Cooley Wyatt

© 2005 William Kronick. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 05/13/05

ISBN: 1-4208-2978-5 (sc)

ISBN: 1-4208-2977-7 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-7922-0 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005902242

Bloomington, Indiana

Cover Photo Illustration by Steve Bruno

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

About the Author

For MSK

Another flight of fancy for future study.

Chapter One

One thing Justin Adams Amory wasn’t: oblivious to his surroundings. He knew well before stepping on to the Central Park West sidewalk that it was an exceptional day in Manhattan. He’d already been jolted this mid-May morning by the view from his penthouse apartment. Overnight a blanket of uncommonly vibrant, pastel hues had been spread over the entire Park, the last gasp of those buds which would give way to their green brethren in a day or two. The air had been purified besides; the tall counterpart buildings on the East Side and skyscrapers to the south stood out with a sharp three-dimensionality that made him blink back from their startling clarity.

A million dollar day, eh, Mr. Amory?, Tom the doorman called from the curb, a touch of Dublin in his delivery still, after sixty years in the city.

I’ll take a hundred thousand, was the tenant’s lame but heartfelt reply. For money was very much on his mind, more and more so each time he left his aerie, no longer the safe haven it once seemed.

There were many things Amory was and wasn’t, most of which he noted with a mixture of dread and pride as his fiftieth year approached, he had come to understand about himself. He believed he had a grasp both on his virtues and shortcomings, his dreams and the real world. He’d given a lot of thought recently to a specific trait he felt he’d properly pegged, which plagued so many close to him. Denial. He knew the deadly side effects of the easily-disguised disease and was convinced he’d eluded it. His sister Emma wouldn’t acknowledge her son Winnie was a dopehead, so the poor kid had to go it alone. His best friend Mortie insisted his out-of-control weight problem was genetic. He was putting on pounds just looking at bearnaise sauce, he’d chortle, averting the despairing look of his caring critic.

Amory himself, even after settling into marriage, had bedded other women without giving a thought to VD or pregnancy until AIDS made itself notorious. Gratuitous sexual adventuring became one of the first of many it-happens-to-the-other-guy forms of denial he’d done away with, as he gained wisdom. Infidelity itself represented a personality defect of some kind, to be sure, but minor, not to be confused with a self-delusion that could destroy one…or one’s loved ones.

Not prone to self-pity either, he wouldn’t let the natural extension of these observations bring him down or slow his sprightly gait as he turned at the Plaza and headed down Fifth Avenue. Namely, how is it, if he possessed superior credentials, connections and intelligence, he can’t get arrested? Why, when his talents should be more in demand than ever, is he on the street scrounging to earn a buck?!

With a half-hour to kill before his appointment, he stopped off at the Doubleday store to audit the rages of the month in the anarchic arena of publishing. While he was a part of it certainly, the book end of it held little interest these days. As if the ghost of Gutenberg wanted to test his sincerity, there, on the remaindered table, a familiar cover caught his eye. Sure enough, a half-dozen copies of Love Affairs…And Other Foibles were scattered throughout the fifty other titles. Jesus, they hadn’t been burned or recycled by now? A collection of his best pieces until then, Foibles had come out in ’83, which meant a total of twenty-five years had flown by since his late entry into the ranks of ‘new’ journalists. Its decent sales and those of the paperback version convinced Ann the time had arrived to press procreation to the fullest.

Gazing at the back blurb photo, several details unnerved him. The pipe in one hand. He smoked a pipe? When did he start? When did he stop? Was his memory losing that much of its edge?…The hair was darker, but at least he’d kept it. His angular face hadn’t changed too noticeably either. Not a bad-looking guy at that. But the jacket! It’s not possible. The beautiful tweed he’d picked out and custom-tailored in London for the photo session—wasn’t he wearing it at this moment, fifteen years later? Afraid so. Ann had sewn on leather patches when the elbows began giving way, but otherwise it was in as respectable shape as its impecunious owner. Survivors both, he murmured, tossing the book back on the heap in a cavalier gesture which wasn’t free of remorse. Remorse for what? Could it conceivably come under the heading ‘denial’? He abruptly bid the untoward thought adieu as he breathed in another lungful of spring air on the Avenue.

The sterile, characterless decor on The New Yorker’s seventeenth floor of editorial offices hadn’t changed since he last visited, although the current editor-in-chief’s revamping of the magazine itself from a discreet, if entertaining, high-brow journal to a more eclectic, trendy one, had caused conniptions amongst many readers and fellow contributors; ‘fellow’ that is, if his last piece for them on the Hubble telescope, five or six years ago, still qualified him for the association. He understood sales were now up and most tempers mollified. But was it his imagination or were those he knew to be writers, waiting in the reception area or working with staff in the cubicles he passed, that much younger than he? Competition for high-paying, prestigious pieces had been stiff for years and everyone was earning less now than in the go-go Eighties. That was hardly news. Yet for all his ruminations on his profession, he hitherto hadn’t factored the obvious into the analysis: unknown, often good, young writers were being hired before veterans because they worked cheaper! In the halcyon days, top magazines paid top dollar as a matter of principle, based on the earned reputation, not the age, of the free-lancer.

Is it true, or am I looking for another excuse for my personal famine?, he hard-balled it with his prospective employer, Roger Teller, a shiny-domed contemporary whose Yale rep tie, worn day in day out, was his industry trademark. He’d survived several regimes since joining the periodical at the same time, that lifetime ago, Amory was emerging as a desirable, free-lance quantity. The relatively spacious though spartan office, commanding an impressive view of the Empire State Building ten blocks south, bore testimony to the company man’s secure status.

"C’est vrai, mon ami. Traditions of any kind are out the window these days, ain’t they, so long as the bottom-line mentality rules the cultural roost. Not that there isn’t a real shortage of gelt around. But do civility, taste and other good things we recall from our recent past have to take a dive along with our bank accounts? I ask you."

Sorry I mentioned it, Rog. Just read the damned thing!

Through his granny bifocals, his speed-reading eyes absorbed Amory’s two pages in less than a minute.

I like it, Jack. I smelled a scam when I saw the bill for replacing one after I tailgated a dumb cab.

I’ve got a whistleblower at both Ford and a manufacturer. Promise a hair-raising tale at the end of the trail.

You know we seldom do this kind of thing anymore. And, frankly, I don’t think Tina will find the world of airbags, uh, catchy, enough.

"Everyone with kids will, Rog. And you know Sixty Minutes and government agencies will jump on it as soon as it hits the stands."

Mm, could be…I promise to run it by her, but don’t hold your breath. Sorry, babe.

In one of those coincidences he was coming to believe had cosmic overtones, Jack—no one who knew him called him by his given first name; he reserved ‘Justin’ for bylines and formal introductions—caught the reflection of the soles of his Italian loafers in a narrow, floor-to-ceiling wall mirror. Both had holes a millimeter away from reaching the socks. At the same instant, Roger was rising from his chair, reaching for his wallet.

Christ, almost forgot our bet. I gave you ten to one on Clinton being nailed by now, didn’t I? I guess Monica knows when to keep her mouth shut, after all.

I remember the phone call, Rog, but we gave odds? You sure?

He took the two twenties and ten hesitantly. Was his memory really dimming or was this a handout? He had to watch himself more carefully than ever. No question about it. He dare not let his growing desperation show, even to Ann, or, he feared, he’d lose self-respect—his only antidote against what he’d labeled the ‘psychosis lite’ of his generation: depression.

Leaving the building, he found his mind still racing with a mixed bag of images and questions. Did Roger pick up on his shoes? Geez, I promised Becky a new uniform, didn’t I? Ha, did he know I don’t even own a car anymore? What am I going to do about Cynthia? Anything? Rog knows the score: they’ll never buy it. Don’t have two sources anyway, only one. Will there ever be another deadline to meet? Does anyone really believe the economy’s healthy?…Slow it down, Amory, for chrissake.

All his life he’d been focused, disciplined. Was age, insecurity or guilt insidiously closing in on him? Maybe all three? A seeker of truth normally, he didn’t want to know right now.

Within twenty minutes introspection was out, old-fashioned camaraderie in at O’Rourke’s on Third. Amidst a gang of full-time sports writers who gathered here on Mondays, he could unwind with the forty-to-sixty year-olds who were so idiosyncratic and open-hearted, it mattered not if you were destitute, a wife-beater or dying of cancer—you were welcomed, liked or tolerated for your dedication to the profession alone. No shop talk allowed during the informal luncheon, only ribald humor and nonsensical banter. The obligatory round of current Clinton blow-job jokes was quickly exhausted, giving way to more general quips and commentary.

At home as he was amongst the boys, Jack wondered if his last work in the genre, a profile on Pat Riley for SI, written three years ago, still qualified him to hang out here. There was also the matter of temperament. Neither as hard-drinking, hard-working nor generous as these confreres, he hoped they wouldn’t mind, if they knew, he was keeping his fifty simoleons for his daughter’s new uniform rather then springing for a round. Feeling poor was probably worse than being poor, he speculated, before acting on the urge to relate a bawdy Pope joke. He’d heard it the week before, at a PR cocktail party for Paul Theroux’s latest book, and retold it with great success.

Enter Marty Berman, waving a check and wearing the most unnatural grin anyone had ever seen. First payment on the sale of his twelve year-old baseball novel to Hollywood, for six figures! "And, if any of you remember back that far, my only novel had bombed! Can you believe Brad Pitt, the l’il darlin’, found a rotting copy of it on some dull location, creamed over it and got a studio to buy it! Put it all on my tab today, boys, Christmas has come real early. Booze, steaks, whatever your clogged arteries desire!"

Embraces, high-fives, backslaps and huzzahs engulfed him. There wasn’t an ounce of resentment in the house, Jack would wager, only honest sentiments of good will. He knew for certainty those at Elaine’s and other literary watering holes he was frequenting less and less often, would never respond so to a peer’s great fortune.

He then switched from the beer to order his beverage of choice, a dry, dry martini, up, to toast his old friend. He might dare drink one more, then have to split. He was running late.

Once more on the street, a conditioned reflex buoyed by the distilled spirits lifted his arm to hail a cab; he quickly brought it down when his ever-expanding conscience spoke to him: ‘It’s a ten-dollar ride, fool. Take the subway—and no sulking!’

God, you are a great fuck…

This, after the act. She clearly meant it. His response was synonymous but he needed more time to verbalize it. His whole system was still rattling with post-coital aftershocks.

Your sex simply doesn’t get spent the way mine does, does it?

Aw, come on, sailor. Aren’t you ready for another go? This, as she wiped him off with a warm, damp towel, then began playing gently with and licking his cock and balls. He knew she was only half-joking.

Indirect sunlight flooded the enormous West Broadway loft where Cynthia Simmons painted in one large area and lived luxuriously in the other. Her clandestine affair with Jack had been held here for nearly a year now, during one or two afternoons of the work week. Did she have other lovers? She claimed not and he’d no reason to doubt her. Deceiving Ann like this, did either party harbor shame? Jack maintained, and Cynthia didn’t mind hearing, that her uninhibited favors had, in fact, increased his appreciation of the deed, which he, in turn, had brought to his marriage bed to the delight of his wife.

From the moment they passed their AIDS tests, both agreed lust, not love, was at the core of their mutual attraction and should be kept at that. Not yet twenty-five, she confessed the timbre of his voice had first aroused her, reminding her of Orson Welles’ in his early films. The analogy had been made before by smitten cineastes, but never by one as irresistible as Cynthia. Her scampish smile, almond-shaped eyes and lissome figure did it for him, despite his oath to foreswear further extra-marital adventures.

Remembrance of their initial meeting still provided a delicious edge to their liaisons. How could a perverse amusement not be part of their sustaining ritual, after she was introduced by her adoring father to the small gathering at the Harvard Crimson reunion, Class of ‘69, New York branch only? It were as if Charlie, whom Jack hadn’t seen since college, now rich as Croesus from fast-food chains, pot-bellied and florid-faced, was offering up his priceless lamb as a sacrifice to him, who’d remained trim and fit and was, in a manner of speaking, an artist also.

The loft was but one of the tokens of affection she accepted from the daddy she loved and with whom Jack had often tomcatted around in Boston. Naturally, Charlie should never discover that his precocious off-spring was being done royally by a middle-aged, old acquaintance, nor should Ann. Rightly, she might be disturbed by the picture of a lubricious young thing receiving her husband’s errant sperm. Thus their trysts were restricted to the loft, excepting a risky tête à tête on a splendid day like this, at an obscure espresso bar a block away.

From there, Amory’s itinerary lead him, via subway again, to a prompt four-fifteen arrival at The Parker School, where Becky awaited him after dance class. Despite her all-around maturity for a thirteen year-old, or because of it—she already wore a bra—both parents believed it imprudent to let her go anywhere in the once-fair city unescorted by an adult.

The exhilarating weather of the day didn’t entirely dispel the sense of failure he felt. Reentering the apartment house lobby with his lively daughter in tow, he wondered how many more assaults into the unfriendly streets he was destined to make before his spirit was broken. As if to punctuate the question, when they turned the corner, there was Ann at the elevator.

They all briefly caressed; she needed something from her desk and had to hurry back to the office. Could Jack do this and that for dinner? During the twenty-second ride to the top floor, negative ions continued to whirr around at a speed that frightened him. He truly loved both these females, but how could they him if they were to be made aware of his state of mind? How could he have let Ann return to unrewarding work, a stopgap measure to keep the wolf at bay which had become a prison sentence? Just who the hell was Jack Amory now, anyway? Yes, one of his books was somehow still extant mid-town. Yes, there were peers who considered him worthy of their time. Yes, downtown a veritable goddess was enamoured of some part of him. Nonetheless, he was—and was he anything more?—a duplicitous Mr. Mom who, while not in denial of the facts, had no idea if he’d ever earn another dime or be able to meet the next mortgage payment, albeit a paltry two thousand, and Becky’s tuition without refinancing again, which meant prostrating himself before his sister once more. Would he ever complete the play he thought might be the solution to the non-economic frustrations in his life? Yes, there were those too. Was this how the century will end for him—with a pathetic whimper? But was his predicament so different from most men’s out there?

One technique guaranteed to close down the reactor in his head: as soon as Ann had left the apartment, now bathed in the low-light received by its east-facing windows, and Becky had begun calling her girlfriends with a detailed report of the day’s highlights, he turned on the TV news. In a blink of the eye, everyone else on earth also had problems. The meaning—or meaningless—of his could take a back seat to the fellow sufferers on display…

Throughout his career, Jack Amory often had written about dramatic milestones in the lives of others. He may have, at various times, expected to become the protagonist in one or more of his own. He no longer consciously entertained the notion.

Which made the chance encounter the next day the more remarkable.

Chapter Two

Jack’s favorite whimsical televison ‘meteorologist’ couldn’t repress chagrin in his recitation. Not only had he and his cohorts called for light rain today, none had dared suggest it might be as pristine and magical as yesterday. Which it was.

Despite his inability after a long hour to write the next stage direction, much less a line of dialogue or clean up anything, there was no cause to hit CtrlS, as there hadn’t been for weeks. He shut down the laptop and got up in a good humor. Normally he’d feel fraudulent if he hadn’t advanced a bit on the play. Normally he’d go to the bar and pick up a glass as if to make a drink to console himself although seldom surrendering to the cop-out. Certainly not when it was still well before noon.

Must be the salutary effect of the climate again, he reasoned, as he meandered about the apartment, the spacious ten-room palace in which, not surprisingly, he felt so at home. Whether alone, with the family or entertaining small or large groups of friends, relatives even, as he and Ann had done often until the current fiscal crisis forced them into withdrawal, he regarded this domicile adjacent to Sixty-Eighth Street as far more than living quarters. He sensed its high-ceilinged spaces had performed an ineffable characterological, perhaps spiritual, part in his development from childhood onward.

Patrick and Ellen Amory rented it while Justin was still incubating. He’d lived here until leaving for Choate and Harvard. Then, after years in a one-bedroom in the Village, he returned when Ann became pregnant with Rebecca. By now his mother owned it, having bought it in ‘70 with the insurance money paid out on his father’s premature death.

Ellen Amory would die in her own room two years after Becky was born, the apartment becoming the sole, tangible legacy left to Jack and Emma, his senior by two years, who lived in Boston with her prosperous, attorney husband—God bless them both!

With few exceptions, Jack had only endearing memories of the many years spent here. On this morning his solitude was soothing. Any fear of losing the place to the bank or Emma, who had properly taken an IOU for the several large refinancing loans he’d been obliged to make, didn’t enter his conscious thoughts.

Now in the paneled library/den, where always was found the best conversation and debate at a party’s end, he was drawn to the shelf of family photos. Dad and Mother in a patrician pose, taken on their twenty-fifth anniversary, always provoked. She still had the mirthful sparkle in her eye, he the expression that exuded good-natured confidence. Knowing what he did now about the traumas in their forties, the life-like portrait, as usual, caused Jack to turn away before untoward emotions shattered the contented moment.

What to do now? Eleven o’clock. The first day in his life, perhaps, when he had no agenda of any kind after the daily charade of playwriting. Ann supported the venture, although after months of diligent work had mushroomed into years, he had to ask whether it wasn’t a futile exercise in self-therapy, even though if he stopped he suspected he’d become certifiable. No, he hadn’t an assignment to fulfill nor one to hustle, no colleague to meet for lunch or cocktails, no rendezvous with Cynthia. Even Becky didn’t have to be picked up today. How to regard the bewildering condition? With or without concern? He decided to lighten up and let the city work him over. Why else did he live here?

But once into the streets, what destination? Any city boy knows all that distinguishes the solid citizen from the bum is that the former has an objective in mind for going uptown, downtown or crosstown. Should he catch up on the art galleries, the new exhibits at the museums? Not alone. He only appreciated them with Ann. A movie? He’d know for a fact his brain had died if he went to a matinee, especially on a day like this, especially when it seemed no one made more than half a movie anymore, at twice the length. Ah, he had it! He’d ease through the Park, then down Madison to Mortie’s—a good two-three miles—getting there in time to select a modest item from the minimalist menu. He hadn’t seen his beloved philosopher/saloonkeeper of the Semitic persuasion in a couple of weeks and looked forward to it.

The sights and sounds along the way, for the second time, had acquired an unique freshness from the invigorating air. The make-up on career women on the move hadn’t yet lost out to the soot and their colognes’ fragrances remained intact, while the breath-taking redolence of homeless panhandlers, inexplicably, went unsmelt. Jack filed away as a possible punch-line to these observations, should he have call to write them down for a piece, that ‘maybe there is a God’.

Arriving at Lindner’s, the packed, cozy tavern Mortie’s father opened just before WWII, he was upset to discover his pal absent from his post. He was always there. Moments later, Phil the bartender filled him in: Joey, Mortie’s ten-year old, had broken his arm in gym and was being treated at Columbia-Pres. Using the house phone, Jack caught Mortie at the hospital and was told all was well. He heard Arlene and Joey laughing in the background at his undue concern.

He then took a bar stool, ordered a tuna on rye and Corona, and began perusing The New York Observer that Phil, per custom, had slipped him.

Sipping the beer, he realized he regarded Joey as his own, that the Lindners and Amorys were almost as one family to him. How could that be? But it was.

About to turn off Fifth into Forty-Third Street to use the john of the Harvard Club, he pondered whether it was wise. For the first time, he hadn’t renewed his annual membership. Could or would anyone embarrass him if he showed an outdated card? He doubted there’d be an incident, but moved on anyway. The Racquet & Tennis Club on Park: now that could be a worse humiliation! He’d tarnished both the Adams and Amory names by his delinquency there. In arrears