And Yet... (24 page)

Matters are hardly improved on the lower slopes, which feature a somewhat grotesque combination of plump thighs and skinny shins, the arduous descent culminating in feet which are at once much too short and a good deal too chunky. This combination, of ratlike claws and pachydermatous-size insteps, causes the subject to be very cautious about where, and indeed when, he takes off his shoes. There have been unconfirmed reports of popular protest whenever and wherever he does this. Nor do his hands, at the same time very small and very puffy, give any support to the view that the human species does not have a common ancestor with the less advanced species of ape. The nails on the hands are gnawed, and the nails on the feet are clawlike and beginning to curl in a Howard Hughes fashion (perhaps because the subject displays such a marked reluctance to involve himself in any activity that may involve bending).

Viewed from the front when clothed, the subject resembles a burst horsehair sofa cushion or (in the opinion of one of us) a condom hastily
stuffed with an old sock. The side perspective is that of an avocado pear and, on certain mornings, an avocado pear that retains nothing of nutritious value but its tinge of alligator green. (N.B.: The bumps and scales of this famous delicacy are sometimes visible and palpable as well.) Of the rear view, all that need be said is that it conforms to the preceding, though with considerably less excuse as well as with mercifully less fur. Seen from directly above, the subject has a little more protective cover than some males of his age, but this threatens to become a pile of tobacco-colored strands clumsily coated onto an admittedly large skull. At all times, the subject gives off a scent that resembles that of an illegal assembly, either of people or of materials, in the hog wallows of Tennessee or in the more remote and primitive islands of Scotland. He becomes defensive, and sometimes aggressive, when asked about the source of this effluvium. It is considered by me, and by the rest of this committee, and by the subject's few remaining friends and surviving family, a medical mystery that he can still perform what he persists in referring to as his “job.”

Well, I mean to say, I don't consider myself especially vain, but it was something of a shocker and a facer to read all that at once. I'd noticed a touch of decline here and there, but one puts these things down to Anno Domini and the acquirement of seniority. A bit of a stomach gives a chap a position in society. A glass of refreshment, in my view, never hurt anybody. This walking business is overrated: I mastered the art of doing it when I was quite small, and in any case, what are taxis for? Smoking is a vice, I will admit, but one has to have a hobby. Nonetheless, when my friends at this magazine formed up and said they would pay good money to stop having to look at me in my current shape, I agreed to a course of rehabilitation. There now exists a whole micro-economy dedicated to the proposition that a makeover is feasible, or in other words to disprove Scott Fitzgerald's dictum that there are no second acts in American lives. Objectives:
to drop down from the current 185 pounds, to improve the “tone” of the skin and muscles, to wheeze less, to enhance the hunched and round-shouldered posture, to give some thought to the hair and fur questions (more emphasis perhaps in the right places and less in the wrong ones), to sharpen up the tailoring, to lessen the booze intake, and to make the smile, which currently looks like a handful of mixed nuts, a little less scary to children.

•  •  •

Step one was for me to be dispatched to a spa. We chose one of the very best: the Four Seasons Biltmore resort, in Santa Barbara, California. Air like wine, gorgeous beaches, lush vegetation, and a legendary hotel with the nicest staff imaginable. The friendly people at the fitness clinic took one look at me and decided, first, on the “Executive Distress Treatment.” At least, that's what my disordered senses told me they had recommended. However, it turned out to be the Executive De-Stress Treatment, during which I was massaged with hot stones all along my neck and back by a young lady who didn't turn a hair when she got to step two, which was “reflexology” applied to my leprous and scaly upper and lower paws. I can't give you a very comprehensive account of this, because it had the effect of making me fall into a refreshing sleep. I woke briefly from blissful repose to find a new female face taking the second shift, which was a Gentlemen's Facial, involving hot towels enveloping the features, followed by a treatment with “non-perfumed and non-greasy lotions.” Off I went again to sleep, and came round to find myself alone, like a pink salmon on a slab, with “Greensleeves” playing softly on the stereo. I'm bound to say I don't usually wake up feeling this good.

I should then, of course, have discovered that I was locked in and that my evening meal of oatmeal, prunes, and mineral water would shortly be served. But no, I was free to go. Now, I don't know about you, but with me a feeling of fitness and well-being always lends extra zest to the cocktail hour. And what's a cocktail without a smoke? And what else gives you a better appetite for dinner? The Bella Vista
restaurant at the Biltmore is justly renowned, and I thought that perhaps if I tried the tasting menu Chef Martin Frost had prepared for me, with just a little morsel for each course . . . And a meal without wine is like a day without sunshine, as they say in France. And so the long night wore on agreeably enough.

In the morning, none too early, I descended to the beach to begin my program of yoga stretching. It was not thought advisable that I do this by myself—muscles become like mussels at my stage of life, and if not stretched carefully will either lose their elasticity or else snap with a sudden “pop” that I have already once, and disconcertingly, heard as I made the mistake of running for the phone. (Why did I do that?) I thus had the exhausting experience of watching my yoga instructor, the divine Madeline McCuskey, as she showed me the moves. Even regarding her in this way was a workout of a kind. Not to be outdone by some tempestuous and tawny Californian, I attempted to balance and extend myself in the same way, only to find that I was seized by the sensation that I might die or go mad at any moment.

I was soon back at the spa, this time for a more rigorous detoxifying experience. A different young lady painted me a more delicate shade of green than my usual coloring in the a.m. and then slowly wrapped me in foil and linen. This was less like being a salmon on a slab, more like being a steamed Chilean sea bass in the hands of a capable sous chef. I was told, as the heat built up in the seaweed, that the natural green came from marine algae that were very rich in nutrients and that the coating would “draw toxins” out of my system, as well as revitalize my muscles and generally relieve tension. This time I stayed awake, felt my pores opening all right and even briefly heard them screaming, suppressed the feeling that I was about to be garnished, or served on a bed of arugula with a lemon wedge in my mouth, and realized that it had been quite a long time since I had had a smoke or a drink. This was surely progress in itself! A greatly daring session on the treadmill and with the weights was to follow, and by the time that was over I felt that I had really earned my lunch, into which I tucked with a gusto of browsing and sluicing that still
had a vague feeling of conscience lurking behind it. I then punished myself by booking an eighty-minute Fitness Scrub and Massage, this time to be administered by a grown man, where I was pitilessly raked with almond meal and subsequently endured a serious pummeling and probing that identified my sloped and hunched shoulders as the main source of my generally sorry posture.

The trouble with bad habits is that they are mutually reinforcing. And, just as a bank won't lend you money unless you are too rich to need it, exercise is a pastime only for those who are already slender and physically fit. It just isn't so much fun when you have a marked tendency to wheeze and throw up, and a cannonball of a belly sloshing around inside the baggy garments. In my case, most of my bad habits are connected with the only way I know to make a living. In order to keep reading and writing, I need the junky energy that scotch can provide, and the intense short-term concentration that nicotine can help supply. To be crouched over a book or a keyboard, with these conditions of mingled reverie and alertness, is my highest happiness. (Upon having visited the doctor, Jean-Paul Sartre was offered the following alternative: give up cigarettes and carry on into a quiet old age and a normal death, or keep smoking and have his toes cut off. Then his feet. Then his legs. Assessing his prospects, Sartre told Simone de Beauvoir he “wanted to think it over.” He actually did retire his gaspers, but only briefly. Later that year, asked to name the most important thing in his life, he replied, “Everything. Living. Smoking.”)

Thus I soon evolved a routine at the Biltmore. A facial, followed by a cocktail and a well-chosen lunch, succeeded by a nap, followed by a brief workout, followed by a massage or wrap, some reading and writing, and then a thoughtfully selected dinner. The rooms and public areas didn't permit smoking, but room service was able to reach my ashtray-furnished patio with creditable speed. I suppose one could easily enough add seaweed and algae and mud (and, on one occasion, another tincture of green in the shape of an Avocado-Citrus Body Wrap, which at least gave me a new and better way of looking like an overripe pear) to one's list of regular addictions. It would be
like going to confession in between an exhausting program of sins. You will be glad to hear, however, that I high-mindedly declined the Chardonnay-Clay Body Wrap: it savored too much of yet another method of taking in booze, through the pores. Instead, I opted for a punishing session on the Biltmore's immaculate croquet lawn. As the dolphins and seals gamboled off the beach, and as Chef Frost wielded his skillet with never diminishing brilliance, I felt that I could be very content to go on leading this life, but that each detox only sharpened the appetite for further treats, and that, all things considered, I couldn't afford the weight gain. I also had to admit what I have long secretly known, which is that I positively like stress, arrange to inflict it on myself, and sheer awkwardly away from anybody who tries to promise me a more soothed or relaxed existence. Bad habits have brought me this far: why change such a tried-and-true formula?

I also take the view that it's a mistake to try to look younger than one is, and that the face in particular ought to be the register of a properly lived life. I don't want to look as if I have been piloting the Concorde without a windshield, and I can't imagine whom I would be fooling if I did. However, this did leave the kippered lungs and the grisly teeth, and the liver and various other viscera, leading a life of their own in a kind of balloon that annoyingly preceded me into the dining room. Who was to be boss here? Was it worth getting any new clothes until this question of mastery had been decided? If the war with my outer carapace was to be won, and I was to remain a decisive minister of the interior whose orders could expect to be obeyed, it was clear that the struggle would have to be carried to a new and higher level.

(
Vanity Fair
, October 2007)

Vice and Versa

I
N MY SQUANDERED
youth I was a friend of Ian Hamilton, the biographer of Robert Lowell and J. D. Salinger and a justly renowned figure in London's bohemia. His literary magazine the
New Review
was published from a barstool in a Soho pub called the Pillars of Hercules, and editorial meetings would commence promptly at opening time. One day, there came through the door a failed poet with an equally heroic reputation for dissipation. To Ian's undisguised surprise, he declined the offer of a hand-steadying cocktail. “No,” he announced dramatically. “I just don't want to do it anymore. I don't like having blackouts and waking up on rubbish dumps. I don't like having no money and no friends, smelling bad and throwing up randomly. I don't like wetting myself and getting impotent.” His voice rising and cracking slightly, he concluded by avowing that he also didn't like being repellently fat, getting the shakes and amnesia, losing his teeth and gums, and suffering from premature baldness. A brief and significant silence followed this display of unmanly emotion.
Then Ian, fixing him with a stern look, responded evenly by saying, “Well, none of us likes it.”

For a long time, I was a member of the Hamilton faction. (After all, is one a man or a mouse?) But Ian is gone now, and well before his time, too. His example was in my mind when I embarked on a course of treatment to see if I could become, as it were, born again. T. S. Eliot's Prufrock measured out his life in coffee spoons; I sometimes wish I could say the same, but the truth is that the calibrations have been somewhat more toxic, and that caffeine has been the least of it. They say that you can tell a lot about an animal by examining its teeth. Please look, if you can, at the “before” picture of my dentition.