Schultz

by J. P. Donleavy

  “You cunt, you schlemiel, you cunt.”

  “I can explain Al, what happened.”

  Schultz catching his breath. Al disappearing. Feet pounding down the hall. Christ, the crazy train I’m on is moving again. Good morning folks, welcome to Horrorsville, you have just left Happytown Junction three thousand miles behind.

  Louella now with a towel, transfixed, dazed and watching. Schultz heaving over the breakfast tray. Dishes, bottles, jam, butter, maple syrup, honey and the jug of coffee crashing on the floor. Schultz hop skipping and jumping. For his clothes. And life. One foot in the honey, the other in the jam. And a heel crushing a lens of Al’s sunglasses. Who’s at the door again. His toupee off. Brandishing a breadknife.

  “Stay where you are. Don’t either of you move.”

  “Al don’t be crazy. I thought you were in New Orleans.”

  “Yeah. You thought. And now think again. Because you don’t think, do you. That your own wife has you followed. You didn’t think of that smart guy, did you. That she would phone me. That I would get a plane so fast back here. To catch you. You never figured that wise guy, did you. That your balls are coming off.”

  Louella holding her towel up. Wish the color wasn’t so blood red. O god if it was white it could be me imprinted on that, like the image of Jesus Christ on the shroud. And that poor kid is trembling and pleading.

  “O please, Al, please. It’s all my fault.”

  “Louella, you keep quiet. I still love you. No matter what happens. But him. I hate. I despise. I loathe. Up here. Wearing my sunglasses. With my wine, my woman. He had all this planned.”

  “Never Al, I swear. Don’t be crazy Al. It just happened to us.”

  “Well now this is going to happen to you.”

  “Christ Al no. Please I’m begging. For your sake more than mine. Spending the last years of your life in prison. Or your last seconds on the end of a rope. Al I can explain everything.”

  Al stepping forward a step. Schultz backing away. The foot in the jam now into the honey. And the other foot in the honey, now in the jam. Because holy shit, jelly don’t shake or feel like that. What thoughts come into your mind at the end of your life. They were irresponsible to abolish capital punishment.

  “I came here with flowers, for you Al, I swear.”

  “And for you, you lousy rat, your grave is going to get the flowers.”

  Al taking another step forward. Schultz pushing back against the bed. Christ my fucking nerves are making me shake looking like I’m scared shitless. Jesus I am. With Al’s breadknife held out like his prick should be if only he ever could get a hard on. Poor Louella, clutching the towel over her face. Her sobs. And plaintive cries. The poor kid.

  “O Al, Al please no, don’t. Please.”

  “This is what happens behind my back. You trespassing rapist. In my own home. My dining room table in there, still with the wine glasses. My bed, defiled. My food, feeding him. My girl, used. By this sneaking cunt.”

  “Al I’m telling you. Let’s talk it out. You could be hung. If the death penalty comes back. Put the knife down. I’m in love with Louella. We love each other.”

  “You love that thing hanging between your legs. That’s all you love. And I’m going to cut it off.”

  “For fucks sake Al.”

  “Your own wife, your own wife has to go to Court to take possession of the matrimonial home. That’s right. She has a court order. The locks changed on the doors. With a policeman there to protect her life. And the twins she’s pregnant with. From the likes of you. Cowering there.”

  “Twins. Holy mackerel. And I’m not cowering Al. You put down that knife and I’ll knock the fucking shit out of you.”

  “You will huh, will you.”

  “Come on, Al. Face truth. She loves me. Don’t you love me Louella. Tell him. To his face.”

  Louella her head hung down. Like the wet strands of her hair. Legs quivering. Her hands trembling the towel. Al turning to her.

  “Louella. Now I’m asking you. And I want you to tell me the truth. Choose between us. This sneaky cunt is not worth killing. So choose. Is it me or is it him.”

  Louella, her whole body shaking. Her lips moving, as she tries to make a sound. Holy Jesus, this is all this fucker can do. Force her to choose at the point of a breadknife. The quality of the American people is declining like hell. Here is a prime example. The son of a bitch has said things for which he is going to be sorry for later. If I got that knife I’d shift it up through his fucking belly, rip his guts out, sprinkle them with rat poison, and stuff his mouth shut forever with entrails. O Jesus, amazing how even the most satisfying thoughts can find fertile ground in a desperate mind. I’d also tear that I’m king of the apes expression right off his face. Tell him Louella. Come on kid, tell him. That tonight he’s not taking you down to the East End like he usually does on Sundays to eat jellied eels and then stuff salt beef, bagels and pickles down his gullet. His Lordship asked me once if I had ever noticed how people who have not had much luck in life are always out of breath. I feel as if I haven’t had oxygen in two years. If I could scare Al backwards. Grab something to throw at him. Maybe words are better at this time. With the size of that foot long knife. His Lordship said I should be more English about my remonstrations. Don’t say I could kill you. The proper expression is Schultz, sir I assure you I shall shatter your stumps and make mugwump of what remains. Holy christ I knew it. Knew what. Know that guys stop whistling at a certain time in a woman’s age and she doesn’t know when till it’s happened. Also I know. That I don’t want to be around for my wife’s menopause. And maybe there’s nothing else I know. Except that something else could happen. Like it has. When yesterday in a Piccadilly churchyard. A few minutes resting. A bird shat on my shoulder. That was good luck. That I didn’t want to press too far. I got up and changed my seat. And another bird shat on my sleeve. And that was bad. But you’d think I wouldn’t be so dumb as not to take the warning. When the god damn bird crapped again right down on my chest over my heart. I should have gone back to the hotel last night. And happily without life threatening complications, jerked off. And been followed and watched, would you believe it, by a private eye.

  Louella’s head bent down, still shaking all over. Her ankles are a little heavy but Jesus she has a nice curve to her calf. Come on. Honey. Tell the fucker. Do it. Before his heart trouble needs an ambulance to the hospital.

  “I want to stay with you Al.”

  Al wheeling around. Crouched moving towards Schultz. Who backing away, knees buckling, sat down onto a stainless steel four pronged fork on the bed. Schultz jumping up. One hand clutching his arse. Al holding forward the knife. Schultz sticking his arms up over his head. Louella screaming.

  “Don’t Al. Please. Let him go.”

  “I’m letting him go alright. Unless he makes another false move. Come on you. You just gather up what you can get of your clothes in two seconds flat. And you get the fuck out of here. And don’t ever let me see sight of you again as long as you live.”

  Schultz grabbing in all directions. Hands sticky with honey, fingers encrusted in jam. Clutching undervest, undershorts, Tripping over his shirt tails. O motherfucker my shoes I took off in the next room. And my pants I flung over the bronze bust of Al’s head. But thank god so far I haven’t provoked the fucker with a hard on.

  “Al please let me put on something. My pants.”

  “You get out that front door or this knife will be sticking out your ass.”

  “Al I got only half my clothes. I’m naked. At least let me call a limousine.”

  “I’m counting to three. One. Two.”

  “I’m going, please, can’t you let me find my pants, my shoes.”

  “I’ll find them. And throw them out the window. You catch them down in the street. You creep. You’ll get the bill for the damage too. Now get out that fucking door. And never set foot through it again.”

  Schultz taking the service elevator down to the basement. After a
scream from a lady occupant of Al’s floor collecting in her stack of Sunday newspapers. O god. You’d think that fucker Al’s heart couldn’t stand it. But it’s like his hatred of me has given him a new lease in life. Imagine that fossilized geriatric gloating while I’m now walking barefoot around the world in shirt tails.

  Schultz crouching along the wall of the garage driveway and looking up. Shoes. Plummeting down. Schultz ducking away as they bounced. The fuckers throwing them straight at me trying to hit me. Holy cow my trousers floating past all the windows in slow motion. Like it’s taking years. Three people’s heads already stick out to look. Thank god, the English don’t believe in god. And are not all over the streets going to church.

  Schultz, his sticky hands pulling on his trousers inside the tower’s boiler room. Tins, cans and bottles thundering down a chute and crashing in a big iron cradle. And Jesus the cunt. He’s sliced open my shoe laces. Stabbed the zipper out of my fly. I’m down here among the dust bins. With London grime on the windows, sashes and sills. Corroded facings. Bubbling paint. Like I’ve been thrown out with the garbage.

  Schultz heading across the grass and through the trees. Towards the stone mansion civilisation of Park Lane. Shuffling in shoes. Past Speakers Corner. While I walk. I hobble. With O my god, my fucking wallet gone. Son of a bitch blacks up there on crates bellyaching they got troubles. I could tell you troubles. Which would turn your skin white. I should have known a detective was following me. When Pricilla phoned Lulu Lullabyebaby to give her some of that I’m a poor abandoned wife shit. And Lulu who is no slouch when it comes to losing her temper, lashed into her with a vocal ferocity so intense that Pricilla dropped the phone and dared not pick it up again. Here I am. Glad even for the heat of a bus engine enveloping me as it pulls up to a bus stop. Cork tipped cigarette butts in the gutter. Greasy dust. Greasy pavements. This London. This life. This is what I don’t understand. I’m sentenced to ignominy. For doing what god and nature ordained. Fucking hell. I’d shout out right here blue bloody murder. Only that his Lordship says that in England it’s mildly bad manners to say things that people will listen to.

  Or make

  Them shudder

  When I

  Holler

  Out of

  Lonely pain

  31

  This noonday Thursday pouring rain. Schultz and his Lordship in a last minute hop skip and jump around the office. Bags packed stacked downstairs waiting ready for Hubert to purr them to the airport. To the plane. Across Europe. Out of this unpredictable London. To Prague.

  Schultz slamming down one phone and picking up another. Finally throwing a file across the chairman’s desk. Give Binky something to think about for a week. While I take my sex drive somewhere, where my fucking ancestors lying in their graves maybe can teach me something. Tell me what the fuck has gone wrong. And where the fuck I can go right. Dreamt I made a pass at my own mother last night. Then this morning as I’m rushing out, ran smack bang right into His Excellency the Ambassador in the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel. We embraced each other in tears. If nothing else it was a fucking welcome change from hugging women.

  Binky in a suede safari jacket, holding up an envelope in triumph, fluttering his eyelashes and pursing his lips.

  “I do declare Schultz, my dear. As well as breaking the house record at the theatre, you have not got, have you, another invitation to the palace.”

  “That’s right.”

  Binky pointing to Schultz’s paper bag. Rebecca standing close behind his shoulder. Saw her hand touch him on the neck. Maybe she was too pleasant for me ever to fuck. A guy’s lucky who can boast there’s a girl in the world who loves him. While Binky the bastard is already toying in my brand new hopes and troubles.

  “My god Schultz what’s that full of.”

  “Bran flakes, dried figs and raisins.”

  “Whatever for.”

  “I got to keep my bowels moving on the Continent.”

  “How wise my dear Schultz how wise. And I couldn’t help seeing these. In your file. Other bowel moving matters. Gayboy’s writ. It is simply full of the most amazing legal flourishes and embellishments. And dear me, from your landlords, a veritable dictionary of torts. Astonishingly they could be distant parvenu cousins of mine. Suitably removed of course, from any cloying close connection. And dear me, their statement of claim. A bust of Justinian, smashed. A pair of early bronze figures of centaurs, thirteen inches high, now ten inches high with necks broken. Electrical wiring out of action. Ceilings down. Paintings.”

  “Stop Binky, stop. I know you love it. But I’m on a fucking holiday. Don’t ruin the last vestige of my peace of mind before I even get on the plane.”

  Schultz’s peace of mind. Ruined half way to the airport. By forgetting all his travellers cheques. Leaping up out of his seat and nearly going through his Lordship’s limousine ceiling.

  “For god’s sake Schultz, you defy gravity. I have enough for both of us. Sit down. That’s a bump you’ve put in my roof.”

  At last on the plane quaffing a beer. Over Belgium and Germany. The mountains, snaking rivers and valleys. And then Schultz with delight watching his Lordship be interrogated and then nearly arrested by Secret Police because of all the titles and strange names on his passport. In the busy lobby of the palatial hotel. Schultz with his guidebook map. Pulling his protesting Lordship by the sleeve.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here and see something.”

  “Schultz for god’s sake slow down, you’re like a caged lion at a Christmas sale of lambchops.”

  Sun sinking blood red on this late afternoon. Through the medieval lamp lit gloom of streets. Schultz popping into buy toothpaste. His Lordship watching from the street. As Schultz, abandoning his rudimentary Serbo Croat made a brushing motion across his smiling teeth. The lady behind the counter bringing him a toothbrush. Schultz wagging his head no. Then making a series of undulating squeezing motions with his hand. And the lady slapping him across the face. His Lordship outside doubled over.

  “That’s right laugh. At a genuine misunderstanding. You have a sick sense of humour, your Lordship. She nearly broke my jaw.”

  “Ah Schultz it’s a miracle you haven’t yet broken your neck.”

  This pair of tourists cross the bridge. One black head, one blond. Ladies turning to stare. Church bells. Calmly ringing. This is like a wonderland of the soul. Someone knew what they were talking about when they said this was the mother of cities. Jewel of cities. Wash hung out on lines like a masterpiece. The river. The statues hovering. Big silence in the middle of Europe. Hidden away. A city of thinking. And I’m thinking there are two kinds of women before they all become the same. One who sells herself many times over and regrets it. And one who sells themselves once and regrets it. I’ve met both kinds. It’s like you’re left with the question. Why are so many Jews called Murphy and Kelly. Last night I dreamt I socked Pricilla. Threw her to the ground for being unfaithful, getting pregnant with twins. I worried as the blows landed that I had hurt her. She shouted at me. Right while I went out the house for the last time. You’re full of shit. Your deals are full of shit. And the people you try to make them with are full of shit. Jesus, it would make you join losers anonymous. She found everything hid where I hid it. Still I might have loved her. If she didn’t give me a toothache as soon as she came into the room. Our marital bed was like a wasteland. Neither touching the other through the night. Like she was miles away over the tundra. When it was just fourteen inches across to her skin. Jesus I could come to love my children. I took to shouting at my mother at an early age. She said eat. You’re thin. The castle behind up there on the hill. Broods. Like it’s watching down. The courtyards. The alleys. The cobblestones. Holy Jesus. Come beauty to me come. Old Europe is so wise to people’s frailties. Guys exist to screw women and women exist to make them pay for it. Holy christ. There’s the new moon in the sky. A sliver. So clean. Over the thousands of rooftops. The gold glinting towers. Uncle Werb took a picture of me
in my first football uniform. Somewhere to leave your memories. Preserved by the houses and streets. If someone comes and tears them down, they are putting part of you to death. This is the way it must have been, just like this when my grandfather was a little boy playing. Maybe the worst thing my father and mother did to me without doing anything, was to make me Jewish. The fucking way I’m tripping over these stones, you’d never know I was descended from some of the greatest philosophers.

  Around a narrow alley, in and out the winding ways of shining cobblestones. Schultz stopping. Pointing to the steeply pitched roof of an ancient building sunk down lower than the street.

  “Your Lordship my rabbi scholar and poet ancestors officiated right in that synagogue there. They told other fucking Jews here what to do for a thousand years. On the ceiling, the star of David was invented.”

  “I’m sure it was Schultz. But I do wish you’d slow up. I must warn you. If indeed you do take up foxhunting and if you want to make an unpleasantly lasting impression in the field, you need only let your horse step on a hound while you are galloping past the master.”

  “Your Lordship, I am not fucking well foxhunting just yet, so just let me gallop past you this minute. And I can assure you that my horse won’t step on a hound.”

  Schultz dragged back by his Lordship from climbing the wall and fence into this cemetery. Led then around the corner to a lady who sold them two tickets. The lady at the gate thought his Lordship looked like her son as she told them to hurry, that they were closing soon. Heading through the entrance of this ancient graveyard. All I can say her son must have been one great Jewish looking guy. Then his Lordship nearly fainted when she said that I looked like his brother. Today blond and black is the same color. Holy Jesus are things in two seconds getting fast familiar. Walled in here hidden away in all its own tumbling thousands of shadows. The evening shafts of light coming through the trees. The symbol of the Cohens, hands extended in blessing. The Levites, a jug pouring water. Stop here at this grave. Loneliness is a step towards death. Utter hysteria hit Al when he was about to sneeze for he could also be about to slip a disc. So be careful as I lean to pick a pebble up. Add it to all the other pebbles stacked on top of this tomb. And the symbol of Schultz. Could now be a bird fallen over on its side with a broken neck. But I’m not finished yet. And just like you’d imagine. There’s nobody lying in here with a name like Al Duke. That imposter. I got to forget. Jesus, still in my head is a brain. Which could make good conclusions, rules and decisions yet. Every night I think of money. When I should be thinking of it in the morning. Criminality is the most efficient form of capitalism. But son of a bitch hell. Ask me. Loud as you fucking well can. Why did my stupid ancestors leave such a lovely place.