A man in full, p.83
A Man in Full, page 83
“Yeah. Tell me what makes it interesting.” Charlie managed to shift his bulk and prop his head up against the headboard, so he wouldn’t be talking from out of a pillow.
“Well,” said the boy, “most philosophies assume that you’re free, you’ve got all these possibilities, and it’s like you can design your own life any way you want.”
The boy hesitated; so Charlie gave him a little encouragement. “Go ahead.”
“The Stoics, they assumed the opposite. They said that in fact you have very few choices. You’re probably trapped in some situation, everything from being under somebody’s thumb to being a slave to disease to actually being in jail. They assumed that in all likelihood you weren’t free.”
“What were they?” said Charlie. “Greeks?”
“They were Romans,” said the boy, “although one of them, Epictetus, was a Greek living in Rome.”
“When was all this?”
“About the time of Nero. The first century A.D.”
What stuck in Charlie’s mind was probably trapped in some situation.
“So tell me, do you consider yourself a Stoic?”
“I’m just reading about it,” said Conrad, “but I wish there was somebody around today, somebody you could go to, the way students went to Epictetus. Today people think of Stoics—like, you know, like they’re people who grit their teeth and tolerate pain and suffering. But that’s not it at all. What they are is, they’re serene and confident in the face of anything you can throw at them. If you say to a Stoic, ‘Look, you do what I tell you or I’ll kill you,’ he’ll look you in the eye and say, ‘You do what you have to do, and I’ll do what I have to do—and, by the way, when did I ever tell you I was immortal?’”
“And you’d like to be like that?” asked Charlie.
“I—yes.”
Charlie could tell that the boy felt he had already said too much.
“All right,” said Charlie, “let’s suppose somebody is in a dilemma. If he chooses one thing, then he gains something valuable, but he loses something that may be even more valuable. And vice versa. If he chooses the other thing, then it’s the same problem. He gains one thing of value and loses another thing that may be even more valuable. What does your Stoic say to that?”
“Well, for him, the Stoic—are you sure I’m not telling you more about Stoicism than you want to know? Honest, I’m not a nut on the subject. I just happen to be reading about it.”
“No, no, no,” said Charlie. “Please go ahead. You can be sure it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than listening to lectures about knee replacements and being a good patient and how important it is to do your therapy. They’re the ones who tell you to just grit your teeth and take it. Which is easy for them to say. So what does your Stoic say about dilemmas?”
There was embarrassment on the boy’s face. He hesitated … then said: “To a Stoic there are no dilemmas. They don’t exist.”
“How can they not exist?”
“I’ll try to give you an example, Mr. Croker. Are you sure you don’t mind hearing all this?”
“No, go ahead. I’m interested.”
The boy said, “Well, there was a famous Stoic named Agrippinus, if that’s the way you pronounce it. I’ve never heard anybody say his name out loud. Anyway, one day—this was in Rome at the time Nero was the emperor, about 95 A.D.—Nero loved to humiliate prominent Romans by ordering them to put on costumes and make fools of themselves in these plays he used to write. So one day this well-known Roman historian named Florus arrives at Agrippinus’ house, and he’s sweating and trembling, and he says to Agrippinus:
“‘The most terrible thing has happened. I’ve been summoned to appear in one of Nero’s plays. If I do it, I’ll be humiliated before everybody in Rome that I care about. If I don’t, I’ll be killed.’
“‘I’ve received the same summons,’ says Agrippinus.
“‘My God,’ says the historian, ‘you, too! What do we do?’
“‘You go ahead and act in the play,’ said Agrippinus. ‘I’m not going to.’
“‘Why me and not you?’ said the historian.
“‘Because you’ve considered it.’”
“Christalmighty,” said Charlie. “That’s—” But he decided not to finish the thought.
“I can give you another example from Epictetus’ own life.”
“Good,” said Charlie.
“But if I’m rattling on too long,” said the boy, “you’ve got to say so.”
“No, this interests me.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. Go ahead.”
“Well, the emperor after Nero was Domitian, and the way he looked at it, the philosophers, particularly the Stoics, were good for nothing but stirring up trouble. So he issued an ultimatum. All the Roman philosophers either had to cut off their beards—the long beards were the emblem, I guess you’d say, of the philosopher—you either cut off your beard, which was like saying, ‘I renounce being a philosopher,’ or we’ll kill you or send you into exile. A delegation from the emperor comes around to deliver the ultimatum to Epictetus, and he doesn’t even say, ‘Let me think it over.’ He says, right on the spot, ‘I’m not removing my beard.’ And they say, ‘Then we’ll execute you.’ Epictetus laughs and says, ‘Are you talking about this vessel of clay and its quart of blood that is my body? Go ahead. I’ve only got it on loan for a little while anyway.’”
“Okay,” said Charlie, “so what happened to them, Epi-teeter?—”
“Epictetus.”
“—and Ah-grippus?”
“Agrippinus.”
“Two brave men who say ‘Fuck you’ to the authorities. What happened to them?”
“It’s interesting,” said the boy, “or I think it is. Both resisted the authorities head-on, with no negotiation, and neither one of them was executed. Both of them were exiled, which was a terrible punishment in those days, but nobody—I’m only guessing, of course—nobody wanted the death of such powerful spirits on their hands.”
Charlie lay there for a moment, trying to fit all this to his situation. Suppose he just said “Fuck you” to everybody who was putting the squeeze on him, the bank, Fareek Fanon’s lawyer, what would be the outcome? All he could see as the realistic answer to that question was … utter desolation … a disgraced Cap’m Charlie with no one to follow his commands … and yet he wanted to know more.
“Well, let me ask you something, Connie—”
Suddenly Serena was back in the room. Flustered, she closed the library door and hurried past the boy, Connie, and over to Charlie’s bed.
“Charlie,” she said, “are you all right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Charlie.
“Charlie, there’s this man who keeps calling. He says he’s a lawyer and he insists he has to see you. His name is—”
“Roger White,” said Charlie in a weary voice.
“That’s it. What do I tell him?”
“Don’t tell him anything. Let Jarmaine answer the telephone.”
“All right,” said Serena with a distracted air, “but he kept saying he had to have an answer from you very soon. That’s what he kept saying, over and over. An answer about what, Charlie?”
“He’s a lawyer,” said Charlie. “He wants me to testify in some case of his.”
“What kind of case?”
“Oh, it dud’n matter,” said Charlie. He tried to sink deeper, deeper, and yet deeper into the bed.
chapter XXX
The Bull and the Lion
PEEPGASS LEANED WAY BACK IN THE CHAIR TO GIVE HIMSELF enough room between his abdomen and the table to rustle back the first section of the Journal-Constitution from page 1 to page 12—much rustlerustlerustling of the newspaper—so he could continue reading about the latest developments in the case of Fareek Fanon and the as-yet-unnamed-in-print Elizabeth Armholster. In the midst of the big foldback he happened to glance out the window. He couldn’t believe it. There was the gardener, Franklin, down on his knees, edging the flower bed with a trowel! Where had he come from? Five minutes ago he wasn’t there! Peepgass hadn’t seen him arrive and hadn’t heard him arrive, even though the window was wide open and Franklin was no more than twelve feet away from him. Martha had opened the window, because it was such a nice cool morning you didn’t need the air conditioning. It was as if Franklin had grown up from out of the earth like a tuber in his earth-colored work shirt and vest and his earth-colored skin when neither Peepgass nor Martha was paying attention.
Martha looked up from the part of the Journal-Constitution she was reading, Section E, called “Horizon”—the newspaper’s euphemism, Peepgass thought ruefully, for “the suburbs,” particularly poor old basketball-backboard-and-hoop-in-the-driveway commuterburbs like Snellville—Martha looked up and smiled and asked, “What on earth is that headline about ‘Fanon’s Cannons’ supposed to mean?”
“Well, it’s here,” said Peepgass, extending the first section toward her. “Take a look. It’s interesting. Politics is rearing its mangy head.”
“No, no, no,” said Martha, “I don’t want to read it right now, I was just hoping it wasn’t a double entendre.”
“I don’t think the Journal-Constitution goes in for double entendres, or at least not racy ones. That’s r, a, c, y, not r, a, c, e, y.”
“Is r, a, c, e, y a word?”
“Please don’t get technical on me. It seems that they’ve—I’m not really sure who they are—they’ve started a defense fund for Fareek Fanon, and a couple of black councilmen are saying that the whole thing is—you’ll never guess what—a racist plot to discredit Fanon. They’re his ‘cannons,’ the councilmen. It’s become very political. The Mayor has announced he’ll be holding a press conference and making a major statement about the whole thing.”
That was what Peepgass was saying as he looked toward Martha across this elegant round mahogany table with fruitwood banding, aswarm with hand-crocheted place mats and a veritable flotilla of silver and crystal, including a silver bread gondola, with a damask napkin lining it, currently empty because Peepgass had devoured every last morsel of the toasted Sally Lunn that had been therein along with his scrambled eggs, grits, hot country sausage, and New Orleans coffee. But what he was thinking was:
Does she look any better this morning? What could she do about that … thickness in the neck and shoulders and upper back? Anything? Probably not. Would she be presentable? I’m only forty-six. She’s fifty-three. Would it be embarrassing to take her places as my wife? She does have fabulous legs, but is there some kind of regimen or diet to get rid of that … thickness up top? What happens when she’s sixty and I’m only fifty-three? What then? On the other hand … look at what’s all around me here! This is … Buckhead! The real thoroughbred Buckhead! Look at this house! Look at that yard! Look at that faithful old Franklin! Look at what’s on this table! Enough silver to make a down payment on a four-bedroom house in Snellville, poor old Snellville! Jesus Christ … If Sirja wins her goddamned paternity suit, which no doubt she will, and I have to pay Christ knows how much in support payments, I’ll be flat as a flounder! Pietari Päivärinta Peepgass—“Pavvy! Pavvy! Pavvy!”—Little Pavvy will get bigger and bigger, he’ll eat and eat and eat, thanks to me being squeezed every month like a tube of old toothpaste—for the next eighteen years! I’ll be an old man, waiting to get the crystal phoenix from Planners-Banc, before it all ends! I won’t have lived, f’r Chrissake!
He looked at Martha again, as if he were about to say something more about the Elizabeth Armholster business, but in fact he was studying her and thinking:
She’s actually pretty. Not too many lines. Nice hair … full … dyed? … Can’t tell … Has all her makeup on, even at breakfast … Simple, stylish cotton dress, navy with vertical white stripes, high in the hem to show off those legs … But that neck … thick … Chunky gold chain for a necklace … Casual, but must be a ton of gold in the damned thing … Sirja … destroying him as if she’s God’s avenging angel … Kept thinking of Sirja last night … Only way he could get it done, wasn’t it … A vision of Sirja the way she was that very first night at the Grand Tatar. She had stripped down to her stockings, the old-fashioned kind, not pantyhose … Mediumbrown sheer nylon stockings they were, held up by old-fashioned garters with flowery little yellow and mint green bows on them … That was all she had on! Not a stitch more! At first she was standing in the hotel room with only the stockings on, and then she had put one foot up on a chair and tipped her vulva toward him. The labiae were red—red!—with lust. She put her forefinger and her middle finger in her mouth and then took them out and stroked her labiae, while her hooters bulged and bulged and bulged with lubricity, and her face—but he had purposely blanked out her face, cut off her head, in his emergency recollection, because the face was the outer mask of her vile and treacherous mind … but he needed those loins of hers, had to bring them alive in his imagination or he couldn’t have managed to get it done with Martha here, who’s so thick through the shoulders … Would he have to think of a beheaded Sirja Tiramaki, mother of Pietari Päivärinta Peepgass … every time … from now on? No use dwelling on that …
They were both embarrassed when they got up this morning. What do you say to her at her age? Or his age, for that matter … His clothes were rumpled, especially his shirt, and he had no toothbrush or razor. Well, PlannersBanc would just have to take him unshaven for the first time in his loyal dog’s career there … Fuck it … The newspaper had helped. Gave them something to talk about instead of what was on their minds … He had offered to go down to get the newspaper, which was delivered to a box at the bottom of the slope of Martha’s big-breasted lawn, but she had said no, she’d better do it … Not that there were what you could really call next-door neighbors in this part of Buckhead … Nevertheless, she had gone down the slope, wearing her striped cotton dress and a pair of navy Belgian slippers, and retrieved the newspaper—
“What’s Jordan’s opponent—what’s his name?—André Fleet?—what’s he have to say about the whole thing?”
At first Peepgass had no idea what Martha was talking about. He had totally forgotten that he had just been talking to her about what the Mayor and some councilmen had to say about the Elizabeth Armholster business. It took him a moment to sort it out.
“He’s not quoted, I don’t think,” he said.
All at once you could hear laughs, real cackles and deep, deep bassoon belly laughs, from Valley Road, at the foot of the lawn. You could hear heh heh heggggghhhhhhs and then a merry contralto voice that sang out, “Who you think’s gon’ believe ’at, girlfriend?” Then more cackles and heh heh hegggghhhhhhhs.
Peepgass looked quizzically at Martha.
“That’s the maids,” she said. “They get off the bus down on West Paces Ferry and come walking up the street like a troupe.”
Peepgass shrugged. “You think that’s what’s her name?—Carmen?”
“Probably,” said Martha, looking at her watch. “That sounded like her … ‘girlfriend.’ I hear her saying that on the telephone all the time. ‘It’s know-it time, girlfriend,’ ‘No glove, no love, girlfriend.’”
Peepgass said, “You want me to—go anywhere? I mean, is it okay if she sees me just—having breakfast with you like this?”
Martha smiled. “I don’t think she’ll be scandalized, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“Carmen is ladylike and polite, and I only hear bits and pieces of her conversations, but something tells me she’s got a lot going on out in the real world.” She smiled again.
But she was thinking: Carmen doesn’t matter, but what will people think if I start going around with Mr. Raymond Peepgass? The name is one of those unfortunate names, like Cockburn or Hogg or Fogg, but people soon get over that. I don’t dare question him directly about it, but he doesn’t seem to have all that important a job at PlannersBanc, although, for whatever reason, he was important enough for somebody to invite him to the Lapeth show, and I know very well how much those table seats cost. Well … I think I could … relax with Ray. I don’t think he would be very demanding. I don’t think he’s the type who constantly has to have things whirling and popping, the way Charlie was.
Then a cloud formed in her frontal lobes … Charlie … Last night the only way she could go through with it was to visualize that first night with Charlie. She and Nancy King Ambler—everybody called her “Nancy King,” Southern-style—were sharing a one-bedroom apartment on Oakdale Road, near the Emory Medical School. Their agreement was that if either one invited a man up, the other would retire to the bedroom. But it was one of those apartments where you could hear everything, no matter where you retired to, and Nancy King knew very well that this was her first date with the great strapping, handsome former football hero she had invited up tonight. Martha thought it was a bad idea even to kiss a boy on the first date, but with Charlie everything had progressed so fast she could scarcely figure out what was happening, except that it was all too audible for that apartment, all too full of groans and sighs, and after things had reached a certain point—they were lying on the rug on the floor—she had started saying, “No, Charlie, no,” in what she had imagined was a whisper that Nancy King couldn’t possibly hear. Then Charlie practically raped her! She couldn’t imagine how it had happened! Martha Starling of Richmond, Virginia, going all the way on her first date! Thank God, Nancy King was from Tallahassee and didn’t know anybody in Richmond! Me—a slut! She was convinced that Charlie Croker would never invite her out again. Instead, he called her the next morning at eight o’clock. And no matter what Martha Starling’s better self thought of what she had done, no matter how much shame flooded her mind, she had a visceral memory of the most intense ecstasy of her life. It was so taboo even to intimate that you could be aroused by male physical power that she had never said a word about it to anyone, least of all Nancy King. At first neither she nor Nancy King said a thing to each other, aside from good morning and other routine things. Then, just before she left for the medical school, Nancy King said, “Oh, you didn’t tell me what you thought of the famous Sixty-Minute Man.” Her eyebrows were lifted high and her eyes were wide-open in what Martha took to be an ironic expression. “He was very nice,” said Martha in a tone that precluded any further discussion. She didn’t really know Nancy King all that well, and even if she did, how could she possibly describe to her how her smooth white body had felt last night? That was thirty-three years ago. But that night three decades ago was what she had to visualize in order to get through last night with Ray. Charlie had betrayed her in the most egregious way, but she had visualized Charlie last night. She visualized his massive muscular body, which had scarcely an extra ounce on it back then. But she had to decapitate him. She couldn’t bear to visualize the face behind which he had hidden his perfidy. But for how long would a faceless Charlie Croker from three decades ago work for her?
