The Last of the Savages (34 page)

“Don’t worry,” I said, steering her away from the larger disaster outside. “We’ll figure it out.”

Will’s obstreperous behavior carried over into the rehearsal dinner. If the Colchesters had been as stuffy as I sometimes suspected, they would have called off the wedding that night. I’d seated Will at the second table facing away from Aaron and Taleesha, but this precaution proved inadequate. Halfway through the roast beef Aaron tapped his glass and made an amusing speech about what a geek I was at Yale. Then Charlie Colchester, the failed candidate for best man, described in clever detail the weaknesses of my tennis game. As the dinner plates were being cleared—just when it seemed I might be spared the ordeal—Will rose up like Banquo’s ghost. I’d wanted to slide gracefully into my new life, and I was still secretly afraid that my qualifications for marrying Stacey Colchester would be called into question at the last minute. Standing up uncertainly, Will banged with a spoon on the bottle of Russian vodka which he was holding by the neck. “My name is Will Savage,” he began, “of Memphis, Tennessee, and it is my distinct honor to be present at these …
nuptials.
” He paused, looking puzzled, as if he’d forgotten the rest. “And I would just like to say …” Again he paused, his features blurry, though he now seemed to be gathering his wits. And I was alarmed by the expression that settled on him then. I had seen it before, that look of diabolical resolution. “I’d just like to say that Patrick is a good man, damn good man. Lucky to get him, even if he doesn’t know it.”

For a blessed moment I thought this might be the end of his speech; he bent from the waist toward his seat—but only to put down his bottle. Righting himself, he scanned the dozen or so tables, and resumed. “Patrick is of Irish descent, as you may know. Not so very long ago, his people were spat on when they arrived in this city. Spat on, I might add, by the very kind of Anglo-Saxon bastards that drove them out of Ireland in the goddamn first place.”

He retrieved his vodka and took a long swallow, then examined his audience. “Greeted by signs that said
NO IRISH NEED APPLY
and such. Treated much the same as the supposedly free slaves in the land of my own birth after the War between the, uh, States. We said they were too passionate, and unruly, too childlike in their emotions, too fond of
music and drink and revelry. Ah, yes, sounds familiar. And yet, here we are today. Here
you
are.”

Paralyzed by his performance, I sat there dying a slow death like the ice sculpture at the buffet table.

“Patrick Keane marrying Stacey Colchester with the blessing of the …
plutocracy.
” He winked, as if to congratulate himself on his vocabulary. “Almost makes you proud to be an American,” he said, sounding anything but proud. “It makes me proud of Patrick. Smart as hell, old Pat. Worked hard. Studied hard. Doesn’t smoke or drink or dance the hoochie-coo. Well, not hardly. Not for an Irishman. Brushed his teeth after meals, between meals. Whatever. And he stands here on the threshold of his own American dream. I wouldn’t touch it with a fucking barge pole my own self. But Patrick, he’s my man …”

Again he seemed lost, staring out into the crowd. Then he turned to me and smiled. “And I want him to be happy. Clutch him to your stony bosoms. Like I said, you’re lucky to have him. Stacey, be good to him. He has a sweet disposition and a heart that’s large and stretchy. Big enough for all of y’all … and even, I hope—for me.”

Will sat down with the slow ceremony of the corpulent drunk, beaming at me as if the stunned silence were a tribute to his oratory. Stacey kicked me under the table, and when I finally dared to look at her I saw in her face the steely determination of her father. In this, our first crisis, I realized she was not quite the pliable helpmeet I had imagined her to be.

If Will was right that my affections were plastic enough to accommodate widely divergent objects, they had seldom felt so thinly stretched as at that moment when I was furious both with Will and with these unimaginative citizens who would judge him, who’d never seen him at his mesmerizing best. In fact I wondered if I had not reached a point in my life when I would have to choose between the twain. After my wedding it was a long time before I cared to see Will again.

Following Will’s performance, Lollie Baker cantered to the rescue with a speech casting herself as the groom’s first flame and ardent pursuer, the groom as a paragon of virtue. “We southern women,” she concluded, after entertaining the company with bowdlerized versions of our adventures, “pride ourselves on our wiles and our charms and even our
guerrilla tactics. But like Robert E. Lee before me, I have to admit defeat. Congratulations, Stacey. Now that you’ve retired from the field, I hope you’ll give me a few tips on strategy.” It seemed to me that Lollie was salvaging not only my honor but that of her homeland; her little speech nearly cleared the air of the lingering stench of Will’s. And given her recent success, the very fact that I knew Lollie was seen as a credit to me.

After we rose from the table, Taleesha immediately pulled me aside. I was more than happy to avoid, if only for a few minutes, the impending private conference with my betrothed. In fact I gladly would have postponed speaking to anyone on the bride’s side for several years.

Taleesha looked as distraught as I felt. “I’m sorry, Patrick.”

I assured her it was not her fault. Will had been my friend before he was her husband. I asked about the fight on the lawn.

“Will took a swing at Aaron, luckily he didn’t really connect.”

“He was just saving his
big
punch for me.”

“Patrick, I don’t know what to do,” she confided.

“What are your choices,” I asked, avoiding Stacey’s impatient wave.

“He needs me,” she said.

Aaron joined us then, and our private parley ended. I was left to face my fiancée and her family.

Brides and grooms imagine that the dull ceremony which codifies their cooling romance is the main event, when, in fact, off in the coat closets and the bathrooms and out behind the elm trees the real drama takes place. My aunt Colleen, who had recently lost her own son, sobbed so loudly during the wedding ceremony that my father had to escort her outside. Stacey’s thirteen-year-old nephew Brent was discovered in the boat house engaged in an imminent act of incest with his cousin Leanne. Returning from Bermuda, I learned that Will and Taleesha had slipped away from the wedding together and flown off to Mustique.

I
didn’t see Will again until he came to New York nearly two years later. By then, he and Taleesha were living in Santa Monica and Stacey was pregnant. I chose to attribute her bad mood to that fact; she was appalled that I was going out to dinner with Will. “After that awful speech he made at our wedding.” I finally had to explain that it was business, which was only partly true.

Will had agreed to meet me at the Quilted Giraffe at nine-thirty. By the time he showed up at ten-forty I was nursing my third scotch. Draped in black, gargantuan in girth, he walked unsteadily toward the table, escorted by a nervous maître d’.

“Good thing for you I’m not billing these hours,” I said.

I don’t think he heard me. He hugged me, his face slick with sweat, then lit a cigarette and ordered a double vodka. When the drink arrived he used it to wash down a fistful of pills.

“Dont worry, Pat. Just vitamins.” He winked.

When I inquired, he told me that business was terrific, and for the first time I didn’t believe him. He protested too much. And I detected a lesion of his old self-assurance. Ordering a second vodka, he informed the waiter that he was a vegetarian, but it hardly mattered since he ignored
the food when it arrived, and I could only wonder how he had managed to get so big.

When I asked about Taleesha, he fell silent and puffed away at his cigarette. “We lost one,” he said.

“Lost what?”

“She had a miscarriage.”

“God, Will. I don’t know what to say.”

“Just as well,” he said gruffly. “I’m not sure I particularly want to continue the bloodline.”

By now he’d had several drinks. “Can you imagine how fucked up my kid would be,” he asked, loudly enough to draw the attention of nearby diners. When he lit up a joint, the waiter very politely asked us to leave, but Will ignored him. The manager was somewhat less polite.

“Come hear some music,” he said, when we were out on the sidewalk, his hand seizing my biceps like a bear trap. “Iggy’s playing downtown.” His driver came around and opened the door of the Rolls.

“Will, I can’t afford to get busted, and Stacey’s home vomiting,” I snapped, regretting it immediately. Feeling guilty about our reproductive success, I added, “Okay, let’s go. Just for an hour.”

By the time the car pulled to a stop in front of a club downtown, my mood had shifted from guilt to anxiety about the time and about Stacey’s condition. Out on the sidewalk, at least a hundred scruffy kids were clustered on the otherwise deserted streets in postures of jaded yearning. On the steps above them, a white man in a black leather jacket and beret played the role of Saint Peter, standing guard in front of the steel door. The crowd, registering the arrival of Will’s limo, parted grudgingly as he lurched forward into its midst—recognizing the air of entitlement, if not the face—closing in again before I had a chance to follow.

“Will Savage,” he called to the doorman.

“Will
what?
”

“I’m Will Savage,” he repeated, as a young woman with a clipboard appeared in the doorway

“You on the list,” she asked.

“Fuck the list.”

“Sorry,” the woman said. “I don’t see your name here.”

“He knows the owner,” I called out, hoping to spare him further erosion of his pride.

“Who doesn’t?” said the doorman. Skepticism seemed to consolidate the individuals on the sidewalk, a chorus of sardonic laughter rising from the pack.

“Just let me in,” Will bellowed, lurching toward the door. When the guy in the beret clutched Will from behind, three kids in front of the line bolted through the door. Locked in struggle, Will and the doorman tumbled down the steps, cursing each other. When the doorman started punching Will I shoved my way through the crowd and grabbed his arm.

Then an authoritative voice cut through the bedlam.

“Hey, enough already.” This man clearly ran the club; he ran down the steps and pried the doorman away from Will, who slumped down on the sidewalk furious and spent, like a baited bear.

“Will, Jesus,” he said, “what the fuck’s going on? Look, I’m sorry, but you gotta understand …” An emaciated Englishman with cockney vowels, he did not elaborate, nor did he seem entirely happy to see his old friend Will Savage.

Will rose unsteadily, righting himself with effort. “Duncan,” he said. But the simple act of recognition exhausted him, so I went over and took his arm, guiding him to the car. He didn’t seem to know where he was. For my part, I did not want to witness any of this.

Duncan followed us to the car. “You want to come in, I can give you some drink tickets.”

Waving him away, I pulled the door closed behind us. I didn’t think the evening could get any worse, but Will seemed determined to destroy everything in his path.

“Kind of ironic,” he said, “
you
having a kid. Back at school, I didn’t know just how incredibly fucking appropriate that was—you hiding in the closet.”

The night was already so disastrous that I could hardly summon any further embarrassment. All I wanted was to be home.

I left Will at his hotel after arranging with the concierge to have a
doctor sent to check on him. I felt like one of Noah’s children watching the patriarch lurch drunk and naked around his tent. It was as if, on the brink of fatherhood, I had felt the chill breath of doom.

Three months later I sent out announcements of our daughter Caroline’s birth. I hesitated before addressing one to Will and Taleesha. I received a hearty note of congratulations from Cordell Savage, along with a Georgian baby spoon and dealer’s certificate vouching that it was made by Hester Bateman. And in due course there was a mono-grammed cashmere blanket and a note—“With love from the two of us”—from Taleesha.

For the first time since I had known him, I imagined myself to be looking down on Will from the high plateau of fortune. I can’t say I relished this unaccustomed perspective, though I couldn’t help positing a kind of moral balance sheet in which Will was finally being called to account. And I couldn’t shake the peculiar notion that somehow our fortunes were inversely related, that the tortoise was finally claiming the prize. Stacey and I had bought a nine-room apartment on Park Avenue after having survived the intense scrutiny of one of the city’s more formidable co-op boards, and within a year we would buy a weekend place in Connecticut; I was a new father, making more money than anyone had ever heard of before the eighties—though not half as much as Will pissed away in the seventies.

Checking with a Harvard classmate who was now an entertainment lawyer, I learned that Will was struggling to regain his relevance, that he was considered something of a relic at best, a wreck at worst. “Don’t sugarcoat it for me, Tom,” I said, irritated by his exuberant Schadenfreude. It was one thing for me to condescend—I was Will’s best friend.