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

The massively heavy limousine with its clunking doors pulled up again at the Yiddish Theatre. Under the lights of the marquee, we step out. Dru handing the chauffeur an envelope. And judging by his friendly voice, it could contain a lot of money and he could be a hick hayseed in search of his fortune and blown in from the West. Or maybe one of the more pleasantly pastoral people you’d find up a gulch in West Virginia, where rougher cousins might, if you trespassed on their land, or looked at them sideways, stick a shotgun up your ass and blow your bowels out.

“Thank you kindly, Mrs. Wilmington.”

Diamond bracelets sliding back on Dru’s wrist as she waved down a taxi. To take me speeding along Central Park South. And this part of town makes me wonder how is old Max, who could always make one quietly chuckle at his dilemmas and the meticulous ways in which he oriented his life. And to recall his description, for which I must write a musical score to dramatize marching a naked football player out of his Houston house and down the elegant rich suburban public street and to which the national anthem of Texas can be sung.

Son of a bitch

I’m going to make you pay

The eyes of Texas are upon you

All the live long day.

As now we turn into the winding roadway north through the park. Evening light descends through the tree branches and over the stone outcroppings. Dru lowers a window. A faint roar of a lion comes out of the zoo. A horse and rider cantering along a bridle path. And into this sylvan peace at night come marauders who will stalk the honest citizen who now hurries heading for peaceful safety outside the park. While we go uptown on Fifth and crosstown on Eighty-sixth Street.

“Stephen, you must know Yorkville. Plenty of Germans, beer, plenty bratwurst, plenty sauerkraut.”

“Yes ma’am. Plenty Czechs, plenty Slovaks, and plenty Hungarians.”

Near the East River and the peace and quiet of another park, taxi stops. A large town house behind tall railings. Gray stone facings. Gargoyles. A gleaming black anonymous door. The shaming embarrassment of waiting for Dru to pay. Whose terror is to spend a dollar. Tips the driver. Might have given him a quarter. And I haven’t got much more than that left in the world. Watch her legs. Which go curvaciously every year to Colorado or even to Europe to ski down some Swiss mountain. With the wonderful sure movements of her finely boned hands takes a key from her purse and unlocks the heavy barred gate. Her easy steps up to the door. Another key opens it into a spacious black-and-white marble-tiled entrance hall, across which we could waltz together. Stone busts on plinths and in niches. Commemorating guys bound to be big-time but not one single composer or face familiar enough that I can recognize. As I follow this lady up this sweep of curving staircase. Who speaks back over her shoulder.

“Stephen, when you fell asleep in the car on the way to Valhalla, I wanted to wake you up to see the quite beautiful sweeping massiveness of the Kensico Dam but you were so deeply, somnambulantly talking in your slumber.”

“Was I.”

“And I did think I had better not interrupt you. That’s how considerate I can be.”

“What was I saying.”

“Of what little I could understand, nothing incriminating. You were saying, ‘Wrong, wrong. Wrong information is being given out at Princeton.’”

“Was I saying that.”

“Yes you were. Not something the college authorities would like said.”

“Well, I think it could refer to a bus timetable.”

“Ah, but at last some color seems to be coming back into your face. You were so pale. And I know everything is going to be all right with your work. And also your whole future.”

“I hope so. So many would wish me ill and would stand in my way and let me down. Things seem to insist to happen that seem to hinder me in my aspirations and effort to achieve my goal which is to create and conduct.”

“Dearest — I may, mayn’t I, call you that. Especially as you can’t seem to always remember to call me Dru. It’s all these old fogies sitting on their laurels and coasting on their reputations who should perhaps with the kindliness of time be swept away into the luxury of their retirement homes, there to comfortably await their secure niches in the history books.”

“And give ciphers like me a chance.”

“How can you say that when your work is so beautiful. At least I think so.”

“And ma’am, I am entirely charmed that you do.”

“You do you know, sometimes sound as if you’re not entirely from the Bronx. And appropos of your exerting a certain Gallic savoir faire, would you be open to an invitation if I were to ask you to come with me racing. October, that wonderful month in Paris where the chestnuts are dropping from the trees in the Jardin des Tuileries and also the time the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is at Longchamp, where I have a dear mare running.”

“Do I, ma’am, take my not sounding as not being from the Bronx as a compliment or possibly a mild rebuke.”

“Take it merely as an observation my dearest. From someone whose thoughts are entirely in your interest.”

“I shall, Mrs. Wilmington.”

“Touché. We do, don’t we, dig for ourselves entrenchments of deviousness out of which extrication becomes difficult, if not ultimately impossible. But that is reserved for others. With you, I never feel that I am in tainted company in which future betrayal portends and when you sense someone is lying to you.”

“And I should be delighted to head to Paris. And we might together while there pop into the church of St. Sulpice and if lucky, hear Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass. ”

“Done, my dear.”

On the staircase landing, gilded bronze jardinieres. Reminders of one’s lace-curtain origins of an onyx sort, when one enjoyed in childhood to push these over to marvel with pleasure as they smashed upon a tiled sunroom floor. My refined Irish parents’ efforts to maintain elegance in the face of their progeny, who treated all such things as junk. And this residence festooned with riches. Past which Dru leads me by the hand along a corridor. Crystal chandeliers everywhere. Furniture shapes unseen under white sheets. Where a key hangs hidden on the back of a chair and opens up a door. Dru turning the gilt handle, diamonds aglimmer on her wrist. While I don’t have a thing to wear to Longchamp. And follow into this darkened shadowy chamber this woman who can go anywhere in the world and do what she wants. Dru striking a match. The flame illuminating a golden coronet atop a massive canopy bed.

“This candle to burn while we make love.”

“Holy cow, Dru. Holy cow.”

“Next, dear boy, you’ll be saying gee jiminy winikers, or is it winkus or something vaguely akin.”

“This is all so sumptuously beautiful that it’s made me become what I believe is usually referred to as being nervous.”

“Well, this is my closest girlfriend’s house. Or rather, ‘cottage in the city,’ as she calls it, which at the moment is entirely empty. In any event, servants do play havoc with the privacy of one’s life. And I hope that you’re not going to suddenly go shy on me.”

“No ma’am. I’m trying to stay as brave as possible. But we could be committing adultery.”

“I assume you’re kidding.”

“Yes I am, ma’am.”

“I see we’re quite firmly back to ‘ma’am’ again. And you’re behaving like a virgin. But of course adultery and worse is exactly the kind of illicit sin we are, or rather at least I am, committing.”

“Well ma’am, maybe I didn’t mean for our association to go this far so fast.”

“Well, in exactly another second it can pretty quickly disappear into a taxi and head down First Avenue. I shall call one.”