But there was one thing on which he had not counted: Benny’s gratitude. Brooks was considerably disconcerted to find that his protégé was determined not to let him go to the devil with impunity. Benny would come to his office, close the door and subject his benefactor to endless sermons.
“You’ve got to kick the booze, Brooks, and you’ve got to watch your office hours. Do you think your partners don’t know just how many Fridays you’ve taken off this past year? And just how many days you’ve wandered in at noon? Do you think they don’t know about that bottle of bourbon in your desk? Quit kidding yourself! They know all those things and many more. They’re planning right now to cut your percentage by a full half! Mr. Emmons is claiming our biggest estate, Carey, as his client. He says you’ve let him do all the work too long.”
“But Gus Carey was my own great-uncle,” Brooks exclaimed, raising his hands in mock dismay. “What are we old families coming to?”
“A fat lot they care about that! Old family connections, old school ties, those things are great, so long as they’re kept current. But you’re slipping behind, Brooks. Catch up!”
“I wonder if these trends are reversible,” Brooks speculated with a yawn, jabbing his blotter with a paper cutter. “The social scene, like the human body, seems to have to change its cells. We Clarksons used to have a fleet of clipper ships in the China trade. White sails speeding across the broad Pacific! Where were the Galentis then, I wonder. One family declines, another rises. It’s rather beautiful, really.”
“Who’s rising?”
“You are, Benny. You’ve only just started.”
“Brooks, you’re getting to be a bore on that subject. Maybe I could have had a future once. If I hadn’t married so young. Or been a member of a church that didn’t ban birth control. But as it is, my friend, Benny Galenti has gone quite as far as Benny Galenti’s ever going. Why, I can’t even afford to move to a decent neighborhood! You talk to Teresa and see what a big success she thinks I am!”
“Can’t you get a mortgage?” Brooks always seized any chance to get the subject away from his own drinking. “Or would you rather finance it privately? I’m perfectly willing to stake you to a move to the suburbs. Why haven’t you asked me?”
Benny seemed suddenly embarrassed. Was it, Brooks wondered, because he had planned the conversation this way? If he had, it would be only natural. What was the good of a Brooks Clarkson except to help a Benny Galenti?
“No, no, Brooks. You’ve done too much for me anyway, and, besides, you’re going to need all your money if you keep on this way. How do you expect to live when. . . ?”
“Why don’t you move to Glenville?” Brooks interrupted in a sudden inspiration. “You could have the old superintendent’s cottage on our place. It’s a shingle horror, but it’s got plenty of room. We could fix it over for you. I was going to have to do that, anyway.”
Benny’s stare might even have meant that he had considered this, too. “What about my kids? Where would they go to school? We can’t afford your private academies.”
“Do you think everyone in Glenville is rich?” Oh, he had shut him up now! The terrible sermon was over. “We have one of the best high schools on Long Island. It would solve your vacation problem. You wouldn’t have to take your family to the beach.”
Benny’s expression of embarrassment and gratitude was moving on a face that was usually so noncommittal. “I couldn’t accept it, Brooks. You know that. Why, you could rent that cottage for a fortune these days!”
“Ah, but I won’t!” Brooks cried, elated at the realization that his inspiration was actually going to work! Teresa, he suddenly saw, would make Benny accept, even if he balked now. “I can’t have anyone that close to me who isn’t absolutely congenial. And I’m very fussy! If you don’t take it, it stays vacant. So there!”
3
Fanny was upset when Brooks told her that night of his offer of the cottage. She had always been jealous of his admiration of Benny.
“You mean we’ll have those Galenti children all over the place! How many are there now? Six? Why, Brooks, we won’t be able to call our home our own!”
“You’ll find that Teresa has total control of her children. You’ll never even know they’re there. Besides, this will help me at the office.”
“Are you crazy? Is Benny Galenti anything more than a glorified office boy? How can he help you at the office?”
“Benny is a very good friend to have,” he said stubbornly.
“Why not give him our house then? And we can move into the cottage!”
“Don’t be difficult, Fan. I know what I’m doing. It will all work out for the best.”
“Will it? Best for whom? For us? Will we absorb by osmosis some of the vigor of the proletariats who squat at our doorstep? Is that the idea?” Fanny was inclined to be dramatic after her second drink. After the third she became playful, after the fourth self-pitying, after the fifth despondent. Now she was still in high, if rapidly souring, spirits. “Perhaps the virtue of this brave new world will inoculate our old stock so that we shall relish of it! Perhaps Fanny Clarkson will learn to be a model of sobriety, and Brooks, at last, will be at ease with the lower orders! Perhaps our daughters will be saved from dissolute Prince Charmings by sturdy bricklayers!”
“Please, Fan. You know I can’t bear that kind of talk.”
“Well, don’t despair. I shall learn my good manners from Mrs. Galenti!”
Brooks feared that she would not even show good manners to Teresa Galenti, but even he was not prepared for the terrible scene that took place, six months later, when Benny and his wife, after settling themselves and their children in the now spotless and repainted cottage, paid their first call at the big house. Benny was in a blue suit, and Teresa, a small, firm, hard-eyed woman with the blackest hair anyone had ever seen, was wearing a red dress with a red hat that was too big. Fanny, despite all Brooks’s advance warnings of the call, was dressed in a negligee that had two coffee spots on the front.
Brooks saw his house, his wife, himself, through the dark, darting eyes of Teresa Galenti. He noted the faded curtains, the cigarette holes on the sofa, the children’s schoolbooks piled on the floor. He heard his daughter Anne’s violent stamping on the stairway and winced as she slammed through the living room without pausing to greet the guests. Fanny, reclining languidly on a chaise longue, was in her “literary” stage of inebriation, where most of her references were to books.
“What must you think of the state of things in this house, Mrs. Galenti? Oh, you must be shocked, don’t deny it! Those curtains should have been changed a year ago. How you stare! Or how you would stare if your manners weren’t so good. I haven’t intruded on you yet in the cottage, but I confess I’ve walked by and peeked in the living room window. How neat and trim and freshly painted it all is! Oh, it puts us quite to shame up here in our Cherry Orchard!”
“I think of you as very fortunate indeed in having such a charming home,” Teresa Galenti replied firmly.
“Do you? How charming of you. Isn’t it charming of Mrs. Galenti to say that about our ‘charming home,’ Brooks? But perhaps I may be allowed to console myself with another comparison. Your cottage, Mrs. Galenti, is orderly, serene, peaceful. But up here on the hill we’re Wuthering Heights! Uncomfortable, if you like, unpainted, if you will, unadorned. Yet we still clutch to our remnant of soul. Or do you think I flatter myself, Mrs. Galenti?”
“It must be nice to have read so many books.” Teresa’s tone was perfect. She knew that she was being insulted and that she could not strike back. But she did not whine; she did not crawl; she did not scratch. Her contempt was as high and cold as the wind on Wuthering Heights.
Brooks was suddenly furious. He could have forgiven Fanny anything but an attack on Benny’s wife. Now the cruelty of his revenge was in proportion to her long immunity. “I don’t know why Fanny has to delve so deeply into the literary past for comparisons to our house,” he said bitterly to the Galentis. “I
should think modern writers had examples enough. What about Tobacco Road?”
Fanny turned on her husband, her eyes vibrant with the shock received. “Oh, Brooks, how could you!” she cried, and, clapping her hand to her mouth, she jumped up and ran sobbing from the room.
Benny rose and walked over to his wife. “Come on, Tessie. It looks like we’ve picked the wrong day to call.”
Brooks followed them to the door, muttering apologies, but Benny was very short with him. Brooks understood. It was not so much Fanny’s scene that Benny minded. It was the scene he would have to face from Teresa when they got home.
That night Brooks got very drunk, and the next day he did not go to the office. The following night he got drunk again, but on the morning after Benny called at the house and insisted on driving him to town. All the way in he lectured him.
“You’ve got to pull yourself together, Brooks. I won’t mince words. The gossip is all over the office that you’re going to resign. Mr. Emmons is spreading it. Teresa thinks your case is hopeless. She says I’m wasting my time.”
Brooks, holding his head still to diminish the throb of his hangover, thought how much easier it would be for them both if Benny would only conform to the role that destiny had assigned to him. If he would only concentrate on moving forward and upward, without looking back at those who slipped! Life might be almost endurable if people would stick to their parts and not keep ad-libbing sentimental cliches into a script that was beautifully hard and true. What was intolerable was this constant stopping of a show and turning on the lights, this endless inquiring of “Where are we now?” But how could he stop Benny?
“A man has just so much energy,” he said at last. “Keep yours for those six young Galentis, will you?”
“I can do my job and still look after you, Brooks. How much energy do you think it takes to be an office manager?”
“You should save it for the future, then.”
“Whose future, for God’s sake? Where do you get this crazy idea that I’m going places? A man doesn’t go places from my job. In a capitalist world he’s got to have capital. You know that. You’re just trying to get me off the subject. I’ve got a plan that you’re not going to like, but it can’t be helped. I want to put you in the sanatorium at Brunswick and get you dried out. I . . .”
“Benny, listen to me!” Brooks interrupted excitedly. Oh, he saw his way now! “About this capitalist world. What about the new duplicating machine you talked us into putting in the back office? Didn’t you say it was some kind of miracle?”
“The Xerox? Of course, it is.”
“What’s Xerox stock selling at now?”
“Around a hundred.”
“Well, go buy it, man! Isn’t that your fortune? Buy Xerox!”
“I have bought Xerox. I’ve got a hundred shares. But even at that I had to borrow at the bank and dip into the children’s college fund. If Teresa knew how much, she’d clip my ears back!”
“Buy a thousand! Go ahead. I’ll stake you to it!”
“Jesus, Brooks, do you mean it?”
As Benny gripped the wheel on top, both hands together, and stared tensely ahead down the parkway, Brooks had a sudden suspicion, despite all Benny’s kindness and his conscience, that he had foreseen from the beginning of their drive, not only that this offer would be made, but that it would be accepted. What of it? There would be no further talk now of “drying out.”
4
In the four years that followed the date of this conversation the face of Glenville was lifted—or dropped—depending on one’s point of view. The last line of the old estates was broken, and housing developments proliferated in their debris. Destruction was not confined to the works of man. Hills were leveled, ponds drained, streams deflected from their course. A person who had been away for six months could hardly find his way about; he would discover a supermarket where there had been a meadow, a golf course where there had been a thick wood. The Glenville Country Club, lying across the route of the new parkway, was condemned, and the members were obliged to buy a new site and to plan a new clubhouse. To meet the great expenses of this project the governors decided to enlarge their membership, and it was to induce Benny Galenti to join that Byron Fales, the club president, called on him and Teresa one weekday night after dinner.
“You’ve got a fine place here, Benny,” Fales told him when Teresa had brought him his whiskey. “Such a relief after all the modern junk you see. I like a window to be a window and a door a door. And, goddamnit, I still like a bathroom to be a bathroom.”
Benny watched his guest taking in, piece by piece, the furniture which Teresa had bought at Sloane’s in Manhasset. But Fales was not sarcastic like his cousin Brooks Clarkson. His expression of admiration was perfectly genuine.
“What did the whole thing cost you?” he continued, in his blunt manner. “No, don’t tell me, let me guess. Do you ever watch ‘The Price Is Right’ on TV? I bet the whole works cost you—with the furniture—a hundred and seventy-five g’s.”
Benny laughed. “It’s a good guess.”
“You could have afforded more, of course. I’ve noticed the guys with new fortunes these days are usually conservative spenders.”
“We have everything we need, Mr. Fales,” Teresa said in a slightly sharp tone. It amused Benny that for all her passion to get in with the Fales and their group, she could never wholly control her hot temper. “We have our home and two cars and all the children in private schools. What more do we need to be happy? A Renoir?”
Byron Fales laughed easily. His self-confidence was sublime. He was a Fales, and he had made as much money as Benny in Xerox. His cousin Brooks had told him, late one Saturday night at the club, four years before, in 1962, of his loan to Benny for the thousand shares, and he had been much struck. The following Monday he had purchased a thousand shares for his own account. Did he care that he was stout of girth and coarse of manner, that neither his conversation nor his demeanor suggested the expensive private education, lavished upon him in childhood, that people like the Galentis now sought for their own offspring? Why should he? He knew that all they wanted was the opportunity to bring up their sons to be like Byron Fales.
“A Renoir? I don’t know if you’re talking about a car or a picture, as the Texas oil tycoon is supposed to have said. But is that right? Are all the kids in the Horton School now? I thought Giulia was still in Glenville High.”
“No, she’s in Horton, too,” Teresa said with satisfaction. “Fortunately, there was a vacancy last month.”
“Fortunately, Tessie?” Benny asked dryly.
“Well, fortunately for Giulia, I mean.”
Fales looked shrewdly from Benny to his wife. “What was the vacancy? Oh, yes, that was the Clarkson kid, wasn’t it? Anne. Jesus, can you beat that! Fifteen and taking pot! But what can you expect with parents like hers? Brooks is my cousin and all that, but they’ve certainly let themselves go. Have you been by their house recently? It looks as if they were hanging washing out the window! The new people on that road have complained they’re depreciating the neighborhood.”
“Brooks Clarkson depreciating the neighborhood!” Benny exclaimed with a scornful laugh.
“Well, why not, Benny?” Teresa demanded indignantly. “Mr. Fales is quite right, and they’re his cousins! You’ve got a fixation on Brooks Clarkson, that’s your trouble. A drunk’s a drunk, no matter how blue his blood. Isn’t that so, Mr. Fales? Why, do you know he shoots holes in his ceiling at night, lying on the floor? He’s going to kill somebody one of these days. And his girls are nothing but tramps. People won’t even have them as baby-sitters!”
“Shut up, Tessie!”
“She’s right, Benny,” Fales intervened authoritatively. “She’s absolutely right. Ever since he got kicked out of his law firm, he’s been going downhill like a crazy wagon. If it weren’t for that last little trust my uncle set up, he’d be on relief.”
“What’s that to me?” Benny cried. “I owe him everythi
ng!”
“That’s ridiculous. But I didn’t come here tonight to talk about my disreputable relatives. I came to talk about the new clubhouse. We want you to join, Benny.”
Benny caught the instantly earnest look in Teresa’s eye, her quick small gesture of appeal, and he turned away to hide his mortification. “You must need the money awfully bad,” he muttered. “What’s the tariff?”
“Now that’s no attitude to take,” Fales reproached him. “I’d expect you to take ten thousand of the new club bonds. Sure. That’s what I’m expecting of all the new members. I’m taking twenty myself, in case you’re interested. But that’s not the point. I can get any number of new members for that price. People are lining up around here to get into the Glenville Country Club. The point is that we want people like you.”
“Why? Because my parents were first-generation Italian immigrants? Because I’m a graduate of CCNY? Because Teresa and I are Roman Catholics? Or mackerel snatchers, as you probably call us!”
“Benny!”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Galenti,” Fales reassured her. “He’s not going to get my goat, no matter how hard he tries. I’ll tell you why we want you, Benny. We want you because you and your family are decent people, and that’s a breed that’s getting kind of rare in Nassau County. We want you because you believe in things. Because you believe in your own marriage, for example. Because you believe in bringing up your children properly. I’ll bet none of your kids go in for dope. We want you because you’re the kind of people who still take pride in the American flag and aren’t ashamed to admit it. So there! Call me a Fourth of July windbag. Go ahead!”
“You’re a Fourth of July windbag!”
“Oh, Benny,” his wife cried. “Must you throw away every favor that comes our way? Why do you do it? To spite me?”
The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss Page 25
