by Otto Penzler
Blessedly, midnight arrived at last. Harv commuted from Rye by car and both Spitz and Dancer lived in Manhattan, but I relied on the New York Central to get me home. So I had no problem rising to my feet and saying, "Well, guys, it's been a great night, but I have to catch the 12:35 to Pelham."
"Sit down, Dale," Spitz said gravely. "You've not been installed or initiated."
I could feel the temperature in the room drop by a good ten degrees.
Spitz looked at the others. "Are we ready?"
Dancer and Braverman nodded assent and turned their chairs to face me. Spitz, who had courtroom experience, opened: "Dale. Tell us what we did tonight."
I looked around the room. "Uh ... we played poker."
Spitz shook his head slowly. "No, Dale, don't disappoint me. I want you to give us a detailed account of what we did tonight. For example, what time did you get here?"
I remembered Dancer's greeting when I'd first walked in. Perhaps he'd been so specific about my arrival time for the very purpose of this oral exam. "Seven-oh-six."
"Who came next?"
"You. Followed by Harv."
"What brand of beer did each of us drink?"
I pride myself on having above-average recall and rarely came up empty-handed during the interrogation. I accurately synopsized the run at the table, with Dancer playing aggressively and (I said in all candor) foolishly. Spitz had been conservative, folding his hand often; thus, when he did stay in, we assumed he had the goods. This ultimately cost him, as we didn't allow big pots to build when he stood by his cards. I'd played inconsistently, pushing a few weak hands farther than I should have and not riding a trio of sixes as far as I might. The most impressive winning hand had been Braverman's. He had broken up a pair of eights in successful search of an inside straight and had gone on to be the big winner for the night, apologizing after each victory. He would be departing nearly ten dollars richer than he'd started.
As for conversation, I had little problem reconstructing the general thrust of our discourse. Past histories had come into play, Spitz recounting his years as a civil-defense attorney, Braverman the winning of the Colgate Toothpaste account by some fairly devious means, Dancer his prior career as a producer of off-Broadway revues. We'd recalled college days. Braverman was Princeton orange and black, Spitz had been Fordham Law, Dancer boasted of being kicked out of several Ivy League schools, and I tried to make the most of my class standing when I graduated from Michigan State.
As I recapped the convoluted path of our unmemorable exchanges in such detail that it alarmed me (surely there was something more noteworthy to occupy the vacancy between my ears), I noticed knowing glances cast among my associates. I wrapped up with "Harv, you accompanied Shepard to his favorite, the New Bamboo Palace, at something like nine forty-five—"
"Forty-two, but who's counting?" said Braverman.
Increasingly peeved, I rattled off, "You brought back egg rolls for three, shrimp toast for Harv, who also ordered sweet and sour pork, Matty had lung har gai pan, Shepard had steak kew, and I had the almond gai ding. Matty and Harv had pork fried rice, I had white, Shepard didn't eat his, now may I please ask what this inquisition is in aid of?"
Dancer stood and ceremoniously raised his pilsner. "Gentlemen, I believe we have ourselves a brother. Welcome, Frère Dale."
"Frère Dale," echoed Braverman and Spitz.
Dancer clapped an arm around my shoulders. "I suppose we must have you pretty confused. Sorry about that. We'll be delighted to enlighten, but first we need your word as a fellow Monk of the Abbey Victoria not to disclose on pain of death what we are about to tell you. Not to NBC, to your neighbors ... not even to your wife."
"I know how to keep a secret," I said.
"You showed us that the other day," acknowledged Braverman.
Dancer nodded. "So we've had ourselves a pleasant evening"—he looked at the others and grimaced—"all right, let's say we've had ourselves a harmless evening, consisting of poker, beer, Chinese food, and some of the most tedious conversation any of us have ever endured, most of which you've just now recounted in impressive detail. A typical weekly edition of our informal men's club. And now, Brother Dale, I am pleased to inform you it is very likely we will never assemble like this again."
Spitz added, "Until such time as necessity dictates. Hopefully, not for months to come."
"Amen, Brother," murmured Braverman.
I looked at their serene expressions. "I don't understand—"
"We won't reconvene until we have a need to," Dancer explained. "You see, Dale, the reason we got together tonight was so that all of us, including you, could identically describe exactly what transpired this evening, with—what's the word, Spitz?"
"Versimilitude."
"For what purpose?" I asked.
"Freedom," said Dancer. "We're all of us married, tethered, seven days a week every week of the year. However, as members of the Order of the Monks of the Abbey Victoria, we get one gorgeous night each week to do whatever we wish."
Spitz elaborated. "Meaning, Winslow, that we are the poker club that does not play poker. Or even convene. We go our own way, free from wives, neighbors, and each other, to pursue whatever secret pursuits spring to mind."
"Not to say," rushed in Harv, "that we do something bad on that one day a week."
"Perish the thought," said Dancer. "It might be that Spitz here feels like hanging around the Shandon Star all night to watch the Dodgers. On that same evening, maybe I opt to see a Mamie Van Doren feature at the Trans-Lux that my wife doesn't approve of, ogling the screen in pleasant solitude."
Braverman lit his pipe. "It's the adult version of playing hooky, Dale. Every Monday night from here on in, we all do whatever we like without having to account to anyone, even if it's as harmless a distraction as going back to the old neighborhood to have a chocolate malt while reading a comic book. Simple, innocent pleasures."
There was a significant pause. Then Braverman added, "Or you can do something bad."
"Very bad," Dancer instantly affirmed with a wicked grin. "Very bad indeed." I had the impression he had specific images in his mind, and I was glad I couldn't see them for myself.
"What does 'bad' really mean, after all?" Spitz waxed philosophically. "A life without experience is a life hardly lived." Then he glared at the room. "But what we do on our Mondays is nobody's business. Correct, gentleman? Even amongst ourselves."
"Even amongst ourselves," Dancer repeated, clearly for my benefit. "As far as any of us are concerned, we are all here every Monday, playing poker. If anyone significant in our lives happens to ask us how the evening went, we will merely try to do as admirable a job as Brother Dale just did in recounting whatever details—very real details, to be sure—are needed. Thus, should our wives or others compare our stories, they will jibe harmoniously."
I tried to understand what they were telling me. "So we're supplying each other with an"—I couldn't think of another word—"alibi?"
Spitz fidgeted. "The term 'alibi' would imply that one or more of us might need one, because we had done something illegal. Think, rather, of the Monks of the Abbey Victoria as a cover story, and that we spend our Mondays ... under cover."
"So how does it work?" I asked, already wondering how I might occupy myself next Monday evening.
Spitz said, "We don't meet here again until we have to. The innocuous events of this evening will serve as what transpires here every Monday until one of us is obliged to recount the details to another person, in which case we will reluctantly reconvene to create a different real evening to describe."
Dancer was moving the used glassware to the ice-bucket tray. "Each week, one of us mans this outpost. Today was my turn, next week is"—he mentally went through the alphabet—"is Shepard, then you, Winslow, then Harv, and then it's back to me."
"And what do I do when it's my turn?"
"The same thing we all do," Matty Dancer said. "You check in for the four of us, order up some beer and a ca
rd table, and sit here alone for the rest of the night. You watch TV or read a book, but you must stay here. Mid-evening, the three remaining members phone in, just like Shepard did from the Chinese restaurant, to make sure the coast is clear. If one of our wives has called the hotel, either because of an emergency, an errand, or simply to check up on us, that week's sentry will tell them their spouse is out getting food for the others. When that husband checks in at mid-evening, the sentry advises him to call his wife as soon as possible. We all check in a second time at midnight, just in case."
Harv chimed in, "If anyone presses us about what we did, what we discussed, how the poker game went, we just describe the last time we were together. That's why we never discuss current events, TV, movies, things that might date our evening. Under ideal circumstances, we may not have to meet more than once or twice a year."
"That's fine with me," Spitz murmured.
"If you like, I'll help you on your first shift as sentry," Dancer offered as he and I left Room 622 and walked to the elevators. Braverman and Spitz had already left, staggering our departures to draw less attention to ourselves.
"But won't that mean you'll lose out on one of your Mondays?" I asked.
He looked almost embarrassed. "Oh, I'm afraid I don't have any really exciting prospects at the present. Not like some of us." He pushed the elevator button. "Our receptionist Donna, for example. She likes you, damn your eyes."
"You work too hard, Mr. Winslow," Donna said that Friday. She'd volunteered to bring me a cup of coffee before she left for the night, and I'd had no problem accepting her gracious offer.
"Call me Dale, please," I requested. "After all, I call you Donna."
"But you don't," she said.
"Don't what?" I asked.
"Call me." She set the cup on my desk, accidentally brushing the right side of my body. "My number's in the book, you know."
"And what would we talk about?" Oh, I was enjoying this.
"About where you might want to take me for dinner after we go to the planetarium."
"You're interested in astronomy?" I asked.
"I'm interested in dark places. On a first date, the planetarium is as far as I go."
I was certain if I asked how far she went on a third date, I'd get yet another answer I'd never forget, but my conscience nagged at me almost as much as Joanie does when I'm not helping her around the house. I indicated my wedding ring, which suddenly weighed a ton.
"I'm married," I heard myself say.
Someone knocked at my office door and opened it without waiting for my response. I would have bitten his head off if he hadn't chosen to be Ken Compton.
"Winslow, am I hallucinating, or is there simply no ethical behavior on this avenue anymore? You will not believe who was just coming on to me, and I mean coming on strong."
Reflexively I looked at Donna, but Compton answered his own question. "Those little worms at CBS. Paley's man Denham. Inquiring if I wouldn't be happier with them, maybe I could do a little better for myself there. Insult to my intelligence and ego. It's the damn schedule they want, that's all. They know we've got them beat this season. If you get any calls from anyone at CBS, I want you to put them directly through to me. That's official, got it?"
A second later, Donna and I were alone again. "Where were we?" she asked.
Compton's exit seemed to trigger her need to fidget with the buttons on her blouse, and I was fighting a similar urge. "I'm afraid I was reminding you I'm married," I reprised.
"I know," she said. "So many people in this country are. It must be the reason for the skyrocketing divorce rate."
Give me credit. At least I was no longer a foolhardy kid who couldn't foresee an absolute disaster in the making. At least I now had enough willpower to resist temptation, no matter how appealingly it was offered.
"You doing anything Monday night?" I asked.
Joanie shouted to me through the bathroom door, "How much longer are you going to be using the shower? My makeup's in there."
"Help yourself." I called out cheerfully, being in a better mood than I am most Monday mornings.
As she entered, she turned her head away so as not to see me through the translucent shower curtain. It wasn't as if I were deformed or something, I was just naked.
"Where's my makeup mirror?" she asked.
"Sorry, I was using it," I apologized. "I was shaving in the shower. I read somewhere you get a much smoother shave that way." I turned off the water, wrapped a towel around my waist, handed the magnifying mirror to her, and reached for the bottle of Aqua Velva I'd bought on Sunday, ladling its contents onto my face.
"Take it easy with that stuff," she said. "It's expensive."
"Sorry yet again. I'll try to defray the expense by winning a few big hands tonight."
"It might be more diplomatic to come home on the losing side," she counseled. "These fellows can help you at NBC. There's no need to make them look bad."
I slapped my cheeks hard as the alcohol pleasurably burned my face. "Okay, honey. I'll try not to get too lucky."
The planetarium had a bank of pay phones by the corridor that led into the Museum of Natural History. The last Star Show had ended, as had (for the moment) whatever groping and nuzzling I'd been having with Donna, judging by the fact that she was now fixing her makeup. I used this hopefully momentary lull to place my check-in call to the hotel, asking the Abbey's operator for Room 622.
"Hello?" Shepard sounded bored and a little dozy.
"It's Brother Dale," I informed him. "Anything I need to know?"
"Nope. No one's called except Dancer and Braverman to ask the same question. But make sure you check in again before you head home. The first time you don't call here will almost certainly be the one time your wife does."
I thanked him for minding the fort, and he assured me I'd be returning the favor next Monday. I kind of hoped he'd ask how my night had been going, so that I could boast a bit about my partial conquest, but he honored the tenets of the Brotherhood and made no personal inquiries.
Donna was checking her makeup in the reflection of a glass case containing a portion of a meteorite that had landed in a Kentucky farmyard in 1928.
"I'm ready for dinner," she said. "Necking makes me hungry. Do you have somewhere nice in mind?"
I suggested we not go where either of us might be recognized by someone from work.
"I appreciate your concern for my professional reputation," she nodded, her tongue planted as firmly in her own cheek now as it had been in mine just a few minutes earlier.
"Do you know anyone from Queens?" I asked as we stepped outside.
She shrugged that well-researched shrug of hers. "I've never met anyone who went to Queens who ever came back."
"Good. I took the liberty—"
"You sure did," she said, not altogether disapprovingly.
"—of reserving us a table at a romantic spot with candlelight dining. We'll just ask them not to light the candles." I waved for a cab, simultaneously using my arm to hide my face from passersby in the strong light of the streetlamps.
"Hello, angel," I greeted Donna at her reception desk the next morning. "Did you have pleasant dreams?"
I was a half hour late, having missed my regular train from Pelham. I'd stayed in bed later than usual, debating if I'd been brilliant or an imbecile not to press my luck with Donna after supper. On consideration, I felt I'd done the wise thing. She'd seemed pleasantly surprised that I hadn't tried to translate our racy dinner conversation into action at her apartment in lower Manhattan. But Donna was someone to be nurtured, brought along slowly. At least until next Monday. (I was already hoping I could convince the supportively disposed Braverman to trade turns with me, so I'd not lose precious momentum with her.)
"I thought about you all the way in to work," I now told her smoothly. She gave me an icy look that was not sugar-frosted and, keeping her voice low, spoke as if her words tasted of Acromycin. "I made myself a big mistake last night, Mister Winslow, an
d thank God it only went as far as it did. NBC would can me and your wife would brain you if either party found out about our date. So let's not ever talk about it again. In fact, let's not ever talk, 'kay?"
I was horrified, I mean horrified. That she despised me was all over her face, and I'm sure her face and the word "despised" were rarely to be found in the same sentence. I frantically searched all memories of the previous night for what I might have said or done to turn her around so completely. As I unmanfully pleaded for an explanation, I saw Matty Dancer approaching and instantly silenced myself.
Dancer offered a far warmer greeting than had Donna, with whom I'd been necking under the projected heavens less than a dozen hours earlier. He set a manila envelope on the reception desk and asked her to see it was correctly messengered to its intended recipient. Then, under the guise of jovial chitchat, he said to me, "Hey, Ken Compton wanted to have a brief word with you, Brother Dale." He lowered his voice and added, "He's already spoken with the Other Fellows You Were With Last Night, if you catch my drift."
"Bit of a personal question, Dale," Compton began in an embarrassed manner. He rose from his desk and flopped onto the leather couch directly behind me. I swiveled my visitor's chair to face him across his Danish modern coffee table, as he began, "Forgive me, but do you mind if I ask where you were last night?"
I had no idea what this was about, but felt relieved I had a big, fat, juicy answer to offer.
"Well, I guess there's no shame involved in admitting that Dancer, Spitz, Braverman, and I were playing poker. Over at the Abbey Victoria. We have a little poker night in Room 622 each Monday. I think I arrived a few minutes after seven and left a bit after midnight Give me a moment and I can probably be more precise."
Compton waved away my offered alibi. "No, I just wanted to hear it from you. I've already spoken to your friends this morning, and they told me about your little poker club." He leaned forward. "So will you tell me? Who's the best player among you? My money's on Spitz."
I smiled. "Well, he's very conservative, and that ultimately works against him. It was Braverman who cleaned up last night, if you can call ten dollars cleaning up."
