J. Donleavy - Wrong Information is Being Given Out at Princeton

“Hey Romeo, let me suck your cock, if you’ve got one, while my girlfriend in here sticks her tongue up my ass.”

One shakes a fist up at these unseemly women, but then in instant retaliation, suffers just some more shockingly vulgar discourtesy and ill behavior, which one has so reluctantly become accustomed to in this town. You hear such vile invective coming out of a woman’s mouth, you kind of wonder what normal women are harboring in their brains. But at least in the Villagey atmosphere here, there are a few trees. And unlike nearly all the rest of New York, convening streets slanting in different directions. Turn left. A vegetable store. Next to it, a Chinese laundry. Mother and father in there around the clock sweating over hot irons while the sons and daughters are at Ivy League colleges, their nose stuck in books. This is it. Right here. At these stone steps. The engraved name above a bell. Press. Wait. Hear a buzzer. Push open the door. Climb up stairs. At the top stands Maximilian Avery Gifford Strutherstone III, grinning in a yellow cashmere sweater. How do I know it’s a cashmere sweater. I don’t. But on Max it sure looks like one. And on his feet highly polished mahogany loafers and thick fluffy sweat socks. Growing up, we kids had a name for it—“studied casualness in dress.”

“Gee pal, old buddy, this is a great treat. How are you doing.”

“I’m fine, Max. How are you doing.”

“Well, today I’m doing fine. Fine. Come in. It’s so damn good to see you.”

With a sweep of his arm, Max ushering one in. Under the leaves of palm plants to sit drinking Lapsang souchong and biting into the warmth of scones fresh from the oven and deliciously slathered with clotted cream and black cherry jam. All everywhere neat and clean. His shell collection in a display cabinet. A blue parrot in a cage. The floors polished. College pennants on the walls. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Colgate, the latter located mid — New York State where, Max after the war, came back east to go to college.

“Well Max, looking around here you sure pass inspection. And I am both relieved and impressed that your return to bachelorhood could possibly have demonstrated such endearingly soothing aspects.”

“Yeah, old pal. Old bachelorhood ain’t half-bad. No nagging. No goddamn bossing around. No whining, no bitching, no sulking. No immense surprise sprung on you every time you turn around. Just deliciously soothing tea like now and wonderful conversation. But hey, Steve old boy, my good pal, I’m sorry to hear about you and Sylvia, I really am.”

“What have you heard.”

“That she took off. But at least you know in the crunch, you don’t have any worries.”

“What crunch.”

“You know, like a divorce.”

“Why don’t I have any worries.”

“Well, I mean like alimony. A vise clamping closed on your short hairs, you complain, you squeal, you shout, but which holds you in pain for the rest of your natural life. But you know that can’t happen to you. Just look at who your in-laws are. Imagine, if it ever comes to that, information like that getting out in a divorce court and blaring all over in newspaper headlines.”

“What information.”

“Don’t be naïve, Steve. The amount of old moola of course. That kind of publicity gets a real play and goes everywhere. In fact, who do you know thinks of anything else except how much money somebody else has got.”

“Well, I’d like to know what kind of publicity you’re talking about and where everywhere is, because I don’t know who has ever heard of the Witherspoon Triumphington’s for anyone to care. And if they did, what difference is that going to make that my adoptive father-in-law is a tightwad. He cut off Sylvia’s allowance as soon as we got married.”

“Steve, I don’t mean him, I mean her. I mean, look when that comes out, at who she is.”

“Well, I already know who she is. She’s a very fine and a very beautiful lady.”

“Hey come on Steve, you don’t have to hide anything from me.”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“Well, for God’s sake, you must know from Sylvia.”

“What should I know from Sylvia.”

“That her adoptive mother is known, at least among New York’s best society, as being one of the richest women in America. And probably in the world. Compared to her, the tightwad husband, who maybe has some sort of past celebrated lineage plus a few horses and polo ponies, and plays court tennis at the Racquet and Tennis Club, and goes salmon fishing on the Spey and fly-fishing in Finland and quail shooting in Georgia, he hasn’t got a penny. Never had. In fact, it’s probably all her fishing tackle and they’re probably her horses and polo ponies.”

“How do you know all this.”

“From Ertha, for a start. I know. Practically everything about the family. I mean she practically lived with Sylvia for a while in their place upstate. I’m amazed you don’t know. Sylvia had a little doll’s house in the woods where they would stay together. Sure, the two of them were sleeping together. I mean, they’re only part-time lesbians. If it’s really true you don’t know who’s got the money.”

“Hey, what are you trying to say, that Sylvia is a lesbian.”

“Hey, Steve, old pal. I’m just relating facts. No need to get hot under the collar, ole pal.”

“Well, if I don’t happen to know any of these so-called facts, and even if I did, I don’t see why it should be anybody else’s business.”

“Hey, come on Steve, who wouldn’t know these things in a world where that’s what people live and breathe on such information. I mean, shit, boy, Sylvia was raised as if, and thinking she was their natural daughter. You can bet you were checked out sixteen different ways from Sunday. I mean, I don’t know exactly what Sylvia inherits, but it’s enough anyway that they thought they had a slick fortune hunter on their hands when they found there were traces of bootlegging in your family background.”

“I categorically deny and resent deeply that aspersion.”

“It’s only what I was told, Steve, for God’s sake. But I mean, if you make enough at bootlegging it nearly becomes respectable. But then when you tried shaking down old Triumphington in one of his clubs for a handout, the alarm bells started to ring.”

“Hey, what the hell are you trying to say.”

“Hey Steve, old pal, don’t go white as a sheet. Sorry, that’s the news I got. Not that you were blackmailing or anything. What the hell, bootlegging could have meant that your family were goddamn rich. I mean, look at the big recent rubouts in this city by the guys who were once bootleggers. There must have been enormous profits somewhere once for the guys to be behaving so seriously. Here, have more tea. Gee pal, last thing I want to do is hurt your feelings. That’s what I’m saying. There’s so much money involved. Just from the inner workings of Wall Street and from my own brokerage house you’d know how much. All very confidential, but a senior partner buys and sells on Sylvia’s mother’s behalf. And boy, if that ole gal doesn’t know how to trade. Some of this stuff involves trust funds so massive, you wouldn’t believe. Then there’s a banking guy who manages a petty-cash account for her in one of their banks. Where the petty cash is in seven figures. A little munificence in a creative cause would be nothing. You see what I mean. Take it from a former second class yeoman.”

“Well, I know for a fact she’s terrified of even spending a dollar, but I think it’s all an outrageous invasion of someone’s privacy, including my own.”

“You know, old buddy boy, how some people, especially an Episcopalian like myself, feel about the general Irish. Goddamn famine and all that. Eating the green grass by the side of the road when they were tossed out of their hovels. Dying like flies. And ever since, that terrible stuff has been engraved, so to speak, on their behavior. And going after the main financial chance is the Irish ethic. They’d do anything to get their hands on money.”