The Lonely Hearts Hotel(116)

On the corner of the street, Pierrot spotted a curious-looking boy. The child had folded a newspaper into a Napoleon hat and was wearing it on his head. He looked up at Pierrot with a deep frown. Pierrot knew what the newspaper said. It was becoming more and more likely that the world was going to war. The world didn’t need Pierrot’s type of sadness now. No, the world was a violent place, and it was gripped by a madness that Pierrot had no way of expressing. He didn’t want to read the newspaper or listen to the radio anymore. He didn’t want to be a grown-up. There are some people who are just no good at it.





69


    UNKNOWN HEROIN ADDICT, NEW YORK CITY



And the score that Pierrot had sold in New York City went on to be recorded, and it became a huge hit. It was made into a record entitled The Ballad for the Moon and was played by children all over North America. They often asked for the tune for their birthdays and would receive the record wrapped in green or pink or blue paper. They would unwrap it and find the photo of young newlyweds on the record cover. The children were so surprised that they had gotten the present they wanted. They were used to not getting any treats at all. They didn’t know why the hard times were over. But they did notice that, little by little, things began to change in their lives. When they put on their socks, their toes did not peek out of holes at the ends of them. When they went to bed at night, they noticed their bellies weren’t rumbling. They opened their lunch bags and noticed a cookie inside. They noticed that they couldn’t feel the ribs of their cat when they lifted it up. When they woke up in the morning, little puffs of smoke didn’t appear out of their mouths.

Their mothers had roses in their cheeks. They sewed themselves smarter dresses. They came home with groceries and cooked decent meals and sang while they fried up the tomatoes. The coffee was creamier. There was dessert several nights a week. Tiny cupcakes and slices of pie on small dishes appeared like fairy tales on the kitchen tables.

The Great Depression was over. The children associated Pierrot’s tune with the end of hardship.

For all they knew, the tune itself was the cause of the new, more fortunate times. They had begun to hear the tune on the radio and then all sorts of interesting things began to happen. The more Pierrot’s tune was played on the radio, the better things became.

? ? ?

PIERROT HIMSELF paid very little attention to the success of his tune. He had no way to track it, as he wasn’t receiving royalties. One day he had only two dollars left to his name. He owed five dollars to his regular dealer, so he couldn’t go see him. He went to the back of a building that another junkie had told him about. He rang the doorbell, and a man came out into the alley to meet him.

“You’re in luck. I just got some new shit in from Montreal. It is the best I’ve ever tasted. You’ll never want to touch anything else, trust me.”

“Montreal,” Pierrot said in a sad way, as though it were only a mythical place for him now.

He took a room at the Lonely Hearts Hotel. The floorboards in his room had been painted green. There were swans on the wallpaper. He thought that was a good sign. He shot up some of the Montreal heroin. He felt that feeling that you get when it’s quiet right before the snow comes. It reminds you of being under the covers as a child, and learning that school is going to be canceled because it is snowing so heavily. The streets are empty, but you can hear laughter somewhere in the distance. You can hear the church bells ringing with a clarity that is so pure and sweet and perfect.

He injected the rest of the heroin into his arm all at once. He stared at the swans on the wallpaper, waiting for them to start moving, but they did not. This was it. This was his last hotel room. How strange. He would never get old.

When they say that your life flashes before your eyes, what they mean is that you can choose to go to any moment from your past—and almost everybody wants to go back to when they were little. Pierrot selected a memory of Rose. There was Rose with a blindfold on her eyes while they were all playing hide-and-seek. Pierrot hadn’t hidden. Instead he had made his footsteps and breathing deliberately heavy, and tried to get in her way, just so that she would reach out and touch him. In the memory her hands came closer and closer to him.

Rose didn’t reach him. A great loneliness came over him. He thought that he had lived a most wonderful life.

? ? ?

BY THE TIME HE PASSED AWAY, Pierrot was world famous. When the maid who found his body realized who he was, she let out a yelp. The maids, in their black uniforms, their hats like white daisies, crammed into the room and stood around his body.





70


    THE FUNERAL PARADE



Rose looked at the little boy who was standing at the door of her hotel room with his lower lip jutting out. It was early in the morning and she was in her dressing gown, the birds embroidered on the silk unfurling their wings as she moved. She had no idea why there was a newspaper boy standing with his pile of papers at her door. Rose was often known to be quite generous to single mothers when they asked her for help—perhaps he was here to beg.

“What do you want?”

“You’re the last building on my route, but I decided to come to you right away.”

“And why is that?”

“There’s news that is of interest to you, ma’am.”

Rose reached into her pocket and took out a coin. The boy stuck his hand out. Rose dropped the coin into the boy’s palm. He looked at the coin; pocketed it; handed her a newspaper; said, “I’m very sorry, ma’am”; turned; and ran with his stack of papers out of the building.