Music was important too. So, many of our evenings ended with Marilyn tapping her glass with a swizzle while five obsolete Negroes and a sprinkle of middle-aged Caucasians belched Dixieland. When the Saints Go Marching In. I sang along, all right, but with my own words, celebrating my own dream of entrance.
We came closer. Close enough to discuss the great controversy between square-cut and pear-shaped diamonds, the need for adequate insurance, the matter of discipline in the raising of children and how weddings were made for parents and grandparents. We talked about D. H. Lawrence, for whom we felt sorry, and Barry Goldwater, for whom we did not.
And we came closer. We held hands on campus. We kissed in her hall. By the end of May, outside her door, while she fumbled for keys, I pressed her breast and she bit my cheek.
On the bus going home, I rejoiced.
Around that time, I can’t exactly remember dates, the gods began visiting me each night They looked so harried, I worried.
“White boy,” said the fellow in charge of Household Misery, “hurry yourself. We’re fading fast. Necessity is the mother of redemption.”
“I’m doing my best,” I said. “I’m keeping tight lines of supply. Positions must be consolidated.”
“You know how Douglas MacArthur feels about lethargy,” the god said.
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
Marilyn Mayberry retreated suddenly. Was it her intuition? For a week she wouldn’t let me near her. She skipped our Tuesday class, and on Thursday she sat near the door. She broke our Wednesday date. I saw her walking on Riverside Drive eating ice cream with a total stranger. Thwarted love is bad. Thwarted vengeance is awful.
Each night, the gods tch-tched.
I doubled my efforts. Desperately, using everything I knew or suspected, I sought to fill Marilyn Mayberry’s life with aphrodisiacs.
Based on a magazine article I read in my sister’s Ladies Home Journal, I encouraged Marilyn to eat spicy foods.
“My upper lip is sweating, Olly.”
“Have more sauce.”
“No. I’ll dehydrate.”
“Curry is supposed to punish. That’s the gourmet’s way.”
“No, Olly. No sauce.”
To stimulate her mentally, I spent twenty dollars on a copy of the Kama-Sutra and followed with A Doctor Looks at Sex.
“The first book was terrible. They spend so much time thinking about new positions it’s no wonder their gross national product is way down. They need construction manuals, not marriage manuals.”
“Whoever said the Kama-Sutra was a marriage manual?”
“Well, people sleep together. The second book was sensible. I lent it to my mother.”
I took her to the Persian Room to watch Hildegarde.
I championed the wearing of loose-fitting garments.
I planned picnics in Central Park, where we watched the seals.
I took her to the American Museum of Natural History to feel the great presence of dinosaurs.
We went to the Hayden Planetarium to watch stars being born and nebulae whirl.
“Some day man will probe the mystery of outer space.”
“Olly, do you believe that? Why?”
“The sun will enlarge and burn the earth to a crisp. We’ll have to venture into new worlds if the human race is to survive.”
“When?”
“What difference does that make?”
“When?”
Only one thing kept me going. Every Tuesday and Thursday I saw her pictures hanging on the wall behind Miss Luptik and my diabolical battery recharged. I saw the pale and beaten Miss Luptik sink into predictability, and I raged freshly.
Then, of course, there were the dreams. The poor gods, clinging to existence, were gasping for a hero. One even suggested that my cousin Marvin, who I saw on major holidays, might do a better job.
The thing that brought Marilyn Mayberry into contact again was the bell at Riverside Church.
From a Juilliard student who lived on my block, I learned that every Saturday at noon there is a concert in the church tower. High above the city, in a small glass room, a bellringer comes to play the carillon.
For ten cents, visitors are welcome to take the elevator up, walk two additional flights, stand on a landing enclosed by stone arches, and listen.
The main bell hangs in the tower’s center. It was designed to rouse spirits as far away as Teaneck, which is across the Hudson River.
When I heard about it, I conceived a scheme so basically rotten that I hesitate to give descriptions. My plan was to vibrate Marilyn Mayberry into submission. Thinking like the Old Testament, I believed that if she were exposed to total vibration over a sustained period of say five minutes from her arches to her scalp, her defenses would crash like the walls of Jericho.
It came to pass.
We went, innocently, to the church. We paid our dimes. We breached the tower.
At twelve, the bell began.
It boomed gobs of sound so rich and full that we did not hear them. They hit us. Up there, with the city on one side, the river on the other, we drowned in bongs. It was fearsome.
I had neglected to consider my own reaction to the massed decibels of Bach. Quasimodo would have lost his pants. Marilyn Mayberry started to cry, and despite myself, I joined her.
We held on to each other, shaking, while a tone-deaf pigeon watched. The bell went on and on. When a man and a woman vibrate so thoroughly, something changes between them.
When we came down, I knew from Marilyn’s expression that my conquest was no longer a matter of will-she, but when-will-she. It was time to think of time and place.
This can be a real problem for city youth. I have heard of a fellow who rented a safe-deposit box at Manufacturers-Hanover Trust for $6.60 per year so that he can take his girls to the little room where they let you count your money down near the vault.
A friend of my family was leaving for the mountains. It became my responsibility to water their plants. I asked Marilyn to come with me. She did, and she didn’t. In the shade of the window garden, she told me the story of a “fellow” she knew who had violated a woman’s confidence in a similar situation. I looked down at the African violets and lost the urge to cohabitation.
The gods chided me that night. I hardly recognized them. They were fatter, more confident, ready for deliverance. I warned them about premature optimism, but they laughed anyhow.
A poet I know was called back to Brooklyn due to some crisis. He had his own room in the Village. He asked me to look in on his sick cat. Would Marilyn come with me? She would, and she wouldn’t. Together we fed kidneys to the cat. Such grateful mewing could melt glaciers, but not Miss Mayberry. She allowed me a hand underneath her rayon blouse, but in back.
Still, the gods continued to celebrate. I warned them. They winked.
Marilyn had to baby-sit for her aunt. The baby, a formless bag of feces, slept in a lump. We sat on a soft couch, which was made up for the night since Marilyn was to stay over.
We lay side by side for two hours without movement like members of the Young Communist League on bivouac. I went home in a crouch.
Even then the gods cheered the minute I closed my eyes.
Like the prince with the horse, it took some time for me to get the message. Through the Western Union of sleep, it came to Oliver August that Marilyn Mayberry, not I, would pick the time and place. A girl who drew gods would certainly want to design the stage set for her own greatest moment.
I waited. Days passed.
A week following I got a letter from the draft board. They wanted to examine my body. I was no longer worried about the legions of Mao. I was worried about the legions of Mr. Rain, Mr. Sun, Mr. Corn, Mr. Buffalo, Mr. Forest, Mr. Fire, Mr. Death, Mr. Birth, Mr. Pain and Miss Moon.