Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me Read online

  “They won’t take it.”

  “What?”

  “Your silver dollar.”

  “Won’t take it?”

  “She says she’s never seen one before, the woman at the checkout.”

  Up at once, eyes flashing, the parka over his large shoulders like a magician’s winter cape, his hair tumbling on his ears. Stomping up to the line, walking ahead of two coeds buying corn muffins, who jerked their sneakered toes away from the clang of his boots. The woman at the cash register, with a potato for a face, complexion like Wheatena. He has seen her in a hundred roadhouses and side-street hotels, in countless supermarkets and bargain basements, squatting in a print dress, wearing hobheels, smelling of purchased secrets from Woolworth’s, lips puckered, passion plucked or pissed away some twenty years before. The resigned are my foes.

  Three opened Red Caps and a cup of tea were waiting by her side. He snapped down the silver dollar with a weighty click.

  “That ain’t no good,” she said. “I just sent one back.”

  “What?”

  “ ’Sno good.”

  Placing the flats of both palms on the counter and leaning so far forward that she had to change position and back away: “I beg your sublimely idiotic pardon, but it IS good and YOU are taking it.”

  “I’m awful sorry, sonny, but—”

  “Sonny? SONNY? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”

  The entire length of the Plato Pit falling silent, heads at each of the picnic tables turning in the direction of the bellowed cry.

  “I am King fucking MONTEZUMA, that’s who, and this is the coin of my kingdom.”

  The woman looking around her for help, compulsively fingering the keys on the cash register, her mouth open, her elbows seeking balance.

  “And if you fail to honor the symbol of my realm, I will have your heart torn out, right?! OUT OUT OUT of your body.” She gasped. “At the top of a pyramid.” She reeled. “And I will eat it RAW!”

  The two girls dropping their corn muffins and retreating from the maniac; the woman’s blood draining from her head.

  Gnossos picked up the ale and tea, and hissed, “Keep the change, baby. Buy yourself a hot-water bottle.” Returning to the table, where they drank quickly under a veil of cautious murmurs, then departed into the already darkening evening with snowflakes gray against the sky, the chains on the tires of passing cars making muted jangles on the roads.

  2

  All across the blue-tinted campus, circling the illuminated tall Clock Tower, up and down the many sidehills scored by trails of the afternoon’s tray sliders, the cars were shuttling back and forth between dormitories, fraternity houses, and Lairville. An electric atmosphere hovering above the primeval silence of the winter’s end, odor of ozone, bright-eyed rushees everywhere, giving measured ground to this latest complexity of social intercourse, nervous and excited over moratorium’s end; free to mingle with the suave elegance of upperclass brotherhood. The best of them in Thunderbirds and Corvettes, MG’s and Austin Healeys, occasional white Lincoln convertibles, top down for windy adventure. Chi Psi’s fire engine loaded full, clanging down Labyrinth Avenue. All part of the tactical wizardry conceived in the previous weeks, long hours between terms in the dovetailed dissection of collected intelligence, identities summed up and catalogued on index cards: name, hometown, school, extracurricular activities, position of father, family income, antecedents, race, religion, salient personal characteristics, tailor (if any), nuances, likes, and dislikes. The Class-A essence of superficial cream spun centrifugally upward by the silently churning forces of a blue-eyed society. Gnossos cruising meanwhile in the back of a charcoal-gray four-passenger Aston Martin, wedged between two freshmen football heroes with android heads, from Alexandria, Virginia, mouths mumbling in taut, athletic fashion as if they have unopened Brazil nuts packing their cheeks. How’s your ass, ace?

  No index card for me, I’m Exempt. Secret identity mortally guarded, for I am the Plastic Man, able with an effortless shift of will to become a bowling ball, a pavement, a door, a corset, an elephant’s contraceptive.

  “Got an extra Brazil nut there?”

  “What’s that, ace?”

  “Brazil nuts.”

  “Ha ha ha. Not with me, ace.”

  “Ha ha ha. I didn’t think so.” A stiff finger to the Adam’s apple and he eats death. Okinawan karate more aesthetic. He fails to know his Enemy.

  Swinging into the D.U. driveway, house officers in Harris tweed gathered around the open front doors, hands ready to wring, smiles frozen on their jaws. Heff’s suit uncomfortable, pinching my balls. God help me if they see my St. Louis socks, give the whole thing away. Feel lushed but shouldn’t. Paregoric making little lumps in side pocket. Good of Heff to let me use his lamp. Have to find a place though, maybe men’s room in the house. Turn Pamela on later. Wouldn’t dig it probably, first time. Fitzgore coming over. Oh, see the concern in him. Easy now, stick to vernaculars: “Hello there, Gorzy, how goes it?”

  “Pretty good, Paps,” glancing around, uneasy grin, too many roles to play. Going to be intimate, getting ready to whisper, “Listen, go easy, okay? They think you’re a transfer student. The idea is to get around, meet some of the guys, make noncontroversial small talk.”

  “When is dinner?”

  “Jesus. There you go already. In about half an hour. But you’ve got to mix a little first, feel things along.”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Oh my God. Upstairs, second door on the right.” Calling after him, “First floor, Paps.”

  Two brothers already closing in behind, just made it. Interiors all walnut paneling, leather chairs, brass. What was it about Tudor? Comfortable-looking, all the same. Ah, nobody in the loo.

  Gnossos opened a window, closed the stall door, and sat down on the pot. Both joints were still a bit damp, having been only partially dried from the heat of a lightbulb in Heff’s mildewed room. He waved them in the air to hasten evaporation, then lost patience and lit the first one, taking as long a puff as possible, keeping the saturated smoke in his lungs for thirty seconds. A delicious respiration, almost nothing coming back. Oh yes.

  Yes.

  Another puff, this one not quite as long, then a series of short ones, carbureting the air, sucking at it noisily. Exhaling again.

  Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm.

  He finished the first one. All right. Absolutely all right. Hold on to the second, low tolerance out tonight.

  He stood slowly and opened the door to find his face in the mirror. Very funny eyes. Most peculiar. Ought to do something about them.

  Oh.

  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a drink of good Greek wine? Whose room is this?

  He tiptoed quietly. The walls covered with bullfight posters and a large Utrillo print of Montmartre. A Belafonte calypso record displayed above the turntable of the machine, quaint Chianti bottles, all empty, hung from nails, some with candles inserted in the necks. Try the bedroom.

  Playboy Playmates tacked on the ceiling, neatly made beds. No sign of nectar, though. Oops, someone coming. Into the closet. Eeek, bottle of Cutty Sark. Ho ho ho.

  He opened it up, tipped against his lips, and poured. It was altogether glorious. A little provocation for my opiated cells. Listen to them:

  “. . . is the bathroom here, Harry babes? We don’t go in for the dorm setup like some of the other houses. Makes it harder to party, if you see what I mean, ha ha.”

  “Yeah. Guys waking up all at different times for class, one big room like that . . . ”

  “Sure thing, ha ha . . . ”

  Gone. Take some more, good long one, pulsing, there. He put the bottle carefully under a pile of shirts, then eased out of the room. I am invisible. Must remember this place for after dinner. Downstairs. Oh ratshit, someone coming over, looks official, dig the smile, gargles with Lavoris.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met, Nooses, my name is John Mayke. The guys call me Maykes,” shaking hands like a piston. Makes what? Hi
s pillow every night? Careful, play the game, he smells the lush. Can’t see my brain, though.

  “Gnossos is how you pronounce it, Makes, but old Gorzy calls me Paps.”

  “Oh sure, old Gorzy. A great guy. Done a whole lot for the house. Said you were a transfer student.”

  “Quite right. Got tired of Princeton, no girls. To speak of, ha ha.”

  “Yeah, never thought of it like that. You’re here on scholarship, he said.”

  “Little astronomy action, pays everything, spending-money under the table, you know.” Head going higher, might need to flee.

  “That right? Couple of guys in the house took that one-o-one course for their science requirement, said it was a real gut.”

  “Sure thing. It’s the advanced courses give you trouble. Relativity principles, spiral nebula in Coma Berenices, that kind of hassle. Really keeps you on your toes. Got to grind all the time. No picnic.”

  Two more coming over, been hanging on the edge of the talk. Be gregarious: “Howdy,” folksy touch. “My name’s Paps.” Conical hilltops side by side.

  “Al Strozier, Ohio.”

  “Mike Peel, Chicago.”

  “Paps here was just telling me about astronomy.”

  “Real gut,” said Peel, brush cut, tab collar, cordovans, Skull and Dagger pin in his paisley tie.

  “Chicago?” from Gnossos, the opium creeping still higher, “Mister Kelly’s, the Loop, Adler-Sullivan Auditorium—”

  “What was that last one, Paps?”

  Philistine. “Breed of opera house. Acoustically perfect. Closed down. Used as a bowling alley during the war, USO and all. You know. A genius, old Sullivan. Maniac. Died alone.”

  “They’re like that,” said Strozier, twist of suspicion in his viscous tone, looking at Gnossos’ hair.

  “Why are you looking at my hair?”

  An uneasy flush in all three faces. “Ha ha,” from Strozier, looking around, “ha ha ha.”

  “You were staring at my hair. You find it peculiar?”

  Fitzgore, sensing disaster, coming over just as the dinner chimes were sounding, “Let’s go eat, Paps.”

  “He should see my socks if he thinks my hair is weird—” hiking his tight trousers, revealing a flash of chartreuse that caught the eye of everyone in the room.

  “Food, Paps, remember? C’mon.”

  They entered the dining room in slightly better order, each rushee flanked by selected brothers, deployed and maneuvered to the seat he thought he had chosen himself. They remained standing behind chairs until the president of the house gave the signal to sit. All-ivy lacrosse type, probably from Chevy Chase. A great clatter of dishes, silver, pouring water, busy conversation. The two tables long and rough-hewn, period chairs, stained blocks in the windows, wagon-wheel lamps, gamboge shades. Mead? Dancing girls? Barrels? Tankards of ale? Pappadopoulis closed his eyes briefly, willed himself into a Mediterranean olive grove, a sandaled sprite of eighteen at his side, light cotton dress blowing in the warm breeze, nothing on beneath, unshaved legs and underarms, hammered artifacts dangling from her ear lobes. In his palpebral vision, she beckoned. He raised his lids, hoping to find her sitting cross-legged before him on the table, but found instead a bowl of alphabet soup, a piece of toast sloshing on top. Fitzgore was at his left and a stranger with horn rims blinked assiduously at his right. He wolfed down the saturated toast with one enormous sucking gulp and sopped up half of the bowl’s remaining contents with a Parker House roll. Surges of laughter.

  At me? Dodge the paranoia. Symptoms and disease often dovetail. The opium still working. Fitzgore saying something, Peel and crowd eying from the end of the table. Fall on them in the night with cyanide spray. Woosh, breathe death.

  “. . . been wanting to meet you, Paps. Byron Agneau; Gnossos Pappadopoulis.”

  A limp hand offered from horn rims, “How do you do, Paps, Gorzy here’s been telling me about your stargazing. I’m a lit major myself, minor in theater arts.”

  So you are. And who’s the Chinese dwarf at the next table? Hallucination? Watch for the monkey-demon. Behind me? No. Agneau still talking: “. . . mentioned that you enjoyed telling, well, tales on occasion. Just what kind of tales is it you do?”

  “No tales. No more tales at all, if you see what I mean.”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “Subversive art form, archaic distortion of the passions, dig?”

  “Subversive?” asking seriously. Fitzgore with nervous droplets of perspiration on his upper lip and brow, afraid I’ll slice away this twit’s ear.

  “Taletellers always making trouble, Agneau, leaving mess-piles behind, right? Social schizophrenics, dying in the alleyways, jumping off trestles with anvils tied to their feet, making a terrible scene, most of them queer. Michelangelo queer, even.”

  “Michelangelo? But wasn’t he an artist, ha ha? A painter?”

  “A taleteller, baby. Dear to me is sleep, right? You don’t mind if I quote?”

  “Oh, not at all, really.”

  “Where was I?”

  “Something about sleep being dear.”

  “Sure thing. While evil and shame endure, not to see, not to feel is my good fortune. Dangerous shit, that. The cat was into a stone thing, dig? Do you have any idea what’s taking them so long in the kitchen, Agneau? Terrible hunger in me. Ought to serve wine with meals, slake the pauses.”

  “Ha ha. That’s true enough. No liquor allowed during rushing, though. An I.F.C. ruling. Only at exchange dinners, the other usual functions we run.”

  I.F.C. The police all around us. Careful, there may be microphones in the lamps. Or the soup, even. One of the little alphabet pieces, a transistor pickup.

  “What do you exchange?”

  Nibbling uneasily at his roll, looking at my stained teeth: “Ha ha. You know. Tri-Delt or Kappa sends some coeds over here, we send some guys over there.”

  Drink purple passions, run upstairs and fumble in each other’s underclothing. Rehearsal for the real thing, come in your pants, pretend they’re not wet. God, I’m hungry. Moan.

  “Mmmmm.”

  Fitzgore jerking around, asking in a careful whisper, “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Pax. Only the sound of an alimentary canal. Mmmmmmmm.”

  “For God’s sake, some of the guys are looking at you.”

  “MMMMMMM.”

  “Oh Jesus,” Fitzgore biting his glass.

  “You don’t tell tales any more then?” from clever Agneau, trying to distract, “that right, Paps?”

  “Pornography. I do some gigs I call the Sally Sisters Chronicles. Currently working up the stalled-freight-elevator episodes.”

  “Really? Episodes?”

  “Nymphomaniac oud trio, South American band, Siamese twins. Mmmmmm.”

  A sharp, hoarse whisper from Fitzgore, beginning to despair: “Paps!” Astounding how Agneau seems not to notice. Almost British in reserve. Try it in his face, cloud his horn rims: “MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.” Little better, anxious murmurs stirring, heads turning to see who.

  “Siamese twins? Really?”

  “Joined at the left diddly. Everyone making everybody else. All plugged in, stuck together, the Ultimate Machine, dig? The twins try to pull out without breaking down the machinery.”

  Hint of saliva at the corners of the Agneau mouth: “How could they?”

  “Whatever they take out, they plug into someone else. As long as there’s an opening. Momentary pause but the machine keeps going.”

  “Mmmm,” said Agneau. Everyone staring at them, the upperclass brothers conferring rapidly just as the T-bone steaks were carried in. Mushroom gravy, fried onions, baked potatoes with sour cream and chives, string beans and white sauce, endive salad, bottles of ketchup.

  “Ommmmmmmmm.” The Chinese dwarf still there, I’m not mad. “Fitzgore, excuse me a minute, but who the hell is that Chinese dwarf?”

  “Shhhh! Holy Christ, Paps, that’s Harold Wong.”

  “Number-one son?”
/>   “He’s coxy on the Olympic crew.”

  “Oh splendid, splendid.”

  Agneau leaning forward confidentially: “Is it a very long tale?”

  “Are you queer?”

  “What?”

  “I just want to know where you’re at. If you have homosexual tendencies?”

  “—Me?” A finger at his heart.

  “He’s drunk,” explained Fitzgore, bending over in a desperate whisper, trying to keep the others from hearing too much. “I thought you were hungry, for God’s sakes.”

  Pappadopoulis picking up the steak in his hands and tearing away a huge chunk with his incisors. “Mmchhnmm.” All around the room attention shifting to the main course. Perhaps they’ll try to maim me before coffee. Eat well first.

  He devoured the food on his plate, refilled it, ate again, refilled and ate. Long silences, clattering dish noises. He wet the tip of his forefinger and moved it smoothly around the rim of the half-filled glass, making a high-pitched whining sound that was barely discernible, then drank some of the water and did it again, altering the pitch. “What’s that noise?” asked Peel from the head of the table. He drank off another inch, dipped his finger and tried again. “E. Above high C.” Fitzgore paling, unable to eat beside him.

  Hot fudge sundaes for dessert, anything to impress the rushees, Gnossos having two, saving the fudge for last. Might have to spend the night in jail, bread and water, maybe get hit by a truck going home. Always eat well. Nutrients squirming in the marrow of Anglo-Saxon foodstuffs. I’m in a room full of robots. Be careful. You are what you eat.

  He reached into his jacket pocket and took out the second lamp-dried cigarette, lighting it before Fitzgore could take notice, burning half away with a single inspirational puff, holding the smoke down, adding little sips of sharply sucked-at air. His shoulders hunched, his eyes bulging, the house officers beginning to mumble uneasily, someone coming over to talk to Fitzgore, report me. Exhale. Beautiful, no smoke. Another puff, almost gone, weee. Fitzgore sniffing.

  “What’s that you’re smoking, Paps?”

  No time to talk, saturate lungs. All that spongy fiber swilling. Listen to your nerves hum. Yes.