Anything Can Happen (3 page)

During spring vacation we adorned our business further by adding a touch of professionalism. Because of frequent requests for the Luchow's headwaiter, we learned that the man's name was Julius, which Peter, for reasons of his own, insisted on converting to Hoolio and adopting it whenever a call came in. I would answer the phone and transfer the call to Hoolio, who would do most of the talking in a Spanish-German accent so difficult to penetrate that requests for tables—and chairs—often took ten minutes.

We then began to push things a bit, in part to test the limits of human credulity. We asked people if they wished to be seated in the Himmler Room or if they wanted to try our special "Luftwaffles" instead of rolls. ("They're light as a Messerschmitt," we would boast.) We asked them if they would care to try Luchow's "blitzes." These, we explained, were blintzes dropped onto one's plate from a great height. There were long pauses at the other end of the line when we would ask such things, but the answers, when they arrived, were always polite and sincere. Once we asked a fellow if he'd mind taking a table for three instead of four—one of his party could eat elsewhere, and they could all regroup for coffee. He declined our suggestion, but he had considered it.

Our best customers were big shots who presumed a favored relationship with the restaurant. These customers made their reservations in barks: "Julius. Mr. Van Kamp. For two. Tonight. Good." Whenever Hoolio would hear such talk, he would warm up the tone immediately, keeping Van Kamp on the line for interminable periods as he, Hoolio, confessed his deepest, most intimate problems to his personal customer. After a while, Hoolio would get around to the fact that he was broke. Perhaps Mr. Van Kamp could see fit to make Hoolio a gift of five hundred dollars as a token of their long friendship. No? In that case there was no table for Van Kamp.

As these transactions continued over the summer, my brother and I became a little ashamed of the havoc we thought we were causing. We did not stop altogether, however, until the following Christmas vacation when we started asking people if they would mind being seated on the roof, where we had set up a cold buffet. This was late December, and the temperature in New York often fell below zero when it wasn't snowing. Still, there were one or two takers for our rooftop seats—though that was not the event that persuaded us to give up the restaurant business.

That event occurred on New Year's Day itself when a sugar-voiced lady phoned in the morning to cancel a reservation for lunch. Hoolio was furious. How were we supposed to run a restaurant—he told her—if everyone called up to cancel reservations? No, madam, it was impossible. Under no circumstances could we accept her cancellation. When the woman apologized and started to change her mind, we felt it was time to close up shop.

I have trouble understanding your terms. When you are exceedingly cold to me but do not really mean it, is that the wind-chill factor? And when you appear to love me more than you do, I assume that's the heat and humidity index. Or is this all bullshit, you cheerful son-of-a-bitch, and you don't give a rat's ass how I feel?

G
OOD LUCK, EVERYBODY!

I
LOVE MY BOSS.

L
ONG LIFE TO
A
FRICAN
A
MERICANS
,
A
SIANS, AND
L
ATINOS!

I
F YOU WANT A GOOD TIME,
CALL A THEATER OR A MUSEUM.

H
URRAY FOR PENISES AND VAGINAS!

T
HE SWASTIKA IS A VILE SYMBOL.

G
O IMPROVE YOURSELF.

S
ICK—MY DUCK.

Beautiful houses give me the creeps; though, of course, I never say that to the owners. I say: What a beautiful house! This is beautiful, and that is beautiful. This half bath is beautiful. And that dining alcove is beautiful. And I do not wish to omit mention of the latticework on the gazebo, the wainscoting in the attic, the built-ins, the one closet (it's a room in itself) for him, and the one for her ... while in my foul, lying heart I seek the bottom of the armoire (what a beauty!) in which to hide or die.

This is not fair- or broad-minded of me, I know. There's nothing morally or ethically wrong with a beautiful house. It's not a sin to have four working fireplaces or a kitchen to die for. To have called upon Messrs. Williams and Sonoma in order to display a wooden encasement for a set of knives (twelve) or a chrome toaster (three slices) does not a criminal make. I do know that. And perhaps I would feel differently if I myself lived in a beautiful house with a step-down living room and a medium-size media room, rather than the house I do live in, where the pictures pop off the walls spontaneously because the walls are made of thickened paint.

I leveled the kitchen floor (whoever put these tiles in originally did it all wrong, mister). I had the chimney rebuilt (the house leans, the chimney leans, mister). The paint on the doors is cracked in so many directions, it looks like a Pollock. The lawn, what there is of it, resembles the skin of a shaved horse. And the porch is sinking. And the gutters are feeding water back toward the foundation. And the floorboards don't line up because there have been a dozen room shifts since the house went up in 1882.

And now—because the house has been revealed as old—you expect me to say that I find all its deteriorations beautiful, more beautiful than any house where the window frames are not rhomboids and the doors close flush. But I do not. It drives me wild and wastes my time to be forever shoring up the place or panicking like some desperate villager in Mexico when the floods have risen to the second story. Frankly, I half expect the arrival of a flood, the spill-off from a hurricane. The house is near the sea.

And if a flood should happen, something like the hurricane of 1938, my old house will undoubtedly be whacked into the bay, and so will all the beautiful houses around here. Then everyone will have to rebuild. The people who occupy the beautiful houses will make new houses that are even more beautiful. And I will make a beautiful house, too—just as beautiful as theirs—and it will give me the creeps. But what can I do? It is impossible to reconstruct a house such as the one I've got now. It simply could not be done, which is, of course, my point.

On How to Tell You've Been at a Dinner Party with Witty People

For no reason at all, you feel like hosing down a butcher shop.

On Why People Get Married

Form rescues content. That's why.

On Madness: A Primer

First, ask about her former lovers.

On Laughter

A great big laugh ends in a sigh. I don't understand that, but I thought I'd mention it.

On Learning to Hate English Literature

The pathetic fallacy is not a fallacy; metaphysical poetry is not metaphysical; Henry James is hardly worth the time; and a whale road is not a kenning. It's a whale road.

On Ambition

"The real is a wilderness/that ambition calls a garden," wrote Harold Brodkey. It could be true, even useful, but only if you prefer a garden to a wilderness.

On Zealotry

The zealot who stands on his head sees everything that the man who stands upright sees. So it's never a good idea to argue with him in terms of the world he takes in. You just have to note that he's standing on his head.

On the Nature of Scholarship

A scholar of renown wrote a love letter to a lady he wished to marry. It consisted of much rational thought and many references to theology. Certain spaces were deliberately left blank in the text. He then handed the letter to his secretary for typing with the instructions, as regarding the blank spaces, "insert endearments here." This is a true story.

On Plagiarists and Their Apologists

Between the bubonic and the plague, how to choose?

On Institutions

Institutions do not care for particulars. That is why you must stay as far away from them as possible, my sweet particular.

On God

Montesquieu said: "If triangles had a god, it would have three sides." My kind of God.

To One Who Asks Why I Am in Such a Rage

The usual, friend. Injustice.

To Hannibal Lecter

What's eating
you?

1. The Amish family is extremely nasty and abusive.
   
2. The African-American cop is not the first one killed.
   
3. No dances, no wolves.
   
4. The central male figure is not an architect.
   
5. No one says: "Get your butt in here (or out of here)."
   
6. The serial killer leaves no clues, does not get in touch with the pursuing detective, and does not want to be caught.
   
7. We enter a black inner-city neighborhood and no boom box is playing rap.
   
8. A woman lawyer is abysmally stupid and incompetent.
   
9. A man travels through several dimensions and is ignored in every one of them.
   
10. A green beret commando is ordered not to go back across enemy lines to rescue his buddies. He obeys.
    
11. "Only a
    flesh
    wound? This is killing me!"
    
12. A major rock star plays an aspiring rock star and in his or her first performance flops big time and is booed off the stage.
    
13. No one says: "Big time."
    
14. A man digs deep into a crime of the past and comes up with nothing.
    
15. A reporter is polite, sensitive, smart, and honest—and does not get the story.
    
16. A hotel cleaning lady opens the hotel room door, discovers a murder victim, and calmly calls the police.
    
17. A crusty old classics teacher is feared and mocked by the students in a prep school where he has taught for forty years, and he turns out to be a pederast, a plagiarist, and an embezzler.
    
18. A policeman is not known and hated for doing things "his way." He does things everybody else's way.
    
19. There's a scene about a Bingo game, in which the winners cry out: "I won!" Nobody in the film, especially those using computers, ever says: "Bingo!"
    
20. The police trace a phone call from a criminal in a split second—no waiting. As soon as they pick up the phone, they yell: "We've got him!"
    

On Jumping to Conclusions

People use the phrase "jumping to conclusions" as an expression of disapproval—as if to jump to a conclusion is a silly and fruitless thing to do. Yet, when one spies a conclusion, what else is there to do but jump to it?

To a Friend Who Never Picks Up the Check

Every student of literature knows that Kit Marlowe was stabbed to death as he sat drinking with three companions in a tavern in Deptford, England. Did you ever wonder why?

To True Lovers Who Lament the Fact That They Cannot Live Forever

You already have.

To One Who Won't Get Over It

You seem awfully fragile for the weight of a grudge. It might be the one thing you're not able to bear.

To My Favorite Satirist

You are like the washroom in a church—out of place and indispensable.

To a Young Artist Who Searches for a Brand-new Subject

Don't.

On the Noblesse of Women

It goes way back. Even Adam was exonerated.

On Bloodsuckers

Should a vampire require a transfusion, and it is your blood type, and yours alone, that will save his life, ask yourself: How many ways should you give blood to a vampire?

To a Critic Whose Work Has Come to Nothing

Why? you ask. Because you cannot tell flippancy from sorrow. Simple.

To Those Who Say That They Have Learned from Past Mistakes

Very good. That's a good one. I like that.

To One Who Has the Power to Cause Harm

You call that power?

To One Who Catches My Drift

Thanks. It's all I've got—drift.

I should write a fable about an albatross that brings everyone good luck, wonderful luck; or one about a sword belonging to someone named Damocles, Tom Damocles, that liberates its owner and smites evildoers; or one about a wolf in sheep's clothing who is simply a cross-dresser, quite harmless; or one about a last straw that turns to gold and turns all the other straws to gold and makes the recipient rich.

But I will not do that, of course. One must retain one's standard metaphors, or else how will one be able to sidestep the truth?

At first she will be appalled. She will ask you: "Where did you get that wildebeest?" And she will tell you: "Take it back at once!" However, you will find that if you do not take the wildebeest back at once, but rather say nothing and let the animal stay for the evening, your mother will begin to grow accustomed to the animal, which you have now named Chip. By the following morning, in spite of the chaos created (crushed chairs, smashed china), she, too, is calling it Chip.

Next, bring home a baby tiger and see what happens. Once again, your mother will be appalled, and aghast as well, and she will say: "A wildebeest is one thing, a tiger another." But here, too, if you keep your wits about you and let things happen as they will, Lucky the tiger will soon be part of the family—though one day you may find that Chip has disappeared.

In a little while, bring home a full-grown elephant.

You
did
ask how demagogues were born?

You
try eating while people are batting you over the head with oars and splashing about and taking shots at you with a .357 Magnum. Someone even tried to blow me up with dynamite. See how
you
'd like it. If you ask me (of course, you won't), the trouble with the world today is that no one lets you do what you do best. There's always somebody out there ready with a new and different direction, the suggestion of a hobby, perhaps. What would I do, I'd like to know? Collect stamps?