Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

Q. Do you ever see anything of any of them, Del?

A. Nope. Nope . They don’t push it. And we don’t push it.

This was perhaps wise of Mr. Theobald Delafont De Brooks who had, anyway, a few other stories to tell. Not many.

Story Number One. When TDD’s grandfather was a student in the seventh grade at the old Governor Daniel Tompkins School (long obliterated), who should make a visit to said school but old T. D. himself: see an officious principal shove Del’s grandfather forward, Mr. President, here is a namesake of yours! Well, you don’t get to be President by asking too many dumb questions and so all that old T. D. said was, “I believe we may be related, then.” “I believe we may, sir.” Old T. D. grinned, made feint of offering the boy a cigar, and, amidst the genial laughter, briskly shook hands with him, and passed on along.

Story Number Two. Del’s father did have the courage to send a letter beginning Dear Cousin Grosvenor congratulating GDD on his first election: back came another letter, from the same mold and form as all replies to all such letters, but beginning — mind you, mind you— Dear Cousin Delafont. Explain that , would you. They knew — almost spooky, as you might say.

In neither case: No invitation to come boating or swimming at Muskrat Sump. No invitation to go golfing or riding at Parkill Ridge.

Oh well. Take what you can get. Hope for the Big Chance. Keep your powder dry. And — say? — don’t knock it. On the strength of the Story Number One, Theobald De Brooks the distant, floated into a job offered by an uncle of the boy standing next to him during the handshake. And on the strength of the letter (framed) D. James De Brooks floated into a job given him by the local Commiteeman: not much of a job, but it kept them in groceries and off Relief. See?

Maybe at one time they had been the poor relations. But for a long, long time, they hadn’t even been that. Had Del’s dad been merely boasting, swaggering, in giving his son the names, the given names, of both the presidential De Brookses? Or had he merely given what he had to give—

Were there any other family anecdotes? There were no other family anecdotes. Were there, then, any family traditions …? any, even, family words or phrases, such as almost every family has? Well…this expression: More money than six patroons… Theo. Del. De Brooks’s grandfather sometimes used to say that. And, actually, for quite a while, the grandson had taken it for granted that a patroon must be a rich Irishman! Later he learned, long later, that a patroon had been a Hudson Valley landowner, a sort of squire, with a land-grant from the old Dutch or English governments. And this expression: did someone say, Say, guess what I found? a family answer was, the spook box! No explanation came with that. And this expression (and a little bit more): If the family was having a hot-dog roast or toasting marshmallows in the backyard (the barbecue had yet to cross the Mississippi) and the fire didn’t at first or at second burn too well, see Grandpa De B. grub for a cigar- or cigarette-butt or even a pinch of pipe-tobacco, stamp his foot, and say, with an air of mock solemnity something that sounded like Skah- ootch! and cast the bit of tobacco on the fire. And the fire did always seem to burn better. Once: Theo. Del De B.: “Grandpa, what does Skah- ootch mean?” Grandpa (once) “That’s what the pow-wow man used to say.” “Grandpa, who was the—” Mrs. De Brooks: “Pa, you are going to burn that frankfurter!” A low-scale squabble, but after that it (the trick) was seldom done. A few times, if an electric light flickered or the old vacuum-tube radio misbehaved, the boy did actually stamp his foot and cry “the magic word” and sometimes it did work. But his Mother didn’t like feet being stamped in the house. So he quit doing it.

And the funny old yellow brick “from the old house in the Bowery”? Vanished. Dusty old thing. Forget it.

And don’t think, either, that it was all peaches and cream and little anecdotes (even what little there were of them), having a famous Name. Names. For one thing: If you’re so much, whutta ya doin’ here? If your name is De Brooks, why ain’t chew rich? How often, merely to answer, What’s your name? was to collect a sneer, a scowl, a jeer, jibe, explicit insult, sometimes — more than once — a poke in the ribs? Often. There was an army sergeant who had made his life a living hell, and — Ya don’t like it? Write t’ GDD! Well…doubtless there had been people who had hated George Washington… Millard Fillmore, for that matter.

Once, Theo (actually, he had more often been called Baldy) did put the question to his old man. “How come all we’ve got are the names?”

At once he saw that his father well knew the meaning of the question and only pretended his, “Huh? Whuddaya mean?”

“ They’re famous. We’re not famous. They got money . We haven’t got no — any — money. They’re up on top . We’re down at the bot tom. How…come…?

A weary expression. A sigh. “I dunno, Theo. I just don’t know. How’d I know? Maybe one of us married the servant girl. Maybe one of us was a horse thief. Maybe we’re illegitimate, or something. And I’ll tell ya somethin’ else, sonny. My great-great-grandmother? She was a cousin to Commodore Aurelius Vandervelt. And it never even got none of us a job shovelin’ coal on the old East Coast Steam Boat Line. They say that once she went to the Old Man’s wife’s funeral. And at the, ah, reception? They wouldn’t even give her a glass of sherry . Said, ‘No, this is just for the family.’ And so she just turned around and went home. Big people don’t like little people, and if they got the same name? seems like they like ‘em even less. The, uh, names? Well…hold onto ’em. Who knows…”

And, before turning back to his newspaper, he added, “You’re entitled to them, anyway. ”

So.

There had in those days been someone, at least someone , to whom the matter had meant something; his high school teacher, the virginal Miss Vark: “Are you planning to go to college, Theobald?”

“No money.”

And Miss Vark had explained to him that there was a certain scholarship, he had long ago forgotten its name, “for the benefit of native-born American boys being of Holland Dutch descent.” “I think, ” said Miss Vark, “that the part about the being of Dutch descent…which I am, too, Theobald…may actually be of more importance than the actual grades.” Poor Miss Vark. Ancestry was no dowry. And, rather to his own surprise, there really was such a scholarship: that year there were three openings, and they all went to native-born American boys being of Holland Dutch descent, all of them having names like Vanderdam, Vanderzam, Vanderbam, and all of them of a more recent and perhaps more vigorous immigration, by way of Grand Rapids, Michigan. But good Miss Vark didn’t stop there. He was fazed, but she wasn’t. Her face an unaccustomed pink, she said to him, “I am going to write to Sophronia Vandervelt De Brooks,” no need to explain who she was, you’d have to be illiterate never to have read about her; half way between the two lines of Presidential De Brookses — very famous… very charitable And so, he hadn’t meant to, he’d known better than to mention it to any of the kids, he told her of the great-great-grandmother who’d been Commodore Vandervelt’s cousin. He left out about the snub and the sherry.