the Last Buffoon Page 6

  “Will it be cash or charge?”

  “Neither.”

  On the sixth floor I locate the display of fine tents. I really need a good tent and backpack because I want to go on a camping trip in the Adirondacks and try to get my head together.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “I’m just browsing.”

  “People browse in libraries and bookstores,” says this bespectacled old fairy in a gray flannel suit. “I believe you’re using the word incorrectly.”

  “I believe you’re right, but I get tired of saying that I’m just looking around.”

  “I quite understand, and I hope you won’t think me overly critical.”

  “On the contrary, I’d like to thank you for pointing out my error. Precise speech encourages precise thinking.”

  The old fairy smiles graciously, showing a mouthful of false teeth that nearly blinds me. “I go off duty in a half-hour. Do you think we could meet for a drink?”

  “I’m afraid not, I have a previous engagement.”

  “Some other time perhaps?”

  “Perhaps.”

  I tip my hat and head for the elevators.

  On the seventh floor, in the boating section, I grip the spokes of a five hundred dollar ship’s wheel made of teak, and imagine myself steering a PT boat across the stormy North Atlantic, my hold filled with the very finest Lebanese hashish, a pack of Nazi U-boats trying to track me down, and Raquel Welch, clad in only high-heel shoes and French perfume, in the galley preparing sautéed bean sprouts. I reach toward a large brass ship’s bell costing two hundred dollars, grasp the rope, and shake it back and forth, clang clang clang, calling my crew to general quarters, and then realize to my horror that I’m in Abercrombie and Fitch actually clanging a ship’s bell, freaking out once again in a public place under the influence of insidious drugs.

  I glance around cautiously and see every single person on the floor looking at me with surprise and malevolence. A blue-suited, very correct gentleman with the air of an admiral of the fleet, marches toward me.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “The tone is too high-pitched for my boat,” I say with absolute drug-crazed assurance.

  That stops him cold. Rich eccentrics often shop at Abercrombie and Fitch. “We could order one for you in any tone you like.”

  “I’d like one two octaves lower and in the key of G.”

  He’s writing on a pad. “Your name, sir?”

  “Lancelot Wimbledon.”

  “Your address?”

  “Eight-twenty-one Park Avenue.”

  I walk casually to the elevator and in my peripheral vision see certain faces I’ve observed on every floor throughout the store. They must be the plainclothes security force following me around because they suspect I’m a dangerous weirdo, which is certainly true and just demonstrated with the ship’s bell. I’ve got to get out of here before they stop me and find two and one-third joints of fine Colombian buds in my sock, sufficient evidence to lock me in Attica for fifty years.

  I polish my sunglasses with my dirty handkerchief until an elevator comes, ride down to the ground floor, and make a beeline for the nearest exit.

  That was a close call — fucking jackass bastards are everywhere and they have the power to do horrible things. The world is full of pigs! Now hold on. Wait a minute there, Frapkin. You know very well that you can’t blame people for being what they are, because they’re impelled by hidden forces too. You’ve got to love your fellow man and your enemy even when he smites you, for the hand of the Lord is behind everything, and your brain is too puny to comprehend His Divine Design.

  That’s right — sometimes when I’m frightened I forget. Even Yasser Arafat must be understood and loved, for he’s only trying to help his people, even if he has to kill everyone else to do it.

  How fortunate I am to be having spiritual thoughts only six blocks from Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. I think I’ll stop there, kneel before the statue of Jesus Christ, and receive holy inspiration.

  In order for the experience to be truly profound, I’d better smoke another joint. I stop in the doorway of a hatter, pull out a fresh joint, light it up, and continue on my merry way. This is such good dope, and I have so much of it. Maybe I should throw a party. No, my friends would smoke it all in one night, vomit on my floor, insult me, and then I’d have to buy more. At 50th Street I turn the corner and straight ahead is Saint Patty’s, a great gothic fortress of God, right across the street from Sex Fifth Avenue.

  Up 50th Street I go, passing Fifth Avenue windows full of gorgeous mannequins in five hundred dollar dresses. Maybe I should buy one of those mannequins, drill out the vaginal area, stuff it with warm wet sponge, and fuck all night long.

  I cross the street, and on the wide front steps of the cathedral and snuff out the joint. A young guy in a beard winks at me and I wink back — one dope fiend can always recognize another. Okay, get set, in you go, Frapkin old boy.

  I climb the steps, pass quickly through the lobby, and enter the vast cathedral. Sweet frankincense touches my nose, candles flicker everywhere, and straight ahead is the shining altar where the Archbishop of New York celebrates mass. This place always gets to me; my heart swells with the spirit of the Lord. I stand in line at the fountain and when my turn comes, cross myself with holy water and mumble, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.” Next I proceed down the main aisle, passing rows of wooden benches where Catholics are praying. Granite columns soar up around me in arches high above, where angels and cherubs sing choruses of hallelujah. This has to be the most magnificent room in the world, truly the house of the Lord.

  Jewish religious fanatics would consider me a traitor for being here, but the pious Frapkin has a heart and mind that can embrace the truth of all the world’s great religions. How can I deny one who said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”? He was talking about folks like me when he spake those words.

  I make my way to a tiny dark area behind the altar, where a spotlight shines on a life-sized statue of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross. Blood drips from his thorn-crowned head and his pierced hands and feet. His eyes look to the heavens, and he says, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” I drop a quarter in the box and light a candle for the beleaguered people of Israel, who produced the great rabbi Jesus Christ, before whom I kneel to pray.

  Oh, Great Rabbi Jesus, help me to love those who hate me, for I know only Love can solve the terrible problems of the world. Please help me to be strong in my faith, help me to understand the hideous things I do, help me to persevere, and thank you for suffering my stupid presence these few minutes. Amen.

  A little religion goes a long way with me, and I need a drink. The bars around here are full of executive sissies, and a bottle of fine Guinness Stout probably will cost five dollars, or maybe I’d better head west toward Times Square.

  But first I think I’ll smoke another joint. I leave the cathedral, stop across the street near the entrance to a Rockefeller Center building, pull out a fresh one, light up, and continue on my way. As I near the Rockefeller Plaza skating rink, I hear the strains of Strauss’ Tales From Vienna Woods.

  Look at all the nice skaters gliding gracefully over the ice, the ladies wearing short skirts, the gents as 19th century aristocrats. It looks like fun but if I went down there like this I’d break my ass for sure and I’m in bad enough shape as it is. Dig the legs on the little blonde in the pale blue sweater. She can wrap them around my neck anytime, and farther down Fifth Avenue — hold on — in front of a fancy ladies dress shop there stands a foxy lady, maybe thirty-five years old, wearing a long leather coat, and she looks like a famous Broadway actress. Like Warren Beatty I stroll over, smile suavely, and say, “So I’ve found you at last.”

  Her long eyelashes paint the air. “I beg your pardon.”

  “I said I’ve found you at last.”

  “I think you’ve got me mixed up with so
mebody else.” She looks away.

  I sidestep into her line of vision. “Let’s have a drink together in that quiet little place around the corner.”

  She levels a withering stare at me. “Mister, I don’t know what your problem is, but if you don’t leave me alone I’m going to call a policeman.”

  I tip my hat, turn, and move away fast. The Nos don’t count — only the Yesses do. A great cocksmith from Brooklyn told me that once, it’s been my credo ever since. Besides, I really don’t know any quiet little place around the corner.

  I plunge into the unfashionable West Side via 45th Street. When I was a public relations dude, my office was on the next block. Maybe I should go over and see the old gang. Perhaps I could borrow a tenner from my old boss. No — that isn’t one of my better ideas. It’d be humiliating to go begging over there, and when they ask what I’m doing, what can I say? That I’ve written fourteen trashy novels since I left them? Keep on truckin’, Frapkin my man.

  After crossing Sixth Avenue, 45th Street becomes two rows of topless bars, massage parlors, and cheap hotels where the troopers of whoredom conduct their social work. Fate seems to have led me here so I think I’ll stop in one of these dives for some good Guinness Stout and tits-and-ass before dinner. But which dive? I read signs on both sides of the street: CAROUSEL BAR, PONY LOUNGE, POLKA DOT CLUB, KENNY’S PARADISE, THE DIAMOND NECKLACE, CHEZ FIFI, HOLLYWOOD PUB, THE PALACE OF SCHEHERAZADE.

  The Palace of Scheherazade stimulates my novelist’s imagination. I visualize an Oriental parlor filled with nymphomaniac dervishes. It’s halfway down the block on the other side of the street. I cross over, clip-clop toward it, push open the door, and step inside.

  There are colored balloons hanging from black walls and the ceiling, and red spotlights fixed on young girls in G-strings and spiked heels dancing on platforms above the long bar. The music is loud rock and roll.

  “Hiya, fella,” calls the dancer near the door, a redhead with long eyelashes.

  “Hiya, baby.” I give her a Jack Nicholson smirk. I stand near the door and case the joint. Business is slow this time of the afternoon so I’ll be able to sit next to the platform on which is dancing the prettiest girl in the place, a Latin number with black hair almost down to her waist, about five feet four inches tall, in complete confident possession of a perfectly proportioned body. The classic beauty of her face indicates she was an Aztec princess in a past life, and here she is dancing away the afternoon in a crummy topless bar probably owned by the Mob. I stroll forward and sit on the stool next to her.

  A chubby, bleached-blonde barmaid in black tights and mesh stockings walks up to me. “Whataya want?”

  “That girl’s phone number.” I point my thumb at the Aztec princess.

  “Don’t be a wise guy.” She looks down the bar at a gorilla in a shiny green suit, the bouncer.

  “A Guinness Stout, please.”

  She screws up her gun moll face. “A what?”

  “A Guinness Stout — it’s a kind of beer imported from Ireland.”

  “The only beer we got here is Rheingold.”

  “Lemme have one.”

  She shuffles toward the beer cooler, and damnit, I really want a Guinness. Regular beer is made with hops and is bitter to my sensitive artistic tongue which would like to lick the Aztec princess from toenail to hairline right now.

  “Is that Alexander Frapkin?” somebody yells.

  Startled, I turn in the direction of the voice and see Mike Brown, one of the sharp young press agent fiends from my old office, walking toward me from the back of the place. Last time I saw him was a few years ago at a party in the Village where somebody got stabbed.

  “How ya doing, you old sonofabitch!” he yells, shaking my hand as I stand. He’s got black hair, is smooth shaven, wears a dark suit, and looks untrustworthy.

  “Not bad. How’re you doing?”

  “Terrific!” He withdraws his hand and motions to the barmaid. “Bring my friend a drink.”

  She holds up the bottle. “Whataya think I’m doin’?”

  He looks at me. “You’re drinking beer?”

  “Yes.”

  He looks at the barmaid. “Bring him a double-shot of Johnny Walker Black on the rocks, and bring my Jack Daniels over here.” He throws a tenner on the bar and winks at me. “I’ll charge it to one of your old clients. What’re you doing in here?”

  I sit back down on the stool. “I happened to be walking by and I was thirsty. How about you?”

  “I was on my way back to the office, and I thought I’d better have a drink first. I’ve been snorting coke all day and you know how you get sometimes — my teeth were starting to buzz. My old lady happens to work here too.”

  “Who’s your old lady?”

  “The one dancing beside you.”

  “That’s your old lady?”

  “Yep.”

  “She’s very pretty, man.”

  “You bet your ass. You want a little of the cocaine?” He pulls his wallet from his back pocket, extracts a folded bill an inch square, and hands it to me. “The men’s room is back there I just came from.”

  I head in that direction, pass the gorilla I intend to use soon in a Triggerman book, and enter the tiny men’s room. Stepping inside the one toilet stall, I close the door behind me, unfold the bill, and look inside at the snow of the Andes. I take out my keys, select one for use as a spoon, dig in, gingerly carry the tiny mound of coke to my right nostril, and snuff it into my brain. My nose and throat go numb instantly and a few seconds later I’m twenty pounds lighter and energetic as Muhammad Ali. I repeat the process for my left nostril, and I’m fifty pounds lighter, strong as four Muhammad Alis.

  I swagger back to Mike and hand him the bill. “Thanks, baby.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “Beautiful.”

  The barmaid has served my Johnny Walker. I lift the glass and take a slug, then sit down. Deep in my chest a hydroelectric dam is producing a billion kilowatts every second, and Mike’s eyes are glittering like bowls of jewels.

  He sips some Jack Daniels straight out of a shot glass.

  “How’re you doing these days?”

  “I’m getting along.”

  “Publish anything yet?”

  “A few trashy books — nothing special.”

  “Making any money.”

  “A little.”

  “You don’t look so good — I hate to say it.”

  “I’m forty-two years old, and time takes its toll.”

  “Forty-two years old isn’t old.”

  “You’ll find out for yourself in a few years what’s old and what isn’t. At first you’ll think maybe you’re not eating right or that you’ve got cancer, so you’ll see a doctor and he’ll tell you nothing’s wrong. Then you’ll realize it’s old age creeping up.”

  “Bullshit — I bet I know what you need. You should come back to the office and start wheeling and dealing again. We could work on the same accounts and have a ball.”

  “That’s all over for me.”

  “You’re nuts.”

  “So I’m nuts.”

  “How can you do something that’s ruining you?”

  I rest my glass on the bar and try to marshal my thoughts. “Do you know what it’s like when you’re running a stunt and it’s going great and you’ve got the Times, the News, and the Post there, and all the TV network cameras, and all the wires, and you know that you’ll probably get a raise out of it, and some cute broad from an obscure French news syndicate is sending out signals that she wants to make it with you. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Well writing books, even my crappy ones, is better than that.”

  “It really is?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then go to it, baby.”

  “I am.”

  He takes a sip of booze, then touches the back of his hand to my gut. “Hey — why don’t we drink up and go back to the office.
A lot of the old bunch is still there and they’d love to see you.”

  “I don’t feel like going up there.”

  “C’mon.”

  “Nah.”

  “Your secretary Ethel is still there. You can pull her chain.”

  “Some other time, maybe.”

  The music stops, the three dancers descend the spiral staircases connecting their platforms to the floor, and the next shift of dancers climbs up. The Aztec princess walks toward Mike, her bare boobs stick out as only books can.

  “Hi, baby,” she says.

  “Hi.”

  They look intimately at each other but don’t kiss because I guess that’s against the rules of the house.

  “Suzie, this is an old buddy of mine, Alex.”

  The music starts up again. “Hi, Alex.”

  “Hello, Suzie.”

  “Isn’t she incredible?” Mike asks.

  “She’s even better than incredible.”

  The loudspeakers blast a raucous version of Night Train. The replacements punch the air and wiggle their asses. Mike takes out his cocaine bill and hands it to Suzie. She takes it, murmurs goodbye to me, and hipshakes to the dressing room.

  “I really dig her,” Mike says, “but not so much that I don’t know what I’m doing.” The red lights make a sheen on his dimpled chin. “She’s a talented little girl. I’m going to start managing her career. You were just talking to the next Brigitte Bardot.”

  “I’ll be able to say I stood next to her when.”

  He smiles and holds out his hand. I slap it.

  “Who’re you going out with these days?”

  “Nobody.”

  He looks surprised. “Nobody?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “How come?”

  “I haven’t got any bread. To mess with broads you need bread.”

  “It probably wouldn’t hurt if you shaved off that beard. You look like one of the Smith Brothers.”

  “I thought it made me look a little like Ernest Hemingway.”

  “I’m afraid not, man.”

  I take another sip and look mournfully at the rhinestone snatch of a willowy blonde dancing four feet from us.

  “I never thought I’d see the day when the guy who called himself the New York Flash wouldn’t have a broad going for him,” Mike says.