The Tight White Collar (15 page)

During David's six weeks with the Strong Paper Products Company, Alan discovered that his son had neither the brain for figures, the tongue for salesmanship nor the back for labor. He gazed in disgust at the tall, thin boy who had always had the look of a calf going to slaughter and his temper grew hot and exploded.

“Look here, you,” said Alan, “for years I've watched you sit on your ass and pick your nose while your old lady tit-fed you and I'll be goddamned if I'm going to have you underfoot any longer. Just what is it that would suit Your Royal Highness? Not the ministry again, I suppose, and you'd run my business into the ground in a year. Just what good
are
you? Just what in hell do you intend to do?”

David felt his stomach contract. He hated this man! Yet, there was always that odd sensation whenever he looked up at his giant of a father.

I know why he is a success, thought David. He has bullied and smashed his way through every obstacle. Nothing has been able to withstand him. Nor anyone. Not even my mother.

“I want to be a musician,” whispered David at last. “A pianist.”

“Jesus God!” roared his father.

David spent four years at the conservatory in Cincinnati. He met people whose ideas were incomprehensible to him and whose morals appalled him. But he had determined to try to learn from these people. He did not freeze now when a friendly overture was made but forced himself to respond. Now that the kingdom of heaven had been closed to him, he intended to become a citizen of the world. He sat in on bull sessions where his new friends conversed on every subject from communism to sex and, while he did not form a single idea of his own, he adopted those that appealed to him.

Roger Merritt, a second-year student who was also a pseudo-psychologist and had a fetish for four-letter words, set himself the task of “straightening out David, psychologically.”

“Listen, Dave,” said Roger. “These stomach upsets of yours are nothing more than a manifestation of sexual frustration. If you'd just go out and get yourself laid regularly you wouldn't spend so much of your time puking.”

David had taken to smoking cigarettes which he inserted in a long, ebony holder. He had also cultivated the habit of looking at people through half-closed eyes since he was convinced that this gave him the aura of a thinker and of a man who considered every thought and attitude with great philosophical care.

“What would you say, Roger, if I were to tell you that I am a virgin?” asked David through a cloud of exhaled smoke.

“I'd say that you're either a liar, a complete damned fool or a fairy. One of the three.”

“I am neither, Roger,” said David. “I simply regard sex as a mere nothing and I shall always remain celibate.”

“Horseshit,” said Roger bluntly.

During the years that David spent in Cincinnati, there were a few women who became intrigued by him. In spite of his adopted mannerisms, he had an innocent expression that was apt to bring out the most violent maternal emotions in some female personalities, and besides, David was good company. He could talk about styles of dress and shades of make-up and nail polish. Several girls at the conservatory claimed that they never bought a new dress until after David Strong had seen and approved it.

“But that neckline, darling,” David would say. “It's just not you.”

Or,

“That color is magnificent, my sweet. It does something for your skin.”

Other women were piqued by what they termed David's oddness. He recoiled from their touch and at the first suggestion of a tender glance, he ran like a jack rabbit.

“Maybe he really wants to be a monk instead of a pianist,” they told each other.

“Maybe he had an unfortunate love affair and it turned him against women for all time.”

“Maybe he's queer.”

“No. If he were, we'd have heard it from some of the other boys.”

Near the end of his senior year, David wrote Arthur Aronson of New York who prepared pianists for concert work and was granted an appointment. The week after graduation, David left for New York.

David played Franck's
Prelude
,
Chorale
and
Fugue
for Arthur Aronson and he was sure that he had never played more brilliantly. When he had finished he sat quietly, his hands folded in his lap, and waited.

Arthur Aronson was small, round-shouldered, shriveled, with hair the color of skimmed milk. He stood up and went to the one window in the room. For many minutes he stood and looked down at the traffic below him and then he turned slowly to face David.

“You are a fine technician, Mr. Strong,” he said. “But I should advise you to give up the idea of concert work. I do not believe that I can help you.”

David swallowed against the sudden nausea that his stomach flung up violently into his throat.

“What do you mean?” he demanded when he could speak. “I've spent years at the piano. Do you mean to imply that I've learned nothing in those years?”

“I said that you are a fine technician, Mr. Strong,” said the old man gently. “Never think of the years that you have put into your music as wasted. You are a very talented amateur. Being able to play will always be a source of pleasure to you. Perhaps you could teach.”

David's voice went shrill. “Are these the verbal inanities that you are paid to utter?” he cried. “Is this what I came all the way to New York to hear? Tell me what you are thinking, sir! When I am ill, I go to a physician. When I want the answer to a question of fact, I go to a textbook. I came here for an opinion of my playing and you give me half-witted suggestions about teaching.”

“I did not want to be cruel, Mr. Strong,” said Arthur Aronson, his voice more gentle than ever. “However, if you demand a cruel but honest answer I can give you one. There is something missing in your playing, Mr. Strong. A depth of feeling, of understanding, which should be there but which is lacking and which, furthermore, I do not believe you will ever be able to achieve. Fine playing is a combination of craftsmanship and an extension of the pianist's personality. There is a lack in you, Mr. Strong, a shallowness that shows through your talent. I'm sorry, but I cannot help you.”

David felt so ill that when he stood up he had to cling to the edge of the piano.

“Thank you, Mr. Aronson,” he said quietly. “And please accept my apologies for my rudeness.”

“Think no more of that,” said the old man. “I'm used to the reactions of disappointment.”

David straightened his shoulders. “I'll find it,” he said. “I'll find this depth and understanding that you speak about and when I do, I'll come back.”

“Please do, Mr. Strong,” Arthur Aronson said. “I should be delighted to listen to you at any time.”

“I'll go to Paris,” said David. “I'll go for a year and I'll work very hard and then I'll be back.”

“At any time, Mr. Strong,” said Arthur Aronson with a little bow.

As David was leaving the studio it came to him, with just a little jolt way at the back of his mind, that still the Lord had not done with punishing him.

David did go to Paris that year but when he got there he neglected his work, learned to drink and tried very hard to become a bohemian. He grew a beard and pretended to himself that he was an atheist. Then he met and became friendly with a young artist named Martin Mallory and they decided to share an apartment together.

David noticed Martin's little idiosyncrasies almost at once. The way Martin's hands caressed things, small pieces of pottery, soft materials. The way his eyes seemed to burn into David's in a way that David found disconcerting but rather pleasant. Whenever David undressed in the room, he could feel Martin's eyes on him, caressing, probing, and although this embarrassed David dreadfully at first he grew to love the sensation it gave him. He enjoyed, too, the way Martin made him lie down after hours at the piano and the way Martin rubbed his temples with strong, thin fingers. It excited him to know that he could make Martin miserable just by paying the most casual attention to other people and he loved the way Martin's eyes flashed fire during their frequent quarrels. After an argument, Martin would sulk for hours, a black frown on his face, until David apologized. A simple apology was never enough for either of them. David had to plead and beg.

“Please, Martin. Please. I'm sorry. It won't happen again.”

Once, after they had both spent the evening drinking and David had deliberately ignored Martin for hours, Martin struck him. David fell to the floor, frightened at his own anticipation, and Martin whipped him with a leather belt. When it was over Martin stood over him and David, looking up, saw Martin's brutally clenched fists and noticed the way Martin's feet were planted squarely and firmly on the floor in an exact replica of the way David's father used to stand.

“Get up,” said Martin and went to the door of the room and locked it. He stood with his back against the door and watched David get to his feet.

“Come here, David,” said Martin.

David came back to America just before the war broke out in Europe. He took a job with a small dance band and he never spoke of his year in Paris. He remembered his stay there with self-loathing and disgust and he could make himself physically ill just by thinking of the name Martin Mallory. He had terrible nightmares in which he heard Martin's voice saying, “Come here, David,” over and over and he could feel his unwilling legs propelling toward the gigantic, dark-haired figure that stood waiting for him with outstretched arms. And he had even more terrible dreams in which his mother appeared to him and stood with her hands folded, gazing at him in horror.

Then he would cry out, “It's not true, Mother. It's not true. He made me do it. I didn't want to. I hated him. He made me do it!”

But his mother continued to stand and stare at him, shaking her head, and when he tried to reach out to her she shrank back and faded away from him.

Then he had quiet, beautiful dreams in which he seemed to be lying on something warm and soft and he felt so at peace that he dreaded to wake. But when he did awake and remembered his dream, he turned cold and sick and hurried to the bathroom to vomit.

David never went back to play for Arthur Aronson, but when the war was over and he was home again, he decided to take the old man's advice about teaching. There was an opening at the Cooper Station high school for a music appreciation teacher and Arthur Everett approved his application and passed it on to the Town Board of Guardians. A few weeks later, David moved into Val Rutger's tower.

David had just finished his housework when there was a knock at the door of the studio.

“Mark!” said David. “Do come in. It's so good to see you.”

“Hello, Davy.”

Mark Griffin was tall and slender. He had blond hair and rather slanted eyes and a very red, full-lipped mouth.

“I've had a devastating day, Davy,” said Mark who lived with his mother and never did anything more strenuous than bring up the old lady's breakfast tray and give her an occasional back rub. “Do put on some Bach and pour me a drink.”

David's tenderness was almost tangible. “Of course, Mark,” he said. “Now tell me. What in the world has happened to exhaust you this way?”

Mark began a recitation of his day from the moment of his arising to the last harried movement that had brought him to David's door.

“Well,” said David. “I had my usual ghastly Friday, but made even ghastlier today by a little set-to with Doris Palmer. She wanted me to sign that damned petition for a referendum to reverse the Guardians' appointment of Christopher Pappas.”

“And did you?”

“Of course. Believe me, after the day I put in I'd have done anything to keep that old harridan off my neck.”

“Mother signed it, too,” said Mark. “Of course, nobody asked me. Nobody ever does, but I'd have signed in a flash.”

“You would?”

“Of course. Isn't this town full enough of wretched people without adding more? Good grief, the Pappases are the worst type of peasants and of course you've heard about her?”

“No, I haven't,” said David. “I've never even met her.”

“Well I must say you're not missing much. She's just become Anthony Cooper's mistress, that's all.”

“Not really?”

“It's all over town.”

“Well,” said David with a sigh, “that certainly makes me feel better. Here I was, thinking that Doris Palmer was being dreadfully unfair and all the time she had good and sufficient reason for not wanting those people here.”

“Exactly,” said Mark.

They began to talk of other things and the Bach played softly in the background. They drank whiskey and soda and the room was very peaceful and softly lit.

“Did it ever occur to you, Davy, that we have something in common with many of the great of the world, you and I?” asked Mark.

“I don't quite follow you,” said David. “What do you mean?”

Mark put his glass down on the coffee table and went to sit next to David on the couch.

“Why should we be ashamed and frustrate ourselves just because the world of so-called normal people is not ready to accept us?” asked Mark.

David sat very still. “I'm afraid that I don't understand you at all,” he said.

Mark moved closer to David and put a gentle hand on his thigh.

“Poor Davy,” he said. “Did you think that I wouldn't find you here in Cooper Station? Our kind always find one another. That's what I meant by our having so much in common with the world's great, Davy. We, too, should be proud of our love and be able to forget the bigoted world outside, even as Wilde and Gide and the countless other great ones.”

David jumped to his feet, sweeping Mark's hand away as he did so.

“You filthy pig!” he cried. “You've taken advantage of my hospitality and my friendship with nothing in the back of your mind but your own perverted, rotten desires. Let me tell you, I'm not like Wilde or Gide or you or anyone else like you. Now get out of here. Get out of my studio!”