Gilbert Sorrentino - Aberration of Starlight

Is it possible to know a little of Marie’s feelings toward her father?

They were wildly ambivalent. She despised him because she knew that he had bent all his powers toward making her feel responsible for him. Yet she loved him because, despite his cowardice in the face of the fierce and bitter woman whom Bridget had gradually become, he had done what he could to make her life and Billy’s somewhat bearable after her separation from Tony and Bridget’s subsequent triumphant crowing over the marriage’s failure.

What were her feelings toward Tom Thebus?

At this time they seemed to be love, admiration, attraction, fascination, and the old familiar sexual fear, the last courtesy of the Sisters of Charity, especially one Sister Vincent.

What about her feelings toward the WigWam?

It evoked a bittersweet nostalgia and, like most, one but tenuously attached to facts.

Dear “Ex” Tony,

I’m just writing to say “hello” and to tell you that I’m really sorry to see that you finally lost the little bit of hair you once had. If you are wondering how I know this it’s because I am referring to a picture in the Brooklyn Eagle I saw with you and your fat floozie and I mean Fat, and some drunk mick of a crooked politician all posing together as sweet as you please at some affair in the St. George. What was it, the annual Ball of Alcoholic Anonymos or whatever they call it? Your new wife, ha ha, looked like she had a few stiff balls before she got there.

Or was it a meeting of that organization you made up, the Flo-Ral Society. Where all the relatives on your side and also the bimbo’s side get together to kiss the great man’s feet so some other deadbeat will get on the payroll. Or maybe you were just wining and dining that shanty harp mug next to you, my God, he looks crooked enough to be the next Mayor.

Maybe I’m wrong and that Fat lady next to you was the mick politician’s wife. It could be. Those Fat Irish tramps all look the same to me but I guess it was Margie. My God, from the size of her it’s easy to see that the rats don’t steal the food from her plate any more like they did in the good old days. I wish I had the dress she is wearing though, because, it would make me a swell closet full of clothes. Where does she go for her clothes? Omar the tent maker? That dress would fit Finn MacCool. No kidding Tony, it is a knock out and you must be really proud of the slut.

A little bird told me that since that lovey dovey picture you and

Mrs. Trampo are breaking your necks to avoid each other. For instance, when you are in Miami she is up here and visa versa. I can’t believe the honeymoon is over so soon. And all along I thought that you two would be like the Duke of Winsor and Wally Simpson. Such is life and you know the old saying, Time Wounds All Heels. It is very true and I am sure that you are finding it out if you get what I mean.

I heard another story from a little bird about two dogs that Mrs. Slutto had in Miami last year, I understand that they were twins. Of course the lady of the Manor never walked her mutts but it was the job of some poor greaseball who was also chief cook and bottle washer down there and who also drove the car and mowed the lawn. One day they fell in the ocean and drowned, I heard. I heard that they sank with all the lead that was in them. Mrs. Bimbo was very upset about it and fired the greaseball and drank a whole bottle of scotch. No rest for the weary is there, Tony? Can’t you hire somebody who won’t carry a pistol in his pocket?

As I am sure Florrie has told you if I know my Florrie, and probably Marianne and Bee as well, I have met a great number of very nice gentlemen over the past few months. And this summer one in particular, a man named Tom, who is a wonderful and refined gentleman. Had I an inkling that such refined men existed in the world when I accepted your proposal I would never have accepted your proposal. I was not much more than a school girl and you were an ignorant dago working on the docks covered with grease from head to foot. I must have been crazy. Probably I was crazy. Certainly you showed your true colors soon enough but that is all water under the bridge. Margie Fatso is the perfect wife for you even if you can still only call her your wife in Florida legally. As a matter of fact, poor Katie, after you left me and Billy even told me that this was a perfect match, she even said, Well this jane is a perfect match for Tony, God forgive me but that’s how I feel. And now I can see that poor Katie was right. I was always too refined and too delicate for you and I soon found out what it was you wanted from a woman, all those disgusting things that I told you Father Donovan told me were things animals do. Not good Catholic people. But you have your shanty bimbo now and you can roll around like pigs in mud.

Tom can talk about all kinds of things and he is an Inventor. He is very interesting and Poppa thinks that he is really a fine man. Poppa really likes him a lot. He has a little moustache like Joe used to have before he became the Vice president or whatever he is at Neptune and a head of brown wavy hair. How is your brother in law, the cripple? God bless the mark but when I remember how Caesar told me that he made Julius clean out the toilets in the old place on DeGraw Street and you let him do as he pleased, I don’t care how crippled he is, for that he should be crippled in both legs, God forgive me. Julius is the oldest brother of all of you and he should be shown some respect. Who did that gimpy shanty Irish trash think he was to order him to do that nigger work? You didn’t do anything to stop him, Tony but you let Julius work like a nigger. Your oldest brother. I should have surmised then that Margie had your ear. But I was blind.

Well I’ll close now since I am going for a drive with Tom and Poppa for a pitcher of cold beer and some clams on the half shell. Are you ever going to legally marry that Miss Fat Pig?

Feeling sorry for you,

Marie (Time Wounds all Heels)

P.S. I have half a mind to write a letter to the Eagle and tell them that I am Mrs. Recco and God only knows who that fat tramp is, maybe, one of the kitchen help. Maybe I will.

How hard it was to believe and how thrilling it was to know that Tom was famous! And she, as Mrs. Tom, as the newspapers called her, the queen bee of so many functions. And her furs. And her favorite recipes jotted down by goodness knows how many reporters! The after-theater cafés and bistros favored by the glittering couple for late suppers with champagne, of course, and tasty things that waiters set on fire. Of course, both boys were in the best prep schools but came home for summer vacations and the holidays, of course . And then Eton or Oxford or Princeton. How she looked forward to seeing them in their beanies.

How grand to have a second honeymoon just a year and a half after their first. The first had been really and truly heaven — especially since it was also a sort of celebration over her annulment — the church, the wonderful, wonderful Catholic church had decided that Tony had been so rotten and mean through and through that she was entitled to an annulment because her marriage was a marriage in name only and actually was a very special case of cruelty. And when she saw Tom’s “little”—ha ha — surprise! That morning when he took her down to the dock to see the yacht she thought she’d die. What was most wonderful about it all? The name, “Tomarie”? The smiling Negro steward, George, always shuffling around with his silver tray of canapes and Orange Blossoms and Mint Juleps? Or was it the gruff, weatherbeaten, and red-bearded captain, Ole Olson? All white and gold and with a yellow-and-white striped awning over the aft poop. And Tom all in white! His strong white teeth twinkled in a boyish grin that lit up his mahogany face. And how the sun had bleached out his dark wavy hair and his little moustache, oh, that she loved so much because it tickled her when she swooned in his arms and made her feel so wicked!