Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) Page 11

  In the car I got a slightly different impression of him. Seen in profile, his nose ended in a sort of white bulb. It was intensely, abnormally white. It reminded me of gypsum and it was darkly lined. His eyes were bigger than they ought to have been, artificially dilated perhaps. His mouth was wide, with an emotional underlip in which there was the hint of an early struggle to be thought full grown. His large feet and dark eyes also hinted that he aspired to some ideal, and that his partial attainment or nonattainment of the ideal was a violent grief to him. I suspected that the ideal itself might be fitful.

  “Was it you or your cousin Emil that fought in Vietnam?”

  We were speeding eastward on Division Street. He held the wheel in both hands as though it were a pneumatic drill to chop up the macadam. “What! Emil in the Army? Not that kid. He was 4-F, practically psycho. No, the most action Emil ever saw was during the 1968 riots in front of the Hilton. He was twigged out and didn’t even know which side he was on. No, I was in Vietnam. The folks sent me to that smelly Catholic college near St. Louis that I mentioned at the game, but I dropped out and enlisted. That was some time back.”

  “Did you fight?”

  “I’ll tell you what you want to hear. I stole a tank of gasoline —the truck, trailer, and all. I sold it to some blackmarket guys. I got caught but my folks made a deal. Senator Dirksen helped. I was only eight months in jail.”

  He had a record of his own. He wished me to know that he was a true Cantabile, a throwback to the Twenties and no mere Uncle Moochy. A military prison—he had a criminal pedigree and he could produce fear on his own credentials. Also the Can-tabiles were evidently in small rackets of the lesser hoodlum sort, as witness the toilet-disinfectant business on Clybourne Avenue. Perhaps also a currency exchange or two—currency exchanges were often owned by former small-time racketeers. Or in the extermination business, another common favorite. But he was obviously in the minor leagues. Perhaps he was in no league at all. As a Chicagoan I had some sense of this. A real big shot used hired muscle. No Vito Langobardi would carry baseball bats in the back seat of his car. A Langobardi went to Switzerland for winter sports. Even his dog traveled in class. Not in decades had a Langobardi personally taken part in violence. No, this restless striving smoky-souled Cantabile was on the outside trying to get in. He was the sort of unacceptable entrepreneur that the sanitation department still fished out of the sewers after three months of decomposition. Certain persons of this type were occasionally found in the trunks of automobiles parked at O’Hare. The weight of the corpse at the back was balanced by a cinderblock laid on the motor.

  Deliberately, at the next corner, Rinaldo ran a red light. He rode the bumper of the car ahead and he made other motorists chicken out. He was elegant, flashy. The seats of the T-bird were specially upholstered in soft leather—so soft, so crimson! He wore the sort of gloves sold to horsemen at Abercrombie & Fitch. At the expressway he swept right and gunned up the slope, running into merging traffic. Cars braked behind us. His radio played rock music. And I recognized Cantabile’s scent. It was Canoe. I had once gotten a bottle of it for Christmas from a blind woman named Muriel.

  In the squalid closet at the Bath when his pants were down and I was thinking about Zuckerman’s apes at the London Zoo it had been clear that what was involved here were the plastic and histrionic talents of the human creature. In other words I was involved in a dramatization. It wouldn’t have done much for the image of the Cantabiles, however, if he had actually shot off the gun that he held between his knees. It would make him too much like the crazy uncle who disgraced the family. That, I thought, was the whole point.

  nine

  Was I afraid of Cantabile? Not really. I don’t know what he thought, but what I thought was perfectly clear to me. Absorbed in determining what a human being is, I went along with him. Cantabile may have believed that he was abusing a passive man. Not at all. I was a man active elsewhere. At the poker game, I received a visionary glimpse of this Cantabile. Of course, I was very high that night, if not downright drunk, but I saw the edge of his spirit rising from him, behind him. So when Cantabile yelled and threatened I didn’t make a stand on grounds of proper pride—”Nobody treats Charlie Citrine like this, I’m going to the police,” and so forth. No, the police had no such things to show me. Cantabile had made a very peculiar and strong impression on me.

  What a human being is—I always had my own odd sense of this. For I did not have to live in the land of the horses, like Dr. Gulliver, my sense of mankind was strange enough without travel. In fact I traveled not to seek foreign oddities but to get away from them. I was drawn also to philosophical idealists because I was perfectly sure that this could not be it. Plato in the Myth of Er confirmed my sense that this was not my first time around. We had all been here before and would presently be here again. There was another place. Maybe a man like me was imperfectly reborn. The soul is supposed to be sealed by oblivion before its return to earthly life. Was it possible that my oblivion might be slightly defective? I never was a thorough Platonist. I never could believe that you could be reincarnated a bird or a fish. No soul once human was locked into a spider. In my case (which I suspect is not so rare as all that) there may have been an incomplete forgetting of the pure soul-life, so that the mineral condition of re-embodiment seemed abnormal, so that from an early age I was taken aback to see eyes move in faces, noses breathe, skins sweat, hairs grow, and the like, finding it comical. This was sometimes offensive to people born with full oblivion of their immortality.

  This leads me to recall and reveal a day of marvelous spring and a noontime full of the most heavy silent white clouds, clouds like bulls, behemoths, and dragons. The place is Appleton, Wisconsin, and I am a grown man standing on a crate trying to see into the bedroom where I was born in the year 1918. I was probably conceived there, too, and directed by divine wisdom to appear in life as so-and-so, such-and-such (C. Citrine, Pulitzer Prize, Legion of Honor, father of Lish and Mary, husband of A, lover of B, a serious person, and a card). And why should this person be perched on a box, partly hidden by the straight twigs and glossy leaves of a flowering lilac? And without asking permission of the lady of the house? I had knocked and rung but she did not answer. And now her husband was standing at my back. He owned a gas station. I told him who I was. At first he was very hard-nosed. But I explained that this was my birthplace and I asked for old neighbors by name. Did he remember the Saunderses? Well, they were his cousins. This saved me a punch in the nose as a Peeping Tom. I could not say, “I am standing on this crate among these lilacs trying to solve the riddle of man, and not to see your stout wife in her panties.” Which was indeed what I saw. Birth is sorrow (a sorrow that may be canceled by intercession) but in the room where my birth took place I beheld with sorrow of my own a fat old woman in underpants. With great presence of mind she pretended not to see my face at the screen but slowly left the room and phoned her husband. He ran from the gas pumps and nabbed me, laying oily hands on my exquisite gray suit—I was at the peak of my elegant period. But I was able to explain that I Was in Appleton to prepare that article on Harry Houdini, also a native—as I have obsessively mentioned—and I experienced a sudden desire to look into the room where I was born.

  “So what you got was an eyeful of my Missus.”

  He didn’t take this hard. I think he understood. These matters of the spirit are widely and instantly grasped. Except of course by people who are in heavily fortified positions, mental opponents trained to resist what everyone is born knowing.

  As soon as I saw Rinaldo Cantabile at George Swiebel’s kitchen table I was aware that a natural connection existed between us.

  ten

  I was now taken to the Playboy Club. Rinaldo was a member. He walked away from his supercar, the Bechstein of automobiles, leaving it to the car jockey. The checkroom Bunny knew him. From his behavior here I began to understand that my task was to make amends publicly. The Cantabiles had been defied. Maybe Rinaldo had been order
ed at a family council to go out and repair the damage to their good bad name. And this matter of his reputation would consume a day—an entire day. And there were so many pressing needs, I had so many headaches already that I might justifiably have begged fate to give me a pass. I had a pretty good case.

  “Are the people here?”

  He threw over his coat. I also dropped mine. We stepped into the opulence, the semidarkness, the thick carpets of the bar where bottles shone, and sensual female forms went back and forth in an amber light. He took me by the arm into an elevator and we rose immediately to the top. Cantabile said, “We’re going to see some people. “When I give you the high sign, then you pay me the money and apologize.”

  We were standing before a table.

  “Bill, I’d like to introduce Charlie Citrine,” said Ronald to Bill.

  “Hey, Mike, this is Ronald Cantabile,” Bill said, on cue.

  The rest was, Hey how are you, sit down, what’ll you drink.

  Bill was unknown to me, but Mike was Mike Schneiderman the gossip columnist. He was large heavy strong tanned sullen fatigued, his hair was razor styled, his cuff links were as big as his eyes, his necktie was a clumsy flap of silk brocade. He looked haughty, creased and sleepy, like certain oil-rich American Indians from Oklahoma. He drank an old-fashioned and held a cigar. His business was to sit with people in bars and restaurants. I was much too volatile for sedentary work like this, and I couldn’t understand how it was done. But then I couldn’t understand office jobs, either, or clerking or any of the confining occupations or routines. Many Americans described themselves as artists or intellectuals who should only have said that they were incapable of doing such work. I had many times discussed this with Von Humboldt Fleisher, and now and then with Gum-bein the art critic. The work of sitting with people to discover what was interesting didn’t seem to agree with Schneiderman either. At certain moments he looked blank and almost ill. He knew me, of course, I had once appeared on his television program, and he said, “Hello, Charlie.” Then he said to Bill, “Don’t you know Charlie? He’s a famous person who lives in Chicago incognito.”

  I began to appreciate what Rinaldo had done. He had gone to great trouble to set up this encounter, pulling many strings. This Bill, a connection of his, perhaps owed the Cantabiles a favor and had agreed to produce Mike Schneiderman the columnist. Obligations were being called in all over the place. The accountancy must be very intricate, and I could see that Bill was not pleased. Bill had a Cosa Nostra look. There was something corrupt about his nose. Curving deeply at the nostrils it was powerful yet vulnerable. He had a foul nose. In a different context I would have guessed him to be a violinist who had become disgusted with music and gone into the liquor business. He had just returned from Acapulco and his skin was dark, but he was not exactly shining with health and well-being. He didn’t care for Rinaldo; he appeared contemptuous of him. My sympathy at this moment was with Cantabile. He had attempted to organize what should have been a beautiful spirited encounter, worthy of the Renaissance, and only I appreciated it. Cantabile was trying to crash Mike’s column. Mike of course was used to this. The would-be happy few were always after him and I suspected that there was a good deal of trading behind the scenes, quid pro quo. You gave Mike an item of gossip and he printed your name in bold type. The Bunny took our drink order. Up to the chin she was ravishing. Above, all was commercial anxiety. My attention was divided between the soft crease of her breasts and the look of business difficulty on her face.

  We were on one of the most glamorous corners of Chicago. I dwelt on the setting. The lakeshore view was stupendous. I couldn’t see it but I knew it well and felt its effect—the shining road beside the shining gold vacancy of Lake Michigan. Man had overcome the emptiness of this land. But the emptiness had given him a few good licks in return. And here we sat amid the flatteries of wealth and power with pretty maidens and booze and tailored suits, and the men wearing jewels and using scent. Schneiderman was waiting, most skeptically, for an item he could use in his column. In the right context, I was good copy. People in Chicago are impressed with the fact that I am taken seriously elsewhere. I have now and then been asked to cocktail parties by culturally ambitious climbing people and have experienced the fate of a symbol. Certain women have said to me, “You can’t be Charles Citrine!” Many hosts are pleased by the contrast I offer. Why, I look like a man intensely but incompletely thinking. My face is no match for their shrewd urban faces. And it’s especially the ladies who can’t mask their disappointment when they see what the well-known Mr. Citrine actually looks like.

  Whisky was set before us. I drank down my double Scotch eagerly and, being a quick expander, started to laugh. No one joined me. Ugly Bill said, “What’s funny?”

  I said, “Well, I just remembered that I learned to swim just down the way at Oak Street before all these skyscrapers went up, the architectural pride of P.R. Chicago. It was the Gold Coast then, and we used to come from the slums on the streetcar. The Division car only went as far as Wells. I’d come with a greasy bag of sandwiches. My mother bought me a girl’s bathing suit at a sale. It had a little skirt with a rainbow border. I was mortified and tried to dye it with India ink. The cops used to jab us in the ribs to hurry us across the Drive. Now I’m up here, drinking whisky. . . .”

  Cantabile gave me a shove under the table with his whole foot, leaving a dusty print on my trousers. His frown spread upward into his scalp, rippling under the close-cut curls, while his nose became as white as candle wax.

  I said, “By the way, Ronald . . .” and I took out the bills. “I owe you money.”

  “What money?”

  “The money I lost to you at that poker game—it was some time back. I guess you forgot about it. Four hundred and fifty bucks.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Rinaldo Cantabile. “What game?”

  “You can’t remember? We were playing at George Swiebel’s apartment.”

  “Since when do you book guys play poker?” said Mike Schneiderman.

  “Why? We have our human side. Poker has always been played at the White House. Perfectly respectable. President Harding played. Also during the New Deal. Morgenthau, Roosevelt, and so on.”

  “You sound like a West Side Chicago boy,” said Bill.

  “Chopin School, Rice and Western,” I said.

  “Well, put away your dough, Charlie,” said Cantabile. “This is drink time. No business. Pay me later.”

  “Why not now, while I think of it and have the bills out? You know the whole thing slipped my mind, and last night I woke up with a start thinking, ‘I forgot to pay Rinaldo his dough.’ Christ, I could have blown my brains out.”

  Cantabile said violently, “Okay, okay, Charlie!” He snatched the money from me and crammed it without counting into his breast pocket. He gave me a look of high irritation, a flaming look. What for? I could not imagine why. What I did know was that Mike Schneiderman had power to put you in the paper and if you were in the paper you hadn’t lived in vain. You were not just a two-legged creature, seen for a brief hour on Clark Street, sullying eternity with nasty doings and thoughts. You were—

  “What’cha doing these days, Charlie,” said Mike Schneider-man. “Another play maybe? A movie? You know,” he said to Bill, “Charlie’s a real famous guy. They made a terrific flick out of his Broadway hit. He’s written a whole lot of stuff.”

  “I had my moment of glory on Broadway,” I said. “I could never repeat it, so why try?”

  “Now I remember. Somebody said you were going to publish some kind of highbrow magazine. When is it coming out? I’ll give you a plug.”

  But Cantabile glared and said, “We’ve got to go.”

  “I’ll be glad to phone when I have an item for you. It would be helpful,” I said with a meaning glance toward Cantabile.

  But he had already gone. I followed him and in the elevator he said, “What the fuck is the matter with you?”

  “I can�
�t think what I did wrong.”

  “You said you wanted to blow your brains out, and you know damn well, you creep, that Mike Schneiderman’s brother-in-law blew his brains out two months ago.”

  “No!”

  “You must have read it in the paper—that whole noise about the phony bonds, the counterfeit bonds he gave for collateral.”

  “Oh, that one, you mean Goldhammer, the fellow who printed up his own certificates, the forger!”

  “You knew it, don’t pretend,” said Cantabile. “You did it on purpose, to louse me up, to wreck my plan.”

  “I didn’t, I swear I didn’t. Blowing my brains out? That’s a commonplace expression.”

  “Not in a case like this. You knew,” he said violently, “you knew. You knew his brother-in-law killed himself.”

  “I didn’t make the connection. It must have been a Freudian slip. Absolutely unintentional.”

  “You always pretend you never know what you’re doing. I suppose you didn’t know who that big-nosed fellow was.”

  “Bill?”

  “Yes! Bill! Bill is Bill Lakin, the banker who was indicted with Goldhammer. He took the forged bonds as security.”

  “Why should he be indicted for that? Goldhammer put them over on him.”

  “Because, you bird-brain, don’t you understand what you read in the news? He bought Lekatride from Goldhammer for a buck a share when it was worth six dollars. Haven’t you heard of Kerner either? All these grand juries, all these trials? But you don’t care about the things that other people knock themselves out over. You have contempt. You’re arrogant, Citrine. You despise us.”

  “Who’s us?”