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

Max putting on his driving goggles and helmet, slamming his foot down on the accelerator and the four and a half liters of engine pulling away with a gnashing of gears and explosive exhaust. Horn honking out into and up Madison Avenue and past men’s emporiums of fashion. And already doing fifty miles an hour before we reached a red light several blocks north at Forty-seventh Street. Max’s conversation turning back as it did these days, to the war days as we sailed forth farther north to Fifty-ninth Street.

“You know pal, an incident like that phony blind musician would remind you of that old motto you heard recited on board ship in the navy. When you find a friend who is good and true, fuck him before he fucks you.”

People’s heads turning to look as the great machine throbs by and with a squeal of tires and one bumping up over the cub, turns into Sixty-fifth Street.

“Remember that old apartment pal I had in the Garment District. I was kind of goddamn glad to get out of there. And glad too, I took over the lease at Waverly Place from Ertha when we went to Houston. I said ‘Let’s keep it, nice to have a bolt-hole in New York? Boy, prophetic words. And you know pal, the truth of the matter is coming out. I would have liked to have a good marriage and children like my own parents. Guess you must feel the same. But I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to throw away my life again on some goddamn woman who has no personal principles. Christ, you remember that sinking when all the guys were clinging to rafts out in the Pacific and just waiting to be eaten by sharks one by one. Jaws tearing off a leg and coming back to tear off another, some guys torn in half.”

“Gee Max, the war’s over. What do you say we kind of get on another subject.”

“Sure, pal, no problem. But it’s just how I feel sometimes. But there, right there, we’re passing the external architecture of my other club. There it is, pal. In that nice Georgian mansion building. That’s where you go where you can sit with a good old bourbon and branch water. Absent yourself from the world and all the stress and strain and be at peace with yourself in the collectively discriminating atmosphere you can enjoy with the kind of good ole boys they got as members. Take you to dinner there sometime. You’d like it. Now we’ll give this little old four and a half liters something to make noise about right down Fifth Avenue.”

The big motor turning down Fifth. Past the steps down to the zoo. And slowing outside another redbrick mansion on the corner where a policeman stands on guard. Max swerving and horns honking as he drives, ushering the Bentley to a halt at the Plaza Hotel under the elegant ornateness of its porch. Max taking off his goggles and helmet and along with a five-dollar bill, enough to rescue me from penury, handing them to the doorman. Climbing the steps, stopping at the top and with his sense of occasion, bowing to the fountain across the street. Following him into the lobby and past the Palm Court’s marble pillars and potted plants, a piano tinkling a Strauss waltz. More marble along a corridor of jewels. Display cases of diamonds, pearls, emeralds and rubies gleaming behind the glass. And into this somber paneled interior. A romantic mural of Central Park behind the bar. By a window, Max inviting me to take a seat at a table and stretching out his legs and proferring and then lighting a cigar. Puffing out the smoke as he adjusts his purple silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his blazer. A waiter hovering near.

“Krug, my good man. Krug. Vintage 1947 would be appreciated. A bottle.”

“Coming right up, sir.”

“Now Steve, did you hear that. No ifs ands and buts. But ‘Coming right up.’ Well pal. Here we are. And I particularly like the Umbra. And you see, old bean, a first-class place, a first-class waiter and exactly what we want on its way.”

“Max there is little doubt that this is ambience of the highest order but this is going to be three bottles of champagne.”

“It’s four in fact, pal. But who’s counting or cares if you’re just that little bit inaccurate. And goddamn. Here we are back at the old Plaza. Where we’re going to go get something to eat soon in the subfuscus somberness of the old Oak Room. But bloody hell, whenever I think of that goddamn phony blind musician, it gets my goat.”

“And I don’t mind telling you Max this is really a totally wonderful way to spend an evening, never before having set foot in this most attractively sumptuous place. Nor I suspect shall I ever afford to be able to do so again. And especially to be able to get tipsy on champagne.”

“All my pleasure, pal. That’s why I was a little miffed about that girl with real smart brains called Joy. And she wasn’t giving you much Joy in return for all that bullshit you were giving her. But old buddy, for all your ole high-falutin flowery bullshit of the past, it really is good to see you. And be encouraged by a remark you just made about music. And you know the one thing I always have admired you for was your goddamn downright honesty. Remember aboard ship that’s how we met. You found my wallet in the head. Dropped out of my pants while I was taking a crap and left it behind on the deck. You wouldn’t even take a reward. Or tell me your name. Took a dickens of a time checking all over the ship to find you again to really thank you.”

“Well Max, at least for the time being, I appreciate your turning me into a saint.”

“No problem, friend. No problem, believe me.”

Delighted waiter smiling, lifting bottle from its ice bucket, displaying the label, dark crimson and gold: KRUG & CO, REIMS, PRIVATE CUVÉE EXTRA SEC. Slowly filling glasses with this saffron-hued effervescing liquid as Max holds his goblet up to the streetlight out the window and toasts the waiter.

“Here’s to you, good gentleman. Your swift expertise and to the year 1947. And to my composer pal Stephen O’Kelly’O, right there across the table, popping a peanut in his mouth. And you know pal, how you can get pressed down into the deepest dumps and depression, and talking or nobody or nothing can get you out of it, and then you make a break for it. Get in touch with an old pal. Get the old Bentley out. And like the little bubbles do from the bottom of this glass, the gloom lifts from the spirit. And while it does old buddy, just let me give you a little more idea of the whole story, pal. The sons of bitches down there in Houston are trying to get a case together to charge and sue me for embezzlement.”

“Gee Max, embezzlement.”

“Yeah. Imagine.”

“That’s pretty serious.”

“Yeah, it is, old pal. No one likes to be accused of cooking the books in old spaghetti sauce. Said I married Ertha for her money. I mean, all right, it was an incentive if other negative things were strongly taken into consideration. But you’d admit pal, that she stood out fairly well in the competition and I might have married her for herself. A damn attractive girl. Wouldn’t you admit it.”

“Yes I would, Max.”

“But then they said I was planning to forge Ertha’s signature on checks. And friend, the trouble is, it’s true, I did practice writing her autograph. I collect the goddamn things. Even the old captain’s of the ole Missouri. I mean, handwriting has long been my well-known goddamn hobby to study for Christ’s sake. She caught me — her words, not mine — as I sat there in my monogrammed silk pajamas at dawn one morning in the library, and looking over my shoulder, when I thought she was still upstairs asleep in bed. That’s the kind of subterfuge I had to contend with, tiptoeing downstairs in her bare feet and sneaking up behind me as I nearly had a whole page covered with autographs. I was comparing copies I had of President Roosevelt’s and Harry Truman’s. But about ten times, I had written hers. All right, I knew it was an ill-advised crazy thing to do. But it wasn’t because I was in any way desperate and trying to do anything underhanded. It was because she had such crazy illegible handwriting. Which I thought would be impossible to imitate. It ended up I could write her signature better than she could. And who knows, she could have become incapacitated or something, broken her wrist or gone gaga in her old age. I mean, if she couldn’t speak, who was going to translate her handwriting. I mean, Christ, how many times in the navy did I have to end up doing that, executing a favor for the deserving.”