Turning Idolater (9 page)

“Well, I have had it for years and was lucky to
acquire it when I did. I guess it would fetch a fancy price in
today’s market, but actually it reflects the profit of one of my
earlier books.”

The parlor was warmly appointed, a reliquary of
furniture, none that matched, and each standing sentry and
testament to an adventure in antique hunting. Philip’s enthusiasm
was transmuted to a strut, like a visitor at a museum resisting the
temptation to reach out and maul the merchandise. Thomas sighed, a
great heave that carried the weight of satisfaction.

“You can touch,” he said. “I have accumulated too
much furniture for my own good. I have a storage unit uptown with
the overspill.”

“I guess when you’ve lived so long,” Philip said,
and then decided to bend this awkward response into something less
pernicious. “I mean, when you’ve had time to collect beautiful
things, it’s hard to just turn your back and . . .”

Thomas grasped Philip’s shoulders. “It is fine,
Philip. I have the shopping gene. Whether I am forty-eight or
one-hundred and eight, I cannot resist a Chippendale.”

“You collect men too?”

“Funny,” Thomas said, then, probably realizing that
Philip wasn’t making a pun, touched a table near the Ottoman.
“Chippendale. See.” He referenced the legs and feet.

“Oh.” Philip laughed, and then perused the walls —
the paintings and the library shelves. This led him to the broad
expanse of window and the balcony. “Can you see the river from
here?”

“Too far away,” Thomas said. He slid the glass door
open, inviting Philip aloft. “If you stretch you can get a glimpse
of Central Park.”

Philip careened over the side. He
did
see the
park in the distance, but the prominence of traffic lights and
taxis cabs were more redolent of the city. “Cool,” he said.

Thomas latched onto the backpack. “How about staying
for a while?”

Philip wiggled out of the straps, and then waited
for the expected squeeze around his waist, which came. “Won’t the
neighbors call the cops?”

“Let them. My neighbors are old farts. You know the
type. They have been asleep for hours.”

Philip twisted about until he faced Mr. Dye, and
then planted a fervent kiss on expectant lips. Yes, there was an
unfathomed depth beneath this bowsprit.

The aftermath of passion is ignorant of time or
place. Therefore, it mattered not that Philip and Tee rolled about
on silken waves in a vast bedroom (one of four) in a king-size
canopied four-poster. It could have been a rope coil on the main
deck and would have been as pleasant. Philip did get the grand tour
— the kitchen (spotless and stark white like a butter churn on a
dairy cottage); the media room (electronically decked and
amplified); the library (a midden of neat bindings and slap dash
biblio-spillage); the office (splattered with a dozen in-boxes and
a solitary out-box, and slathered with
eight-and-half by
eleven
confetti); and the guest rooms (as inviting as the ones
at the Hilton). Philip nodded his pleasure at seeing anything so
spacious in Manhattan, or rather anything so vast within his
access. However, he would review it all in the morning in the
butter-churn kitchen over the Eggs Benedict. It was the master
bedroom that enthralled him most, and now, in the aftermath, with
the satin sheets kissing his naughty bits under the counterpane, he
drifted off into a half-sleep.

Thomas lay awake. He might have been having second
thoughts, but how could he? Philip sensed the insomnia and turned
to him.

“Disappointed?”

“Nothing like the sort.”

“Good. I didn’t think so. Are you awake for more, or
is it the Injun food?”

“Indian food.” Thomas didn’t see Philip’s wince in
the dark. “No. I am too content for sleep. I would rather
talk.”

“Pillow talk?”

Thomas propped his head on the pedestal of his
crooked arm. “Just Queequeg and I.”

“Excuse me,” Philip responded and also propped
up.

Thomas clicked his tongue. “Time for a Melville
moment.” He spoke in soft tones:

“
We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at
short intervals. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily
warmth, some part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in
this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. So, I kindled
the shavings, kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went
to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the
world.”

Philip sat up. “Dick again?”

Thomas placed his fingers across Philip’s lips, and
continued:

“
How it is I know not; but there is no place like
a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife,
they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other;
and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly
morning. Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg —
a cozy, loving pair.”

“Melville really
was
Gay,” Philip said.

“He was,” Thomas said, “but I am not so sure about
Queequeg and Ishmael. Actually, passages like this well up from the
golden soul of the discriminating palate and glow universally, gay
or not. It is a true disclosure of the soul.”

“Disclosure of the soul?”

“Chatter in bed.”

“Better than sex?”

“Not better,” Thomas said. “Different. Within it.
The full blend.”

Philip adjusted his stance. A sweet aroma caught
him, one that he couldn’t describe. It wasn’t the man’s aftershave
or even his afterglow. It was the same captivating slap that he
felt when he had
the book
opened fully brined. He supposed
it had something to do with these men of letters, this Melville —
this Dye.

“Wow. Words flow out of you like . . . like . .
.”

“Diarrhea.”

“No.” Love tap. “Silk.”

“Silk?” Thomas said. “Silk as in silk stockings or
as in silk and satin sheets.”

Suddenly, Thomas held Philip tightly. Philip felt
Thomas’ naked heartbeat, but somehow this was not a prelude to more
sex. It was a preamble to something else. Something more
defining.

“That feels so good,” Philip said, an admittance he
seldom made. “Good and warm.”

“For you to feel good and warm, some part needs to
be cold.”

Philip broke loose. It wasn’t the words. They were
fine. It was the probe that hurt — the subtle barb of insincerity.
A dash in confidence. “I’m afraid a good deal of me
is
cold,” Philip said. He had never admitted this before. The words
chilled him.

“I cannot accept that,” Thomas said. “Perhaps you
think me a warm soul. A man who sees through people in order to
catch their spirits and repackage them in books.”

“I’m sure I’ll wind up in one of your books.”

Thomas twitched, and then shifted his weight away
from Philip. He sat on the edge of the bed, his feet puddling for
his slippers. Philip grasped his shoulders.

“No, no,” Thomas said. “You just struck a nerve,
nothing more. It has nothing to do with you. I am a man who feels
the weight of what I do for a living. You know Melville and I have
some things in common.”

Philip sidled up to him. “You are both authors and
use words to catch us little fishies.”

Thomas smiled at this. “Little fishies and big bad
marine mammals too. However, we are really thieves and . . .
liars.”

“No. I don’t believe that.”

“Yes. Sad to say, it is true. We spin our yarns at
the expense of others. We steal their secrets — their breath, their
very lives and we spill it across pages of crisp, printed and
well–edited lies. None of it is true.”

Philip pouted. He didn’t care for this talk. It was
sodden, beaching the great marine mammal never to swim free again.
“I won’t hear it,” he snapped. He hugged Thomas. “You bring joy to
the hearts of the likes of me.”

Thomas grinned. “The likes of I.”

“You see, already you’re improving my lot. Perhaps
I’ll find . . . edification in your shadow.”

“Splendidly put.”

“And you would call that a lie.”

Thomas buckled himself to this beauty, pressing
chest to chest. “In the shadow of my sails you wish to rove, over
uncharted seas in the clutch of sunlight or in the jaws of the
storm?”

“I wish it.”

“Then let it be.”

Then let it be
, Philip thought,
as sure as
we lie, Queequeg and I.

“
Old Times till Nearly
Morning”

Since sleep didn’t come, Thomas clasped his hands
behind his head, stretched over his pillow and spoke to the
ceiling.

“Let me tell you then how I met my agent.”

“I don’t like him much,” Philip muttered.

“No one does.”

“You must.”

“By degrees I have loved him better and indeed, far
worse as his madness progressed, but if the subject does not
interest you, I can outline my marketing plan for my latest
undertaking.”

“I don’t think I’d like that much better.”

“Then, hush and listen. Twenty eight years ago, I
was stationed in Germany at a place called Grafenwöhr.”

Philip propped himself on his hand. “You were in the
army?”

“Yes, indeedy. I served the beast in the Bavarian
woods, I did.”

“Twenty-eight years ago?”

“1980.”

“I wasn’t even born then.”

“Keep quiet and listen or I will need to spank you.”
Philip giggled. “Cheeky monkey.”

Philip tickled him, but Thomas pinned him down.

“Now, there is this thing about tickling that gets
to me, boy,” Thomas said. “So just listen and learn.”

“Yes, Tee,” Philip said, but still giggled. “I mean,
I love ancient history.”

“As well you should.” He flattened his pillow and
resumed his stance. “Now, although I was stationed at Grafenwöhr,
the Army sent me on TDY to Nürnberg.”

“TDY? Like in Tdye?”

“No. It is army
spiel
for Training. It stands
for Temporary Duty assignment.”

“So you went on a training trip to Nerdberg?”

Thomas laughed. “Not Nerdberg. Nürnberg. You
probably know it better as Nuremberg.”

“Then why didn’t you call it that?”

“Because I believe that a place should be pronounced
as it is by its natives. The Germans do not say Nuremberg.”

“I work for a German.”

“Do you, now?”

“We call him
the Porn Nazi
. And if I
pronounzed every verd he shpoke like he shpoke it, ve vould be in
deep shitz.” He laughed.

“I guess we are not in the listening mood, are
we?”

“Okay. I’m listening. You went to Nuremberg or
Nerdberg on Tdye and you met that creepy agent of yours.”

“He was less creepy then. And younger, and before
you say another word, just imagine that when I was your age, foot
loose and fancy free in Europe, I was a sight more frisky than you
are now.”

“Do tell.”

“Yes. I was sent to a suburb of Nürnberg, a place
called Fürth — to O’Darby Kaserne, and before you ask, Kaserne is
German for barracks and I still to this day do not know why it was
called O’Darby.”

“Sounds Irish.”

“And Fürth sounds Scottish, but go figure. I was
sent to Projectionist School.”

Silence.

“Are you still with me?” Thomas asked.

“Yes. Projectionist School. Some kind of speech
therapy class, I’m guessing.”

“No. I was learning how to show training films on a
projection system. This was long before VHS and DVD. We had reels
and sprockets and . . .”

“I get the idea.”

“You do. Well, everyone is so accustomed to pop in a
tape or plunk on a disc that the art of mounting a wheel drive and
threading celluloid is now taken for granted.”

“I get the idea.”

“It was winter — February.”

Philip pulled up the covers and made a
brrr
noise. Thomas may have been amused, but rather thought this tale
was wasted by now. Still, he proceeded.

“Winter in Germany meant only one thing — snow, but
snow in general is prosaic. Snow gingered on the turrets of a
medieval city, is a memory to visit time and time again.”

The city walls of Nürnberg may have been famous in
the days of the
Meistersingers
, but by the time Private
Thomas Dye reached their edge, they had been destroyed by the
ravages of war, but built anew by the fortunes of cheese — Kraft
Cheese, that is, as this was the home town of the famous cheese
makers and they were loathe to see their great city in ruins. They
restored the great walls that surrounded the place — ramparts,
turrets, battlements and gingerbread steeples and gables straight
from the Brothers Grimm. The city would have been less a target had
not Herr Hitler decided that this would be his
Capital of the
World
. Such grandeur called for total annihilation, but such
destruction called for the cheese makers to raise a replica.

Thomas trudged in the snow, his duffel bag slung
over his shoulder. The icy cobwebs that graced the old-new city
sparked his imagination — an imagination that was never short of
kindling and always heaped with tinder. He stood waiting for the
Bahnbus
to Fürth, a short trolley hop through the suburbs —
through the mist of snow and bustling traffic. The wind bit his
nose, sparkling under his clear, blue eyes. He was a long way from
Brooklyn and he knew it.

Thomas paced along the empty platform. It was too
cold to pull his book loose from the duffel and dive in. It was
Bleak House
and would have been appropriate to the weather.
He paced. He wasn’t positive that this was the correct platform. He
had nearly missed his connection at Würzburg and, since his German
was spotty to non-existent, he was left to the mercy of two
middle-aged
Frau
s, who glanced at his orders and parroted
O’Darby, O’Darby
and
Fürth! Fürth!
They then began to
chatter about someone they knew in Fürth and something about
O’Darby, but neither one was much help. Then, when the train pulled
into the
Bahnhof
at Nürnberg, these ladies pushed Thomas off
and pantomimed his next steps — walk (they used their fingers to do
the walking) to the exit and find the
Stadt Gleiss
, and kept
saying,
Nummer zehn. Nummer zehn.
Thomas shrugged, and then
one of them said —
ten. Place number ten.