The Paper Dragon (47 page)

He nodded at Driscoll, smiled briefly, turned his back and walked to the defense table. Brackman took his time assembling his notes. Driscoll watched him warily. Constantine whispered something to him just before he rose from the table, and Brackman nodded and then walked toward the front of the courtroom. He pursed his lips, swallowed, looked up at Driscoll, and said, "Mr. Driscoll, if I understand your earlier testimony correctly, you said that you were an art major at the Art Students League and Pratt Institute. When did you enter Pratt?"

"In September of 1947."

"And you went into the Army in June of 1950?"

"Yes."

"Still intending to be an artist?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Did you plan on continuing with your art work when you got out of the service?"

"Yes."

"When did you change your mind?"

"I don't know when. I suppose it was a gradual process."

"Starting when?"

"Starting when I was at Pratt, I would imagine."

"And you entered Pratt in September of 1947?"

"Yes."

"A month before Mr. Constantine's play opened on Broadway."

"Yes."

"And that was when you began changing your mind about becoming an artist?"

"Not exactly then."

"Exactly
when
?"

"I said it was a gradual process."

"Starting in September of 1947?"

"It was a matter of beginning to gauge my own talents. There were a lot of talented people at Pratt. I began looking at my own work in terms of theirs."

"And decided to become a writer?"

"Not until much later."

"Not until
when
?"

"Sometime before I was discharged from the Army."

"So that when you returned to civilian life, you abandoned your study of art, and decided instead to take courses in writing?"

"Yes."

"You became an English major at N.Y.U.?"

"Yes."

"And I assume you took whatever creative writing courses the school had to offer."

"Yes."

"And that's where you learned to write."

"I don't know where a person learns to write."

"That is, nonetheless, where you had your formal training as a writer?"

"Yes."

"Did you begin writing for gain or profit immediately after you were graduated from N.Y.U.?"

"No."

"When did you begin writing?"

"Not until 1961."

"Four years after you were graduated."

"Yes."

"Even though you had been so splendidly prepared for a career in writing?"

"I don't know how splendidly I was prepared. I certainly didn't expect to step out of college and be acclaimed a new Hemingway."

"So you postponed writing your novel, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Until you felt certain you
would
be acclaimed a Hemingway?"

"No, until I felt I could write the book I
wanted
to write. My
own
book. Not a Hemingway book, or anyone else's book."

"Had you written anything before you started your novel?"

"In college, yes."

"Was any work of yours published?"

"No."

"What sort of writing did you do in college?"

"Short stories mostly."

"Never a novel?"

"No."

"
The Paper Dragon
was your first novel."

"Yes."

"Your only novel."

"Yes."

"Did you submit any of your stories for publication while you were in college?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"They weren't good enough."

"Did you feel
The Paper Dragon
was good enough for publication?"

"Obviously, I did. I wouldn't have sent it out if I hadn't."

"Suddenly, out of the blue, you wrote a novel — never having written one before — and it was good enough for publication. In fact, according to Chester Danton's testimony yesterday, 'the remarkable thing about the book was that it was so good and so fully realized that there were very few suggestions an editor
could
make.' Do you agree with Mr. Danton?"

"In what way?"

"That the book was remarkable in its quality and in its realization."

"I would have no way of judging my own work."

"You seem perfectly capable of judging Mr. Constantine's work."

"But not my own."

"Do you think many first novels come to a publisher 'so good and so fully realized'?"

"I don't know."

"What would you guess?"

"Your Honor, the witness has already stated that he does not know."

"Sustained."

"Did you take any courses at N.Y.U. on the writing of a novel?"

"No."

"You just sat down to write one."

"Most novels are written by people who just sit down to write them."

"And they come out of the typewriter 'so good and so fully realized,' is that correct?"

"I don't know how anyone else's novel comes out of the typewriter."

"Were you satisfied with the way
yours
came out of the typewriter?"

"Not wholly. But it was the best I could do at the time."

"Can you do better now?"

"I don't know."

"The fact is, you haven't written anything since
The Paper Dragon
, have you?"

"No, I haven't."

"No other novels, no short stories?"

"Nothing," Driscoll said.

"Do you
plan
to write anything else?"

"No."

"But you're a writer, aren't you?"

"I'm a Vermont farmer."

"I thought you were a writer."

"You've been misinformed."

"Apparently," Brackman said, and smiled. "Mr. Driscoll, you have testified that Lieutenant Alex Driscoll»»

"Lieutenant Alex
Cooper
."

"Yes, forgive me, Lieutenant
Cooper
is an idealized version of yourself, is that true?"

"Yes."

"He is not entirely yourself?"

"Not entirely."

"Because, for example, Lieutenant Cooper is killed in the next to last chapter of your novel, and you, sir, are obviously not dead."

"Obviously not."

"So he is only partially based on yourself?"

"Yes."

"Would it be fair to say that somewhere along the line he ceases to be you?"

"Yes, it would be fair to say that."

"Mr. Brackman, I'm sorry I must interrupt you at this point," McIntyre said, "but it's exactly noon, and I think we should recess for lunch."

The two men had hot dogs and orange drinks at the Nedick's on Duane, and then walked up Centre Street, past the County Court House and the Criminal Courts Building, and then onto Baxter and Bayard and into Chinatown. The weather was not mild — there was in fact a strong wind blowing — but it seemed almost balmy in contrast to yesterday's bitter fierceness. As they turned into Mott Street, Arthur felt for the moment as though he were entering an actual Chinese street in a Chinese city — Shanghai or Tientsin, Canton or Soochow — the undecipherable Chinese calligraphs, the quiet watchful men in doorways, hands tucked into their armpits, exotic women rushing by in abbreviated coats and slit skirts, pushing shopping carts or carrying baskets, the snug, tight, intimate landscape of winter in a foreign place, where the language is strange and the faces are alien and the only link with past experience is the weather. The sudden appearance of a grinning cardboard Santa Claus in a window brimming with ivory and jade shattered the illusion, brought once more into focus the strictly Anglo-Saxon proceedings downtown and the presence of Kent Mercer at his side, walking briskly and prattling on about the horror of the ghetto and these poor underprivileged Orientals. Did Arthur know there was no juvenile delinquency among the Chinese? The women pushed their shopping carts. Somewhere, he could smell roasting pork. He thought suddenly of Lamb's
Dissertation
, and then heard Kent's voice again, the slightly lilting monotony of it, the strident note that told Arthur he was about to get to the point, at last.

"… in the middle of a
trial
and everything, but I thought I
should
see you before this thing came to a head. That's why I called you this morning, Arthur."

"Um-huh," Arthur said.

"I understand they've made some suggestions concerning the play," Kent said.

"That's right."

"At least, that's what Oscar told me."

"Yes, they made some suggestions."

"What do you plan to do?" Kent asked.

"I don't know."

"Well, I don't like to
press
this, Arthur, nor do I wish to risk that
terrible
look you get in your eyes whenever…"

"I don't get a terrible look, Kent."

"… whenever you're angry," Kent said, and smiled. "Oh, you
know
you do, Arthur. You're a completely menacing person when you're crossed."

"Well," Arthur said, and sighed.

"But I
would
like to know what your plans are because — I might as well be frank, Arthur — I've
got
to know where we're going with this-play."

"Why?"

"I've got to know whether it's going to be done."

"It'll be done," Arthur said.

"Do you mean you've decided to make the changes?"

"Well, no, not yet."

"Did the changes sound reasonable to you?"

"No."

"Not at
all
?"

"Well, some of them maybe."

"Which ones?"

"I don't remember."

"Arthur, I'm going to be frank with you," Kent said, and stopped in front of a candy store, and turned to face Arthur, and put one hand on his arm. "I've always been frank with you, you've got to admit that."

"Yes, you have."

"Arthur, you
must
make those changes."

"Why?"

"Because Hester won't take the part unless you do. And if Hester doesn't take the part, the play will
not
be produced. I'm being frank with you."

"All right."

"All right what?"

"All right, you're being frank with me."

"
Will
you make the changes?"

"Was this Oscar's idea?" Arthur asked suddenly.

"What?"

"This. Your calling me, this little talk."

Inside the candy store, an old Chinese woman with her hair pulled back tightly into a knot, was handing a coin across the counter and smiling at the proprietor. Again, the feeling of strangeness came over Arthur; he had never seen a woman like this one before, her clothes had been stitched in Singapore, her hair had been greased with hummingbird fat by a hairdresser who traveled from province to province, he knew she had just consumed a rare exotic drink and was now paying for it in foreign coin. Probably an egg cream, he thought, and smiled, and saw that Kent thought the smile was directed at him and was offended by it.

"You needn't look so smugly superior," Kent said, "because this was definitely
not
Oscar's idea. This was my own idea. I've got to think of myself, too, Arthur, I can't
continually
think of everyone
else
involved in this project."

"I understand that."

"I've been offered certain other things and, I'm being frank, some of them look very attractive to me. I've got to give people a yes or no answer, Arthur, I'm sure you can understand that."

"Of course."

"And this has nothing to do with your play, believe me. I love your play, you know that. But I've got my own career to think of, you know how it is with these things. If you don't say yes or no, people think you're not interested and begin looking elsewhere. There are only so many jobs, Arthur, and I don't have to tell you how many directors."

"I see."

"So what do you plan to do?"

"I don't know."

"How well do you know Hester Miers?"

"Only casually," Arthur said.

"You mean she hasn't yet made a grab for your jewels?" Kent said, and laughed. "I'm surprised, really."

"What about her?" Arthur said.

"I'm told she's very good in bed," Kent went on, unmindful of Arthur's tone. "She gives magnificent head," he said, and laughed again.

Arthur stared at Kent for a moment, and then abruptly began walking away from him. Kent stood rooted to the sidewalk. The door behind him opened, and the Chinese woman came out, shuffling past Kent, who rolled his eyes heavenward in a gesture to despair that Arthur missed, and then quickened his pace to catch up with him.

"She's a very
good
actress, Arthur," he said solemnly.

"I know."

"And I think she could be right for Carol."

"Sure, if we make her twenty-three instead of nineteen, and change her to a social worker instead of a college girl, and make her father the head of General Motors, and…"

"Well, I think you're exaggerating…"

"… make her a whore besides."

"What?"

"Instead of a virgin."

"No one suggested she be made a whore."

"No, not exactly."

"Not in
any
respect, Arthur."

"Okay, not in
any
respect."

"I love the faces on these Chinese children, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"
One
affair was what they suggested, actually," Kent said.

"I know."

"
Everybody's
had at least one affair," Kent said, and shrugged.

"But not Carol."

"Art need not imitate life quite so closely, need it?" Kent asked.

"I see they told you she's based on my sister."

"Yes. There's nothing wrong with that."

"I should hope not."

"But at the same time…"

"At the same time, let's make all the changes."

"I'm being frank with you, Arthur."

"Sure you are. You want a job."

"Not
any
job, Arthur. I want
this
job. But I'll tell you frankly, if I thought
this
job was in danger of evaporating, I would most
certainly
take another one."

"If I win this case…"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Let's not talk about personal matters right now, Arthur."

"My play
is
a personal matter. To me."

"I'm sure it is. And to
me
, too. Which is why I hate to see it scuttled."

"There are other actresses."

Kent sighed. The sigh encompassed a lifetime of talking to writers and producers and actors, the sigh was one of sorrow and wisdom, sorrow because he had to give this same speech again to a writer intent on suicide, wisdom because he knew without doubt that what he was going to say was incontrovertible and stark and absolutely valid. The sigh was a tired one; Arthur heard something in it that compelled him to listen to Kent for perhaps the first time during their walk.

"Arthur, I know a little more about this business than you do," Kent said. "I've been in it for close to forty years now, as actor and director both, and I can tell you frankly that there's a time to stop
thinking
about a project, and a time to begin
moving
on it. At this moment, your play and the people involved in it are ready to
move
, the whole project has a
feel
to it, a sense of growing
power
, a certainty that all the planets are finally in conjunction and that we are about to move, Arthur, we are about to get
moving
. All you have to do is make those changes, agree to make those changes, and the thing will start humming and ticking, they'll spring Hester out of that actor's graveyard, she'll sign a contract, the backers will be fighting to get a piece of the action, and your play will be
done
. That's the feeling I get, that's what forty years of theater experience is telling me right now, It's telling me to
move
. Arthur, to get this thing on its feet and
moving
. Because if we don't, Arthur, if we allow Hester to get away, your play will
not
be produced by Selig and Stern. They've exhausted their people, Arthur, they cannot raise the money, they will let the option expire."

"There are other producers."

"Arthur, I've been in this business too long, really. Oh, yes, there are the success stories about the plays that have made the rounds of four
hundred
producers, and lo and behold the four-hundred-and-
first
snaps it up and it becomes a smash hit and runs for fourteen years and makes everyone involved a millionaire. I have heard all those stories, Arthur, because I've been around a long long time, I was born in the proverbial trunk. But I can tell you that if you don't move when everything is right for moving, things may
never
be right again, things may
never
come to that exact spot in time and space again."

"Maybe I'm willing to take that chance."

"You'd be smarter to compromise a little, Arthur."

"I've been compromising a little all my life," Arthur said.

"Then do it one more time. Make the changes. There'll be God knows how many revisions during rehearsal, anyway. The thing may get changed right back to what it was originally."

"Come on, Kent."

"All right, it won't, but will that be such a great loss? No one's trying to
corrupt
your play, Arthur. They're only trying to
improve
it."

"They're trying to change it, Kent."

"But only to improve it."

"No, only to change it. Only to make it theirs and not mine. Goddamn it, Kent, this is
still my play
."

"I've got news for you, Arthur. Without an actress, it isn't a play at all, yours or anybody's."

"No? Then what is it?"

"A manuscript."

"There are plenty of actresses around. We can always get—"

"No, Arthur."

They stopped on the sidewalk and silently turned to face each other. In the window behind Kent, a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary knelt beside a cradle bearing the infant Jesus. To the left of the manger, a large Chinese calendar hung, a slant-eyed girl in a bathing suit looking back over her left shoulder. To the right of the manager, alternating green and red cardboard letters spelled out the words MERRY XMAS, dangling from a string.

"This is the time," Kent said. "
Now
! Either
make
the changes, Arthur, or resign yourself to the fact that your play will never be
done
."

"I don't know," Arthur said.

"I'm being frank with you."

It's because I'm a Negro from Harlem, Norman Sheppard thought, and looked again at Ebie Driscoll and could not shake his feeling of discomfort. It's because I know the lady is from the Deep South, suh, and I am merely projecting her own discomfort onto myself. She is not used to dining with Nigras, suh, and this is why she constantly brushes that strand of blond hair away from her cheek, a gesture I have seen her perform a hundred times since this trial began, a nervous mannerism, that's all. And quite naturally, her nervousness has leaped across the table and I, being a sensitive person with a lot of natural rhythm, am reacting to it. I'll have to report this to Dr. Maloney on Monday, he'll find it very interesting. "What do you think about it, Mr. Sheppard?" he will ask, and I will then try to separate this extraordinary feeling of
déjà vu
from the very ordinary complicated feelings surrounding it, such as why I might feel uncomfortable in the presence of any beautiful, blond, white woman from Alabama even if I didn't think we'd met someplace before (a likely possibility, to be sure) even if I didn't think I knew her. Or, to be more exact, since Dr. Maloney insists on exactitude, not only do I feel I know Mrs. James Driscoll, but I further feel I know her exceptionally well. Or to be precise, Dr. Maloney, I feel the young lady and I have been intimate, yes, how about that for a clue to the Negro Revolution? I will bet you any amount of money, Dr. Maloney, that she has a small crescent-shaped scar on her thigh, and that she got it from a piece of broken glass at the base of a statue or something in her home town, what do you make of that, Dr. Maloney? "Well," he will reply, "what do
you
make of it, Mr. Sheppard?"

"You came over very well," he said to Driscoll. "I think McIntyre was impressed."

"I hope so," Driscoll answered.

Now how would I know about a crescent-shaped scar on the lady's thigh when I have never
seen
the lady's thigh? How did I know she was going to be left-handed even before I saw her pick up her utensils at lunch the other day, tell me that, Dr. Maloney. It
is
true, yes, Doctor, that I myself am left-handed and therefore am constantly on the alert for members of the race, human, who are similarly endowed, they being acknowledged leaders whatever their color or religion. Michelangelo was left-handed, did you know that? Kim Novak, as it happens, is left-handed. Mrs. James Driscoll is also left-handed, which fact I knew
before
I knew it, that's exactly what I mean about this
déjà vu
phenomenon, doctor. Am I making myself clear, or is it possible that all I want to do is lay Ebie Driscoll? "Well, let's examine that, Mr. Sheppard," he will say.