Desperate Asylum

by Fletcher Flora

  “What the hell you laughing for, then?”

  “I was just thinking about something Avery told me once.”

  “Oh, well, pardon me all to hell. I certainly wouldn’t want to intrude on a private joke. How’s Avery managing to get along down there with all those Mexican gals and everything?”

  “Fine. He’s married.”

  “The hell you say!”

  “That’s right. He married a girl in Miami and took her to Mexico City with him.”

  “Well, I’ll be! Imagine old Avery doing something like that. Maybe he got hooked. You think so? Sometimes when these highbrow guys get out of town on the loose, they really pop their corks.”

  “I doubt that Avery popped his cork.”

  “He never seemed like the kind that would. I’ll admit that.”

  “He’s not highbrow, either. Avery’s a mighty nice guy when you get to know him.”

  “Hell, I didn’t mean any offense. If you say so, Em, he’s a ring-tailed wonder. He’s the greatest guy in the world. Did he say who he married?”

  “Yes. A girl named Lisa Sheridan. Apparently she’s the sister of some fellow Avery knew in college. She’s from Midland City. She and her brother and Avery got together down in Miami, and it was just a natural development from there, I guess. I’m glad for Avery myself. It was time he got married.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? Because he’s thirty years old and the last of his family, that’s why. Because a man needs a warm bed to get into at night, that’s why.”

  “Nuts. A guy with Avery’s dough wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone to warm his bed for him. The truth of the matter is, it just drives a married guy crazy to see another guy who’s had sense enough to stay single. Misery loves company, as the saying goes.”

  “Well, speaking of misery, you’re just about the most miserable bastard I’ve seen in a long time, Marv. Maybe you better have a shot in spite of the rules.”

  “Nope. Can’t do it, Em. Thanks just the same.” Marv finished his coffee in a big gulp, his prominent Adam’s apple jumping over the swallow, and stood up. “Got to be on my appointed rounds. Neither sun nor rain nor sleet nor snow, et cetera. Or something like that. See you tomorrow with another load of ads for bar supplies.”

  “Just so you don’t bring anything from Aunt Lucy.” Marv heaved his bag onto his shoulder and walked toward the front door. He was wearing galoshes, and the tops flopped together in passing with a harsh rasping sound. At the door he met Roscoe coming in.

  “Hello, courier,” Roscoe said.

  “Crap,” Marv said.

  He went on out into the street on Aunt Lucy’s business, and Roscoe walked back to the rear of the bar and hung his hat and overcoat and suit coat in a closet. From the same closet he removed a starched white jacket and put it on. Back in the old days, in the old owl diner, he’d been sloppy about his clothes, and his shirts had been more often soiled than not, but since he’d come to work as bartender for Emerson, there had been a complete reversal of this, and he was always scoured and polished and pressed until he looked positively antiseptic. He walked up behind the bar from the closet to where Emerson stood looking at the rest of his mail.

  “Bills?” he said.

  Emerson laughed and shook his head. “Too early for bills, Roscoe. Look for them next week.”

  “Just ads, I guess. Everyone selling something.”

  “Mostly. There’s a letter from Avery Lawes.”

  “No kidding? Looks like he’s adopted you or something. Didn’t you get a card from Miami about a month ago?”

  “Nearer six weeks. He’s in Mexico City now.”

  “My God, isn’t it awful to have money? Here we are, wading around in this God-damn slop, and Avery takes it easy in the sun. Wonder when he’s coming home?”

  “Early spring, probably. He said so in the letter.”

  “Nice. Gets cold, go away. Gets warm, come back. Well, I wish I could afford to do the same thing. Can’t take the winters like I used to. When you get older, they get rougher. Can’t shake the colds, somehow. I’ve had a snotty nose for three months.”

  “You been feeling bad? Why the hell didn’t you say so? Anytime you’re feeling bad, you knock off work, Roscoe. You hear me? Anytime.”

  “Who wants to knock off? As far as I’m concerned, this is the best place in the world to be. Right here in this bar. I hope I die here. Go out fast, before I know what’s hit me, no regrets and no expectations, right here with this strip of mahogany between me and the world. Mahogany’s nice, you know? Best wood there is. Only request I’ve got to make, Em, is to be buried in a mahogany box. Will you see to it?”

  “You’re tough as cowhide, Roscoe. I’ll be six under long before you are.”

  “Not so, Em. How old do you think I am? Close to seventy, I’ll tell you. I’ve damn near had my three score and ten. Biblical allotment, you know. The old pump has to work at things now. I can hear it breathing with its mouth open. Well, to hell with that. Anything new with Avery?”

  “A wife.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. A wife, I said. He’s got himself married.”

  “Jesus Christ, just wait until that news breaks!”

  “Why? What happens?”

  “Are you kidding? It’s treason, that’s what it is. When Avery got hitched, it was supposed to be with a Corinth gal. You know that. Among the mothers with eligible daughters there will be such a weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as hasn’t been heard since the fall of Jerusalem.”

  “You think so? You can start listening for the first sounds, then, because I just told Marv Groggins, and you know what that means.”

  “Sure. If Marv had been living in 1775, Paul Revere wouldn’t have had a chance. And where would that have left Longfellow? What the hell rhymes with Groggins?”

  “Noggins, toboggans, floggin’s.”

  “No fair dropping g’s. Longfellow was a Harvard graduate. Wasn’t he?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Anyhow, I think you’re exaggerating a little. About the reaction to Avery’s getting married, that is.”

  “Well, maybe. It may not be noisy, but it will damn sure be real. Foreigners are all right in their places, you know, but Avery Lawes’ bed isn’t one of the places where they’re all right. Not with a license for it, anyhow. If I were Avery’s wife, I’d be preparing myself for dissection. Who’d you say she is?”

  “I didn’t say. Her name was Lisa Sheridan, though, according to Avery’s letter. She comes from Midland City.”

  “Native state, anyhow. That may help a little. How did it happen?”

  “It was just a short letter. Just a note. All I know is, Avery knew her brother in college, and they happened to be staying in the same hotel in Miami. The girl and her brother were there together. I don’t think Avery had ever met her before.”

  “I had an idea Avery was a confirmed bachelor. Like me. Anyhow, the best of luck to him. Good bedding, good breeding, good fortune.”

  “That sounds like a toast. Did you make it up?”

  “Right in my old bald head.”

  “I’d like to drink it to him, Roscoe. To Avery and his new wife. In good bourbon.”

  “Old Taylor, Old Crow, Old Grandad?”

  “You pick it and pour it.”

  Roscoe set out two glasses and reached for a bottle. “What’s given you this sudden affection for Avery Lawes?” he said.

  “Can’t a man wish another man well in his marriage without being in love with him?”

  “Sure, he can, Em. A guy like you wishes everyone well, because it’s the way he’s put together, but I’ve got a feeling this is a little more than that. It’s almost you’re worried about him. Like you’re afraid he isn’t goin
g to have the luck you’re wishing for him.”

  Emerson looked into the good bourbon and remembered the night he’d driven Avery home. He had remembered it often, and it bothered him, and he didn’t like being bothered, and he wished there was some way to get it out of his mind for good and all. The trouble was, he couldn’t lose the feeling that Avery had been appealing for help that night, and that he, Emerson, had given him none whatever. But what the hell! A guy all fouled up inside might need help, and he might need it bad, but Emerson Page was the last person on earth he ought to go to to try to get it. Emerson Page just wasn’t any good at that kind of stuff, even if he tried, and the only kind of trouble he could understand a guy’s having was something like going broke or getting arrested or having a fight with his wife.

  “Did I ever tell you about the night I drove Avery home?” he said. “Last November, it was. The night before he left for Miami.”

  “I remember the night. You never told me anything about it, though.”

  “Actually, there isn’t a lot to tell. He was just all wound up, that’s all. But it didn’t seem like something recent. You know what I mean. Not like something that had come in a hurry, over something in particular, and would leave the same way. It was something that had been building up in him for a long time. For years.”

  “Maybe he just needed what he found in Miami and took to Mexico City.”

  “Sure. That’s probably it. Well, anyhow, here it is, Roscoe. To Avery Lawes and Mrs. Avery Lawes. Good bedding, good breeding, good fortune.”

  They touched glasses and drank the mellow bourbon. Roscoe took the glasses and dripped them in a solution of disinfectant and began to polish them. Through the archway in the dining room, the luncheon crowd had started to gather, and Emerson stood listening to the undulation of voices in the aggregate and the small, brisk sounds of service. Three men came in from the street and lined up at the bar, and Roscoe went to take care of them. He set out three bottles of Budweiser with glasses and returned to Emerson.

  “It’s almost noon. You having lunch now?”

  “Pretty soon. I think I’ll go up and see if Ed wants lo come down. She was asleep when I left this morning.”

  “Sure. You go see Ed. I’ll handle things here. Give Ed my best.”

  “I’ll do that. How about you? You had anything to eat?”

  “Not yet. I’ll grab a sandwich later.”

  “Want me to have one sent in from the kitchen?”

  “If you don’t mind. Make it roast beef.”

  “Right. See you later, Roscoe.”

  He went through the dining room, skirting the edge, and into the kitchen. After stopping long enough to give instructions about Roscoe’s sandwich, he went on up the stairs to the apartment, reflecting on the way that it was really quite remarkable how he kept on feeling year after year when he was returning to Ed, even after a very short time of being away, not exactly excited, because excitement is something that is for very special occasions and would not be possible or desirable as emotional accompaniment for every small event, but quietly alive with a feeling of anticipation and eagerness and expectancy. You never quite knew with Ed. You never quite knew what would be next, but you knew, whatever it was, that it would be interesting.

  He went into the living room, and she wasn’t there, and so he crossed over to the bedroom door and looked in, and she was. She was dressed in a dark blue wool dress that fit her like a kid glove, and she was standing in front of the full length mirror on the back of the closet door, with her back to the mirror, and she was holding up the skirt of the dress and looking over her shoulder into the glass to see if the seams of her stockings were straight.

  “They are,” he said.

  She saw him in the mirror and smiled and turned her head lazily.

  “Hello, darling. What are?”

  “Your seams. Straight, I mean.”

  “Yes. They do seem to be, don’t they? The stockings are a new shade. Do you like them?”

  “They’re well-filled. I’ll say that for them.”

  “Thank you. One of the very nicest things about you is the way you say flattering things with only the slightest prompting.”

  “With you, it’s easy. Is that a new dress too?”

  “I bought it a couple days ago. And don’t ask how much it cost, because I won’t tell you.”

  “Who’s asking? All I want to know is, do you put it on or paint it on?”

  “Really? Is it that tight?”

  “I was just joking, darling. You have nothing to hide.”

  “Oh, you. Was I asleep when you left this morning?”

  “You were. With your mouth open.”

  “That’s a dirty lie. Malicious slander. I could sue you for saying that.”

  “For what? Divorce?”

  “Well, no. I don’t think I want a divorce. Not even separate maintenance. Just wife support, let’s say. In return for a consistent and satisfactory performance of wifely duties, of course. I’ll tell you what. Right now I’ll settle out of court for enough to do some shopping with this afternoon.”

  “Agreed. I always like to keep these family hassles in the home, if possible.”

  He walked across to her dressing table, removing his billfold from the right hip pocket of his trousers as he went, and laid some bills on the glass top of the table beside her hair brush. She came over and picked them up and counted them and brushed his lips with hers for each bill.

  “Thank you, darling.”

  “Not at all. You smell very good. I like that scent you’re wearing. It’s sharp and clean. There’s a word to describe it, but I can’t think of the word.”

  “Astringent?”

  “That’s it. Astringent. Isn’t it lucky that I have a wife who reads too?”

  “What’s the exact implication of that too, man?”

  “Well, do you cook? Do you sew? Shall I continue making an inventory of your talents?”

  “Never mind. The trouble with you is, you have a distorted sense of values. You’re just blind to all my other fine accomplishments.”

  “It’s your fault. Once I was a clean lad with a pure mind, but you’ve corrupted me.”

  “Whoa! Down, boy! Let’s think about lunch.”

  “That’s what I really came up about, come to think of it, to see if you want to have lunch with your husband. However, I’ve been distracted. It always distracts me to see a wife in a new blue dress. There’s sautéed chicken livers.”

  “Oh, good. That’s what I’ll have. Just give me time to go over my face lightly. Talk to me. Tell me what happened downstairs this morning.”

  “Nothing much. I handled the bar until Roscoe came in. Marv Groggins had a cup of coffee on the house and bellyached about Aunt Lucy.”

  “Marv Groggins has an Aunt Lucy? I find that incredible. I find it wholly incredible that Marv has any relatives at all. I assumed that he was born by a kind of spontaneous combustion in a rotten stump.”

  “Oh, Marv isn’t so bad. Just windy, that’s all. Anyhow, he doesn’t actually have an Aunt Lucy. Aunt Lucy is just someone who stands for anyone who is sadistic enough to write a letter for some poor postman to peddle.”

  “I see. What’s his solution? Slaughter Aunt Lucy and sell her to the glue factory?”

  “No. Nothing so drastic. He only wants to charge her a dollar for a stamp.”

  “That figures. In Marv’s little mind, almost anything figures. Did we get a letter from Aunt Lucy?”

  “Not Aunt Lucy. Avery Lawes.”

  “You don’t tell me. Has he got himself cleaned out? Wasn’t that the way he put it?”

  “Yes, that was the way. Apparently he’s done a damn good job of it in a pretty short time. He’s married.”

  “Is that so? Good for
Avery. Blessings on him and everything.”

  “You don’t seem very surprised about it.”

  “Why the hell should I be surprised when a man thirty years old gets married? It’s something that could have happened any time.”

  “I mean, Avery being what he is and all. Or was. Or seemed. You remember what I told you about the night I took him home last November.”

  “That hocus pocus about the Mexican musician? How long does a man go on brooding about something that happened when he was a kid?”

  “Maybe the Mexican business was just part of it. Incidentally, Avery and his wife are in Mexico City right now.”

  “Yes? Do you suppose there’s a psychological reason for Avery’s going back there? Something like a criminal returning to the scene of his crime? Well, maybe he’ll stray off and have a female Mexican musician for himself, and that will fix everything up. Sort of cancel out the other time.”

  “That would be very neat.”

  “Wouldn’t it? I like things to work out neatly. Do we know his wife?”

  “No. Her name was Sheridan. Lisa Sheridan. She comes from Midland City.”

  “That close? It’s funny, isn’t it, how two people so near each other have to go all the way to Miami to meet?”

  “I guess so. Lots of people go to Miami in the winter, though. The ones who can afford it.”

  He moved up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She stopped fooling with her lipstick and tipped her head back and looked up at him through her lashes.

  “Sautéed chicken livers, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just keep them in your mind. Concentrate on them. Keep thinking about chicken livers, and you’ll be perfectly all right. Darling, you’re not concentrating.”

  “I’m trying, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”

  “Damn it, Em, you’re messing me up.”

  “Chicken livers, chicken livers, chicken livers. Why doesn’t it work, Ed? What is this sudden madness that will not submit even to the thought of chicken livers?”