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

“Gee, Max, have you got a lawyer.”

“Sure. But even to get falsely accused of such a thing in the kind of confidential trusted work I do in a prestigious brokerage house. It’s like they’re blackmailing me.”

“Max, stand fast.”

“Pal, I sure am. But I got to stay loose, too. Options open, keep on the move. Motto is, don’t dawdle, don’t delay. If I had, not that long time back, I could have been killed. Or maybe the better word is murdered . Right at the front gates of the old house in Houston, which in fact had only just been built. We’re driving out to a black-tie dinner party in the sky blue convertible Cadillac her father bought us as a wedding present. Or correct that. Bought her as a wedding present. The gates are closed when usually they’re always kept open. She didn’t want to spoil her finery so I had to get out of the car to open them. And then as I was loosening the latch I happened for some reason to turn around. You could hear the car’s back tires sending pebbles up into the sky and Ertha behind the wheel, in the driver’s seat and the goddamn car less than twenty feet away seemed like it was already doing fifty miles an hour as it came at me. I jumped, and wham , she hit those gates not only open but flattened them right off their hinges of solid steel and the car shot right out into and across the road and ended up on the front lawn of the big mansion across the street. And gave the poor old ornery bastard who lives there a permanent fibrillation, he claims, of the heart.”

“Gee Max. I mean couldn’t it all have been accidental.”

“Yeah, that’s what she said — her high heels slipped off the clutch or something. Except that an heiress’s butler with whom she was having an affair and who was supposed to be trying to embezzle and blackmail her, was killed like that just a few months before. Plus, the goddamn Austrian cook we had and who I didn’t trust, was watching out the window. A whole conspiracy could have been going on. Nearly fell over, I got so sick to my stomach.”

“Holy cow, Max.”

“Yeah. The cook, sort of a family retainer they had, was on her side. And yeah, holy cow, I started to watch my food. Powdered glass or arsenic or something like that in the soup to flavor it.”

“But hey, come on Max. What wife from a good family and reputable ladies college, would want to do to a good-guy husband like you something as seriously heinous as that.”

“Who said the family was any good, pal.”

“Well, their lives must have been fully financially satisfied out of the petroleum industry. Didn’t you tell me her father had an oil find that was so big that when it gushed, they thought it was an earthquake.”

“Oil wells can fast go dry too, pal. Happens all the time. So does murder. Because for a start, I carried three-quarters of a million dollars of life insurance with Ertha as the sole beneficiary.”

“Holy cow, gee Max, that’s an awful lot of insurance.”

“Yeah pal, makes you kind of careful of making sure none of your beneficiaries is close behind you as you look down over a cliff into the Grand Canyon. You think you team up in marriage for the greater good. March up an aisle. Bouquets of flowers on the altar. Big grand reception. That’s why you didn’t get an invitation to the wedding. Made a big fuss. Said you married Sylvia for her money. And I guess it was in honor of my being in the navy that we ended up sailing out of Galveston on a chartered yacht, for the honeymoon. Glamour and glory. But boy, both can be here one second and gone the next. Replaced by an ole starved diamondback someone’s put in your car, with its rattles muffled.”

“Holy cow Max, do you mean a rattlesnake.”

“Yeah pal. Zoologically Croatlus adamanteus . It’s a little goddamn different to an ordinary rattler, with its massive head and fangs. Big goddamn thing. And what it does when it bites you is give you a hell of a lot less time to live before you die.”

“Holy cow, Max.”

“You bet. Here, let’s replenish our goddamn glasses with the old Krug. Right. But here’s what’s worse, pal. I learn what’s all behind it. I used to go off on the weekends to do a little duck shooting. And I suspected something was going on. One coming weekend, she asked if I was going and how long I’d be away. I said yeah, the usual. I packed up my kit, including a little ole baseball bat and got into the ole Bentley. Now I know this sounds a little like plotting. But I had surveillance sound equipment already laid out in the cellar, where I had it rigged up to the bedroom so I could hear every goddamn thing going on in there. Then conspicuously driving away with a wave and a few beeps of the horn, outside town, I park the old Bentley to be minded by a garage I got friendly with, and I hang around a bit, waiting to head back in a taxi at what I calculated would be the crucial time after nightfall. I get out down the road a little on foot and reach the house. Then watch through the window. And I’ll be goddamned if the son of a bitch wasn’t smoking my cigars and the both of them playing my records, dancing for Christ’s sake cheek-to-cheek, and goddamn well drinking my port which I had shipped over and laid down from London. Well, I wait till our bedroom light goes on and sneak in and go down into the cellar. There, I’m waiting for the strategic time to arrive while I’m listening on my equipment. Boy, you don’t want to hear people talking about you. But at least I knew when the time was right for going upstairs. Sorry to laugh, pal. But goddamn, as I slowly opened the bedroom door, if you could have seen the look on her face, it should have been framed in gold leaf. I had the goddamn baseball bat raised. I was smiling as I tiptoed in. The two of them are naked on the bed and there he is on top of her, humping away and she’s struck dumb, looking over his shoulder as I’m approaching with the baseball bat. The timing was perfection. She’s more than struck dumb. She can’t believe it. He’s groaning on the verge while I was on the verge of an inconsolable paroxysm of laughter. His bare ass faster, up and down, up and down as I get closer, bat up higher in the air. Louisville Slugger. I thought, when the hell is she going to scream, ‘watch out, Buster.’ But she knew that if she didn’t give me the opportunity to land the bat across his bare ass, I’d have to cream him one with it right on the skull. Whamo, old friend. Buster was the bastard’s real name. But then I’m thinking, maybe she really is struck dumb. Women are unbelievable, aren’t they, pal. I think it was kind of turning into a frisson for her. I don’t mind telling you old buddy boy, that baseball was my sport. I was sort of a Lou Gehrig in high school. This was my favorite bat. I had held the record for single home runs with it. Gee, it was great. I brought it down on the bastard’s ass so hard it must have seemed like a three-thousand-year-old sequoia fell on him. Or that he was having the greatest orgasm in history. Anyway, he was a big son of a bitch and I wanted to be sure both hip joints would be fairly well out of action. Plus, I had brought up my shotgun and had it leaning by the door and had on my cartridge belt full of number-six shells. And just so everyone understood my mood, I took up my ole Holland and Holland and let off one barrel to demolish her dressing table mirror. Ertha let out a sizable ole yelp at that. I marched him out stark naked into the night, under the trees and still with a goddamn erection. But he lost that by the time we got down the drive and out into the street. I had already blown out his car windshield and his four tires to pieces. Told him to walk home. And walked behind him a way. And you could hear me singing the national anthem of Texas loud enough for the neighbors to hear. ‘The eyes of Texas are upon you. All the live long day. The eyes of Texas are upon you, you can not get away.’ Boy, he sure was one ole poor scared hombre.”