Mario Puzo - Fools die

“Everything came out OK?” I said.

“You bet your ass,” Osano said.

For just a second I didn’t trust him. He looked too good, too happy.

“Everything is perfect, couldn’t be better. You can fly home tonight and I have to say you are a real buddy. No one would do what you did, eating that rice day after day, and worse still, watching those three-hundred-pound broads go by shaking their asses. Whatever sins you have committed against me I forgive you.” And for a moment his eyes were kind, very serious. There was a gentle expression on his face. “I forgive you,” he said. “Remember that, you’re such a guilty fuck I want you to know that.”

And then for one of the few times since we knew each other he gave me a hug. I knew he hated to be touched except by women and I knew he hated being sentimental. I was surprised, but I didn’t wonder about what he meant by forgiving me because Osano was so sharp. He was really so much smarter than anyone else I had ever known that in some way he knew the reason why I had not gotten him the job on the Tri-Culture-Jeff Wagon script. He had forgiven me and that was fine, that was like Osano. He was really a great man. The only trouble was I had not yet forgiven myself.

I left Duke University that night and flew to New York. A week later I got a call from Charlie Brown. It was the first time I had ever spoken to her over the phone. She had a soft, sweet voice, innocent, childlike, and she said, “Merlyn, you have to help me.”

And I said, “What’s wrong?”

And she said, “Osano is dying, he’s in the hospital. Please, please come.”

Charlie had already taken Osano to St. Vincent ’s Hospital, so we agreed to meet there. When I got there, Osano was in a private room and Charlie was with him, sitting on the bed where Osano could put his hand in her lap. Charlie let her hand rest on Osano’s stomach, which was bare of covers or top shirt. In fact, Osano’s hospital nightgown lay in shreds on the floor. That act must have put him in good humor because he was sitting up cheerfully in bed. And to me he really didn’t look that bad. In fact, he seemed to have lost some weight.

I checked the hospital room quickly with my eyes. There were no intravenous settings, no special nurses on duty, and I had seen walking down the corridor that it was not in any way an intensive care unit. I was surprised at the amount of relief I felt, that Charlie must have made a mistake and that Osano wasn’t dying after all.

Osano said coolly, “Hi, Merlyn. You must be a real magician. How did you find out I was here? It’s supposed to be a secret.”

I didn’t want any fooling around or any kind of bullshit, so I said straight out, “Charlie Brown told me.” Maybe she wasn’t supposed to tell me, but I didn’t feel like lying.

Charlie just smiled at Osano’s frown.

Osano said to her, “I told you it was just me and you, or just me. However you like it. Nobody else.”

Charlie said almost absently, “I know you wanted Merlyn.”

Osano sighed. “OK,” he said. “You’ve been here all day, Charlie. Why don’t you go to the movies or get laid or have a chocolate ice-cream soda or ten Chinese dishes? Anyway, take the night off and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“All right,” Charlie said. She got up from the bed. She stood very close to Osano and he, with a movement not really lecherous, but as if he were reminding himself of what it felt like, put his hand under her dress and caressed her inner thighs and then she leaned her head over the bed to kiss him.

And on Osano’s face as his hand caressed that warm flesh beneath the dress came a look of peace and contentment as if reassured in some holy belief.

When Charlie left the room, Osano sighed and said, “Merlyn, believe me. I wrote a lot of bullshit in my books, my articles and my lectures. I’ll tell you the only real truth. Cunt is where it all begins and where it all ends. Cunt is the only thing worth living for. Everything else is a fake, a fraud and just shit.”

I sat down next to the bed. “What about power?” I said. “You always liked power and money pretty good.”

“You forgot art,” Osano said.

“OK,” I said. “Let’s put art in there. How about money, power and art?”

“They’re OK,” Osano said. “I won’t knock them. They’ll do. But they’re not really necessary. They’re just frosting on the cake.”

And then I was right back to my first meeting with Osano and I thought I knew the truth about him then, when he didn’t know it. And now he’s telling it to me and I wonder if it’s true because Osano had loved them all. And what he was really saying was that art and money and fame and power were not what he regretted leaving.

“You’re looking better than when I saw you last,” I told Osano. “How come you’re in the hospital? Charlie Brown says it’s really trouble this time. But you don’t look it.”

“No shit?” Osano said. He was pleased. “That’s great. But you know I got the bad news down the fat farm when they took all those tests. I’ll give it to you short and sweet. I fucked up when I took those dosages of penicillin pills every time I got laid, so I got syphilis and the pills masked it, but the dosage wasn’t strong enough to wipe it out. Or maybe those fucking spirochetes figured out a way to bypass the medicine. It must have happened about fifteen years ago. Meantime, those old spirochetes ate away at my brain, my bones and my heart. Now they tell me I got six months or a year before going cuckoo with paresis, unless my heart goes out first.”

I was stunned. I really couldn’t believe it. Osano looked so cheerful. His sneaky green eyes were so brilliant. “There’s nothing that can be done?” I asked him.

“Nothing,” Osano said. “But it’s not so terrible. I’ll rest up here for a couple of weeks and they’ll shoot me up a lot and then I’ll have at least a couple of months on the town and that’s where you come in.”

I didn’t know what to say. I really didn’t know whether to believe him. He looked better than I had seen him look in a long time. “OK,” I said.

“Here’s my idea,” Osano said. “You visit me in the hospital once in a while and help take me home. I don’t want to take the chance of becoming senile, so when I think the time is right, I check out. The day I decide to do that I want you to come down to my apartment and keep me company. You and Charlie Brown. And then you can take care of all the fuss afterward.”

Osano was staring at me intently. “You don’t have to do it,” Osano said.

I believed him now. “Sure, I’ll do it,” I said. “I owe you a favor. Will you have the stuff you need?”

“I’ll get it,” Osano said. “Don’t worry about that.”

I had some conferences with Osano’s doctors, and they told me he wouldn’t leave the hospital for a long time. Maybe never. I felt a sense of relief.

– -

I didn’t tell Valerie about anything that had happened or even that Osano was dying. Two days later I went to visit Osano at the hospital. He’d ask me if I would bring him in a Chinese dinner the next time I came. So I had brown paper bags full of food when I went down the corridor and heard yelling and screaming coming from Osano’s room. I wasn’t surprised. I put the cartons down on the floor outside another patient’s private bedroom and ran down the corridor.

In the room was a doctor, two nurses and a nursing supervisor. They were all screaming at Osano. Charlie stood watching in a corner of the room. Her beautiful face freckles startling against the pallor of her skin, tears in her eyes. Osano was sitting on the side of the bed, completely naked and yelling back at the doctor, “Get me my clothes! I’m getting the fuck out of here.”