He walked back into the
room where they were all sitting around. He sat and smirked at them. He was
holding a drink. He jiggled the ice in the drink and took a sip of it. Then
he smirked again. He heard someone say something clever.
He said something clever about what had just
been said.
There was a pause, a few gargled laughs.
More ice clinking.
Then he added a clever saying to the saying
he had just said, and this addition drew more gently appreciative laughter
and some fond looks from the ladies with bare arms--one in a black pullover
with dangly earrings, the other a spit-shine buffed-to-the-shins blonde with
shining hair in a red knit dress that moved pleasantly whenever/wherever she
did.
Ha ha, someone said.
Then someone else spoke up to add something
clever.
Smirks of appreciation and self-congratulation
went all around.
He got up and walked to the fireplace and stared
at a print framed over the mantle and, with his back turned to the bare armed
ladies and the throaty-voiced gentlemen, said something else, this apercu
only mildly clever, but there were more laughs and the excitement soared.
He was commanding the room like a drill sergeant with his clever sayings.
Then the hostess came in and sat down, crossing
her long legs, and touched the pearls at her brown neck with idle fingertips
and said something meant to be clever which wasn't quite, but appreciative
laughs swelled up just because, well, she was giving the party, and since
she was rich and good looking, she didn't have to be clever, just capable.
And she was all that and more.
Henry, Iris, Mike, George, Daphne, and Perdilla.
Perdilla lives with Mike in a quiet little house
in the dunes. Actually the house is on stilts so the sea when it storm surges
can rush under it without sweeping the whole shingled pile away. Perdilla
owns a chain of beauty salons. Mike is a well-groomed alcoholic with glossy
hair that looks like he parts it with the same razor he uses for shaving.
He's drunk but never sloppy. He has blue eyes and a way of looking at your
mouth when you say something clever the way a cat stares at the hole a mouse
has just popped its head out of.
George is the one who keeps saying the clever
things. His mouth barely moves as he does. He touches his own eyelids quite
often. It's a tick he might have picked up from Alec Guinness movies. He's
got a quiet way of speaking. Is that a hint of an English accent I hear? Did
he have his buttocks whipped at Eaton? No. He's as American as you or me,
but he's unusual in being clever, and because people treat him with such deference
for his huge wit he's assumed the silky shades of Englishness. It's a verbal
mask that gives him some added dimension at these events. He's more of a projection
than a man, a kind of moving shadow. He flickers rather than talks. You get
his meaning before his words are finished being said. That's because he slows
it down. He doesn't speed it up as inferior showmen do. He gets you excited
and he slows it down. Then you're the one straining for release and he's just
the man to give it to you.
Shut up, Iris suddenly said to Henry. She touched
his arm and smiled to show she'd been kidding, but no one there was taken
in. She'd meant it. Henry's face turned a whiter shade of pale. He moved his
lips but no sounds came out. Then a stream of inarticulate protest noises.
Hush, Iris, said, patting his wrist. It's all right, baby. The others turned
back to their drinks. George sat down again and gazed at the hostess' pearls.
She went on tracing them with the tip of a forefinger. George was imagining
her tracing the engorged vein in his rampant cock like that.
George was thinking that he'd like to be clever
with Daphne in some different venue than this, maybe in a candlelight-splashed
restaurant. Rain, he thought. It would have to be raining. Why rain? Because
it's erotic. At least in the old movies it is.
He shivered and for a moment was at a complete
loss to think of anything clever when she spoke to him across the space of
the sitting room to ask if he had read the nauseating new book that was on
all the bestseller lists and was making a fortune for her good friend Robert
Jones, the publisher.
George had read the book and found it ridiculous
and he said so. It wasn't clever but it was something. The others were attentive
to him, drinks poised so the ice didn't drown him out by clinking, possibly
because they assumed he would reply in his clever mode, and when he didn't
there was a general feeling of let-down that manifested itself only in a twitch
of Mike's left wrist and a light spasm that went through Iris, contorting
her cherry-red lips.
Henry said, What?
Oh, Iris said. Shut up, Henry.
She patted him.
Just shut up.
_________
Henry
stared at his shoes. Iris laughed a bright fulsome laugh. George smiled, his
thin lips stretching almost ear to ear.
Iris's only clever moment at these things, always,
was when she told Henry to shut up. But the line got laughs so she kept on
using it.
__________
Perdilla
doesn't talk much. She's harsh on the subject of other people but she adores
her alcoholic beau. That's what she likes to call him. They have fun together,
drinking and whatnot, in their house on stilts perched like a stork in the
dunes of Montauk. Mist comes in and then the sun burns it away and they go
down to the beach to swim and to loll around on the sand. So that's their
story. Then she goes back to the city and makes herself crazy trying to focus
totally on work while Mike sits at home drinking during the days and working
on his unfinished novel, Drunk, then going to the bars at night to
pick up the big-haired, loudmouth types he adores but Perdilla can't stand.
He always has a roll of cash. He holds the bills in place with a gold clip.
He gets a fresh-looking
town girl into his car and drives her down to the sea. Feel the wind, it's
grand. I love how it just slaps your face down here. They're walking along
the cliffs. She's in the arm-clinging mode, almost as drunk as him. He wants
to talk about anything but what they've come down here for. Finally she grabs
him around the hips and, standing on tiptoe, tries to thrust her tongue into
his mouth.. Hey! he says, laughing.
__________
George
is staring at Daphne's finger. He's hypnotized. Daphne, teeth flashing, is
laughing loudly at something Henry has just said.
Shut up, Henry, Iris cries, practically strangling
on her merriment.
________
Exterior.
Day, almost. George is striding, windbreakered and Nike-shod, along the beach,
and then he breaks into a run that scatters seagulls. He's running swift as
a god across the hard slanting planes of gray sand on which surf is spreading
as the waves break with hollow thumps. Rosy fingered dawn is spreading her
legs and showing the pink inside.
As George dashes, whuffing, along the beach,
he shuts his eyes and thinks about churning inside Iris, and the shush and
thump and roar of surf is his accompaniment to these lewd rememberings in
which Iris is pumping against him with all her might and clutching him like
a teddy bear to her breast as the orgasm rakes her up in its talons.
He stops, bends over, and grabs his knees. He's
sweating through his tracksuit. His face is dripping. He's out of wind; his
side aches. His eyes squeezed tightly shut, he visualizes his heart, suddenly,
as a writhing paper-machª dragon with a tail of exploding firecrackers.
Is this it? he wonders. His mind flounders in
search of a barbed witticism. Why not go out with a punch line, like Voltaire
or Oscar Wilde?
Abbe: Come, now, Monsieur Voltaire. Won't you,
even on your deathbed, consent to renounce Satan and all his works?
Voltaire: I ask you, Father--is this really
the time to be making enemies?
Oscar Wilde: Either that wallpaper goes, or
I do.
_________
First
sentence of Drunk: a novel, by Mike Desmond: This is just the book
to give to your sister--if your sister is a loud, dirty, boozy girl.
_________
Exterior,
brilliant day. Mike and George are seated in fluttering grape-arbor
shade on the terrace outside Ristorante Caligula. Mike is raving about
his new girlfriend, June, with wide gestures that slop his martini over the
sides of the glass.
What can I say, Mike asks, his blue eyes fixed
on George's. When I first saw this girl she was holding a book in front of
her face: Crazy Cock, by Henry Miller! I knew right then I had to get
into those tight-fitting riding breeches.
George laughs, listening to this discourse.
Why not? Mike's fun.
But he's also bored enough to begin thinking,
almost idly, about the rain-soaked afternoon he picked up a tense Perdilla
at the train station in Connecticut. He drove her to his house in silence.
He remembers how bastingly hot her skin felt as they slid together into the
cold, stiff sheets of his master bed. She grabbed him right away--it was like
she'd been waiting for it all her life.
He can't help but think about Perdilla--gawky,
yet somehow angelic--performing on Mike in exactly the same manner.
He gets prickly from arousal. Then, listening
to Mike action-paint her portrait with crazy, slurred words, he finds he's
thinking schemingly about this June. Maybe he could find some excuse to--
______
George
waved a hand for the waiter. The waiter, a white-haired, staggering Italian
vecchio, lurched to tableside.
George, slouching like a king in his seat, asked
in clipped Italian for a bottle of acqua minerale, frizzante.
Si, Signore, rasped the waiter.
Grazie, George said, lingering on the last syllable
as is done in the bright Tuscan hills. (Gratz-YEH.) (Ah, the bright Tuscan
hills in springtime. Primavera. Dust settling on the roads, and dim trifoil
fountains burbling streams of water over the stomachs of naked cherubs.)
Prego, murmured the waiter, shaking with Parkinson's
or palsy as he staggered off into the restaurant to retrieve another of the
green, moisture-flecked bottles.
George swung his smiling head, like a drowsily
attentive lizard, back to Mike, who immediately started extolling the virtues
of this interesting June person.
Did you read that one? George asked Mike suddenly.
What? Mike asked, nonplussed.
That novel you say she was reading. Crazy
Cock.
Uh, Mike said, blinking. No.
George smiled from ear to ear.
It's fabulous.
Is it?
Well, it's not anything close to the quality
of Drunk.
Mike's eyes grew wet. He loved having
his art praised. He took any praise as a confirmation of the importance of
his person in the great scheme of things.
_____
Interior.
Night. George settles down in his leather club chair with the manuscript box
containing the laser-printed pages of Drunk on his lap, and begins
picking out pages. He balls up each page as he reads it, throwing the balls,
with devastating accuracy, across the room at the snout of his mild-mannered
Irish terrier, Jack. The reddish dog, his paws extended Sphinx-like and his
damp eyes blinking, merely winces each time a ball of paper bounces off of
his muzzle.
At the end of each page, George says, Delightful.
Crumple.
Toss.
Soon, the dog is surrounded by wads of crushed
paper.
George stops at one particular page, and his
eyes widen. He reads it several times, then, crumpling it in his fist, shakes
his head. He places a hand over his eyes. He shakes with laugher.
Jacko, old boy, George finally says, in a silken
murmur. Come here.
The dog whines and comes.
George holds out a ball of paper. Jack takes
the ball in his mouth and, whining again, lies down and begins to chew on
the ball.
George picks up his snifter of Oban scotch in
one hand as he pats the dog's silky head with the other.
Wonderful dog, wonderful, he says. If only you
could write novels. Huh?
_____
Mike's
mouth is wet. He's ordered another martini, which the trembling waiter places
before him after scooping up the empty glass of the last. Mike laughs and
sticks his thick fingers into the drink to pick out the shining olive, which
he tosses in the air and catches in his open jaws on the descending arc.
George claps; Mike takes a hearty,
blushing bow.
You're as good as Jacko at that, George says.
Mike has worked himself up into a bit of a frenzy
about June. George shifts listlessly on the metal chair as he feigns amusement
at Mike's descriptions of what his hard-riding girlfriend is like in bed.
George's mind is on a number of other things
besides Mike and his pulchritudinous book. Drunk is not only objectionable
from various established moral points of view--you can excuse that in a Joyce
or a Fitzgerald--it's not even really that clever. But the worst thing
about this lunch isn't Mike. It's sitting in the wincing-hot sunlight, and
getting served one's lunch with excruciating slowness by the crippled Italian.
When the waiter brings the bread and a beaker
of luridly green olive oil--at last!--George tries to engage him in some conversation
by asking him what part of the country he's from.
Roma, the old man says with chest-booming pride.
Ah, George cries in mock-ecstasy. Rome!
It's exquisite. You know, I remember the artichokes the most.
The old man's eyes fill with tears. He spreads
his arms operatically and, clenching his fists, draws them in so they are
jammed against his skinny chest.
Mike is watching, fascinated.
Slowly, the old man brings his fists up to chin
height and, extending the fingers rigidly, turns his face to the blazingly
blue vault of sky.
Ah! he cries. The artichokes!
After he's left the table, Mike, giggling, says
to George:
You sly dog. You always know how to get people
going.
Ah, George says.
Shrug.
_____
George
isn't recalling the Roman artichokes, as succulent as they taste when drizzled
with olive oil and lemon juice and served with a pinch of coarse salt, but
other things. Such as the pale nudity of the girl who climbed onto his cock
as he stood with his back pressed to a damp, crumbling wall inside the Colosseum.
As the girl bucked on him, he was excited almost to slavering by the gasps
and groans of many couples hidden in niches or screwing brazenly against the
fallen columns. The smells of vaginal mucous and sperm thickened the warm
night air.
She moaned into his mouth little delicate Italian
phrases; he had never been so charmed.
_____
Mike
pushes away the half-finished plate of risotto and pats his belly. George
licks his fingers for the last juices of the clams he has picked out of his
linguine con vongole.
What do you think of this place? George asks.
Mike, as he pours himself more Corvo bianco:
Amazing!
George lifts a finger to the waiter, who hobbles
over and stands panting above them in sunlight.
A sorbetto di limone? George asks.
Si, huffs the waiter.
George extends two long fingers.
Due sorbetti per favore. E anchedue esspressi.
Si, Signore.
_____
George lifts the demitasse to his lips
and, blowing on its foamy contents, delicately sips.
Delicious, he murmurs. Your better Italian establishment
will give you an espresso ringed with crema. Such is the case here.
Mike ignores his caffe espresso. He's slopping
the last of the wine into his glass.
George puts down his cup on its saucer and suddenly
says, with dark enthusiasm pitched to sound brightly false:
So! --this girl who's saddled you up.
This June.
Yes?
When do I get to behold her fine young figure
in the flesh?
Mike laughs.
Well, I don't know. Soon. Hey--you don't plan
on taking her away from me, do you?
George smiles. Shrugs.
Only if she consents.
To
be continued...
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