A Fairy Tale of New York

by J. P. Donleavy

  "I don't think I remember that Mr Vine. Are you sure it was me."

  "It was you. My memory for faces alive or dead is just about infallible. And talking about faces. Those coffin pictures we took of you are really producing results. A funeral director from Rochester said he's never seen such classic dignity in both casket and deceased. We've had a fifty percent increase in orders since our ad was printed.''

  "Well I'm really glad about that Mr Vine."

  "I keep telling you Christian, you could have an honorable future with me here. "

  Vine's twitch of neck and shoulders. His stiff sparkling clean shirtcuffs. Pearl stick pin in his black silk tie sprinkled with the purple little arrows of the Game Club. He's just had a haircut. Puts his arms out on the desk. Folds his hands and crosses his manicured fingers one over the other. Leans forward. His voice solemn and soft.

  "Christian I come in here in the morning like this. To the silence and peace. The music and reverie. To the people and their sorrow. Surrounds you. Like having your own death comfort you every day you live. Mourners' hearts opening up to their grief. As that body lies there. Its life gone. Chewed out of it sometimes by a greedy wife. My pleasure is to bring back to the ravaged face some of its childish innocence, some of its dreams, some of its promise. Erase the crevices of worry. The aging around the eyes. I see them sometimes as little children. And I've wept more than once. Sadness is a private garden. With high stone walls. And I would never leave it.''

  "I understand Mr Vine.''

  "I don't think you do Christian. I just wish you did. And that one day you would whole heartedly embrace this vocation.''

  ''Guess you 'd like me to work out back in the studio.''

  "Well I wouldn't mind a shot at it. If I could be left completely alone. To do my own deceased."

  "I 'll give you that chance.''

  "Ok Mr Vine."

  "By the way Christian I didn't know you were a member of the Game Club."

  "I got an athletic membership for boxing. When I was at prep school."

  "You can box."

  "Yes sir."

  "Well I wouldn't mind sparring with you sometime Christian. I used to do a bit in the navy."

  "Anytime sir."

  "Provided, and I don't want to be a spoilsport, that it's not on my time I'm paying for. You're a guy of many talents Christian. All I'm asking of you. And it's little enough. Is just stay on the ball. Can you do that.''

  ' ' Yes sir. I can. I know I can.''

  "Good."

  On Wednesday the double deceased slammed to eternity by the big elm tree were buried. Fritz with his black hair parted down the middle giving me orders like he was afraid one day I might get his job. Shook when he coughed, his lungs rumbling. A real advertisement for a funeral. Didn't give any comfort to the bereaved as he stood hacking and heaving over a fender of a limozine. And before we shipped out to Astoria I came creeping to steal some of Miss Musk's paper hankies out of her office. She caught me red handed. Standing right behind my elbow in her brown dress. Her peach skin turned red as a red tomato. Her eyebrows recently plucked to give her face an Egyptian motif. A string of imitation pearls around her neck. In my fist a wad of tissues and in her's a pencil upon which she pulled. Made my front tail fatten. But her voice thinned it down again.

  "That was a dirty rotten trick you did.''

  ''What are you talking about Miss Musk.''

  "You know what about. I'm no snitcher but boy if you stand there denying it and stealing my tissues I'll go straight to Mr Vine. And you know what that will mean.''

  "All right. I did it."

  ''Why. That's all I ask. Why.''

  "I don't know. A good luck gesture from a show biz departed. His hand was just right there. I thought it would amuse you.''

  "You call that funny. That's your idea is it.''

  "Well things are gloomy around here Miss Musk.''

  "When I told my boy friend. He was so mad he said he would come around and sock you one.''

  "Miss Musk, you better warn your boy friend that I can really fight."

  ''He entered the golden gloves.''

  "I don't care what he entered. I'll give him a departure. Eight through the wall.''

  "Boy you talk tough don't you.''

  "That's right, when necessary I do."

  ''Well doing a thing like that, that you did, gives me the impression that you must just not like me. And you could have asked permission to take my tissues.''

  "That's not true, Miss Musk, I like you. And I'm sorry, I just didn 't think you'd mind if I took a tissue or two.''

  ''Guess you thought my dress was too tight that day.''

  "O no. You have a most exciting figure.''

  ''Do you really think so.''

  "Yes."

  "Ok, just so long as we understand each other. And I want you to swear right now you won't ever try anything like that again."

  "I swear."

  The double deceased funeral surrounded by photographers taking pictures. When we finally closed the big coffin, visiting undertakers were scrutinizing the special air and water tight join down the middle of the twin casket lid. Cameras were whirring and lights beaming. Clarance handing out drinks in his office, smiling and pleased with compliments of his fellow undertakers. Even Miss Musk grabbed me by the arm and said isn't it exciting. Her fingers stayed a moment. Looking into each other's eyes. She said Mr Vine is going right to the top. And both of us could go with him and all those horrible old building codes, fire and health regulations and zoning laws they hound him with are not going to stop us.

  On that triumphant Wednesday a particularly testicular Christian leaned towards Miss Musk. Putting his hands down on her desk and reaching to give her a peck on the nose. She closed her eyes and lifted up her lips. Just as Fritz came in growling. And promptly sent me back to the jammed suite of Esme and Putsie Jenkins. Whose daughter was trying to sign a contract for her life's story. Amid flash bulbs popping. And nosey mourners from other suites. The smell got pretty unpalatable. Vine with his head shyly tilted at the publicity. Finally raised his hands and said that's enough.

  At three o'clock we were all ready to go. Shaking hands with visiting morticians. A reporter even asked me my name. We were a happy little go ahead team. I kept drinking ice water. And nervously taking frequent pees. And suddenly found Clarance standing right beside me. Both of us pissing. Said if only more husbands and wives could throw a seven at the same time. Could make use like they do on towels and bathrobes of the words his and hers.

  At three o five, motorcycle cops were revving their engines outside. The line of limozines went all the way down and around the corner under the elevated train. Even the janitor of the warehouse across the street brought out his chair to sit and watch. And there standing alone against the massive red brick depository wall. Waiting for me to come out. Fat Cheeks. Flashing open his coat with his usual grin. And a brand new sign.

  VOUCHSAFE AND BEHOOVE

  WHOREMONGERS

  A setting sun sending shadows east. The long motorcade crossing the Queensboro Bridge. Down past dingy roofed factories. Cigar of land sitting in the East River. They call Welfare Island. In that building there you drive in with a truck and an elevator takes you down to the island. A community of hospitals. Institutions charitable and corrective. A home for the recreation of indigents. For the aged and blind and chronic diseased. For the nervous ill. And those fatally dying. And once it was a pleasant peaceful pasture for pigs.

  Vine said he never had a funeral like it. A message of sympathy from the mayor. Five motorcycle cops leading the way, sirens blaring, clearing traffic ahead. Vine in personal command. Riding with the local police captain of Astoria. Charlie and I in the flower car. Signs to Maspeth, Flatbush and Ozone Park. Charlie full of information said there was a whole Chinese farm on the North Shore growing Chinese vegetables. And heading past the gas works. Men lined the streets. Hats and caps in hands. Planes on the skyline taking off the runway of the nearby
airport. Riker's Island out there on the grey East River. Charlie said three quarters of it was made from subway excavations. And I remember when I was a little boy. When I must have looked across all these lands. Sent away from Brooklyn by my uncle. Holding my smaller brother by the hand. To live high up in the back of a house. With a foster mother and father and a little foster sister and another brother. And I kept wetting the bed. And the woman screamed at me in the morning. All my comfort that summer was to lean out at night on my Bronx window sill. And waiting for the first fireworks to shoot up bursting in the sky. From the World's Fair. A sphere and a pylon like a cock and balls. An erection in Flushing Meadow Park. Imagined it so green with milk and honey and all the people of the world walked around with white angels landing on their arms and sticking lollypops of any flavour they wanted right in their mouths. Cried every night to sleep because my little brother kept asking why our mother and father would never come. He kept begging me please please big brother bring them back to me. I had to leave the window to hold his hand. And sometimes on dark stormy lightning afternoons he would kneel on his knees and with tears pouring down his cheeks begged god just for his mommie if he didn 't want to give his daddy back.

  During the interment hailstones fell. A frown on Vine's face as they bounced off the big coffin. Drone of cars along Astoria Boulevard. Barren landscape of headstones. Patches of grey dead grass. A single mausoleum on a rise of hill. Die slowly so I can see where my own life is going to end. Drop suddenly in your tracks and no telling where they might shove you.

  In the studio that evening I clipped a clothes line pin on my nose. And George gave me my first lesson in embalming. Powdered hands in tight rubber gloves. Told me to be beware of cuts. And stood in my goggles and fresh laundered white gown. Over a twenty three year old girl. Dead of double pneumonia. With thick black hair and shrivelled up nipples on her flat chest. Her pubic hairs recently shaved from an operation. Climb up and lie between her knees nobbly and cold. Throw one last screw into her before burial. And maybe get the clap. Or a spark of life out of her eyes icy blue like the color on a bird. I lifted her bony shoulders as George slipped under a wooden block and tenderly placed her arms. No crevices of worry in her face as we made an incision just above the collar bone. The dark flesh of the carotid artery against the white side of her windpipe. The black night above on the skylight. And the light aflood on the alabaster corpse. Must have gone tip toeing out of this life. From a hospital bed. With a gold ring on her finger. Says Mount Saint Ursula.

  That night walked crosstown on Fifty Seventh Street and turned left up the tiny hill into the automat. For the two dollar bill I gave the woman in the little booth she swept into the hollow of her marble counter a fistful of nickels dimes and quarters.

  Took deep breaths of air along the big shadowy darknesses of Fifth Avenue to bring back my appetite. Went back and forth examining the thicknesses of meat between the bread sitting in these glass tabernacles. Dreamt all my young life of moments like this. When I could shove in the nickels and open up all the doors on all the doughnuts and pies I wanted. And show my little brother that I was magic.

  Cornelius Christian sat in the window with a ham and lettuce sandwich. A cold glass of milk clutched in his hand and a piece of blueberry pie on a tan thick plate. Talcum powder white under my fingernails. After my longest day. And that girl's life running all over my mind. Once was a smile on her face. Carried books to school. Swigged a bottle of soda pop. Bought groceries for her mother. And handling her body is like handling meat. Cutting fat off a steak. For ten dollars a week extra pay. I shivered piercing the roof of her nose. Eight between the eyes. George showing me how to drain the cranial cavity. Sit now at this table, faces alive I see dead passing on the street. And they all look in. Who can I ever marry again. Where can I ever live. Or soft green garden ever find. Out of this waste land of signs and blaring voices telling you to buy. Scrape up the tiny sweet berries of my pie. Touch my lips to milk. Comes down the little faucet when you place your glass and pop in your nickels. Lick away the couple of salty tears that reach my mouth. God don't let me die. Alone unknown. Swept up from the streets. Strangled by my dreams. Unclaimed on a slab in Bellevue morgue. Practice for students to embalm. Or dissected at a medical school. Wake up with them using your veins as rubber bands. Or piled on the barge tugged along the East River. Stacked with hundreds of others. Through Hell Gate and out across Long Island Sound. With all the loose legs and hands and amputated arms. Prisoners dig your grave. And on a granite cross. They put. He Calleth His Children By Name. And I've got to shout. For god's sake I'm Cornelius Christian. Never whatsoever the widower.

  Man sitting across the table hurriedly lifting his plutocrat plate of mash potato, sliced carrots, sausage and gravy. Retreating away as other customers look. And Cornelius's fist pounds the table. Utensils clatter. Man rushes back to retrieve his grey converted pork pie fedora. Worn by guys who think they're going places. Hold tight because I'm cracking up. With no night to sleep in. Throwing tiny fists at a looming big grey bleak city. Never stops long enough for you to catch up. Every highway droning round the clock. Wait for me. And no one hears. Run down Broadway through the pedestrians panhandling for one hello. Any smile from any face. A howdido. Whoa. Gently now. Else the horse runs wild forever. Once it takes you galloping. Where my uncle sent my little brother and me one summer. Scared shitless with our blood pumping all the way to Mount Kisco. On the big thundering train.

  Beads of sweat on Christian's brow. Puts his head in a hand. People stop to look back just before they go out the revolving doors. Catch their eye and they skidaddle fast. Comfort me. And they glimmer back with their own fear.

  An old gent shuffling to sit down at Christian's table. Slowly places his saucer and cup of coffee. And another plate with a piece of coconut cake frosted and white on top and pineapple in the middle. Looked it over before I bought my blueberry pie. He takes away his tray and reaches for the sugar. The table rocks. And he looks up at me.

  "How do you like that. They make a bomb. They send rockets like crazy all over the sky. And here, you'd think maybe they could make the table sit still.''

  Christian stopping to look in the window at all the gleaming pianos across the street. And walk the rest of the way home. To just a cockroach cavity in a wall. Old gent at the table said three times a week he came on foot from Astoria. Didn't know the Jenkins but read about their tragedy in the paper. Just minded his own business living retired alone in his own life. Was a traffic shunter in the railroad yards. And played chess in summer in the park. But only with men he valued as gentlemen.

  "Just like I think you are sir."

  Christian from a new pay telephone in the hall phoned Fanny night after night and no one was ever home. Only soul to visit or knock on my door was the hunchback collecting rent. Even Fat Cheeks was missing for a week. And then showed up one morning waking everybody on the street. Perambulating by under my window blowing a bugle and pushing a black baby carriage flying the six cornered blue star on the white and blue striped Israeli flag. Bleary eyed I was up half the night perusing the Champion Textbook On Embalming cover to cover. Sat exhausted in the morning on my bed, head in hands with worry. Dressed in despair. Bobbed of a nickel change buying the paper. My confidence slowly draining away. The rest of my life sticking tubes into the dead. And then one morning as I came back to the studio from a pee. George pointed.

  "There you are Cornelius, compliments of Mr Vine. Tour very own first deceased.''

  A grey bushy haired man of sixty five. Owner of two cut price shirt stores. His threadbare shoulders. Sad to see. Face hollow cheeked and gouged deep with lines. And with hands gloved just as I was about to proceed, Fanny phoned. Said she'd been to Utah. I said I'm sorry but I'm very busy. And before I could say I'm desperate to see you. To hold any warm quivering body, my face and cheeks rolling pressed in breasts. To smell sweat instead of the heavy gloating reek of death. To hear a voice come out of a mouth. Instead of a gasp of putri
d gas. Before I could say anything. There was a click and silence on the other end of the phone.

  George said the deceased had a low moisture content. Keep down the percentage of the formaldehyde and not to let him dry too much. Got the contours of the face back injecting cream at the corners of the mouth and eyelids. With a nice generous squirt to raise his sunken globes of eyes. Youth came back into his cheeks as they fattened. Massaged and molded them to give him a look of puzzled amusement. Which is how anybody might look if they could see themselves dead. As I've done for the last few days. And George pursed his lips. Tilted his head just like Vine. And stood back.

  "Yes. Yes. Color a bit strong. The composure a trifle too spirited. But not bad Cornelius. Little over filling in the cheeks. Just a little. But not bad for a first try.''

  Miss Musk helped me with the suite. Said she missed my amusing remarks now as I was out in the studio. And together that night we went to the laying out room. Told me how she admired my work. Between our bouts of screwing. And the rings of her boy friend on the emergency bell. The deceased's name was Herbert. His wife's Harriet. No double dead. Because boy was she alive. Arriving first with six women members of her bridge club. All wearing fur capes and wraps around their shoulders. Black tight dresses and pinned white roses. I bowed deeply. Said good afternoon madams. One to each. Followed by a click of heel. Led them to my specially arranged crescent of seats. Corsets crackling, mouths chattering, jewelled hands stroking their patent leather black bags. Pressed the switch for the music. Thought Herbert might like a movement in andante. Just add that bit of light footed elegance. And the whole bereavement launched now with a nuance Clarance would be proud of.

  Christian in a far corner cutting a dead leaf from a potted palm that Vine had just installed in every suite. Holding the brown dried frond. Miss Musk's silhouette in the doorway. As fast as the world's tentacles get you down. You squirm and cut and slash away. To rise unhanded with a brand new anger. And the old gent in the automat slipped me a badly needed compliment. To light me a candle of cheer. Lifted my head to breathe again. All through a wet dream screwing Fanny till morning. Trees budding green. The tall city tilting towards spring. Got to have a picnic on some lake edge or grassy mound of land. And what's that. A gasp. Prolonged and rising in pitch. To a scream. Of immense protest.