The Great Wide Open, page 53
‘Good for Duncan, getting all this attention,’ Peter said. ‘He deserves it – given he’s quite the stylist as an essayist and has that insane work ethic of his.’
‘You’ll be having one of these launch parties in a year’s time.’
‘I doubt Little, Brown will go to much expense.’
‘But word has it that they like the book. Are you going to start writing again for the Village Voice?’
‘They actually offered me back my column – so that will cover basic expenses. And Mr Wall Street slipped me some money the other day – not that I asked for it.’
‘You agreed to meet Adam but not me?’
‘I needed a loan, a fast-cash injection. I am back to paying the maintenance and the monthly vig on a refinancing thing I had to do last year to keep afloat. The cash which Brother Moneybags just gave me, along with the Village Voice column, will just about cover my bills. Now all I need is the subject of a very big book, something that can really speak to the moment.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find something, Peter. Maybe you’ll even find time to have dinner with me.’
‘Did you hear that Shirley dumped Dad?’
That was bemusing news.
‘I really am out of the loop.’
‘I only found out when the old man called me up around ten two nights ago and asked me to meet him for a drink at P.J. Clarke’s. I’m a bit worried about him. He told me that he’s doing very well heading up that trading division and is also bored to death. Then the girlfriend finally got fed up with him sneaking off to be with his ex-wife, so she walked out last week. The weird thing is, Dad’s taking it badly. Because Mom won’t let him live with her and will only continue to see him twice a week. Dad suspects Mom is seeing someone else – which I suspect as well. Still, he went all Irish on me the other night, talking about how life never really pans out well for him. He’s also smoking almost as much as you are – which is not exactly a good thing.’
Duncan gave me a lecture later on my cigarette intake when I joined him, his editor, and a few of his friends at a post-party at the Nom Wah Tea Parlor in Chinatown. That was so Duncan – wanting to celebrate his new book in a no-frills dim sum joint on Doyers Street. I noticed he was girlfriendless that night. I knew from Howie – who was (of course) at the table – that Duncan had just been dumped by a woman who was the director of a modern dance company down on Wooster Street. Yet another romantic failure. Though out on public show he was his usual erudite, worldly, witty self – telling the table a sharp, learned story about the effusive, hyper-neurotic Gustav Mahler having a conversation with the taciturn, manic-depressive Jean Sibelius on the nature of symphonic writing. The guy knew so much about so much. Duncan: the smartest guy in the room. But also the saddest. And currently flirting with a very intense woman named Paula. She was a deputy at the Paris Review, had the ear of its editor George Plimpton, and looked thoroughly taken with my friend’s current spiel. I felt a stab of desire. As much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, there was still that deep, unresolved need to truly connect: to have someone there to be my ballast amidst the mess of life, to help make me feel that I was not alone in the dark. How I longed for Ciaran. How I could see Duncan so wanting this as well – and constantly hooking up with the wrong person as a way of not allowing the light to get in. Was this the ultimate corrosive residue of familial damage: that yearning to make that supreme contact with another sentient solitary soul – and the need to simultaneously push it away?
Paula had very black hair and very rouged lips and round black glasses to go with her tight black dress. The Intellectual Vixen look. I knew that Duncan would go home with her tonight. Just as I knew that he was on a ten-city book tour and then would be hopping a plane to Casablanca – and disappearing into the geographic void for months to come. I watched as Paula began to noticeably touch the top of his right hand, then lean over and whisper something in his ear. Duncan smiled. She smiled back, squeezing his hand. Then she stood up and headed off in the direction of the old dismal bathroom right off the kitchen.
‘Looks like you have a new interesting admirer,’ I told Duncan.
He just shrugged, then said:
‘My father called me this morning. He’d received the copy of the book I had my publishers send him. Know what he told me? “One of the many great things about Reagan is that he’s showing you assholes just how transient and stupid the sixties were. Which is also one of the reasons that nobody’s going to read your pretentious book.” His exact words.’
‘Here’s a piece of advice: when that mean little man calls you again just put down the phone. He hates you for actually making your way outside of the corporate realm in which he’s stuck.’
‘To him I’ll always be the weird kid with the funny walk who could never live up to his idea of macho-dom.’
‘I think the children of every ex-Marine in the United States should be offered free therapy on behalf of the government – because, like my dad and yours, they all came out of the experience twisted beyond belief. And with all these deranged ideas about duty and honor and Semper Fi which just don’t play in the real world. Especially if their children don’t conform to their idea of regimental standards.’
‘I should have told him to go fuck himself. Instead I mumbled something about how the New York Times was rumored to be giving it a great review this coming Sunday.’
‘Go on your book tour, disappear across North Africa, and remember you are living the life he so desperately wants, but could never have – because he lacks the imagination and talent to achieve what you have done. Know this, however – if you get yourself killed somewhere between Casa and Tel Aviv you will break my heart. I don’t think I could stand another loss.’
Duncan looked at me with care. Not thrown by what I just said, but certainly intrigued by it. Just as I was caught unawares by what I had just blurted out. Then again, when we talk before thinking aren’t we articulating something that we have, until that juncture, kept from view? Before I or Duncan could say anything further, Paula was back at the table, eyeing me with wariness.
‘You two look rather deep in thought,’ she said.
‘Just reminiscing about our Bowdoin days,’ Duncan said.
‘Ah yes, old-school tie and all that,’ she said, then leaned over and again whispered into Duncan’s ear, following it up with a light but deliberately placed kiss right on his lips.
‘We’re going to make a move,’ Duncan announced to the table. ‘Especially as I am on a train to Boston in the morning.’
It seems that he did manage to get her into bed that night. She even flew out to be with him for the entire Los Angeles-to-Seattle stretch of his book tour. Four weeks later, back in New York, he asked if Howie and I could see him off on his flight to Paris.
‘Doesn’t Paula want to say goodbye privately?’ I asked.
‘She did that herself about a week ago.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Story of my life,’ he said.
Howie arranged that we all meet in the bar of the departure lounge at TWA out at Kennedy Airport. You could accompany the departing passenger to the gate, first passing through a perfunctory metal detector. There was a cocktail bar in a corner of this strange 1960s architectural gem: a white concrete terminal shaped like the wings of a plane atop glass.
‘I’ve got three thousand dollars in traveler’s checks, my passport, this one small backpack, a shoulder bag with five empty notebooks, a fountain pen, about two dozen blue-black cartridges, and absolutely no contacts.’
‘And when you have a torrid affair with some sultry beauty in the Kasbah of Algiers … ’ Howie all but shouted, the effects of the second martini making him arch his voice an octave or two higher and causing heads to turn around. Duncan, to his credit, shook his head and smiled.
‘You’re such a queen, Howie. Do you really think that 1940s potboiler with Claude Rains and Hedy Lamarr is what I’m about to walk into?’
‘Is there anything wrong with life as it was depicted on the Warner Brothers backlot in 1942?’
‘Only if you don’t mind the slight disappointment of walking into the current Algiers – which, from all accounts, is a Muslim Havana on the Mediterranean: socialist with all the deprivation side effects.’
‘Do you see why our friend is a master wordsmith?’ Howie said.
‘Oh please … ’ Duncan said.
‘Howie’s right,’ I said. ‘You’ve got it when it comes to the manipulation of language.’
‘My one and only talent,’ Duncan said.
‘Cue “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted”,’ Howie said, breaking into a loud rendition of the first verse.
‘How about a final martini?’ Duncan said.
‘You sound like you’re about to face a firing squad,’ I said.
‘Just the unknown,’ Duncan said, ‘which is both daunting and wonderful.’
Howie was about to say something, but suddenly turned away, his face awash with tears. Instinctually Duncan reached out and put his arm around his shoulder.
‘You get back alive,’ Howie said. ‘I can’t bear another friend dying.’
‘I’m not intending to do that,’ Duncan said.
‘Then watch your ass, Mr Man of the World Daredevil.’
‘How’s Jack?’ Duncan asked.
Howie lowered his head, more tears now flowing.
‘We were just at the hospital before we came out here,’ I said. ‘He’s in a very bad place.’
Indeed, Jack had entered St Vincent’s just five days ago after one final appearance at the office. On that day I helped him, at his insistence, stagger in. He was being held up by two canes, the Kaposi’s sarcomas on his nose and in his mouth now septic. In the days before this, Howie had stayed on the sofa bed in Jack’s apartment and acted as his night nurse. Come dawn Howie would then go off back to his own apartment to shower and change for work, keeping himself going through the day on coffee and uppers. At which point I would show up and get Jack somehow into his clothes and load us both into a waiting car. To their infinite credit the board of Fowler, Newman and Kaplan not only let it be known that Jack was welcome at the office for as long as he could continue working, but they also arranged for a car and driver to get him anywhere he needed to go (which meant that we were spared the indignity of taxi drivers frequently passing us by, not wanting to transport such an unwell man). I was privately told by the house’s finance man, Mel Morgan, that if Jack needed a night nurse he would take care of the cost. But when I passed this news on to Howie, he informed me that he would continue to be there from dusk to sunrise for Jack.
‘At least let me do two nights a week,’ I said.
‘Offer gratefully acknowledged and refused. I am seeing him through until he can longer remain at home. In other words, until the end.’
That finality was now approaching with tragic certitude. After showing up at the office five days ago, with me and his canes keeping him vertical, Jack collapsed when he reached his desk. An ambulance was called. The medics on duty noted his condition immediately and rushed him down to St Vincent’s. I rode with him in the ambulance, telling my assistant to call Howie at work and let him urgently know what was going on. After waiting with Jack in the receiving area – where he was lapsing in and out of consciousness – I watched two orderlies hoist him onto a gurney. He was then wheeled into a big industrial-sized elevator and brought upstairs to the unit dealing with all the victims of this still-untreatable, ferocious pestilence. The orderlies said nothing when I informed them I was accompanying Jack. When the elevator door opened I suddenly saw the controlled chaos in front of us. All the wards were so overcrowded, so overflowing, that there was no room for Jack. He was deposited in the central corridor of this unit. I looked around and saw men and a few women in assorted states of near-death. There were friends, family members and partners trying to comfort their dying or scrambling to get them some sort of medical attention. All the doctors and nurses were dashing from bed to bed, attempting to maintain some sort of order, the cries and frequent shrieks from patients and those caring for them building into an overwhelming cacophony that was having an unsettling effect on everyone, but which could not be stilled.
‘Can you please see to my friend?’ I said to at least three men in white coats and two nurses in blue scrubs. They all passed me by, saying they’d get to Jack after they dealt with everyone else in front of him. After the fifth brush-off I screamed at one medic:
‘How can there be a fucking line for someone in such agony?’
That’s when I felt a steadying hand on my shoulder. Howie.
‘I’m on to it,’ he said to me, all but grabbing a passing nurse and demanding to know if Dr Barry was on duty. She said he was here but overwhelmed.
‘Tell him Howard D’Amato is here with one of his closest friends.’
The nurse took this in, nodding gravely, and hurried off.
‘When in a war zone it’s best to know one of the captains in charge,’ Howie said.
Jack was groaning on the gurney. I took his right hand and noticed that the crotch around his suit trousers was drenched. Seeing this Howie scoured this frantic field hospital, stopping a nurse and telling her that Jack would die if he didn’t get attended to immediately.
‘You’ll just have to wait,’ she said, her face hard. Howie exploded.
‘Listen, Nurse Ratched, don’t you dare talk to me, us, as if you’re some omnipotent cunt who –’
‘That’s enough, my friend.’
Dr Norman Barry – late forties, small, balding and with huge bags under his eyes but also deeply alert to everyone and everything – had imposed himself between Howie and the nurse.
‘Now before I take charge here, Howard,’ he said, ‘I want you to apologize immediately and unconditionally to my very good and overworked colleague, Nurse Clancy.’
‘I’m a professional asshole,’ Howie told her.
‘That’s not an apology,’ Dr Barry said.
‘I’m sorry. Truly sorry. I should have never called you that name. I’m just … ’
Nurse Clancy put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Understood,’ she said. Then she looked over to Dr Barry. ‘Should I move him to the alternative ward?’
‘It’s the only place we have space right now,’ Dr Barry said, then looked at me and added: ‘It’s a room off the morgue which we’ve set up as a makeshift ward.’
‘At least it’s a ward,’ I said.
‘And so conveniently located,’ Howie added.
‘Sorry to see you here again, Howard,’ Dr Barry said.
Howie looked at the floor, shaking his head.
‘Too many friends … ’ he said.
‘Believe me, I know. It’s like the Black Death – with no way so far to stop it.’
‘How long do you think he has?’ I asked, my voice a choked whisper.
Suddenly from the gurney came Jack’s strangled voice.
‘I’m living until I’m one fucking hundred,’ he hissed.
He managed to somehow raise both hands. Howie and I grabbed one each.
‘Indeed you will,’ I said.
‘Thank you, Pollyanna,’ Jack said.
‘I like it when you play the tough guy,’ Howie said.
‘Got it from my dad. A Marine – just like Alice’s old man. Only mine despised the son he called a “pansy”.’
‘But he was the asshole coward,’ Howie said. ‘People who hate always are. You were always the brave guy in the room. And you’re fucking heroic now.’
I let out a sob.
‘Don’t go all soft of me, Burns,’ Jack said. ‘There’s too much emotion in here already.’
Dr Barry smiled and said:
‘I think we’ll get Humphrey Bogart down to our other ward.’
Jack managed a smile back.
‘I always wanted to be the gay Bogart,’ he said.
Howie leaned over and whispered to me, reminding me we had to be at JFK in seventy-five minutes to see Duncan off on his adventures.
‘I heard that,’ Jack said.
‘Duncan will have to miss us,’ I said, taking Jack’s hand.
‘I’m not planning to fucking die tonight or any time soon,’ he said. ‘Get yourself out to Kennedy – I’m insisting on that – and then come back here and bring me a Bombay martini properly chilled.’
‘If we returned at ten tonight,’ Howie asked Nurse Clancy, ‘could we pay our friend a visit?’
Nurse Clancy looked to Dr Barry for approval. He nodded his okay.
‘It’s against the rules,’ Nurse Clancy said, ‘but have them page me and I’ll get you up to see him. Without the gin.’
Now we were at the airport, finishing our third martini with Duncan, Howie getting even more emotional, telling us:
‘Life is so fucking fragile. And when you see that it’s right between two people … ’
‘Where’s this going, Howie?’ Duncan asked.
‘The two of you should get married.’
