Serendipity Green (16 page)

Hugh tells him about going to Squaw Days with Bob and Eleanor Hbracek.

“You should avoid associating with those two,” Dr. Pirooz Aram says. “They will love you straight into a mental ward.”

Hugh tells him about the green house he has discovered. He tells him about the mercurial nature of its hue. He tells him how this green is tearing away at his soul.

“This must be some green,” says Dr. Aram.

Hugh goes on and on about the green, and about the man, Howie Dornick, who so serendipitously concocted it.

Dr. Pirooz Aram smiles proudly. “Did you know that this wonderful word you use—this
serendipity
—is taken from an old Persian fairy tale? The Three Princes of Serendip, who made wonderful discoveries by accident?”

“I didn't know that.”

Dr. Aram frowns. “Americans do not know anything important.” Suddenly his frown somersaults into a grin. “Like all good fairy tales there are many versions of it, of course. But essentially it is about a wise king who sends his three sons into the world to perfect their educations. Even though they encounter many dangers—a three-headed snake, an evil hand as big as a mountain, a stubborn merchant who accuses them of stealing one of his camels—they always manage to stumble upon something wonderful, something serendipitous, Hugh Harbinger, that make their lives worth living—a beautiful princess, a grateful queen, a magic mirror, a bird with golden wings, a silver box that contains a poem for chasing dragons away.”

Now the doctor rubs his chocolate eyes and laughs as only a wise Persian can. “So, my good prince of Serendip, you have stumbled upon this wonderful green house. And now you make me work until 5:30 on a Monday.”

“Sorry.”

Dr. Pirooz Aram continues to laugh. “Do not feel sorry. Just hurry up and tell me what you want me to tell you! My sweet Sitareh and I are going out for fish at six.”

Hugh Harbinger feels suddenly small and numb. He wishes he had accepted that demitasse of espresso. “I'm not sure what I want you to tell me.”

Dr. Aram jumps up. “Boool-shit! You know exactly what you want me to tell you. You have come to me for permission to end your exile and take this serendipity green of yours to the world.”

Hugh no longer feels small and numb. He feels huge and his skin is prickling. “I could make the world go nuts for that color.”

“If you were not already nuts yourself?”

“Bingo.”

“Bingo, nothing. You are no longer nuts.”

Hugh Harbinger scratches his nose and laughs sardonically. “This green has cured me, has it?”

“Ah! You are a student of Avicenna!”

“Who?”

Disappointment wrinkles Dr. Aram's face. “Let an old man from a very old country lecture you for a moment,” he says. “You are a young man from a young country, and accordingly you have never heard of anybody who does not score lots of points in some pointless game, or who does not shout obscenities into a microphone while a guitar electrocutes his fingers. Avicenna was one of the greatest scientists of all time. And naturally he was a Persian.”

“Naturally.”

Dr. Aram is not deterred by his patient's sarcasm. “A thousand years ago this
Persian
wrote a book on medicine that is marveled at even today—even by American doctors who know everything and nothing. You think you are an expert on color, Mr. Hugh Harbinger? Avicenna was the expert of all experts! He not only used color to diagnose the afflictions of his patients, he used color to cure them. Potions made of red flowers cured the blood. Yellow flowers reduced pain and swelling. So when you joke that this green has cured you, you are not joking at all. Of course it has cured you! It has awakened you and transformed you, and just perhaps it will make your life worth living again.”

Hugh can feel his heartbeat in his eyes and ears and even on the end of his tongue. “So you think I should take this serendipity green to the world, do you?”

Dr. Aram closes his briefcase and clicks off the lights. He hurries his patient to the door. “It is not my job to tell you what to do. It is my job to help you get back to a place where you can tell yourself what to do. As much as I enjoy-taking your money, Hugh Harbinger, I'm afraid this green has interfered with the lengthy and expensive treatment I had planned for you. Admit it, you knew you were going to take this color to the world the second you saw it.”

“I guess so.”

Dr. Aram explodes with affection. “Do not guess! Know, dammit! Know!” He hurries Hugh to the parking lot. “Now that you are no longer my patient, would you like to join Sitareh and me for some fish?”

Hugh is too excited to eat fish and he drives off in the Crown Vic.

Dr. Pirooz Aram drives off in a sports car so red that even the mullahs now ruling his homeland would be forced to praise God for Western technology.

“Buzzy? It's Hugh.”

“Hugh! How the hell—”

“Listen, Buzzy. I've got a fabulous new color.”

“That's fabulous.”

“You've got to do a show for me.”

“Yum! How soon?”

“ASAP.”

“Where's the bread coming from? You're not the only one who's a penniless wretch these days.”

“Zee Levant, I suppose.”

“Zee's still talking to you?”

“I don't know yet.”

“You left us all high and dry, Hugh.”

“Easy on the guilt. I'm clinically depressed, remember.”

“All's forgiven if this color is as fabulous as you say.”

“Oh, it is.”

“Hugh Harbinger rides again!”

“I'll be in New York in three, maybe four days. Okay if I sleep on your couch?”

“No problemo.”

“So, Buzzy, do you see Zee much?”

“Every once.”

“She sleeping with anybody?”

“Not with anybody of your gender, I don't think.”

“Good. Now you book some wacky spot for a show. And start lining up models. All boys, Buzzy. Masculine, Wall Street types.”

“We're breaking this fabulous color of yours on boys in business suits? Boooor-
ringgggg!
”

“Boring, my ass. Start sketching some thirties and forties Cary Grant stuff. As conservative as your trashy little mind can manage. Cuffs. Hats. Vests. Industrial-strength lapels. And overcoats, Buzzy. Big-ass overcoats.”

“Whatever you say. Youz da boss.”

“Just keep telling yourself that and I'll be at your door with the most fabulous green you've ever seen.”

“Green?”

“Green.”

“But Hugh, green is so
ambiguous.
”

“Bingo, Buzzy. Green is ambiguous. And my green is the most ambiguous green on God's green earth. And if there's one thing I'm sure about, it's that New York loves ambiguity. Green is refreshing. Green is quieting and peaceful. Optimistic. Green is life. But green is also the color of greed and envy and fear and death. Ambiguity out the wazoo, Buzzy. Every clothes horse in the city will go gaga for serendipity green. You can take that to the bank.”

“Serendipity green?”

“Just start drawing, Buzzy.”

Red.

Yellow.

D. William Aitchbone bullies through the intersection at South Mill and Tocqueville before the light turns green. His CD of Yobisch Podka's
Insipientia
, uplifting as it is, has not chiseled a single chip out of his foul granite mood. “That bastard,” he curses over the electrified violins, meaning, of course, Howie Dornick. “That woman has more brass than a marching band,” he curses over the electrified oboes and French horns, meaning, of course, Katherine Hardihood. He drives right past his impressive soapy white Queen Anne—Karen, Amy and Cannon Aitchbone patiently waiting inside for their supper—and pulls into the driveway of the impressive soapy white Gothic of former Tuttwyler mayor Donald Grinspoon.

“For a man who's just put one of the best Squaw Days ever to bed, you don't look very happy,” Donald Grinspoon says to his protégé when they are seated across from each other at the dining room table, sipping warm 7UP.

“Who you kidding, Donald, the entire festival was a disaster,” Aitchbone says to his mentor. “A goddamn disaster.” He brings up the Ferris wheel first: “After all my preaching, that idiot Kevin Hassock let the Happy Landing Ride Company bring the small one. I hope his company downsizes his ass all the way back to North Carolina.”

“I liked the small Ferris wheel,” Donald says. “It goes a lot faster than the big one. I rode it four times.”

D. William Aitchbone brings up the cupcake: “I told Dick Mueller not to let Darren Frost march in the parade as the cupcake again. We've got to get that snack cake shit behind us.”

“Everybody loves the cupcake,” Donald says.

D. William Aitchbone brings up Ernest Not Irish: “And that asshole Indian with the I'M A REAL INDIAN sign. What was that all about, anyway?”

“It's a free country,” Donald points out.

D. William Aitchbone brings up moving the tobacco-spitting contest to Saturday: “Big mistake, Donald. There were six fewer contestants. And the winning spit was the third shortest on record.”

“I know,” Donald Grinspoon says sadly. “I was sure we'd set a new record this year. But, what the hell.”

D. William Aitchbone brings up Interior Secretary Danley McCutcheon: “I never told you about this, Donald, but that was supposed to be the Vice President! Victoria Bonobo and I went all the way to Washington to see him.”

Donald grins like someone passing gas on a crowded bus. “Everybody figured you two were off diddling.”

Aitchbone puckers sourly. “The VP promised to come. We shook hands on it. He had his aide take notes on it. Then the day before I'm going to announce it, his aide calls and says the Interior Secretary is coming instead. I could have crawled under a rock.”

“Well, it was nice that Secretary McCutcheon stayed long enough to judge the pie-eating contest,” Donald Grinspoon says. “I doubt the Vice President would've done that.”

Aitchbone stands up and puts his hands in his pockets, jingling the quarters he always carries for the meters outside the court house in New Waterbury. He strolls to the hutch and studies the rows of antique English plates. “And that goddamn green house! Did you see the crowd? They skirted that goddamn house like it was a huge block of radioactive limburger cheese. I'd like to shove that goddamn green house right up Howie Dornick's goddamn ass. Sweet Jesus, I would!”

Donald pours himself another glass of warm 7UP. He doesn't offer a refill to his protégé. “To be fair, Bill, you're the one who forced Howie to paint it.”

D. William Aitchbone notices that his mentor hasn't offered him a refill. “He was suppose to paint it white.”

“Was he now?”

“Every goddamn house in town is painted white.”

“Every house but one.”

“And why that color? Where do you even buy paint like that?”

“It's some god-awful color, all right.”

Now the crises in D. William Aitchbone's life twist together like one of the stale pretzels the Tuttwyler Optimists' Club sold in their food tent: “I should've won that privatization vote. Damn that Bonobo!”

“It's hardly Vicki's fault that Woody vetoed your bill,” Donald Grinspoon says.

“I'm not talking about the goddamn veto. I knew that pimply assed socialist would veto it. But the override vote, Donald, the goddamn override. She knew I needed her vote for that.”

Donald Grinspoon starts working his protégé toward the front door. “You can't blame Vicki for getting the flu.”

D. William Aitchbone's hands are out his pockets. He slaps at the air as if it's lousy with black flies. “In July? Nobody gets the flu in July! She intentionally skipped that council meeting. She wanted me to lose that override.”

“And why would that be?” Donald asks, opening the door for his protégé.

“Because I wouldn't sleep with her,” Aitchbone confesses. “Do you know, when we were in Washington, she came out of the bathroom naked? She's punishing me, Donald. Punishing me for being faithful to my goddamn wife.” They're on the porch now. The late afternoon sun is shooting through the decorative spandrels that arch between the posts like fancy spider webs. “I'll never be able to prove it, but I think she called the VP off.”

Donald herds him down the sidewalk. “Because you wouldn't sleep with her? Come on, Bill, Vicki Bonobo is too classy for that.”

“Oh, really? Do you know that the VP once tried to feel her up?”

The revelation shocks Donald Grinspoon. He opens the car door for his protégé. “If she's as ruthless as you say, maybe you should diddle her.”

“One thing I am not going to do is diddle Victoria Bonobo. Not literally, anyway.”

“Sometimes literally is necessary, Bill. Remember that exclusive contract I had with Weideman Boots? I had to diddle Bud Weideman's wife six or seven times to land that baby. She looked more like a mule than a donkey does. But it got me that exclusive contract. Anybody in a fifteen-county radius who wanted a pair of Weideman boots had to drive to Grinspoon's. Best boots in the world back in the fifties and sixties when best counted for something. Those boots bought me that condo in Key Largo. Penny and I had lots of wonderful vacations there. Romantic vacations.” He closes the car door as soon as his protégé's legs are out of harm's way. “There are bumps in every road, Bill. Squaw Days went just fine.”

“Did you know that Katherine Hardihood and Howie Dornick are—”

“Everybody in Tuttwyler knows that. I can't imagine what ever brought those two got together. Can you?”

“That woman's got more brass than a marching band,” D. William Aitchbone says to his mentor. “Howie never would have painted his house that goddamn color if she wasn't whispering in his goddamn ear.”

Donald Grinspoon reaches into the car and pats his protégé on the shoulder. “You're worrying too much. Nobody's going to blame you for Howie house. In fact, you can blame it on Woody in the next election.”