Thomas Murphy (20 page)
Authors: Roger Rosenblatt
They stand there stunned, she with tears in her eyes. And I am moved that this lovely woman, whom I know only from the building, is crying for me. And she is, but not in the way I'm thinking. Don't you know, Mr. Murphy? she says, touching my arm. There wasn't a single signatory to that ridiculous petition. Not a one. Unless you count that wretched nosy parker, Perachik. And he won't be with us much longer, if the Tenants Committee has anything to say about it. No, no, no, dear Mr. Murphy. We tore down that petition the day after you left for Ireland, and all your friends and admirers in the Belnord got together, and agreed to tell you that, and to tell you why. Don't you know how we cherish you, Mr. Murphy? Why, man, says Mr. Lewis, you're our poet. You're our music. We'd kick out Perachik in a shot. But you? You're the music.
Speaking of which, it turned out, according to the Lewises, that no one had objected to my singing in the courtyard. They liked it. And no one gave a shit about the open doors, or about my trying to get in Mrs. Livingston's apartment, especially Mrs. Livingston. Botsford was tickled that I admired his Vespa so much I'd try to ride it. As for nearly setting my apartment on fire because of the eggs, Mr. Lewis said that half the tenants do that,
and that he himself left his coffeemaker on last Labor Day weekend, and it burned a crater in the kitchen counter. Jones, Berman, and the DeBoks took up a petition insisting that I stay put. And Mrs. Ginnilli's book club has decided to dedicate the year to all my works, and voted that I must attend every one of their meetings as punishment, and explain myself. I am teary, and the Lewises are teary, and by the time we mount the steps and stagger to the elevator, the three of us look like drunken sailors err-lie in the morning.
I DON'T KNOW
what else to tell you. The voice mail Sarah received from Jack heaved with remorse and contrition. He was full of shame, and full of sorrow, and he begged Sarah to take him back. He even quoted me (without attribution) from our chat in At Swim-Two-Birds, saying how smart and good a person Sarah is. I wasn't moved, and I don't think Sarah was either. But, as much as she loved me, she said, she would give him one more chance, or, as she put it, one more look. She had said she was cursed with feeling sorry for Jack, and so it seemed. I said nothing. Much as I loved her, what was there to say? One of the reasons I adored Sarah was her sense of honor and fair play. Who would I love after Oona but such a person?
On Aer Lingus back to New York, I told her I thought she was doing the right thing. The difference in our ages
was a cold fact. Even if I do have another twenty years coming to me, when I finally go, she'll be in her fifties, with no husband and nearly half a life spread out before her like the Gobi Desert. Sarah answered that the trouble was she was too old for me, and she had a point. But what was real was real. The rocks.
And there was the matter of the prospect of my incredible shrinking brain. And if it happens that my bloody system does contain the e-4 time bomb, and that my memory is on its way out, why on earth would I want to hand this blessed girl one more disability? Her response was like her. Everyone is disabled, she said. Love exists for our disabilities. And if love were the only thing to consider, she continued . . . But then her voice trailed off, and she fell asleep on my shoulder for the rest of the flight.
Máire and William are coming over in a few weeks, so that's a good thing. I'd thought of visiting them when I was in Ireland, but I wouldn't have wanted Sarah to travel home alone. And my black Irish mood was blacker than ever, so why expose Máire and William to that. I haven't worked on Oona's poem in a while, or Greenberg's, but I'll get there. I have a new book in mind, too. Only a title so far.
Stone Harvest.
In the meantime, there'll be readings here and there, and appearances where I'll play the public man and yearn for home. Sounds corny, I know, but there's nothing in a poet's life like doing poems. In the morning
stillness, my coffee, my chair, my legal pad, my mulling. For now, I pour myself a nightcap.
Sláinte.
In bed on Inishmaan, I'd asked Sarah if she'd given any more thought to my question, What am I doing the rest of my life, and she sang, Spend it all with me. Naturally, that was before Jack's message. Yet she was right. What should one do with the rest of one's life? Spend it with Sarah. If you can't do that, shoot yourself. And if you won't do that, do whatever you did before the rest of your life. What you did in order to get to the rest of your life in one piece. You lived. So live. More noisily than ever. Court life. Woo the fucker. Sing it a love song. Belt it out at the top of your lungs. A pure restatement of the original theme. You never crash if you go full tilt. What is articulated strengthens itself. Sing it. In the courtyard, in the ashen sea, the muddied air, the bloodstained snow, the blackthorn bush, the damp straw, the field, the turf, the cold-eyed stars, and in the rocks, the rocks, the rocks. Sing it.
GOOD NIGHT.
A
bit of reading before sleep? Yeets? Too wiped. The soft hills of the coverlid. The sweeping tides of the sheets. I dive and tumble toward dreams, when something rattles the house. Two knocks followed by a pause followed by two more knocks. Have I told you about this?
ROGER ROSENBLATT
is the author of six off-Broadway plays and eighteen books, including
Lapham Rising, Making Toast, Kayak Morning,
and
The
Boy Detective.
He is the recipient of the 2015 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement.
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Unless It Moves the Human Heart
Making Toast
Beet
Lapham Rising
Children of War
Rules for Aging
Anything Can Happen
The Man in the Water
COVER DESIGN BY SARA WOOD
COVER PHOTOGRAPHS:
SKY © JUAN CARLOS MUÃOZ / AGE FOTOSTOCK
ROAD © IVAN VDOVIN / AGE FOTOSTOCK
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THOMAS MURPHY
.
Copyright © 2016 by Roger Rosenblatt. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, downloaded, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-239456-9
EPub Edition JANUARY 2016 ISBN 9780062394583
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