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

“I resent that aspersion also. My parents honestly sweated and slaved so that they could give their children a decent, honest upbringing.”

“Okay. Okay. Steve, I don’t mean you. You’re the lace-curtain variety. I’m just giving a whole bunch of hypotheticals. But I always assumed you were on easy street.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Hey, we’re still good old friends, ole pal, aren’t we. And are going to stay that way and not let somebody else’s unbelievable riches come between us. Gosh almighty, meeting someone like you in the navy, out of about three thousand men aboard ship with whom I had no mutual cultural interests or who even knew who Shakespeare was, nearly saved my life. I would have gone nuts, which, I don’t mind admitting I nearly did pretend I was for a while, hoping for a medical discharge. And remember, you did save my life. I could have been beaten to death after that big crap game when that son of a big bitch lost that fortune, thinking I was using loaded dice, when all it was was that I was just lucky, like I usually am. Here, old pal, let’s top up the old tea and have another scone.”

“I’ll have another scone. I may need money, and have a desire to have funds, but I’m not a fortune hunter nor am I ever going to sue anyone for their money.”

“Of course you’re not, friend. Who knows better about something like that than me. Who said anything like that, anyway. It’s not your fault that with your mother-in-law there’s big money, with millions and millions around. And I apologize if I sometimes sound cynical. But you just name where it’s warm and culturally pleasant and boy, you find out they got a place there.”

“Well from my it seems limited informed knowledge, I only know of two.”

“Pal, well then you don’t know. There’s an estate in Palm Beach. Apartments in Paris and Rome. I know for sure there’s a house on the Riviera. Ranches out west, Utah, Oklahoma. Even a big section of Montana. They got something going even in Alaska.”

Unless old Maximilian Avery Gifford is acting in a deranged manner, with dreams of another’s untold grandeur, a brand-new bombshell exploding. The suffoeating smell of cordite. Holy cow. Old Dru from being rich to now being unbelievably rich. How rich is unbelievable. Bigger than the largest mountain. The gold hidden deep in a secret cavern underneath. Fall helpless into the soft-cushioned abyss of another’s affluence. As lethal as it could be luxuriously sweet. In which one could suffocate in the sickly fumes of the most fragrant perfume. To get my moral, if not physical ass broken and my dignity mangled. But I suppose could also make fainter the echoing sound of Sylvia’s jeers. I should have realized the vast dimensions of her contempt when she would say things like “Hey, you’re going to be wiped out with an obscurity so great and complete, you simply didn’t exist.” Well, that may be so, except now I’m at least in good company, along with maybe the richest woman in America.

“Hey, old pal, I can see I’m subjecting you to discomfort. What do you say we change the subject.”

“I already thought I had indicated to change the subject.”

“Sure. So let me ask. You’re still at the old composing, Steve.”

“Yes. It so happens.”

“What are you working on now, maestro.”

“Do I assume you’re really interested to know.”

“Of course I am, old buddy boy, Steve.”

“Well, I am composing a minuet.”

“Hey that’s great. Really great. I don’t know what the hell a minuet is. But I mean, it must be tough on the old mental process.”

“Well, I suppose it contains passages which in experimenting with a jazz cadence and blues motif, might be thought daringly modernistic. I’m also considering working on an operetta. Putting together music with overtones of the Civil War, songs like ‘Loreno’ and tunes reminiscent of that awful conflict.”

“What about ‘Marching Through Georgia,’ pal.”

“Although I am against the concept of slavery, I’ve got to say I am on the cultural side of the gentlemen of the Confederacy and all their descendants and that particular piece of music.”

“Well, pal, that march was sure admired by the North.”

“As were many people who were scoundrels and despots during the Civil War.”

“You said it, pal. But in your chosen profession, don’t musical matters take precedence over things like geographic patriotic partiality.”

“Yes they should, but not cause anyone pain or aggrievement. Such as the spiritual wonderment which can be obtained from hearing a thousand voices thundering out, singing from the very bottom of their gladdening hearts.”

“Jesus, pal. You really do don’t you, feel strongly and take your work seriously.”

“Yes, I apologize for my showing sentiment like this.”

“Pal, only a true man has courage to show his tears. Here, a handkerchief clean-laundered. That’s what I always admire about you guys who create. And gee pal, let me say it sincerely. No one can say you ain’t got virtuosity. And I know one day when your name is up there with the greats, I’ll be bragging saying I knew you. But hey. Just coming down to earth for a second, I mean, are you going to make any goddamn money out of tinkling the old ivories. I mean real money.”

“There is an answer to that. Short and not so sweet. The answer is no.”

“Well, that’s honest. But hey, gee pal, that could be tough. I guess you could if there’s no crunch and there comes a sort of reconciliation, lean a little bit financially on Sylvia.”

“I’m not going to lean financially upon anybody.”

“Well from my recent point of view, old pal, that’s goddamn sensible. And you know old friend, in the matter of being honest, as much as I love this great country of ours, I’ll be damned if I approve of the kind of women it’s producing these days. Maybe it’s just as well two good-looking, personable guys like us didn’t get mixed up in marriage forever with two old lesbian witches skulking around us for the rest of our lives. God forbid we should have also ended up having children. What’s the matter, pal. Did I say something wrong.”

“No. But I have feelings. My marriage was important. Sylvia’s life is her own to do with what she will, and I’m not going to judge her. Even though she thumbed her nose at me and my music.”

“Well sure, okay friend, having got that off your chest. And I guess we’ve had a real heart-to-heart talk here, which in a small way indicates what we do in mapping out a little bit of the future of our lives. I mean, we can’t go repeat what stupid stuff we did in the past. I got a couple of good little old clubs up there on Central Park. In one of them you can play squash and chess and swim in the same building and while you sleep, get your suit pressed, shirt laundered, missing buttons sewn on, then drink and eat, play billiards and then go bowling. Wait, that’s not all. You repair to the sportsman’s bar. You order a beer, sign a chit. About just before six o’clock, two chefs appear in the bar and on a couple of big tables they’ve got a baron of beef and a massive ham and bowls of gravy and slices of various breads. At your request, they carve off slabs to your delectation. Gratis and entirely on the house. And you come back for more if you want. I mean goddamn well free of charge. So if you’re short of a couple of bucks, you don’t have to go out to a Horn and Hardart, and you’re fed for nothing. What about the sound of two big slabs of the best roast beef gracing a plate. Rare and swimming in great gravy and on rye bread. How about that I propose you for membership, old buddy.”

“It doesn’t sound like I could afford it.”

“Hey, you can afford to keep in good physical shape while everybody else is falling apart in this town. Hey friend, I can advance you the initiation fee. Then when you’re squared away why not the two of us look up some of these charity benefit affairs where they have cotillion dances. I mean, hell boy, get out there. Meet some new women. Anticipation is the spice of life, old fella. I joined one of those smaller clubs they got over there on the Fifth Avenue side of the park. We got to live for ourselves for a change and get something more than we’ve been getting out of life. Let’s not kid ourselves. We’ve been ditched. At least I have, by the richer, the higher and mightier. Even so, and even if we go half nuts in this town, what’s stopping us still wearing the mast of sanity. I mean, God, did you see the whole front page of the goddamn paper, some guy waving a knife, looking to kill someone he said was inside a house on Fifth Avenue, right by the club I joined.”