Pinball (8 page)

Domostroy’s thoughts wandered to a conversation he had once had with a handsome Hollywood star. The actor had said that most of the letters he received from his countless female fans—even when they contained photographs showing the writers as beautiful and voluptuous women—were so predictable and banal that he had never had any interest in meeting the women.

“A typical fan letter from a woman,” he had said, “is all about how much she loves me, how much she wants to meet me, how much she would cherish a moment with me, how much she hopes I might go to bed with her! It’s all about
her
and what
she
wants. But how about me? Am I here to fuck America’s darlings just because I’m the star they want?

“If any one of these spoiled cunts ever for a moment thought about me,” he had continued, “she would know that the way to meet me is not to offer to let me lay her—I can get laid by anyone I want—but to show that she understands me in some other way. Has she seen all my films, including the early ones, where I played bit parts? Has she read all that’s been written about me? Has she figured out from my interviews why I’ve said what I’ve said—and whether I’ve told the truth? Why I like some of my films and hate others? Why I’m proud of some of my roles, but not of others? After she’s done all that, let her convince me that she knows what I need and that she can deliver it better than any other woman I could pick up on my own. It would be fun to meet such a fan! But if there is one like that, she certainly hasn’t written to me yet—and so I’ve yet to go on a date with her. How about you, Domostroy? Did you ever have a fan who understood you?”

“Maybe one,” Domostroy had answered evasively, “and I didn’t understand her.”

“All the ways I’ve thought of up to now,” said Domostroy to Andrea, “are wrong. They’re wrong because they all go one way—from us to Goddard.”

“Is there any other way?”

“Yes. From him to us. We have to make him come out of his hideaway and then unmask him, rather than the other way around.”

“He probably doesn’t have one hideaway,” she said. “The whole world could be Goddard’s hideaway.”

“It probably is. So then, what we have to do is compose the right invitation from you to Goddard, send it to him, and hope it intrigues him so much that he shows up here to find you.”

“And what would attract Goddard to me?”

“What you say in your letter. You have to trigger in him a longing for you. For your understanding of him. If you can succeed in doing that, he’ll show up to claim you soon enough.”

“My understanding of him?” she repeated. Then, folding her arms over her breasts, she exclaimed, “You’re a composer, Patrick; you have more understanding of him than I’ll ever have! In one of your old interviews you said that music was ‘the only spiritual accomplishment of your life’! In another, you said, There is anguish that only composers recognize in each other.’ Think of his music, Patrick! His music is his spiritual address. It might tell us who he is!” She halted—excited—then went on. “Why can’t you figure out who influenced him as an artist. Was it a particular composer? A music teacher? Someone who determined his choice of instruments or his arrangements? A particular engineer or sound expert or one of those new electronic music wizards? Can’t you find out who he is from his music?”

Her enthusiasm and her line of thought were contagious.

“I could try,” said Domostroy. “Goddard’s melodies and harmonies and rhythms and musical forms probably tell more about him than his handwriting or his astrological charts or the lines in his hand. So do his lyrics.” He paused. “For instance, one of his songs is called ‘Fugue.’ Now, of course, in music,
fugue
signifies contrapuntal imitations, but in psychiatry it means a state of flight from reality. Such things may indeed tell us much more about Goddard than, say, we would be likely to deduce from his looks.”

“What do you mean, from his looks?” She rose on the bed and hovered over him.

“I mean, he is not about to come to you as Goddard. He might be anybody.”

“What if I have already met him?” she said. “What if that tall creep next door who always says hello to me is Goddard?”

“If he is, he certainly won’t admit it—even to you. If he’s remained in a state of fugue and secrecy all this time, you don’t expect him to walk in, shake your hand, and introduce himself as Goddard, do you? And I’m sure his everyday voice sounds quite different than his recording one—as is the case with so many other pop singers. A lot of work has gone into Goddard’s staying hidden, and a lot of money comes out of it. He, or the people behind him, are not about to give that up just because of a clever letter from an amorous fan. Even if he likes your letter and is tempted to meet you—in person—he or his associates will probably send someone to check you out, to make sure you’re not trying to set a trap for him.”

“Send whom, for instance?”

“Who knows? A man, a woman, even a couple. Anybody—a guy making a pass at you at a cocktail party, a door-to-door saleswoman, even the creep next door! We don’t know who works for him! In fact, if Goddard does fall for you, I’m quite certain he would have to come to see you incognito, as an ordinary man, without ever admitting to the handicap of his success, wealth, and feme—or to any knowledge of your letter. You might make love
to Goddard, listen to his heart—or the story of his life—and never know he’s Goddard.”

“You mean that after my magic letter is sent off, I have to embrace every ordinary slob who makes a pass at me because he might be Goddard?” said Andrea.

“You might have to, yes. And when you do, try to figure out if he is the one who read your letter.”

“But I don’t want to share my body with any ordinary slob.”

“In that case, you might miss altogether the chance of knowing Goddard. What if the sole reason for his invisibility and secrecy—and his success—is that he enjoys being an ordinary slob?”

She considered the idea in silence. Then she said, “Where do we send the letter?”

“Care of Nokturn Records,” said Domostroy.

“Doesn’t Nokturn get hundreds of letters to Goddard every day?”

“They probably do. There’s no other place to write him. Nokturn even admits that his fan mail amounts to about a thousand letters every week, and they have a special staff to process it. Out of that mass I’m sure they forward him only a small handful of mail.”

“What would make them forward my letter?”

“I don’t know yet. Something about it should make it unusual—and convincing.”

“Keep in mind, Patrick,” said Andrea, “that the letter might not even reach the invisible boy. What if he has better things to do than read fan mail the week our letter arrives? What if he’s traveling? What if…” Her voice trailed off.

“What if he reads the letter and doesn’t think much of you?”

“That too,” she said.

“Then well send several letters,” said Domostroy. “One after another.”

Domostroy dreaded death—not illness or pain or the humiliation of disability associated with dying, but death itself: the sudden cessation of the self, the end of being, the final, arbitrary dissolution, as it were, of the entire concrete history of Patrick Domostroy.

The thought of it came to him often, both in the daytime—during a spell of joy or pleasure—and at night, when nightmares about dying would wake him up to conscious fear of it as he lay alone in the dark.

All men were subject to death at any time, and, he knew, for most men their past—their lived life—was the only reality death could not take from them. Still, whereas death could terminate the existence of Patrick Domostroy as a physical being, it could not terminate the existence of his music, which, being an abstract entity, would extend into the future. His music was a shadow cast before him, and as long as he was composing, Domostroy regarded himself as existing without a history, as creating the means to outlive himself.

In his composing days Domostroy thought of his music as a key that could open the door to the future. Since many of his admirers were young, they would outlive him and thus become his standard-bearers and messengers in the years ahead. When his music was widely known and he himself famous, he kept the lock and hinges of that door well oiled. He would answer piles of letters from young men and women enthusiastic in their praise of his talent—all of them sincere, a few actually perceptive. Occasionally, for the sake of vanity, but even more for the sake of securing his future, he even encouraged them and went so far as to make an appointment and talk to one or another of these eager fans.

He recalled one in particular, a college music student from somewhere in Michigan. She had written to say that his music meant so much to her that it would be the high point of her life if she could discuss it with him. She assured him that she would not be a nuisance and that the most she would ask of him would be to autograph her copies of his sheet music and albums. She would come to New York whenever it was convenient for him to see her,
if only he would call her—collect—and say when. Enclosed with the imploring letter was a photograph of the girl looking slim and young and pretty. Domostroy telephoned her and named a weekend when he would be in New York. Sounding like an innocent, she thanked him profusely; she was not familiar with the city, she explained, and so they arranged to meet at her hotel.

He was seated at a table in the hotel bar when she arrived, and she recognized him immediately. Tall and graceful, with wide blue eyes and an oval face framed by auburn hair, she walked over to his table and introduced herself. She wore her simple clothes well—with a sort of stylish slouch—and yet she was obviously shy. She was so flustered when she went to shake his hand that she dropped the armful of scores and albums she was clutching. As she and Domostroy scrambled to retrieve them, their heads colliding under the table, she admitted that she had been terrified he would find her clumsy and dull; surely, now he must think the worst of her.

Domostroy tried to put her at ease. He ordered drinks for the two of them, and as she sipped hers, and blushed with shame, he playfully said that he was the one who should feel insecure, faced with someone as young and attractive as she was. Slowly then, she began to open up. She talked about herself and her studies, told Domostroy how a fellow student who was a fan of his had first recommended his music to her, and confessed that through his music she had discovered emotions in herself she had not been aware of before.

As the evening wore on, he tried to sort out his feelings about the young woman. Should he prolong their time together and eventually take her to bed, or should he leave her and join a group of his friends who were having a birthday party for a young, apparently very sexy French cellist they thought he would like. The party was being held at the Rainbow Room, a nightclub high atop the RCA Building.

Domostroy was prone to these moments of conflict over unimportant matters—where to dine, what to wear, whom to call for a date, how long to stay at a party. His
literary friends chose to read into his chronic indecision a Jekyll-Hyde syndrome; his friends who believed in astrology saw him simply as a typical Gemini, forever torn between pairs of conflicting impulses.

He could, of course, take his Michigan fan to the Rainbow Room, introduce her to his friends, and then take her back to her hotel; or he could go alone to the Rainbow Room, meet the French cellist, make arrangements to take her out in a day or two, and then go back and spend the night with his out-of-town visitor.

He tried to assess the situation in terms of responsibility. Was it fair for him to take her to bed, treat her as if she were a thing, an image of youth and purity that he could use to shore up his self-esteem?

On the other hand, he reasoned, she saw him as the artist who personified maturity, creation and many lively though now forgotten public controversies. And since she had created her concept of him in order to satisfy herself, she had made him a part of herself; but that image controlled her as the drug controlled the addict who sought it out. Yet by seeking him out, wasn’t she declaring herself able to decide on her own that she wanted to keep him as the source of her obsession—to become his lover and take him to bed as if he were an object, a thing created purely to satisfy her own needs?