms behind his back, watching the sea.

  “Hello there, Mr. Blessing.” There was something almost saint-like about him, Mrs. Arlington Partidge often thought, and she did not mind it somehow that he showed no interest in who had spoken, but simply stayed in the same stance, touching his hand to his forehead in a slight salute, without looking to see who it was he was greeting.

  “It’s Mrs. Partidge,” said Mrs. Partidge, “Ethel Partidge, remember? My t-bars tend to slant downward, and I have those broad r’s, remember?”

  Mr. Blessing looked down at her. “Yes, I remember. You had very large handwriting, too.”

  “You really are something, Mr. Blessing! Memory like an elephant,” she said. She thought when she said it that it was rather an unfortunate comparison. Mr. Blessing was so huge. “Yes, and you said I was an extrovert! Arl, my husband, tells me if I join just one more committee, he’s going to wring my neck. I’m always doing sum’thin!”

  “It is good to serve.”

  “Mr. Blessing, I feel like you know all my secrets. I mean, when you said that about my m, about the last stroke of my m, remember?”

  “The fact that it was more angular than the other?”

  “Wow-boy! You do remember everything! Well, yes, that’s what I mean. I mean, I doubt that my own husband knows I’m a little neurotic.”

  “Mrs. Partidge, I did not say you were a little neurotic. I said it could be a sign of that, or it could simply indicate a desire for self-assertion.”

  “I mean, what would you think of a woman who sits around wondering what it would be like to have dinner with Dave Garroway. I don’t mean just wonder, either, I mean set the table in my mind and everything, right down to what color linen napkins. Now!”

  Mr. Blessing said, “I don’t know who Dave Garroway is, Mrs. Partidge, and anyway, I really can’t talk now. I’m thinking.”

  “Lord, you mean you’re analyzing in your mind? I interrupted you analyzing in your mind?”

  “It’s quite all right. It was a brief interruption.”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Blessing. I’ll just run right along and not bother you with another word. I had no idea you were doing that. Please excuse me.”

  At dinner that night Mrs. Partidge told Claire

  Cottersley-Smith how she had come upon Mr. Blessing that afternoon when he was analyzing in his mind. Claire Cottersley-Smith said that was nothing, wait until she told Ethel what Al had to say when he got back to their stateroom last night. Claire said, “Al said, ‘well, I had a talk with your boyfriend, Claire,’ and Al said they stood on deck for nearly twenty minutes passing the time of day. Al said his guess was Mr. Blessing was a defrocked priest. Mr. Blessing talked a great deal about Rome, Al said, and Al said Mr. Blessing had a misty look in his eye.”

  “Well, that’s the very same look we’ve seen two or three times. Like he was crying!”

  “Exactly,” said Claire Cottersley-Smith, “and if you ask me Al is right. Ever notice how he avoids women? Well, he’s shy! He was a priest, and he’s not used to women!”

  “He’s like a man without a friend in the world,” Ethel Partidge said. “It makes me want to die inside, does it you?”

  “Yes,” said Claire … “A de-frocked priest! Imagine! Reduced to fortune-telling on a cruise boat!”

  “Graphology, Claire! It’s more scientific. You should know what he told me about my m’s.”

  Claire Cottersley-Smith was more interested in Mr. Blessing than in Ethel Partidge’s m’s. After the old Jerry Lewis movie in the William Penn Lounge, she nagged her husband into trying to have a second conversation with Mr. Blessing. “Ask him,” she said, “if he knows Latin. That’ll clinch it!”

  She and Ethel Partidge nursed green Stingers in the bar with Arlington Partidge, who was slightly miffed at the fact Al Cottersley-Smith had established contact with the mysterious Mr. Blessing, and not he.

  “One day your Mr. Blessing will simply drop dead of a heart attack,” Mr. Arlington Partidge said. He was extremely thin, and he never allowed Ethel to say that he was skinny.


  “I like a lot of meat on a man,” Claire Cottersley-Smith said.

  After both women had had a third green Stinger and were right at that point of giggling hilariously at anything

  Arlington Partidge said, as long as it was not funny, Al appeared.

  “Not a priest,” he said sitting down. “Order me a whisky.”

  “Why not a priest?” his wife said.

  “Well, we were having this talk about people who take these cruises, see? I say people get along in years, kids grow up, get through college and all that, and folks decide to spend a little money on themselves for a change, go away, see some sights.”

  “Yes? Yes? Go on.”

  “I need a whisky … well, he says to me that it’s too bad money is so important to people. He says to me it used to be important to him, but he found out it wasn’t and then he says something I damn near died at.” He signaled the waiter for a whisky.

  “What?” said Claire and Ethel together.

  “He said he came into a great deal of money only a few years ago. A great deal, he said, repeating it, you know, like it was a million dollars or something? Well, this is the part that kills me…. He said he gave it all away, every nickle of it except for a small amount he had already spent selfishly on himself. He said he gave it all away to a worthy charity, and then he found peace!”

  • • •

  On Wednesday Ethel Partidge reported to Claire Cottersley-Smith that in a brief conversation with Mr. Blessing she learned this was the first time he had ever worked on a cruise boat, that he was not going to do it after the boat docked, that he had no “regular line.”

  • • •

  On Thursday Claire Cottersley-Smith reported to Ethel Partidge that Al said Mr. Blessing spoke with Al for a half an hour on Faith and Loyalty, and Al saw real tears in Mr. Blessing’s eyes, and AI was back to his original belief that Mr. Blessing was some kind of defrocked priest.