An American Fable

By Fred Jay Gordon

AN AMERICAN FABLE is about ambition, luck, and death. Set in New York in the early 1950’s -- post World War II and just before color television -- the story follows Aris Bellerophon, a boy who loves horses and who claims a gypsy told him he’d be famous at twenty-five, and Big Brim Oscar Birmingham, a famous radio personality who’s charming, erratic, overweight, and childless after many years of marriage.
One afternoon after his top-rated morning radio show, Brim has his chauffeur drive out into rural New Jersey where, as if appearing from out of the sky, Aris and his huge red horse, Pegasus, just miss crashing into Brim’s red limousine. Later, when Big Brim and Aris meet at the Watchung stables, Aris is eager to impress Brim and tells Brim he was adopted at six and dragged around Mexico with his new mother and her various boyfriends. Aris tells Brim that in that southern desert, his blondness stood out as different from everyone else who was dark. Brim, with boyhood scars of his own, sees and hears Aris' dreams and wonders how much of Aris' story is true. As the young man speaks to Brim, he has to fight with himself to communicate because sometimes he stutters which makes him self-conscious and vulnerable. But Aris is also limber, photogenic, filled with hope because today, the day he meets Brim, is his twenty-fifth birthday and Aris believes in the gypsy's promise. Brim sees the boy as star bright and charismatic while Brim still feels himself as the refugee who as a teenager escaped the isolation of his father's dirt farm in Illinois and fled to big city Chicago. Vibrant and driven as a young man, Brim had hustled himself into vaudeville, became a barker, a bouncer, a talker who loved an audience. Later, moving east, Brim broke into big time New York radio and climbed to the top.
Brim takes Aris back to his huge apartment in New York City and introduces him to his wife, Vera, a skittery alcoholic with a fake British accent and a dark past who still genuinely loves Brim. Aris' girlfriend, Tulip, becomes drunk at their dinner party for four and passes out leaving Vera to investigate Aris. The next morning, she agrees with Brim that Aris is astonishing and Brim arranges a screen test for Aris at a film studio in New York. The filmed Aris, big, colorfully bright, startlingly good looking and alive up there on the huge screen, is joltingly watchable. Sometimes he just stands there looking into the camera, or looks at something out of the frame, or sometimes he just breathes – and the test results break records. Aris is rushed into a cowboy movie with his big, red horse, Pegasus, and Brim manipulates the press by staging a stunning publicity event which appears to go wrong but at the last minute Aris saves that little girl, is hailed by the media, and becomes an overnight sensation. It is the great American fable.
Each character in this story wants magic and passion. But the people in AN AMERICAN FABLE make very different choices and, because their lives are powerfully intertwined, their choices intensely affect each other and change each of them forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fred Jay Gordon
• Release date: Jan 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466123151

Fred Jay Gordon

FRED JAY GORDON was born in the Bronx and lives in New York. He owned Pegasus, a red, 17-hand high ex-race horse he rode bareback and taught to jump five foot high fences. When Gordon was 16, he wrote and recorded a pop song, "Bye, Bye, She Cried," which was bought by Atlantic Records. He's swept warehouse floors and worked the delivery trucks for the Budweiser beer factory in Newark, NJ. He has a degree in English from UC Berkeley and received a scholarship from Columbia University in Film. At NBC Studios in New York, he worked as a Tour Guide and, on Broadway, he helped cast and raise money for two smash hit musicals and then worked as a salad boy and a waiter. His plays have been produced in NY, LA, Baltimore, etc, he's a member of the Ensemble Studio Theater, he's taught playwriting and English Literature as well as horse-back riding, appeared as a contestant on various tv game shows to pay the rent, worked the streets of Brooklyn as a city social worker, and done the graveyard shift in the Tombs in the prisons of downtown NYC. He’s a PEN Award winner and was a resident writer at the Edward Albee Foundation in Montauk, NY. He has written, AN AMERICAN FABLE, about the American dream of overnight success, and his newest book is the thriller, BLOOD NEVER DRIES. Reviews of BENJAMIN GRABBED HIS GLICKEN AND RAN: from Library Journal: "One hopes BENJAMIN won't be dismissed as just another offbeat experimental novel. It is an exciting book!" from Publishers Weekly: "...Benjamin's personal story is wild, with an extraordinary made-up language and a pun-on-pun series of sentences... The novel builds to a strong, dramatic climax and the effect is chilling." from The Christian Science Monitor: "Like a child of Zeus sprung full grown from the head of their creator ... this novel has not received the attention it deserves... The novel is operating simultaneously on three planes and finally on a fourth. Benjamin as a character is oddly captivating ... virtuosic ... exacting descriptions of Benjamin's room, physical sensations, and emotions are like a zoom lens bringing one in intensely close to him. Benjamin says of his Mysteries: 'Words are only a small portion of my life... They are weak technicalities which fail... Words are only words. And besides, I lie a lot.'

Book preview

An American Fable

Fred Jay Gordon

Published by Fred Jay Gordon at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 by Fred Jay Gordon

Discover other titles by Fred Jay Gordon at Smashwords.com:

Benjamin grabbed his Glicken and ran

Blood Never Dries

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you.

AN AMERICAN FABLE

PART 1

I

Look. Sitting inside the glass booth, Big Brim Oscar Birmingham watched the countdown. On Four he picked up his head. On Three he opened his eyes. On Two he cleared his throat. On One he smiled. On Zero he breathed in. The On the Air sign on the wall lit up and Brim sang: Hello again, Welcome to the Happy Show again, It’s time to rise, Shake the Stardust from your eyes, And sing with me, of the sunny day you see. He did his famous laugh and spoke in his sun-lit, morning voice. Yes! and hello again – and welcome! to the Big Brim Oscar Birmingham Show!

Although the staff kept the air conditioning on icy blast, Brim mopped his brow frequently with a large, blue handkerchief embroidered with the white initials B.O.B.

Holding the corners of his mouth back and up, Brim Oscar Birmingham did his famous grin which made his voice happy as he sent himself out and over the airwaves to all his fans in the metropolitan area. Big Brim Oscar Birmingham, fat and experienced, friendly and rolly-poly, snuggled and twisted and jiggled in his extra large chair with huge rubber wheels as he famously winked to Billy Riddle, the sound engineer. Billy waved back as Brim’s voice, rising and falling in morning wake up tones, whooshed through the large round microphone and soared out to the greatest city in the world. Keeping his bleary eyes open, Brim made sure his hand surrounded the gin held in his favorite crystal juice glass. Smiling as he talked, hooting, whistling, urging his audience onward and upward, he was irresistible. He was a bankable virus and his checking account was huge.

Big Brim liked to read some of his mail on the air. His listeners’ letters were long and he had to pick out parts which were suitable. Brim described the socks, scarves, and sweaters his friends sent. He bragged about his forty-eight extra large suits made especially for him by famous designers. At the close of the show he sang to the same recorded strings: "Goodbye again, Until the same old time again, Big Brim wants to say, Have a very very happy day, And tune in tomorrow, I’ll banish all sorrow, With coffee and cheer on WUVP."

Billy turned the show off and over to the network programs fast because Big Brim pulled himself out of his chair and yelled, Finished!!!

At that signal, his valet-chauffeur, Seeancy, came running in to help get Brim out of the studio. Seeancy held his boss steady as they rode down in the gold gilded elevator to the huge black marble lobby of the radio station in middle of Manhattan, magnet to the world.

It was a bright summer day in July, 1952 – the time of prosperity and dreams just after World War II and just before the introduction of color television – and Brim Oscar Birmingham stepped off the curb into his waiting bright red limousine which was the only one of its kind in New York. Not even looking at the huge golden sculpture of Atlas centered in the concrete quadrangle of immense, city buildings, Brim threw himself in the back of his car and, squeezing in his shoulders, wedged himself into the corner of the thickly padded, wide, gray seat. He covered his face with his hot hand. The most popular radio announcer on New York radio with the most heavily sponsored show with the highest cost per minute, sat mute and dazed and momentarily lost.

Seeancy climbed into the front, closed the door, and turned around. Hey, fighter.

Brim said nothing. The air conditioning hummed.

I said, ‘Hey, fighter,’ and I’m needin’ your response, Mr. Brim. Oh – oh – say what? Could you repeat that just a little louder – got this hearin’ problem from the war, you know ‘bout it.

Roused, Brim opened his eyes. He uncorked the clear bottle next to him, took a quick swig, stared at Seeancy, then barked: Devil to the dogs, Snance, and thank you for your military might. Downtown for us, Seeancy. Time to zip on out OUT!! through the tunnel. To the mountains, Snancy-dance!

Yes, sir! said Seeancy, turning to the wheel with satisfaction.

Once through the Holland Tunnel, Seeancy decided to drive on the back roads of New Jersey and soon had gone through the tunnel, driven passed the pig farms and the burning chemical factories near the turnpike, and were heading into the hills. They turned north and went up and over a green mountain. They turned left and bumped onto an unpaved road and the big red limousine’s tires sprayed clouds of brown dust behind them and the car jumped a few times in the ruts.

Brim and Seeancy rode on and into the country passing green and brown fields and gentle hills which were soft and rose up and fell down under long-leaved green grasses and bushes and gigantic trees. It was quiet in the air and the land was summer warm under the bright yellow sun. From the back seat of his sealed limousine, Brim stared out into the steamy July day which he knew would feel heavy and oppressive, claustrophobic and mortal, weighty on his available, sinner’s skin.

When they came to a crossroad, the dirt road ended and a single, newly cemented lane went off to the east and off to the west. They went east until the hills began growing into mountains. There were tall oak trees and gray birches which grew straight hiding the mountain peaks and Brim saw the trees in distance and it looked as if all the trees had been clipped because the tops were even and round like big umbrellas. They would blow back and forth in the windy wet fall but now it was hot summer and the greens were so fresh they looked good enough to eat. Brim pulled two egg salad sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off wife-Vera always made for him each morning no matter how late she stayed out the night before. Brim chomped, Brim swallowed, Brim mused: The good life was the summer life and it should always be God’s great summer. Brim’s teeth were hard and clean.

Along the country road was a long meadow that had no fence and ran parallel alongside with the car. Brim liked the yellows and whites of the wild daisies against the blue sky with no clouds and he suddenly turned his head upside down so the field was the sky and the sky was the ground. He couldn’t turn all the way because he was fat and not very good at standing on his head especially in a moving car even though Seeancy was driving slowly. The blue ground had birds scurrying across it and the field had tall grass reaching down to the ground.

Then off to the rear, galloping along with the car, was a big red horse. It was running along upside down on the sky. There was a boy with blond hair curled up on the horse and huddled against the horse’s neck. Brim righted himself in his seat and looked at the boy and the horse who ignored him. The horse started to pass the car and Brim told Seeancy to follow that horse.

The big red limousine surged forward and the horse and the car ran side by side as Brim, mouth closed, watched the boy ride that horse. Suddenly and quickly, the boy looked at Brim. They stared at each other until Brim saw the boy in his white t-shirt with muscled arms, white pants, a thickly sinewed, lean body, and yellow hair whipping in the wind. And then Brim saw that the boy had sky blue crescent eyes which surrounded Brim. They were eyes which glittered at him and walled him and cut right through him.

The boy turned away and pushed his cheek closer against the horse’s neck and the horse moved faster. It was a huge animal, shining red, coordinating its muscles smoothly and freely and the boy crouched up on the moving horse. They ran on and hard and the boy and the horse welded into one unit which raced the car and Brim. The boy and the horse blurred their red with white, and Brim, staring out at the moving object, knew that if the horse suddenly leaped up and soared through blue sky, that the boy would never slide off because he was the horse.

The red horse who had no saddle, whose sweat from its shoulders foamed white and coated the boy’s knees. Sweat from the horse’s flanks mixed with the boy’s sweat and when drops fell off the animal and splashed into the meadow, no one could tell which drops belonged to the boy or which drops belonged to the horse. And the boy’s mouth was wide open sucking in air and the smell of the horse, and the horse, nostrils round and wide, ran with the power of his animal body.

There was no noise now because the car ran quietly and the only sound was the sound of the horse lightly touching the ground to push off and fly in the air for a second and then touch the ground again to get back into the air. The horse ran faster and Seeancy pushed down on the accelerator until the front of the car was even with the horse’s head. Foam sweated from the horse’s mouth and dropped off in large, wet clumps. Seeancy drove faster and the horse seemed to rise from the ground and not touch the earth at all. And then the boy smiled and knew he and the horse would win because ahead on the road was a sign that said the road was not completed for Seeancy to follow the horse and Seeancy had to press hard and fast on the screaming brakes. Shrieking in terror, the car slid to a halt but went off the road in the dust to avoid hitting the sign.

Brim looked up and the boy and the horse were running straight and free into the woods.

Even though it was Brim who told him to drive on, Seeancy took it as his fault that the car ran off the road. He curled up on the front seat and beat into the cushions.

Now come on, fighter! said Brim, watching Seeancy and he hauled his fat body out of the car. Ho hey, man, it’s hot your fault. And nobody’s hurt! Here, look. Brim pranced and pirouetted with his arms over his head and he twisted his face until Seeancy had to laugh at Brim and laugh at himself. There, said Brim. See? The car’s in one piece and you’re in one piece and I’m just as fat as I was this morning! Come on. God, and you saved my life? That’s it! Buck up, my man. Grin. The world is filled with horses and kings. Come on, king, let’s find that horse.

Seeancy looked at Brim. Speaking slowly, he said, I should’ve known.

Bull shit! Now move your ass!

Seeancy continued looking at Brim, then grinned, sat up, and turned on the ignition.

Before Brim could even slam the door closed, Seeancy floored the accelerator and the rear tires spun dirt as the car zoomed back onto the road. Seeancy felt better now that the car was shooting at eighty.

Off to the right, behind a field and a riding ring, was a stable which had a green sign: Watchung Stables. Riding Renting Horses for Sale Here Best in the Country. There were pastures with jumps and pastures for grazing and close to the road was a big riding ring with smooth sandy earth. Seeancy turned the red limousine and drove down toward the stable which stood on land below the level of the road.

Deer and ducks and woodchucks and fox and maybe even an American cougar and birds and water birds of hundreds of species lived protected in the woods of Watchung Reservation which had sandy paths up and down the mountains for horse-back riding. Watchung had row boats and canoes on Surprise Lake for people to feed geese and ducks and, at the top of the mountain, was a small Trailside Museum with rattlesnakes and king snakes and scenes behind glass of stuffed skunks. The museum also had a live red fox and several peacocks and a small mountain lion which paced in a tiny cage outside in the front near the main path.

The red limousine drove slowly under canopies of trees and everywhere there were horses. Horses being walked by people. Horses in the fields. Horses jumping and schooling in the ring. They were dappled and dotted white and brown and black and bay. Horses were eating grass, they were running along the fence, they were nudging each other. And the sun was so clear, the grass shining so translucently green, the trees standing out against the bright blue sky so vividly, it was as if it were all painted with excruciating love by a dreamer who dreamed crystalline.

You found the horses, Seeancy! Brim pressed his face to the rear window. Sweet man.

They drove closer to the red wooden barn and before Seeancy could finish parking, Brim leaped out. He saw people sitting in small English saddles riding horses around and around in the fenced ring surrounded by tall pine trees. The people seemed young and thin and Brim had images of himself, of his fat, of his bald head, of his years of history until he pushed away those flickers and kicked at a mound of golden nuggeted manure.

Seeancy sat in the limousine while Brim walked toward the huge main door in the middle of the barn. Seeancy relaxed, he drifted.

Kids in uniforms with pale blue shirts and yellow ties were drawing lots for horses. Brim watched their squeals, heard their smooth faces in his ears. He walked into the barn. He stood in its middle and looked down long rows of narrow tie-stalls on both sides of the center aisle. The horses were bridled and saddled and stood facing each other, waiting to be taken out by members of the troop. Brim smelled the acrid smell of lime powder, smelled heavy horse smells, stood in red and blue plaid sneakers and felt the damp floor boards. For a moment, he stood alone in the darkened barn, looking to his left down the aisle of horses, then looking to his right with more horses chomping, waiting. Uric acid. Breathing horses. Cool barn, clean. Brim standing, fat, remembering his own spotted horse when he was a chubby eight year old and lived in the dilapidated house and single barn surrounded with endless miles of rural red Illinois earth stretching out in all directions under the huge sky and a million miles from anyone.

Bursting, the kids tried to control their yippies and yelps as they ran into the barn and searched for their horses. Little girls with string bean bodies barely hinting at future curves, squealed. Two chubby girls tried to run quickly. Brim, suddenly surrounded, stood still, was almost invisible as young boys fought to get their horses out first and started pulling them from the stalls. They all led the horses to wooden platforms outside the barn and hurled their bodies into the English saddles. Brim followed them and saw their instructor, a squat man with a thin dark moustache who was sitting tall on his very fine black horse. The man pretended to be gruff, barked out curt words, and monitored them as their high energy flew up into the saddles.

Brim grinned, but suddenly became very old watching new children riding live horses. He turned away, began walking back to his big red limousine. Just as he pulled open the car’s rear door, Brim looked up.

Off in a field away from all the others was a big red horse standing quietly next to a fence. There was a young man behind the horse who was currying and brushing the animal. They were all alone and the sun was bright on the horse’s red coat and Brim knew they were the team he had been searching for. He slammed the car door and began to walk out to the field. The boy and the horse were standing under the sun in the grass. Brim walked slowly toward them. When he was close, he leaned over the top rail of the white fence.

The horse flicked its tail and the young man stood up straight and Brim knew the boy and the horse were the riding fast angels who sped over the land and wanted to fly freedom in the sky.

The boy smiled and Brim looked at him and saw he had straight hard teeth. They were so white and evenly set, at first Brim thought the teeth could come out at night and be dropped into a solution to remove the tobacco stains because the boy had a white cigarette in his mouth. The boy continued to smile. It was a toothy smile although maybe a little too wide but showing just the right amount of pink gum hiding over white teeth.

Brim saw him blond and young as the boy worked easily over the horse. The boy’s eyes were blue crescents and when they caught the sun, they were sometimes moon blue and sometimes dark crystals so when the boy opened his eyes wide, each eye was like a crescent moon flashing and circled by dark velvety eyelashes. He inhaled his hanging cigarette, then blew two smoke rings which rose up and out and then thinned away into the summer air.

Hello, said Brim, hanging over the white fence.

He was tall and well-made and disturbingly good looking. W-Welcome. He had that easy grace of an athlete who was loved by his fans.

But it was the boy’s stutter that Brim heard and Brim blinked inside. Nice horse, Brim said, wondering why he stuttered. What breed is he?

Not a breed, sir. He’s a cross between a Thoroughbred and a P-Percheron.

Oh, isn’t that interesting. Ah — what’s a Percheron? Brim laughed and crunched up his toes. I’ll bet a lot of people ask.

Just those who don’t know horses, the kid said, grinning big and dazzling.

I know something about them—

With glistening sweat on his face, the young man wet two of his fingers with his tongue and then spread his saliva wet on the burning end of his cigarette until the burning went out. Don’t look much like a horse person, but you never can tell.

Brim burst out laughing because the boy was so direct and unexpectedly alive.

No offense, sir.

None taken, said Brim.

See, a Percheron is a work horse. From F-France, some ancient part of France called Perche. You ever hear of P-Perche?

Nope, never.

B-Beautiful, look, isn’t he absolutely beautiful?

Brim nodded, thought he had never seen so much muscle in a horse, wondered again why the boy was stuttering.

The boy was rubbing the red animal with a chamois cloth that made his coat shine. But a pure Percheron is bigger and thicker than Pegasus. Heavier, too. Worked as d-draft horses.

Pegasus?

The boy stared at Brim. He almost flies. Then he released himself and smiled his dazzling smile. Sometimes I’m sure he wants to f-f-fly.

Uh-huh. Well. What — ah — what do you do here?

I teach. He saw Brim’s hands holding on to each other. Would you like a lesson?

Oh, no, no. Just interested.

Looking to buy?

I — don’t — think so, no. But he sure is beautiful.

Horses are m-magic, he smiled. I think they’re m-m-magic.

Just don’t get to see too many of them because I work in the city. Radio. I’m a radio host.

Oh – ! He looked at Brim. I know you. You’re B-B-Big Brim Oscar Birmingham! The boy rubbed his lips. Surprised because you hear people’s voices and you imagine what they look like. But didn’t f-figure you looked like this. He threw the cloth over his shoulder and walked over. I’m b-b-b-blundering all over, sorry for that. He extended his hand to Brim. What I mean is, hi, I’m Aris B-Bellerophon.

Aris – ?

Aris Bellerophon – that’s me, that’s my name. Real glad to meet you ‘cause I hear you in the mornings. Always wanted to see you. Would you please tell me what’s it like being famous?

Ah – well – it’s fun – sometimes – I guess.

Must get to meet a lot of other famous people.

Oh, yes. I can. Brim had to look up slightly at the young man.

Do you like b-being on the radio?

It’s easy. Anyone can do it.

I can’t.

Why not?

’Cause of the way I speak.

So you got a speech thing, so what?

Yeah, said Aris, filled with puzzles. Yeah?

Aris looked at the man full force and waited for Brim to answer but Brim didn’t answer. Aris said, Is the money good?

What – ?

Can you spend it all?

Ah – no – not really. And you always need to have reserves.

Why?

The boy was so direct like lightening Brim couldn’t answer. Never know, might rain, said Brim, feeling thick and dumb and very fat next to this well made boy.

Nope, said Aris, looking up into the blue sky. Not today. He looked back at Brim and then at Seeancy who was leaning on the fence across the field watching them. Seeancy’s uniform was very crisp and black. We got horses here that are really st-strong, would you like to ride? We’ll start you out s-slow and steady. I’ll take you out m-myself – be my absolute pleasure.

Well — not — not now. Maybe later. If you’ve got time.

I’m always here. Live out back there in the stone b-barn. Come by whenever you want, Mr. Birmingham. He smiled a bright, white, corn-fed smile at Brim. Really can’t believe I’m meeting you – like foretold –a real honor for me to be here talking here with you, s-s-sir.

Brim was speechless. And so stunned that he couldn’t talk.

Aris just stood there beaming at Brim.

Aris blinked. Sorry, Mr. Birmingham, but we got to go now – eating time – got to keep my Pegasus strong. He turned away.

Ah — well — what do you feed him?

The young man turned back and squinted his crescent eyes although Brim didn’t think he had to squint but maybe the boy did it because he liked the way his eyes became intense, bright blue crystals in the sunlight. Or maybe he didn’t know that that happened. Or maybe he did.

Special B-Bellerophon mix. Aris Bellerophon did his dazzling smile again. Molasses, oats, carrots. Alfalpha pellets. Dried corn. Bran. Vinegar. And l-live oysters.

Oysters!

It’s a secret – but – I’ll tell you. I grind them. ‘Cause they’re good for p-protein – calcium.

He nodded but Brim said nothing.

Got to feed him now, Mr. Birmingham, sorry, so if you’ll kindly excuse us –

Can I watch?

Ah – well, not real positive you’d want to. The oysters—well, they make funny like crunchy sounds – in the grinder. Only natural ‘cause I put them in live. That’s what’s – b-best for Pegasus. Aris wet his lower lip with his tongue and looked at his horse. We’re the team. He turned and looked right through Brim and didn’t smile. Then he snapped back and said, You sure you want to – watch?

Brim laughed, shuffled his feet, was uncomfortable and intrigued. I’ll pass, but thanks for the invite.

Okay, then. Aris reached over and shook Brim’s hand. Hope we didn’t – you know – m-m-muck up your car too bad in that – that race.

Oh, no.

Good.

Aris stroked his horse’s nose. He pressed his face into the horse’s muzzle. They both held close and steady as if they were a photograph on a billboard shimmering under the sun.

Brim’s mouth opened.

Then Aris moved. He looked at Brim and grinned. He turned. He began walking away and Pegasus followed him. They were moving toward the barn.

Suddenly, Aris whirled around in the tall yellow and green grass in the country field. He shouted, Winning’s great, isn’t it?!

Brim nodded and closed his mouth. Yep, he shouted back and his voice was unusually high.

Aris waved. Then he and his red horse turned back toward the barn.

Brim began crossing the field toward Seeancy. He stopped and looked over at the boy and the horse.

Aris turned. They were looking at each other and, in the same moment, they both waved.

The field was filled with butterflies and bees and the sky was a clean, bright blue. The fat man from the city and the boy who owned the huge horse stood in the field under the July sun staring at each other.

Finally, when Aris walked on and he and Pegasus had entered the large front door into the shadows of the long red barn, Brim went back to his limousine. He climbed in, closed the door, and told Seeancy it was back to the city.

II

In front of his building in the fashionable east sixties, Chuck opened the rear door and listened to Brim ask him how they were hanging. He gave the same reply that they weren’t and war was hell. Brim slapped Chuck on the back and did not protest when Chuck escorted him through the lobby to the elevator. Brim easily walked passed the floor length. mirror without looking at it.

The state of reserve is low.

It certainly is, Mr. B. Shall I go with you to the eleventh?

That would be ever so kind.

When the doors opened, Chuck removed his cap to Vera who stood uncertainly in the center of the hall. She was wearing a pink house-dress.

Vera, love, how are you?

Brim – hello.

Hello! Hello!

Would you like something wonderful to eat? Vera, for Brim, wore no make-up.

Just pile it on the plate fast as you can.

What, darling?

Yes, Vera. YES!

Good, lovey. Bessie. Bessie! Heat the ravioli and I’ll have the coq au vin.

Must you scream, my sweetest thing?

Of course not. Her hands, deeply lined, suddenly rose and fluttered around her freshly scrubbed face. But—right now—you know—it is—difficult for me. Just now.

Yes.

What, dear?

Yes, Vera. Yes.

Do wash, darling, and slip out of that sticky shirt. I’ve laid a fresh new change on the bed.

Vera, my love?

Yes, dear?

Comb your hair.

Yes, dear.

Later in the week they had what she called a charming Vera dinner at home. Just the two of them.

Well then you please must just let me know where I stand, she said, after he had refused her requests.

You stand, fall, sit, jump, and hop with me. Always.

The decision had begun when Brim returned from the show. It was ten-thirty in the morning and Vera had said she wanted to buy a miniature zebra, she thought it was the new thing now, and she had gone to a big downtown pet shop to see if she could order one but Brim rejected the idea because it was highly impractical to walk a zebra, even a miniature, through the streets of the city. Wacked. Would you take it on a leash? With a saddle? Besides, it would be difficult training a zebra to go up and down in an elevator. Unrealistic. He was adamant in his stance.

Hearst had them at San Simeon, she said.

But there they could run. His answer was no.

Vera liked him to say no. She went to him and wiggled in his arms and wanted to make love.

Darling, he said, blowing in her ear, I’d love to, but —

I want a son. Make me a baby I can love or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.

We can’t, Vera.

No?

No.

Oh. Well, then, Brim, whatever you want, Brim.

I’ve got to go. I’m off and running.

Ah, yes. Well, no matter. Later, shall we?

Charmed.

Delighted. She got up from his lap. "What is it, sweetheart, you look so – under all your show bizzy flourish, you look morose. How do you