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

“Gee Max, is there anything I can do to help. Maybe see if everything is all right in the apartment.”

“Thanks pal, but that Chinese family that does my laundry just down the street — I did them a few favors and they have the key and are taking care of it.”

There was something deep and awfully unconditional in Max’s words which were like those said to the surrendering nations in the war. Meanwhile I suggested I went to make sure the key was in good hands and that Max’s plants were watered and his collection of seashells dusted. But later that day, talking again to Max, he said Ertha’s lawyers had got repossession of the apartment. I made arrangements to visit Max in the alimony jail which he said was a four-story redbrick building at 434 West Thirty-seventh Street and stuck between a loft and garage. I also phoned Dru from a Bowery bar and in some concern that I would have the husband, instead of Gilbert, the butler answering. She seemed more than matter-of-fact and cool. Said she was concerned as to where Sylvia was and if I had seen her and I could hardly make sense of what she next said.

“Having learned some manners and honorable behavior while briefly at Miss Hewitt’s on Seventy-fifth Street as well as that Manhattan Island is built on jagged gneiss, I fear one finds one must work far too hard to avoid giving the impression of a frivolous, carefree existence. Or, in this case, of an illicit one. Sylvia knows about you and me, and I do hope you haven’t, as someone has, been indiscreet.”

“No, ma’am, to no one. Can I see you.”

“I’m afraid that I’m not so sure you can.”

Dru having mentioned honorable behavior and manners, I thought of Syracuse and my long-lost friend of childhood who said it was bad manners to go to someone’s house and stay as a guest and blow your nose in their sheets. It was also dishonorable to take away small mementos which could rank as theft. Or to put a final shine on your shoe tips with one of their towels. But Dru’s frosty voice held some other message she had decided not yet to tell me. The phone clicked off as all kinds of agonizing jealousies awakened. The memory of that room and her wonderful body. Her ass could smile at you. Her delicate touches of kisses. Her proffered warmth and affection. Even the goddamn snakes and the veiled suggestion I fuck her in a coffin. Which I earnestly assume was not meant to be closed. How many other men have been there with her brought in that black door and across that tiled floor and up that curving staircase. Taking off their clothes, pulling off their belts swatting her on the ass as she enticed with compliments their pricks into her. Rolling over on the buzzer that rattles the rattle of the rattlesnake and sends a shiver of fear through you and maybe even rattles your bones. And thousands of miles away on the coast of Africa there must have been black gentlemen fucking her on the beach. Or who knows, deep in the jungle, writhing around in the undergrowth with black mambas and crocodiles. I looked up gneiss in the dictionary and found it was metamorphic rock of coarse grain. And at least it was nice to know what held up all the skyscrapers of New York so that they wouldn’t suddenly all keel over on each other or start to lean like the leaning tower of Pisa. Hanging up the phone in this bar with sawdust on the floor and two other customers, I bought a beer. And nearly had a fight with a barfly accusing me of being unfriendly when I didn’t speak when spoken to. And in exasperation, I said, “Fella, if I were unfriendly, I would have already knocked you off that fucking stool into next week.” The bartender then got unfriendly and ran out from behind the bar. And reaching out to grab me, I grabbed him. And with my thumbs sinking into his biceps, paralyzed his arms. When he agreed that I was strong and could kill him, I let him go and walked out. Max’s company gone. Dru frosty and remote. Sylvia vanished. Step over these alcohol-sodden bodies stretched out across the sidewalk. Wondering who might have been a college president or a stockbroker. Return to Pell Street. Through these ancient pathways of this city. Past the oldest pharmacy in America, where, when I can afford to, I buy their toothpaste. Could, when my own days are numbered, be one of those downtrodden. Without a dream nor hope left. Instead of white-haired, standing on a podium into a venerable old age. Adored by the audience. Who, hushed, await my baton raised to signal the orchestra to begin. Let the music of great composers banish away the treacherous gloom. Elevate, cheer and glorify the wonder of sounds that exalt the soul.

Into this familiar doorway of Pell Street. This musty stale smell. Collect the unwelcome mail. Not a single hint of a friend on a single envelope. Push open the door into the staircase hall. A crouched form looming up. The glint of a knife blade. A black visage in the darker dark. The navy taught you to look in the nighttime a few degrees above what you were trying to see.

“You white motherfucking cocksucker, fuck my woman. I’m going to kill you.”

A shadow coming into the light. Sidestep a flick knife jabbed out at my solar plexus. Draw in the stomach. Blazing hatred in the eyes of this black face. Aspasia’s boyfriend. Last heard of as a prisoner on Rikers Island. Former dumping ground of refuse and dirt from subway excavations. Subterranean fires smoldering in the rubbish, overrun by rats. Has the city’s largest venereal disease clinic. This son of a bitch now released or escaped. Could have, before any shark got him, swum across the bay, knife between his teeth. And on the map when I was looking to see how safe I was from the marauder, if he swam north, he would have landed on a piece of shore, a peninsula of land called Casanova. Get a hold of his goddamn wrist. Twist the knife out of his hand. The fucker’s strong. But my piano-playing exercised fingers are stronger. Just like the Gothic arches of masonry of the Brooklyn Bridge which hold its great cables. As I make you, you son of a bitch, drop this goddamn knife. Kick it along the hall as I get hit on the jaw. Heave a left into this bastard’s ribs. With all the fluent force practiced in all the amateur nights in which I boxed. Send a straight right into his face for good measure. The soft warm taste of blood. My teeth cut into my jaw. Hit him again. Tough son of a bitch won’t go down. Wham, bam. Hit him again. And again. He’s down. Got me by the legs. I’m down. Son of a bitch like a snake. Around my back, trying to get an arm across my throat and hold me in a scissors with his legs. Reach my leg over his crossed ankles. Arch my back in the wrestler’s grapevine. Make his ankle ligaments stretch and snap as he screams in agony. Tear away the arm around my throat. Get loose. Elbow him in the guts for good measure. Grab the knife off the floor. He’s up. Limping and making for the door.

“You white mother fucking cocksucker. I’m going to come back and fix you.”

“I’ll kill you if you do.”

The front door slams. Time to get the hell out of here. And miles away. Before I get a bullet or blade into my guts. Mayham on every side. Escape away into all the anonymity I can muster. Feel for stab wounds and loose teeth. Choking dust in my lungs. Should go after him with the knife. Kill him now, before he comes back, along with a gang. And guns. Plead self-defense so that I don’t go to Sing Sing to the electric chair. The electrodes strapped on as you sit staring in the direction of an audience that maybe you can’t see but who goddamn well want to see you contort and fry. Smoke come up out of your head. And the smell not be as appetizing as toasted bacon. No one rich has ever gone to the electric chair. Means I’ll always be first in line to get my spinal cord melted. And hear them say, Well, bud, you’re paying the price of being poor, so we’re pulling the switch. Marvelous as Aspasia was as a fuck and singer, I can’t feel, without further sampling and verification, that she’s worth dying for, except that there’s no question this guy thinks she is. The sooner I get to somewhere like Montana with only grizzly bears, wildcats, rattlesnakes and mountain lions to worry about, the better.