The Swans of Fifth Avenue(80)

Well, maybe. Perhaps.

Truman reached for a glass, full of vodka even though it was ten in the morning. Life was so ugly lately; he felt his eyes well up in tears as he sipped the alcohol, knowing it would have no effect on him, not yet; that’s why he had to start so early, because it took too many drinks these days to make him feel happy, and the world was just so terrible, he couldn’t bear to look at it sober.

But it had been so beautiful! Not that long ago, either, at his gorgeous, wonderful party, when everyone was perfect and magical and the air was filled with music and the smell of flowers and the heady mix of a thousand perfumes, and he was happy, loved, triumphant.

Now the world stank, was a shithole, and he was a star, still, a celebrity, but he sometimes shuddered at his own ugliness, the way he looked on camera, so bloated, so stoned, and the stories he told that, while funny and outrageous, were revolting, too, and he knew it, but dear God, he loved the fame and the publicity that followed him like the tail end of one of his silk scarves; he needed it, because it sheltered him from the sleaziness that was there, always, whenever he let his guard down. Or forgot to take a drink.

What had happened with the world?

Vietnam, of course. God, what a mess. The breakdown of barriers, racial, sexual, social: these things in which he should have rejoiced, but he didn’t, he couldn’t find any beauty in it. When the barriers came down there was only chaos and excess and foul smells and tattered fabric, unraveling, uncared for.

The ugliness had always been there, he knew; didn’t he know it better than anyone? The stories behind the stories; the bargains and sacrifices he had made, that his swans had made, all of them, throughout their lives. The sordidness they were so determined to hide from the world; he remembered that one holiday in Italy, when it was just him and Babe and Bill having a wonderful time; a bright, shiny Christmas star of a time, enveloped in their wealth and privilege, staying at the finest hotels, being feted and adored. Bill bought and bought and bought; they were furnishing the apartment on Fifth then, and Bill was in one of his hungry moods. There was a hole inside him that couldn’t be filled but he would die trying to, and so he threw money everywhere, bought gilded this and antique that, Renaissance draperies, Florentine carpets. They had the most magnificent meals and wines, and Truman gazed at Babe, and gazed at Bill, and felt life couldn’t get any better than this, especially after Babe took him shopping and outfitted him with the finest Italian loafers and silk scarves and straw hats….

Then, one night, they were invited to some minor prince’s house, and Babe and the prince danced for hours; Truman was too tired, and Bill never did dance. Like so many successful men, he avoided anything that might make him look frivolous. When the trio returned to their hotel suite—for of course they always booked a suite, three bedrooms, so they could all be together, every single minute of every day—Bill, his divine Mr. Paley, turned grotesque. He threw things—first his shoes, then his belt, then anything he could find—and spat out horrible accusations about Babe and the prince, and even when Babe pointed out the prince was gay, and Truman backed her up, he didn’t care, he only yelled, “I know that type, I know the type who will say that, pretend to be a pansy and then mess around with your wife,” and continued to shout and rampage until Babe and Truman locked themselves in another room, their hearts racing, but still it was so ridiculous, so hilarious, that they giggled, trying to stifle the sound because a furious man does not want to be thought a fool; it’s like throwing kerosene on a flame. Finally they relaxed, lay together on the bed and waited him out; Truman had fallen asleep, in fact, waiting. When it was all over, when there was only ominous quiet outside, Babe awakened him gently with a kiss, but even so, Truman woke up with a jolt of panic, sweat on his brow. The locked door reminded him of all the times that his mother had jailed him in a hotel room, any hotel room, and went out with her friends, leaving him alone. All alone.

Except, of course, this time he had Babe. And when they all emerged from their adjoining rooms in the morning, washed and beautifully clothed, and went out again, the envy of all who saw them, this happy, shiny, privileged trio, only they knew the repulsiveness they had left behind in the hotel, for the chambermaids to clear away.

It paid, he thought sourly, to tip big. That was one thing the Paleys taught him.

But Babe was ill now, so ill she couldn’t make everything better through the sheer power of her beauty, her kindness, her understanding. She was frail and snappish and sick, sick, sick, and it tore his heart, made him want to vomit, just as he had the night poor Perry and Dick were hung, God, those boys, those poor boys with their imploring, accusing eyes—but there wasn’t anything he could do for them! He’d tried, he really had! And there really wasn’t anything he could do for Babe, was there? Other than call her, send her flowers, cards, and try to make her laugh.

And Bennett was dead. God, he’d almost forgotten. Bennett Cerf was dead, and Random House was breathing down his neck for this f*cking book that he’d promised years ago. They never would have done that, before; they never would have insisted on him meeting a deadline, given his genius. Bennett had protected him. Just like Babe had. But no one wanted to protect him now.

And the world was repellent, the beauty was fading, and it wasn’t only the years advancing. Was it? The talent was receding from his fingertips; he could feel it seeping from him, and the panic it induced was like a sickness, a Saint Vitus’ dance, so that he had to go out there and talk and talk and sparkle and recount and sing, sing, sing for his supper in the only way that had never really let him down, not the writing, but the entertaining. Dance, monkey, dance in your caftan, your tight black Rolling Stones T-shirt tucked into your leather pants, tell the stories, tell all the stories, because that’s what they crave, isn’t it? To hear the tawdriness, to sniff the seediness that even Holly Golightly in her Meanest, Reddest state would find repulsive.