Before I said my good-byes, I told Mrs. Oblatt that I would be switching my newspaper subscriptions, but it might take a while for them to follow me.
She simply said, “Good riddance!”
We went to the library, where I gave my notice, effective immediately. Eppitt looked uncomfortable in the large airy openness. He shifted near the card catalogs, holding my bag.
“I’m a married woman now,” I told those working the checkout desk.
The head librarian was out. “You’ll have to wait and tell him in person,” one of the women said as if she didn’t think I had the courage.
“I’ll jot a note.”
I wrote, “I’ve found my husband, at long last, and am no longer in need of employment.” I wondered if the last part was true. Did Eppitt earn enough money hiding things to make ends meet? I flushed suddenly, but it was too late. I slid the sheet across the desk and we left.
From then on, I was sure I would have someone to guide me. And I needed that guiding hand because I felt wild. I loved Eppitt wildly, the way a gibbon loves howling and swinging.
I decided that I had no more need for books. The truth that writers secretly harbor is that all books are failures. We try to do something that can’t be done. Words. Is that all we rely on? Smudgy ink marks on a page? Pallid wisps and blotches? Text as scaffolding trying to hold up worlds?
Actually, no, it’s not all we rely on. What’s worse is our reliance on the reader. A writer is forever locked in an interdependent relationship. It’s like building a bridge from opposite sides of a river—our flimsy words and their frail, overreaching imaginations. The bridge will never meet in the middle. It’s not possible. Sometimes you haven’t even decided on the same river. The Gateway Arch in Saint Louis missed in the middle by a matter of inches the first time around. They tried again and made it. Writers know we never will.
My clippings. I had no need for that either. I kept my books of clippings with me, but clipping is what lonely people do—documentation of the living. I was no longer one of the lonely. I was one of the living now.
Eppitt would go off to hide things for Isley Wesler’s clients, and I would stay in our small apartment, part of an old chopped-up house now home to five families. Within days, I’d sewn new curtains for its three windows. The Maryland School had taught me that much. As soon as Eppitt arrived home, we made love. I was sore from so much of it.
Sometimes he made small boxes of various sizes—thin plywood, nails, epoxy. Some had little rings for handles. He made them from dimensions scribbled on a notepad. I begged him to tell me where, in an ordinary house, the little boxes might fit.
“Where you’d least expect to find them.”
Sometimes he sawed and painted and made doors with fake panels.
And sometimes we played cards—with me in my slip, him in his drawers, and tried not to ravage each other. And then we’d ravage each other.
One day, he came home with a red envelope containing an invitation to a party at Isley Wesler’s house. The card was cream-colored. The party was titled “In Celebration of Love and Freud.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. I knew of Freud, of course. There had been some Freudians at Sheppard Pratt, in fact.
“You never can tell with Isley Wesler,” Eppitt said.
“Formal dress required,” I read aloud. “The party’s tonight. I don’t have a formal dress.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But it says formal dress,” I said.
“Wesler would be fine if you came nude.”
I wore a blue dress with a wide belt and a collar that covered my collarbone. It was the dress of a librarian—my uniform. I wore my hair down in loosely puffed curls. I bought a tube of red lipstick and put some on while looking in the bathroom mirror, and then, feeling clownish, I wiped it off. “I can’t wear lipstick,” I called to Eppitt. “My face rejects it.”
“Come out here,” he said. He took the tube from me and said, “Make your lips taut.” In a few deft movements—two for my upper lip, from the arches out, and one for the bottom lip—he drew an artful bow. “Rub your lips together.”
And I did.
He held up a piece of tissue paper. “Blot.”
I blotted. “How do you know how to do this?” I asked.
“I’ve watched.” Eppitt had never married, but he knew women. He had a past. I decided not to ask about it. The main thing is that I remember this moment vividly because this is how we were together. We took care of each other in small, tender ways. We were never simply lovers. We filled all the roles for each other—mother, father, brother, sister, each the other’s tender and tended.
ISLEY WESLER
Isley Wesler’s parties were held in a house out on Joppa Road, where, years later, he would hang a homemade white clapboard sign: “Welcome to the Isley Wesler Museum of Antiquities. Free to the public.”
But on that warm autumn evening in 1935, when Eppitt and I rode up to the entrance in a Buick, borrowed from one of his clients, there was nothing but a mailbox nailed to a tree wearing a pink ribbon sash. The ribbon was supposed to be cheery, maybe whimsical, but it had lost some of its tether points and now sagged.
“I’m nervous,” I said. “Tell me what to expect.”
“Impossible,” Eppitt said.
We followed the long white fence to the circle driveway, jammed with cars. The adjacent field was packed too. The stone house was enormous. Summer had ended, and the air was chilled. I wore a blue wrap to match my dress. When Eppitt helped me out of the car, I could hear music, a number of different songs all at once.
He whispered, “This is really living, Harriet. It’s how we can make up for lost time. We can be anyone here.”
The last party I’d been to was the Armistice party, where we’d sung and danced on the Sheppard Pratt lawn. I hadn’t told Eppitt that I’d been in a mental hospital, much less that I felt responsible for my mother’s death. “We can be anyone,” I repeated.
An animal barked nearby, but in a note higher than a dog’s. The creature lifted heavily off the ground for a few feet before flopping down.
“Peacocks,” Eppitt told me, squeezing my hand.
I searched out the birds’ pinched faces and festooned heads, their bodies bobbing as they dragged their tails through dirt. I’d never seen one before. I thought of Ota Benga, mingling with peacocks in the Bronx Zoo. “Real peacocks!” I said.
“They’re nesting in the chimney.”
“They’re beautiful!”
“And dirty.”
“I think that makes them even more beautiful.”
A drunken couple stumbled off the porch into the darkened yard and wove through the cars. The woman was glamorous, her dress elaborately beaded and her hair shining. She wiggled her fingers at me and said, “Toodles, Junie!” The seam of her dress was ripped up her thigh and the snaps of a garter glinted.
“Toodles!” I said back. We could be anyone.
The front door stood wide open. A man in a green evening dress appeared and grabbed onto the frame as if he’d been thrown there. A wide hoop skirt belled around his ankles. “Eppitt Clapp! You are a darling boy!”
“Isley!” Eppitt said, and the two hugged each other with loud claps on the back.
“This is my wife,” Eppitt said.
But Isley wasn’t listening. He was pale, his blue eyes oversized for his chubby face. The dress dipped into a hairless chest and his cleavage bulged, ridiculously overstuffed with tissues. His puffed belly pressured the seams of the narrow waistline. “I can’t hear a damn thing. Five Philcos on five different stations in five different rooms!” He seemed enchanted by the idea of it. “I just set loose a dozen doves. You missed it! Let me introduce you around.” He gave his breasts an excited squeeze, pulled a folded fan from his bosom, and charged into the smoky rooms.
I’d never seen anything like Isley Wesler. “That’s him?” I said.
“In the flesh,” Eppitt said.
T
he marbled hallway led to a large living room teeming with people. Blue and pink streamers flapped from the wire cages of blowing office fans. Still, the crowded bodies made the room humid. An enormous man sat at an upright playing a mournful version of “I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Blues.” He reminded me of a plaintive wildebeest. A radio piped a jittery song. Its dial glowed like a moon. A small band of sweaty dancers bounced in a circle.
Isley was proud of the radios, and bragged about them excitedly: “They’ve all got four tuning bands, bass compensations, Super Class A audio systems, auditorium speakers, and illuminated station recording dials.” He took my wrap and slipped it around his shoulders. A woman walked by with drinks on a mirrored tray. Isley grabbed two as she passed and handed them to Eppitt and me. I’d never taken a drink in my life.
Isley tapped Eppitt on the chest with the fan. “Didn’t the invitation say formal dress required?”
“Was I supposed to wear a ball gown?”
“Doesn’t anybody listen to me anymore?”
“What’s on the piano in the large glass jar?” I asked.
“An eight-legged fetal calf,” he said, pointing to the creature suspended in fluid. “Born dead. We had it preserved. One day I hope to have a display, ‘Show of World Wonders.’” (Wonders—the word stuck in my mind.) He then introduced us to a blonde woman. “This is Beryl Wallace,” he said. “I imported her all the way from New York City. She’s been doing Carroll’s Sketch Book.” He tipped forward, acknowledging me for the first time. “It’s a hurly-burly burlesque-y thing.” He turned back to Eppitt. “But highbrow. Right, Beryl?”
Beryl was bored. How could anyone be bored here? The music rang my ribs. The smoke filled my head. The liquor heated my chest. Beryl pointed her cigarette at Eppitt and me. “And who are they?” she asked Isley.
“These are ordinary folks.” He stared at the two of us as if being ordinary alone made us part of his future Show of World Wonders. “Ordinary folks” was better than “moron,” “lunatic,” or “murderess.” “True rarities, Beryl.” He pointed at me. “And this one’s name?” he asked Eppitt. “This one here?”
I sipped my drink nervously. It was strong, opening up my nose.
“My wife, Harriet.”
“Your wife! My God! You’re married? Are you sure?” Isley turned to Beryl. “Ordinary people are mad, Beryl, you see? Completely mad!” He said to Eppitt, “Don’t bother Beryl, then, if you’re married. Don’t waste her time!”
He led us to a clot of somber people, hunched forward in high-back chairs. They pinched their cigarette tips tightly with index finger and thumb, even the woman among them. At first I didn’t recognize her as a woman. “And, over here, some Commies,” Isley told us. “They’re a dark cloud. I wouldn’t invite them if I didn’t have to—you know, for appearances’ sake.” He hailed them. “Fellow citizens! These are ordinary folks. Eppitt Clapp, and who’s this again?”
“Harriet!” I said.
“Harriet Clapp!” Eppitt said, and I must have stared at him, startled.
“What else would I call you?” he said.
“The venerable Mrs. Eppitt Clapp!” Isley said, sensing tension and joining in.
“Do you know Leon Trotsky?” I asked, having read a lot about him.
“Not personally,” the woman answered flatly.
Isley’s attention was drawn to the ceiling, as if wondering if it would hold or not. He grabbed Eppitt’s arm and pointed up. “Can you hear her up there? You’ve got to tell me.”
Eppitt looked at the ceiling too. “No. I can’t hear her.”
“Well, it took five Philcos! I hoped that would drown her out! I’ve got to go up. Hopefully no one’s barged in! We’ve got a few in from Amsterdam. You can’t trust them with intimate spaces normally reserved for sexual congress. I’m so partial to the untrustworthy. It’s a true failing.”
Isley walked off, stopping briefly in front of three midgets: two men and a woman. The men wore Stetsons, probably made for children, although I couldn’t imagine who would buy a Stetson for a child. A black dog trotted by and licked the woman’s face. She soured and slapped its nose.
Isley shouted across the room, “Come and get me if Moss Hart shows up. Or Fay Wray or the DeMarcos or the Brown Bomber. Show that girl the heart of the mongrel king, Eppitt!” Isley’s dress was too short, exposing his ankles, clean and thin as a woman’s. He was still holding my blue wrap over his shoulders.
I was thinking about Fay Wray, the DeMarcos. Would I meet Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber? “I like boxing,” I said. “I’m a fan of organized brutality.”
“Better than the unorganized kind,” Eppitt said.
I followed Eppitt to the mantel and he pulled down a silver box. “Are any of those people really coming?” I asked.
“Huey Long could walk through the door in his pajamas.”
“Huey Long is dead!”
“That’s what I mean.” Eppitt popped open the box’s silver lid. Inside lay a small dark object, like a piece of desiccated fruit nestled in velvet.
“What is it?”
“A heart.”
“Whose heart is that small?”
“I think it was once big. It’s the heart of a mongrel king. A Wesler family heirloom.”
“Why would anyone want someone’s shrunken heart?”
“Maybe it’s a spare.” Eppitt shut the box and put it back on the mantel.
I heard the clattering from upstairs now. “Whose voice is he drowning out?”
“His mother is an invalid. She can’t move a muscle except to write checks for him and bang on the floorboards with a broom handle.”
“He’s lucky to have a mother.”
“I don’t think he’d agree.”
In the corner, a woman in a black shawl and plumed hat was taking photographs with a new Kodak. She winked at Eppitt. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s make a picture.”
Eppitt asked me if I wanted to and I nodded. There was only one chair. He sat down in it.
“Get on his lap,” the woman told me.
I did. “Our wedding portrait,” I whispered to Eppitt.
Eppitt looked at me and smiled. “Gride and broom.”
“Which one are you?” I asked.
“We’re both both.”
The photographer had a notepad. “What are your names?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Eppitt Clapp,” I told her.
She disappeared suddenly behind the lens. “Look here!” She lifted her hand in the air. My eyes snapped to her hand. Eppitt patted my rump, the fleshy bit hanging off his lap. It shocked me, this little pat. My eyes opened wide. I wondered if Eppitt was drunk. His glass was already gone. The camera’s flash went off. I looked around the room, and the flare pulsed each time I blinked. I was drunk now too. I felt hot and the room wavered.
We stood up, and Eppitt went to find the woman with the drinks. “Stay put,” he said, but I wandered through the crowd. I was making up for lost time. I could be anyone.
I overheard a man say, “Did you see Baboona? Actual filming of baboons escaping from these wild cheetahs.”
A woman with a tightly pursed mouth said, “No. But I saw Greer Garson in Accent on Youth onstage. Nicholas Hannen! Now there’s a baboon!”
Near a punch bowl, another woman said, “Dear God! Can you imagine? Wax heads. Mussolini.”
“Where’s this?” I asked the woman. I could be someone who jumped into conversations.
“Madame Tussauds! I hear Mussolini looks quite handsome.”
Dr. Wolff. For some reason, he appeared in my mind. Maybe because Mussolini’s mug shot from 1903 had surfaced in newspapers—his young arrest for vagrancy—and he looked a bit like Wolff: dark hair and eyes, tender in a way that you wouldn’t expect. “I guess so,” I said. Wolff, Wolff. Drunk, I felt a rush of love for him. He was dead and it felt almost new.
Where was Eppitt? Had he left me? I decided that if he was gone, I’d stay. I’d stay here forever. I stood near one of the glowi
ng Philcos like a lonesome moth and fluttered my hands, dancing a little. The asylum lawn was the only place I’d danced before.
A teenage girl with a ragged puff of hair held feebly by a ribbon tugged at my sleeve. “Do you have any Mistol Drops?” She rubbed her nose. “The fiends are in the yard. Kuda Bux is going to walk on hot coals. Do you have any Mistol Drops or don’t you?”
“Hot coals?”
“Hot coals,” the girl said. “So? Mistol Drops?”
“I don’t,” I said, “but I’d like some.” I’d never heard of them before.
“Oh,” the young woman said. “Get in line!”
I found double doors leading to a patio and a wide lawn. A crowd had formed around a path of lit coals—a garden of fiery blooms. “A fire in the flower bed!” I said aloud. Isley was back, wearing a gas mask, his voice so muffled one could barely hear him. He led a dark-skinned man to the coals—Kuda Bux, I guessed. Kuda was barefoot, wearing slacks and a pressed white shirt. As he walked the coals, the crowd clapped, louder and faster. He was serene. Once on the other side, he gave a small bow.
The fat pianist wanted to give it a go. He stepped on the heel of one shoe with the other, teetering, and then squatted to peel off a sock.
“Har-low! Har-low!” the crowd shouted.
Isley rushed at me, suddenly standing much too close and panting raggedly through the mask. He looked like an enlarged insect, his hair a wispy plume on his head. He was carrying an armful of gas masks. “They’re all the rage in London!” He handed me one. “Try it!”
I strapped it on. It was too tight so I took it off.
“Do you like me?” Isley asked me through his mask.
“This is the most marvelous party I’ve ever been to!” I said.
“You know I saved Eppitt’s life. He’d be dead in a trench, if not for me!”
“You were in the war together?”
“Of course not! I got him out of the war. I got him on with burlesque and provide his current employ. He’s not bad with mobsters. When you grow up like him, without, you’ve got nothing to lose, right? He was a milksop before he met me.”