William Kennedy - Very Old Bones

“There isn’t even any room for mice.”

“Are you saying she can’t come here?”

“No, I’m telling you it won’t work. She wouldn’t stay here with me hanging around the place all day long. Don’t you know anything about women?”

“I like to think I’m an expert on the subject.”

“I once thought I knew all about the art world, but I didn’t know my ass from third base, as your Uncle Francis used to tell me as often as possible.”

“My Uncle Francis?”

“You know who I mean.”

“Is he really my uncle?”

“He said I was born innocent and would grow old that way. I believed him for years, but I’ve outgrown his prophecy. Now I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ve passed my old condition on to you.”

I looked at Peter and saw myself as I might be in thirty-seven years, when I too would be sixty-six. It could be worse. I knew men of fifty-five who seemed decrepit, ready to roll obligingly down that beckoning slope. Peter was still a vigorous figure, grizzled of mien, with his voluminous gray mustache all but minimalizing the crop of gray hair that sat in wavy rumples behind his half-naked forehead; robust of torso, a man who professed no interest in clothing, but who in public wore the uniform of creaseless trousers, formless coats, always with leather elbows (where did he find them?), each coat a perfect fit; an open-collared shirt to which he added a neck scarf for dress occasions; the jaunty fedora which, no matter how many times it wore out from fingering and grease, was always replaceable by a twin from the new age; and two pairs of shoes, one for work, one for walking through the world, the latter less speckled with the artist’s paint. In short, the man presented himself as a visual work of art: casual self-portrait achieved without paint or brush.

“She might not stay, but I want to bring her here.”

“Bring her, bring her,” Peter said. “I’d like to see the look of anybody who’d marry you.”

Peter smiled. I examined the smile to evaluate its meaning. Was it a real smile? It looked like a real smile. I decided to return it with a smile of my own.

Son?

Dad?

The bright light of the day had cheered me all the way to Idlewild Airport, spring only a day old but the brilliant white clouds racing ahead of my step, even so. I felt the fire of the equinox in my chest, a sign of certainty: Orson Purcell, no longer an equivocator. I saw Giselle coming toward me from a distance, hatless in her beige suit, frilly white blouse, and high heels designed in heaven, and I quick-stepped toward her, stopped her with an embrace, kissed her with my deprived mouth that was suddenly and ecstatically open and wet. Even when I broke from her I said nothing, only studied all that I had missed for so long, reinventing for future memory her yellow hair, the throne of her eyes, the grand verve of her mouth and smile; and I felt the fire broiling my heart with love and love and love. Love is the goddamnedest thing, isn’t it? The oil of all human machinery. And I owned an oil well, didn’t I? Separation would be bearable if it always ended with rapture of this order.

I retrieved her one suitcase (the rest of her baggage would arrive later) while she went to the ladies’ room; then we quickly reunited and resumed our exotic obeisance to unspoken love. So much to say, no need to say it. In the taxi I stopped staring at her only long enough to kiss her, and then I realized she was naked beneath her skirt, which buttoned down the front. I stared at the gap between two buttons that offered me a fragmented vision of her not-very-secret hair, reached over and undid the button that allowed expanded vision, and I put my hand on her.

“Did you travel from Europe this way?”

“Only from the ladies’ room.” She kissed me and whispered into my ear: “I’ve been with you for twenty minutes. When are you going to fuck me?”

I immediately undid more of her buttons and parted her skirt to each side: curtain going up at the majestic theater of lust. I loosened my own clothing, shifted and slid her lengthwise on the seat and maneuvered myself between her open and upraised legs. The cab driver screeched his brakes, pulled off into the breakdown lane of Grand Central Parkway.

“That’s enough of that,” the driver said. “You wanna behave like a couple of dogs, get out on the highway and do it, but not in my cab.”

I saw a crucified Jesus dangling from the driver’s rearview mirror, and a statue of the virgin glued to the top of the dashboard. The first time in my life I try to make love in a taxi, and the driver turns out to be a secret agent for the pope.

“This is my wife,” I said. “I haven’t seen her in six months. It’s her first time in this country.”

“I don’t care if she’s your long-lost mother. Not in my cab.”

Giselle was sitting up, buttoning up, and I tucked in my shirt. The driver pulled back onto the parkway and turned on the radio. Bing Crosby came through singing “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.”

“I’m overcome by irony and chagrin,” I told the driver. “If I were you, I wouldn’t expect a big tip.”

“Just what’s on the meter, buddy. I don’t take tips from creeps like you.”

Condemned by taxi drivers. A new low in moral history. I took Giselle’s hand in mine and put them both between the opening in her skirt, then covered her lap with my topcoat. Clandestinely, I found the passage to the Indies, stroked it as passionately as a digit would allow, and made my wife sigh with some pleasure. Life has never been easy for immigrants.

I directed the cab to my father’s apartment, and Giselle was barely inside when she told Peter Phelan, “I must photograph you.”

“What for?” asked Peter.

“Because you cry out to be photographed. Has anybody ever done a portrait of you in this studio?”

“Never.”

“I’m surprised.”

“You’re naïve. I’m not important enough to be photographed.”

“I disagree,” said Giselle. “I love the paintings of yours I’ve seen. I like them better than some of Matisse. I took photos of him a month ago in Paris. He was a charmer.”

“Orson,” said Peter, “I know why you like this girl. Her lies are as beautiful as she is. How did you convince her to marry you?”

“He didn’t convince me,” Giselle said. “He wooed me, and carried me away to Never-Never Land.”

“You still hang out there?” Peter asked.

Giselle looked at me. “I don’t know, do we? Don’t answer that.”

“Why not answer?” Peter asked.

“I want to talk about Matisse,” Giselle said. She opened her camera bag, took out her Rolleiflex, and looped its strap around her neck.

“I’m struck that you know Matisse,” Peter said.

“When I went to see him he was in his pajamas. I fell in love with his beard.”

“He says light is the future of all art,” Peter said. “I thought that was pretty obvious, but he must understand darkness in some new way or he wouldn’t think that was an original idea.”

“The only thing I understand is photographic light. I once heard a lecturer say that without light there is no photography. How’s that for obvious?”

“I avoid lectures on art,” Peter said. “It’s like trying to ice-skate in warm mud.”

“Orson,” Giselle said, “I’m falling in love with your father.”

“Gee,” I said, “that’s swell.”

Peter leaned on the table and stared at Giselle. She focused her camera, snapped his picture.

“Orson,” she said, “stand alongside your father.”

“Father in a manner of speaking,” I said.

“However,” said Giselle. “Just move in closer.”

I so moved, and there then came into being the first photograph ever taken of Peter Phelan and Orson Purcell together. In the photo, it was later said by some who saw it, the two men bear a family resemblance, though Peter’s mustache destroys any possibility of establishing a definitive visual link. My full head of dark brown hair has a torsion comparable to Peter’s, and our eyes both shine with the dark brown pupils of the Phelan line. By our clothing we separate themselves: Peter, in his bohemian uniform, I a spruced dude in double-breasted, gold-buttoned black blazer, gray slacks (retrieved that morning from the cleaners) with razor-edge creases, black wingtips burnished bright, black-and-white-striped shirt with winedark four-in-hand perfectly knotted, and red-and-black silk handkerchief roiled to a perfect breast-pocket flourish as the finishing touch.