"Hows Sarah?"
"Theyre bum fliers. A ham can fly better."
"Its a great argument for cities."
"That what you want to do?"
"Do what your mother tells you," she says, and hangs up.
"When you made that joke about George Gershwin and his lovely wife, Ira."
"We dont like sitting in that tacky laundromat any better than you do."
"Im thinking of getting another one. They have these waterproof jobs for the bath --"
"In what way?"
"Shes just mindless when she gets on that trampoline. She can go for hours. She thinks shes got a prob?lem with her rear. I dont think theres a problem but she thinks theres a problem."
"You should take the laundry sometimes. Just be?cause were women doesnt mean that we have to take the laundry all the time."
"Nervous."
"Blackeyed peas?"
"Just think of it. A little bird like that. Fueling the nation."
"They probably dont feel the urgency."
She turns him around and rubs his ass with her cunt in long swooping motions.
"Veronica."
"Fine."
When he asked himself what he was doing, living in a bare elegant almost unfurnished New York apartment with three young and beautiful women, Simon had to admit that he did not know what he was doing. He was, he supposed, listening. These women were taciturn as cowboys, spoke only to the immediate question, proba?bly did not know in which century the Second World War had taken place. No, too hard; it was, rather, that what they knew was so wildly various, ragout of Spi?noza and Cyndi Lauper with a William Buckley sher?bet floating in the middle of it. Hed come in one eve?ning to find all three of them kneeling on the dining room table with their rumps pointing at him. Ob?viously he was supposed to strip off his gentlemanly khakis and attend to all three at once, just as obviously an impossibility. He had placed a friendly hand on each cul in turn and said, "Okay, guys, youve had your fun, now get back to the barracks and polish the Renoirs." That boy has no talent, muttered Manet to Monet one afternoon in the garden, about Renoir. "Out, out, out," hed shouted, and theyd scattered, giggling. One night on his back in bed hed had six breasts to suck, swaying above him, he was poor tattered Romulus. When they couldnt get a part of him theyd play with each other.
"Its horrible."
"What fool bought brisket?"
"Anne didnt know it was a joke. You cant make jokes that are based on people not knowing things. Its not fair. Its demeaning to women."
"Why to women?"
"Work is Gods best invention. Keeps you all seized up and interested."
"Where would you get toads in New York City?"
He calls his mother in California.
"Oh Lord, what?"
"Simon you are twice as old as we are."
"Whats redeye gravy?"
"They dont do it in the daytime?"
"You dont care about anything."
"Okay. Good point."
His mother likes to present herself as a tough old bird, and in fact, thats the way he thinks of her. But there is a lustrous photograph of his mother sitting by the side of a pool in the 30s, radiating a formidable sex?uality. Then no tough old bird but rather a bad, bad ar?ticle, ready for Clark Gable and Lord Mountbatten, too.
"Piano player. Very famous."
"Thats Keith Jarrett."
"At night, in the great chicken factories, whfft! whfft! whfft! whfft! All through the night."
"I wish I could do something."
"You dont look it. You look maybe fifty, fifty-one. That was good chicken we had."
"Why?"
"Its not a fantasy, is it."
"The father chicken says to the son chicken, Son, Ive got bad news for you."
"Were very tolerant."
"Mans chief end is to glorify God and to enjoyHim forever," says his radio. Hes been listening to a lot of Christian rock lately, finds it surprisingly robust. Jesus is rock in a weary land. He wonders how, say, Dodo Marmarosa would sound playing Christian rock. Dore comes in and shoves a breast in his ear. He makes a sound like a smoke alarm.
"Whos he?"
"He kinds of sings when he plays."
"Was I pompous?"
"Every little bit helps," his mother says. "You and Carol speaking to each other?"
"By hand?"
"I told you to leave it and let them do it."
"It has the structure of a male fantasy."
"Lots of important stuff. Almost everybody Ive met since was present in my first-grade class. Maybe thirty-two kids in that class. Every type represented. When I run into somebodywho was not present in my first-grade class I think Ive sighted a rare bird."
"You dont want to know."
"What do we do with brisket?" he asks.
"Ham drippings with a splash of coffee."
"I draw the line at hounds."
"No it wasnt Harvard."
"Everything makes you nervous."
"I see that. Whats that wham-wham-wham noise?"
Simon wanted very much to be a hearty, optimistic American, like the President, but on the other hand did not trust hearty, optimistic Americans, like the President. He had considered the possibility that the President, when not in public, was not really hearty and optimistic but rather a gloomy, obsessed man with a profound fear of the potentially disastrous processes in which he was enmeshed, no more sanguine than the Fisher King. He did not really believe this to be the case. He himself had settled for being a compe?tent, sometimes inventive architect with a tragic sense of brick. Brick was his favorite material as the fortress was the architectural metaphor that he had, more and more, to resist. To force himself into freshness, he thought about bamboo.
"A friend."
VERONICA is bouncing on her trampoline. Dore is reading Flowers for Algernon. Simon is in bed with Anne.
"Try the likker store."
HES listening to one of his three radios, this one a brutish black Proton with an outboard sec?ond speaker. The announcer is talking about drum?mers. "Cozy Cole comes straight out of Chick Webb," he says. Simon nods in agreement. "Big Sid Catlett. Zutty Singleton, Dave Tough. To go even further back, Baby Dodds. All this before we get to Krupa and Buddy Rich." Simon taxes his memory in an attempt to extract from it the names of ten additional drummers. Louis Bellson. Shelly Manne. Panama Francis. Jo Jones, of course. Kenny Clarke. Elvin Jones. Barrett Deems. Mel Lewis. Charlie Persip. Joe Morello. Next, twenty bass players. Our nation is rich in talent, he thinks.
"I like a quiet reflective bath."
"Yes I am."
"You could always go to school."
"Toad store. They got big toads, little toads, horned toads, no-horn toads --"
"Does she have a friend?"
"They play the best music late at night," Dore said. "When they think nobodys awake."
"Oh. I guess you old guys know a lot of different stuff, dont you. How old are you?"
He has something cut off his forehead, a skin cancer thats been there for years, a dark spot the diameter of a pencil eraser. The doctor is a tall gloomy man with a Southern accent. He doesnt waste time, has Simon on the table and is scraping away with a curette within two minutes. First, four sharp stings as he places the lidocaine; afterward, the smell of burning brain as he cau?terizes the blood vessels.
"Also I met this interesting guy there last time. Hes a professional whistler."
"Whats that funny noise?"
"But you dont have to do it that way."
"How does it make you feel with us in here and them out there?"
"Simon. Youre not a serious man."
"Listening to the radio."
"If I was a chicken Id fly away. Before they got me."
"That does not absolve you of the necessity of know?ing your own history."
"Women dont pay that much attention to silly things like that. All that detail. And theres one more thing."
"The dumbest possible way to look at it."
"True."
"Which is?"
"Go ahead."
"Simon youre not supposed to talk to Anne like that."
"Here and there."
"Lots of people didnt go to Harvard."
"This country runs on chicken."
"Now they use electrocution."
"Im not in a hurry to meet the President. If he wants to come over and have a drink and a little guacamole dip, thats fine. My door is always open."
"Id give it three and a half to four hours in stock with carrots. Never did see the point of carrots but they must be good for something. Slice an onion and put in some red wine. Whats your friends name?"
"Where did you go to school?"
"Like what?"
"I read about it."
"Its a great city."
"Well need some corn likker."
"Our purpose here, I thought."
"Ill come in and put toads in the water."
"Makes me nervous."
"How do they kill the hams?"
"Then whfft! whfft! whfft!"
"Collard greens."
SIMON and Dore sitting in the kitchen. The radio making music.
"It was a big deal, historically."
"Thats pompous. Thats truly pompous. Thats just what Im talking about. And another thing."
"Okay, she never heard of the Marshall Plan. You dont have to explain it to her. In that way."
"You do love your radios."
"All the chickens hooked into this moving contrivance --"
"Well?"
She looks beautiful, her long dark hair done up in a pony tail. Her ARM THE UNEMPLOYED t-shirt.
"Is she making obscene comment?"
"Their heads dangling in water --"
"Then, whfft!"
"But suppose youre at a reception and youre going to meet the President and theres a long line of very well-dressed people --"
"I dont like standing in lines."
"All the way off. It was a mess."
"What are you going to do after we leave?" she asks.
"Theyre just some people whore staying here tem?porarily."
"Where did you go to college? Was it Harvard?"
"Make a sauce for it with capers, horseradish, mayonnaise and some of the cooking stock. Chill the sauce, its best cold. Thats all I know about brisket. You could stick some red cabbage into the pot for the last thirty minutes of cooking. Also, if I were you Id buy some Union Carbide."
"You were condescending."
"Thank you."
"Probably. I dont know."
"Maybe they could start a branch. In Florida or somewhere."
"Is this a male fantasy for you? This situation?"
"Can we make some?"
"Go back to work, I guess."
"I know you are."
"At intervals. Shes very busy."
His mother understands what this means. "Youve got to boil the hell out of it," she says. "How many pounds?"
"I wrung a neck once. In Fort Lupton. It was a mess."
"Fifty-three."
"Theres just not enough Harvard."
Dore likes to scold people. When anyone in the house does anything that does not meet her specifica?tions for appropriate behavior, Dore scolds.
"Four."
"I know what you mean. The Army used up most of my standing-in-line capacity."
"Under cover of night. So people dont realize the extent."
"Not more than usual. It was that incredulous look. Like you couldnt believe that somebodyd never heard of the Marshall Plan."
"Well screw you."
"What did you learn?"
"Youre about as tender as a sea lion," she says. "Have you ever done this before?"
Getting old, Simon. Not so limber, dear friend, time for the bone factory? The little blue van. Your hands are covered with tiny pepperoni. Your knees predict your face. Your back stabs you, on the left side, twice a day. The bellys been discussed. The souls shrinking to a microdot. Were ordering your rocking chair, size 42. Would you like something in Southern pine? Loblolly? Send the women away. Theyre too good for you. Also, not good for you. Are you King Solomon? Your king?dom a scant two hundred fifty-nine thousand, two hundred square inches. Annual tearfall, three and one-quarter inches. You feedeth among the lilies, Simon. There are garter snakes among the lilies, Simon, garter belts too. Your garden is over-cultivated, it needs weeds. Hows your skiwear, Simon? Done any demoli?tion derbies lately? You run the mile in, what, a year and a half? Were sending you an electric treadmill, a solid steel barbell curl bar, a digital pedometer. Use them. And send the women away.
"Doing well. She got a General Electric fellowship. Four thousand bucks."
"I love blackeyed peas."
Simon writes a check for eighty-five dollars. He walks back to the apartment from the doctors office, some?thing like sixty-five blocks. Its cool and cloudy out. Bumptious loudmouthed swaggering teenagers coming down the street, jostling people. Simon sidesteps them. Cant shoot em all. An absolutely beautiful woman in blue walking toward him. He turns and looks after her. She walks on without turning. Well, why should she? Hes fifty-three.
"You save for four peoples clothes eight to ten dol?lars. I think thats significant."
"Simon, Im trying to do this thing right."
"I remember having done it before."
NEW architecture is "soulless," Simon reads, again and again and again. He has trouble dis?agreeing when what is being talked about is a seventy-story curtain-wall building on Sixth Avenue. People dont like to live or work above the second floor in any building, the third at the outer extreme. No building should be taller than a ship. People like light; on the other hand, they also like caves. An austere fa?ade pleases architects; people like decoration, a modicum of drama. Embassies are now being designed like banks, with more and more security as one moves deeper and deeper into the building, the most secure space, deep inside, mighty like a vault. Reconcile that with the idea of an embassy as a pleasing, friendly presence. Metal detectors set up at the entrances of schools. Gun-toting Wackenhuts in supermarkets (part of the design). Enter a jewelry store and above the selling floor theres a booth with bulletproof glass with gun ports and a guy with a shotgun. Giant concrete flowerpots all around the Capitol which have nothing to do with love of flow?ers. The messianic-maniacal idea that architecture will make people better, civilize them, central to much 1920s-1930s architectural thought, Corbusier, Gropius, even Wright, abandoned. Although modesty is not what architects do best, there is more restraint now, Simon thinks. Ill do my piece of the problem and you do yours. Not at all soulless, rather more cottage indus?try, S.O.M. notwithstanding. The image that seems to him really on the mark is the circus.
"Be good if we had some hounds lazing about."
