Agnes Among the Gargoyles (13 page)

   "Anyone in this city can become homeless," says the man.

   Yeah, right, thinks Bezel. Not bloody true. Bezel's never known anyone who became homeless, and he's known some good candidates.

   "I have nothing to offer," says the man. "I do not sing. I do not play the steel drum. I am dependent on you. I need money for a hot meal."

   The train pulls into a station. The man pauses while passengers get on and off. When the new arrivals are settled, he begins again.

   "I am a victim," he says, then points at Bezel. "Not like this piece of human shit. This man has destroyed himself with drink and drugs. He is possessed by demons. Look at him! Wretched, wretched creature. When he comes around asking for money, don't give him any. Give to those who truly deserve. I am their representative."

   At the next stop, Bezel, thoroughly humiliated, stumbles off the train and onto the elevated platform. The cold hits him. Well, he thinks, at least it's still winter. That's something. At least he didn't drink the whole season away.

   Perhaps he was too ambitious, getting up and off the train that way. He finds a quiet corner of the platform and curls up. The sun will wake him. Or maybe he'll never wake again. The way he feels now, that would be all right too.

Agnes meets Sarah on St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue. Sarah needs to find an apartment.

   Sarah has a pad full of addresses. For the next several hours she and Agnes trudge around the Lower East Side. It is a remarkably unproductive venture, as such ventures almost always are. Agnes and Sarah view only three apartments, rejecting the others without even going inside the buildings. Sarah is naive about living in New York, and Agnes is a big help to her. Agnes approaches each building like a detective at a crime scene. She looks behind cellar stairs for crack vials, and has a keen eye for mouse and rat droppings. At several buildings, no one answers the doorbell; at others, the super expresses astonishment that a vacancy has been listed. The three apartments that Agnes and Sarah do see are no standouts: one is a spacious dumbbell-shaped walk-up that couldn't be any darker if there were blackout curtains on the windows; one is on the first floor, protected by grim portcullis-like window gates out of
The Count of Monte Cristo;
one, a studio with a view of Tompkins Square Park, seems inoffensive until Agnes realizes that the blurry movements at the edge of her vision come not from fatigue and hunger—it's well past lunchtime—but rather from migrations of cockroaches disturbed by the intrusion.

   "Tough work," says Sarah cheerfully. They head off to look for something to eat.

   "Impossible," says Agnes.

   "Maybe we could cover Chelsea this afternoon?"

   Agnes is exhausted and irritable. "Let's be sensible, Sarah. Only people without money do what you're doing. It could take weeks. Go to a real estate broker and be done with it."

   "That's what my mother wants," says Sarah angrily. "Did she put you up to saying that?"

   "We need to eat," says Agnes.

   They have vegetable pirogis in a luncheonette on First Avenue. The waitresses, full-cheeked and just off the boat, barely speak English. They huddle near the grill and joke with each other in Polish.

   Sarah eats a dish of beets. "My mother's really scared since the shooting. She won't let my father put his name on things anymore. She wants him to keep a lower profile."

   "That seems prudent."

   "He's getting ready to open the new wing of Long Island Hospital. It's for Down's Syndrome research, so I suggested they name it the Niobe Pavilion."

   Agnes's ignorance is apparent. "Why?"

   "The personification of female sorrow."

   Agnes shakes her head.

   "From the Greek myth," Sarah explains. "Niobe had twelve children, and she made fun of Latona for having only two, Apollo and Diana. They avenged the insult to their mother by killing all twelve of Niobe's children. Niobe cried herself to death and was changed into a stone."

   Agnes is bitterly jealous. Here is one more way in which life is made easier for the privileged: great vats of knowledge are poured into them without their consent, and thus any possible education regrets are headed off. Agnes has always been playing catch-up. She went to a terrible high school, then succumbed to flawed logic and enlisted in the army, passing up a chance to attend Yale, which was a huge mistake—the sort of boner the wealthy don't even get to think about making.

   There was never anyone to countermand Agnes's bad decisions. Hannah was no help. Having spent a night in New Haven on her honeymoon, Hannah was not impressed with Yale or its environs. "They pull in the sidewalks at eight-thirty," she told Agnes.

   Agnes convinces Sarah that Madelaine does have a point about real estate brokers. She's not just being over-protective and domineering. Sarah calls a woman on the Upper East Side, who promises to meet them at the luncheonette in twenty minutes.

   Sarah tells Agnes how impatient she is. She wants to get her apartment, get settled, and start making films.

   Agnes makes a face. "Why?"

   "Why what?"

   "Why do you want to make films—or movies, as anyone with any sense calls them?"

   The question puzzles Sarah. "It's just what I want to do. I think I can help people."

   "You want to help people? Join the Peace Corps."

   "Why are you being so hostile?"

   "Oh, I guess I just get tired of all the artists in New York," says Agnes.

   Sarah shrugs. "Become one yourself."

   "No. I'm one of the few people in the city who know they have no artistic talent."

   The realtor wasn't kidding about being there in twenty minutes. She must have dropped everything and sprinted to a cabstand. She is about Agnes's age and (Agnes estimates) of approximately her same social class. She has a Irish face: pale and plain, with a chin that almost juts out; not a pretty face, certainly, but nicely dignified. Her suit and raincoat and briefcase are obviously expensive, as are her shoes, with their strange latticework of straps. She spots Agnes as one of her own and ignores her; she is easily friendly to Sarah, dropping name after name of people whom they both know. She and Sarah are both highly critical of someone named Angelique, who turns out to be a boat. Agnes admires the woman's shrewdness. She knows that, ultimately, the rich are only really comfortable with the rich, or with those who aren't rich but willing to fake it. The woman (her name is Mrs. Faraday) got her ass to a Polish luncheonette just as fast as her little dominatrix pumps would carry her, but her manner is breezy and unhurried, as though she and Sarah were out for a day of museums and shopping and lunch and she just got it in her head to show Sarah a bunch of empty apartments in the West Village.

   "Madelaine wanted me to show you my Yorkville listings," says Mrs. Faraday, "but I'm sure you'd prefer Downtown."

   Mrs. Faraday shows them one stunning apartment after another. The gaudy splendor of Wegeman Tower failed to impress Agnes because its luxuries were not the sort she craved, but these apartments of Mrs. Faraday's, these carriage houses, these evocations of Paris with kitchens of blue tile—they take Agnes's breath away. You think you know what money can buy but you don't even, thinks Agnes. One of the apartments is furnished. The owner, a writer for
Rolling Stone,
is on assignment in Oslo. Agnes examines his books and his Emmylou Harris CDs and his terrycloth bathrobe and the beer in the fridge and thinks it all terribly attractive. She would marry him.

   Sarah is unmoved by all this. None of the apartments seem politically suitable. She doesn't get the feeling that the people who would be her neighbors have ever given a thought to the plight of Native Americans. She makes comments that are lost on Mrs. Faraday. "The carriage house was nice and all, but I'd feel like I was retired," she says. Mrs. Faraday grows irritated. She knows there will be no commission this afternoon. She starts showing the apartments to Agnes, whose awe is apparent.

   "Just smell that cedar," says Mrs. Faraday sadistically.

   Sarah and Agnes ride with Mrs. Faraday up to the East 70s. Agnes wants to buy a pair of sneakers, and she knows a store up that way that is having a sale. Sarah seems relieved that their day together is not coming to an end. They say a strained good-bye to Mrs. Faraday and walk together down Madison Avenue.

   "I know she's on the phone to my mother right now," says Sarah. "The two of them will go one for hours about how difficult I am."

   "I have to pee," says Agnes casually. She walks toward a place that looks like a restaurant but has no name. As she reaches the door Sarah jumps in front of her, blocking her way.

   "Let's go someplace else," says Sarah.

   Agnes blinks at her. "Why?"

   "This is Palestrina."

   "The it is a restaurant—good, I wasn't sure. They'll have a bathroom."

   "You don't understand," says Sarah. "It's really a club. My mother comes here all the time. It's horrible. They'll be very nasty to you. And they won't let you use the bathroom."

   Agnes is touched by Sarah's gesture of protection.

   "Thanks," says Agnes, and goes inside anyway. Sarah follows. Agnes passes Xavier, the maitre d', who looks like he wants to call the police. Sarah catches up with Agnes in the dining room.

   "Surprise!"

   Glitter-confetti and streamers fly. A dozen waiters in white aprons to the floor shoot champagne corks. A WELCOME HOME, SARAH banner hangs from Palestrina's ceiling.

   The cream of New York has gathered to fete Madelaine Wegeman's daughter: Wegemans and Prawls, Metalouses and Coopertons, van Voortens, even a seldom-seen Zerouche. Solly Palestrina, the dimpled owner, dressed in a white dinner jacket and his trademark paisley bow tie, glides from banquette to banquette, pressing the flesh, running his hand flirtatiously over the restructured jawlines of the old dames.

   Madelaine wears a riding habit and silk topper. Like most people who plan surprise parties, she finds the delicious moment over all too quickly. She wants to relive it in slow motion.

   "How did Agnes get you in here?" she asks Sarah.

   "She said she had to pee."

   "I really did have to," says Agnes.

   Mother and daughter go off together. Agnes eats a plate of shrimp and crabmeat. There is a welcoming tumult for the Great Man. He is in a wheelchair. He has put on a bit of weight but is still pallid. Perched on his shoulder is a small monkey. The monkey is black except for a cowl of white fur.

   Sarah throws herself onto her father's neck. She kisses him wildly.

   "Sorry I'm late, Poppet," he says.

   "That's okay, Daddy."

   "I wouldn't say so," he says. "From where I sit, it seems heartless and uncaring and almost the definition of being a bad parent. But I couldn't help it."

   "Daddy, you're sick."

   "That must be it. You're right, Poppet."

   Bob Syker pushes the wheelchair. "How about something to drink, Ron?"

   Wegeman holds his daughter's hand. "I won't have you fetching drinks for me, Bobby boy. We have a trained professional to handle that." He takes what looks like a flashlight out of his pocket. He turns it on, and the monkey, with a joyous screech, clambers down off the Great Man and follows the beam of red laser light to the bar, where there is a Pina Colada waiting. The monkey brings the drink back to his master.

   "A paraplegic's lot is not a happy one," the Great Man observes. "These little manservants are the only upside to spinal trauma."

   Wegeman gives the monkey the pineapple garnish from his drink.

   "What's his name?" asks Sarah.

   "I have the reputation of keeping my employees in a state of uncertainly and confusion," says Wegeman. "I've named him Duck."

   Agnes meets Syker at the buffet.

   "You're a jack of all trades," she tells him. "I don't know where you'll turn up next."

   "Pushing him around is the most enjoyable thing I do," says Syker. "I spent the morning in a suit with a bunch of bankers and underwriters. We were trying to fix the Coney Island subways. Now there's a stumper. Isn't it amazing that a man could dedicate his whole like to bank accounts? And they keep inventing new ones for me to think about."

   Madelaine and Sarah make the rounds of the guests. Agnes feels sorry for Sarah. She seems uncomfortable. The party is ostensibly for her, but few of the guests are under fifty years old. Where are her friends? The only guest even remotely connected to her is Luke Metalous, a wispy young thing with blond hair hanging down one side of his face—a post-modern Veronica Lake. He drinks too much and insults people.

   "When she got to Miss Clavelle's, all she thought about was her clothing," Agnes overhears him telling a small crowd. "She had so many sweaters she had to list them all in a notebook. It was the sort of impossible task of cataloguing medievals so loved to embark on—complete bestiaries in thirty volumes, that sort of thing."

   The Great Man finishes his drink. He gives Duck his empty glass. The monkey scampers back and raps the glass repeatedly on the bar, silencing the gathering.

   "Nobody likes a rich man who arrives empty-handed," says Wegeman.

   Syker hands Sarah a gift box.

   "For my little gadfly," says the Great Man.

   He has given her a beautifully preserved 19th century automation, obviously worth a fortune. Sarah puts it down carefully and winds it up. Two figures, a portly king on his throne and a jester in motley, begin to move. The jester's hands slice the air. Clearly, he is telling a story. The king laughs. You can hear the movement of the ratchet mechanism as his belly shakes. Suddenly, the king's mouth snaps shut. His eyebrows slant downward. The jester presses on, unaware that his cracking wise has hit too close to home. From a sheath beside the throne the king whips out a sword and beheads his comical employee.