Totempole, page 1
SANFORD FRIEDMAN (1928–2010) was born in New York City. After graduating from the Horace Mann School and the Carnegie Institute of Technology, he was stationed as a military police officer in Korea, earning a Bronze Star. He began his career as a playwright and theater producer, and was later a writing instructor at Juilliard and SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders). “Ocean,” a chapter from Totempole, was serialized in Partisan Review in 1964 and won second prize in the 1965 O. Henry Awards. Totempole (1965) was followed by the novels A Haunted Woman (1968), Still Life (1975), and Rip Van Winkle (1980). At the time of his death, Friedman left behind an unpublished manuscript for the novel Conversations with Beethoven, now available as an NYRB Classic.
PETER CAMERON is the author of three collections of short stories and six novels, including The City of Your Final Destination, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, and Coral Glynn.
TOTEMPOLE
SANFORD FRIEDMAN
Afterword by
PETER CAMERON
NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS
New York
THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK
PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
www.nyrb.com
Copyright © 1961, 1964, 1965 by Sanford Friedman
Afterword copyright © 2015 by Peter Cameron
All rights reserved.
“Salamander” was originally published in New World Writing 19, © 1961 by J. B. Lippincott Co.; “Ocean” was originally published in Partisan Review, Winter 1964, and later collected in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, published by Doubleday & Co., Inc.
Dentyne radio copy written by Jack Wilcher; © 1945 by American Chicle Co.; used by permission of the copyright proprietor. “Mairzy Doates,” words and music by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston; © 1943 by Miller Music Corp., New York, NY; used by permission of the copyright proprietor. “Make It Another Old-Fashioned, Please,” words and music by Cole Porter; © 1940 by Chappell and Co., Inc.; used by permission of the copyright proprietor. “Solitude” by DeLang-Mills-Ellington; © 1934 by American Academy of Music, Inc.; © renewed 1962; used by permission of the copyright proprietor. “You Better Go Now,” words by Bickley Reichner, music by Robert Graham; © 1936 by Chappell and Co., Inc.; used by permission of the copyright proprietor.
Cover image: Charles Burchfield, White Picket Fence, c. 1965; courtesy of the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation
Cover design: Katy Homans
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Friedman, Sanford, 1928–
Totempole / Sanford Friedman ; introduction by Peter Cameron.
1 online resource. — (New York Review Books classics)
ISBN 978-1-59017-787-7 — ISBN 978-1-59017-761-7 (paperback)
1. Gay men—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3556.R564
813'.54—dc23
2014014586
ISBN 978-1-59017-787-7
v1.0
For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit www.nyrb.com or write to: Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
Contents
Biographical Notes
Title Page
Copyright and More Information
TOTEMPOLE
Dedication
HORSIE
OCEAN
SALAMANDER
LOON
MOOSE
MONKEYS
LICE
RATS
Afterword
TOTEMPOLE
To Richard Howard
HORSIE
Sweetheart, why have you taken your pajamas off?”
“Dadda.”
“Come on now, let’s put them back before you catch cold.”
“Dadda no jamas.”
“But little boys must keep warm—even in the summer.”
“Horsie no jamas.”
“Who, darling?”
“Horsie.”
“Come on now. First little leggie . . . that’s the way: in it goes. Second little leggie . . . that’s my pet. Back you go now, under the sheet. There we are. Little boys must have their sleep.”
“Momma jamas?”
“No, darling, momma has a nightgown. Stephen and dadda and Roggie have pajamas.”
“Stephen no jamas.”
“Stephen goes bye-bye now. Good night, my love.”
Harriet Wolfe bent down into the crib, kissed her son on both cheeks, switched off the overhead light and left the room, closing the door carefully behind her.
Stephen listened alertly to the clop-clop of his mother’s mules growing fainter and fainter until, at last, it was terminated by the click of her bedroom door.
“Horsie,” Stephen said out loud, sniffing the manure smell wafting in through the open window. Standing up straight in his crib, he crossed the mattress to the bars at the opposite end, closer to the window. He tried to push his head through; he strained to squeeze his body through—through the bars, through the screen, through the open window, into the daylit summer night, across the street to the red wooden walls of the Seaside Riding Academy—but the bars prevented him. Slowly, he turned his head, sniffing the air. The smell was here, here in the room, here in the crib—but where was horsie? “Where horsie?” he said out loud, searching under his monkey, Oscar, and crawling under the sheet. Across the street, in the Riding Academy, a colt whinnied into the night, as if in answer to his question. “Horsie laugh,” Stephen said and laughed himself, hearing the sound and smelling the horse-smell under the sheet. His fat fingers pulled at the elastic waistband of his pajama bottoms. “No jamas,” he said, kicking them off with the sheet. The manure smell seemed stronger now. “Horsie . . . Dadda . . . Stephen . . .” he said, almost in a reverie, thrusting his legs against the side of the crib and fondling himself in the twilight.
“Saul,” Harriet said to her husband, as she gently closed their bedroom door, “do you know what he’s done? He’s kicked off his pajamas.”
“Do you blame him? It’s too hot,” Saul sighed, rolling over and stretching out flat on his back. With her back to her husband’s naked trunk, Harriet sat down on her side of the double bed and lit a cigarette. “Come on, Hattie, how many times do I have to tell you not to smoke in bed?”
“Shhh. You’ll wake—”
“Don’t shush me.”
“But I’m not in bed.”
“Put it out.”
“It’s out. It’s out,” she said, nervously stabbing her cigarette into the ashtray. Harriet stared vacantly at The Good Earth, which was lying on her night table, but she just wasn’t in the mood for all those famines and plagues. The cigarette smoke rose slowly toward the ceiling and gathered there like a patch of mildew, hanging motionless in the warm air, until a breeze from the sea unsettled it and sucked it out the open window.
Smelling the manure from the stables of the Riding Academy, Saul said, “Damn it. There it is again: that fresh salt air Seaside is so famous for. I’ll be damned if I’ll take this house again next summer. I’d rather swelter in the city, than have to smell those horses every night. If we can’t get a place closer to the ocean next summer, we’ll stay in the city. But I’ll be damned if I’ll commute for this.”
“We’re only four blocks from the ocean.”
“That’s four too many.”
“You know how expensive it is on Ocean Avenue.”
“Then we’ll stay in New York. We have no business being here in the first place—not with a depression going on. I’m not about to pay a thousand bucks again to live across the street from a stable.”
“It’s not a stable; it’s a Riding Academy.”
“I don’t care what it’s called; it’s full of horses that shit all night.”
Harriet could feel herself blushing, and she got up and walked to the window.
“You and your bright ideas,” Saul continued, “renting the one house in Seaside that’s next to a stable.”
“Me? It wasn’t me!” Harriet retorted. “You were the one who refused to take the house on Ocean Avenue.”
“We couldn’t afford it.”
“Oh, yes we could! Pop offered to pay the difference. He offered you the extra five hundred, but you refused. You wouldn’t take it. Not as a gift, you said. You and your pride!”
“You’re damn right. I don’t take charity from anyone. Not anyone, you understand? Least of all your father.”
“What’s the matter with my father? Isn’t his money good enough? Where do you suppose the money I paid toward the rental of this house came from, if not my father?” To emphasize her point, Harriet removed the screen and slammed the bedroom window with a sharp crack like the blade of a guillotine.
“What in hell are you doing, Hattie?”
“Closing the window. You said you couldn’t stand the smell.”
Without speaking, Saul swung his long legs to the floor, charged toward the window, yanked it open again, replaced the screen and returned to bed. “You want to suffocate me!”
It was dark now. Harriet stood at the open window, staring at the sign across the street: SEASIDE RIDING ACADEMY. It was lit from above by three large lamps that poured down golden light like honey, attracting swarms of insects. Harriet scratched at her scalp through her coarse hairnet until her fingernails were flecked with blood. For a moment she inhaled the manure smell with pleasure, remembering the horses in the square in front of the Plaza. Unconsciously, she turned and stared at Saul. Seeing his half-naked body
“What?”
“He kept on saying, horsie, horsie. He wanted to go and see the horses.” Harriet covered her nose to protect herself from the repugnant smell. “Saul, I don’t want that baby running across the street by himself. He’ll get run over.”
“I’ve told him, Hattie. You’ve heard me tell him a hundred times. What should I do, lock him up?”
“Why can’t he play on the beach with Roger and the other children? Why does he have to cross the street? What does he want over there anyway?”
“He likes the horses.”
“What do you mean, he likes the horses? He’s only two. What does a baby know about horses?” Suddenly, hearing the pounding sound of the surf in the distance, Harriet exclaimed, “He’ll be trampled! He’ll be trampled! You’ve got to talk to him, Saul. You’ve got to talk to him again. Sternly, Saul. Not the way you usually do—not all sugar and honey and letting him do just as he pleases. No wonder he pays no attention. He knows you’ll let him have his way, no matter what he does. He knows he can wrap you around his little finger. You’ve got to be stern with him, Saul. You’ve got to forbid him once and for all to go near those horses. Then, if he still disobeys you, you’ve got to punish him.”
“All right, Hattie. All right,” Saul said. “I’ll have another little talk with him in the morning. Let’s go to sleep.”
Harriet watched her husband stretch his large hand toward the Baby Ben and pull out the alarm, which was permanently set for 6:15. Deliberately, she fixed her eyes on his pajama tops; deliberately, she avoided glancing at the firm flesh of his exposed buttocks and long, muscular legs. Nor did she dare wait to watch him roll onto his back, but seized The Good Earth and hurried into the bathroom.
Saul stood in front of the shaving mirror, whipping up the lather on his face, while Stephen amused himself by scrubbing out the toilet bowl with his father’s back-brush and flushing the toilet again and again. “Bad! Bad! Bad b.m.,” he said, slopping the water onto the floor tiles.
“Don’t do that, sweets.” Saul put down the toilet lid. “Sit down here and talk to daddy.” Stephen responded obediently, sliding his rump around the toilet lid in an exaggerated ritual, like a hen preparing to lay, until he finally settled. “Sweetiepie,” Saul said, picking up his razor, “you know, it’s very dangerous for little boys to cross the street alone; a car could hit you.”
“Car,” Stephen repeated with delight.
“Yes, you know.”
“Stephen drive?”
“Sure you can—when we go to the station,” Saul said, always delighted by his son’s interest in motoring. “But only if you promise not to cross the street alone. You understand?”
“Stephen drive?”
“I don’t want you running over there to see the horses by yourself, you understand? Horses can be even worse than cars. They don’t have any brains. They can’t see little boys under their feet. They can kick little boys and not even know it. Horses can hurt little boys.”
“Horsie,” Stephen said, jumping down off the toilet lid.
“Yes, yes. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Horsie,” he said, staring at the bald mound of dadda’s kneecap. Bald, like dadda’s head. Bald foot, bald knee, bald popo, bald head . . . but then a billion furs, like momma’s black fox in the other closet . . . Leg furs, thigh furs, ding-dong furs . . . bushy black ding-dong furs . . .
“I want you to promise me you won’t go near the horsies by yourself anymore.”
“Horsie,” Stephen said, staring, stretching all of him to reach, to touch, to pet dadda’s ding-dong.
“Damn it! Don’t do that! Can’t you see I’m shaving!”
Harriet called in from the bedroom, “What’s the matter, Saul?”
“Nothing.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. I just nicked my chin.”
“Stevie dear, come out of there and let daddy shave. Now, now, there’s nothing to cry about; daddy didn’t mean to shout.”
“Of course not, honey. You can stay and watch me shave.”
“Come on, angel, let’s go visit Clarry; your breakfast must be ready.” Harriet took Stephen by the hand and led him out of the bedroom. When she returned, Saul had finished shaving and was getting dressed. He already had his shoes and socks and garters and underwear on, and was putting on his shirt now: buttoning up the front, buttoning the cuffs, buttoning the button farther up the sleeve, turning up the collar in preparation for the tie.
“Goddamn it! There’s too much starch in this! Can’t you ever get it right?”
“I’m sorry, darling. I’ll tell her again.”
“If she’s too dumb to do it right, do it yourself!”
“Oh dear! Look at your chin,” Harriet commiserated, changing the subject. “It’s still bleeding.” The tiny piece of toilet paper Saul had applied to the cut was saturated with blood. “Let me change it for you,” she said, walking into the bathroom and returning with a fresh piece. “Just hold still a second, darling.” Gingerly, she began to pick at the used patch, her inch-long fingernails fluttering around Saul’s chin like the elytra of a firefly.
“Stop fussing at me, will you, Hattie!”
“How did the baby do it?” she asked, ignoring her husband’s request.
“Stop it, I said,” Saul ordered, jerking his chin away. “And let me get dressed,” he added as he folded his shirttails neatly over his crotch and tucked them in between his legs to keep the shirt from blousing.
“What did he do?”
“What did who do?” Saul asked impatiently, seizing his trousers and holding the left trouser leg in his left hand to keep it from losing its crease or gathering lint on the carpet, while he stepped into the right leg.
“Stevie.”
“Nothing.”
“But he must have done something to make you shout like that.”
“Like what?”
“Loud enough to make him cry.”
“I wasn’t shouting at him. I shouted because I cut myself.”
Harriet watched her husband step into the left trouser leg and check the arrangement of his shirttails. . . . It isn’t only neatness, she suddenly realized after five and a half years of watching Saul’s shirttail performance, it’s a means of self-defense . . . “But what did he do to make you cut yourself?” she persisted, watching him button his fly.
“Nothing,” he said and picked up his black leather belt off his chifforobe where he had neatly coiled it like a lariat the night before.
“But he must have done something.”
Saul picked up the beige summer tie he had laid out next to his belt the night before. “I said it was nothing.”
“Why are you being so mysterious, Saul?”
“Stop nagging, will you.” Saul folded the starched collar over his carefully knotted tie, and began to return his wallet and handkerchief and car key and business keys and lucky piece and loose change—all of which had been lined up like surgical instruments on top of his chifforobe the night before—to their habitual places in his various pockets.
“What’s the matter with you, Saul?” Harriet held up his jacket as high as her arms could stretch.
“What do you mean?” he asked, stooping slightly to put his long arms through the sleeves.
“Why won’t you tell me what he did?”
“Damn it, Hattie!” Saul exploded, whirling to face his wife. “I said it was nothing!”
“Well if it was nothing—”
“All right. All right! If you must know, he pinched my balls.”
“He what?” Harriet gasped.
“You heard me,” Saul said proudly, crossing to the door.
“Wait a minute. Don’t go down to breakfast yet.”
“I’m late.”
“But, Saul,” she pleaded, following him into the hall. “Saul—”
