There Should Have Been Castles Page 3

  “I’m a lesbian.”

  “Benjamin, I am confronted with a hapless existence and cannot pay for this coffee. I trust there won’t be a scene.”

  “No scene, but don’t have a cruller.”

  “I eat once a day at the Yale Club. I load up there for a dollar and can often go two days without re-eating. It is the only reason for going to Yale. Unless you can help me, I had my last meal an hour ago.”

  “Have a cigar.” I gave him one of my Flor De A. Allones and he lit it perfectly, holding the match a half inch from the tip, drawing in the flame most aristocratically while rotating the cigar slowly so as not to induce a hot spot. And somewhere I heard Somerset Maugham say, “Well struck.”

  Don Cook was class from his nose to his ass. He might die in a poorhouse or under a beer truck, but whoever came to collect him would know he was picking up class. His nose had a bump in it where it changed direction slightly, but his chin was firmly chiseled and his eyes, a see-through blue, had a defiant focus to them made all the more so by the fact that they seldom blinked. Every one of his brown hairs was obediently in place, a small pompadour crowning his noble brow. And, though he was a little slight in the shoulders, there was something to his neck that said “power if needed.”

  “Ben,” he said, “I have been trolling the streets in search of a roommate. My rent is paid through the end of the month but my larder is bare. Stock it with canned goods and Ritz crackers, give me a cigar on occasion, and I will be proud to share my bad fortune with you until the end comes. I am a superb cook, housekeeper and bulb-snatcher, a brilliant conversationalist and an incomparable dancer. I don’t know what else you’re looking for in a man. Think it over as you will not get another offer like this on this street this day.” He flicked an ash at the world, and it’s the way I have remembered him since—a Dickensian anachronism born many years after his true time.

  I followed him to his apartment feeling like David Copperfield in the company of a twentieth century Steerforth. And trailing him up the five flights to his East Eighty-third Street flat, I couldn’t help but notice that each of his rubber heels disappeared beneath its respective exterior ankle. A few more round trips and the heels would be no more. In short, all of Don Cook’s attire was at the point of being irreparable—and yet nothing in his manner was there to indicate that his mind and spirit were in a similar disarray. The Tyrolean feather in his fedora was thumbing its nose at adversity. I was in the company of an indomitable spirit and it was brightening my life.

  The apartment was a railroad type, a hallway shooting straight through, rooms ricocheting left and right. A kitchen, a bathroom, a dining alcove, a living room of a sort, bedrooms—two or three, I couldn’t really tell—one of which was his and another of which had a girl in it.

  As we passed the room with the girl, Don casually indicated her presence as a tour guide might point out a local site. “That’s Alice—and this is the kitchen. The refrigerator, though old, is still trustworthy though the freezer is shot and there is a certain amount of spoilage. Fish, in particular, being risky fare and—”

  “Who’s Alice?”

  “A girl I used to know.”

  “I see. You don’t know her anymore.”

  “Slightly.” He looked at me, understanding that my silence had to be contended with. “Ben, Alice is a light that has gone out. She flamed for a while and then blew her filament. I loved her once but now we’re just pals.”

  “Why is she still here?”

  He expressed amazement at the question. “Benjamin, it’s her apartment. She’s keeping me. I think it’s good of her not to ask me to leave, don’t you?” He was trying to end the discussion.

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s say no more about it.” He moved on. “The sink, as you can see, drips endlessly, but if you close the kitchen door at night it’s never a problem. Also, the water pressure leaves something to be desired in that, all too often, when you’re in the shower, the water will go from a forceful flow to like it’s a kid pissing on your head.”

  “Excuse me…”

  “What is it?” he asked intimidatingly, annoyed at my continual interruptions and not afraid to show it by the jut of his chin.

  “Alice is keeping you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s going to keep me?”

  “Alice.”

  “Does she know about it?”

  “Did she see you walk by?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she knows about it.”

  “Mr. Cook, you will give me straight answers or I will bend your nose in the opposite direction.” I could not have been more direct.

  “Sit down, Pittsburgh.”

  “Fuck you, Hartford. I’m leaving.”

  “You’d let a girl come between us?”

  “How do I know it’s a girl? All I saw was a face in a blanket.”

  “It’s a girl. Why else would it be named ‘Alice’? Ben, sit down. Please?”

  I sat, on a chair whose springs jumped up to meet me. “What the hell is this? The Fun House?”

  Don was telling all. “Alice is a stewardess. You’ve heard of TWA? It’s her apartment. She’s away a lot of the time, coming and going. She likes to have somebody on the premises to kind of watch over things. A caretaker, if you will. And that’s it.”

  “No, it’s not. There’s more.”

  “Well—she also likes to kind of have a man around. You know—to protect her against frigidity.”

  “Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. I’m being brought in as what—your replacement?”

  “My successor.”

  “What happens to you?”

  “Life goes on.”

  “Alice pays the rent. I supply the Ritz crackers and the manpower—and you do what—nothing?”

  “You’re being unkind. I’m unemployed at the moment, yes, but once I get a suitable job, you will both of you be glad that you kept me on.” He became buoyant, painting pictures in the air. “I will make roasts and pour Beaujolais and read to you—as you and Alice revel on percale in celebration of youth. However—” his voice came down an octave, “there is a catch.”

  “Aha!”

  “You have to pass muster. Alice, of course, has no time to look and has left it to me to come up with a suitable choice. But I can’t just bring anyone in on her. The final decision must be hers.” He glanced at his watch. “All entries must be made by midnight; neatness and originality count, and Alice’s decision is final.”

  “A straight answer. Why are you out?”

  “You’re a very pragmatic fellow, a very unnerving trait in this tawdry world in which we live.”

  “You’ve got ten seconds to answer—or I’m gone.”

  “I won’t really miss you, but I will miss your cigars. So—tarry.”

  “I’m tarrying, but for only five more seconds.”

  He sighed and delivered the news. “Don’t get upset, but it isn’t just Alice. There’s Susan.”

  “Susan?”

  “And Jessica.”

  “Jessica?”

  “They come and go. There’s usually a couple nights a week when there’s no one. But by the same token, there’s often a couple nights when there’s two. But never three. There’s never been a night when there’s been three. I give you my oath on that, my good fellow. I wouldn’t shit you.”

  “Jesus Christ! What kind of girls are they?”

  “They’re darling.”

  “But—to live like that?”

  “Benny, Benny, Benny—they’re stewardi. They fly with death. At any given moment, on any flight—it can all end. Pfffft, like that. So, when they come home to their place, they like a little of the good things in life—a little fucking, a little sucking—it’s understandable. If you were a stewardess, you’d understand. Good Lord, they’re paid little enough.”

  “You’re such a man of the world, how come you can’t handle it?”

  There was a small note of desperation
in his voice. “I can handle it—to a degree. But sometimes I don’t get out of bed until four in the afternoon. And often, when I do I’m tired. Too tired to go out on a job interview. And when I can summon up enough strength to look for a job—I look like shit.” He slumped a bit. “I tell you, Ben, it’s a problem. I stumbled into a young man’s dream, my every sexual fantasy gratified and by experts, but it’s aging the crap out of me. And I live in fear that, by the time I do get a decent job, I’ll be either on social security or a basket case.”

  I had to laugh. It was the nuttiest thing I’d ever heard of. Don took heart at my laughter, interpreting it as a victory of his logic over my blind stupidity. He dropped all the dramatics and leaned in like a buddy.

  “Ben, I’ll level with you. The broads are a touch horny. I think it’s the whole setup that turns them on. I think, in a different situation, they’d be normal or close to it—but here? I’ll help you out wherever I can but I can no longer handle it alone. I’ve offered to bring in guys on a free-lance basis, but they won’t buy it—that’d make them whores and me a pimp. They’re very old-fashioned on the subject, kind of sweetly monogamous which I find very endearing, but I am not Brigham Young. Nor do I have three cocks, and, lately, the one I do have has been hiding. This has been pointed out to the girls on more than one occasion so that now they see the wisdom of having another buck in the wigwam, assuming, of course, that his head is on straight. Ben, they’ll love you. You’re bright and have good posture and wear sensible shoes. If we bury your mackinaw and spend a few bucks on a Wembley tie—Ben, if we pool our peckers and work as a team, together we can hack it. Alice isn’t bad. A little plain, but deft. Susan? You’ll love Susan. She comes once and falls asleep. Sometimes she’s asleep before she comes, and you can save it for another day. And she loves to make breakfast. Fresh orange juice, Ben. None of that frozen shit. And she strains out all the seeds and the pulp. I swear, Ben, sometimes I think that, if you suck her tits long enough, Susan’ll give milk.”

  “Sounds like a very nice, outgoing type.”

  “Then it’s settled.”

  “What about Jessica?”

  “No problem. She’s seldom here.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “I know.”

  “What about Jessica?”

  “Well—she’s large.”

  “How large?”

  “Well—about six feet tall.”

  “How wide?”

  “Well—about as wide as your average DC-3. But Ben—she’s got beautiful eyes!”

  “How many propellers? So long, Don.” I started out.

  He stopped me. “I don’t really see what you have to lose. Try it a week. Try it a night. You can’t buy a lousy hooker in this town with just a sixty-cent cigar. We’ll work out a schedule. And there’s vacations. The girls have vacations, Ben. They fly to foreign places on vacations. Tibet, Samoa, Saturn…You’ll have time off. You can go to the movies, smoke cigars, whittle soap. Ben, you’re a good physical specimen. I’m not but you are. Right up until the moment of your heart attack, you’ll have such a good time—”

  “Why don’t they get guys from the airlines? Why do they need you and me?”

  “Company policy. The airlines frown on fraternizing. TWA especially. Alice and Susan are TWA. Jessica is Allegheny, they’re not as strict but I have to be honest. Jessica did bring home a pilot once, but the word is out on her because—on his next flight, the guy crashed. He was a cripple on the morning he left here. I should have stopped him but I thought he’d pull himself together. The least I should’ve done was to call the terminal and give them an anonymous tip that one of their pilots would never get it up that day, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to lose him. I was—selfish.”

  By then I was practically rolling on the floor laughing. I didn’t know how much of what Don was telling me was truth and how much was fiction. All I knew was that, inside of ten minutes, Don had gone off to walk his dog (which he didn’t have), and I was standing, my pants around my ankles, in Alice’s steaming room. The lighting was dim but I could see her giving me the once over. Then she sat up and ran her hand over my belly, hefting my scrotum as if she were about to roll dice, grabbing my penis as if she were about to pump water—ultimately guiding me inside her as one might lead a pony to a stall. And all the while she never said a word. Not even “coffee, tea or milk” or “Sir, your fly is open.”

  What neither Alice nor Don knew was that they had been dealing with a virgin. And so it was that on my first time out, I never saw the girl, never spoke to her, never kissed her. I just dropped my pants and fucked, climaxing inside her without passion, shame or skill—a triumph of friction, a poem without words, music without music—just percussion, rhythm and drums.

  Still, on reflection, I have to admit that it had been reasonably exciting, except that she kept calling me “Murray” and I could have done without that. Alice left during the night. A dawn flight to Dallas.

  The next afternoon (as I was relating to you earlier) I was sitting alone in the apartment, having moved my stuff over from the Y. Toasting the memory of Elizabeth Satterly with my three bottles of Villa Cosenza, I had just poured it all down the sink and was lighting up one of my very best Jamaicas when Jessica walked in. I thought it was the Hindenburg but it had beautiful eyes, so I knew it was Jessica. That’s all I remembered.

  Somewhere around eight in the evening I heard Don tippy-toeing in. I felt like Maggie waiting for Jiggs, sitting there in the dark as Don tried to sneak into his room. I turned on the lamp and he froze as in a Tom and Jerry cartoon (my entire world had turned comic strip). He had a bag in his hand that smelled of hamburger. “Lose your dog?” I asked.

  “Ahhhh, Ben.”

  “You were expecting maybe Brigham Young?”

  He was looking toward the bedroom. “Jessica?”

  “Either her or the whole Notre Dame line.”

  “No. It’s Jessica. You all right?”

  “The doctor says I’ll be walking again in no time.”

  “Well, the initial outing is always the most difficult. In time you’ll learn her funny little ways.”

  “You knew she was due back.”

  “Me?”

  “You knew her schedule.”

  “Let’s just say I had an inkling.”

  “Alice and Jessica in less than twelve hours. That oughta make me Varsity, coach.”

  “I knew you could do it. Now, ’fess up. It was great, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it a compelling experience?”

  I smiled. He was right. Sitting alone, toasting Elizabeth Satterly between screwing Alice and surviving Jessica had been kind of lofty. “Tweren’t bad.”

  “Only in America, eh, kid?”

  “Want to give me a hint as to when Susan’s due in?”

  “Wednesday. You’ve got two days. You go back to the Y—a little whirlpool treatment, a little steam room—you’ll be fine.”

  We laughed, had a couple cigars, and I forgot to be miffed at my unlikely new roommate. Also, I stayed on.

  Don Cook had to be the most conniving, designing fellow I had ever come across in my life. Yet nothing he ever did was truly malicious. He was like a perennial college boy. Life was just a pledgeship and an alma mater and he sailed through it and over it, flying his feather and sidestepping disaster, never hurting anyone and, in his own way, always giving much more than he himself ever asked for.

  Sometime later, Jessica emerged from her room dressed in an orange kimono that made her look like the entire dawn. We had the hamburgers that Don had brought back, paid for with money he had earlier lifted from my unknowing pocket but, honorable fellow that he was, he gave me his marker for the full seventy-five cents. In the years that followed I was to receive a number of Don Cook’s markers. They were worthless then but later became invaluable. They’re stashed away somewhere, I forget where, but I have them.

  Jessica had a flight to Rochester or Binghamton and was soon dressed in her cute and mammoth stew
ardess outfit. She kissed both Don and I on the cheek and, saying she’d be back soon, saluted and went out. The apartment trembled slightly as she descended the stairs. Don said that it was only my imagination but I noticed him holding onto the radiator as she left. I was too much the gentleman to point that out to him.

  Don relaxed when he realized, for better or for worse, that I was staying on in the tepee. And he allowed as how I was both brave and wise and that, if nothing else—if nothing good or positive ever came of it—it would still have been an interlude in my life wherein I had flown TWA and Allegheny—First Class.

  We went over to Broadstreet’s, where, with Don acting as advisor, I bought a sport jacket and slacks, and at Wembley’s a multi-colored necktie that Don said would go with anything but a fucking mackinaw. When we got back to the apartment, Don packed my fucking mackinaw away somewhere, saying that we would always keep it handy in case Jack London ever came to call. Then we discussed financial matters.

  I, of course, was solvent, my job at the Rockwell Greeting Card Store secure at least through Christmas, which was still some months away. But with Don it was another story. He was out of work, had used up his unemployment eligibility, and his father (one of them) had cut off his allowance. He owed twenty dollars to Susan and thirty-five dollars to Alice and close to a hundred to Jessica but that was alright because Jessica also took markers. The money he owed the girls, I should mention, was not for services rendered. It was hard cash, borrowed in good faith against bad luck and would all be one day paid back at eight percent per annum. The girls had as much chance of seeing their money again as England had of regaining India, but they were either very good about it or—interesting thought—Don was better in bed than he would have had me believe.

  Don got a job at Bloomingdale’s, as a floorwalker. It lasted one week in that it took his superiors precisely that long to discover that he wasn’t walking the floor at all, he was eating the samples in the Gourmet Section, thus saving the money he would normally be called upon to spend at the Yale Club.