“... thunderous applause from a crowd that filled the auditorium to capacity and overflowed into the street. ‘I cannot be a spectator at the crucifixion of the world’s mightiest nation on a cross of riot and anarchy. I will not, and you true Americans will not, stand idly by while the Statue of Liberty is fitted for a crown of throns by the serpents nestled in her own bosom. John Lowell Drury attempted to make peace with those very vipers of the left. But men of good will cannot make peace with the Devil. John Lowell Drury played with the vipers of the left. John Lowell Drury learned too late that even he was not immune to their poison.’
“Generally conceded to be an easy victor in his November bid for reelection, the popular Indiana governor has increasingly turned his oratorical guns from state to national issues. In response to speculation that...”
Dorn favored the first three items with a nod, and gave the last a quick smile of recognition.
One night Dorn went to a movie on Times Square. On the way back to his hotel a young woman emerged from a doorway and beckoned to him. He stopped to see what she wanted.
She said, “You want some sweet brown sugar, lover? I’ll fuck you, I’ll suck you, anything you want.”
“Oh no,” Dorn said firmly, then softened it with a smile. “No,” he repeated. “I’m far too old for that.”
“You ain’t too old,” she said as he turned away. “Bet I make you feel young again.”
He walked away.
“Motherfucker!” she called after him.
He walked back to his hotel and went to sleep. In the morning he went to Central Park and familiarized himself with some of the paths. He saw a woman feeding bread crumbs to the pigeons. She seemed to have purchased a bag for that purpose. He thought that it was nice of her to do this, and was reminded of an item he had read reporting that the Board of Aldermen somewhere had appropriated funds for a program designed to eradicate pigeons by feeding them with a chemical which would interfere with their reproductive processes. They would lay eggs, but the eggs would not have shells. This was heralded as humane. Dorn wondered why. The pigeons were to be eradicated — terminated, Dorn thought — because they had a propensity for shitting on statues and the steps of public buildings.
It is in the nature of pigeons, Dorn thought, to shit on statues.
It occurred to him that this woman might be feeding such a chemical to the pigeons. She might even be poisoning them. It was impossible to say with certainty.
He took a taxi back to his hotel, packed, checked out. He caught an afternoon flight to Charleston and a bus to Willow Falls.
“How was New York?”
“Exhausting,” he told her. In German he recited its faults. German was a good language for finding fault. “It is, in the first place, impossible to breathe the air or drink the water. There is a trash receptacle on every corner, but no one seems to have informed the public of its function. Consequently the streets and sidewalks are strewn with garbage. One cannot walk a block without being accosted by several panhandlers, perhaps a third of whom were better dressed than I. All of the taxis seem to be permanently off duty. Everyone is shrunken and sullen-faced. No one smiles. I see no reason why anyone should.”
“I was going to say I wished I could have gone along, but you don’t make it sound very wonderful.”
“It was not very wonderful at all. Be glad you were here. Anyone who goes unnecessarily to New York is flirting with commitment to a mental hospital. The city itself is a mental hospital, all patients and no staff.”
“Oh, poor Miles.”
“I survived. Actually I spent almost all my time at the Public Library. An excellent institution. And, perhaps because I hated the city so much, I managed to get an impressive amount of research done in a week’s time.”
“I wish you would give me at least a hint of what this project is about.”
“In due time. You see, I know that if I talk about it, I won’t get around to doing it.”
“I don’t mean to bug you.” When he squinted at the idiom, meaningless in German, she translated it.
“But you don’t bug me,” he said.
“At least you won’t have to go back to New York again, will you?”
“I sincerely hope I will never have to go back there,” he said.
“You’re a good cook,” she said. “This is really delicious. I don’t know how to cook anything.”
“It’s not hard to learn.”
“Do you give cooking lessons? I could afford them, now that my German lessons are free.”
“I learn more from you than I teach you, Jocelyn.”
She put her fork down, raised her face slowly to his. She spoke to him with her face. If you want, her face said. If you would like it, I too would like it. Truly. But you’re the one who must decide.
“It’s warm,” he said. “I’ll open a window.”
Eight
Less than a week after his return from New York, Dorn packed a suitcase and rode a bus to Charleston. From Charleston he flew on Delta Airlines to New Orleans. The name on his ticket was not one he had used before. He used that name again to register at a medium-priced hotel in the Quarter. In his room he unpacked his suitcase and placed his clothes in the bureau and closet. He took the Sanitized wrapper off the toilet seat and raised the seat. He unwrapped one of the water tumblers, drew a glass of water, drank some of it — it tasted of chlorine — and set the half empty glass on top of the dresser. He look off the bedspread, got into bed, rumpled the bedclothing briefly, dented the pillow with his head, and got out of bed again. He closed the blinds and turned up the air conditioning.
On his way out of the room he dropped the Do Not Disturb sign onto the doorknob. He knew several ways to lock a door from the inside while being on the outside. None of I them worked with this particular type of lock. There was a transom, but the desirability of leaving the door locked from the inside did not seem to him to outweigh the probable consequences of being seen crawling through his own transom, nor did he much like the idea of trying to crawl back in again. Nor, for that matter, did a broken leg lend itself to his plans.
He stopped at the hotel coffee shop, ate a quick breakfast, signed the chit with his current name and room number. He kept his room key, and left the hotel through the coffee shop’s street entrance to avoid passing the desk.
A taxi look him back to the airport. He had earlier reserved a seat under another new name on an American Airlines flight to Kennedy Airport, which he still thought of as Idlewild. (“You can’t be a saint without martyrdom.”) His flight was called for boarding ten minutes after he arrived at the airport.
He enjoyed the flight. One of the stewardesses reminded him in some indefinable way of Jocelyn, although there was no actual physical resemblance. He ate an adequate meal and had several cups of tea.
He spent a good deal of time thinking about Emil Karnofsky, but thought about other things as well.
Although he had long since destroyed all of the capsule biographies Heidigger had given him, his memory of them was eidetic.
Emil Karnofsky. Director, National Brotherhood of Clothing Workers. Member, national board, AFL–CIO. Jew. First major labor leader to take antiwar position. Union membership chiefly black, Puerto Rican. Respected by colleagues but regarded as New York Jew leftist. Termination advised to foster solidarity in labor circles. Strongly recommend termination via natural causes or accident. If unavoidably otherwise, political motivation must not be suggested. Age: 77. Widower. Three children, eight grandchildren...