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

“Gee pal, old bean, how do you like that. Now there’s a man who’ll advance in the force, unlike some persnickety bastards. Nice to meet a gentleman member of New York’s finest. But he couldn’t be doing serious police work if he found time to bother to blow his whistle at us.”

“Well Max, you were doing fifty miles an hour. He should have arrested you. And I’ve still got a little something to live for.”

“This old baby can do a hundred and fourteen miles an hour, pal. Here we go. Watch.”

“Max, please, Don’t. I’ve got to maybe see Sylvia’s mother tomorrow and be in one piece.”

“Hey old buddy boy, why didn’t you say so. You’re going to maybe have a séance with the richest woman in the world. Jesus Christ, that can’t be bad. I’ll slow down for that, pal. We’ll slow down to a crawl. Hey old buddy boy, don’t be coy. You haven’t have you, maybe slipped the old veal to ole Dru. I know mum’s the word. But boy, if that news don’t beat all.”

“Max, I didn’t say I had.”

“You don’t have to say anything, pal.”

In the park, Max mounted on his nag riding away under the trees. In his breeches and leathers, a pink carnation in the buttonhole of his cavalry twill hacking jacket and a white silk cravat secured with a gold pin at his throat. One had somehow to laugh that despite his old warrior-style mahogany topping to his gleaming riding boots he had got made for himself in Paris, one felt he wouldn’t be getting the kind of warm-up equestrian exercise needed for foxhunting while tiptoeing on an ancient swaybacked hack trotting around Central Park. But in the company of a couple of aristocratic Europeans disposed to horse riding, it was obvious he loved the dressing up in the kit. As I agreed to come back and meet him later, he saluted from the peak of his hunting cap, waved and grinned as he rode off and I waved back and headed towards downtown in the park to spend a peaceful time wandering the zoo.

As the light of the afternoon was fading, I was waiting back at the stables for Max’s return on his nag. He seemed in a distracted mood and one sensed his effort to project his usual bubbling geniality. After driving along Central Park South to his club, a dutiful doorman parked his Bentley leviathan and as we passed through the club doors there was a question raised as to his being properly dressed for admittance. Max showing a surprising degree of irritation at a club contingent of officialdom arriving to pronounce upon his attire as possibly contravening the house dress code.

“Look here my good fellows, this is in fact my stock I wear at my neck when pursuing the fox. It was recently being worn as a cravat while cantering in the park. But I earnestly assure you, will in fact, as you now see me retie it, become a tie to be worn when this very evening I change into the suit in my locker to dine with my good friend here. Count Alfonso Stephen O’Kelly’O.”

As other club members were now pausing in the lobby to listen to the sartorial difficulty, the spokesman for the contingent ruling on house dress rules finally agreed that Max was dignified enough to be allowed to enter in order to cross the lobby to the elevator in order to rise to change into other clothes kept in his locker. And so booted and accoutred, Max marched clicking his heels, to the elevator where the grinning white-gloved operator welcomed him aboard to ascend. Everywhere we went up and down and through the vast halls of this palace dedicated to great achievement in sport, there came a litany of greeting for Max. “Hi ya there fella, old sport. How ya doin’, pal. Play any badminton lately…. Yeah pal, had a great game.” In the baths, a marble empire of tile and dressing booths housing the swimming pool, it was an oasis from the city where we steamed, showered, and swam. Sun-lamps, hot rooms, spout rooms, and massage chamber. Stacks of sheets to wrap in, and towels to dry on.

“You see pal, ole buddy boy, this is where you can daily escape from your troubles. Find yourself an ole deck chair here. Wrap up in a few sheets and towels. Go out like a light, asleep for a while. I’ll get us a couple of cooling drinks to slake the ole thirst while we lie back and luxuriate.”

While Max went for a rubdown, I nodded off into sleep in a steamer chair to the sound of splashing water and a couple of nearby club philosophers discussing Nietzsche. When I woke, Max was standing there wrapped in a towel, staring down at me. Then his name paged, Max disappeared for a long time to the telephone as the water-polo team plunged through the waves and then did a strange waving arm dance back and forth in the pool. When Max returned, he seemed wreathed in worry and continued distracted as we descended by marble stairs to an oak-paneled room for beers and had slabs of roast beef as our evening appetizers. A mural of a fox hunt behind the bar to which Max brought notice.

“Well pal, there may not be much of that ole foxhunting anymore for yours truly. This tonight could be the last supper. Judas Iscariot is doing his worst. But come on. Let’s go get dinner. Later, I’ll take you on a tour.”

We took the elevator up to the splendor of the chandeliered dining room with its great windows looking out over the park’s trees all the way to Harlem fifty-one city blocks away. Over big rare porterhouse steaks, we quaffed Burgundy along with baked potatoes and the club’s homemade bread, apple pie and ice cream. Then Max brought me visiting the endless sporting facilities, from the basement bowling alleys to the rooftop solarium, twenty-four stories up in the sky. Together we stared out into the downtown distance at this city’s bright lights illuminating its dark shadows. Come to New York where no one knows you. The mystery within the thousands of anonymous windows. Then descending on the elevator to the hall of athletic fame. Each time the white-gloved elevator operator saluting Max.

“There you go Admiral, second floor.”

Max in his gray pinstripe Savile Row suit, silk shirt and dark blue striped tie, saluting back as we step out into this grand hall of athletic honor. Photographs of the legendary in track and field. Oarsmen, boxers, fencers, wrestlers and even badminton players. After viewing the glass cases of medals and trophies, we ascended again to have our brandy and cigars in the billiard room. And it was only when we were parting that I got the first hint of why Max was so deeply preoccupied.

“Well pal, drop you off downtown. You know, sometimes these lawyers get you down. Pal, what does an honorable man do when he is surrounded by those dishonorable. Sons of bitches close in on you with a bunch of goddamn fabrications and falsehoods, trying to traduce one’s character and slice up what’s left of one’s assets. What do you say I leave it that I give you an ole tinkle real soon.”

The tinkle from Max never came, as I could not afford to get the phone reconnected. But I learned, calling his Wall Street office that a few days later Max was arrested, arraigned and incarcerated in alimony jail. After a few hours of trying from the nearest local bar, I was finally able to talk to him on the telephone and I felt it were as if I were listening to voices singing the line “O hear us when we cry to thee for those in peril on the sea” from the navy hymn.

“Gee Max, they got you.”

“Yeah pal, but I wouldn’t quite put it like that, as if I were a fugitive or something. I come from a tough city of graft, corruption and with a fine history of bootlegging and I think I can hold my own in here with television, Ping-Pong and door instead of bars on the rooms where you sleep. Better than being in the navy, pal. Can even play handball on the roof. In fact, I’ve never met a nicer bunch of human beings in my life. And great to listen to all these guys swearing that not even over their dead bodies would they pay their wives a cent. But as reasonable as this place is where they’ve got me and these warders treat you pretty good, I do get my down moments. But I tell you this, I am goddamned if I’m going to be sentenced to a lifetime of paying alimony to two goddamn cheating women and be accused of being a fortune-hunting crook by one of them.”