A Singular Man by J. P. Donleavy

  "George let me telephone the airport."

  Smith putting the nervous Clementine through on the line handing over the instrument. Bonniface's hand clutching it tightly, knuckles white. Eyebrows at half mast.

  "Hello. Air Traffic. Fritz. Who is this. Get off this line, imbecile. Fritz, do you hear, I want Fritz. This is Gessunt, air traffic manager. Fritz. Gessunt here. Cedric Bonniface will be late. He was involved in a collision on the highway. Pile up of forty six cars. No. His was thirty eight. He's all right. Just a little shaky. Insists upon reporting for duty. He asks that his makeshift garment be overlooked. I suggest he be given a free chit for the Monarch lounge. Yes. Pity. Quite. He's utterly devoted to duty. However. Goodbye."

  High wire fence. Flat lands and beyond, the wide marshes, meadows and creeks. Over railway tracks. How are you ShirL Bonniface unsmiling. Be an asset in my business. Personal all round secretary. Assistant ever ready with a ruse. Or fandango. Miss Tomson lays out her canapés this night. Big ring glittering on her finger. Amusing friends, maybe flicking mayonnaise in their eyes. Said men with big ones should wear long ties. Have her cool blond hand between my legs. Light it up like a torch to shine in any darkness ahead. Her marriage. Her party. To which I will tremble as I did to my first. When I wore a lavender suit. Went with just my innocent heart without presents or invitation. Hoping to get the jello, ice cream and pop. Instead of the two sad words I was served. Feeling aglow and different, little white lace trim around my broad collar. All washed and neatly ironed. Skinny legged down the street under the summer trees. Turn right between the green low hedges. Into the concrete back yard where they kept horses. I petted the blue furry dog on the head. Up the cement steps to knock on the screen door. Could see dimly inside across the gleaming tiles feet moving around a table murmuring with goodies. My idea was friendly. And they came to the door. Opened it, looked at me. And said go home. I waited all the way out to the street again. Tight throat holding down my lungs which pushed out my tears as I walked away. Back up the street. And home.

  "Smith you nervously clutch that paper bag. You convert foolish riches in your heart and beautiful dreams in your mind, into worldly cash. Shame. Me think take pneumatic drill to get into this car without a key. Only simple pleasures left. My black liquorice toothpaste. My apartment mates think it strange. Steal some from me. And think I do not know. Yesterday I sold two pints of blood. To buy chop meat for Mr. Mystery. Smith. I took him to the park to meet other doggies of his own retirement age. Who also can barely sniff or lift a leg. But Mr. Mystery turned up his nose at friendship. Like you do Smith. Don't hold the world in distrust. It's nice out here. Provided you have padding for the ribs and protection for the groin. Good of you to take me to the airport. Talk George. Why don't you talk." the airport. Talk George. Why Smith eructing delicately.

  "As you wish. Have you switched off the flow of gold to Shirl. Cruel man. Made her work. Wrapped her lawyer up in statutes till he screamed with the lethal legality. The habeas corpus haberdasher. The Otter clause. But me Smith. I don't mind. Others think you hard. But me. I have one request. Just one. I should like to wear decorations to the opening of your memorial. To offset forever the cremation ashes, my father in law threw over us at our wedding. Of a mixture from the family's bankrupts. You like that aspersion. You smile. See. We approach the lights now. Beacons wave round the sky. There. A Thunderbird goes up, full of folk flying to get there. And when they do, fly to get back. Enables more time to fit in misery at destination, than by rail or sea. Fandango. One good heap of heartbreak. Here we are."

  "Herbert, stop at the entrance there."

  "George give this little slip of paper to Herbert, he can refresh himself at the bar and restaurant without stint."

  "I must go back, Bonniface, I have a call to make upon a friend."

  "George I want you to see this port in action. Just for a few minutes. Watch me do my duty. Surely the passing of papers, scribblings, figures, dockets, stampings, trampings must be of interest to you. Go wait at the central pillar in the sky ways hall. Please. I ask you to do this. Just to have for a few random minutes, one human being close by who can see me in perspective. Smith, I'm truly sorry you are evil."

  Throngs of people. Down causeways, ramps. Roar of engines. Smith in his dark suit. Spying after Bonniface Clementine, walking with Smith's black gloves, black sable coat, stick rapping the floor, blinking unseeing into the crowd, the white underwear covered shanks sticking into a pair of black shoes as they hurried him wayward and trouserless. Other eyebrows raised and faces turned as he passed. And approached the whispering clerks behind die long black counter. Two were pleasant looking women to whom he bowed. And they giggled.

  Customers lined up to fly. Smith standing behind the pillar, in the center of skyway hall. Bonniface, the crustacean, back and forth, a white carnation stuck in the sable.

  Smith silent. A lonely life watching from this post. Women with baskets. Trailing little children. Wild eyes in sallow faces. An odd executive in the swarm looking at his watch with confidence. Try that significant gesture, and my timepiece halts. There's a corporation president staring ahead into the next deal, chin jutting, hand ready to grip some other fish like appendage appearing at a profit. There goes Bonniface, penniless and amusing. On a mountain of cash one looks down with sad but wide open eyes. At the wailing below. Drop it down to them from the sky, promptly it lands, the eye gouging begins.

  This dark journey across the flat lands to see the Bonniface. Share some of his misunderstandings. Least one does for a college friend. Like nights so many years ago. Standing under lamp posts, bottles bouncing in the dark. Find a ragged girl to lay up against some cellar wall. In a smell of rats and dead cats. Dream to be a merchant prince. Marble houses round the world. Run through the streets to Her Majesty's high brick house, shutters closed over the windows. Past stone masons chiselling by candle light with the great deal of dying. Rollick royal. Buds in the altogether. All comes to this. Bonniface scurrying by. Lower legs in underwear. Little sheaf of papers clutched in the hand. Makes a sign language to a customer under the blaring loud speaker. Promptly retreats the whole length of the counter. Stooping under at the end and into the gents. For the fifth time. Wants me to witness his kidney control in these jammed conditions. Goodness. He's back again. Some bladder.

  Must get my coat back. Or appear at Miss Tomson's without outer accoutrement. Protection from her smart friend's elbows. Merry big Miss Tomson. I put it. All measured and mild. And upon it you slipped a painful ring of teeth. Feel them wherever I go. Even here, faint and foolish by this pillar. Your silken folds of wondrous little beads of caviar. A step into heaven. Hide me. Passengers swarm. Rest in there. Away from switches and wires ringing and binging. Bound to be a mistake. There goes Bonniface again. Under the flap, across the corridor. Into the gents. In view of your peeing history Bonniface, sprinkle the counter, and be done. Give air company little spray of heartbreak. While Herbert tanks up in the bar. Asks me home to eat with him and wife. Has tropical fish who rush to the surface as they hear him walk across the floor. Mrs. does my darning to save Matilda trouble putting my socks down the incinerator. To go essence of feet. Up the chimney.

  A record established. Bonniface working for two whole minutes behind the counter. Pulling open a drawer. Another one, rustling in the paper. Just like Miss Martin does to show she's on the job. Whoops. There he goes again. Ah. He stops. Smiles at me. Gives my invitation a wave, as he streaks to the end of the counter. Under. Across the corridor. Into the gents. Must tell him, I go. Hither. Away from wind socks, control towers, loud speakers, and beams scanning skies. And madness on the tarmac.

  Smith leaving the pillar. Threading a way through the advancing ceaseless mob. Side stepping a business tycoon standing in his tracks making an assured decision formulating future profits. Makes one homesick for Dynamo. Relive the thrill of that deportment. When they make the counter offer, smile thanks and regret one must repair to the country where it will receive
constant thought till one's return to town when the price will be double, sorry gentlemen. Why you. And next week, triple.

  Smith blowing nose. Frighten away nervousness. Push through the black swing door of this gents. A narrow long corridor. Neat row of piss basins at the end. No gentleman would take water from a conduit pipe. Please, a porcelain pitcher poured into a wide basin of same on the marble washstand. Joy of rinse, of towel. As Her Majesty washed, nose a symphony of flared nostril held haughtily with a delightful bone to a soft tip she often pressed upon my eager ear.

  And here wash bowls, towels automatic out of machines. Do not pull twice in one minute. I beg your pardon. To such impertinence in the gents. And this square tall room where Bonniface does not seem to be standing. With his usual luminosity. By the hair oil squirter. Press. Personal pomade. Two squirts for the more particular. Prevent hair raising at the next business conference. Never to call a board meeting again. Or sadly sit in the chairman's chair. Faces of destiny flanking down the mahogany. Odd cough and sneeze. Gentlemen please don't be too scared to make a suggestion. I'm listening. Pass the water. Has no one something to say. A scribble or gesture at least. Just so Miss Martin can short hand some minutes. I want contribution from your minds. To cheer the single shareholder in his loneliness in carting all the profits away to his bereft, unloved vault, without bravos or hand clap. Gentlemen, sorry, directors' fees this year will be in the form of free tuition at the School Of Higher Graduation, for the diploma of Satisfaction On Lower Income. Bonniface has already graduated, ghosty and gone. To other confusions. Worry kills quickly in a sober crystal mind.

  Smith looking at the small holes in the ventilators along the ceiling of the lavatory. Two oblong windows of a variety of glass impossible to float through. As well as bars on the outside. Over there. Nine booths. Three in use. What a pass to be viewing legs engaged in a function which clashes with my spiritual mood of the moment. No shanks of white legged underwear. In one of these he sounded the horn. Lone call back over yester year. As he sat, master, pink white and black amid the horsey calvacade. Baying chiming hounds, high fat tails wagging. Who blames him for sounding loud and clear in some distant cubicle. To call back the splendid country grass down the vale. Garlic lightly in the air. Bonniface leading the mounted contingent. Her Majesty laughing, as he got them, hounds and all, regrettably lost in gorse. All however right later that night at the randy roundup. The memorable farmyard antics at the hunt ball.

  Smith standing dumbfounded in this latrine. Two gentlemen giving him the suspicious eye. A squat person winking and leaving his fly unmentionably open. Stay here and be detained maybe for attempted tinkering. Some sneaky reaching for my particulars. This is what I get when I answer a summons of a last twitching. Bonniface, the mirage at the log cabin window, rendering song on comb and paper. Been haunted enough. Saw you come in here. Wearing my warm coat. Miss Tomson will think I rented it just long enough to go with the car to meet her on the street corner. Instead of it disappearing on a spook.

  Smith taking one last bewildered look. Feel thin, cold and banshee out this long hall. Eyes deceived. Too many months of irregular correspondence. Tripping into walls. Down open sewers. Last only a few seconds with the rats. Should never have come. Could be near Miss Tomson instead of lurking coatless in a latrine. With youth replaced with cunning. Age replaced by worms. Worms replaced with birds. And they go shitting out of a tree on my white linen suit in the summertime.

  At the end of the hall. Set in the grey wall a door. Just inside the entrance of the latrine. Says private. Who knows. For mops. For first feels. Like I got from Miss Martin. Open it. In memory of a foot in past pails. Turn the nice smooth round knob. It will click open if not locked. Tug. My Gawd.

  Squeezed and crouched. Former master of hunt, hounds and urinary horror. Bonniface. With coat open, two hands held high above his head. Gripping the gallon basket of wine. Turning with a gasp to Smith letting in the light of the outer world. Wine cascading from the bottle aloft. Shower over his head. Unstoppered by his mouth. Pouring upon his person. Unholy red down the white underwear. Drip drop from the sable. Bonniface attempts to bark. Choking under the flow. Hair flattened, full of wine. Struggling to get the bottle down. But blocked by the long handle of a waxing machine.

  Cedric Clementine. One afternoon in autumn proud. Pink upon his pale horse. Boots and saddle gleaming. Waiting for the fox to be roused. No hound shall fault in sheep. One capital day of sport through bottoms and spinney. Across frost, furze and fog. From the gravel apron of Laughington Castle. Instead of here, deluged in wine. Employed and mortified. Full grown foundling. Unpromoted and sad.

  Hello

  Little someone

  Anywhere

  Dark and cold

  22

  THE dreadnaught approaching the web of cables holding the bridge across the water with great black girders and trestles. Ropes of steel all tight and cold. Smith slumped asleep, waking to see the lights ahead. Burning little brains in the buildings. Get to the grave with as many comforts as possible.

  "Is there something wrong, Mr. Smith."

  "I'm all right Herbert."

  "Don't mind me, Mr. Smith, I just couldn't help noticing through the mirror. If you don't want to talk or anything it's all right."

  "I was thinking Herbert, all the engine birds and wheels. Roll roll"

  "You look tired, Mr. Smith. Maybe if you're not doing nothing, you might kinda like to come home with me and have a meal. Plenty for everybody. You know, if you're not doing anything."

  "Thank you."

  "Wife's always glad to see you. Says she gets a real kick out of some of your remarks. Steak and kidney, I know it's your favorite."

  Smith slunk deeply in the kindly leather. World goes by so grey on these streets. Man stumbling against a wall in tatters. Grey smile, and silver hair. Newspaper wrapped around a shin. Luckier than poor old Bonnif ace drenched red in his underwear. Brought him a dozen hankies with a blue letter C from the gift counter to mop up. I offered him cash and he asked for understanding. And a long loan of the sable.

  Granite pillars above the wide steps. In there they administer justice. Only takes a minute to attach the electrodes. Just pop one here on the top of the head, couple little straps around the arms and legs. Dynamo House sadly named.

  "Where to, Mr. Smith."

  "Left around the park. And down Golden Avenue."

  "This is where the money was flying round."

  "I remember."

  "Human nature had an outlet that day, huh, Mr. Smith. Offer about the meal stands. No trouble."

  "Thanks Herbert. Miss Tomson's holding a party later."

  "O sure. You want a rain check."

  "A rain check."

  "Don't mind me saying, Mr. Smith, but she's some girl. And funny, a real nice person. Real nice. You know."

  "Yes."

  "Where you want me to stop."

  "The big building, Hotel on the right. That'll be all for tonight."

  "This is The Excelsior."

  "Yes,"

  "Sure you're all right, Mr. Smith. You know you look very very tired."

  "I'm fine, Herbert. Fine. Airport was a little hectic. Mr. Clementine rather takes life lightly. I suppose I'm of the dour outlook."

  "You're not dour. Hey look, what about your coat. You want the bag, paper bag. The cane,"

  "Mr. Clementine was a little short on garments this evening."

  "You take this, now Mr. Smith."

  "No, no, Herbert. I couldn't possibly."

  "I insist. I really do. I don't like the way you look at all. So you're going to take this, whether you like it or not."

  "O.K. Take my stick too never know when it comes in handy."

  "Might be a little big around the shoulders that's all."

  "Herbert will you keep this paper bag in the trunk and lock it."

  "Sure."

  Smith stood on the curb. In Herbert's dark overcoat. Coming to attention with a smile and wave to Herb
ert taking the dreadnaught to its deathy garage. Go back then to his wife and nice little home. Full of kitchen smells, of spice and pretty woman. Ah God. Anymore of this and I'll fold up and dissolve on this pavement. Lean on the apple branch. Guess I just want someone to come out of somewhere, reach my ear. Whisper in. George. O George. You're good looking, trustworthy and kind. And mysteriously exciting. Here's my life, love. Let's waltz the rest of the road together, to get wrinkled and grey. May our distinction and flamboyance be mature.

  The lobby of The Excelsior. Faint smiles upon some faces. Mr. Park at the ball room door. A wave. A grin. Like some little hometown coming. Need a haircut. Cheap quick trip into the Barber College. Get trimmed by an undergraduate. The evening bristles mowed down. Otherwise I feel terrible. Brave Bonniface of the strange strength. They drag him down by the heels. He makes a pulley arrangement on the other side to go whizzing up again. Footpoundals ablaze. Hang on by fingertips George. Hang on. Shore up. Company Sixty Two. Deploy left flank. Howitzer die fuckers. Command gone to pieces. Under six months constant shelling. And candied parsnips for chow. Must make it to the elevator as if nothing is the matter with me.

  Elevator boy sizing up Smith. That's true sonny, the coat doesn't fit me. Her Majesty's door, grey gleaming gun metal. Printed right across my eyes. See a mirage. Dear Sir, we invite you to dance with joy, before we make you hobble with affliction. Yours very truly. The Hoods. Gentlemen, vouchsafe a dance to the tune of the fandango. Open up, Your Majesty. Let me fall in.

  "O. Is it."

  "George Smith."

  "We've met. On the phone. I'm Lettia Calvin. Do please come in. Her Highness is dressing. May I get you a drink."

  "I would cherish a glass of beer."

  "Of course."

  Miss Calvin. I cannot imagine a connection with a certain Cedric. Lady in waiting, blue lilacs in her hair. Where have all the kings gone. I would be their friend. Her Majesty is such a pleasant queen. Made a country out of this room. I'm her footpig. Reach for this beer with a trembling hand. Forty thousand people agreed to get together to whip out the carpet where I stand. My golden invitation. On the mantel. Must arrange the menu for Thistle Plot. Tureens of giblets supreme. The fried egg miraculous, little sinking suns on the sideboard. And the specialty of chopped livers for the Bonniface. The end is near, when you want it far away. Kids kick all premonitions out of one's head. And then, silence. Death rears. Who dat ahead. What dat up dere. Matilda said God was nervous. Because he's black. And so much white trash elbowing into heaven.