A Fan's Notes (47 page)

Every Wednesday or Thursday I received the post card and the package containing the latest masterpiece of Ayn Rand, Sloan Wilson, Grace Metalious, the Irvings—Wallace and Stone—and what must have been the works of every writer in the Grove Press stable. No matter how much I protested his generosity to Bumpy, or told him if he had to send something I
’
d much prefer mysteries, he wouldn
’
t hear of it, explaining that,
“
Wanting to be a writer and all, you should read good stuff—maybe you
’
ll learn somethin
’
! If only how to dive in the bush! Har! Har! Har!
”

Weekends in the bars Bumpy introduced me to bartenders and acquaintances with the pride of a lecherous octogenarian presenting a young and ravishing bride. He
’
d beam salaciously.
“
This here
’
s my brother-in-law. He
’
s a writer! There ain
’
t nothin
’
he don
’
t know!
”
Soon I understood that, though I wasn
’
t expected to volunteer mots, with the wisdom of eternal woman I was expected to arbitrate barroom disputes and have at my fingertips such esoteric information as what Yankee pitcher
’
s World Series no-hitter had been under mined by the Dodgers
’
Cookie Lavagetto, the populations of pre-and post-World War II Warsaw, and the number of is lands comprising the Republic of Indonesia. During a lull in the conversation, Bumpy once called me into the floodlighted downstage area.
“
Tell these swine that line about Minerva,
”
he said.
“
Now, listen here, Bumpy,
”
I said; but before I could prevent him, he was priming the audience for the showstopper, explaining how Minerva was in the
“
bughouse
”
and how Scott Fitzgerald,
“
you know, the writer,
”
wrote this
“
gol dang great line
”
in a letter.
“
Now, tell them,
”
he ordered. My face red, my eyes cast downward, I obediently mumbled the words for fear of being taken for a damp-souled, unaccommodating chap.
“
That ain
’
t the way he usually says it!
”
Bumpy excoriated me to my audience. In the station wagon going to the next bar, I said,
“
Bumpy, you
’
ve got to stop this nonsense about my being a writer and making me repeat that Fitzgerald line. In the first place, I
’
ve never had anything published. In the second place, it
’
s embarrassing as hell. I mean, I suppose every one of those guys has heard that line before.
”
I wanted to add,
“
Everyone
’
s not as finger-lickin
’
uncouth as you.
”
“
You
’
re absolutely right,
”
Bumpy agreed, but his agreement had nothing to do with anything I
’
d just said.
“
Lines like that are just wasted on swine like those guys. They
’
re not like us—
sensitive and all
.
”

For the most part Bumpy demanded nothing of me save that like a young bride I sit at the bar, obediently sip my drink, look pleasingly discerning and attractive, and exude intimations of possessing recondite sexual expertise. Fortunately for me, Bumpy had no capacity for not upstaging all the bit players, including myself, with whom he came in contact. Ludicrously attired in a straw boater, a red suede vest making his stomach look like a rubescent mosquito
’
s ripe for bursting, his faded and frayed Levi
’
s, and a pair of glossy paratrooper boots, on entering a place he would make a direct, nearly maniacal line for the biggest assemblage of talkers at the bar, an assemblage that on spotting him seemed to shrivel visibly, to grow troubled and wan, to exude an unmistakable aura of sniffing recoil. To all of which reaction I invariably smiled. Young advertising men and bond salesmen, they were in their twenties and thirties, some in their forties; they wore Paul Stuart or J. Press jackets and bow ties; they puffed suavely at cigars or pipes; they sipped their scotch with a kind of Old World sang-froid; they saw themselves as the kind of tweedy squires to whom the advertisements of The New Yorker and Esquire are directed—ironically, they saw themselves as having the kind of money Bumpy had, not realizing that that kind of money gave Bumpy immunity from having to dress like them. Bumpy approached them forthrightly. With a furious flick of his fingers, he undid their bow ties. He gave them unsignaled,
“
playful
”
punches on their arms. He cuffed them
“
affectionately
”
on the back of the head. To those sitting on barstools facing him, their legs propped up and slightly spread, he reached up near the groin and ferociously gave them
“
chummy
”
little pinches on the inner thigh that drained the blood from their faces. Ordering drinks from the bar tender, Bumpy bellowed,
“
Give us a drink here, you ape!
”
and thereupon disdainfully threw a fifty-dollar bill on the bar. Without the least heed to what their previous conversation might have been, Bumpy immediately began telling the dreadful jokes he had
“
stored up
”
for me during the week.

“
There was this farmer, see, whose wife couldn
’
t pop her nuts! Har! Har! Har!
”
Frothing at the mouth, his forehead glistening with sweat, tears of laughter streaming down his feverish cheeks, he disintegrated into a state of sickening and hysterical ribaldry, his obscene clucking denigrating his words into meaninglessness. Watching him, most of the men became salaciously hysterical themselves, as though caught up in a tornado of monstrous smut. Some few of the men sat defensively, like shrilly priggish women, forcing sickly smiles, and priming themselves to be ready to ward off Bumpy
’
s unexpected punches, cuffs, and pinches, which continued to come even as he told his stories. These were the men I watched, the ones who gave my afternoons a kind of perverse pleasure. It was obvious they wanted to knock Bumpy down, but they never did. Why I don
’
t know—one good blow to the belly would have been all that was required. Certainly part of their restraint was due to their nauseating deference to Bumpy
’
s money, part to the reputation with which Bumpy had surrounded himself, that of a
“
tiger.
”
Beneath his wooden jollity, Bumpy was consuming himself with hate; and for one so seemingly self-conscious, so oppressively inward, so apparently aware of nothing outside his own filthy tongue, Bumpy had an acute, nearly pathological insight into the temperature of all those about him. Just before the temperature reached the boiling point, Bumpy struck. Just at the moment one of the more courageous of their number was about to call him or challenge him for one of his vicious pinches, unexpectedly, violently, fist doubled, the weight of his obese body entirely committed to the blow, Bumpy struck the man in the face. Standing over the prone and bleeding figure, Bumpy would focus on him with his finger and say,
“
Next time, you pisspot, I
’
ll shoot you fucking dead.
”
Belly out, he
’
d make a hard-charging, theatrical exit. He hated all of them, but not nearly as much as he yearned to be hated by them. Within twenty minutes of one of these episodes, he would have hit the brakes, pulled to the side of the highway, and grabbed his thirty-aught-thirty. Under the impact of that weapon
’
s shell, a cat so disintegrates that state police can
’
t find the evidence to convict one. Watching him smile to himself after this, I could see that he reserved for himself some irony I couldn
’
t comprehend. It was at these times, watching him so full of hate and smiling that sneering, inner-directed smile, that he looked absolutely brilliant, a creature of world-shaking capacities. It was at these times that I knew Bumpy had a good deal more intelligence than one supposed.

What Patience and Prudence did in the sumptuously furnished fifteen other rooms while Bumpy and I were embarked on our Saturnalian outings is easy to imagine: Prudence talked and Patience listened. Older than Patience by a year, Prudence was a three-child version of my wife, hippy, hard-used, and looking ten years older. The same lovely roan hair, Prudence
’
s was always dim and lank with poor care; where Patience
’
s mouth was full, inviting, and quick to smile, Prudence
’
s had defined itself into a perpetually severe and unappetizing slash; where my wife
’
s eyes were limpid green, calm, and friendly, Prudence
’
s had become crow
’
s-footed, directed inward, and charged with bile. Though she hadn
’
t had a child in four years, Sams
’
ages being seven, six, and four, she always seemed puffy and brimming with the fluids of a pregnant woman, a flatulence that had me always accusing her to Patience of being a
“
closet
”
drinker.
“
If I ever saw one!
”
I
’
d emphasize. So often and so vehemently did Patience deny this that she grew weary of doing so and one day, with no little exasperation, said,
“
I don
’
t give a damn if she drinks a gallon a day, do you?
”
Embarrassed by my obvious stridence in behalf of false accusations, I said,
“
No, I suppose not. But she
’
s so suffocatingly high and mighty, I
’
d like to boot her in the
ass!
”

My affection was reciprocated. Dear Prudence loathed me with something like genius. Except for the slight influence she always had had and still had on Patience, I didn
’
t much care. Bumpy
’
s basement daybed was more utilitarian than decorative, there was something gravely wrong with his marriage to Prudence, and she was blindly spitting the hurt of that wrong in all directions. Twice on coming unexpectedly into a room I overheard Prudence admonitorily advising Patience that once I got my life
“
straightened out,
”
some moneys due her from an estate would be forthcoming. It was in this way I first learned that because of me Patience was being denied access to her own money, presumably quite a bit. Everything that Prudence said to me was filled with the venom of her own disappointments. With Bumpy she had staked her happiness on trappings; now that she had the three cars, the fifteen rooms, the mink, the nurse, the maid, the cook, she knew they weren
’
t enough; and yet, such is the dangerous vindictiveness of unhappy mentalities, she loathed anyone for being presumptuous enough to dare hope for anything other than the grief she had given herself. With a hate out of all pro portion to the subject at hand, she one Sunday morning identified Thoreau as the most
“
despicable, loathsome, self-centered, and phony man I ever heard of.
”

Unlike Bumpy and Patience, Prudence saw through my literary pretensions. Each weekend she asked,
“
How
’
s the book coming?
”
in a tone of such contemptuous mockery that I suspected she had sneaked into our apartment and found the labeled envelopes stuffed with the blank pages; immediately following this savage query with one about my
“
job prospects.
”
“
Patience and I,
”
she said, as Patience sat shaking her head that it wasn
’
t true,
“
have had a long talk and have decided that it
’
d be better if you had something to occupy your mind during the day. You could write evenings and week ends.
”
“
What I
’
d suggest, dear sister-in-law,
”
I said,
“
is that you occupy your own mind with your own marriage.
”
“
Now, now,
”
Patience said, clucking reprovingly at me.
“
That
’
s telling her!
”
Bumpy said to me. Looking hatefully at Prudence, he added,
“
And knock off that stuff about Thoreau! Talk about somethin
’
somebody understands!
”
“
What
’
s that?
”
Prudence asked, and there is no need to indicate how she added,
“
Grilled-cheese sandwiches and beer?
”
“
Up your ass!
”
Bumpy said, to which the oldest daughter, the stunning and innocent Sam, broke into tears and ran from the room. Once when I was in the next room, I heard Prudence say,
“
Surely he can get a job on a newspaper in the city,
”
the smug tone of her voice indicating that, unlike Bumpy who was up to such high and enduring stuff
“
downtown,
”
any stumblebum could do that. Laughing, and unable to let the moment go by, I charged into the room, suavely announced,
“
Tomorrow, my dear Prudence, I
’
m going down to the New York Times and offer myself as editor of their book section,
”
and smiled with the self-relish of a man who was certain his background as managing editor of
The Rocket
, as dipsomaniac, and as lunatic who had undergone both insulin-and electroshock treatments eminently qualified him for the job. Prudence outdid herself: her eyes corruscated with flaming, unadulterated venom.

Driving home that night, I said,
“
I guess we
’
ll have to stop going there.
”
“
Don
’
t pay any attention to her,
”
Patience said, add
ing,
“
Frankly, I think Bumpy
’
d die if you ever stopped going
up there. I
’
m not in the least kidding when I say you
’
re probably the only friend he ever had. And, let
’
s face it, Prudence doesn
’
t have anyone to talk with save me.
”
As things turned out, we were to stop going there anyway. In a contest between