Disturbing the Peace (Vintage Classics) (16 page)

“I’m too tired,” she said. “Besides, I don’t have to see it – I know Peter’s done everything beautifully.”

“Yeah, well, that’s true. He has.”

“And anyway I’m starving. Can’t we please go have dinner now?”

Wilder drove for what seemed many miles to a restaurant where tough, expensive steaks were served by waiters dressed in the tight knickerbockers and white stockings of Revolutionary times

“… Oh, hey, Pam,” Jerry said with his mouth full. “I forgot to tell you. Guess who’s on campus?”

“Who?”

“God.”

“No!”

“Yup. Old God the Father himself. Went to England for the summer, got bored and came home early. He’s holed up in his old study. I told him about the picture; he said he’d like to meet John and all that. Said he’d especially like to see you again.”

“Did he really? Oh, I’d
love
to see him. You think it’s too late?”

“I don’t think he’d mind. I’ll call him first.”

Wilder finally managed to swallow a stringy piece of meat that
had threatened to gag him. “Will somebody tell me what’s going on? Who’s ‘God,’ for God’s sake?”

“Oh, he’s just the most wonderful, wonderful man,” Pamela explained. “He’s probably the most serene and learned and beautiful person I’ve ever known. He’s a philosophy professor. His name’s Nathan Epstein, and he’s a widower, and he’s about – I don’t know; sixty? We used to call him ‘God’ and ‘God the Father’ because we adored him so much. You’ll see why.”

“Did he know you called him ‘God’?”

“Oh, of course not; he’d have been terribly embarrassed. That was just a silly undergraduate thing of ours.”

“Wouldn’t be too sure of that, Pam,” Peter said. “It wasn’t only our class that called him that. I imagine the kids’ve been doing it ever since he first came here – ten, twelve years ago.”

And Jerry came back from the phone to announce that Mr. Epstein would be happy to see them in half an hour.

His house on the outskirts of the campus was very small, the picture of a lonely scholar’s retreat, and when he opened the door it turned out that he was small too – about Wilder’s size. His thick white hair was disheveled and he wore a sweater so old and raddled that it seemed ready to fall off his back, but his face did look wise – like some commercial artist’s vision of a Supreme Court justice.

“Pamela!” he said, opening his arms for an embrace in which she melted. “My little Nietzsche scholar. Have I ever told you,” he asked the others over her shoulder, “that this young lady wrote one of the best term papers on Nietzsche I’ve ever read? And Jerry; Julian; Peter—” he managed to shake hands without releasing his grip on Pamela – “How nice of you to come. And you’re Mr. Wilde, right? Or is it Wilder?”

“Wilder. Good to meet you, Mr. Epstein.”

Only then did he let Pamela out of his arms, and she seemed
reluctant to leave. “I’ve heard so much about your film project, and I must say it sounds fascinating. Won’t you all come into the other room? We’ll have some coffee and a little brandy.”

The other room was his library, or study. All four walls were packed with books – more books even than Janice owned, and more impressive because only a few of them had bright jackets: the rest were old and dark. There was a desk, too, with piles of manuscript and a portable typewriter and a rack of well-used pipes (unlike Paul Borg, Mr. Epstein knew how to smoke a pipe), and there were enough chairs for everyone to sit down while he went about the business of the brandy bottle and the glasses. Rooms like this, and men like this, always gave Wilder a fresh sense of pain and loss at having flunked out of college.

“Well, Jerry,” Epstein was saying, “I’m sure screen-writing is a challenge, but I do hope you’ll get back to fiction before long. That
Atlantic
story was really striking. And Peter: I must say I’m a bit disappointed in you, designing a film set when you could be off somewhere painting. Joe Barrett told me – Well, never mind what he told me; surely you must know what a talented painter you are.”

“I’ll get back to it, Mr. Epstein; it won’t go away. I just got hooked on this movie. Julian talked me into it.”

“Yes, well, I imagine our friend Julian could talk anyone into anything. And you, sir,” he said, approaching Wilder with the brandy bottle. “Would you care to tell me something about your – your film? I understand it’s set in a public psychiatric ward. Bellevue, is it?”

“That’s right. I had all this material on my hands, you see, and I’ve always liked movies; this Bellevue stuff seemed right for a good experimental movie, that’s all.”

“Mm. Are you a psychologist, Mr. Wilder?”

Only then was it clear that Epstein didn’t know the truth. The
kids hadn’t told him; and why should they? Why should anyone tell anyone? But almost before he knew what he was doing, he told the truth himself: “No. Actually, I was a patient in Bellevue.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, just for a week,” he hurried on, “and that was just because of the Labor Day weekend, but I—” Appalled at his own voice, he wondered why he couldn’t have said he was a social worker or a hospital executive. Would the kids have cared? Why was he spilling his guts instead? Did he think it might make him more interesting in Epstein’s eyes? But what was “interesting” about having been a mental patient? “—anyway, I was locked up there,” he concluded, and he wondered if Pamela and the others were embarrassed for him.

“My goodness,” Epstein said. “And now you’re trying to turn that unfortunate episode into a work of art. I think that’s very – interesting.” Then one of the pipes was drawn out of the rack, and while tamping it he said “Julian? Do you think I might drop over and watch the filming?”

“Sure. Be a pleasure, Mr. Epstein. I’ll get you a copy of the script, too.”

Epstein said that would be fine, and for the next half hour, while he smoked and fondled and flourished his pipe, the talk excluded Wilder altogether. It was all reminiscence – the old professor chuckling over happy days with four favorite students – until the time came for everyone to rise and move toward the door.

“Well, Mr. Wilder,” he said then, “if you want to make a good film I think you’ve come to the right place. There’s something rare about Marlowe, something – oh, stimulating, invigorating – I discovered it when I first came here and decided I’d never work anywhere else. There’s an intensely creative
atmosphere up here that I’ve never been able to define or explain. I don’t mean to sound fanciful, but Marlowe casts a spell—” and here he broke off for a self-deprecating laugh. “Oh, I know if I tried telling this to some of my New York friends they’d say ‘spell, schmell,’ but even so, I think it’s true.”

All the way home to their dormitory room he let Pamela do the talking (“Isn’t he wonderful? …”), and he drove with his jaws clenched tight because he was weak with the need for a drink. He made himself a good one as soon as their door was shut, and even before she finished hanging up her clothes and taking a shower he’d begun to get a little drunk. He wanted to ask if she
had
been embarrassed when he told Epstein he was a patient; he wanted to discuss his strange compulsion to let people know the worst about himself – this confusion of what was weak and ugly in himself with what was “interesting” – but he couldn’t find the words to begin. And the more he drank, the more that topic receded in his mind until it was replaced by irrational, sickening images of jealousy.

“Aren’t you ever coming to bed?” she called from between the sheets.

“In a while.” By this time he had stripped down to his shorts and he was pacing the cold floor with a glass in his hand, returning again and again to the bottle on the table. “Got a couple of questions first,” he said. “What
were
you and Peter doing there in Jerk-off City tonight?”

“What? John, I don’t even know what you’re—”

“Yes you do. You and that dreamy-eyed little bullshit painter, bullshit designer, both of you smoking pot and feeling each other up – How many times you make it with
him
in the old days? Huh?”

“I’m not listening to any of this.”

“Yes you are, sweetheart. And how about Jerry? Isn’t he just
the sweet, sensitive young writer though? And how about Julian? What the hell d’ya think – you’re
fooling
me with all these kids? Ah, you may fool me with the kids, baby, but I’ve got your number with the old professor. Yeah, yeah, ‘My little Nietzsche scholar.’ God the Father my ass! How many times did
that
dirty old bastard get into your pants? Huh? Huh?”

That was when he tripped over something (a wastebasket? a suitcase?) and the cruel weight of the floor clobbered his shoulder. Then she was up and helping him to his feet – it wasn’t easy; it took all their combined strength – and they staggered and fumbled their way into bed together.

“Oh, John,” she said, “you’re a drunken, hateful, foulmouthed bastard and you’re half crazy, but I love you.”

And what could he do after that – all passion spent, all jealousy dissolved – what could he do but murmur “Oh, baby,” and fall heavily asleep in her arms?

“… I don’t
care!
I don’t
care!
Can’t you idiots understand? I don’t
care!
I
want
my father to see me like this!”

“All right, Henry; easy now …”

“Don’t call me
Henry
, you dumb black bastard – call me Doctor or I’ll break every fucking bone in your—”

“You ain’t gonna break nothin’, Doctor …”

“Cut!” Julian said. “Okay, hold it right there. What’s the trouble, John?”

“No real trouble,” Wilder said, “it’s just that I think the orderlies ought to be rougher on Klinger. They don’t like him; he’s a troublemaker; he calls them spades and jiga-boos, and they’re tired anyway from working the night shift. I want to see them
really
grab him and yell at him and muscle him around before they shoot him out.”

“Oh,
yes
,” said the man playing Klinger. “Yes, that’s absolutely right.”

Mr. Epstein dropped in toward the end of the third afternoon and tiptoed to where Wilder and Pamela stood on the apron of the set, holding a forefinger to his lips. He watched the actors for a while, watched the cameras and the sound apparatus and the lights and the trailing cables and wires, and at Julian’s next
cut he said, “Could the three of us step outside?”

He led them out onto the rich, sunlit grass. “I’ve read the script and I think it’s splendid,” he said, “and I have every confidence in Julian’s direction, assuming the actors and technicians are competent. But I must say, Mr. Wilder – and I certainly don’t mean to embarrass you – I must say I think you’re the most admirable man in this venture.” He paused there, letting the silence fill with afternoon wind in the trees. “To endure an experience like that, to observe it all so acutely despite the wretched emotional state you must have been in, and then in all humility to recapture it, to project it, to find order in the very chaos of it – I find that remarkable.”

No man had ever spoken to Wilder quite that way; it was enough to make his throat swell and his eyes sting. “Thank you, sir,” he said, and Pamela squeezed his arm to emphasize the compliment.

“Didn’t I tell you he was special?” she said to Epstein.

When Epstein walked away, going home, he wanted to follow him – he wanted to join him in that wonderful library for further talk about order and chaos – but Pamela led him back to the barn instead. By the time they got there the day’s work was done and most of the company was relaxing with cups of wine and excited talk about the movie.

“… I see Charlie as a kind of Christ figure,” a young man was saying. “He’s immensely strong and immensely gentle; he
does
try to ‘save’ the men, and he—”

“No, no, no,” another man said. “Klinger’s the Christ figure – the
crucified
Christ …”

“Balls,” Julian said. “Since when does every movie have to have a Christ figure in it? This is a movie about a madhouse and it’s gonna stay that way. If anybody wants to read more into it they’re welcome to – that’s
their
business. Maybe it’s society
in microcosm – I might buy that – but I’m not even gonna shove
that
down their throats. Christ’s sake, let the story speak for itself.”

“Man,” Clay Braddock said, “you said a mouthful.”

And John Wilder – the most admirable man in the venture – sat sipping his whiskey and smiling at everyone, enjoying it all. To find order in chaos – why, of course; that was what he’d wanted all his life.

“… Your father? Your father didn’t believe you either?”

“Well see, he got it from the other kids’ fathers. He says ‘Ralph, I want you to tell me exactly what happened up behind that sign.’ So I tell him and he says ‘That’s not the way I heard it,’ and I says ‘I
swear!
I
swear!
’ He just sits there and looks at me like I’m some kind of – some kind of – I don’t know. And ever since then, ever since then—”

“Wait – Excuse me, Julian.”

“Cut! What’s the matter, John?”

“Just that I think this scene might be done a little more subtly. The way it stands now we all believe Ralph’s story – it’s a pitiful story of brutality and misunderstanding, and that’s okay as far as it goes. But what if we played it so nobody’d be quite sure whether to believe it or not? I don’t want to make Ralph a liar – nothing that blatant – but I want him to be a very complicated, troubled kid. He’s told it this way so many times that maybe even
he
isn’t sure if it’s true any more. I want the audience to sort of read between the lines here. I guess what I’m after is a little whaddyacallit, a little ambiguity in the scene. Does anybody see what I mean?”

Julian did – “Right, John” – and the boy playing Ralph did too, after thinking it over. He and the Negro boy had been recruited from the High School of Music and Art; they were
two of the best actors in the cast, and when they played the scene again it was just what Wilder had hoped for.

“… Man. I mean, that is one tough story. Hey, listen, though; I got an idea. Let’s play a game. Let’s play pictures. You know how to play pictures, Ralph? …”