On the Wing (19 page)

“Tonight's lodgings should be very interesting,” she said, speaking with the false coyness of one who has planted clues in what she has said and wants to be sure that her listener realizes that clues have been planted and can without too much effort be dug up.

“Fair Lady,” said I, pretty sure of myself and the clues, “if there be any dragons hassling you, I'm your knight, Sir Peter the Errant.”

I had guessed aright. The hotel loomed ahead. Of course, it would have been perfect if it had been a castle. It was not, though it had aspirations in that direction. It was wide and tall, and the lower floors were half-timbered, giving it the appearance of an Elizabethan inn enlarged beyond all regard for good proportion, with a bit of a castle stuck on top. It was one of the outposts of the Knight's Lodging chain, with a logo derived from—or (let's be frank despite the risk of a lawsuit) ripped off from—Picasso's drawing of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

We parked the Electro-Flyer in a dark corner of the garage just two long extension cords from an electrical outlet and trundled our rolling bags behind us to the entrance.

The entrance resembled the bridge over a moat. At the far side of the bridge stood a knight in shining armor. At our approach, he swung a massive oaken door open and said in an echoing, metallic voice that came from within his helmet, “Good e'en and welcome to the Knight's Lodging experience. It is a deep, rare, and much-anticipated pleasure to have you here. We hope your stay will be the stuff of legend.”

We advanced on the desk like Una and the Red Cross Knight.

The desk was staffed by a jester. He was dressed in motley and wearing a cap-and-bells.

“Ha-ha!” he said, by way of greeting. “What's this? A lady and her lapdog? Beauty and the beast?”

“Let us move on, milady,” I said to Albertine. “I suggest we find another hostelry.”

“Thank you, sir, that is most gracious—” the clerk went on, shifting now to the detached tone people use when they're delivering the patter they've been trained to deliver, the tone you hear in the telephone voice of tech support, but then he seemed to realize that he had heard me say something he didn't want me to say, caught himself, knit his brows, looked at me sideways, and asked me, with genuine concern: “Why?”

“Are you going to tell me that it is the Knight's Lodging policy for the desk jester to insult the paying customers?” I asked, in a low and confidential voice.

“Well, yes,” he said, whispering, in the same confidential mode, “it is—or—that is—it has been—and I have worked hard at it—playing the saucy jester, you know—impudent—exploiting his privileged position as the royal fool—but perhaps there has been a change in policy—perhaps you know something that I do not?”

How often does life open a door like that?

“Perhaps so,” I whispered, knitting my brows as he had. “Do you know how to calculate the surface area of a ring torus?”

“Methinks we have two jesters here,” he muttered, “where there is room for no more than one.” Then he turned toward Albertine and asked, in the politest possible manner, “May I help you, fair lady?”

“We have a reservation,” she whispered. “The name is Leroy.”

The jester flipped open an ancient-looking book and began running his finger along a page. This surprised and—for a moment—impressed me. I wondered whether it could really be that Knight's Lodging used quill and ink for their reservation records. I leaned over the elevated portion of the desk, as if to help the jester spot our name on the page, and I saw that the book was illuminated by the glow of a computer screen hidden from the view of the registering guest.

“It's a fake,” I whispered to Albertine. “He actually has a computer back there—”

“Sir,” said the jester, his tone suggesting that he might call the security knights and have me tossed from the lobby like a cantankerous drunk through the swinging doors of Ye Olde Medieval Saloon.

“Sorry,” I said, in a tone meant to suggest that I understood the value of illusion and that I really did regret having looked behind the curtain, lifted the veil, unscrewed the cover, and observed the operation of the springs and pulleys.

He cocked a skeptic's eyebrow at me and, turning away from me again, asked Albertine, “How are we spelling that?”

“S-O-R-R-Y,” she said, the darling.

The jester regarded her from under beetling brows.

“I'm with him,” she said with a shrug, as if it explained everything. “The name is Leroy, L-E-R-O-Y.”

The jester said, immediately, “I am unable to find L-E-R-O-Y.”

Albertine glanced quickly to either side of her, as if to ensure that she was not being observed, and then, beckoning with her raised forefinger, invited the jester to lean her way in order to achieve greater intimacy and confidentiality. He followed her lead, glancing from side to side, then leaning forward. I thought then, and I think now, that he was expecting a bribe, or a boon. “In that case, try Gaudet, G-A-U-D-E-T,” she whispered.

Clearly disappointed, the jester flipped the pages of the book theatrically while manipulating the hidden keyboard with his other hand. I could see that his eyes were on the glowing screen, not on the book. After a moment, he announced, triumphantly, “There is nothing in my book!”

“Is there a room available?” asked Albertine.

“Oh, yes. We have many rooms available.”

“Well, we'd like one.”

“King, Queen, Knight, Lady, or” —a sneer flicked across his lips and wrinkled his nose— “Jester?”

“Knight and Lady,” I said, disdaining to add, “of course.”

“Sir Peter the Errant,” Albertine said with a nod in my direction.

“And Lady Honey-Bunchy-Wunchy,” I said with a nod in hers.

“Varlet!” the lackey cried.

A varlet scrambled forward at once and attempted to wrestle our luggage away from me. While we were struggling, the jester began shouting, “Stop that! Let go of those bags!” I assumed at first that he was telling the varlet to stop harassing the paying customers, but he ran around from behind the desk and laid hands on me in a way that made it clear that he thought I was the one at fault. “Will you let the poor varlet take your bags to your room, please?”

“I don't need help,” I said.

“But he needs the money, you cheap fucking bastard!” the jester shouted—and then he caught himself. He stood stock-still for a moment, staring me in the eye. Then he swallowed hard and said, in his jester's voice, “I mean, you misbegotten whoreson knave.”

I looked at the varlet. He was sniveling. He seemed more shrunken than he had when we'd been struggling over the luggage. I could imagine a starving family back at home, waiting for the scraps he stole from the kitchen. I felt like a misbegotten whoreson knave. I let go of the bags. I fumbled for my wallet, and I gave the varlet the first bill I pulled from it, from the back, where I keep the larger bills. “Sorry,” I said, and I meant it.

I heard Albertine say to the jester, “May I ask why you're putting us through all this?”

“Oh, it's part of the Knight's Lodging experience,” he said, “some of it—but I went a little overboard.” He hung his head, and his bells jangled disconsolately. “I—I guess—if you get right down to it, I was making a pathetic attempt to salvage some dignity from a wasted life.”

“Oh,” said Albertine.

“Huh?” said I.

“There was something about you two—the moment you walked through the door—something that made me treasure the role I play here as I have never treasured it before. Please don't take offense at this,” he said, turning to me, “but I think it was because I saw in you another like myself, a jester, a fellow fool, if you like.”

I didn't care to reply to that. I regarded him quizzically, as if I didn't have the slightest idea what he might be talking about.

“I had the feeling that you were going to try some kind of funny business. Maybe you were going to try to obtain lodging under false pretenses, or perhaps perpetrate some fraud, bilk the guests in some way, steal the silverware, something like that, or—and this is what sent the chills through me—that you were going to audition for my position. I thought—I feared—that you might have come here to replace me. I thought that you were going to take from me the only thing I have, the only thing that is left to me from a lifetime of striving and failing—my status as a fool.”

“Well,” I said, with the disarming shrug and grin of a guy who has an uncanny knack for saying just the thing to brighten the mood in a room, “I am a card-carrying member of the Jesters' Guild, one of the ancient guilds established to prevent the mysteries of the craft from falling into the wrong hands.”

“Please,” he said, “don't try to make light of this. The time for jesting is past. I'm baring my soul to you here. Have a little respect.”

“Um, sure,” I muttered. “Of course.”

“I don't know why,” he went on, resuming his soul-baring, and examining my face at the same time, “but there is something about you that reminds me of someone, someone who played a powerful part in my life.”

I stood a little taller.

“He made me what I am today—a fool, a franchise jester, a clown, a buffoon.”

I stood a little less tall.

“It began when I was a kid. I grew up here, in the town down the road. The family house is still there, though—well—I don't live there. I haven't gone anywhere. I'm still stuck in the same town, though I once imagined that I would go everywhere. You see, I had dreams—dreams of flying.”

“Ah, yes,” I said sympathetically.

“When I was a boy, another boy, a boy about my age, came into town one summer evening on an outlandish kind of airplane, a motorcycle with wings.”

“What?” I said, surprised and thrilled.

“I was in awe immediately. It was awe at first sight. I don't mind admitting it. I was in awe—but there was something else, too. I was inspired.”

“Wow,” I said. “This is just amazing—”

“Seeing that kid, just seeing him on that amazing contraption, made me think that life was full of possibilities, and not just life in general, or somebody's life, or that boy's life, but my life.”

My heart was racing.

“May I ask you something?” I said.

“Peter—” said Albertine, counseling caution.

“I just have to ask this one thing.” I turned to the jester. “Did you actually see this contraption fly?”

“Did I see it fly?”

“That's what I'm asking.”

“Of course I saw it fly. It was a beautiful machine, and it flew like a dream.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sorry for the interruption. Please go on.”

If I had caught sight of myself in a mirror at that moment, I know what expression I would have seen. I've seen it on my face before. It's the look of one who possesses secret, and satisfying, information.

“That boy brought with him, when he flew into town, a great gift.”

Pride swelled my breast. What a noble little lad I had been.

“The gift, the gift that he brought me, as if it was a gift for me alone, was a license to dream, and to dream big.”

“Gosh,” I said, reverting to the lingo of my boyhood. “I can't tell you how much it means—”

“I never thanked him for that gift,” he continued. “I never even spoke to him, because I was too much in awe of him, but when he flew out of town I waved goodbye and I whispered my thanks to him.”

If my grandmother had been there she would have told me that I looked like the cat that swallowed the canary. I was grinning from ear to ear. In another moment, I would reveal my identity, and—

“Now, of course, so many years later, I curse the day when that boy flew into town and made me dream!”

“What?” I said. “What did you say?”

“He ruined my life, the little bastard. I could have been a contented man today, living a little life, with a sweet little wife, in the little town where I grew up, just down the road—but no—no—I had to dream—I had to reach for something bigger—I had to go chasing the dream of flight.”

“It's getting late,” I said with an elaborate yawn. “You're looking tired, Al. Maybe we should go to our room.”

“Please, please don't go,” he said, grasping Albertine's hands. “I see that you have a sympathetic soul. We fools have our faculties, you know. In my case it's a talent for sympathy, and I can see that you have it, too. Please hear me out. Please suffer this fool.”

“Gladly,” she said, drawing him to her and wrapping her arms around him.

“What do you say we get a drink?” I suggested.

“I can't leave my post,” he said. “It would cost me my job.”

“You can go if you like, Peter,” said Albertine.

“Oh, no, no,” I said. “I'll stay.” To the jester I said, “I have a sympathetic soul, too. Ask Al. She'll tell you. Many people say that I—”

“Go on,” she urged the jester, with deep compassion.

He released a long sigh, shaking his head, jingling his bells, and said, “In the years that followed, while I was finishing high school, I kept the example of that boy in my mind, as a reminder of what I could do if I put my mind to it, if I stuck to the job at hand, if I didn't ever lose sight of my dream, and I tried to build a plane.”

“Oh, no,” said Albertine. I could see the tears welling up in her eyes.

“Not an easy thing to do,” I said, as one who knows.

“I bought plans,” he said. He was beginning to sniffle. “I bought supplies and tools. I bought parts. I worked after school and weekends to earn the money, and then I worked at night, in my family's garage, trying to build the thing. I gave that plane everything I had. I had no girlfriend, no pet, no spending money, no friends. I gave myself entirely to my pursuit—my fool's errand.” He looked at Albertine. Tears were running down his cheeks. “And I failed,” he said.