Slaves of New York (16 page)

"I like Paris," I said. "But my true love is Italy, Rome in particular."

"I did love my wife, Lady, dearly, she was a tiny little thing, the runt of the litter, came from one of those fine old New England families that never took to me. Anyway, the only way I could get rid of that countess woman was to take up driving an ambulance. I never did intend to break Lady's heart, but that's what I did, I guess. Can't say she wasn't made of strong stuff, though. She left me in Paris with that White Russian and came back and supplied the U.S. Army with turkeys weighing up to fifty pounds, the whole time I was gone."

I broke open the runny egg yolks with the tine of my fork and studied the goo as it ran out over the plate. Egg yolks. I couldn't help but think of those frescoes in the basement of the San Marco monastery in Florence. I would definitely do some frescoes in wet plaster in my chapel. ... "I guess I didn't really realize you were Ginger's boyfriend," I said. "I mean, she told me about you, but you know how it is. I'm the kind of person who's wrapped up in my work."

"Oh, well, Ginger," Chuck said. "Now she's sitting there upstairs someplace worrying that I'm convincing you to make me a new painting, for less money."

"Oh, is that what's bugging her?" I said. "Listen, my paintings are cheap at the price Ginger's charging for them. Believe me, any work of mine you buy now is a great investment."

"I'm not going to argue with you, Marley," Chuck said. "But there's a lot of young artists out there, I don't take risks unless they're guaranteed."

"With the project I've got in mind, you'd make a fortune. It's going to be bigger than Disney World. Even Ginger says—"

"Oh, Ginger. What she's got is a tough facade, but underneath that, what I have is a little girl who calls me up at three in the morning on those nights when we're apart, crying to me that she's never going to get to whatever place it is she thinks she's going. She gave up painting to become an art dealer—

her and fifty other gals all have the same idea in mind. It's a tough world out there, Marley, you need more than a facade."

"I have more than a facade," I said. "Listen, I have the blueprints all drawn up. I could have been a great architect if I wanted—the inside is going to be made from marble, rubber, and glass. In the center I've got plans for a giant bathtub, a kind of fountain filled with sulfuric acid—"

"I told Ginger, in a couple of years, maybe, if we're still together and I've built up her ego sufficient, I'll let her have a kid. For the time being, I've taught her to knit. See, I like to knit, I have some creative talents myself. Don't ever let them tell you that things like cooking or knitting aren't artistic in their own way. Take a look at this sweater I have on."

I looked him up and down. He had on something Argyle, of bishop's purple and garter blue, which would have been normal if not for the neckline, wrinkled like the wattles of some big bird. It disturbed me to hear so much about Ginger that I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to know; after all, I had come to depend on her to take care of me. I mean, an artistic genius can't be expected to do more than create his works. "I guess old Ginger would like to get married," Chuck said. "I'm sixty-seven years old, I'm leaving my money to my daughter."

"Ginger doesn't need any kids," I said. "She's got me, you know."

But Chuck looked nervous; he changed the subject. "Let me bring out something I think you'll like to try," he said, noting that my eating had slowed somewhat. From a drawer in the pantry he took out several tiny green cans labeled pineapple

JAM, CRATIONS, U.S. ARMY.

He opened up a can with the electric opener. Inside was a small amount of crusty, yellowish salve, smelling powerfully of some kind of detergent. "The cook tried to throw this stuff out the other day, and I near to had a fit. I got a whole truckload of them for thirty-five dollars. You know what this would cost on today's market? I thought I could sell it—genuine collector's items, these are. Not that I need the money, but I've got to keep myself occupied. Collecting art don't take every min-

ute." He put some on a biscuit and watched as I tried to eat it. "Not bad, huh?"

As soon as he looked away, I let the biscuit slip under the table to the dog. I had to make a fast clack with the fork and knife to cover up that powerful sound, the crunching of jaws.

Meanwhile Chuck had put away four or five of the eggs liberally doused with taco sauce. " Goddammit, you're slowing down. When I operated the Ballroom in Newport, we used to attract the sporting trade. You know, Marley, I never saw a professional golf or tennis player who would buy his own goddamn drink. Those fellows could eat; let me tell you, I could judge at breakfast who was going to win that afternoon."

"What was the Ballroom?" I said.

"Try some of the taco sauce on the mushrooms, brings out the flavor. Imported the stuff myself from a restaurant in Tex-arkana. Don't tell me you never heard of Dolger's Starlight Ballroom. There wasn't a day in the papers there wasn't some mention of the goings-on at the place. Lady and my mother were horrified; so was the community. It was their belief that a person's name should never appear in the paper but for three times—birth, marriage, and death. Hell, my mother and Lady never got used to some things; both of them society ladies. Place didn't last too long though—nightclubs are generally short-lived. Ripped out the whole main floor of the mansion, put in a stage and a wet bar out by the swimming pool. At one point I turned the whole back lot into a miniature golf course. Newport never saw the like. Had an orchestra—a different one every two weeks—up from New York. I was just a kid then. Have a couple more eggs, there's room on your plate. Or are you ready for some dessert?"

The dog got up under the table, emitting a slow, painful groan, and shuffled over to her water bowl. I tossed a few baked beans off my plate. Well, so it is that history is passed from mouth to mouth,
virum volitare per ora.
I guess the old guy just wanted me to know how it had been for him. Still, I was frantic to get on with my own life; I was willing to listen, though, if the end result would be my getting some money.

"All set," I said. The dog came back from her water bowl, pushed the beans around with her snout, and sunk back again. "Whoops, looks like I just dropped my napkin," I said, bending over to try to retrieve the baked beans.

"I guess you might say I was a rebellious kind of guy, Mar-ley. But I was a self-made man and generally people who have been brought up the way I was don't like to make money. Not me, though." He stopped talking to give the red-eyed dog a halfhearted kick. "Love that dog—she looks just like me.
Tch tch tch.
How about a drink to go with the eats?" He went over to the cabinet and came back with a dusty bottle of brandy covered with a parchmentlike paper he held up to the light.

I couldn't help but be fascinated with his face, so sad and elephantine. Big rheumy eyes folded in delicate tissue. Maybe I could use him as my male Madonna.

"Had to give up the booze," Chuck said wistfully, pouring out a snifter of stuff the color of rotten apricots. "But I sure miss those elevenses. Now I just cook. Believe me, cooking is creative. Why, I could write a cookbook of my own recipes. Reminds me of when I used to make my own ice cream during Prohibition days. Tutti-frutti. I had bonded rum in storage just for flavoring. I never considered it a waste of booze. Like paint, you can't stint on your art supplies if you want to succeed. Neighbors used to send their cooks over to my kitchen just to buy a quart—I had direct contact with the finest rum-runners from Cuba. Finish up this last sausage, sonny."

"Esto perpetua
to you!" I said, holding up the sausage on my fork, while with the other hand I reached down and tried to loosen my belt. Meanwhile trying to record the man. A handsome face, combining the most gracious aspects of a moose and a doorknob. I could see the old genetic lines at work, a certain nobility and foghorn dignity. Yet it was an irritation to me that he had enough money to finance my genius idea, and I couldn't bring him to see the point. Oh, hope told a flattering tale: I still thought I might persuade him to fork over the dough.

Chuck leapt up from the table on his big feet, the chef's hat

flopping over to one side, and brought on the coffee and some fat jelly doughnuts that were greasy and soft to the touch, but brown and gritty with sugar on the outside. "Have one of these," he said. "Made them myself. Special treat."

I blinked politely and bit into one. It was filled with loads of gooey, blackish grape jelly that blurted out over the sides of my mouth. "Good, good," I mumbled. "By the way, you haven't told me yet what you think of my project."

Meanwhile he had forgotten about the smoked trout. "Too late. Well, just try a little taste, Marley. I only took a couple out of the deep freeze, but I'll get out more if you think you want a snack after breakfast."

"Yeah."

"Where was I? The Starlight Ballroom. Well, when the neighbors took up in arms about the place, I turned it into a turkey ranch. Dolger's White Mountain Turkeys. Hah! The neighbors were even less happy about that, but they couldn't do a thing—they had made sure the neighborhood was zoned for livestock. They were thinking about their horses, I guess. Ever see a turkey make love?"

"No," I said.

"Or a hen straining to lay an egg that won't come out?"

"No."

"Ever cook up a bird, and when you open it there are hundreds of little turkey embryos, some in an egg and others getting smaller and smaller until the last one is tinier than a pearl?"

"No."

"All of this is leading up, I guess, to how I'm thinking about becoming a Catholic. I lived my life by biting into it like you would a person's arm. The neighbors should have complained less about the Starlight Ballroom; you should have heard them squeal about the farm. It was one of the finest turkey operations around. None of this chemical stuff; my birds were happy. I didn't make much money, though. Take your average Thanksgiving bird, for example—ten, twelve pounds. What family needs or wants a fifty-pound bird?"

"Maybe a large family," I said.

"Nope," Chuck said. "Don't have a large enough oven. But my problem was, I had a lot of other projects going—I started a magazine publishing dynasty, and got out at the right time, and made a real killing—and I lost interest in the whole bird endeavor. I could have been Frank Perdue today. Maybe not, though. The reason those birds got so big was that I hated to kill them off. The only kind act in my life as a young man. I let the birds live until they turned mean and sour and had to be ground up into turkey roll for the U.S. Army."

I was thinking about my stomach, a tender instrument. I could feel it down there at the bottom of my esophagus, like a woman's glove stuffed with snails and lye. "That's terrible," I said.

"I've always been a farmer at heart, though you wouldn't think of it to look at me. Got kicked out of prep school for raising ducks in the dorm room."

"Don't pay Chuck too much attention," Ginger said, wandering into the kitchen and pouring herself a cup of coffee. "We should all be so lucky as to be the kind of self-made man that Chuck is."

"These are men talking, Ginger," Chuck said.

"I'm going, I'm going," Ginger said. "Marley, you haven't been telling Chuck about your project, have you? Why don't you let him buy a couple of your paintings before you start in on him." She left the room, but not before shooting me an expression—I could see what Chuck meant, she was a nervous little thing, with those concentration-camp eyes popping out of a rich American face.

Chuck gave me a wink. "Raised a couple of pigs, too, before the neighbors got on my case. Those pork chops, Marley, were not to be believed. Each two inches thick, I stuffed them with bread crumbs. Swimming in cream. Mmm mmm mmm. I've had to give up eating pork, though, you'll notice I only had a taste of my homemade sausage. Trouble with the digestion, it's a shame how the body starts to conk out on a person. How were the sausages, by the way?"

"Delicious."

"You think so? Let me wrap up a couple for you, a little snack later on. Anyway, what was I telling you? I have an attention span that is shorter than a goddamn dog's. Let me tell you, since I got on this art collecting kick, I've come to realize that in my youth in Paris I could have picked up quite a few paintings for a song that would have gotten me more than a million today. Well, I saw how you put away that food—you did all right, boy, though let me tell you that in my heyday I could have eaten you under the table. Take the dog out for a walk, son, and then I'll drive you back home and speak to Ginger about that painting of yours. It's a pretty enough picture, 'Geoffrey Chaucer's First Date,' though I think Ginger could do a little better on the price."

I should have been content with what I already had; but I was like the fisherman with his magic fish, I couldn't help but ask for more. "What about funding for my project?" I said. "You'd be like the Medicis with their own chapel—"

"Marley, at this minute I have a man who calls himself an environmental artist moving heaps of mud from one part of Montana to another. I have a man attempting to get permission to cover the Golden Gate Bridge in Band-Aids. I have a gal handcuffed to a Korean and a Dalmation making a videotape of every moment of their year chained together. All this is costing me, but that's the price I'm willing to pay for my interest in the art world. I tell you what, though: I'm going to buy your painting."