The Ravine (15 page)

“But but but,” he’d stammer, “you’ve read
Daniel Deronda
, haven’t you?”

“Naw-uh. What did he write?”

“No, no. He’s a book. I mean,
it’s
a book. It has a man’s name, but it’s a book. That is what we call an eponymous, um, did you want another drink?”

Myself, I had nothing to lose and, when sitting at a crowded table in the Pig’s Snout, would patiently await my chances. When they came, I would get off a good one, amusing the table and invariably delighting Ms. Lear. One has one’s moments, you know. And although it shames me to admit it now (at the time, of course, I had no shame), I would often bring a young woman with me. I would lavish attention and affection upon my date, which was usually reciprocated; this helped nurture the illusion that I was desirable.

Mind you, I knew that I couldn’t attempt a direct romantic onslaught. I was bound by the Male Code of Honour, a vague canon of conduct that some of us had hammered out in the belly of the night while pissed as newts. John Hooper was one of its most influential authors, the one who had decided that there must be consequences, punishment for transgressions. Therefore, when a young theatrical director named George Gordon treated his girlfriend with what even we could see was contemptible contempt, Gordon was forced to apologize publicly and to offer an engagement ring as a token of atonement. (The woman in question, thank god, declined; I have enough weighing on my conscience without that.) Some of the chastisements were harder to bring into effect. So, for example, if I obviously tried to bird-dog Hooper’s girlfriend, a drunken tribunal would be convened, and it would rule, oh, that I should join the Foreign Legion. Or the priesthood. Or that I should be doomed to stumble along the sidewalks
forever, half-drunk and maudlin, my heart destroyed not by romance but by my own despicable betrayal. Who needs that?

What I did instead was write a play. I would guess that it took me about a month, but that is not the way I remember the act of creation. It seems to me that I sat down behind my old typer one night, armed with cigarettes and whiskey, began banging away and did not stand up until my crippled fingers had beaten out the words “Lights down.” From there I staggered into the Pig’s Snout, and threw the thing onto the table. “You might want to give this a read, Ronnie,” I said. “There’s a good part there for someone like you.”

Someone like you.
I believe I really said that, so fundamentally crafty am I. The part could
only
have been played by her, that was the whole point. I might as well have written:

The play in question is entitled
The Hawaiian
, which is, in my fictive world, the name of a particularly seedy little tavern. (Almost all of my plays took place in bars—
Write what you know
, said Hemingway, although I bet he regrets that now.) Hester is the waitress. There are four regulars, witty young writers who discuss high-minded subjects like literature and philosophy. Into this scene walks Oscar, who has just murdered his parents and still clutches the smoking gun. As police surround the Hawaiian, Oscar takes the people hostage. Things get thenceforth pretty tense. The police exhort from outside, the people within plead urgently, tearfully, but Oscar is obdurate and deranged. It all culminates in the young man taking Hester as a
human shield, throwing open the door to the Hawaiian with her neck caught in the crook of his arm, the gun barrel pressed up against her beautiful temple. (I know it’s hard for temples to be beautiful, but hey, we’re talking about Ronnie Lear here.) No solution seems possible, until Hester reaches up and squeezes Oscar’s trigger finger, sacrificing her own life for the greater good.

You may think me an idiot—go ahead, be my guest—but the paucity of my ideas, the meagreness of my creativity, hasn’t really registered until just now. Until just this afternoon, anyway, which is when I wrote that last paragraph. I immediately reeled out of the basement apartment in search of stuporifics. I went first to the Pig’s Snout, but it was no longer there. In its place there was a small health club. Behind plate-glass windows, a group of women in leotards moved in sweaty synchronicity to music I could not hear. I stared at the edifice wistfully, until a policeman came and instructed me to move along. My avowals of innocent nostalgia fell upon deaf ears. It occurred to me that I
was
pretty much a lecherous voyeur, which didn’t improve my self-esteem. I searched out the nearest bar, the Reno, a place that survived on the welfare cheques of diurnal drinkers. There were six of these creatures represented as I slipped through the front door. I fell into conversation with an older man named Christos, who was so embittered by women and the vagaries of fate that I acquired a sheen of innocence through proximity and comparison. I was the one dealing out hopeful maxims: “Things are never as bad as they seem,” I said, not giving voice to the codicil,
as long as you are blind, stinking drunk.
I tried to discuss my own problems, but Christos couldn’t really see that anything was amiss. I had acted appropriately manly in fucking a young woman, and if my wife couldn’t accept that, I was well shed of her. My wife was, at any rate, certain to grow fat and disgusting. And if I’d managed to forge a career by filching from a bag of stolen
ideas, more power to me. Or as Christos put it, “So
fuck.”
This little phrase was very versatile when spat through Christos’s moustache, which was huge and seemed to have a life of its own. Indeed, it sometimes seemed I was conversing with the moustache. “So
fuck”
could be freighted with despair, optimism or meek acceptance. So
fuck.

When night came, Christos and his fellows disappeared, fearful perhaps of having their blood drained by vampires, especially now that it was forty-proof. I toddled off to Birds of a Feather.

Jay wasn’t talking to me, which you know, which you’ve heard, so
fuck.
I conversed instead with Amy, during those moments when she was ferrying me drinks. This was a tricky business, because I was tempted to order lots, not just to satisfy my wet tooth but to hold her near the table. Mind you, I wanted to present myself as other than a sot, so I staggered the beer and whiskey requests. This didn’t irritate her as it would many a waitperson, and it even seemed as though she came to empty the ashtray more often than was absolutely necessary. She asked how the novel was going and I lied and claimed it was going very well, although I admitted to a certain amount of inky grappling with the great unruly beast. Amy, it turns out, is a doctoral student in English, and has achieved All But Dissertation status. Her thesis has something to do with Anthony Trollope. Man, I wish I’d read some Anthony Trollope books; indeed, it has truly long been my ambition to do so. After all, Trollope is admirable on many counts; foremost in my mind is his modest industry. He spent a quiet life in London producing huge, weighty tomes. Dickens lived just around the corner, I believe, and Trollope maintained a friendship with Chuck, even though Dickens was rich and famous and had an actress for a mistress. The point is, I don’t believe there ever was an occasion when Tony Trollope threw down his pen in artistic despair and scrambled off to drink with a moustache named Christos. Anyway, my small victory was that I didn’t lie about my ignorance. I was tempted to do so;
Hooper had bandied the name about years ago, in the Pig’s Snout, and I could have probably voiced a few of his observations and complaints re Trollope and claimed them as my own. But I didn’t. Instead I said simply, “You know what? I’ve never read any of Trollope’s novels.”

“You,” said Amy, “don’t know what you’re missing.”

At last call Jay began to improvise his jeremiad, variations on an air of sadness. That’s when I stumbled out of the bar, overtipping Amy and leaving her with a promise to read
Barchester Towers
, which I keep, believe it or not, on my bedside table. Granted, it is there mostly for protection against intruders, but I didn’t mention that.

Despite fairly vast amounts of alcohol, I never became drunk, as is evidenced by the fact that I am typing this now.

“Uncle Johnny?”

“Jay?”

“No, it’s Phil.”

“My boner.”

“Why did you think it was Jay?”

“No reason.”

“It’s just that you kind of jumped all over that. You
know? Jay?”

“He calls me more often than you do.”

“Oh.”

“He was over on Thanksgiving. He brought turkey.”

“Really?”

“Actually, he brought a bottle of Wild Turkey. We had a few little snorts. What did you do on Thanksgiving?”

“Um … I forgot to give thanks.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah, Jay told me you were having a few little problems, Phil. Well… shit happens.”

“You said it.”

“That’s the way the cookie crumbles.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s life.”

“Right.”

“You need any more clichés?”

“No, I’m good, Uncle Johnny.”

“But, you know, you have to give thanks for the good things. And there’s a lot of good things in life. When I think back, I remember all sorts of good, good things.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Jane was a great lay.”

“Okay, you know what, Uncle Johnny—”

“She had a great little body. Tight.”

“Uncle Johnny—”

“And pepper steaks.”

“Huh?”

“Not that shit you get in Chinese restaurants, with green peppers, that’s no good. I’m talking about a steak with peppercorns
actually embedded in the meat
, and that beautiful sauce, I believe they make it with shallots and cognac.
That
… is what life is all about. Okay, now you go.”

“What?”

“You say something you think is good.”

“Well … Okay, well, um…”

“Is Veronica a good lay?”

“Were you always like this?”

“Like what?”

“You just seem a little bit crude.”

“How is Ronnie, anyway?”

“She’s—”

“Christ, what a rack on that babe.”

“Uncle Johnny—”

“Okay, lay it on me. Give me a good thing.”

“That’s a tough one for me right now.”

“How about this one, kid?
Television.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You should see the set-up I got now. I got this plasma screen, thing is like five feet wide. I got stacks of speakers. Woofers, tweeters, bass drivers.
Super-deluxe.”

“What do you like to watch?”

“Not porn, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking.”

“Between you and me, it scares me shitless. Twats were never meant to be that big.”

“So what do you watch?”

“I don’t know. Lots of shit. Hey … when are we going to have a new episode
of Padre?”

“We’re not, Uncle Johnny.”

“Why not?”

“Edward Milligan is dead.”

“Who?”

“The star. Padre.”

“Christ! That sucks sewer water.”

“Tell me something, Uncle Johnny. You say Jay was over there, and he told you I was experiencing a few little problems?”

“Check.”

“But you don’t seem to know that I’m separated from Veronica—”

“You’re kidding!”

“—and you don’t seem to know that I’m experiencing some, um, professional difficulties.”

“Yeah, I guess if the guy’s dead, that kind of puts the kibosh on
Padre.”

“What exactly did Jay tell you?”

“Oh. He said that some greaseballs frightened you when you were a kid and now you’re emotionally stunted.”

“Hmm.”

“I said,
Shit happens.
That’s life. When I think back—over eighty-five years, kid, eighty-five fucking years—I can’t believe the shit that happened. And it all took me by surprise. Jane dying, my sister dying, meeting Claire, having a baby when I was forty-nine years old, Claire taking off with a kid younger than you … my god. There’s only one thing certain in life, Phil.”

“And what’s that?”

“Televisions just keep getting bigger and better.”

“I’ll tell you why I called, Uncle Johnny.”

“Oh, I know why you called. Same reason your brother calls. You guys want to talk to your mother, but she’s gone. So I’m the next best thing.”

“I was looking in the mirror the other day. And I noticed something remarkable. I look just like you.”

“Really? You’re all wrinkled and bald and your testicles drag on the ground?”

“No, I mean I look just like you used to look. I’m big and boxy. I’ve got wavy hair with a distinguished streak of grey. Some people consider me handsome. I look just like you.”

“Huh.”

“Except for my spectacles, of course. So I guess l look like your secret identity.”

“Oh yeah, I just remembered something else your brother said about you. He said you’ve been hitting the juice pretty hard.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Your mom would be worried about you, Phil.”

“You know what, Uncle Johnny? Mom would be right to be worried about me.”

THERE WAS CONSIDERABLE EXCITEMENT DURING REHEARSALS OF
The Hawaiian
, none of which I noticed, being far too occupied with the wooing of Ms. Lear. I undertook this wooing with the cerebral detachment of a field marshal. I had plans and tactics, although I was always prepared to make a responsive or impromptu strike. A case in point: as I sat in the theatre watching rehearsals, I saw that the director was making moves upon Ronnie. He was in a strong position—the director/leading lady relationship is very intimate and always on the brink of becoming sexual, assuming that the participants’ inclinations run along those lines. I had campaigned to have
The Hawaiian
directed by Penn Goldman, who possessed very fine dramatic sensibilities and was gay as all get-out. But the play’s producers thought we needed a more masculine sensibility to deal with the table of regulars, who were all, to one degree or another, great heaving pigs. So George Gordon was brought in. You may remember, he was mentioned a few pages back; he had treated a woman so egregiously that he was hauled before the drunken and howling tribunal. Gordon had a good reputation as a theatre director and a very poor one as a human being. He treated actors shamefully, he fired designers impetuously, he was known to kick technicians in the seat of their pants if they happened to get in his way. He was especially rotten to
writers, although—and I wish there were some way around this point—he quite liked me. “You and I, Philly,” he used to say,
“understand
each other.”