These Curious Pleasures

by Sloane Britain

  Dave: "Bibi Johnson? Va-va-voom!"

  Happy: "You said it, sweetheart."

  Dave: "Good, huh? Well, pass her along when you've had your fill."

  Happy: "Don't I always? How's it been going with Sylvia?"

  Dave: "Ah, she's alright but, you know how it is, once they've had you it takes a lot to keep them happy. I'm not as young as I used to be. Those broads you pass on to me are wearing me out. I don't know how you keep up the pace."

  Happy: "Clean living. Well, we'll get together soon, Dave."

  Dave: "Yeah. Well, keep it away from the fan.”

  Happy: "You bet. So long, lover."

  Dave: "Be seeing you."

  I turned off the switchboard after their call. It was time to go home.

  It was a beautiful night so I walked home. Maybe I was afraid to take the subway. It would have been embarrassing to upchuck in front of all those people.

  It seemed as if every time I thought that I had found the lowest point of Happy's depravity, he came up with something new. Full of surprises, that boy. Sure, I was sick to my stomach over what I had heard but did I have any right to complain? It went beyond guilt by association. I knew what was going on in that office so, if I continued to work there, I was an accomplice in Happy's dirt.

  So, as I walked the thirty-odd blocks to my apartment, I reviewed my day in Happy's den of duplicity. Taking it from the top, there was the bit with Marv Banner. I didn't worry about that one too long. As far as I was concerned, he could steal him blind. After what he did to Allison, I couldn't care less if Marv were drawn and quartered by his agents. He deserved everything he got.

  Playing up to Amy by blasting her husband was crummy. For one thing, I just couldn't help feeling that the whole thing was in deplorable taste. It really bothered me that Amy went for it. Like I've said, I thought a lot of her as a person.

  Of course, Amy didn't know how rotten the whole thing was. She didn't know about Happy's real relationship with her husband. Laughing Boy deliberately kept the two of them at each other's throat. It suited his purposes. That way, Amy needed an understanding man to turn to. And there was Papa Broadman, ready and all too willing to remind Amy how much she needed him to confide in.

  Then, there was the issue of the investments in the pilot. Not only had Happy made sure that Amy wouldn't get any dividends on her Broadson, Inc. stock for several years to come by using all their capital to back the pilot, but he had also gone behind Amy's back in getting money from her personal funds. If anything went wrong, Dave Ferguson would bear the brunt of the responsibility.

  Dave Ferguson and whoever else he had told might believe that story about Happy's investing his own money but I wasn't buying it. It would be too much like expecting a thief to rob a bank where he kept his own savings.

  Golden Boy Broadman was going pretty far in swindling the network. The slightest questionable item and the network's legal department would murder him. It didn't bother me much that he might get away with swindling the network out of a few thousand dollars. They could afford it. Guess I'm some sort of latter day Robin Hood… although you could hardly call lining Happy's pockets helping the poor. What did get me was the utter audacity of the guy. All by his sweet little lonesome he was going to try to dupe some of the best legal experts in the industry.

  The height of sophistication: Happy telling Dave Ferguson to ignore the fact that his wife's personal secretary was a lesbian. Neither of those two bums appeared to realize that the relationship went, not only beyond a business one into a friendship, but beyond that. Happy neglected to mention that Dave would find himself without his main means of support if Chris were to stop acting as a buffer between him and Amy.

  And when did Amy tell Happy that she was so in love with her husband? Must have been when drunk... when Happy was drunk, not Amy.

  Happy had no business telling Amy that her husband was unfaithful but neither should he encourage and participate in Ferguson's perfidies.

  A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell. More so, he doesn't make gifts of his past girl friends, complete with references. There's a word for that. What difference would it make? I could call Harold Broadman a pimp to his face and it wouldn't faze him. My opinion wouldn't matter to him. What good could I do for him? Happy only cared about being liked by the upper echelon of show business. He didn't even give a plugged option what opinion they had of his personality. Just so long as he was considered a man to be respected in business matters he was satisfied.

  Altogether a most unpretty picture. Someone else might have smelled the multitudinous rats around that place sooner but the great brain, Sloane Britain, had taken six months to get the scoop. There was undoubtedly even more that I hadn't yet learned. I knew enough, however. The time had come to make a decision. The job had lots of advantages but, after that afternoon's revelations, I shared responsibility for what went on there every minute longer that I continued to work in that office.

  I climbed the steps to my apartment grimly aware of the necessity for an immediate clear-headed appraisal of my plans for the future... and a stronger conviction that I was going to devote great effort to drinking myself stoned that night.

  CHAPTER 11

  Allison was a big help. She thought my idea about getting zonked a splendid one. We bought enough booze to float the Saratoga, set it up with ice, glasses, etc. on the sideboard and proceeded to goof it up. I was half-drunk already from not sleeping and the firewater finished the job. Allison got loaded for the first time since I had met her. She was even more adorable that way. Maybe I thought so because in the condition I was in the view from left field made almost everything look good. Like I was digging her the most. It matters why?

  While I could still articulate, I told her about what had happened. Not only that day, I filled her in on all the smut I had learned about during the preceding six months.

  When I finished, Allison said, "Now I know who killed Cock Robin."

  "Who?"

  "Happy Broadman. He didn't do it himself, of course. He made Cinderella do it by hitting him with her glass slipper. Then, when she married the Prince, Happy was the caterer for the reception. The Prince and Cinderella had a baby boy named Twinkletoes. Happy had a contract with them so they had to let him perform the circumcision. He used a serpent's tooth instead of a knife so the child was traumatized and grew up to be Rumplestilskin."

  "Brother, you're gone, my love. Like way out. Before you lose contact altogether, what about helping me decide what to do?"

  "That's simple, come to California with me."

  "Whether or not I go to California with you will be decided independent of my employment status. The question is, for the sake of argument presuming that I'm going to keep living and working in New York, should I quit my present job?"

  "I refuse to accept the basic premise. Therefore, I can't help you decide. I will not even think of your staying in New York. You're corning to California."

  "Dictating to me again?"

  "No, using Pavlovian conditioning. I figure that if I repeat it often enough I’ll brainwash you till you can't do anything else but come with me."

  "There's another word for it," I said.

  "Nagging?"

  "Precisely. I had enough of it at home. My mother could have won prizes if they held contests in nagging."

  "So now I'm like your mother?" Allison said teasingly.

  "Yes, and I don't like it. Cut it out."

  "What's the matter with you? You're supposed to go for it."

  "I don't want you to be a mother to me," I protested.

  "Nonsense. You're gay and therefore you're seeking mother substitutes with whom to re-enact the primal situation. I read that somewhere once."

  "You read books?!!! Thank God that I found out before it was too late. I've heard about people like you. Your kind is trying to undermine the very foundations of this country. I heard that once at a Klu Klux Klan meeting. Fellow who had the local tar and feather concession was talking. Very int
eresting talk, very timely. I learned all about you all city folks that night. You people with book larnin' is a menace to decent folks."

  Allison crossed over to in front of the television set. "May I take this occasion to announce that one member of the Literate Society to Stamp Out Mom and Apple Pie is in her cups? In fact, you might say I'm inebriated. No, I like four sheets to the wind better. All my sheets unfurled and spread out to catch the vagrant winds." She spread her arms out wide to illustrate. The gesture knocked her off balance and she swayed back against the TV set. It knocked the rabbit ears antenna down and it fell around her, one limb on each side of her shoulders. Allison pondered this for a moment and then looked up with a profound expression. "That's me... symmetry always."

  I roared. When I recovered myself, I said, "I have just discovered that I'm in love with the kookiest woman in New York."

  "You just find that out?"

  "No, I've known it right along but that last bit finished me. Allison my love, you win the prize for irresistible insanity. You're marvelous, my love, simply marvelous."

  "You really mean that?"

  "As James Joyce would put it, 'Yes'."

  That cracked her up. She fell all over me with love. Ever been kissed by someone who can't stop laughing? Their lips keep sort of trembling. It tickles.

  I mixed us another drink. Halfway through that one I began to get "Sloane's Reaction" (that's the name I gave it. If Bright could have a disease named for him, why couldn't I have a response to liquor in my name?). "Sloane's Reaction" consisted of most of the effect of the alcohol being concentrated in one particular area. Some people get weak in the knees from booze. Up about a foot and a half was bull's-eye for anything I drank.

  If we were going to come to any solution that night I'd have to push the conversation right then, before my mind goofed off with my body. "Allison."

  "Yes, baby?"

  "Ugh. Don't use that word now. Since you brought up that mother substitute routine I've gotten self-conscious about it."

  "You never objected when I used it before."

  "I know. But now it's too blatant. I crave subtlety in my regressive acting outs."

  "Who's been reading books now?" She lifted one eyebrow mockingly. Allison did this as she winked, by closing both eyes and then opening one. Perfectly adorable. "Anyway, tell me how I can subtly shanghai you aboard the plane to California next week?"

  "Allison! Please, baby... I mean, darling... try to be serious for a moment. We could reach a conclusion about this in a few minutes. Then, I promise you, I won't bother you with any more of my troubles for the rest of the night."

  Allison composed her face into that absurd caricature of attentiveness that drunks wear. It was ludicrous. She looked as if she were trying to convince an arresting officer of her sobriety.

  "Don't you have any thoughts on the subject?" I asked.

  "Sure," she said, looking very grave. "To me it's all very simple. I don't know why you insist on making a prime spot production out of it."

  She stopped speaking. I could see the alcoholic fuzziness creeping back into her eyes. I fought it fast.

  "So it's simple. So tell me about it," I said.

  "Very simple. Lovely girl, Sloane Britain, wonderful girl... but she's got some strange idea about herself."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Like she thinks she's some kind of real down cynic. A mentally retarded orangutan would see through that pose five minutes after meeting her. But she's lived with herself for over twenty years and she still believes most of the nonsense she tells herself. Very sad."

  I was beginning to feel highly uncomfortable. The truth doesn't always hurt. More often it is just embarrassing as all hell.

  "So, being the adorable idiot that she is, she thinks that she can work in an office where honesty and sincerity are dirty words," Allison continued. "She thinks that she ought to believe that all human beings are out to exploit each other. So what difference does it make if Happy Broadman happens to have carried exploitation to the point of being an art? Cynic Sloane wants to think that working for him might be a good idea. She might learn the fine points of being self-seeking from her boss."

  Allison stopped and stared at me fixedly. Then she stretched out on the couch with her head in my lap.

  She was still staring at me with eyes that held a potpourri expression of amusement, compassion, mischievousness, and advanced inebriation.

  I was no temperance advertisement myself. Otherwise, I don't think I could have taken her observations. That she was saying those things at that time didn't bother me too much. What got me was realizing that she had most likely held the same opinions for a long time. All the while that I had been trying to come on as a juvenile delinquent version of a composite of Messrs Shaw, Wilde and Voltaire, with a dash of Dorothy Parker thrown in, Allison had been seeing through it.

  "My beloved Miss Britain," she went on, "I have news for you. You're no cynic. Sure, you see that life and people are ludicrous. It's the foundation of your humor. You laugh at the absurdity of everything and everybody, including yourself. Nothing wrong with that, human beings are ridiculous and some people, I among them, suspect that life is nothing but a cosmic joke."

  She raised one finger, like a platform lecturer about to make a point. Instead, she continued the gesture upward and grasped a strand of my hair with it. She continued to play with the lock of my hair throughout the remainder of her discourse.

  "In fact, at the risk of having you throw an apoplectic fit, I will go so far as to say that I think you're almost naively idealistic. Emotionally, I mean. Intellectually you know that the great majority of people will be doing more good when they're fertilizing the flowers than they ever did in their lifetimes.

  "Now, to the point of all this: In the light of your aforementioned idealism, it is my opinion (don't blame me, you asked me for it) that for you to continue working for Happy Broadman would be self-destructive. In fact, I would predict that before too long one of two things would happen if you did. Either you'd get the screaming meemies or an ulcer or some other form of hysteria... or you'd blow the whole works one day by denouncing Happy to his face and putting yourself through a highly unpleasant scene. So, wouldn't you agree that it's a better idea for you to quit your job now before things get any messier than they are?"

  "I... I guess so," I said weakly.

  "Good. I'm glad that's taken care of. Now, Sloane," Allison's voice became pathetically beseeching, "could I get drunk again? I had such a lovely buzz on before."

  Placing me on an equal footing again. Restoring the frayed edges of my ego by asking my permission. Having me mix the drinks for us both like I was the efficient hostess and she only an invited guest dependent on my largesse. What a woman!

  More than ever before I was aware of my luck. Allison was the kind of woman most men looked for all their lives and never found. Warm, loving, intelligent, beautiful, charming and completely feminine. And she was in love with me!

  My moment of humility didn't last but at the time I was filled with wonder... what did someone like Allison see in me? Could it have something to do with the rotten things that had happened to me before? Maybe there was something to that idea of suffering being rewarded?

  I stayed deeply engrossed in remembering what Allison had said. Not that I was thinking about it or analyzing it. It was more like I kept repeating her words to myself. Like it was religious. Like I had had a mystical experience or something.

  All right, so everything Allison had said was so true of me it hurt. So what? This proves I should pack up and follow her across the country? Maybe I was making too big a deal over it? After all, she hadn't told me anything new about myself. I knew those things about myself, I just acted as if I didn't because I fully expected by doing the right things I would someday become more like what I was on the outside.

  That naive idealist routine, for instance. I knew that underneath my assumed hard exterior (hard like glass... impervious to all but
the sharpest assaulters but likely to shatter if hit by the wrong tone of voice) I was like somebody's overgrown dog, ready at any time to pledge undying devotion to any slob who threw me the right bone. Lucky for me no one did. The gimmick was that I thought that continually assaulting my naive convictions with the seamy facts of reality would eventually penetrate and teach me to be less trusting. The way I saw it, you had to be tough. Real hard, like steel or the world would walk all over you. I was in great shape. I thought I was like the most mature, well-informed on all the latest trends in morbidity, a regular Hedda Hopper of neurotica. The truth was that I had gotten older but not much smarter. I was still mentally only on the second landing and the window wasn't open.

  The big deal was that someone else had seen through the facade. It's possible Allison wasn't the first one to do so. I was having conniptions because she was the first one who had the conviction to let me know what she saw. Can't blame most people if they kept their thoughts to themselves. Usually, I had had an aversion to people giving me their analyses of my psyche. Among the literati of New York City that's the favorite indoor sport. Like charades, every goof who had read a magazine article about psychology felt qualified to play the game, what was the other guy acting out? That jazz gave me the chills. Those lovelies wouldn't dream of diagnosing a physical illness but they had no qualms about regarding themselves experts in the science of psychology. I didn't go for it and I wouldn't put up with hearing half-baked interpretations of my unresolved Oedipal conflict and all that sort of stuff. That stuff's for the professionals. I must have frustrated a lot of armchair Freuds in my time. Tough, baby dolls, real tough.

  What really counted was that Allison loved me. She saw through me but that didn't mean she didn't like what she saw. That meant that she had a right to see the personality I presented to the world and the .private one I had gone to such lengths to submerge. After all, she loved both sides of me and that's what really mattered.

  "Hey, come back. You haven't said a word for ten minutes."

  "I was thinking about one of the reasons why I love you," I said.