Three-Martini Lunch (22 page)

I
f I was indeed going to make the trip to California, it meant I had to give Mister Gus my notice. I was dreading this task, for I knew he would consider it an act of betrayal. I offered to give him a full month if he liked, during which I could recommend another messenger-boy who might appreciate the extra work.

“Hmph,” he said, and muttered something under his breath to the effect of “Serves me right for overpaying you.” He refused to allow me to help him arrange for my replacement, and told me to merely finish out the week.

As my final day approached, he grew more and more quiet, and looked off into the distance more than was typically his custom. Every so often his lips would twitch and he would draw in breath as though to speak, but no words followed. He seemed perpetually on the verge of saying something, if only he could remember what it was.

Finally, on my penultimate day, a front-page headline in the
Post
gave him his opportunity. I remember it was one of those overcast, warm
autumn days in Manhattan when sunny skies suddenly fill with lightning, rain, and mosquitoes. The city smelled of wet leaves, clouds pressing low overhead like a flat gray ceiling. That morning I retrieved the papers as normal and set about dusting and tidying his bedroom as he sifted through them. He was in a cantankerous mood, and he mostly ignored me at first, grumbling about the papers being wet even though I had taken care to keep them dry and had tucked them under my raincoat on my walk back from the newsstand.

He asked for a towel, which I brought to him, and as he made his way through the stack of newspapers he pretended to sponge imaginary water from the pages of each one. When he got to the
Post
, he put down the towel, clucked his tongue, and harrumphed loudly. This was not a complaint about the paper being damp. I knew from a quick perusal on my way back from the newsstand that he was looking at a front-page story about two men who had been found murdered near the Ramble in Central Park. It was a sensational, violent story. The men had been beaten to death, and the killer—or
killers
, as it appeared to have been a group—were still at large. The paper implied the two men had been found in an indecent state, but did not name the details—I can only assume to avoid a libel suit.

“Hmph,” Mister Gus grunted. He shook the newspaper to snap more stiffness back into the folded pages. “Did you see this, boy?”

I nodded.

“Well?”

“Well, sir?”

“Well, what do you think?”

“I suppose it's a shame,” I said. I did not want to discuss the headline, but Mister Gus had clenched his jaw and I knew this meant the course of conversation was set. He would not be dissuaded.

“And exactly which part would you say is shameful?” he pressed. I knew I needed to proceed carefully. When it came to questions of morality,
Mister Gus could be very severe. He was the type of person who needed others to agree with him, and took it as a personal affront when they did not. At the same time, I had my suspicions about Mister Gus, but he was very secretive about his past, and nothing concrete had surfaced to absolutely tip my final judgment one way or another. “Which part would you say is shameful?” he repeated.

“All of it, I suppose,” I said, hoping this was diplomatic enough to satisfy him. “It's a shame.” Unfortunately, now I had his full attention. Mister Gus lowered the paper to his lap, cocked his head to the side, and narrowed his eyes at me.

“And do you believe the police will apprehend the men who committed this murder?”

“I suppose they'll try,” I said.

“Oh yes,” said Mister Gus, “they'll
try
. But will they make an arrest?”

“I don't know.”

He lifted the paper again. “It says here there's reason to believe the victims were engaged in deviant behavior at the time of their beating, and had communist sympathies. What do you think of that?”

I shrugged.

“It would be rather difficult, don't you think, for the authorities to know
what
these two men were doing at the time of their beating? Unless they were omniscient—which I assure you, most policemen are not—or are speculating, or else had talked to the thugs who beat these two men to death.”

I didn't answer. Instead, I turned to open the curtains and proceeded to fluff the pillows on the divan positioned beneath the giant windowsill. I was aware we were hurdling towards some sort of intersection I had hoped to avoid. Looking back now, I always knew the truth about Mister Gus's life and about the source of his bitterness.

“Central Park,” he said, “has a funny history. Especially the Ramble.
Have you ever ventured into that part of the park around evening time, boy?”

“Not on purpose,” I said, a little too quickly. He gave me a long, assessing, disappointed look. I could tell he thought—mistakenly, I might add—that I was lying.

“So you've seen what goes on in that tunnel in the park, eh?”

I nodded. He rolled his eyes at the coffered ceiling and chuckled.

“Perhaps it's a rite of passage; after all, we know as far as shepherds go, the Good Lord quite enjoys playing the occasional practical joke on his flock.” As he turned to me the bitter pinch of his smile turned my stomach. “I saw the same thing, too, back when I was still a boy,” he continued. “Happened upon a couple of young men in the throes of it while out taking a walk with my father. You can't begin to imagine my embarrassment.” His milky eyes focused on some invisible object upon the far wall of the bedroom. “My father . . . my father was disgusted. ‘Nothing for it,' he said to me. ‘Sodomites will always find one another in every city. You can't keep them apart; it's part of their wretched nature.'” He paused. “He was right, you know. We
will
always find one another, because—like all animals prowling this earth—we cannot bear to believe we are the only ones of our kind.”

He'd used the word
we
, and I felt a cold shock go through me as I picked up on this brazen admission. He sat up and leaned forward over the bed, away from his nest of pillows. I could see the tendons straining in his neck to hold him up where his muscles failed. His beady blue-gray eyes grew very round, and his voice suddenly became a loud, pleading hiss.

“I say this to you: Choose it, boy! Choose it before it chooses you. Because it will. You think there's a way it won't, that somehow there's a way to live your life so you won't ever catch its eye, but it will and you can't. So choose. Choose while you're young and you can believe in someone and can make it last a little while. That little while is the only eternity any of
us mortals ever get to have. Don't let fate do the choosing for you; don't wait until you're old and desperate—and
wretched
, as my father declared, for he wasn't wrong—and you're left to fumble in terrible places and it's only your body . . . yes, only your body trying to prove to the soul that it's not alone, and failing time and time again.”

I looked at him; his bottom lip was trembling, and I understood there was love in his plea. Not for me but for someone else, someone from his past or—even likelier still—for some younger, earlier, as-yet-unspoiled version of himself. I was touched by the strength of his plea, and for a moment that seemingly bottomless wellspring of knee-jerk repulsion within me ceased to flow over. I thought, for a moment, to admit to understanding what he was talking about. I even thought, in a fleeting impulse of optimism, to promise him I would heed his words and try to do as he said.

But less than twenty seconds ticked by before my thoughts automatically and reactively shifted to my mother. My mother, who had lost first Marcus, the brave son, and then my father, the soldier she'd married in dress uniform. In my role as second son I had always attempted to fill the vacancies left behind by these two men, at times trying to be the role model to Cob I am certain Marcus would have been to me, at other times trying to hold my mother's hand when Wendell was too drunk or absent or bitter to prop her up, and ultimately proving myself a piss-poor replacement on both fronts. Now I stared into Mister Gus's eyes, thinking of my mother and of Cob, and a door within me very firmly closed.

“You'll have to forgive me, Mister Gus,” I said. “I'm not as educated as you are in the ways of the world; I'm not sure I know what you're talking about.”

He sat there for a moment, blinking, the intelligent light that had burned so fiercely during his speech slowly dying from his eyes.

“I see,” he said finally.

During the rest of the day he left me alone to complete my minor
chores in silence. He stared out the window and watched the rain falling. When it came time to bring in his supper for the evening, he gave the tray a weary glance and pushed it to the side altogether.

“Sir? You've been quiet. Are you all right?” I asked.

“Go home, Mr. Tillman,” he said. It was the first time he had called me anything other than “boy,” and it caught me off guard.

“But you'll need someone to take away the dishes. And also . . . there's still . . . your bath.”

“I said GO HOME!” he yelled. His volume was surprising; I hadn't thought him capable of shouting so loudly.

We locked eyes, and in that moment we understood each other perfectly. “As you wish, sir,” I said finally. I put down the napkin I'd been holding out to him and moved in the direction of the door, then hesitated.

“I'm sure you'll be glad when you have a new boy to assist you,” I said. I was trying to be cheerful; it was a peace offering, but I could tell he took it the wrong way. I attempted to smile but was brought up short by the expression on Mister Gus's face. He had always looked old, but now he looked older than I'd ever seen him look; his countenance was nothing short of a death-mask. It was an expression beyond sadness, as though he'd been hollowed out. I recognized him for what he was: a dying animal, helpless and full of pathos, but one that could only lash out if I got any closer.

I regarded him for a moment, then turned and walked out. We did not speak after that. On my last day, we spent the entire day in silence. On my way out the door, I found an envelope with my name scrawled on the outside and a one-hundred-dollar bill inside.

35

A
ll at once, Cliff had a breakthrough. I didn't know what set him off, but something had. He'd been suffering with a terrible bout of writer's block, until one day I came home from the office to find him writing furiously, sheaves of paper strewn around him as though a tiny bomb had gone off. It was like a scene out of a play or a movie: The frustrated artist suddenly finds inspiration and, looking half-mad, begins to churn out his vision as quickly as possible. I gasped and clapped my hands together.

“Shall we celebrate?” I asked.

“I'll go for it,” he said, meaning the bottle of wine. “I want to see as much of this in type as soon as possible. Do you mind?”

“Oh.” I hesitated, comprehending. “Sure. Here.” I pulled a five-dollar bill out of my pocketbook and handed it to him, hoping he wouldn't spend it all. He dashed out to go around the corner to the liquor store and I did my best to gather the pages strewn about the floor and put them in order.
By the time he came back I'd gotten the Smith Corona set up on the card table, all ready to go.

“Is it—”

“A novel? You're goddamned right it is,” Cliff said, grinning. “I knew it was just a matter of time before I started one, and here we are!” Standing over by the kitchenette, he struggled a bit with the bottle he'd bought and a loud
POP!
sounded as a champagne cork flew up and ricocheted off the ceiling, nearly putting the sole overhead lightbulb out. He poured a generous dose of the golden bubbly liquid into a mug and I reached a hand out, assuming this was for me.

“Ah-ah,” Cliff chided, shaking his head. “Let's get the typing done first. It's important that it's typed up in tip-top form.”

I looked at him. “All right,” I said after a short pause, not wanting to start an argument. I understood he'd been blocked for quite a while and was likely letting his excitement get the better of him. And more than anything else I was excited
for
him. I gathered up the pages of longhand and tapped them into neat alignment on the card table. I checked to make sure the typewriter ribbon was in good shape, rolled a clean sheet of paper into place, and tapped the carriage return lever to move the roller all the way over to the right.

“And off we go!” I said, winking at Cliff. He grinned even wider and took a heavy swig from his mug.

“Eden old girl, it's too soon to say, but I really think I've done it!”

“I can't tell you how happy I am to hear it, Cliff.”

I began typing. He sat there drinking and watching as I worked. I took my time, typing with painstaking care and reading as I went along. The story was a little disjointed and I couldn't quite follow the plot. It appeared to be, I realized with a tiny cringe, a novel of self-examination narrated by a young man during his college years. A few times I checked to make sure I'd put the pages in the right order. I knew Cliff's composition
was in its early stages and I didn't want to discourage him. If, down the road, he wanted my help, I would gladly give it to him. I was proud to realize my job at Bonwright and even my stint at Torchon & Lyle had already sharpened my editorial eye.

“Where did this sudden inspiration come from?” I asked, pausing to roll another sheet of paper into the typewriter.

“My lovely wife,” he said, leaning over my shoulder to kiss the nape of my neck as I resumed typing. “She encourages me.”

“That's awfully nice of you to say.”

“I tell you, I'm on a tear, Eden! I'll have this done in a matter of weeks, and then I'm gonna get a book deal, I can taste it!”

He was getting ahead of himself but I didn't want to say so. I'd seen lots of young writers fall into this trap. Some of them had the imaginary book tour all planned out before they'd even finished the first chapter.

“Say,” Cliff continued, snapping his fingers, “I'm going to talk to Gregg Carns about the amount of the advance he got, just to get an idea of the ballpark I'd be in.”

“Now?” I asked, slightly alarmed to think he was about to go out for the night and leave me to type his pages alone. Gregg Carns was an acquaintance of ours. He was a hipster who lived in the Village and who it was rumored had gotten a sizable advance for a novel about a group of junkies who drive cross-country to Frisco. It had sold very well, and one reviewer called him the voice of our generation. But with every royalty check, the odds of him ever writing a second book slimmed exponentially as he fell deeper and deeper down the bottle.

“No, no,” Cliff said, smiling and kissing me on the cheek. “Don't be silly. Tonight we're celebrating, just the two of us. And I want to be here when you finish typing so I can read it over. I'll find Gregg tomorrow and ask him.”

I typed, Cliff read, and eventually I was able to get a couple of sips of champagne before it was all gone. It was late when we finally went to bed,
but we were both full of joy and made love with a voracious, exultant hunger. I woke up exhausted in the morning, looking a little wan as I dressed for the office, but I hardly cared. Cliff was writing and that made him happy, and that was all that mattered.

•   •   •

W
hen I came home from work the next day, I worried the spell would be broken—that Cliff's sudden inspiration might turn out to have been a fluke. But I found him very much in the same way as the day before. And just as I had the day before, I gathered up the whirlwind of papers scattered about the floor and set about typing them up, the only difference being Cliff drank beer instead of champagne as he watched me.

After a week or so of this routine, Cliff had accrued a fairly sizable stack of manuscript pages. He was getting restless. The beer gave way to whiskey, and the main topic on Cliff's mind slipped more and more from writing to getting published.

“Listen, Eden,” he said one Sunday afternoon, “an idea has occurred to me and you're not going to be on board with it right away, but I want you to hear me out because I think it would be beneficial to both of us, and what's a marriage about if both people don't benefit?”

“I'm not sure I understand,” I said. He sat me down and explained his proposition. His father was one of the most literary editors in all of New York, he pointed out, and who else should Cliff work with but an editor exactly like that? The problem was his father was prejudiced against him.

“I'm not sure I can fix that, Cliff,” I said as gently as possible.

“But that's where you're wrong, Eden old gal. You
can
fix it. You can slip My Old Man my manuscript and tell him it's an anonymous submission. Then, when he goes bananas for it, you can reveal who wrote it. It's genius!”

“Oh . . .” I said. I demurred. The manuscript, I knew, was not ready. Mr. Nelson would not go bananas for it, but I couldn't tell Cliff this. It would devastate him, and worse: I knew it would break something
between us I knew I would never be able to fix. “I think,” I said hesitantly, “I'd better stay out of this. It might confuse things. And things are awfully confusing as it is . . .”

“You're just being selfish.”

I blinked. “Selfish?” I repeated, thinking to myself that a selfish girl wouldn't pay the bills while her husband stayed at home.

“After all, it was
my
tip about
my
Old Man that got you the job. I gave you a leg up on the competition; the least you could do is give me the same. It's not like I'm asking for anything immoral . . . An anonymous submission isn't a very big favor, at that! You know, you're awfully high and mighty for a girl who goes around
lying about her name
. What would My Old Man say if he knew about
that
, I wonder?”

Hearing this threat, a cold shock of betrayal went through me and my heart skipped a beat. I was speechless.

“I don't understand why you won't do this for me, Eden,” he continued. “Do you
want
to hold me back? You and I both know you
lied
to get that job, and I haven't told a soul, have I? No, I've been a very good husband to you. I deserve this!”

I stared at him in disbelief. It was terrible, awful: We were having our first true fight. “Let's not argue,” I started to say, but it was too late. He could see I wasn't going to do it, and that had thrown him into a state of outrage. Cliff picked up a desk lamp—the only other source of light besides the pathetically dim overheard bulb—and smashed it on the floor. Then he ran out of the apartment and slammed the door with tremendous force.

I picked up the pieces of the lamp and threw them in the rubbish pail. I spent the remainder of the evening reading manuscripts in the eerie quiet that followed in the wake of the sound of the lamp being smashed, the door being slammed. Cliff didn't come home until four o'clock in the morning. He climbed into bed stinking of booze. We both rolled on our sides and slept with our backs to each other.