An Idol for Others

An Idol for Others

Gordon Merrick

FOR LARRY

WITH FAITH IN THE BIG FUTURE

He performed the ritual that permitted him to enter his own house–standing within range of the viewer, speaking the formula that indicated the absence of muggers or gunmen lurking in the background–and passed from the late-May heat of East 75th Street into the air-conditioned citadel of home.

He was immediately caught up in the events of the day. His very executive secretary, Alice, met him in the hall. She had been with him so long that he no longer knew what she looked like.

“Hi, Walter. Did you get it? Are you pleased?”

He held up the small Verdura box he was carrying. “I think she’ll like it.”

“The boys arrived and have gone out again already,” Alice said. “They promised to be on time for lunch.
Time
sent proofs of their cover story, if you want to read about yourself. All the papers have been calling asking for advance copies of tonight’s speech.”

“That’s the committee’s business,” he said. “Did we get last week’s grosses?”

“Yes. A bit better than the week before.”

“Real cool, man.” He mocked the jargon of the day with impish eyes. He was a tall man with a fine, well-proportioned figure, but the imp still lurked in his face, around the corners of his slightly upslanting eyes, and shaped the curve of his generous mouth. His habitual expression was impishly mocking. Without giving her more than the surface of his attention, he was aware of her hands fluttering about herself in the way she had when she didn’t know how he would react to what she was going to say.

“There’s a wire of congratulations from the president,” she announced.

“You’re kidding! Who told that creep about our little cultural activities?” Small things like this occasionally assured him that some part of him still functioned at the old level–independently, irreverently, perhaps even creatively.

“David’s waiting upstairs in the library. He brought a friend.”

“Did somebody give them something to drink? Tell Clara to join us. And don’t let anybody through. We’ll go public this evening.” He turned from her. There was an elevator, but he rarely used it; he had always been energetic and liked to keep his youthful body on the move. He climbed the stairs, feeling the house close around him. He had been assured that the air-conditioning reproduced the most ideal outdoor atmospheric conditions, so he knew his sense of suffocation my be psychological. Clara’s cocoon. Inaccurate. Every piece of fine furniture, every glowing picture, from Bacon to Zadkine, had been coveted more by him than by her.

He turned down a short hall, past some of his splendid possessions, and entered the library. He was immediately dazzled by the first sight of David he had had for almost two years: skin bronzed and burnished to extraordinary apricot tones, hair as golden as ever. David sprang to his feet and rushed to him; they were in each others’ arms, hugging and whooping with pleasure.

“God, how wonderful. You made it,” Walter exclaimed.

“I’ll say. I couldn’t have missed your apotheosis as the Grand Old Man. How does it feel?”

“I’d rather be the Boy Wonder.”

“You’re doing all right.”

“You too. You’re absolutely gorgeous.”

“Still trying to turn my pretty head. How’s Clara?”

Even in the exuberance of their greeting, Walter was aware of the guarded note that crept into David’s voice at the question, and he closed his mind to its implications. “Fine. She’ll be along any minute. She’s dying to see you.”

They relinquished each other and David turned to include the figure that stood motionless near the empty fireplace. “I’ve brought Tom. He’s just heading back to the Coast. This was the only time I could get you together. I thought you ought to at least meet. Tom Jennings. The great Walter Makin himself.”

Walter moved to the stranger and shook hands, offering him a greeting that became perfunctory as he looked at the attractive young man.
Considerably more attractive than most
, he thought. He refused to allow himself to explore the source of the attraction but waved them to chairs, freshened their drinks, and poured himself one. He and David gossiped cheerfully while he dredged up from the back of his mind the few bits of information he knew about Tom Jennings. He had written a successful novel whose title escaped him. David had written about a play Jennings was working on. Something else. Ah, yes. A man he had lived with for a good many years had recently died. The sort of thing only David would dare pass on as being of interest to him.

Walter and David exchanged the questions required by courtesy about their respective wives and children. Then David picked up the day’s major event, tonight’s award, and gave it a thorough, satiric verbal airing, reeling off Walter’s most disastrous failures, quoting vicious criticisms, referring to crises that only they had shared. But despite David’s incorrigibly flippant manner, there was a current beneath it of deep affection and admiration.

For the first time since he had been told of the award, Walter felt pride and satisfaction in the recognition of an achievement that had seemed for years only the acting out of a fantasy in which he had somehow been trapped. Would he still feel the excitement of their first triumphs if the break with David hadn’t occurred? He glanced at the small package he had left on the bar table and wished Clara would come in. It would be good to present the gift while estrangement was forgotten–or overlaid by a quickened awareness of the solid reality of the work he had done and, in simple justice, of her contribution to it.

He felt, while he and David teased and scored off each other, the still attention with which Tom Jennings observed him. He played up to it as a showman giving his audience its money’s worth. David’s evocation of the past was gratifying, but his sense of timing warned him not to overdo it. Jennings was here for a purpose; he must save time to lend him a professional ear.

“Oh, David,” he sighed in a lull in the conversation. “We did have a good time. None of it could’ve happened without you.”

“Nonsense. I was just one of dozens of lovesick slaves ready to lay down their lives for you. I must say I was pretty good at disposing of the competition–up to a point.” They smiled at each other, but as the chance remark took on an unwelcome significance, strain crept into their smiles. Walter looked hastily away.

Tom Jennings offered an opportunity to cover the lapse, and Walter seized upon it. “This must be pretty boring for Tom. I’m sorry.” He looked at his other guest more directly, but still registered only superficial details. Tom was young, but indefinably so, late 20s or early 30s, and displayed none of the insignia of contemporary youth. He was clean-shaven, his hair curled on his neck above his collar, his clothes would have been regarded as conservative, even by Walter’s generation–loafers, slacks, shirt and tie, a comfortable-looking jacket.

“I’m fascinated,” Jennings said. “David’s talked a lot about you, but it’s beautiful to see you together.”

The tingle in Walter’s veins made him sit up straighter. The deep, quiet voice spoke directly to Walter with a multitude of meanings. Walter realized that while he clowned with David, the young man’s stillness was getting through to him, so that now an unknown connection had been made. Involuntarily and undisguisedly, Walter studied the face across from him and saw lightly tanned skin stretched taut over strong bones, eyes arresting for their directness, and a mouth firmly modeled but faintly vulnerable in the curve of the upper lip. He felt the tingle in his veins again as his eyes dropped to the strong, smooth column of neck, then to the hands with extraordinarily long, sinewy fingers spread out on the arms of the chair.

“David tells me you’ve been writing a play,” he said, appalled at the inadequacy of the remark. It contained no hint of the recognition of what, almost palpably and in a few seconds, had taken place between them, whatever it was–a pledge of some sort, perhaps simply a pledge of understanding and respect. “Have you finished it?”

“Yes.”

“Am I going to be allowed to read it?”

“I’d love to know what you think of it, but I’ve explained to David that I’d feel foolish submitting it to you in the official sense. It’s not on your scale.”

“You mean, big, splashy commercial stuff? You don’t know how I got started. I haven’t always been what I am today. David could tell you some stories.” He exchanged a look with David, and they rocked about in their chairs, “Oh, God, do you remember?”

David howled. “It was quite a light in that forest.”

Walter returned his attention to Tom. “I wouldn’t trust myself anymore to judge you new kids. I know what’s bad, but it’s that fine line between the passable and the really good where I might fail you. Would that kind of opinion interest you?” Their eyes searched each other.

Tom gave a little nod. “Done. I know I’m good but subject to failure like everybody else.” He almost grinned.

It happened. Walter felt it jolt his whole body.

A cheerful boyish voice rang out in a shower room, and a succession of ecstatic moments, unsuspected except by those who had shared them with him, rushed across his memory–Harry’s legacy. The secret flaw in a life that presented a perfect surface, the incarnation of a design he had conceived when he was barely emerging from adolescence. Walter Makin, the self-created man.

A secret flaw. He had always conducted himself as if it were a secret, even with Clara–especially with Clara. He hoped she wouldn’t come in now. He wanted to sort out the consequences of what had happened and settle on ways to cope with them. He turned to David, feeling as if he had been caught in an unimaginable indiscretion but allowing nothing to show.

“I’m glad you brought this guy. Something might come of it.” Irresistibly, he turned back to Tom, “You’re going back to the Coast soon?”

Tom answered, “Yes, this afternoon.”

“Did you bring the play with you?”

Tom’s smile broadened. “I don’t carry it around with me waiting for somebody to ask for a reading.”

“You should. You never know when lightning will strike.” They were moving now, moving into each other by their separate routes. The imp was possessing Walter; his eyes markedly slanted upward, his rich laughter flowed from him, a lock of wavy dark chestnut and gray hair fell over his forehead. He was no longer conscious of his charm. He was not attempting a seduction. He didn’t have to. Tom’s eyes held him directly and beckoned him.

Tom remained still and attentive, but his long fingers stirred in a distant caress, and his deep voice moved to him and embraced him as he said, “You’re lucky I don’t have it. I’m dying to read it to you.”

David ceased to exist.

“There’s a lot I’d like to ask you, but you’d probably rather not talk about it until I’ve read it.”

“I don’t mind. It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be much time.”

“That’s it. We’ll have to work things out. What time is it?” It was one of Walter’s affectations never to carry a watch, and now it seemed to him that it was ordained for this moment. Tom’s consulting his watch was the first small illustration of relationship, of a vast potential for serving each other. He noticed that the backs of his hands and wrists were hairless.

“Almost 12:30,” Tom said.

“Good.” Walter came to a quick decision. Get him out before Clara turned up. A few minutes alone together would begin the process of exorcising the demon that had suddenly taken possession of him. “I have time to do one last errand before I give myself up to the demands of fame and family. I’m sorry I can’t ask you for lunch, but I promised to keep it just us. Can I drop you wherever you’re going?”

“I don’t want to take you out of your way.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Back to the hotel–the Gladwyn.”

“Perfect. I’m going within a block of it. The car’s right outside.” Walter gave his game away with a little chuckle of complicity as he rose. Tom stood and confirmed Walter’s impression that they were of almost equal height. It brought their eyes level. He appeared to have a nice body under the unrevealing clothes, trim and spare.