J. Lennon - The Funnies

“Mmph?”

“I have a confession to make.”

I finished chewing and raised my head. Already the rhythm of the meal was draining away from me. “What?”

“Remember I said the syndicate would have somebody else…on deck? Just in case?”

“Yeah?”

She turned her head to watch a waiter glide by. “It’s, uh, Ken Dorn.”

My innards tingled, as if girding themselves against an impending nausea. Still, I was not surprised. Before I could respond, she said, “I only found out a week ago. And then, bumping into him at FunnyFest…it just looked strange. I should have told you then.”

“But they still want me, don’t they?”

She nodded. “Well, yeah, sure. I mean, I hope.”

“You hope?”

“I found out about this through a memo from Ray Burn to the syndicate’s law firm. They were working out the legalities of turning it over to Dorn. Who gets the merchandising rights and all that.”

I said, “I guess Dorn would.”

“Well.”

“Well?”

“This memo was asking the lawyers to look into Dorn not getting the merchandising rights. That is, the syndicate getting all that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think…I think maybe if you get the strip, you get merchandising money. But if Dorn gets the strip, the syndicate would keep it all. I think.”

I gave this a little thought. “So you’re saying it’s not in their best interests to go with me.”

She opened her mouth. It took a few seconds for anything to come out of it. “Uhh…no, not exactly. We’re talking about your father’s dying wishes, here. I mean, they still want you. At least I think. I mean, no, they definitely do. Why would they be pumping money into this thing otherwise? Free lunches, et cetera.” She didn’t look like she was convincing herself. She let the et cetera hang in the air a moment, then plunged, embarrassed, back into her food. Now I set down my chopsticks.

“Susan,” I said. “I don’t want to do this if I’m just going to get screwed.”

She chewed and swallowed, and stared at her plate. “Well, there are things you can do to impress them. Go to this conference, for one thing.”

“Conference?”

“The cartoonists’ conference I was telling you about? Next weekend?”

“Oh, right.”

“And then meet with Ray Burn. Tell him you mean business. Dorn would be a hard guy to sell, to work with. He’s a notorious weasel. Everybody hates him.”

“And you can set this up?”

She nodded quickly. “After the conference, sure.”

“So now what?” My food looked sticky and unappetizing on the plate, like it had just been dragged from the bottom of a lake.

“I, uh, got the day off,” she said. “Maybe we could go somewhere? The Met? A bookstore? A drink?”

“A drink sounds good.”

“On me,” she said. “Not the syndicate.”

In fact, we had several drinks, at an ill-lit NYU student hangout with framed portraits of art-film stars on the walls and peanut shells all over the floor. We got sort of drunk. This is not something I had done with someone else for a long time, and it reminded me of college, and long, dazed walks back to my dorm in the dark. In retrospect these walks seemed like the best moments of my life: unhurried, mildly challenging, directly preceding sound sleep. I was so lost in the memory of them that when we spilled out onto the sidewalk afterward I was shocked by the bright diffuse light of an overcast summer day in New York. I smelled pretzels. We traced the smell to Washington Square Park, and sat eating in a little island of grass bordered by orange snow fences, where some kind of water-line maintenance was going on.

“I can’t go home,” I said. “I’m drunk.”

“The Museum’s still open,” Susan mumbled, studying her watch. “Let’s go there.”

But we never made it. Our cabdriver didn’t yet know how to get there. He feigned professional indignation, as if the Museum were in the South Bronx, surrounded by crack-happy street gangs, before letting us off, for free and apparently at random, outside a movie theater, which we found ourselves staggering into like twin Mr. Magoos through an open manhole. The movie playing was a revival: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World . It was three hours long.

It took us most of that time to find one another in the dark. The star-studded cast was scampering blithely around the base of the big “W” where the money was buried when I finally turned my head blearily toward hers and found her looking blearily up at me, and our lips blearily met. And then our arms were around each other and we were kissing, kissing, and it felt very, very strange. The air conditioning was too cool and I touched the nubbly bumps on the skin of her arms. On the screen Jonathan Winters’s childlike voice was rising out of the din, and he said something that, in my alcohol-and-hormone-induced delirium, sounded like “You’re making out!”

Making out! I hadn’t heard anyone say that since about 1980, and I turned my head to the screen. But all that was going on there was digging, and back in our seats Susan was kissing my neck. And so I turned back to her, and the credits rolled.

But in the street, nothing. We had gone to the rest rooms to unrumple, but something must have happened there — perhaps the sight of ourselves, just beginning our fourth decades, wan and haggard in the unflattering fluorescent light — to pluck us out of our respective spells. We simpered, embarrassed, at one another. The sun had finally come out, just in time to start setting. I had homework to do.

Still, we walked all the way downtown, saying little, not touching. It was a good walk, a necessary walk, as the last remnants of alcohol rose to my skin and evaporated into the city air. When we got to the Caddy we stood facing each other, smiling politely and not looking each other directly in the eyes. The day had lost almost all its light.

“So,” I said.

“So,” she said.

I began to lean forward, just a little, and she did too. Then someone down the street yelled and we turned our heads to see, but there was nothing. And then my hand was on the door handle and Susan was a step farther away, and so that would be all.

“So call me,” she said, then corrected herself: “I’ll call you. Whenever I know something. About the conference.”

“And Ray Burn.”

“Yeah, sure.” She smiled, I smiled.

“Thanks,” I said. “I had a great day.” Though I wasn’t sure if that was true. Great? Different. Unexpected.

“Yeah?”

“Sure,” I said.

Her face darkened, just a little. Had I not sounded convincing enough? I was embarrassed and looked away.

“Well, until then,” she said.

“Okay, great.” I opened the car door and got in. She walked off. And I was suddenly saying, “Susan?”

“Yes?”

She half-turned, her face full of something: hope, fear, humiliation? It was red, anyway. No matter what I said, it would be wrong. I said, “Thanks again.”

A moment of silence. Then, “No problem,” and she was gone.

All the way home, I half-listened to talk radio, and thought incessantly of her breast’s gentle pressure against the crook of my arm.

* * *

Pierce was asleep, but the kitchen counter had been cleared entirely of dishes and food residue and wiped clean. And sitting in the middle of it, like a surprise birthday gift or suicide note, was the safe-deposit box key. No explanation, though none was needed. Tomorrow he would go, I supposed, to the Pines, and I would be going to the bank.

* * *

There were three banks in Riverbank — that is, Mixville — and only two of them were open Saturday mornings. Of the open ones, I remembered having a childhood passbook savings account at Riverbank First National, and knew that Riverbank National Bank and Trust was closer, right out on Main Street. I went to RNBT first. Downtown was uncrowded, save for a small, just-awakened crowd milling around the bakery. I stopped there myself and bought a scone, perfectly serviceable and still warm.