Dave, who is under the mistaken impression that I am more interested in cause than in effect, once again tries to explain to me exactly how revolutionary the Blowhard is. But I have already tuned him out.
“Do you get it now?” I ask Hector, who is still trembling from the AAAAAAWWWWWWEEEEE. “Self-consciousness leads to illegitimate superiority, which leads to materialism, recklessness, and the ruin of others.”
“What?”
“Do I have to repeat myself?”
“Yes. My ears are a lot more sensitive than yours.”
“Not since this morning.” Against my better judgment, I take pity on him and ruffle the top of his head. “What I am telling you, my holy-rolling friend, is that the force that nearly deafened you just now is the force you should oppose. The Chautauquans want the twentieth century. Did you know that at the start of the twentieth century, ordinary people used to laugh at the self-aggrandizing antics of the big spenders? Cornelius Vanderbilt’s re-creation of Versailles in Newport, and Potter Palmer, the Chicago store owner, loading down his wife with so many diamonds that she could barely stand upright. People once thought all that was funny. Today they envy what they laughed at.
“At the start of the twentieth century, one in every seven houses had a bathroom. A hundred years later, every seven bathrooms have a house.” Bang bang bang. “Make that twenty bathrooms and two houses.”
“You’re just anticonservative,” Hector says with a snort. “People in the Hamptons hate conservatives. But everyone will be conservative eventually, that’s what I think.”
“Don’t waste that wisdom on me. Be a true evangelical: go door to door.”
“In the same house?” He indicates ours.
“O Chautauquans,” I cry out to no one in particular. “If only I could preach to you as though the Methodists were still in charge, and I were wearing a beard like the Smith Brothers’, and you were a tent community again, and we all lived in sepia tone. I would tell you to repent. I would urge you to acknowledge that your most valuable property is not real estate. It is imagined estate, which is not and has never been for sale.”
“But why can’t you have both?” asks Hector.
“Both what?”
“God and mammal.”
“Mammon.”
“Whatever. Why can’t you have riches on earth and riches in Paradise? I say aim for the skies!”
“That’s the plan, my boy.”
José calls across the creek to ask if I would care to hear the Blowhard again. “No más,” I plead, raising my hand in a Roberto Duran surrender.
“You should get one of these things yourself, Señor March—if you can afford it, wheech I theenk you cannot. But if you could, you would never again be hot in the summer.”
“That would be heaven,” I tell him. I am encouraged to see that he, Jack, and Dave are all laughing.
Seven
Have I mentioned that I communicate with Lapham? I have no direct dealings with him, but I do correspond with his executive secretary or manservant or amanuensis or creepy-crawly or whatever he is called. A certain Damenial Krento. I send my notes to Lapham by boat across the creek. Not by my real boat, one of the row-row-row variety that I keep tied to the dock inside the L, to protect it. For Krento I bought a fiberglass toy motorboat, battery-powered, cerulean blue, with black-and-silver warheads decaled on the sides, about two and a half feet in length and one foot wide. It is quite sturdy. It does not capsize. I skew it toward the current at an angle upstream (tides and currents are treacherous in the creek), and I keep it on course using a remote control. I have named the boat Sharon, a female version of Charon, the grizzly old sailor of Greek mythology who ferried the dead across the river Styx in the Underworld.
I tuck my message into Sharon’s tiny cabin, guide the craft carefully, watch it make landfall, and wait for a reply.
I send the same note every day: “Mr. Lapham, tear down that house!” I thought that the Reaganesque echo might appeal to him.
As of 1:06, I have received no response to today’s note. When Krento is ready, he signals me with a huge red-white-and-blue yachting flag, and I switch on the remote. Because he is apparently on the short side and also somehow translucent, the flag often looks as if it were waving itself. But his reply, too, is always the same: “Dear Mr. March: Mr. Lapham is in receipt of your recent letter. He takes this opportunity to express his gratitude to you for taking the time to write to him. That is why he is writing to you. He wishes you continued success in your endeavors. Yours very sincerely, Damenial Krento, executive secretary to Mr. Lapham.”
Once, in a faint attempt at sabotage, I wrote to Krento himself and asked if he would like to quit Lapham’s employ and come work for me instead. I had never had an executive secretary before, I told him, but I was sure I could find several secretaries for him to execute. I could not pay what Lapham did, alas, but I could promise him the use of one excellent book that he might pick up and put down again as many times as he liked, as well as the best Devil Dogs and cold ravioli he had ever tasted in his life. He wrote back that he was grateful for my correspondence, and he also thanked me for it.
Bark bark bark bark bark. Hector goes off like a burp gun, eyes glazed in full dogdom. Bark bark bark. I yell at him to stop. Now the Mexicans join in, con gusto. Bang bang bang bang bang. Bang bang bang. Bark bark bark. There is nothing I can do about the Mexicans, but Hector?
“Could you possibly be any less cooperative?” I ask him.
He squares around to confront me. “Perhaps if you had sent me to business school, as I asked you to, and more than once, a lot more, I might have picked up some people skills.”
At one point he wanted to go to the Harvard Business School. Setting aside the practical difficulties of enrolling a dog in any educational establishment other than obedience school (which in his case would have been a joke), I tried to explain to him that all he would learn there was bottom-line thinking, rapaciousness, and corporate crime.
“I don’t mind learning those things,” he said. “I’m not like you. I want to make something of myself.” Then he licked his nose.
“I can teach you all you need to know right here.”
“I don’t believe in homeschooling,” he said. “Except for Bible classes.”
“Well, you’re not going to the Harvard Business School. You probably couldn’t get in, and in any case, it’s too expensive.”
“Very nice. Treat me like a dog, why don’t you?”
“You are a dog.”
“Well, then!” And with that, he proceeded to bark all night, as he is barking now.
A wind moves across the island like the dismissive or blessing gesture of a hand, and then is gone. One learns to appreciate the wind in later life, after all the sunsets have been oohed to death, and the sunrises greeted with stupendous boredom, and the size of the oceans commented upon ad infinitum, not forgetting the frothy whitecaps and the ever-receding horizon, and the moonlight too, of course, which is alternately sexy and melancholy, and the chirpings of birds, which are alternately sweet and delphic—after all the appropriate metaphors and similes have been delivered unto every eclectic feat or whim of nature, one wakes up to the quality of the wind, the beauty of which is that it is noticed only when it touches something else.
The dog, he barks. The House of Lapham, she bangs. Tempus fugit. Carpe diem. Cave canem. The clouds form Rorschach inkblots, which look to me like a row of cannon in a field.
What shall I wear for you, dear Chautauquans? I have too many outfits to choose from: the blue blazer, white shirt, and charcoal-gray slacks ensemble; the blue blazer, white shirt, and medium-gray slacks ensemble; the blue blazer, white shirt, and light-gray slacks ensemble. I lay out the combination with the charcoal slacks, having discovered large holes in one of the two remaining pairs, and the crotch nearly vanished from the other. A few sorry threads stretch across the breach, like bamboo bridges in World War II.
It is of no importance. I realize that
if all goes as it should tonight, this may be my last day on Noman, at least until I am released from custody.
“Good-bye, Blossom. Good-bye, Junior.” I stride through my house bidding personalized farewells to the furniture, the appliances, and the utensils. And I bestow an affectionate au revoir on Chloe, who appears unmoved.
“Why aren’t you saying good-bye to me?” asks Hector.
“Because you’re coming with me. We’ve been through all this before.”
“You’ve been through all this. Don’t I have rights?”
“No,” I tell him. “But if you’re a good dog, I will let you give the lecture for me, from the West Highland perspective.”
I pause in my library to pay homage to Dr. Johnson with a respectful nod. Then, for the first time in weeks, I notice my computer screen. I have old e-mails from the children.
Dear Dad:
Mom says you’re going nuts—something about someone building a house. Don’t worry. You can always live with us, in the basement.
Love,
Charles
Dear Dad:
Mom says you’re going ape—what’s new? Don’t worry. You can always live with us. We have a cage.
Love,
Emma
Dear Dad:
Mom says you’re going postal. Don’t worry. You can always live with Charles or Emma.
Love,
James
Incautiously, I now recognize, I e-mailed Chloe when Lapham first started banging, to ask if she recalled where I kept the flamethrower. I had better respond to the children at once.
Dear progeny:
Thank you for your messages. I can assure you that there is no cause for alarm. Please calm your mother as well, if that is possible. As to the matter of her concern, I am coming to the end of a great new undertaking that not only will gratify me personally but, if viewed in the proper light, also will save much of civilization, now and for years to come.
Love,
Dad
There. That should allay everyone’s fears.
As long as I’m at the computer, I take the opportunity to “visit” Lapham’s Web site. The banner headline announces: Lapham Considers Senate Race. I have no way of knowing whether this represents authentic news or whether it is simply one of the daily flailings of his mind. In another, earlier memo to his public, he announced that he was thinking of buying the Time Warner Company, but he soon learned that it was not for sale, for once. Some years ago, he briefly did produce his own magazine, which he called Lapham’s Weekly. Its chances of success were impaired by his refusal to hire an advertising director, mistakenly assuming that old family friends could be counted upon to take out ads, just as they might in a high-school yearbook; he insisted on writing all the articles himself; and it came out monthly.
The current bulletin continues: “Fed up with politics as usual,” Lapham says he is “chucking his hat” into next year’s “Senate ring.” He has concluded that the “times call for an independent thinker” like himself, someone who will not “be beholden to special interesting groups.” What this country needs is “new beginnings.” He “believes in America.” He confesses to being a “hapless romantic.” Soon, he promises, he will be sending out a series of “boardsides” on public policy issues. “More to come.” Not if I can help it.
He elaborates upon his senatorial ambitions. He sets out his positions on such matters as abortion, which he is “neither for nor against,” and school prayer, which he suggests “requires future study.” He is for equal opportunity but against quotas; he thinks that affirmative action “is a fine idea but should be controlled.” He supports public schools, yet “nothing beats a good prep-school education.” He will continue to fight for the separation of “church and statehood,” though for his own part, he always will do “what the good Lord says.” I should get Hector to ask the good Lord if Lapham is also considering running for the presidency.
There are several attachments and appendices. The first of these is the text of a speech that Lapham delivered to the members of the Yale Club of Schenectady, in which he praised the “incomparable value” of legacies. I’ll bet.
Next is a transcript of a speech he gave at the Devon Yacht Club of East Hampton, concerning the incomparable value of the coat-and-tie rule. In Lapham’s view, eliminating this tradition, as some of the club’s “younger scamps” had proposed, would be “paramount” to striking at the club’s heart, though he allowed as how he’d been young once himself and well recalled how “darned uncomfortable” those neckties could get on an August night.
And then there is a sampling of the candidate’s “fugitive thoughts” on various issues. On the economy: “Business is good for business.” On gay and lesbian marriage: “I think it should be left up to the cities.” On jobs: “The more jobs, the better.” On immigration: “If foreign people will work for less pay, fine. But they should not drive out real American workers.” I think I’ll print out that one for the Mexicans.
On war:
I do not believe that Americans should send our young people into harm’s way where they might lose life and limb unless the war is in America’s best interests. For example, if some country somewhere is having a civil war, I say that’s OK as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. If England or Russia or some European country had interfered with our Civil War, where do you think we would be now? On the other hand, if the American man, woman, or child is going to suffer because some other country attacks us or has something we need, then I declare: Bring it on!
I wish I could say it was inconceivable that a man like Lapham could gain public office. But look who holds public office now. The times call for a man who believes in nothing. He runs because he knows the people expect him to believe in nothing, and want him to believe in nothing, because they too believe in nothing. Thus he becomes a man of the people. Nothing comes of nothing.
Say, do you think I would make a good King Lear? Gold pointy crown? White flowing beard and robes? There’s no heath on my island, but I could be holding a Heath Bar. Tell me. Don’t hold back. Bang bang bang bang bang.
“There’s no doubt about it now,” I tell Hector. “No question as to my course of action now.”
“Really?” He yawns, his jaws gaping like a crater.
“Yes. No question at all. You know, Hector, it occurs to me that this may be the most important day of my life, the moment when all the stray and whorling strands of my existence merge into one clear, straight ribbon of light, and I at last win the towering moral satisfaction due all those who are driven to defend what is decent, modest, and right in the world.”
He looks up devotedly. “Then again, you may be ready for a straitjacket.”
Yes, by all means run for the Senate, Lapham, old boy. And after that, who knows? Perhaps the country cottage you are building across the creek from me will one day become the nation’s next Hyannisport or Kennebunkport or Key Biscayne or Crawford. How lucky I will be to live so close to the President’s summer White House. The dignitaries who will come for visits. Foreign ministers. Supreme Court justices. Country-and-western singers. Astronauts. The Bassoonist Marching Band from Little Rock. The national champion cow tipper from Omaha. The Secret Service agents with their trousers rolled, carrying Uzis and patrolling the creek in narrow-eyed vigilance. To think: a poor boy like myself, a humble artist with no claim to noble lineage, hanging out my shingle so near the home of the leader of the free world. How should I put it? A stone’s throw?
Eight
Why do people give lectures?”
“To hear themselves talk.”
“Is that why you’re doing it?”
“No. I’m providing an indispensable lesson.”
“Oh, yes. I forgot.”
“Because ideas matter, Mr. Tail.”
“Your ideas.”
If only the construction of the lecture gave me as much pleasure as that of the Da Vinci. Words: I still believe in them. I do. It’s in my blood. Yet I could pre
sent the Chautauquans with whole pyramids of words, the Great Pyramid itself, cladded with words on the outside, and words within, and detailing the entire disastrous course of the twentieth century from Sarajevo to Sarajevo, and the immense edifice would not hold a candle to some gizmo thought up thousands of years ago by illiterates without indoor plumbing or spandex. Under the black tarp stands a monument to form and function, though it also calls forth individual interpretation. From the front, it looks like a skier holding tall, thick poles, staunch and symmetrical. From the side, it resembles a rudimentary car. From above, it’s a funeral bier with the body laid out in the shape of a cross. From behind, a vertical snake seen from the back, peering over a fence.
How did they do it, those savage geniuses? Why did they do it? Because they knew they had to survive in a dangerous and threatening world. Naked and exposed though they might be, they had to fight back. And though they could not see beyond their noses, they peered into the future as well. Without realizing it, they dreamed of Lapham.
Two P.M. Odd that I still have not heard from him. Perhaps he has finally tired of my one-line notes and has instructed Krento not to reply. Should I send him a more ample communication?
“What do you think of this?” I ask Hector, wishing I had someone else to consult.
Dear Lapham,
Once again this morning I was awakened by the noise of your erection. Have you no shame? Do you know what a house is? A house is a place where the mind finds its outer shape, its carapace. It should be a work of sculpture, of ceramics, fired from within. A house has a purpose, a significant purpose, as a person must have a purpose. A house is a protection, a solace, a thought. It is not a dick, Lapham. Not an organ perpetually driven by modern pharmaceutical stimulants to grow like Jack’s beanstalk until it punctures heaven itself. Neither should it stand as a temple to individual glory. Even Gatsby’s house was not that. Somewhere in that musty family history of yours, down the lightless arched corridors of framed portraits of deposed Laphams, including Moses, the founder of the asparagus feast, there must be a reference to decency, to manners. Look it up, Lapham. Learn something for a change. Tear down that monument to the national boast. Put up a log cabin in its place and live out your days in solitude, gratified by the accomplishment of good works. Will you do that, Lapham? Or will you build and build until the entire East End is your personal property, a gated fortress starting at the Suffolk County line? Lapham, you yourself are hell. I loathe and despise you.
Lapham Rising Page 6
