Listening to her whispering voice. Calling me angel. Sweet bliss on this wistfully sad day of unfavorable omen. Like snakes that strike. Demons come from nowhere. And are by the symphonic strains of Boccherini driven away by a rhythm I do believe may be entirely too fast to fuck to. Invited to France to go top-hatted racing. Whereas I am too broke even to go to a hot dog stand for a mustard-encrusted and sauerkraut-smothered frankfurter. But without a bean I am at least crowned with the joy of this woman’s beauty and body, whose husband like ole Max is away shooting and fishing. And then she said as I listened.
“Dear boy angel, there will be one day in your life when you need not worry about the mundane anymore. Even if great wealth from commissions doesn’t devolve upon you or appointments materialize to conduct the great orchestras of the world. And, oh God, I am sated.”
In the candlelight, Stephen O’Kelly’O by the bed, bending to kiss Dru on the brow as she lies, arms outstretched, staring up into the ornate folds of the canopy. Strains of Boccherini’s Cello Concerto in G. Allegro, adagio, allegro. As one navigates around the rattler. And steps into the splendor of this bathroom. Toiletries abound. Bath salts. Emollients for the skin. Caswell-Massey sandalwood lotion. The oldest chemist’s and perfumers in America since 1752, it says on the bottle. But not a sign of any soothing balm for the brain or I’d help myself to some. Glass-enclosed shower. A sunken marble tub. A whole afternoon disappeared into evening and sudden disillusion. A plaything for someone who can afford to play. Dru said she had to rush.
“Oh darling. Would you take a rain check on dinner. I’ve got to get ready to go to Montana. I’ll telephone. Will you be there. Jonathan’s back in the morning. And Sylvia’s gone, as she usually is, God knows where.”
Dru suggesting we leave the house one at a time and send me first. Warning of newspaper columnists who hang about the Stork Club to witness café society idling away their nights and that their prying absence could never be assured. Even though she’d only once gone to the Stork Club. She links her arm in mine as we go down the stairs, kissing me on the forehead as we stand in the middle of the black-and-white-tiled vestibule.
“Lover boy angel, illicit liaisons require meticulous planning, total discretion, and unwavering nerve, cela est seloncirconstances.”
“As for me, sûrement va qui n’a rien.”
And I wanted to fuck her again where we stood. But where, backing away to the door I nearly knocked over a bust of Archimedes, whom I at least finally recognized and could remember had once run through the street naked screaming “Eureka” upon his discovery of something to do with the weights of a metal and the volume displacement of water. And plenty about precious metals was on my mind as I was abjectly broke and had no money for a taxi and would walk instead of taking the subway back downtown.
“Lover boy, still waters flow deep.”
“Well, Mrs. Wilmington when can I open the flood-gates again.”
“Now that I look, I have rather a lot of appointments to keep tomorrow. Up early, nine-thirty A.M. pedicure, ten-thirty A.M. hypnotherapy, then my swim at the Colony Club and lunch with the lady who loves her stuffed snakes. After lunch, my current psychic. Then four P.M. to five P.M. the osteopath and massage. After that, I must catch up with some business correspondence. Then I must shower and get ready for a dinner party. Then home to pack to fly to Montana first thing in the morning. But let me telephone you.”
“Ma’am, I believe my telephone has been disconnected.”
“Oh dear. Not, I hope, for nonpayment of a bill. Well I’ll send you a telegram. But you know you have given me an awful lot to think about. And while I’m gone, I’ll think.”
A squeeze together of bodies. Kiss on the lips. Tip of her tongue darting to touch mine. Opening the gleaming black door on its shiny brass hinges. Walk down the four steps outside into the night, aglow in the gonads. The mayor doesn’t live far away. Knock on his door. Inquire if he’d like to commission a special mayorial New York City anthem to be sung at all official happenings. A celebratory cantata for the rich. And a special march with plenty of syncopated drumming to be played for the poor as he goes in the parade up Fifth Avenue on St. Patrick’s Day. But on the mayor’s doorstep, I’d be arrested as a nut. Better to turn left on East End Avenue. Start my long journey along the East River as rain begins to fall. Pass the Welfare Island Ferry Slip. Walk under the roaring traffic over the Queensborough Bridge to Queens. A panhandler ahead.
“Excuse me, sir. Would you have fifteen cents to have a cup of coffee and to get to Queens. To visit my dying mother in the hospital.”
“Here you are, friend.”
“Sir, you are a real gentleman.”
“At least a coin for a beer.”
Farther on now, cut west on Fifty-seventh Street. Get a look at least at all the windows of luxury along this stretch down Fifth Avenue where Dru pops in and out, shopping in these buildings whenever she has time between appointments. And she could give fifteen cents to several million panhandlers. Be called a gentlelady. But at this moment she’s somewhere warm and fed and not on the point of starvation. Arriving wet, sneezing and coughing and cold at a dump of an apartment in Pell Street.
In desperation, I paid a late-night visit to the forbidden family saloon in Hell’s Kitchen for a free roast beef sandwich two inches thick and then traveling north to meet her in the distant northern Bronx, borrowed money from my second-favorite sister in order to buy groceries. And on a depressingly gray grim rainy Monday early afternoon, returned to Pell Street laden with lamb’s kidneys, fruit, two cans of beans, bottle of sauerkraut, an eggplant and a small can of olive oil along with a pound of cod from the Fulton Fish Market. And now after days of desperation, learned that Dru had just returned from Montana. Which news came as I was opening the door to the apartment, to hear Fauré’s Requiem. For there seated inside in the living room, attired in her most sedate of finery, a suit of black raw silk, was Sylvia. And it was as if a flash of pain shot across my chest. Seeing her there, sitting back in the broken armchair, listening, with her marvelous legs crossed, black patent-leather low-heeled shoes on her feet. A black cloak lined in purple satin folded across the piano stool. Reminding that her elegance could vie with even the most chic of women in New York. And I waited for the words. Hey, you no good dirty Irish bastard, you went and fucked my adoptive mother behind my back. But her words came matter-of-factly and nearly cheerful.