William Kennedy - Quinn's Book

Feeling the fear and anger rise in him again, Quinn put the paper aside to watch the arrival of three people, affluent parents with two grown daughters, a pair of petted beauties, or so it looked. Their carriage stopped at the hotel stairs and four young Negro men descended to them instantly, one assisting the women, two attending the abundant luggage, the fourth, with whisk broom, sweeping travel dust from the shoulders of all.

Quinn, as usual superimposing Joshua’s valiant face on other Negroes, could not complete this picture. He could not imagine Joshua allowing himself even an instant of overt servility, though he’d often worked as a servant. How had the man avoided it? There is a painting of him done by an artist-gambler who frequented John’s gaming house, which, thought the artist, captured Joshua from life: standing against a wall in his white doorman’s jacket, listening to music being played for John’s dinner guests in the next room. There is a smile on Joshua’s face, a benign and folksy response to the music, excavating the simplicity of the Negro soul that is so lulled by, so in harmony with, the sweet melodies of the oboe and the violin.

But if anything, Joshua’s smile in that painting is a mask of dissimulation, a private recognition that all that exists in this music is the opposite of himself, and that he understands the racial enemy better for having this privileged audience to his pleasures. I have never presumed to truly understand Joshua, but certain things are so self-evident that even the abjectly ignorant are entitled to an opinion, and I therefore aver that Joshua did not aspire to this veranda on which I was sitting, did not aspire to the glut of wardrobe trunks that were being hauled down from the roof of the carriage, did not aspire to join the parade of strutters and predators marching up and down the posh hallways, salons, and drawing rooms of this cavernous hotel, or along the preening streets of the old village, not only did not aspire to own or be owned by such ostentation but despised it for its distance from the reality to which Joshua did aspire: that landless, penurious freedom that was the newborn, elementary glory that followed after slavery.

I saw Joshua in New York not long after John McGee discovered that Limerick, his purebred Irish setter, for which he had paid eight thousand dollars in a public gesture of contempt for the poverty of his early days, had disappeared. The dog was widely known in the city, trumpeted in the gossipist newspapers as the luckiest dog in town, not because it was owned by an affluent world-champion fighter but because a rub of its head had propelled more than a few gamblers into great winnings as they fought the tiger at John’s faro tables. John, of course, had invented this story.

When John discovered Limerick’s absence from the house, the bedrock of Manhattan trembled with crisis. John sent emissaries into the streets to find him, dispatched Joshua to the police lockup for animals, this being the priority, for stray, unmuzzled dogs were poisoned daily at sunrise and carted to the dump by noon, and owners, if traceable, were fined five dollars for letting a cur run loose in the rabid months of summer. And we were in July. I caught up with Joshua on the street and learned of the impending tragedy as we walked.

“Damn dog don’t know when he’s well off,” Joshua said.

“He run away before?”

“He try. Seem like he need the street, that dog. He ain’t no house dog.”

“Maybe they already poisoned him.”

“May be,” said Joshua. “Then look out. John gonna desecrate any cop kill his dog.”

We found the dog poisoners taking their leisure, somewhat removed from the doomed bayings that erupted beyond a wooden partition in a warehouse built of failing brick, crude slatwork, and chicken wire. We confronted the sergeant in charge, presented our case, and were led by a rankless lackey to the wire pen where two dozen dogs, most of them mangy mongrels, but among them a fox terrier, a bull, a husky, and a collie, were all leaping and barking their frenzy at us. Limerick was among them, suddenly beside himself with joy at recognizing Joshua.

“How much it cost to take that red dog outa here?” Joshua asked the lackey.

“One dollar, but you can’t take him out without a muzzle.”

“You got a muzzle I can buy?”

“Yep.”

“How much it cost?”

“One dollar.”

Joshua counted the dogs in the pen.

“You got twenty-six muzzles?”

“Yeah. Got a hundred.”

“Then we gonna muzzle up these dogs and take ’em all.”

“Take ’em all?”

“That all right with you?”

“Whatayou gonna do with twenty-six dogs?”

“Gonna make me a dog house.”

Joshua pulled a roll of bills from his pocket to prove his seriousness. Then we muzzled the dogs and turned them loose. With luck they’d find a way to get rid of the muzzles before they starved to death. But poison at sunrise was no longer their fate.

Gordon and Maud arrived at the hotel porch precisely at eleven, the hour of rendezvous, Maud ebullient in a pink frock with matching silk shawl, wide skirt with sweeping train, and her burnished red hair in large, loose curls. Gordon, striding purposefully beside her, looked so brilliantly fresh in his starched cravat, tan linen shirt, claw-tailed coat, and new brown boots that Quinn felt he should return to his own room and find dandier clothes. Having none, he loathed the thought and vowed to become unkempt by midafternoon.

“Ah, you have the newspaper,” said Gordon. “I just heard it has an item that must be read.”

Quinn handed him the newspaper, and Gordon sat in a rocker and busied himself with print.

“You look like a bouquet of roses,” Quinn told Maud.

“How poetic of you, Daniel.”

“What do you have in store for me today?”

“Something beyond your imagination.”

“Nothing is beyond my imagination,” said Quinn.

“Opening day at a brand-new racetrack, you can’t know what to expect.”

“I thought you might have something more exotic in mind.”

“Your old friends John McGee and Magdalena will be on hand. They’re quite exotic in their way, wouldn’t you say?”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“Perhaps later,” said Maud. “Do you find Saratoga changed?”

“More crowded, more money, more hotels, more women.”

“You’ve kept busy watching the women, then.”

“It seems like the thing to do when you sit on this veranda. Clearly they come here to be looked at.”

“Do you like my new dress? It’s the same color as the one I was wearing when we met.”

“Very nostalgic of you, my dear.”

“Nostalgia is not my purpose,” said Maud.

“This is vile,” said Gordon, rustling the newspaper angrily. “It’s a letter. They’re referring to your aunt.”

“What could they say about her that hasn’t already been said a hundred times?” Maud asked.

“It’s clearly a threat because of her party tonight,” said Gordon. He thrust the paper at Quinn and Maud, and together they read the letter:

Mr. Editor — I would advise a certain aging ex-theatrical performer to keep a sharp eye out today for revelations of what she and her kind mean to this community. We who try to elevate the life of Saratoga are appalled at the degradation she is imposing on our society with her ridiculous social ambitions. We suggest she depart across our borders as soon as possible and rid us of the repugnant memories of her scandalous life. Courtesans are of the lowest order of mammal, and performing courtesans who kick up their legs for the edification of the rabble are a pox on our community.

PURITY KNICKERBOCKER

(Who speaks for a multitude.)

Quinn, deciding the letter and Gordon’s response to it were fatuous and depressing, let his eye roam over the rest of the page, found an advertisement for hashish candy, exhilarant confectionized: produces the most perfect mental cheerfulness. Also (remembering Magdalena’s five abortions) a medical salute to the Ladies of America: “Lyon’s Periodical Drops! The Great Female Remedy! But Caution!!! Dr. Lyon guarantees his drops to cure suppression of the menses, but if pregnancy be the cause, these drops would surely produce miscarriage and he does not then hold himself responsible. BE WISE IN TIME.”