A Fan's Notes (40 page)

Telling her tale took some time; and because I so admirably forbore, she felt the least she could do in return was listen to Mr. Blue
’
s sales arguments. Though I was certain she wasn
’
t going to buy any siding, I thought it would give him respite from the sappy sadism of his True Detective and a chance to stretch his legs. I thought, too, that in his penetrating blue eyes I might for a moment appear a more adroit partner than I

was. As she was only doing it as a favor to me, I shouldn
’
t have wasted Mr. Blue
’
s time; his confrontation with her was to turn into a nasty business anyway, and I mention it now by way of suggesting that in the four days I worked for Mr. Blue I didn
’
t get him into any other house. I wasn
’
t a good can
vasser.

Over the days passed in the apartment Mr. Blue had hortatively acted out the techniques for getting into a house; and though I had attentively, not to say raptly, watched these memorable performances, all Mr. Blue
’
s methods seemed to me too canny and frenzied. Within me I retained an ingenuous purity of heart that didn
’
t allow me to believe that Madison Avenue had so dunned the American buyer that to sell him necessitates pounding him on the top of his beleaguered dome, sticking thumbs into his eyeballs, and kicking him in the groin. Moreover, my hair was still black, my figure svelte (well, almost svelte), my eyes didn
’
t yet reflect the soul
’
s discontent, and as Mr. Blue had so often implied, I believed a demure, college-boy approach would serve me best. I rang the doorbell, nervously hummed, tapped my foot, and cleared my throat while waiting; heard eager footfalls; amiably watched doors open on abruptly hostile and suspicious eyes; smiled my good-guy, strictly aboveboard smile; and brimmingly announced,
“
I
’
m selling aluminum siding!
”
“
Donwanannny,
”
the customer said.
“
Okay,
”
I said, and walked jauntily off the porch. To the next house I traversed wide lawns fraught with familiar though forbidding obstacles: accursed canines and their shoe-fouling droppings, overturned tricycles, catchers
’
mitts, unseen croquet wickets, and lawn sprayers forming whiplike, penetrating, and devilishly unpredictable patterns. At the next house I said,
“
I
’
m selling aluminum siding!
”
“
Donwanannny,
”
the customer said.
“
Okay,
”
I said, and walked somewhat less spiritedly off the porch.

By the start of the fourth day both Mr. Blue and I knew that as a door-to-door man I was ruinously lackadaisical, a problem of Sisyphean knottiness; but as we were having such an exhilarating time, we avoided saying as much. Daily we knocked off at one o
’
clock, went to a saloon for what was supposed to be a hurriedly gulped cheeseburger, and remained there the rest of the afternoon, drinking. Moose
’
s or O
’
Reilly
’
s or Big John
’
s, these were neighborhood bars consisting of imitation paneling, gallon jars of emetic, red-dyed pickled sausages, and quaint sayings and tenth-rate prizefighters Scotch-taped to the mirror of the back bar:
“
you don
’
t have to be CRAZY TO WORK HERE, BUT IT HELPS
”
and
“
Good luck to Big John, a real swell guy, from his old pal, Slugger,
”
whose glossy print indicated he had taken more slugs than given. Invariably from some nook in the room a life-sized, cardboard, and Technicolored waitress named Mabel winked forever lasciviously and invited one to shout,
“
Hey, Mabel,
”
and demand a bottle of Black Label. From me, whenever possible, Mabel got ink-serrated upper teeth; a Mischa Auer mustache; and, enclosed in a hastily penned cartoonist
’
s balloon, a gratuitous piece of graffito:
“
Norman Mailer is a straight lay,
”
“
Naughty Hester Prynne fornicated,
”
or simply,
“
Support Smut!
”

Whenever we entered Moose
’
s or O
’
Reilly
’
s or Big John
’
s, said proprietor, along with his beer-abstracted clientele of pallid, swing-shift factory workers, sallow-faced, obese whores, purblind welfare recipients, and toothless, wheezing old men, was distracted momentarily from the television to stare at us with that distaste the inhabitant of cockneydom reserves for the peerage. If he meant to intimidate us, he didn
’
t know Mr. Blue. The proprietor, for his rude stare, got from him an enthusiastic, up-from-the-belly belch; a theatrical, hip-wriggling stretch; an oh-me-oh-my yawn; an unctuous, affectionate scratching of his balls; and a
“
You got any food in this dump?
”
Not even Big John ever challenged such brashness.

Mr. Blue professed neither to drink nor to smoke, but he did both. He didn
’
t drink a great deal. Each day he said he
’
d have one I. W. Harper on the rocks to toast what was certain to be his most remunerative collaboration to date; but he always ended by having six or seven, by which time he was tipsy, garrulous, and profane, and attempting to regale the bar
’
s patrons by doing handsprings or front-and back-flips up and down the aisle of the barroom. Watching a nectareously obsequious or cretinously eye-rolling announcer on the television, the patrons were not regaled; they didn
’
t even look at Mr. Blue. In the dreary cosmos of those saloons it was as though there were operating a tacit though inviolable interdiction that prevented the patrons viewing anything genuinely remarkable—for that matter, anything alive. Druggedly watc ing the television and dopily chuckling on cue, they waited clockwork-wise for the swing shift, dreamed of being wealthy satyrs, fingered the quarters the state had given them, and wheezingly gummed their cigars. Knowing what effort Mr. Blue was expending to please them, I used to indulge a rage at their heavy-skulled indifference. Whenever Mr. Blue was engaged in his gymnastics, I quelled an urge to shout,
“
Hey, you guys—look at this! Look at Mr. Blue!
”
I quelled the urge because I hadn
’
t faith in my ability to resurrect the dead.

Unlike the cigarette panderers who reluctantly allow that smoking may be hazardous to one
’
s health, Mr. Blue didn
’
t equivocate.
“
Cigarettes,
”
he said,
“
will kill you fucking dead.
”
By the second drink, though, he
’
d have lighted one, and from that point on he chain-smoked and coughed. Caressing the illusion that an addiction must cost cash, he never bought any cigarettes; and for that reason I developed the habit, whenever I went to the cigarette machine, of buying two packs of Chesterfields, opening them both, and sliding them between us on the bar so Mr. Blue could permit himself the luxury of believ
ing he was only occasionally filching one from me.

With the enthusiasm of a too-long-dormant guru, there always came a time during these afternoons when Mr. Blue felt the need to instruct me in still another method for getting into a house, and each method proved more beguilingly ludicrous than the last. Now that I was in the racket, though, I couldn
’
t laugh and had to sit, a dutiful student, on the edge of my barstool, my hands folded primly on my lap, nodding very solemnly. Most of the time Mr. Blue reverted to his oratorio, calling up some crackpot dream of sales that he foisted off on me as historically authentic. Once, for example, he had been
“
way the hell up and gone
”
on some country road and had come across an isolated farmhouse.
“
A real dump,
”
Mr. Blue assured me. Having gone without a sale for weeks, and broke, Mr. Blue had decided,
“
What the fuck.
”
A tall, wiry farmer had answered the door. Mr. Blue
“
did
”
him for me. Hypnotically bulging his eyes, working his Adam
’
s apple, tortuously compressing his lips, letting his arms go lax at his sides, and thrusting his bony wrists far below his shirt cuffs, Mr. Blue became an American Gothic. Humorless, stoic, crab-featured, prairie dust on his shoulders, cow dung on his gaiters, he allowed in an imitatively toneless drawl that he did indeed want something.
“
I want some of them redwood storm windows,
”
he said. Mr. Blue, who sold aluminum storm windows, became Mr. Blue again, tacky, coy, cunning, persuasive.
“
You don
’
t want those,
”
he lied to the farmer.
“
They cost a hundred and twenty dollars apiece. Now, aluminum—
”
Abruptly all Adam
’
s apple and horny hands and toneless drawl, Mr. Blue was the farmer again, interrupting.
“
I didn
’
t ask how much they cost. I said I wanted some of them red wood storm windows.
”
Striking a dumfounded stance for my present edification, Mr. Blue rolled his eyes with that mock wildness by which one conveys to a third party he
’
s aware he
’
s dealing with a blubbering lunatic. Shrugging, Mr. Blue decided to challenge the
“
old fart.
”
“
Just how the hell yuh gonna pay for some of them redwood storm windows?
”
he asked. In his voice there was a subdued irony; but, always the salesman, he put the question pleasingly enough.
“
Cash, son,
”
the farmer replied.
“
The way I pay for everything I buy.
”
Thereupon the farmer removed from his pocket, if Mr. Blue
’
s globed hands can be credited, a roll of bills as big as a grapefruit. Breathlessly—oh, swooningly—grabbing the tape measure he carried in his inside jacket pocket, Mr. Blue now ran from window to window of the bar, showing me with what antic dexterity, with what accelerated and unspeakable passion he had run about the house measuring and counting the farmer
’
s windows. One, his silently upthrust forefinger counted for me, two, three, then five, now ten, now the backs of both his hands flashed twice in rapid succession.
“
Twenty?
”
I cried in gleeful admiration. Still silent, Mr. Blue shook his head dramatically and emphatically no, and with equal gravity held up yet an other finger.
“
Twenty-one?
”
I shouted. With a curt nod Mr. Blue gave me a precise yes. Even so. That I might savor the extent of his triumph, he now walked silently and slowly back to the bar and stood haughtily beside me, his chest expanded with cosmological serenity.
“
Twenty-one goddam windows in that dump,
”
he said finally, shaking his yellowing head in heavy and exaggerated disbelief. Having driven furiously back to the city, he had bought the windows for eight dollars apiece, had charged the farmer the quoted price of a hundred and twenty dollars, had been paid in hundred-dollar bills, and had netted twenty-three hundred and fifty-two dollars.
“
More than the whole fucking house was worth!
”
Majestic with self-approval, Mr. Blue added,
“
That was the winter I spent in the

Yucatan.
”

“
The Yucatan?
”
I cried; but before I could say,
“
Aw, now listen here, Mr. Blue, you come off that nonsense, will yuh?
”
he was off and running.

Unnecessarily explaining,
“
It
’
s a peninsula in Mexico,
”
he said,
“
Broke one minute, in
‘
Mayheeco the next. That
’
s the way it is in this business. Usually I spent my winters in Acapulco, but this time I wanted to go someplace they never heard of aluminum siding.
”
He sighed.
“
Trouble was,
”
he said,
“
those fucking Indians in the Yucatan never heard of nothin
’
but donkey shit and beans.
”
He smiled ruefully, heavy with life
’
s melancholy. But in the soothing memory of that sale, real or imagined, he couldn
’
t sustain his gloom and presently was embarked on a series of drunken handsprings down the middle of the barroom. Completing the arc of the fifth one, Mr. Blue lost control of his legs, and the long, effeminate heel of his alligator shoe caught the corner of a table, toppling a glass of beer from it onto the lap of a pursy, perennially weeping whore. Not only volunteering to have the dress cleaned, Mr. Blue ended by giving the woman fifteen dollars for a new one. Rendered munificent by the memory of that long-ago coup, Mr. Blue then bought drinks for the bar.
“
On me, fellows!
”
he shouted.
“
On me! Drink hearty! God bless you! Cheers!
”
But no one turned round to thank him, or even took his eyes from the television.
“
Oh, Jesus, Freddy,
”
he said fondly,
“
those were the days.
”

“
I
’
ll bet,
”
I said. And I was quite unable to be derisive, and against my better judgment found myself caught up in Mr. Blue
’
s faulty but enthusiastic reminiscences.

The farmer, Mr. Blue said, was what is known in the trade as a gopher.

“
A gopher?
”

“
Yeah! Go fer anything,
”
Mr. Blue bellowed, and there upon, with hyperbolic tenderness, he laid his yellowing head against my breast and, spaniel-like, coquettishly rolled his big blue eyes up to look into mine.
“
Cut the shit, will yuh, Mr. Blue?
”
I said. Owning the charm of legendary charlatans, Mr. Blue had an intuitive sense that though I didn
’
t believe a word he said, I much preferred listening to him to listening to Mr. Bert Parks.

I am now faced with the uncomfortable chore of recording something of Mr. Blue
’
s sexual fixation, about which I perhaps know a good deal less than I imagine. I was almost certain that though he longed to kiss the female pudendum, he had never done so. In retrospect I recall his conversations as little more than formal, Oriental bridges joining islands lush with that, the inevitable subject. Obsessed with the vision of his hoary, aging head dipped down between golden thighs, and the disturbing notion of translating that thought into action, Mr. Blue had become maniacally purposeful, his eyes so narrowly focused as to be crossed. Like
a jeune homme feroce
of the arts caught up by and spouting some soi-disant aesthetic salvation in a Parisian bistro, he was pushy, distasteful, immoderate, and megalomaniac; and like the latter he seemed to believe that once articulated his vision would open doors to paradisial princedoms. What continually preyed on me, what quite wearied my feeble brain with perplexity, was what exactly Mr. Blue hoped to gain by kissing a cunt.

That I might not panic and flee in terror, Mr. Blue led me gingerly into his madness, though he did so with a certain disarming vulgarity. The first day I talked with him he interrupted a conversation I imagined to be proceeding at a genial and exemplary clip and shouted,
“
They tell me if you get by the smell, you got it licked!
”
“
Pardon?
”
I said, taken aback by a curious irrationality in his voice.
“
You heard me,
”
he said saucily; then he smiled challengingly at me, as though to re mind me that I shouldn
’
t take him for a fool and that he knew all about guys like me. I laughed uneasily. What else could I then do but admit that if one got by the smell, one did indeed have it licked?