the Last Buffoon Read online

  “You’ve seen the day.”

  “I remember that German actress you used to go with. What was her name?”

  “Frieda.”

  “Yeah, Frieda. What happened to her?”

  “She went back to Germany — who the fuck knows?”

  “How about the model? The one with red hair?”

  “We broke up a long time ago.”

  He shrugs. “I wish I knew what to tell you, man.”

  “There’s nothing to say.” I look at my watch. “Listen — I’ve got to get going.”

  “What’s your hurry?”

  “I gotta see a guy about something.” Lifting my drink, I drain every drop.

  “Gimme a call sometime.”

  “Okay.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Neither will you.” I shake his hand. “Take it easy, Mike.”

  “You too, Frap.”

  I adjust my Borsalino, turn, and walk past prancing girlflesh to the door.

  A scoop of cottage cheese and a salad at the Automat, then subway uptown. Some young black kids are screaming and jumping, terrorizing all the good white folks around them on the subway car. I hope they don’t bother me because if I should belt one I’d be branded a racist pig and hung at down.

  My encounter with Mike has disturbed me, because it’s reminded me of happier days. It’d be great to have a big pad and be a sharp guy again. I’d buy some French suits and loaf in nightclubs, talk shit and get a little bit. Beautiful women can’t resist superficial guys who throw money around. I know my old boss’d love to have me back. I probably could get four hundred a week out of him, and steal another fifty form my expense account. But do I really want to do all that again? I don’t think so.

  “You’re late again,” says a tight-lipped Roger, looking at his watch and running his hand over his shaved head.

  “I had a very important business appointment.”

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “I only had a couple.”

  He shoots me one of those looks that says, You’re polluting my high level of consciousness, then leads me into his candlelit living room, where about twenty people are sitting on cushions around a little brown gnome in a saffron robe. Roger’s roly-poly wife smiles at me. The Buddhist gnome bows and says, “Hello.”

  I bow back. “I’m sorry to be late, sir.”

  He motions to an empty cushion, and by a cosmic stroke of luck, it happens to be next to a brunette with big tits and a cute face, who’s seated in the lotus position. I’d like to demonstrate certain fine points of acupressure for her, but then I notice she’s near a bearded guy so emaciated and pale he must be in the terminal stages of an awesome fast. She’s probably in love with the jerk. My head swimming with cocaine, beer, scotch, and marijuana, I sit cross-legged on her other side, but am unable to assume the full lotus because I’m not made right.

  The monk continues his lecture. “And so we see,” he says in his curiously accented, somewhat feminine voice, “that Buddhism is fundamentally a meditation that helps show us the false nature of conceptual thought, which, as I have tried to explain, is the source of all hatred, selfishness, suffering, and delusion.”

  An academic type in a seedy tweedy jacket, raised his hand.

  “Yes?” asks the monk.

  “Isn’t what you just said a concept itself?”

  “It is the denial of concepts.”

  “I think you’re making a false distinction.”

  “It is a delusion to think I, because that is a concept too.”

  I raise my hand, causing Roger to make a pained expression that says There he goes again — why do I invite him here?

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t understand how it can be a delusion to think of ourselves as I,” I say. “If we don’t think of ourselves as I, how can we function in the world?”

  “We function in the world by practicing Buddhist meditation.”

  “But I’m here, I’m sitting in front of you. Isn’t that so?”

  “It is so that something is there.”

  “That something is me. I am here.”

  He shakes his head no.

  “Then what is here?” I ask.

  He smiles and says softly, “Ignorance.”

  Chapter Six

  Lord God Almighty, I’m in the City Hall chapel getting married again. The room is small, bare, and pale green. I can hear the sound of traffic from the street outside.

  Behind a lectern is Marryin’ Sam: chinless, hairless, and humorless, dressed in a baggy blue suit with unfashionable narrow lapels. He considers his job a very weighty matter, as well he should.

  In attendance as best man is Dr. Sidney Siegel, Mabra’s boyfriend, who has short curly black hair, the build of a welterweight, and the confidence that comes from a high-paying job. He’s photographing the proceedings with his thousand-dollar Leicaflex.

  The maid of honor is Cecille, a petite French girl who either has to go to the bathroom or is late for an appointment somewhere else.

  “Do you, Mabra, take this man Alexander, to be your lawful wedded husband, to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad times, for better or worse, till death you do part?”

  “I do,” she replies with a little smile intended to show her boyfriend and Cecille that it’s all a joke.

  “I pronounce you man and wife,” says Marryin’ Sam, and a chill passes through my body. His official features soften for the first time. “You may kiss the bride.”

  If he says it’s okay I guess I can do it. I bend over Mabra’s uncertain smile and slide my tongue through her lips and between her teeth. She pulls back but then freezes, realizing women don’t try to escape the wedding kiss. Our tongues rest together and the yin and the yang have become one. I don’t want to overdo this. Slowly I draw back, a little wobbly in the knees.

  Marryin’ Sam opens the door to the waiting room and gives the clerk the high sign. The clerk, the same Ichabod Crane who signed us up two days ago, reads names from a list, and four Puerto Ricans get up and move — their great moment has come.

  We pass through the waiting room and enter the corridor that leads to the elevators. Dr. Sidney Siegel, his red silk tie coordinating beautifully with a gray flannel suit, snaps his Leicaflex into its case. I’m wearing a glen plaid suit I bought at Paul Stuart’s ten years ago.

  “I’ve got to get back to the hospital,” Dr. Siegel says. “Can I give anybody a lift someplace?”

  “I have classes this afternoon,” says Cecille, who’s previously identified herself as a student of the English Language at Columbia University.

  “I’ll drop you at the subway,” says generous Sidney.

  “I have to buy some things to clean his apartment,” Mabra says. “It is a pigpen.”

  “I’ll drop you at a supermarket.”

  “Remember to leave my desk alone,” I warn Mabra.

  “You will be home this afternoon?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How will I get in if you are not home?”

  “With the keys I made for you.” I reach into my pants pocket and hold them up. “That’s the one for the downstairs door, that’s for the mailbox, that’s for the fire escape, that’s for the top lock on my door, and that’s for the police lock. Always keep the door locked because the neighborhood’s crawling with burglars and rapists.” I hand her the keys, then unsling my hat and coat from my arm and put them on.

  Dr. Sidney Siegel scratches his cheek. “May I have a few words with you alone, Alex?”

  “Sure, Sid.”

  The women walk toward the elevator and the doctor and I stand against a closed door.

  “Mabra is sort of a high-strung girl,” he says. “I hope you don’t do anything that might upset her.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, she’s a pretty girl, and we hope you wouldn’t try to take advantage of the situation.”

  “I’m doing this for the mon
ey. Where is it, by the way?”

  He reaches into the inner breast pocket of his immaculate suit, pulls out an alligator wallet, removes a check, and hands it to me. It’s a Manufacturers Hanover Trust money order made out to me from Charles Jones.

  “Who’s Charles Jones?”

  “A fictitious name. We don’t want anybody to trace the money to us.”

  I slide the check into the inner pocket of my old press agent suit, my spirits suddenly improved.

  “Do I have your word that you won’t try anything with Mabra?”

  “If you’re so worried, why didn’t you marry her?”

  He raised his eyebrows as if I’ve suggested he transplant a frog’s heart into a man’s toe. “Mabra and I don’t believe in marriage. We feel it would complicate our relationship.”

  “I see. Well, I’ll keep my hands off her if she’ll keep her hands off me.”

  “I don’t think we have to worry about that.”

  He turns to walk away, but I grab his shoulder. “By the way, I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

  “What kind of favor?”

  “I need a prescription for some quaaludes.”

  “Do you have a nervous condition?”

  “You mean you haven’t noticed?”

  “It’s a lot of trouble to write a prescription for quaaludes. I have to send copies to the state and local police.”

  He starts to move away but I grab him by the shoulder again. “How about valiums?”

  He sighs. “Okay, I’ll write you a prescription for valiums.”

  “Put some Dalmanes in the prescription too, because I have trouble falling asleep sometimes, and some Dexedrine, because some times I have trouble waking up.”

  He looks at me sternly like a doctor-genius-god. “Are you a pillhead, Alex?”

  “I’m a sick man.”

  “I don’t have my prescription pad with me. I’ll write it in my office and give it to Mabra.”

  “Fine.”

  We walk toward the girls, who’re waiting near the elevator. My wife looks irritable and we’ve only been married ten minutes.

  “I’d like to speak with Alex alone please,” she says, smiling coldly at Dr. Siegel.

  A shadow passes over his face. “Very well.”

  Mabra walks to my side and we return to the door. I lean against it, she crosses her arms.

  “What did he say to you?” she demands.

  “If you want to know — ask him.”

  She speaks through tightened teeth. “I’d be very grateful if you told me what he said.”

  I don’t like to be a stool pigeon, but to hell with Dr. Sidney Siegel. “He asked me not to try and screw you.”

  She turns the color of boysenberry yoghurt. “I see.”

  “I can’t help but be impressed by the great love and trust that exists between you two.”

  “Please mind your own business.”

  My wife turns and walks toward the doctor and Cecille, through wedding parties drifting back and forth in the corridor. I follow and say, “I wonder if I might speak with Cecille alone for a moment?”

  The three look at each other. Little Cecille, who has short black hair and a neat figure, steps forward and accompanies me to the door.

  “What ees eet?”

  “I was wondering what you were doing after classes today.”

  “Why you care about zat?”

  “I thought maybe we might have a drink, or a smoke, or a pill together.”

  “You and me?”

  “Oui.”

  “You are not joking?”

  “Not at all — I’ve always had a thing for French girls.”

  “Well, I do not have a thing for you. Goodbye.”

  She turns and walks to the elevator, and I follow. Dr. Sidney Siegel looks like his favorite patient just died. “Can I drop you somewhere, Alex?”

  “No thanks, but please don’t forget to give Mabra that prescription.” I smile at all of them. “Good day.” Pushing open an exit door, I race down a flight of stairs, displaying my flair for drama once again.

  “What would you like, cherie?” asked Cecille.

  “You got any scotch?”

  “But of course.”

  “A little over ice, if you don’t mind.”

  Cecille gave his dick a tender kiss, rolled out of bed, and walked naked to the kitchen. Ripelli lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling, hoping the little French bitch could lead him to Don Salvatore Castelango.

  She returned, holding a glass in each hand. Her black pubic hairs were frosted with his dried sperm, her breasts were large and low-hanging. “Here,” she said, kneeling on the bed.

  He took the glass and held it up to the neon light that flashed outside the window. The liquid was clear and brown, and in it floated two cubes of ice. He brought it to his lips, took a swig, and it burned all the way down.

  Suddenly he was struck by a sensation of utter chaos, as if the sky had fallen on his head and the world was reeling drunkenly. His consciousness

  Now wait a minute, Frapkin, you fucking bum — that last sentence is a plagiarism from Yukio Mishima’s great story Patriotism, and you damn well know it.

  Gee it is, isn’t it.

  Don’t act dumb, you lousy cockroach. You’re always plagiarizing, and that’s the mark of the lowlife hack that you are.

  Well, I can’t help it if I’ve got a good memory, and anyway, if a line is good it deserves wider dissemination. The people who read these crummy books deserve a good line once in a while, and I can’t take the time to invent them.

  That insipid rationalization reveals the true depths of your garbage-pail nature. Plagiarism is despicable and dishonorable. How can you stand yourself?

  Because poverty is even worse — I’ve got to get this book finished so I can get some money money money. He who hesitates has to wait longer for his advance.

  Shrank to a single hairlike thread of steel, and he realized that the bitch had slipped him a mickey.

  “We’ve got you this time, Ripelli,” she said.

  Somehow he had to get moving, to get out of there, but he felt himself

  Riinnnggggg.

  “Frank McFarland at Criterion, Frapkin. Are you finished with the new Triggerman?”

  “I’ve got a few more days to go.”

  “We’re moving up the publication date, but if you can get it to us in a few days, that’ll be fine.”

  “You’ll have it. By the way, when’re you going to pay for the last one?”

  “When you deliver this one.”

  “When’ll I get paid for this one?”

  “When you hand in the next one. Listen, what do you want to get paid for? You’re having fun aren’t you?”

  “You’re the second guy who told me that this week. What the fuck makes you think I’m having fun?”

  “You mean sex and violence aren’t fun?”

  “I only have fun when I cash your checks.”

  He haw-haws. “You’ve got a good sense of humor, Frapkin, and guys with a good sense of humor don’t need money. I’ll see you in a few days.” He hangs up on me yet again.

  This time I won’t let myself get so mad that I can’t write. I’ll just square off with my trusty old Royal and hit the keys.

  Falling back onto the pillow. He’d eluded them for a long time, but now they had him.

  He awoke bound and gagged in the trunk of a moving automobile. His head a tattoo of pain, he remembered what had happened, how the French bitch betrayed him, and realized he had to escape somehow. The Mafia bastards wouldn’t play with him once they opened the trunk; this trip was a one-way ticket to a rub-out.

  A key turning in my front door. I rise and walk out of my office just as Mrs. Mabra Frapkin stumbles into the kitchen. She’s carrying a suitcase, mop, broom, and shopping bag from the A&P.

  “Good afternoon,” she wheezes.

  “Good afternoon.”

  “I am disturbing you?”

  �
��Yes.”

  “I am so sorry, but I must clean. I cannot live like this.”

  “Do whatever you have to, but don’t make a lot of noise. By the way, did your boyfriend give you a prescription for me?”

  “Yes — here it is.” She opens her raincoat and underneath is a blue chambray shirt and bib denim overalls. Reaching into a pocket, she pulls out the prescription.

  I peck it from her fingers. “I’m going back to work now — please be quiet.”

  “I have a letter for you. It was in the mailbox downstairs.”

  From her pocket comes the envelope, and in the corner I reach BACCHUS PRESS. Can this possibly, through some miraculous intervention of God, be a royalty check? I grab the envelope, tear it open, and find a memo attached to a letter. This memo has the Bacchus imprint and says:

  Dear Alex,

  This fan letter came in today, and I thought you’d like to see it.

  Lou

  The letter is handwritten on a pink piece of paper smelling like lilacs, and says:

  Dear Mr. Wimbledon,

  I just read your terrific book called Patti’s Honeymoon and I liked it so much I thought I’d write to tell you so. You must be a very experienced man to know about all those things. Do you think we could meet sometime? I live in New York City, and if you ever come to town, call me at my office (537-6780) or my apartment (691-9091).

  Yours truly,

  Betty Herndon

  I do a fast about face, run into my office, slam the door, dive for the telephone, and dial.

  “Legano Motor Transport,” says a young woman.

  “Betty Herndon, please.” My heart is pounding like a jackhammer.

  Bzzzzzzzzz.

  “Mr. Legano’s office.”

  “Betty Herndon, please.”

  “Speaking.”

  “I’m Lancelot Wimbledon — hello.”

  “Who?”

  “I wrote a novel called Patti’s Honeymoon, and I’ve just received a charming letter from you about it.”