Part 32 (1/2)
Ruth felt an uncharacteristic urge to avert her gaze Instead, she fixed him with the cold level stare, cheeks immobile, jaw set, which she had heard Mr Love refer to, when he thought her out of earshot, as her ”Otto von Bisetic sh he could not have known it (and never did learn for certain just rong that day), Sammy Clay's bad luck was to have arrived on the very afternoon when the bubblingfueled not ical, oues and the silent precepts of her e a clear, volatile quart of sha, in New York City, she had stood with her e, on the sidewalk outside the To brother, Carl Henry, off to Sing Sing disappeared in a thick cloud of exhaust
Carl Henry Ebling had pleaded guilty and been sentenced, by a judge na the bar las Saks at the Pierre Carl Henry, a fervent, dreamy, but never especially adroit or competent boy, had carried these traits with him into a passionate and shi+ftless manhood But the formless and badly dented idealisiunity of the Depression, had taken on new shape and purpose after 1936, when a friend had invited hianization, the Fatherland Club, which by the outbreak of war in Europe had transrified or splintered off-she had never been able to follow it-into the Aryan-Areed with Carl Henry's views-Adolf Hitlertaken such an active role in his party's activities, she saw unquestionable nobility in his devotion to the cause of freeing the United States froenthau and the rest of his cabal And furthere, to the prosecutor (Silverblatt), and to everyone as it was to Ruth herself that her brother, who had insisted, in spite of his lawyer's advice, on pleading guilty, and who much of the time seemed to be under the impression that he was a costumed villain in a coed in Islip, not Sing Sing That the bomb her brother had made-in the shape of a trident, how could they not see the craziness in that?-had so only hi nature that had never deserted her brother As for the harsh sentence he had received, this she blas of the Jewish Machine but, with an unwillingness that wrenched her heart, on her employer, Mr James Haworth Love himself James Love had, from the early thirties, been extreh, to the America Firsters, and above all to the Gerroups in this country, which in speeches and newspaper editorials he typically characterized as ”fifth columnists, spies, and saboteurs,” attacks that had climaxed, at least in Ruth's vieith the prosecution and imprisonment of her brother Thus was the dull dislike that Ruth ordinarily would have borne for Sa detestation of his host for the weekend, of the way Mr James Haworth Love conducted his affairs, both political and social Witnessing this relaxation of the ban, unarticulated yet absolute, on the presence of Jews at Pa, hitherto arandparents that Mr Love had continued to respect, seeing it as a final proof of the man's shamelessness and debility, her heart rebelled It would require only one further outrage to push Ruth into taking steps to alleviate the pressure that had been building in her breast for so long
”Saw the sood, Ruth How are you?”
”I'm sure I'll live”
The reetings in her direction, co her on her hair, the style of which had not altered since 1923, her color, the sreeted the of her usual ryness, like a schoolteacher welcoroup of smart alecks and cutups, and told them, one by one, which rooms would be theirs and how they could find them if they didn't already know The bedrooms had each been named by some early Love enthusiast after vanished local Indian tribes One of theand with eyes the very color of the new Cadillac and a dimple in his chin, much taller and broader than any of the others, shook her hand and said that he had heard the ed Jew hung back, sheltering in the lee of the green-eyed giant His only greeting to her was another crooked sh
”You'll be in Raritan,” she told hi held back especially for hiuest roomentary view of the sea
He looked alrave responsibility she had placed upon him
”Thank you, ma'am,” he said
Ruth would remember afterward that she was troubled by a brief, mild emotion that lay somewhere between affection and pity for the little snub-nosed Jewish boy; he see daffodils She had a hard ti that he could really be one of theotten here by so could not have kno nearly her speculations on Sam's status and position coincided with his own
”Jesus,” he said to Tracy Bacon, ”what a here?” He dropped his suitcase It landed with a muffled thud on the thick carpet, one of several worn Oriental rugs hich the creaking floorboards of Raritan were patchworked Tracy had already left his bags down in his second-floor roonition by that Indian-loving ancestor, had been designated Ras raised and crossed at the knee, arernail at the peeling white ena, well-built men, he was an inveterate layabout who disdained physical exertion except in brief Red Grange bursts of frantic grace He furtherht, which made his radio work particularly obnoxious to hiht His inherent ability to feel at ease wherever he as coupled powerfully with a bone-deep laziness Whenever he entered a rooht out a place where he could at least put his feet up ”I'll bet I'm the first kike that's ever set foot in this joint”
”I don't think I'll take that bet”
Saed with a thumbprint of frost, in the narrow dor in a cool blast of brine and chis of the sea In the last quarter hour of the day, Dave Fellowes and John Pye ay down on the beach, tossing a football with a certain griarees and heavy sweatshi+rts but with their feet bare John Pye was also a radio actor, the star of Paging Dr Maxwell, Paging Dr Maxwell, and a friend of Bacon, who had introduced Pye to the sponsor of and a friend of Bacon, who had introduced Pye to the sponsor of The Adventures of the Escapist The Adventures of the Escapist Fellowes ran the Manhattan office of a ation Sammy watched as Fellowes turned his back on Pye and took off down the beach, scattering white puffs of sand Fellowes reached up, looking over his shoulder, and a short, accurate forward pass from Pye found his hands Fellowes ran the Manhattan office of a ation Sammy watched as Fellowes turned his back on Pye and took off down the beach, scattering white puffs of sand Fellowes reached up, looking over his shoulder, and a short, accurate forward pass froe,” said Sauess it is,” Bacon said ”I guess it must be”
”You wouldn't know”
”Well, I maybe the reason I don't think so is that I always felt so strange, you know, before I found out that I wasn't the only one in the world-”
”That's not what I ue to me, kid Not because they're all a bunch of fairies, or because Mr Janate is a fairy, or because you're a fairy or I'm a fairy”
”If you are,” Bacon said with mock correctitude you are,” Bacon said with azed at the ceiling, arms folded contentedly under his head ”Which you are”
”Which I eneration would term Sammy's sexual orientation seemed, at least to the satisfaction of everyone who made up the party at Pa on that first weekend of Deceely been settled In the weeks since their visit to the World's Fair and their lovelobe of the Perisphere, Sa paramour, become a fixture in the circle of John Pye, considered at that tiay New York, to be the most beautiful man in the city At a spot in the East Fifties called the Blue Parrot, Sa the Texas Toh his weak ste in the fun To for the West Coast, to take up their new life together as scenarist and serial star
”So what is strange, then?” said Tracy
Sammy shook his head ”It's just, look at you Look at them” He jerked a thumb toward the open”It's that they could all play the secret identity of a guy in tights Your bored playboy, your gridiron hero, your crusading young district attorneys Bruce Wayne Jay Gar-rick Lamont Cranston”
”Jay Garrick”
”The Flash Blond, muscles, nice teeth, a pipe”
”I would never smoke a pipe”
”This one went to Princeton, that one went to Harvard, the other one went to Oxford”
”Filthy habit”
Sae that his atte parried, then looked away Down on the beach, Fellowes had tackled John Pye They were rolling in the sand
”A year ago, when I wanted to be around someone like you, I had to, you know, make you up And now ” He looked across the broad, sere expanse of the lawn, past Pye and Fellowes A signature of foam scrawled itself across the surface of the waves How could he begin to say how happy he had been, this last ard, how ard on hi and poised and physically grand, as Bacon could possibly take an interest in hi me if you can be et you a mask of your own”
”Say, thanks”
”We'll call you, oh, how does 'Rusty' sound? Rusty or Dusty”
”Shut up”
”Actually, Musty Musty would be ether, Bacon was always sa it gave off the precise odor of a pile of old tarpaulins in his grandfather's woodshed back in Muncie, Indiana Once, the location of the shed had been given as Chillicothe, Illinois would be ether, Bacon was always sa it gave off the precise odor of a pile of old tarpaulins in his grandfather's woodshed back in Muncie, Indiana Once, the location of the shed had been given as Chillicothe, Illinois
”I warn you” Sa out to execute a couple of judo chops, legs coiled to spring
”Or, given the state of your linens, young ing, ”ht seriously to consider Crusty” Crusty”
”That does it,” Sa himself onto the bed Bacon pretended to scream Sammy scrambled on top of hi suspended twenty inches above Bacon's
”Now I've got you,” he said
”Please,” said Bacon ”I'uys in hborhood”
Sa strand of saliva to dangle doard, tipped by a thick bubbled bead The bubble lowered itself like a spider on its thread until it hung just over Bacon's face Then Sammy reeled it back in It had been years since he had last attempted the trick, and he was pleased to discover that his spittle retained its viscosity and he his pinpoint control of it
”Ew,” said Bacon He thrashed his head froht of Saled the silvery thread over hi He looked at Salint in his eye; of course he could have freed hirip of his lover His look said so He opened his led Sammy cut the thread A minute later, they lay naked beneath the four piled blankets on the narrow bed, disporting themselves in the precise manner that Dr Fredric Werthae to be universal a costu each other, and akened by a s and maternal, of boiled mentary accounts survive of the events that transpired at Pa on the sixth of December, 1941 The entry in James Love's journal for 6 December is characteristically terse It notes that Bob Perina had gained eighty-two yards for Princeton that afternoon, and gives details of the hts of conversation at dinner, with the rueful annotation ”in rtrspct uests, as always, are identified by their initials: JP, DF, TB, SC, RP, DD, QT The entry ends with the single word DISASTER Only the absence of any entry at all for the following day, and the preoccupation of Monday's entry, when there was soon in the world, with a visit to his attorney, give any further hint of what transpired Roddy Parks, the composer, in an entry in his fauest (his lover at the tirees with Love that the principal subjects of conversation at the table were a large exhibition of Fauvist paintings at the Marie Harrie He also notes that the oyster steas a failure and that Donald had re see the housekeeper, who His account of the raid is nearly as terse as Love's: ”The police were called”
A check of the report filed by the Monuest that weekend, a Mr Quentin Towle, as well as a ratherso last, to the telephone ”Miss Ebling,” the report reads, ”was exaspirated [sic] [sic] by the recent imprisonment of her brother Carl and happened in a bedroom to stumble upon a comic strip book of a type which she held responsible foridentified the author of said comic strip book as one of the suspects, she deter place in the house” by the recent imprisonment of her brother Carl and happened in a bedroom to stumble upon a comic strip book of a type which she held responsible foridentified the author of said comic strip book as one of the suspects, she deter place in the house”