Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events (17 page)

H
ayes is the birdman. Before the birds, he worked with dogs and he was the dogman; before dogs, it was rabbits, and he was the rabbitman; before the rabbits,
mice
. . .

During meaningful contact, while Hayes is reading from the book of fairy tales he checked out of the ship's library, the nonreading part of his brain makes rules.

You should not dress your bird in a showgirl costume. Birds have a whip-sharp sense of decorum, their judgment is crueler, more exact than ours. When you tell your bird
pretty bird pretty bird
ask yourself, Do I mean that
my
bird is a pretty bird? Or am I speaking of a more general ideal pretty bird?

Do not tell your bird you are sorry. Do not mistake need for love.

Look your bird in the eye when you are lying. Scratch your cheek when you are telling the truth.

Hayes is the birdman. He wants, he wants.

Their last show together, Chick and Tara flap their wings before releasing their perch. They fly away with a salutary caw. This is it. Irina stands, shedding children. The birds' outlines become smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. And then they are gone, switched into sky.

Hayes misses them already.

Irina takes his hand and leads him to her cabin.

one dog year

J
ohn D. Rockefeller is hungry. On the high dunes, with a nice open view of the ocean, he sits in a wheeled wicker chair, waiting for the airman to arrive. Next to him is Pica, his groom, and below him, a crowd of a few hundred has gathered on the hard-packed sand. The mood is high. Men stand with men and ladies with ladies. Children splash in the shallow water, chasing sandpipers and gulls. Every so often the crowd grows silent in response to some distant clatter. First, it is a pair of low-slung race cars lurching toward the gathering on the hard sand. When a marching band comes through, the crowd lithely adjusts itself and forms a passageway.

John D watches the ten-man band marching down the beach. Bugles, cornets, drums: happy music, no doubt about it. But its sound is leashed to something easy and sad. Happiness approaching, overtaking, passing him by. John D is eighty-six years old.

Yesterday someone saw him up on the wing, a man is saying. Playing the fiddle. The plane was flying itself.

He sits beneath a diamond-shaped sunshade. His wig is pinned into a straw hat and he wears a collarless shirt, a loose vest made of Japanese paper, and trousers, the pockets filled with dimes. He is no longer the hale viper who was booed by a crowd of women. Who wore tight undergarments to investors' meetings to stay alert. He now measures himself only against himself.

In Florida, he hibernates among palms and oleanders in a gray-shingled house with four dozen casement windows. Two decades earlier, before Cettie died, he forfeited every strand of hair on his body and it never grew back. He resembles an old, scabby seal. He bobs and slips away from worry, the long-standing injuries, the tawdriness, the undiluted stupidity of crowds. He takes potassium bromide for melancholy and bathes off-river in the oxbow lakes of memory. He brightens his own light daily.

He often imagines himself young and on the prow of a ship. Holding on to a mast, steadying himself against the perpetual volatility of the sea, winning, winning . . .

Early on, his father made him draft a list of goals. John D thought of two: Amass one hundred thousand dollars and live for one hundred years. Simple, symmetrical.

You will fail, his father told him. He wanted John D to be a cobbler's apprentice, then a cobbler. A cobbler! To spend perpetuity staring at the soles of shoes.

He is now worth one hundred and eighty million dollars.

His man Pica places a tray over his lap. Pica has been his groom for twenty years. He's seen John D through his most abject days—Tarbell's book, the public backlash, the antitrust proceedings—has dressed him and bathed him and brushed his mangled cuticles with scented emollients. He serves him eight meals a day, always the same: a few steamed crucifers and a glass of fitness juice. Good for the heart, good for the mind. John D is a living-machine.

Enjoyable, John D says after each swallow. But it isn't enjoyable—it is bland fuel. His doctor, who is responsible for the diet, insists he will absorb more nutrients if he takes pleasure in what he eats. And John D wants nutrients. He also wants crab claws, a London broil, chowder, a fried egg, pecan pie.

He scans the beach as he chews, watching the crowd wait for the airman. For the past three days he has been buzzing over town, dropping yellow handbills from his biplane. One of them landed in John D's lap while he was sleeping in his garden.
THE ALARMING ACE II WILL PERFORM DEATH-DEFYING FEATS FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT. BACK FROM EUROPE AND THE GREAT PLAINS. SEE HIS FAMOUSE
DEAD-MAN DROP! ONE DAY ONLY.

Air travel has long interested him, with its steady progression from novelty to verity. Since the handbill landed in his lap, he's dreamed a sky of benign clouds with men and women cutting through. Their arms extended, they call to people on the ground. Come on, come join us. In the dream, John D is on the ground. How awful it is to be on the ground.

In the dream, he thinks that. Awake, though, atop the dune, he is able to turn all he surveys into joy. A woman eating fruit: miraculous. Bicycles: a near-perfect invention. Children: he loves children. Loves their necks and their sluggish awe. Every so often a child approaches his shaded chair, and John D reaches into the pocket of his trousers and pulls out a dime. You have two choices, he says, handing a dime to a ruddy boy. You can save it or you can spend it. What do you think I would advise?

Save it, the boy says.

Of course, of course. You have wonderful throat tendons, do you know that?

I didn't, sir.

And how long do you mean to save this dime? A month, a year?

Until I have as much money as you, sir.

Good boy, John D says. He reaches into his pocket and gives the boy another dime. And is sorry the moment he does it. You have doubled your fortune, he says.

He takes another bite of food while watching the boy retreat. The boy, studying the two winged heads on the dimes, is probably mad at him for the promise he extracted.

John D pushes the plate forward, and Pica, standing behind him, leans in to clear it.

Not yet, he says, taking hold of Pica's sleeve. I want to sit here and enjoy the finishing for a little while. Look, pelicans.

Pica and John D watch a quartet of dust-colored birds fly over the shore. One of the birds stops and plunges into the ocean as if shot. After a few seconds, it ascends with something silver flashing in its mouth.

Hunger, John D says. It rubs out all other urges.

I believe I'm going to start writing down everything you say, Mr. John.

I'm still hungry. Write that down.

Pretty soon I'll have an entire book.

You can take away my plate, John D says. And scratch between my shoulder blades. I have an itch.

While Pica scratches, the old man closes his eyes. Bits of food are caught between his dentures and John D roots them out with his tongue. These are his old dentures, the ones that remind him of twilight and providence's warm paw.

Last year, they were stolen while he slept, during his stay with the governor in a hotel in Miami. The teeth are made of porcelain mounted with gold springs and swivels to twenty-four-karat gold plates. They are exceptional. The plates give liquids a cool, freshwater taste and the porcelain is smooth and shiny. The thief must have reached in between the jalousie slats and grabbed the teeth, soaking in antiseptic on a nightstand, in the middle of the night.

A divine act, he told the governor the next day. The Lord was telling me he can take what he wants
when
he wants. He can pluck it like a berry from a bush.

Please kill me, the governor thought, before I get so greedy for more years. Dump me in the ocean, let the sharks have my organs, let eels nest in my rib cage.

John D tried to be charitable—a man who'd steal another man's teeth must need them for
something
—but after a while he could not help but fantasize about finding the thief and guiding his wrists through a pedal-driven band saw. What use could anyone have possibly made of the teeth? You melt down the gold plates and you have a single cuff link, maybe. A bitty angel charm. The porcelain was worthless. What use, what
use
, he asked Pica.

It was an intimate crime and it left him feeling scornful and inept. The dentist made an exact replica of the old teeth, but they were not the same. They didn't fit right. They made a clicking noise on words like
stop
and
pest
. Food now tasted like . . . food.

He quit wearing teeth around the house. He sat in a wingback rocker, reading inspirational verse and running his tongue along the slick ribbed turtle shell of his palate. What does
numinous
mean? he called to Pica.

Pica looked it up in the dictionary, settled on the fourth entry. Of or relating to numina, he called back.

This did him no good. Without teeth, he felt prepped for the tomb. Every night he and Pica circled around his garden, listening to the distant in-suck of the ocean. It was a sound that reminded John D of blood and his stubborn insides. At the edge of his zinnias, he felt weakened by it. He said to Pica, Could you please carry me. And Pica leaned down and cradled him and lifted him up. He was as light as a bird, scooped out and brittle-boned. Pica carried him through the servants' entrance, up the stairs, to his bedroom.

As Pica was leaving, John D said, Come here. Pica walked over to the bed and John D said, Closer. Pica leaned in and the old man kissed him once, delicately, on the cheek. Thank you, he said.

Then, a few weeks ago, a package arrived. Inside was a set of teeth wrapped in purple crepe paper and a warbly-written note:
Behave or I might steal them again
.

When Pica presented him with the teeth, John D had to blink back tears. Pica washed them in antiseptic and John D put them into his mouth. He smiled, tacked his top molars against his bottom molars, and said, Stop. Pork chop. Pest.

Excuse me? Pica said.

Still clicking. They must have been roughhoused in the mail.

John D touched each tooth with his tongue. Molar, incisor, canine. Welcomed each one back hello, hello, hello. Miraculous, John D said. I'd like you to get me a steamed artichoke, some crab claws, and a glass of fitness juice.

Again John D began wearing the teeth around the house. He wore them during morning tea, during his daily laughing exercises. He even wore them to bed, against doctor's orders. He wasn't worried about choking on one of the gold springs or swivels. These were his
teeth
. He wouldn't allow them out of his sight again, not for a minute.

John D hadn't noticed that when the stolen teeth were returned, the replacement teeth had disappeared. He was too pleased. Pleased with himself, pleased with humankind. So pleased that he failed to notice that the package had no postmark and the handwriting on the note resembled Pica's, even though Pica had tried to disguise it with his left hand.

The old man felt lucky but diminished. He had been regarding time with the same stubborn miserly purpose with which he regarded money for so many years. But time, contrary to the old saying, is not money. Time is time. It is nontransferable. John D has started wondering what all the straining—the naps, the diet, the laughing exercises—will amount to. What it is worth. A week? A year?

And the teeth? The teeth are a lesson. At times he thinks the lesson is
Life is just
. At other times:
Get prepared
. The old man has been around so long and has touched so many, he cannot help but think he has a shorter conduit to the Almighty. He feels twilight all around him: in flowers wilted on their stems, in mosquitoes telegraphing along porch glass, trying to sketch their way inside, in high clouds, in balloons, in his bones, in the ocean, in shadows, in crowds, and now, especially now, in the constant click-clicking of his new old teeth.

Pica is still scratching. He thinks John D has fallen asleep, and he has. Good boy, Pica says. The old man's wig is slightly off-center. Pica sings one of his secret songs about him. He has about a dozen. This one goes, A mending must come at the ending. But Mr. John's not ready for sending.

He listens to John D's shallow breathing, like a comb through a sandstorm. Seven years left, he sings. Maybe more, maybe less. One dog year in which to protest.

John D's eyes dart open the second Pica takes his hand away.

Has he come and gone? he asks.

Not yet, Pica says. Someone said he often arrives late. To let the anticipation build up. He's a showman.

Were you talking to me while I was asleep?

To be honest, Mr. John, yes I was.

I knew it. Have I told you how I feel about that?

You'd rather I didn't.

No good can come of it. I feel all jumbled now, like I left something behind. Are those boys waving at me?

I believe so, sir.

John D calls to them and the two boys, one skinny, one stout, slowly scale the dune. Neighbor John, the skinny one says. John D, heartened by the young voice, asks the boys a few questions and then hands each a dime. Take care, take extreme care, he says. I want you to invent better ways of doing things.

We will, sir.

You boys are messengers. You are envoys to a time I won't see.

The boys regard him with ebbing enthusiasm. If they linger for a few minutes longer, John D is sure he will extract something useful from them, but he can think of no casual way to hold them. You look like some type of forlorn dog, he says to the stout boy, who acts like he doesn't hear him.

As they leave, the skinny boy drops his dime. Pica, squinting in the sun next to the old man's shaded chair, watches as he falls to his hands and knees to comb through the loose sand. His friend stands by and waits, doesn't even pretend to help search for it.

John D stands up from his chair, extends his elbow to Pica, and together they sidle down the dune. He says, Now where did it go?

Over here, I think, the skinny boy says.

John D and Pica and the two boys prospect through the soft sand. John D closes his eyes, listens to a voice that sounds like his own—a dime is worth more than a dime, it says—reaches his hand into the dune, roots around, and plucks out the coin. It is perhaps the most satisfying thing he has ever done.

I'm sorry, sir, the boy says.

John D hands him the dime and says, Don't waste another day.

A few minutes later, as Pica is straightening the blanket over John D's legs, his doctor and two nurses visit him. The nurses have come to help him with his daily laughing exercises. Laughter, it was recently discovered, prolongs life. John D laughed very little during his working years, so he is trying to gain ground on men who have laughed all their lives.

One of the nurses reads from a book of witty apothegms while the other contorts his face in a variety of ways. The doctor, a young man blurred by politeness, kneels in the sand with his scuffed black instrument bag by his side. There once was a servant, reads the first nurse, who indulged in spending sprees, and who was advised by his master to save against a rainy day. Some time later, the master wanted to know if the servant had amassed any savings. Yes. Indeed I have, sir, the servant said.