“Stephen.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want a swig of this sauce.”
“No thank you.”
“Well, Stephen, are you listening.”
“Yes.”
“You change your name by deed poll to mine. Swear fidelity to me under pain of discontinuance and renouncement. And I’ll finance your career.”
“Holy cow, ma’am.”
“Is that your answer.”
“No ma’am, just my expression of amazement.”
“Well, what’s your answer.”
“You’re buying me.”
“In so many words. Yes. In certain circles it’s called, ‘singing for your supper.’”
“Well ma’am, you may be able to buy another world out beyond the sky. But I’m not singing for my supper. And while I still have a hand on the end of my arm and I can run and grab a hot dog off a hot dog stand, you’re not going to buy me.”
Waiting for a janitor to jump on me any second as an escaping jewel thief I went out the service entrance at Sutton Place. Just like the masturbating boy who probably wanted to do what I had just done. Gonads paining more than glowing, I walked every inch of my impoverished rain-soaked way down Third Avenue under the elevated train and back to Pell Street. Having thoughts enough that made it seem to take only a moment. Be adopted. Sing for my supper. Put on a butler’s uniform. Announce, Madam, dinner is served. Then sing, “Bimba, bimba, non piangere” from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Wait for my own crumbs to be brushed off the table and fall into my upturned open mouth. She said as an aside one day, “We who buy people know those who can be bought.” Well ma’am, not me.
Hanging clothes to dry I lay the night through in Pell Street, staring at a ceiling. Trying to make sure to wake in time for the funeral which gets more sounding like my own. Yet many great composers had patrons. And were bought and kept. And King Ludwig of Bavaria’s largesse to Wagner never made his music any less beautiful.
In the early hours, down from the Adirondacks, a cold front descending on New York. A sprinkling of white on the street in the morning was the first sign of snow after one of the city’s coolest summers. No frying eggs on the sidewalks or crisping your bacon on the steel manhole cover in the middle of the street. But it was after a snowfall that I first really learned how to spell when a bigger boy named Newt taught me while taking a pee, how to write my name with piss in the snow. Newt also said that it was knowing how to do things like that that held the Indians back and let the white man make our country great.
From the Bowery bar where now it seemed every other drink was on the house, I telephoned Amy again at the Pennsylvania Hotel, but she was out. Left a message to invite her on a ferry ride. At a nickel a head, a dime round-trip, it was the only thing that I could afford to do in New York. Smell of garlic on the subway train and a fume that comes from wet wool. My shirt not the cleanest and covered up by a black chesterfield coat belonging to my older brother who, like Max, worked on Wall Street before he married a rich girl with money. But for it’s being too conspicuous, I thought of coming in Max’s motorcar. There were the hearses and a line of limousines parked outside St. Bartholomew’s. And more around the corner with their chauffeurs waiting across from the entrance to the busy luxury of the Waldorf Towers. As I passed Ajello’s candle makers, a perfumed smell came out the doorway.
Brace myself. Cross the street, join as anonymously as one can the elegant gathering. In the church, a flag on one coffin and a posy of flowers on the other. Church nearly full. Obsequies begun. The searing sorrow already anguishing through one’s body. My lungs heaving to pour out tears. Hold. Hold back. The despair. The hopelessness. The dreadful guilt. Head up. Straighten the back. Stand when they do. Kneel when they do. Sit when they do. Recitation of the words from the Bible. Said to these heads of the living and these coffins of the dead. “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live …
“For a man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain, he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them.
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
Voices of a choir. Sing “Now the Day Is Over.” And here I am at the back of this church in this last pew, the object of an occasional furtive look. It being nobody’s business to care who I am. Or what I do or how I feel. But what I am is an outcast. An outsider. Who would not sing for his supper. Amid these mourners from near and far. Can nearly pick out the polo players. The society celebrities. Rustle of black silks. Yet perhaps silk doesn’t rustle. But the scent of burning candles and fragrant perfumes is certainly aromatic. Dru in a front pew with relatives, family servants and retainers. And suddenly it’s all over. The choir sings “Abide with Me.” Triumphington had a great-aunt and -uncle who went down on the Titanic, stood on its deck in their evening clothes as it sank into the frigid Arctic waters.
Snow now falling heavily. The big white flakes melting on the church steps and sidewalk. Pallbearers, coffins on their shoulders, loading them back into their hearses. Odd nods, condolences and handshakes from the few familiar faces as they pass. Very very sorry about Sylvia. In one of the limousines, Ertha, Max’s divorced wife. She nods her head about her. Sees me on the church steps just as she bends down to step into her car. She must now have Max’s shell collection, all his silk ties and shoe trees. Plus his refrigeratorful of marvelous champagnes. Dru. There she goes. All in the bleakest but most luxurious black. On those wonderful legs carrying the rest of that slender wonderful body an out-of-work composer has got to know so well. For a moment I even thought I’d have to walk to take the subway to Brooklyn where the cemetery was. But on the sidewalk I was tapped on the arm by the chauffeur who took Dru and me to Valhalla when she was alias Mrs. Wilmington. He opened up the limousine door for me to step in to the comfort of this armored vehicle.
The cortege swept around the ramps of Grand Central Station and rapidly down Park and Fourth avenues. Funerals in New York always rush the fastest way away. Leaving behind all those familiar streets that I have so many times passed in my broke circumstances. Houston, Prince, Spring, Broome and Grand. Now travel in the luxurious comfort with my guts twisted in guilt and grief. I did and do love her. Her death now swept away over the Gothic majesty of the Brooklyn Bridge and down and along these stranger streets to the sudden oasis of open sky over this vast cemetery with its large buildings flanking its entrance. Triumphington’s flag-draped coffin carried up the steps of the Triumphington family mausoleum. Sylvia’s casket covered in flowers, waiting in the hearse parked on the road. So hard to believe that that once-lithe body is in there in its coffin, its living beauty scorched, seared and stilled in death. On the mausoleum steps, sailors in leggings, rifles at present arms. A commander in attendance, gold braid on his cap. Calling “Ready, aim, fire.” The crack of shots echoes in the cold air. Bugler blowing taps. I raise my hand, stiffening my fingers to my brow in my best salute. Sailors take the flag from the casket and the Stars and Stripes is deftly and exquisitely folded and handed to Dru, and they too salute.
Sylvia’s college chums assembled by her grave. High heels sticking into the ground. A pile of earth covered in artificial grass. The funeral director urging me closer to the hole. Elbow-to-elbow with Dru who draws away. And makes a distance which may be the closest we will ever be together again. The college chums standing behind me in force. Recognize a voice. Ertha pronouncing to her companions in her gossipy way clearly meant to be heard by my ears.
“Sylvia deliberately went back into the Doll’s House, according to the workman. Before he even knew there was a fire she was standing on the drive in front watching it burn for fully three minutes and then as the flames took hold, she calmly walked back in.”
Ertha’s words dissipating in the chill air. Every silence now sounding like the end of my life. Straps unwind to lower the coffin. And whatever terrible burned part of her was left is gone. And Jesus Chri
st Almighty, thank God for the intervening voice of this refined Protestant clergyman. Who with faintly British vowels elegantly intones.
“Lord my God shall make my darkness be light. Deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death. But thy kingdom come.”
Mourners retreating. Ertha stared at me and then as I stared back, she looked away. One wants to say, What the fiick else did you do to Max, you bitch. Mourners reaching the roadway. Limousine doors opening and shutting. More snow falling. A blue jay squawking nearby in a tree. Dru in her black splendor accepting last condolences from relatives, staff, acquaintances. Making me feel as if I were some sort of trespasser. After someone for their money. Which is after all, the greatest tribute they can be paid. And now she’s gone her way. And I’m gone mine. Walking down the gentle slope of this hill whitening in snow. As a figure sidles up. What more must I hear if I listen. The voice is asking would I chat with him at his office on the seventeenth floor of the Triumphington building on Madison Avenue at a time convenient. And now good God, a tap on my shoulder. What next. Another voice comes near as I turn. And this from a famous face in magazines and newspapers.
“I am so sorry and I apologize for intruding upon you at a time like this but I had, having only recently been able to meet with your wife Sylvia, been unable to reach you by telephone. I just wanted you to know that she gave me the score of your minuet sometime ago and which I regard as such a brilliant work of composition that I took the liberty of rehearsing it with my symphony orchestra. Might I just ask at this time if you would consider its being performed. Please telephone my office. I should like to invite you more formally to conduct its premier performance. I’ll say no more except that Sylvia was one of the most brilliant and wonderful dancers, and she was too, such a princely girl. Again, please accept my most sincere condolences.”
Dark pointed shoes of this famed conductor and composer who did not show up for our appointment when I was previously to meet him. Was the news of this event all over the newspapers. To bring him here in all his finery. Yet so courteous and pleasantly glittery-eyed, bracelets on his wrists. Amazing how when you meet people and they tell you something you want to hear, it transforms them from someone previously objectionable at a distance into someone delightful close-up. And even utterly charming and compassionate. But at least one thing is for sure. My name O’Kelly’O is going to go carved on a piece of marble over a grave dug near a socially registered Protestant mausoleum in one of the best cemeteries. And I’ve got to say again that when the chips were down, Jonathan Witherspoon Triumphington III, IV, or whatever he was, had plenty of guts after all. And some of Dru’s words—or were they Sylvia’s—come back to ring in my ears. “There will be one day in your life when you need not worry about the mundane anymore.”
Workman at the pile of soil shoveling it into the grave. And then a figure in a tattered-looking brown coat who’d been lurking back at the side of the gray granite mausoleum, was coming down the little hill to walk away on the road. And from the corner of my eye I saw just a flash of the face seen before behind a screen door in Syracuse. And I knew even now, cloaked with its veil, it was Sylvia’s never-forgotten mother.
Dropped off on Pell Street, the heavy car door clunking closed, I hated to leave the warm secure comfort. Like being shoved out again into the cold world. And without even showing signs of wanting a tip, the chauffeur saluting me, and I realized he did so with a certain lack of precision distinctly naval. And I saluted back. Went into the hall, up these dusty stairs and back into the apartment. In an effort to prevent mess accumulating further in these shabby rooms I pulled out a drawer to place my clothes away. And there in the back corner of this depository was the sweater Sylvia wore when I first met her. The heavy wool folded on top of a pair of her black leotards. Gently, reverently, I lifted them up. There under the sweater was a brand-new twenty-dollar bill. Like the kind she used to give me for car fare. And a note.
Maestro, who knows, you may need this.
And the sob came up as if from the bottom of my feet and from the end of my toes. Unstoppable. Racking every part of my body. And clinging to myself I lay on the bed, my tears soaking the pillow. And next I knew, it was dawn and a pigeon standing in the snow outside on the windowsill.
I knew somehow that I had to get up out of this whirlpool of sorrow or be forever sucked down to no one’s good. And get out into life again. I was sure I was being followed as I went to my familiar Bowery bar to call the Hotel Pennsylvania to ask Amy when I could take her, as I had promised, on a ride on the Staten Island Ferry which let you escape to a brief freedom and return with renewed confidence to New York. Remind myself again. That a nickel a head and a dime round-trip, it was something left I could afford to do in New York. And knowing the ferry was one of America’s most incredible clubs, where each commuter could recognize a stranger and every other commuter’s face and where they sat and what they read. But Amy was again out.
And so important now that I knew it was, to break the barren hold of all these buildings. To vigorously walk the rest of the streets right down to the tip of Manhattan Island. And past where in a twenty-five-cent lodging house Stephen Foster once lived. And who died abandoned and penniless in this city after creating such wonderful music and song.
At last at the end of Broadway the open park ahead, it was as if a whole new world was starting all over again after one had died and woke up living. Yet knowing one lost someone I must have loved. And the one who in death had saved my life. So that I and my music could live.
Remember again. It was my own decent hardworking parents who, even though they weren’t invited to the wedding and with their own dire worries to think about, gave Sylvia and me a few hundred bucks as a present, and we were just able to afford to take the apartment with the big windows looking down on Pell Street. But they said I was moving back into a world that they had struggled to get out of all their lives. And it is true. Even as I go now, I feel disgust at the lack of human dignity along the Bowery streets. The pawnshops, bars and flophouses. A distinguished gray-haired gentleman who could have been my own father accosting me, begging. Asking him, “What has befallen you, friend.” No answer. And I gave what coins I could. And now I know how the rich of the richest live. They have, while they’re awake, appointments. And yet in these United States we live in, for many it was all falling asunder. Where once-respectable, dutiful, God-fearing people end up strewn in the gutter.
Trotted across the rest of the park on this very tip of Manhattan Island. The whistle blew. A Staten Island Ferry about to leave. Up the steps. Run. Run. Jump past as the gatekeeper closes the gates. The last passenger getting on board. Ferry pulling out, squealing against the greased great pilings. Go buy a hot dog adorned with bowel-moving sauerkraut, relish and mustard. Go out on deck. Eat it in the breeze. Stare out at this massive statue holding up its torch of liberty. Emblem of this city and America. Vessels anchored in the bay. Try to read the flags they fly. The wind beating upon the cold gray choppy waters. A tugboat plowing through the waves, foam up over its bow. Draw in a breath of chill air. Turn to go back into the warmth. Stop. And there she is, leaning on the railing. In a black beret, her blond hair being blown back by the wind over her shoulders. The delicate whiteness of that face. Amy from Knoxville. And I could hear Max’s voice saying, How modern can life get, pal, how fast, and how surprising, to be even a bigger pain in the ass. And he also said, Amy was from a good family. That he had holed up with her without repercussions. And what a gal.
Then she turned, saw me. And smiles. Wide, beaming and wonderful. And welcoming. I smile. Go tell her now that I’ll take her wherever she wants to go. Even on a jaunt in Max’s ole Bentley, his legacy to me. With the headlights like two large bulging insect eyes. Knock this city for a loop. Sport, as he did, a crimson silk cravat adorned with black dots and stuck with a gold pin. Thumb my nose at those who jeer. And I know now Sylvia meant no harm when she said, “Throw that rag away.” And even though death may never
be put to death, let us ask that you who take the dead away always treat them kindly. And play music please.
Amy from Knoxville said she would stay on in New York and find a job. And it was on a day a month later that I’d gone to see the famed conductor and to meet him on the steps of the Juilliard School of Music following his holding auditions and also to meet a cellist he had heard of there. But he had just learned from two girls, fellow students, about a girl named Sabrina, who had shot herself in the bus station and who at the school was considered one of their most brilliant young cellists. And as I stood there, still in my mind. That image. Of the girl in the bus station. “Excuse me, sir.” When I was so near her. And who was she. And did it ever matter that I find out in this small city with its millions. And now had found out. On these steps where she once must have stood. And where she must have seen me at least once standing. For now I remember her features. posture and the warmth of her healthy glow. And I should have known of her life-threatening distress which was said in her words written all over her face. Just like the man who was also there and had just gone by. With his own face wreathed with concern.