Music for Chameleons (23 page)

Garçon, un autre de Wild Turkey, s’il vous pla’t
.

TC
(to the waiter): Make that a single.

GEORGE
(in a tone unpleasantly pleasant): Are you telling me I’ve had too much to drink?

TC:
If you have to go back to the office, yes.

GEORGE:
But I’m not going back to my office. I haven’t been there since early November. I’m supposed to have had a nervous breakdown. Overwork. Exhaustion. I’m supposed to be resting quietly at home, tenderly cared for by my adoring wife. Who is locked in her room painting pictures of boats. A boat. The same damn boat over and over.

TC:
George, I’ve got to take a leak.

GEORGE:
Not running out on me? Not running out on your old school buddy that sneaked you all the algebra answers?

TC:
And even so, I flunked! Be back in a jiffy.

(I didn’t need to take a leak; I needed to collect my thoughts. I didn’t have the nerve to steal out of there and hide in a quiet movie somewhere, but I sure as hell didn’t want to go back to that table. I washed my hands and combed my hair. Two men came in and stationed themselves at urinals. One said: “That guy that’s
so loaded. For a moment I thought it was somebody I know.” His friend said: “Well, he’s not a complete stranger. That’s George Claxton.” “You’re kidding!” “I ought to know. He used to be my boss.” “But my God! What happened?” “There are different stories.” Then both men fell silent, perhaps out of deference to my presence. I returned to the dining room.)

GEORGE:
So you
didn’t
cut out?

(Actually, he seemed more subdued, less intoxicated. He was able to strike a match and light a cigarette with reasonable competence.)

Are you ready to hear the rest of this?

TC:
(Silent, but with an encouraging nod.)

GEORGE:
My wife didn’t say anything, just tucked the picture back in my wallet. I went on shaving, but cut myself twice. It had been so long since I’d had a real hangover, I’d forgotten what it was like. The sweat; my stomach—it felt like I was trying to shit razor blades. I stuffed a bottle of bourbon in my briefcase, and as soon as I got on the train I headed straight for the john. The first thing I did was to tear up the picture and drop it in the toilet. Then I sat down on the toilet and opened up that bottle. At first it made me gag. And it was hot as hell in there. Like Hades. But after a while I began to calm down, and to wonder: Well, what am I in such a stew about? I haven’t done anything wrong. But when I stood up I saw that the torn-up Polaroid was still floating in the toilet bowl. I flushed it, and the pieces of the picture, her head and legs and arms, started churning around, and it made me dizzy: I felt like a killer who had taken a knife and cut her up.

By the time we got to Grand Central, I knew I was in no state to handle the office, so I walked over to the Yale Club and took a room. I called my secretary and said I had to go to Washington and wouldn’t be in till the next day. Then I called home
and told my wife that something had come up, a business thing, and I’d be staying overnight at the club. Then I got into bed, and thought: I’ll sleep all day; I’ll have one good long drink to relax me, stop the jitters, and go to sleep. But I couldn’t—not until I’d downed the whole bottle. Boy, did I sleep then! Until around ten the next morning.

TC:
About twenty hours.

GEORGE:
About that. But I was feeling fairly okay when I woke up. They have a great masseur at the Yale Club, a German, hands strong as a gorilla’s. That guy can really fix you up. So I had some sauna, a real storm-trooper massage, and fifteen minutes under a freezing shower. I stayed on and ate lunch at the club. No drinks, but boy, did I wolf it down. Four lamb chops, two baked potatoes, creamed spinach, corn-on-the-cob, a quart of milk, two deep-dish blueberry pies …

TC:
I wish you’d eat something now.

GEORGE
(a sharp bark, startlingly rude): Shut up!

TC:
(Silence)

GEORGE:
I’m sorry. I mean, it was like I was talking to myself. Like I’d forgotten you were here. And your voice …

TC:
I understand. Anyway, you had a hearty lunch and you were feeling good.

GEORGE:
Indeed. Indeed. The condemned man had a hearty lunch. Cigarette?

TC:
I don’t smoke.

GEORGE:
That’s right. Don’t smoke. Haven’t smoked for years.

TC:
Here, I’ll light that for you.

GEORGE:
I’m perfectly capable of coping with a match without blowing up the place, thank you.

Well now, where were we? Oh yes, the condemned man was on his way to his office, subdued and shining.

It was Wednesday, the second week in July, a scorcher. I was alone in my office when my secretary rang through and said a
Miss Reilly was on the phone. I didn’t make the connection right off, and said: Who? What does she want? And my secretary said she says it’s personal. The penny dropped. I said: Oh yes, put her on.

And I heard: “Mr. Claxton, this is Linda Reilly. I got your letter. It’s the nicest letter I’ve ever had. I feel you really are a friend, and that’s why I decided to take a chance on calling you. I was hoping you could help me. Because something has happened, and I don’t know what I’ll do if you can’t help me.” She had a sweet young-girl’s voice, but was so breathless, so excited, that I had to ask her to speak more slowly. “I don’t have much time, Mr. Claxton. I’m calling from upstairs and my mother might pick up the phone downstairs any minute. The thing is, I have a dog. Jimmy. He’s six years old but frisky as can be. I’ve had him since I was a little girl, and he’s the only thing I have. He’s a real gent, just the cutest little dog you ever saw. But my mother is going to have him put to sleep. I’ll die! I’ll just die. Mr. Claxton, please, can you come to Larchmont and meet me in front of the Safeway? I’ll have Jimmy with me, and you can take him away with you. Hide him until we can figure out what to do. I can’t talk any more. My mother’s coming up the stairs. I’ll call you first chance I get tomorrow and we can make a date—”

TC:
What did
you
say?

GEORGE:
Nothing. She’d hung up.

TC:
But what
would
you have said?

GEORGE:
Well, as soon as she hung up, I decided that when she called back I’d say yes. Yes, I’d help the poor kid save her dog. That didn’t mean I had to take it home with me. I could have put it in a kennel, or something. And if matters had turned out differently, that’s what I would have done.

TC:
I see. But she never called back.

GEORGE:
Waiter, I’ll have another one of these dark things. And a glass of Perrier, please. Yes, she called. And what she had
to say was very brief. “Mr. Claxton, I’m sorry; I sneaked into a neighbor’s house to phone, and I’ve got to hurry. My mother found your letters last night, the letters you wrote me. She’s crazy, and her husband’s crazy, too. They think all kinds of terrible things, and she took Jimmy away first thing this morning, but I can’t talk any more; I’ll try to call later.”

But I didn’t hear from her again—at least, not personally. My wife phoned a few hours later; I’d say it was about three in the afternoon. She said: “Darling, please come home as soon as you can,” and her voice was so calm that I knew she was in extreme distress; I even half-knew why, although I acted surprised when she told me: “There are two policemen here. One from Larchmont and one from the village. They want to talk to you. They won’t tell me why.”

I didn’t bother with the train. I hired a limousine. One of those limousines with a bar installed. It’s not much of a drive, just over an hour, but I managed to knock down quite a few Silver Bullets. It didn’t help much; I was really scared.

TC:
Why, for Christ’s sake? What had you done? Play Mr. Good Guy, Mr. Pen Pal.

GEORGE:
If only it were that neat. That tidy. Anyway, when I got home the cops were sitting in the living room watching television. My wife was serving them coffee. When she offered to leave the room, I said no, I want you to stay and hear this, whatever it is. Both the cops were very young and embarrassed. After all, I was a rich man, a prominent citizen, a churchgoer, the father of five children. I wasn’t frightened of them. It was Gertrude.

The Larchmont cop outlined the situation. His office had received a complaint from a Mr. and Mrs. Henry Wilson that their twelve-year-old daughter, Linda Reilly, had been receiving letters of a “suspicious nature” from a fifty-two-year-old man,
namely, me, and the Wilsons intended to bring charges if I couldn’t explain myself satisfactorily.

I laughed. Oh, I was just as jovial as Santa Claus. I told the whole story. About finding the bottle. Said I’d only answered it because I liked chocolate fudge. I had them grinning, apologizing, shuffling their big feet, and saying well, you know how parents get nutty ideas nowadays. The only one not taking it all as a dumb joke was Gertrude. In fact, without my realizing it, she’d left the room before I’d finished talking.

After the cops left, I knew where I’d find her. In that room, the one where she does her painting. It was dark and she was sitting there in a straight-back chair staring out at the darkness. She said: “The picture in your wallet. That was the girl.” I denied it, and she said: “Please, George. You don’t have to lie. You’ll never have to lie again.”

And she slept in that room that night, and every night ever since. Keeps herself locked in there painting boats. A boat.

TC:
Perhaps you did behave a bit recklessly. But I can’t see why she should be so unforgiving.

GEORGE:
I’ll tell you why. That wasn’t our first visit from the police.

Seven years ago we had a sudden heavy snowstorm. I was driving my car, and even though I wasn’t far from home, I lost my way several times. I asked directions from a number of people. One was a child, a young girl. A few days later the police came to the house. I wasn’t there, but they talked to Gertrude. They told her that during the recent snowstorm a man answering my description and driving a Buick with my license plate had got out of his car and exposed himself to a young girl. Spoken lewdly to her. The girl said she had copied down the license number in the snow under a tree, and when the storm had stopped, it was still decipherable. There was no denying that
it was my license number, but the story was untrue. I convinced Gertrude, and I convinced the police, that the girl was either lying or that she had made a mistake concerning the number.

But now the police have come a second time. About another young girl.

And so my wife stays in her room. Painting. Because she doesn’t believe me. She believes that the girl who wrote the number in the snow told the truth. I’m innocent. Before God, on the heads of my children, I am innocent. But my wife locks her door and looks out the window. She doesn’t believe me. Do you?

(George removed his dark glasses and polished them with a napkin. Now I understood why he wore them. It wasn’t because of the yellowed whites engraved with swollen red veins. It was because his eyes were like a pair of shattered prisms. I have never seen pain, a suffering, so permanently implanted, as if the slip of a surgeon’s knife had left him forever disfigured. It was unbearable, and as he stared at me my own eyes flinched away.)

Do
you
believe me?

TC
(reaching across the table and taking his hand, holding it for dear life): Of course, George. Of course I believe you.

III

Hidden Gardens

SCENE:
JACKSON SQUARE, NAMED
after Andrew Jackson—a three-hundred-year-old oasis complacently centered inside New Orleans’ old quarter: a moderate-sized park dominated by the grey towers of St. Louis Cathedral, and the oldest, in some ways most somberly elegant, apartment houses in America, the Pontalba Buildings.

Time:
26 March 1979, an exuberant spring day, Bougainvillaea descends, azaleas thrust, hawkers hawk (peanuts, roses, horse-drawn carriage rides, fried shrimp in paper scoops), the horns of drifting ships hoot on the closeby Mississippi, and happy balloons, attached to giggling skipping children, bounce high in the blue silvery air.

“WELL, I DO DECLARE, A
boy sure do get around”—as my Uncle Bud, who was a traveling salesman when he could pry himself away from his porch swing and gin fizzes long enough to travel, used to complain. Yes, indeed, a boy sure do get around; in just the last several months I’ve been in Denver, Cheyenne, Butte, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles,
Boston, Toronto, Washington, Miami. But if somebody asked, I’d probably say, and really think: Why, I haven’t been anywhere, I’ve just been in New York all winter.

Still, a boy do get around. And now here I am back in New Orleans, my birthplace, my old hometown. Sunning myself on a park bench in Jackson Square, always, since schoolboy days, a favorite place to stretch my legs and look and listen, to yawn and scratch and dream and talk to myself. Maybe you’re one of those people who never talk to themselves. Aloud, I mean. Maybe you think only crazies do that. Personally, I consider it’s a healthy thing. To keep yourself company that way: nobody to argue back, free to rant along, getting a lot of stuff out of your system.

For instance, take those Pontalba Buildings over there. Pretty fancy places, with their grillwork façades and tall dark French-shuttered windows. The first apartment houses ever built in the U.S.A.; relatives of the original occupants of those high airy aristocratic rooms are still living in them. For a long time I had a grudge against the Pontalba. Here’s why. Once, when I was nineteen or so, I had an apartment a few blocks away on Royal Street, an insignificant, decrepit, roach-heaven apartment that erupted into earthquake shivers every time a streetcar clickety-clacked by on the narrow street outside. It was unheated; in the winter one dreaded getting out of bed, and during the swampy summers it was like swimming inside a bowl of tepid consommé. My constant fantasy was that one excellent day I would move out of that dump and into the celestial confines of the Pontalba. But even if I had been able to afford it, it could never have happened. The usual way of acquiring a place there is if a tenant dies and wills it to you; or, if an apartment should become vacant, generally it is the custom of the city of New Orleans to offer it to a distinguished local citizen for a very nominal fee.