Rodin's Debutante (17 page)

No, Ogden said in a loud voice. With trembling fingers he unscrewed the cigarette from its holder and flipped it away. He tapped the holder on his attaché case, a steady tattoo. He looked up and said, You caused me trouble with your undefeated season. You brought me unwanted publicity. I am a private man and have always been a private man going about my business in my own way. I was interfered with. I read articles about myself in all the papers, including the god damned
Daily News
and the
Tribune,
because I founded this school and gave my name to it. Reclusive Sportsman. Great White Hunter. Filthy-Rich Man of Mystery. They had photographers at the front gate of my house. They telephoned me at all hours with impertinent questions to which they expected answers. They tried to approach me here in my car this very day but my driver Edgar backed them off. Tommy Ogden barked another laugh. Edgar frightens people. Edgar was a professional boxer at one time. I was a prisoner in my own house until I threatened to sue them and keep them in court for the rest of their miserable lives, bankrupt them if need be. Publicity brings grief to people, reporters poking around in your private affairs and all the time citing the people's right to know. But it has nothing to do with the people, it has to do with them, selling their god damned papers. You'll learn this someday—it's a scourge. Tommy Ogden settled back in his seat and muttered something, moving his legs and sighing. That's what your undefeated season did for me. Finally I said to hell with it and went out west to shoot elk. Got back yesterday. The cigarette holder continued its monotonous
tap tap tap.

Lee had no answer to that.

Swine, Ogden said.

Gosh, Lee said.

So you can think about that.

I'll try, Lee said.

Where are you going to college?

University of Chicago, Lee said.

There is no football team at the University of Chicago, Ogden said. They abolished it. A distraction, according to the idiot chancellor.

I'm too small for the college game, Lee said.

Never think that, Ogden said. That's defeatism.

But it's true, the boy said. He stood aside to make room for the chauffeur Edgar, returned from his vigil.

Ogden shook his head, unconvinced.

I intend to study the Great Books, Lee said.

Waste of time, Ogden said.

Not a waste of time, Mr. Ogden. I've read Stevenson and Balzac in your library. I've learned about Rubempré and Cousin Bette and Old Goriot and the others.
Goriot
's pages were uncut, so I am the first student to read the book. The first anybody, for that matter. I cut the pages myself with my penknife. I have also been reading James Joyce, but I don't understand a word of
Ulysses
and neither does my instructor, but he won't admit it. I prefer the short stories. My other interest is not a waste of time, either. Sculpting. Sculpting in granite and marble. The boy realized he had spoken sharply, something he had rarely done to an adult and something he would not have done before today. He felt entitled to do it. He didn't see why the old man's contemptuous statement should rest unchallenged. Probably Mr. Tommy Ogden had not been challenged enough in his life. Lee believed he had an obligation to put down a marker. If Ogden didn't like it, let him say so.

But the old man seemed not to have heard.

He said, They'll take everything if you let them.

Lee said, I beg your pardon?

The newspaper swine. They take your photograph as if your face is their property and therefore public property and it's not—it's your property. You own it. Don't forget that.

Lee nodded as if he understood. He wondered if Ogden was drunk, because he poured another cup of whiskey and drank it off. He wondered if the old man was dissatisfied with his own face or somehow ashamed of it. You offered your face to the world every time you walked down a city street. Your face wasn't private like a diary or the contents of your wallet, except that to Tommy Ogden apparently it was. Lee was about to make a retort but remembered that Mr. Ogden was the cause of the undefeated season. Lee would never have known but for this chance encounter. The old man deserved respect.

I approve of your sculpting, he said suddenly.

You do?

Are you going to keep on with it?

I expect to, the boy said.

Call me when you have something to show. Better yet, call this number and use my name. He produced his wallet and extracted a card and handed it to Lee. Mackel Fine Arts, with a Chicago address and a telephone number. He said mildly, I believe you will find the South Side an especially lively place.

I will?

Well, Ogden said, looking him up and down, giving a short bark of a laugh. Well, perhaps not, at least not yet.

I want to say one thing to you, Mr. Ogden. The words came blunt-edged and Tommy Ogden cocked his head, his eyes wary. Lee said, I believe Rodin's bust of your late wife is a wonderful work of art. It's a great thing to have in the library. It's an inspiration. It's been an inspiration to me.

Ogden nodded and appeared to suppress a smile. He said nothing for a minute or more.

It's meant a lot to me, Lee said.

Marie, Ogden said.

Yes, sir, Lee said.

It isn't Marie, said Ogden. It's some god damned Chicago debutante. I've forgotten her name. Get that straight. Get Marie out of your mind.

Yes, sir. But—

And keep this news to yourself. It's no one else's business.

But everyone thinks it's Marie.

Yes, they do. Idiots. It serves them right.

But she's a legend at the school!

Do you know what a legend is? Something unauthenticated. In other words, a god damned fairy tale.

With that, the chauffeur Edgar put the car in gear and backed away. Tommy Ogden raised an arm in dubious farewell and the car motored off in the direction of the road and the trestle beyond, leaving Lee standing alone in the darkness. He watched the open Cadillac until it disappeared around a curve and at that moment Lee's memory stirred. He recalled late-autumn evenings down below the hill in New Jesper. The Cadillac's red taillights reminded him of the lanterns hanging from the caboose railings of freight trains as they lumbered north to Milwaukee and beyond, vanishing in the darkness. The terrain down below the hill was wild and Ogden Hall's was cultivated but the vegetation was the same. The smell of it was identical. In a rush he recalled the disconsolate tramps beside their campfires. He recalled Earl Minning's sneer and the news of the murdered tramp and, weeks later, the rape of his schoolmate Magda and the Committee meeting in his father's study, Sidney Bechet later and all the rest. His father's anguish and his mother's apprehension. He had no idea what had become of Magda and her mother. They were living elsewhere, parts unknown. The Committee sought to suppress news of violence as Tommy Ogden sought to suppress news of himself, including photographs. Both sought to exalt the private sphere of life. Lee was surprised how often these memories returned to him, always at unexpected times and places, triggered by something as routine as the vanishing headlights of an automobile. Lee no longer read the
New Jesper World
but he remembered the inch-wide, inch-deep notices of the arrests of men discovered drunk, down, and out in the city park downtown or in an alley somewhere. There were two or three notices each day, the facts always in order, the name, the age, the time of the arrest, the name of the arresting officer, and any illuminating or lively circumstance: "the subject was barefoot." The date of the arraignment was always pending and so the story had everything except the story: How had he come to this place, a park bench at two in the morning? No shoes, an empty wallet, bad memories. None of these questions were Alfred Swan's concern. Alfred Swan's concern was the notice itself, the march of immaculate facts signaling the vigilance of the police and the scrupulous accounting of New Jesper's criminal justice system. The story of the man's life remained unknown and unknowable and in a certain sense irrelevant, and after three days in jail the miscreant was released and driven to the county line, pushed from the squad car, and told to keep walking north. That was Lee's father's estimate of the situation, disclosed one night after two brimming old-fashioneds, drinks that released the judge's subversive side.

Night came in a rush. Lee heard his name, Hopkins calling from far away. He stepped further into the shadows. God, he was tired. He stank of stale sweat and dirt and for the moment was enjoying his solitude. He could not stop smiling at the encounter with Tommy Ogden. He wondered what the old man's wife Marie was like, her personality, the fictitious inspiration for Ogden Hall School for Boys. More to the point, who was the Chicago debutante? She would be about as old as the century, a middle-aged woman—and how did her bust arrive at Tommy Ogden's library? Mysteries all. Tommy Ogden was a man who liked to lay false trails, and perhaps that was Lee's introduction to the modern world. He tapped his helmet against his knee and thought that he had seen and heard quite a lot for a boy barely eighteen years old. He had not seen or heard as much as Monsieur Balzac at the same age, or Herman Melville, either. But Balzac had Paris and Melville had the seven seas and what Lee had was the prairie and Chicago. The Illinois prairie was a sea of sorts but not of the sort that caused a boy to dream except a dream of escape, perhaps to live among the cannibals as Melville had done. Probably at eighteen Melville had some distant intimation of Ahab. What Lee had was an undefeated season and he would make of it what he could. He had the idea that he was one of those fortunates whose life would take surprising turns, experiences unimaginable at that moment. He knew for certain that Ogden Hall was behind him. Half a year remained but his heart was already set on the South Side of Chicago, Tommy Ogden's especially lively place, whose liveliness apparently did not include the Great Books. Lee wondered if the South Side was congenial to abstract sculpture, heavy pieces in marble or bronze. No use asking Mr. Tommy Ogden. Lee doubted that the founder of Ogden Hall knew anything of value to anyone but himself. He would be one of those who went through life collecting experiences as a numismatist collected coins, with no idea whose coins the hands had touched and no interest in finding out.

In the years to come Lee had occasion to tell the story of the afternoon rendezvous with Tommy Ogden, Filthy-Rich Reclusive Sportsman. Lee had a good memory and found no need to embellish the details, the surly chauffeur, the open Cadillac, the silver flask, Ogden's cigarette holder beating a tattoo on the attaché case, the cryptic remark about the South Side, and the offer to help with an art gallery when Lee needed one. The newspaper swine and the need to keep your face to yourself. Of course Lee never mentioned the mysterious Chicago debutante as Rodin saw her and no need, either, to mention Marie. Lee wondered what there was about Tommy Ogden's life that he was so eager to conceal. Lee doubted he would ever know, and come to think about it, he had no claim. The old man would take that news to his grave.

THE NEXT EVENING
, the team gathered for a farewell meal in the dining hall. The occasion was subdued, as if all the energy and elation of game day had been no more than a distant illusion, not quite credible. The game was alive only in their memories, and the memories were wound down like an old clock, details fading in slow motion. Headmaster Weddle gave a listless speech. Hopkins was awarded the game ball. Lee was chosen by his teammates to give a response. He was tempted to describe the encounter with Tommy Ogden and his words of wisdom concerning the uselessness of defeat and the necessity of keeping any pleasure from victory to yourself because the world didn't give a shit. But in the end he said nothing of Ogden and gave the usual thanks to the usual people, specifically including Gus Allprice and the Packer Svenson. That night they organized a beer party at the gazebo well away from the Hall and the dormitories. Everyone got blind drunk and Hopkins had to be carried back to his room after he drove his Oldsmobile into a tree. The housemasters knew all about it but did not intervene. The beer party marked the definitive end of the undefeated season, and soon Christmas break arrived and the distant illusion became a very distant, very satisfying memory, one without any suggestion of regret or ambiguity. Lee knew without being told that there were few such experiences in life, at least in Illinois.

The day before Christmas robin's-egg-blue boxes arrived by special messenger at the homes of the twenty-two members of the Ogden Hall football team. They were from Tiffany's, New York. Each box contained a three-ounce silver cup with the boy's name and jersey number and the year engraved on the inside rim. The mothers noticed the stamp on the bottom that indicated sterling silver and said in astonishment, Well! My goodness! There was no note with the box or any indication of who sent it, befuddling the mothers who insisted that their sons write a thank-you note at once; but there was no one to send it to. Lee Goodell knew, but he believed that Tommy Ogden was owed his anonymity, if that was what he wanted. He certainly did not want the old man to be inconvenienced, forced to read twenty-two notes of appreciation, all composed by hand in schoolboy script. The benefactor thus remained unknown. Lee was delighted by the gesture and wherever he went thereafter he took the silver cup with him in his shaving kit, wrapped in its yellow chamois sleeve. Whenever he had something to celebrate he filled the cup with whiskey or cognac and gave the old man a salute before he drank it off; the vessel was identical to Tommy Ogden's. At such times he remembered the final game, Hopkins's two touchdowns and his one, the missed point-after, the cheering all afternoon, long-haired Willa jumping, Mr. Svenson's tears, and Tommy Ogden's open Cadillac idling beyond the far goalpost. A beautiful day, a beautiful season, and a secret to wrap things up. Yet it was also true that the day was never anything more than itself. If there was a metaphor present Lee never discovered what it was. The lesson seemed to be that it was a handsome thing to have someone's grandmother own a house up near Fish Creek with a caretaker who had anchored the defensive line of the Green Bay Packers for five years and was willing to teach what he knew.