Turning Idolater (16 page)

Philip also wondered what kept Sprakie and date.
Perhaps he changed his mind and wasn’t coming, but that would be a
most un-Sprakie move. He also wondered how Sprakie would mix with
this crowd. Now that he thought of it, Sprakie’s absence could be a
blessing — one less thing for Florian Townsend’s sneer.

Philip needed a drink, and not a Cosmo. He wasn’t
old enough to drink, so he guessed that Tee was breaking the law
here. He hoped that none of these phoney-balonies were in law
enforcement. He clenched his fists, and then opened his eyes.

“Are you better?” came a voice.

Philip jumped. Sitting at the kitchen table was a
man he recognized.
When did he slip in?
The gentleman was
sipping a tall lager and poked his fork through a neat stack of
chocolate covered strawberries.

“You,” Philip said. “I’m glad to see you. I’ve a few
questions for you.”

“I bet you have,” said the man. “I might have a few
answers, but on the other hand, I might not.”

“Philip.” Thomas had come to the kitchen door. He
spied the man, who had pushed a chair out inviting Philip to
sit.

“If you don’t mind, Thomas,” said the man, “I’d like
to have a word with the Flaxen One.”

“Of course, Uncle Dean.”

Philip sat. Thomas returned to the company.

Of course.

Dean Cardoza was a man of means who didn’t need to
work for a living — yet he did. His hobbies were many and
were
his work. He cut a jovial dash in the kitchen. His
honey blonde hair had long since turned white. His clean-shaven
cheeks had given way to a fine
Sint Niklaus
beard. Still,
his voice was as satin at age sixty-eight as it was at twenty-five
and his search-light yellow eyes were a shade sharper than his
nephew Florian’s mottled green ones. Philip had never seen such
searching eyes. They had pierced his soul on that fateful first
meeting, when this geezer called for a slow strip and nothing more,
and then laid on the first edition as a tip. Philip hadn’t given
that encounter much thought, except that it brought him the benefit
of a good read — a compelling read. Then, this elder was everywhere
— in Tee’s opening words in the chat room; in the pages of Thomas’
first edition; in the coincidental connection to Florian Townsend.
Now, over strawberries and beer, this man came center stage as if
he were the star of a Lars Hamilton production, gazing out and
voicing that pervasive word —
purty
.

“Why did you give it to me?” Philip asked.

“Have a strawberry,” Uncle Dean said, holding one
out on his fork.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” Philip said. This
man caused his change of condition and he sensed it was no
accident. Philip had to know — deserved to know.

“I’m not changing the subject,” Dean said. “This
strawberry
is
the subject.” He removed it from the fork and
rolled it between his fingers. “You see, a strawberry is a common
fruit grown by the million, low to the ground and many to the vine.
There’s nothing special about a strawberry until . . . until you
dip it in chocolate and serve it with beer.”

Philip chuckled. The man was charming — a
philosopher at the kitchen table, who appeared more wizard than
probable. Still the homily struck home. Philip reached out and
snapped the strawberry from Dean’s hand and popped it into his own
mouth.

“That tells me
how
,” Philip said between
chews. “It doesn’t tell me
why
.”

“Need there be a
why
? Can’t spontaneity count
for something? You were a cherub in my midst and worthy of a
generous gift.”

Philip sighed. He realized that the man was going to
be a Sphinx. “Yes. I was completely captured by
the book.
The words took my breath away and I followed the
Pequod
and
her journey well. But if I hadn’t met Tee, I wouldn’t have ever
known that you had given me something beyond accepting. In fact, if
I had known its worth then, I wouldn’t have accepted it.”

Dean raised his eyebrow. “Would you have accepted a
gold watch — a cheap Rolex by comparison? Or a few months in
Montego Bay?”

Phil smiled. “At least I would have known what I was
getting into.”

“You might think that and still could be wrong. I
wasn’t buying your time.”

“You
did
pay.”

“If you think that the paltry amount I gave you in
cash to unwrap your skinny ass in the candlelight was payment, then
you’re cheaper than I thought. You surprise me.”

“My ass is not skinny,” Philip snapped. “And I’m not
cheap. I mean, I do things fair and square.”

“In any case, the book was a harpoon to drag you off
course.” Uncle Dean reached across and touched Philip’s hand. “I am
not in the custom of surfing the porn sites, you know.”

“Then why did you break custom?”

“I had my reasons, just as I have my reasons for not
surfing there again.”

Philip stole another strawberry, rolling it to and
fro along the table’s edge. “Still, you sent Tee there. You
directed him to me.”

“That I did.”

Philip shrugged. They had reached the hurdle. He
meant not to continue this conversation without some explanation
from the good old man, who might be nothing more than a
manipulative bastard of a geezer.

“Thomas needed to release some tension. I suggested
that he visit the site, and yes . . . I told him to give you my
regards. As you see, it’s worked out for the best.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You have left that wretched web site. You’re here
in decent surroundings, and . . . I hear that you are looking for
employment suitable to your talents.”

Philip stood. He regarded Uncle Dean as a meddlesome
old fogy now. Philip had never asked to leave
manluv
, yet he
had to admit that it was ultimately his own choice that he did.
Still, the circumstances were set in motion by this man — these
men, if Thomas was a co-conspirator. Philip loomed over Uncle
Dean’s beer.

“Tell me honestly, if you can be honest,” Philip
said. “Am I some experiment between you and Tee.”

“Experiment? Like Liza Doolittle? Hardly. How Thomas
has proceeded with you is not my affair. That he wants the best for
you is evident by his actions, and that you are gingerly cautious
is also evident. I applaud that. Never trust to blindness. It will
always lead you astray.”

Philip sat again, gazing off toward the sink. Had
Dean Cardoza provided satisfactory answers? Was he really an
innocent eccentric hoping to change the course of a fellow human
being with a gentle nudge in the form of a valuable first edition?
Had the rest fallen into place beyond Uncle Dean’s control? Philip
wondered, but as thin as the old man’s explanation was, it could
satisfy if Philip wanted quick closure. After all, Philip was a
low-to-the-ground strawberry, one of a million that had just
happened now to be dipped in chocolate and served beside the lager.
The trick was to avoid being consumed.

“Now,” Uncle Dean said, his mood changing from
sophist to Chris Kringle, “about employment. I own New York City’s
oldest continually operated book emporium — Cardoza Books. It’s
unique in that it has stood on its foundations for as long as those
foundations have stood. It has the distinction of having some of
the world’s greatest names cross its threshold.”

Philip grinned. “Madonna?”

“Madonna. Do you mean the singer or the Virgin
Mary?”

“Very funny.”

“No. Great names. Rand. Dreiser. Hemmingway. Cather.
Ferber. Melville.”

“Melville?”

“Yes, and that is how I have been able to thrive on
a bevy of rare books, because when their owners came through the
portals, their first editions were worth a few bits. My family was
wise enough to gather these orphans into an asylum of beneficence
until value shimmered over the bindings like gold in the
Klondike.”

Philip just stared into those searchlight eyes.
“Melville,” he mumbled. “And what would I do in a place like
that?”

“You would become an apprentice to the book — a
Squire to Lord Incunabulum, fabled Page in the Court of the Paste
Pots and Bleaches.”

“I don’t understand.”

Uncle Dean stood now, and with some effort, because
either his legs were too stiff to bring this mountain to its feet
or the lager was too heavy to balance his thick wood on aging
slopes. He wobbled. Philip steadied him.

“I’m all right, Flaxen One. And so are you. You are
worthy of a try.”

“You’re not going to make me say —
Purty
.”

Dean laughed. “No. No. That O’Neill fellow never
left us a copy of that old chestnut, but we do have three
2
^nd
pressings of both parts of
Mourning Becomes
Elektra.
That O’Neill was a drama queen, if ever there was one.
No. Just have Thomas bring you into the shop and I’ll entice you
with cobwebs of spun gold.”

“Intriguing.”

“Just so. You will find that I am a spinner akin to
the Norns.”

Philip grinned. He found Uncle Dean a spinner akin
to Lars Hamilton. Suddenly, the kitchen door opened. Thomas popped
his head through.

“Philip, your friends are here.”

Dean Cardoza brightened further. “Thomas, this lad
is amenable to inspecting the bindery. Perhaps . . .”

“Of course, Uncle Dean. I shall bring him down
tomorrow.”

“I’d like to meet your friends, Philip,” Dean said.
“I have a keen eye for . . .”

He paused. Another head popped through the door, one
that clearly distressed the old man. It was Sprakie.

“Little Ishie,” Sprakie announced. “I’ve fought my
way through Fort Knox and I’m . . .” His eyes met Dean Cardoza’s.
“Jesus Marie.”

Philip followed Sprakie out of the kitchen quite
bemused by his friend’s strange reaction to Dean Cardoza. Sprakie
didn’t even wait for an introduction. Nor did Uncle Dean, who
reengaged his strawberries. Thomas clasped Philip’s shoulder,
slowing his pace.

“I already introduced Robert and his friend around,”
Thomas said.

Philip halted, and then turned. “I’m glad
you
did, because I can’t remember any of their names except that one
there.” He pointed to Lars Hamilton, who stood like a lighthouse
above the sea. He had engaged another young man for audition — a
lad Philip thought he recognized. Still, Philip had lost Sprakie in
the shuffle.

“Is there something wrong?” Thomas asked.

“I don’t know,” Philip said. “Your Uncle . . .”

“He’s Flo’s uncle.”

“Whatever. He’s nice as far as it goes, and he’s
offered me some kind of position in his store — a mysterious
apprenticeship, or so he says, but . . .”

“You will do fine with him. You shall learn a great
deal about . . .”

“I’m sure of it, Tee. But somehow I feel that we’re
a sideshow for him, like one of Mr.
Three-Night-Wonder’s
little productions. In fact, I feel like a freak show, on exhibit
for everyone in the room.”

Philip turned to face that room. The guests were
engaged in the consumption of splendid vittles and also themselves
— a cannibal feast of the mind. As they chattered about
this and
that
and
whichever and whatever
, they did so only to
hear their own voices, to validate that they were still breathing,
because if it weren’t for the useless crap they spluttered, they
might be dead for all they knew. They might be dead
from
all
they knew. Philip shuddered. Thomas squeezed him.

“It was too soon to throw you to the wolves, I know
now,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Philip turned. “No. No, Tee. It’s me. I see ghosts
in shadows.”

Thomas cocked his head. “Under the waves, umbra ink
ripples blue water while the white whale emerges to destroy the
sun.”

Philip shut his eyes. The words were better than the
brew he was too young to legally drink. Although he understood only
every other word, the essence was clear. He was being much too
sensitive. Then, he heard it.

Purty
.

He turned again and saw Sprakie’s date casting his
glances toward the balcony, arms outstretched and spouting the
great O’Neill.

Purty
.

“You didn’t want the part anyway,” Thomas said.

“Don’t be silly,” Philip said. “Don’t you recognize
Sprakie’s date? It’s Max Gold from
manluv.
Don’t tell me you
never saw him?”

“No.”

“Well, I bet he’s the star attraction now.”

“Now that you have retired.”

“Retired? Well, I guess so.”

Suddenly, Sprakie sidled up and winked at Thomas. He
squeezed Philip.

“You brought Max?” Philip asked.

“Where? Is that Max? I thought it was some character
from the Theatre Royal.” Sprakie straightened, and then gave a
deep, over the leg bow. “
Purty
nice speech. I should
audition for the part.”

“From what I see,” Thomas noted, “you would tear up
the boards.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Is it, Tee?” Philip asked.

“Of course it is.”

Someone else now crowded into their nook. A throat
cleared. Sprakie turned.

“Yikes,” he twittered. “Please don’t eat me. I’ve
been a good girl.”

Florian sneered at Sprakie’s histrionics, if not at
every inch of him.

“Excuse me,” Thomas said, “where are my manners? Flo
Townsend, this is Robert Sprague, who prefers to be called . .
.”

“Sprakie,” Robert said, extending his hand toward
Flo, offering it up for a kiss. Florian stared at it as if it were
a fine example of dog turd. “Grumpy, aren’t we?” Sprakie said.

“You must be one of this one’s friends,” Flo said.
“I recognize the same cracker jack box.”

“Flo.”

“That’s quite all right, Tee Dye. I’m sure I have
made Mr. Townsend’s acquaintance in the dark. I’m positive he sits
all night and watches me, pud in one hand, keyboard in the other.
The only mystery is whether he calls himself
LittlePeePee
or
Fidoman
.”